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April 17, 2025 - Dinesh D'Souza
58:12
LEWIE WOO TONG Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep1065
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Coming up, Debbie and I are going to do a Thursday roundup this week.
And why?
Well, because tomorrow is Good Friday.
So tomorrow's a holiday.
No podcast tomorrow.
Back on Monday.
And because I'm going to be traveling, Debbie and I are off to Israel.
We'll talk about that in the show.
My daughter, Danielle D'Souza Gill, will be filling in for me next week.
In today's show, we're going to talk about, well...
Western designer labels.
The Chinese have been spilling the secrets about those.
We're going to talk about the peculiar effectiveness of Naib Bukele, Carmelo Anthony's claim of self-defense, Trump's crusade against the leftist universities, and our upcoming film trip to Israel.
Hey, if you're watching on X or YouTube or Rumble or listening on Apple or Spotify, please subscribe to the podcast.
Hit the subscribe or follow or the notifications button.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza podcast.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza
podcast.
W and I geared up for our, well, this week it's going to be a Thursday roundup and the obvious reason is Good Friday.
Yeah, there's no podcast on Good Friday.
There's no podcast on Good Friday.
Next week, we have Danielle sitting in all week, and then I'll be back the following Monday.
But we will be spending Good Friday and Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday and the following week in Israel.
Oh, I am...
Well, the fact that we're going to renew our faith by getting baptized on the Jordan River in the exact spot where Jesus was baptized on Easter Sunday.
We were talking to the pastor, and he was preparing us for what's involved.
Number one, it's Easter Sunday.
We're going to be at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the presumed site of the resurrection and the crucifixion, by the way.
And not only that, but...
We're going to do a baptism, the two of us, in the River Jordan.
But the pastor was saying that this is the place where the ancient Israelites crossed into the Promised Land.
From Egypt.
Obviously, there were a lot of them, so they came across a wide area.
But this was their point of crossing.
And not only that, but it is also the spot where John the Baptist...
Was doing baptisms as a kind of harbinger or prelude to...
And then he, of course, baptized Jesus himself.
So all of this is just...
Eerie is not really the right word because eerie implies something kind of evil and mystical.
The only thing that would be eerie is if we have the major earthquake and thunder and lightning.
The sky goes dark.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it would be really something if the world were to end while we were there.
Well, it's a business.
You know, we're going kind of on a business trip.
Great movie, right?
Except there'd be nobody else to watch it because when it comes out, you know, the world, anyway.
Are you saying the movie would be an economic bust because it would have no audience because the world would already have ended?
Yes. Would we care?
We won't have to be calling up our investors and regretfully explaining to them that we're unable to return their investment because the movie was a bust because, as you all know, the world has already come to an end.
That's right.
And we documented every little thing.
Well, we're going to be doing some exciting filming.
And, of course, I think the wonderful thing about this place is it is so cinematic.
You're like walking into the world of the Bible.
And we're showing in the film that we're working on how the past,
And the present and the future are all conjoined together.
So we're living through momentous events today, events that reflect on the past in very surprising and particular ways and events that point to the last age to come.
That's right.
And I think that even people that aren't particularly interested in Israel or don't understand why everybody...
Is so interested in Israel or is even secular.
I think they'll get a lot out of this movie because I think it's going to explain a lot of things.
Let's put it that way.
Yeah, I mean, Israel is important unto itself.
But I think it's also important because it is the foundation stone of Western civilization.
I mean, the American founders were very closely attached to the spirit of Jerusalem.
And the principles that shaped the West come out of Jerusalem in large part.
And I think also we're living through momentous times.
And there's no question that if you attach any significance at all to biblical prophecy, where is it going to happen if not there?
And think about something that you just mentioned now, the founders.
When the founders were the founders, this had not come to fruition yet.
Right. Israel was not a nation state again, and the Jews hadn't come back to their homeland yet.
No, and the founders, in fact, people at the time of the founding would use phrases like the new Zion, and they would talk about the new Israel, but what they meant is they were using it metaphorically.
That's right.
Like America is the new Israel.
That's right.
They had no idea.
Well, I mean, I think they knew that eventually that was prophecy.
Bible prophecy, but it hadn't come to fruition yet.
And part of what we're saying, really, is that old Israel, which is the Israel of the Israelites, is not in the midst of ancient history.
It is being relived in a startling way in contemporary events.
And part of the genius, I think, of Jonathan Cahn, whose book we are making into the movie, Is that he sees those parallels in a very precise and detailed way.
Needless to say, it's a little bit of a different type of film for us in the sense that it's a departure from our model of making films about America, American politics, American culture.
There's politics in this film, but it's politics wedded to theology and archaeology.
And as I mentioned, prophecy.
Terrorism. Very exciting themes, but themes that we haven't really fully covered before.
Yeah, excited.
All right, let's talk about...
I started us off with a whimsical topic, which is, well, the thumbnail for this podcast is...
I have to take credit for it and chuckle about it.
It has to do with designer stuff, right?
Designer bags.
It has to do with, well, luxury cars.
It has to do with designer sunglasses.
And, of course, what...
It represents the designer world better than Louis Vuitton, right?
So we're calling this podcast Louis, L-E-W-I-E, Wu, W-O-O, Tong, Louis Vuitton.
Louis Vuitton is my Chinese name.
For Louis Vuitton.
Now, who is Louis Vuitton?
Well, what I'm referring to here is a Chinese guy who's running a Chinese factory that has a contract or had a contract to make Louis Vuitton.
Now, in the wake of Trump's tariffs, apparently a lot of these designers are moving out of China.
They're looking for suppliers elsewhere.
Some of them are creating supply chains inside the United States.
And the Chinese are hopping mad.
Super mad.
And they've been making these videos, which have been viral on TikTok.
And I see a lot of them transplanted onto X. And you have these Chinese guys.
And the typical video basically says, guess what?
You know, we're going to walk you through, let's say, the making of a Prada.
Or Louis Vuitton bag.
And we're going to show you the cost of the leather, the stitching, the indestructible zipper.
These are high-quality stuff, but when you add it up, it's $110 over here and $78 over there.
So when you add it up, the cost of the item, let's say the Louis Vuitton bag, and I'm making up these numbers, but I'm not too far off, is going to be like...
$750. But the price of the bag is like $4,000 or $7,000.
So what the Chinese guys are saying is, listen, you know, the profit isn't all coming over here, contrary to what people think.
Not to mention that these designers all pretend like their luxury items are made in Europe.
This is made in Italy.
This is made in France.
But the Chinese guys are like, busted.
This is the actual factory where it's being made.
And the question we were debating, which I was chuckling about, is if it's the same bag with the same leather and the same zipper, the same everything, just missing the LV.
Why would somebody pay $7,000 for something when you could get it for like...
300 bucks, so 500 bucks.
Well, as I told you, men don't understand this concept.
Explain the concept to me.
What is the concept we don't understand?
Remember, I told you about this.
I said, okay, if you were to ask a woman, and I'm not talking about all women because not every woman is into these handbags, you know, that kind of thing.
But, you know, someone who's obsessed with designer things, right?
If you were to say to them, okay, I'm going to give you a bag that is actually exactly like the Louis bag.
It's made with the same leather, the same stitching, the same zipper, but it's not going to have LV on it and it's not going to be a Louis Vuitton bag.
It's going to be made in the same factory.
Maybe it will have LWT, Louis Vuitton.
Maybe it will have Louis Vuitton on it, okay?
Or I will give you a bag that says LV.
And it looks just like it, but with cheaper materials and it's a fake.
Which one of those bags would you take?
And I bet you they would go, I'll go for the fake because it has LV on it.
And if I go for this one, it might be a really good bag, but nobody's going to think it's expensive.
Nobody's going to think it's a Louis.
You know, so I'm just saying, I'm not talking about myself.
I'm talking about some women that are obsessed with designer things.
Well, I see what you're saying.
What you're really saying is this, and that is that people do buy the bag in part, but only in part because of the higher quality materials in the bag.
The primary reason that they buy the bag is for status.
They're going to be walking around and they want to have a Louis.
So the brand is to them more important than the quality of the material.
Because otherwise it would make no sense.
It would be kind of like this.
It would be like, if I were to tell you, let me give you a different example, which I think would expose, would give you the male point of view in all this.
Let's say, for example, I take a Mercedes.
And the Mercedes has the little totem on the front, the little Mercedes sign.
And I were to tell you, I'm going to give you a choice.
You can have a car.
That is as good as a Mercedes, as luxurious as a Mercedes, with the same sort of driving record and the same kind of benefits you get with a Mercedes, except it's not going to have the Mercedes label, but it is a Mercedes.
Or I'm going to give you a Hyundai, right?
And the Hyundai is not as good as the Mercedes.
It's built with cheaper materials.
It doesn't have as good an engine.
It doesn't have the same horsepower.
It's not as comfortable to sit in.
But I'm going to take the Mercedes round little totem and stick it on the front of the Hyundai.
And what you're telling me is that in the women's world, I'll take the Hyundai.
Yeah, in the women's world.
In the men's world, not so much.
Okay, but here's the thing.
You don't care anything about cars.
So that doesn't even apply to you.
Like, at all.
But the more I cared about cars, the more I would care about the actual quality of the car and not just the name label on it.
Yeah, but a lot of men buy these things.
Well, first of all, like, some men that get up in age, they like to buy, like, Ferraris and Lamborghinis because they think it makes them look younger.
I don't know.
Well, this is true.
And that is the male equivalent of the status-seeking.
I think those men also think that young women will think it's cool to see this.
They'll be like, ooh, you know, I have...
No, it's true.
Well, let's back up to what the Chinese are doing.
Because when I first saw these videos, I was thinking to myself, what are these Chinese guys, like, what are they up to?
And I think what they're up to is they are trying to say that China is not the problem.
That when Trump is imposing tariffs, it is true that the American customer and consumer is being ripped off.
Who is doing the ripping off?
It's the woke Western corporations that buy cheap stuff in China, stick their labels on it, raise the price 400%, collect the giant profits, go ahead and buy yachts and get homes on islands.
They strip, if you will, the country and appropriate its wealth.
And I saw one Chinese guy going, he says, you know, you can call us communist all you want, but he goes, The truth of it is the Chinese prosperity is being seen by the ordinary Chinese guy.
In other words, the Chinese do live better manifestly than they did a generation ago.
People who would take their clothes to the ocean to wash them have washing machines.
They have cars.
There are, of course, Chinese millionaires and billionaires.
And so the Chinese standard of living has gone up, up, and up.
Whereas the middle-class Western standard of living has not.
Yeah, but not their freedom.
Not their freedom.
So I think these Chinese are, you know, to some degree we have to accept that they are propaganda instruments of the regime.
You reminded me of that.
It's true.
The Chinese are betting that ultimately people care about material welfare.
And I don't think that's really true.
I think people care about freedom as well.
So China will, in that sense...
Think of it.
How many people are saying to themselves, I want to go live in China?
Yeah, I think I heard one person say he wanted to move to China, but I laughed because I don't think he realizes what he's doing, what he's moving into.
And not only that, but there's apparently a highly paid propaganda campaign that brings influencers from all over the world to China with the purpose of...
praising China to the skies.
And so, and I've seen some of these videos.
You have a guy who's like at the top of a skyscraper
It's all about how great China is, and it's apparently financed by the Chinese government, so that is worth keeping in mind.
And everybody is forgetting one little thing because, you know, I don't feel sorry for China one bit.
In fact, I really hope they do kind of go under because of what they did with this.
Chinese virus that they unleashed to the world.
And I know there are people that are like, oh, it's a fake virus.
It was not a fake virus.
It was a man-made virus.
But it was in their lab.
And they let it get away.
And it spread all over the world.
And it did kill people.
It did kill people.
And of course, from there, they did the vaccine.
You can talk about the vaccine and all that.
But the truth of the matter is that virus came out of that country.
And there has been zero accountability for that.
In fact, it's a little bit of a mystery why a World Health Organization headquartered in Europe and largely financed by America, why so many other countries, including rivals of China, would be so willing to just look the other way.
To this date.
It appears that's what it's become.
But anyway, back to the Louis.
Yeah, I don't want people to see me at the airport with you.
And they're like, oh, look, she has a Louis.
I'll be like, that's okay.
It's a Louis Vuitton and not a Louis Vuitton.
You'll be like, look, here's my LV.
I'll be like, no, no, no, no, no.
It's actually an LWT.
That's the new chic.
Hey, you know, we could actually go into business and do this.
But then, of course, we'd have to have it made here in America, though.
Wouldn't that be funny?
If it was called Louis Vuitton and it was made in the USA.
That would be really funny.
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Let's shift gears and talk about the Democrats.
Love affair with criminals, right?
So let's highlight a couple of things and then we can kind of get into it.
So item number one, Judge Bosberg, who I think is looking to become the darling of the left, he has said he has probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt for not turning around the flights with all those criminal...
The Venezuelans who are being sent back.
Turn the flights around and bring them back.
You didn't do that, so I'm going to hold you in criminal contempt.
Wow. Number two, the stardom of this guy, Abrego Garcia.
This is the alleged MS-13 gang member.
He was identified as a member of the gang.
He says he's not in the gang, but he was dispatched to El Salvador, which is his native country.
Leaving aside even the kind of, you can argue the merits of his case and should he go before a judge here and what should happen to him, but just the extent to which the Democrats and the left are going to, I would say,
George Floyd this guy, make him into a martyr.
Really is creepy, isn't it?
Well, it's creepy, but it goes in accordance with what they do.
They love to make these people into celebrities.
I mean, look at...
Lewis Lloyd, he was a prototypical example.
Exactly. Look at this Mangione guy.
Carmelo Anthony.
Carmelo Anthony.
I mean, they are like, oh yeah.
They're criminals, but they're so cool.
And why are you demonizing them?
That's the attitude, right?
Here's Taylor Lorenz.
She is the social media.
She covers social media at the Washington Post.
I think before that she might have been at Politico.
But she is like doting on Mangione.
She says not only that he's handsome, which is actually a very strange thing to say.
I mean, Bundy was handsome.
Look at what they do with the Menendez brothers.
All these women wanting to marry them?
Right. I think it's the same phenomenon, by the way.
And then she goes on to say that he's highly moral.
Think about that.
What? You're calling somebody who guns down a healthcare CEO on the street as highly moral.
Yeah. So there's that.
And with Carmelo Anthony, I just saw a video, I think yesterday, the guy was released on bail, right?
So first of all, consider the liberal judge.
His bail was originally set, I think, at $1 million, reduced to $250,000, which is an interesting number because he's apparently raised about half a million dollars on his give, send, go.
This is coming from other blacks.
It's coming from liberals who are funding this.
He's taken the money.
Now, I don't even know if you're allowed to do this, by the way.
It's supposed to be for his legal defense.
Apparently, his family has moved out of their house and they moved into a more luxurious home.
They bought a new Escalade.
So, they're experiencing, you could say crime does pay for Carmelo Anthony.
Do we know for a fact that this is the case?
I've seen multiple reports.
One report about the fact that they have leased a house.
I heard that they were leasing a house, but I thought that was prior to the murder.
No? Well, I don't know, but let's just put it this way.
Whether it's prior or not, there's an inflow of cash.
But I did tell you he was not poor.
I said he was middle class.
Right. Well, we drove through last weekend a kind of...
Frisco and Plano.
Frisco and Plano.
And it is a quite prosperous area of Texas.
Beautiful homes, lawns, golf courses.
Yeah, it's a nice area.
Very nice restaurants and so on.
Nice area.
But let's come back to our bigger point.
Our bigger point is whether it's a liberal judge, whether it's a liberal journalist.
Is it in fact a liberal judge?
No, no, no, no.
I'm sorry.
I'm mixing things here.
I mean, whether it's liberal Judge Boesberg, whether it is Taylor Lorenz talking about...
Luigi Mangione, whether it is liberals sending money to Carmelo Anthony, the pattern we're establishing is the same.
Because I would actually like to find out, because Frisco is a conservative area, so I would like to know, find out what that judge, who appointed that judge.
Or because in some cases, county judges are actually elected.
So what party is he affiliated with?
Because, you know, in counties, they are affiliated with parties.
So it would be interesting to note.
And if, in fact, he was conservative, why did he do it?
What I'm interested in, and I don't think it's going to come out anytime soon, because if it were, if it showed what the left wanted it to show, They would already have put it out.
So Carmelo Anthony, now we're talking about the black kid who stabbed the white kid at the high school game.
Apparently there's a video of what happened, right?
Now Carmelo Anthony says it was self-defense.
The video will probably show what it was.
And it's hard to believe that this white kid would have done anything that would have put the other guy's life in imminent danger, which of course is the standard, isn't it?
Well, first of all, if he wasn't armed, then right there, he's not a danger to this boy.
Right. Because he is not armed.
Right. So you cannot claim self-defense if you're armed and the other person isn't.
Right. And putting their hands on your shoulders and saying something like, you know, you have to move, it might be a pretext to push someone back or even get into a fight.
And the other thing is, why are you bringing a knife to a track meet in the first place?
Like, are you looking to get into a fight?
Is that what you're doing?
I did see Tim Poole, of all people, say, you shouldn't be saying that because he has every right to protect himself and the very people who talk about the right to carry a gun.
So he had the right to be armed.
But of course, we're talking about something far beyond that, which is going for the knife and really ending a boy's life.
Over what seems to be an unbelief.
I think the reason people are so horrified by this is it's such a trivial incident.
The guy's in my seat.
I mean, all the time we go in an airplane, in a stadium, someone's in your seat.
It's senseless.
It's utterly senseless.
The fact that we can't go up to someone and say, hey, I think you have the wrong seat because of fear that they might pull out a gun or a knife is...
I mean, it really is.
And this young man cannot get the death penalty because of his age, but he definitely should get life in prison with no parole if found guilty, which, you know, I can't see any other motive other than...
I'm just a bad person.
I mean, given what we know, there's just no real defense here.
Unless there's some new information we're utterly unaware of, unless the video is radically, shows something completely new from what's been reported.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's talk about this Salvador.
Well, talk about the shooting of that man.
Oh my gosh, yes.
That we saw the other day.
We just saw it on video.
It is the latest.
Sort of cause celeb, the latest example of a cop shooting a black guy, right?
In this case, if you look at the media reports, first of all, they find the most innocent-looking photo of the guy they could find, right?
Of course.
The guy's wide-eyed, he looks like a harmless guy, right?
And they call him a community activist.
Now, I don't know anything about the guy.
I barely know his name, but there is a body cam.
And these days, I think these cops...
I mean, the body cam saves their life, right?
Because the body cam is what shows you what really happened.
And in this case, well, I showed it to you.
The guy is grappling with the cops.
He's throwing blows left and right.
At one point, he's...
Several feet away and he just turns around and like bull charges the cops.
So this is absolutely not a case.
And there are cases where we look at the video and we go, that appears to be a little trigger happy.
Because you know we're not always for the prosecution.
Not at all.
Not at all.
Not like inherently.
No. In fact, sometimes we watch these shows where these people get railroaded and they get put in prison for years and we know they didn't do it.
You know, and it's just horrible.
But in this case, he charged at the guys.
I mean, we saw where he ran and then he runs towards them and he starts punching them.
It looks to me like he's on meth.
Well, he's either that or he's deranged.
But when you look at the circumstances, you can see what these cops put up.
And in fact, what struck me about that episode was the restraint of the cop.
They do not go, they do not fire.
They're trying to back off.
They're trying not to.
They're trying to apprehend this guy.
And the shooting comes at the very end.
I don't think the left is going to be able to George Floyd this guy.
Not at all.
Well, you know, again...
This is why I don't know why anybody would want to be a police officer today, in today's day and age, with these monsters, really, that think they're entitled to do this.
Well, I would look at it this way.
The police officer today is facing a double threat.
And I'm not even sure that the most dangerous threat comes from the criminal.
The most dangerous threat...
It comes from the political left, where if you do your job, there's a pretty good chance that they will try to prosecute you, disgrace you, get you fired.
In some cases, get you locked up for life, what happened to Derek Chauvin, for example.
Well, if it's black on black or white on white, this doesn't even happen.
It's not even a new story, to be honest.
That's a good point.
You're saying the exact same conduct.
And this is true.
It is almost like there is a certain recipe which brings out...
I think the problem is our whole society is terrified of these race hustlers.
Jesse Jackson was the original one.
Al Sharpton became the race hustler from the 1990s.
He kind of took the Jesse Jackson baton.
Now there are others who have taken that same role.
Those people have all of society intimidated, I think, to the present.
That's right.
And speaking of prisons...
What do you think of Bukele's Prison?
So that's what I was about to raise was the case of Bukele's Prison.
And I got to say, you and I have laughed our heads off over Kristi Noem going down there, you know, in a tight dress and standing in front of all these, like, slobbering criminals.
I mean, it's almost like a scene out of a movie.
Right? Yeah, yeah.
There's a little bit of debate on whether she should do that or not do that, and it kind of goes both ways.
There's people that are like, no, she shouldn't do that.
Well, Megyn Kelly was slamming her for that, and I do think that everyone thinks it's a little weird.
Yeah. But, you know, the other thing about Kristi Noem is that she has been, and she's not entirely wrong to do this, she likes to photo op the apprehension of these illegals.
Terrorists. So I think her idea is, because I think, didn't she go on like a Fox News program, like in full regalia, you know?
I don't think, I don't know if she brought a weapon.
I think with her bulletproof jacket.
Exactly. Yeah.
So her style, I think is, I think she would say, I am sending a message that there's going to be zero tolerance for any...
Tough cookie.
Yeah, I'm one tough cookie.
Yeah. And by her action, she...
Because, I mean, it could be that people get the wrong idea.
They go, oh, well, you know, she was a governor, but, you know, she's not going to be able to be up to this job.
And then there are people like my kid who thinks, oh, my gosh, how could she kill a puppy?
Oh, that or, oh, yeah.
You know, so.
Let's leave aside that little triviality and come back to, well, back to Bukele.
Now, this guy.
He made a very interesting point that Trump immediately jumped on and agreed with.
He's got balls of titanium.
Well, he does.
He does, and yet he doesn't.
And here's what I mean.
Bukale? Well, here's what I'm saying.
What? Bukale himself said, he goes, listen, every country can end their problem with criminal gangs in two weeks.
He goes, here's why.
He goes, look at me.
I have a small country, but guess what?
I've got thousands of people who are in the military.
These are trained killers.
I mean, they're assassins.
So you want to put, like, 50 MS-13 gang members?
Okay, I'm going to send 1,000 troops fully armed against these 50 guys.
Let's go.
His point is, who's going to win that struggle?
The answer is, it's obvious.
So Bukele's point is, every country can do that if they wanted to.
Yes and no.
But the reason I say he's got balls of titanium is because it takes courage.
Because all it takes is for the headmaster, whatever you call him, to do an assassination plot on him.
You know?
Because... I mean, this is their...
He's a threat to their whole livelihood.
Exactly. So, I mean, does the president of Mexico, this woman, want to go against the cartels?
I don't know, because she may be scared to do it.
I have no idea.
Well, Bukele made the point.
He says, if you have a country where you are not doing what I did, that means the government is in bed with the cartels.
Yes, but there's a reason why they are in bed with the cartels, right?
Well, the cartels pay them off.
That, and they protect them.
And they protect them.
Yeah, from assassination attempts.
Right. So the reason that a Claudia Scheinbaum might be reluctant to go full Bekele on the cartels is not because she is pro-cartel, but here's what it is.
She probably realizes there are members of the military.
Who are in with the cartels.
They could switch.
Right? So they become similar, for example, to the Sikh troops who shot Indira Gandhi.
See, these were troops in the Indian Army.
They were trusted by the Prime Minister and then they pull out weapons.
Bam, bam, bam.
And why?
That's because their true loyalty was to the Sikh independence movement in India.
So to that degree, Bukele is brave.
He's willing to take that kind of a risk.
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It's D-I-N-E-S-H, Dinesh.
Thank you.
Now, I think it's interesting that El Salvador has emerged in a very unlikely way as a closer ally for the Trump administration.
Then let's say Canada, right?
Is that shocking?
Well, I mean, it may not be shocking, but you know what?
It's a real shift.
Because at one time, the United States was sort of automatically allied with all the European countries.
The Western countries.
The Western countries.
Not so much the third world countries to the south of us.
Exactly. And what Trump is doing is he is sort of upending, he's shifting around those pieces, and he's basically saying, look, I'm perfectly willing to ally with Hungary over here, Poland over there, India, if I can get along
with Modi, Bukheli over here, Argentina.
That's right.
Malay. Maloney in Italy, if so be it.
So Trump says it is a matter of whether or not you are on board.
With the values of America first.
And you don't have to be America first.
You can be Argentina first.
You can be Australia first.
And you should be, in fact.
You should be for your own country.
Well, it's really freedom, really.
If you are for freedom, then you're going to align yourself with a right-wing party of whatever country you're in.
Because as I've learned, and I...
Been talking about this for many years.
The left in South America, Venezuela, is exactly like the left here.
And I think it's a pretty safe thing to say that it's this way all around the world.
And so the left-wing parties around the world want one thing.
The right-wing parties all around the world want another.
And usually the other that they want is the freedom of their citizens to have financial freedom, capitalism, family first, faith, all those things that the left just cannot have.
I mean, I was struck under COVID how the left was pushing.
Yeah. Essentially
create a cultural revolution.
And some Muslim countries.
And Muslim countries included.
They are counted in that third world wave, if you will.
Let's talk about Bill Maher.
Bill Maher, who has been unbelievably condescending, derisive and hostile to Trump.
Treating Trump...
And to right-wingers, let's face it.
Right-wingers generally.
But, you know, I always find it funny when you have a guy who's basically a comedian and he tells Trump, you know, you don't know how to negotiate, you know, or you don't know how to build a building, or you don't know how to run a business, you don't know how to run a country.
And I'm thinking, do you?
You know, what is the angle from which you're offering this critique?
What base of knowledge are you bringing to this assessment?
Well, finally, apparently, the...
I don't know who it was.
Maybe it was this...
It was Kid Rock.
Kid Rock.
Yeah. Convince Bill Maher.
He kind of brokered this meeting.
Bill Maher goes to see Trump.
Apparently, Dana White is there from the UFC and Kid Brock.
Yeah. And then Bill Maher comes out and gives this white disarming.
He says Trump is not what he expected.
That's right.
Right? He says he has two personas.
Right. He has a public persona and a private persona.
And that's exactly what I said when we met him, remember?
Right. Apparently, Bill Maher went in with a bunch of, like, he had his staff make all the insults that Trump had hurled against him, and he shows it to Trump.
I think he thought he would throw Trump off.
And guess what Trump does?
Trump... Without batting an eyelid, takes his pen and signs it, Donald Trump.
Kind of like, you may want to frame this.
Which is very Trumpian.
That's hilarious.
Total Trump.
Trump move.
But I think what Bill Maher really struck him wasn't even that.
It was that he said Trump was real.
He said, with Trump, he said, first of all, it's not all about him.
He goes, when Trump asks him a question, he's not just looking to score a point.
He genuinely wants to know what Bill Maher thinks about it.
And so he listens to Bill Maher's answer and engages.
That's right.
And then Bill Maher says, and this I think was the crusher, he goes, the Democrats don't have anyone like this.
He goes, they need somebody who has this kind of authenticity.
They don't have it.
I mean, if you look at the, even AOC, AOC plays at authenticity, but she's not really authentic.
You know, she's a fake.
So she'll go to the border and cry, but then immediately, you know, realize she's not crying.
The moment the cameras turn off.
Or at 9-11, not 9-11, but at January 6th, she's like, oh, my life is in danger.
You know, I'm 9-1-1, you know.
But it's theatrical.
Hiding in her office and it wasn't even there.
That's right.
She's in a different building.
Yeah. So she's a faker.
Obviously, Kamala Harris is a faker.
Right. And I told you the latest news, which is that apparently Kamala Harris is exploring the idea of starting a think tank.
Yeah, I know.
Of all things.
When you told me that, I was like, isn't that...
Don't you require a brain for that?
I mean, that would be, you know...
Something that she might want to think about.
It would be interesting to see if the type of people who would fund that would go, you know what, that's a really great idea.
You are one of our most advanced...
I mean, I can see Obama pulling that off, even though Obama himself is a fraud and a paper himself.
I was going to say...
But he at least plays that role.
I'm a constitutional professor, you know.
Never taught a class or published a single scholarly article, but still, he had the ability to...
He had the panache to pull it off.
Kamala does not.
Right, right.
No, Trump is definitely...
When I was reading about his account of the meeting, that is exactly how I felt when I went in there because I didn't know what to expect.
If you listen to the media, Trump is this egotistical person who only cares about himself.
He just wants a photo op with you, whatever.
Not true.
Not true.
He is extremely nice, very interested in what you have to say.
And remember, he did kind of show us a little bit of the soft side of him, which he will not do and he didn't do in the interview that you did with him for vindicating Trump.
I wanted that to come out because I wanted people to see what I saw in the Oval Office.
I think what it is is that he was facing this...
A juggernaut of lawfare, right?
That is a time when you don't want to show weakness.
And obviously, I mean, look at my own case, right?
When I was going before the judge, I would never show vulnerability.
In fact, I appeared downright cheerful.
About my sentence.
And he would ask me, how's it going?
And I would just say, it's going great!
So I think I threw him off a little bit because I seemed to be enjoying it a bit too much.
But what I mean is, I wasn't really going to...
He was looking for a blubbering routine for me.
He wanted that.
That would have been very gratifying to him.
I never gave it to him.
He wanted to see you beg for mercy.
He wanted me to grovel.
He wanted me to be repentant.
He wanted me to claim to be a different person.
And even his psychological counseling.
That may have saved you eight months of overnight confinement.
I'm just saying.
Just saying.
But honestly, look, you met me on the very edge of all that, right?
I honestly think I have gotten a much better grasp of the reality of the world.
As you know, I'm capable of being a little naive about people.
But I've become less naive.
As a result of that whole experience, I've become more savvy in an area where I wasn't so savvy.
I'm more savvy about ideas, but not so savvy about people.
I'm more savvy about people, and I'm more savvy about the gangsterization of the other side.
I know I was naive about that prior to my case.
So I'm actually delighted.
I won't say delighted.
I'm glad I went through that.
Was your persona, because I didn't really know you then, was your persona mean on social media like it is now?
Probably less so.
Well, I mean, as you know, you have noted that my writing style is different, right?
My writing style was much more scholarly.
It was more footnote-oriented.
It was less colloquial or conversational.
Now, part of that is the function of making movies where you're reaching a broader audience and you have to speak in a more normal way.
You can't speak in an academic tone.
So that's part of it.
The culture shifted.
I shifted along with it.
But I think you love, like, fighting on social...
In fact, I'll be like, you can't say that.
And then a little while later, I get a ping on my phone.
Dinesh said that.
I'm like, darn!
I will have to go even a little further and say, by and large, because one of the things we do on this podcast is you're to the side, you're the producer, and...
And if I go overboard, you gasp.
You usually will be like, oh no.
Even if it's not audible, I know that you are reacting.
And sometimes you react by throwing up your arms or making a gesture.
And by and large, especially if I'm in a certain topic in the zone, and you don't do that, I realize I'm not going far enough.
Yeah, I have to actually go further because you are such a traditional Republican.
I also don't want to get cancelled on YouTube.
No, that's your goal and that's your motive.
And rightly so.
But what I mean is some of these people do deserve to be, at least intellectually, they deserve to be horse whipped.
Oh, you love saying that.
Intellectually. Yes, they do.
That's your favorite phrase.
Yeah, and so what I'm saying is I think with you, you want me to go to, you can say, a refutation, but stop short of flagellation.
Yes, perfect.
There you go.
I love that.
Yes, but that's not going to happen.
I know that.
That's not you.
Well, a little bit of public flagellation.
I think you know it's very well deserved.
You just don't think I should be the one administering it.
But my view is, if not me, who?
But you know what?
There are people that will meet you and they go, oh my gosh, Dinesh.
Like kind of what we're saying about Trump.
Dinesh is really nice.
He's a really nice guy.
And I'm like thinking, I know.
I've been trying to tell you that.
But it's your persona, your social media persona that they think you're just...
And you know, I'm really kind of surprised with as many people as come up to you like at airports and stuff that no one has come up to you and like yelled at you or been really mean.
It's actually quite rare.
You're right.
I don't know why it is.
Maybe it's because in the types of places where we see people...
They're more likely to be fans.
But it's a good thing that they haven't done that because this Latina would go unleashed.
You would get a little, you would go berserk.
I would go full Latina on them.
Yeah. As I did when you went to Michigan State University.
And you regretted that.
In fact, you rarely go with me anymore to universities for that reason.
For that very reason.
Lost it.
And unfortunately, they were live streaming that event.
And a good friend of mine saw me and heard me.
And she was like, Debbie.
What kind of language is that?
Did you just say the mmm word?
Did I just...
And I was like, I don't know what happened.
I just went nuts.
Because this guy...
Well, you are being...
This is what it is.
And see, this is a very good example.
And I think this explains...
This explains Trump and it explains me, which is this, that when you go through an experience where you are being taunted in a certain way, that is a natural reaction.
So with Trump, again, why is Trump in a sense unhinged?
He's unhinged because of what they tried to do to him, right?
And so you are right.
I am more unhinged.
Because I've also realized, like, you know, before my case, I was friends with all these guys who were, you know, this guy worked at the Washington Post, that guy worked at the liberal magazine, the Washington Monthly, or the New Republic.
I knew all these guys.
I'd see them in the bookstore.
I'd see them in restaurants.
We would at least have civilized chat, even if I didn't consider them friends.
But I noticed that when Obama went after me...
None of them would lift the smallest little finger to help me, and I realized these are not only not my friends, these are actually snakes.
In fact, these people would testify falsely against me if it would advance their careers.
And so I realized, why am I putting on a show of pandering civility to these people when they don't deserve it?
So a certain amount of, let's call it social media brutality, is the appropriate mode of communication with snakes.
I just don't want to be a snake charmer.
I would rather be the guy who, like...
Yeah, that's true.
And you know, interestingly, Bill Ayers didn't do that.
Bill Ayers was a notable exception to this rule.
And we had a very remarkable luncheon with him and his wife.
Now, both of them have a notorious reputation.
His wife is thought to be a worse domestic terrorist than Bill Ayers was.
And yet, there were at least times in our conversation...
When I think they were disarmed.
They were particularly disarmed by you.
Because I think they expected one thing and they genuinely liked you.
And in fact, the luncheon ended by them demanding to be invited to our wedding, which we were like, uh, Bel Airs, uh, Bernardine Dorn.
But you know, and you know, again, I also thought that it was going to be a very, like, just...
Non-stop, combative.
Yeah, and it was not.
And they were, especially Bill, when he said he took care of his father, you know, in his later years.
I was like, you know, this guy's kind of, you know, he seems like he's got just the pure...
Ideological, like they say, flaming...
What do they call them?
Flaming heart liberals?
Or what do they call them?
Well, I mean, the truth of it is this guy is he's all the way Antifa.
He's all the way BLM.
He is strongly on the left.
But he truly...
It's not because of anything he's getting out of it so much as he really thinks that that is the right thing to do.
He really does think that.
Right? So I think...
And he also...
Clearly did not understand my position in Venezuela either.
And the fact that Hugo Chavez stole from my grandparents.
Took their land.
Yeah. And so he really thought that Hugo Chavez stole from oligarchs.
Right? Not hardworking people.
And I think he was quite shocked.
But anyway...
Well, one kind of good way to measure these kinds of things is to ask a simple question, right?
And that is, when you're talking about people on the left, and let's just say the revolution comes, and these guys now have the power to put you in front of a firing squad and execute you,
right? Would Bill Ayers do it?
And my answer at the end of our lunch is no, he wouldn't do it.
But there are others who would do it.
And they're not some of the people that you expect.
They're mild-mannered people who would, if they don't pull the trigger themselves, they would be perfectly happy to order it and they would feel good about it because they would feel...
That's a good one for the revolution.
This was a counter-insurgent.
This was an anti-revolutionary, and they got what they deserved.
When we think about regimes like the Soviet regime, Solzhenitsyn writes about this in the Gulag Archipelago.
It's just as true of Mussolini, of the Nazis.
You have a lot of mild-mannered people.
Who are perfectly willing to indulge in pure Gestapo tactics.
And I think our society is full of those people, by the way.
And, you know, arguably some of them are on the right, but the vast majority of them are on the left.
That's right.
And these are very dangerous people, and they're walking among us, and some of them have a lot of power already.
Yeah, that is true.
All right, let's close out by talking about Israel.
What is the thing that you would say is the thing that you most look forward to in going to Israel?
Is it just being in the land of the Bible?
On Easter Sunday to be baptized on the River Jordan.
I mean, that has been a dream of mine for all my life.
Now, your mom went to Israel.
She went to Israel 11 years ago, and she was baptized on the River Jordan.
And she talked about it.
All the time and loved it.
And I said, you know, I'm going to do that someday.
And when we went to Israel in 22, we didn't get to do that.
Right. We were kind of rushed.
We had a truncated trip.
Yeah, yeah.
We cut it short a little bit.
So we did not get to do that.
But I'm really looking forward to that.
Looking forward to, if you get to interview...
And Noah, the young girl that was kidnapped by Hamas on that motorcycle, I know that it's an iconic video that went viral.
Image of October 7th.
Yeah, where they took her away on a motorcycle and she was screaming.
You may get to interview her.
I know she was at the White House a couple of months ago when Trump made that speech.
I know that she, along with a lot of other hostages that were released, went to Trump.
And we'll see if she feels...
You know, I know that she has to have PTSD from this, and she probably doesn't want to talk about what actually happened to her.
Imagine just the trauma of rehearsing and reliving and retelling again and again.
It's probably...
An odd thing to have to do.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
But the film is very exciting.
And the other thing, of course, is the archaeological stuff that we're going to see.
We actually saw the pilgrimage road when we went in 22, but it's been excavated even more now.
They also have the Pool of Salaam also excavated.
We've seen some photos and they look amazing.
They look amazing.
I cannot wait to be there.
This is bringing the, not just the ancient past, That's right.
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