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May 2, 2025 - Dinesh D'Souza
59:54
SPEAKING THROUGH THE STONES Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep1075
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Coming up, it's our Friday Roundup.
Debbie and I are going to talk about a bunch of stuff.
Is there economic and political fallout from Trump's tariffs?
Potential impact of those on the midterms.
We're going to give our appraisal of Trump's first 100 days.
Also explore Senator Fetterman's recommendation that Trump drop the Iran deal.
And we're also going to reflect on our recent film trip to Israel, speaking through the...
Stones.
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Debbie and I are excited about our Friday roundup.
And, honey, we're going to talk quite a bit about our trip to Israel.
In fact, it's funny.
I was trying to get you on the show.
Earlier in the week.
Monday.
But you're like, I'm not fully recovered.
I have jet lag.
I'm still not fully recovered.
You don't know how hard it was to get up and dress, wash my hair, put on makeup.
I mean, I was like, ugh.
Well, you know, it's hard because we, and maybe this is just anomalous, but we...
Had virtually no after effect from Australia, which is a much further trip.
I know, I know.
But somehow, Israel, now, I'm normal, but it still took me a day.
The first night, we slept, what, 14 hours?
We did.
Well, you have to get your body right side up.
Yeah, I had no problem at doing that.
You know, like, I slept right through, didn't wake up once.
But...
You know, every night ever since, I just, in the morning, I just feel lethargic.
Well, I think our key difference is in Australia, although the trip was very long, when we got there, we had meetings.
But the meetings were in a very luxurious, relaxed setting.
And obviously, how long are you going to meet for?
It's just going to be an hour here, maybe an hour there.
So our schedule in Australia was quite relaxed.
But in Israel, we were...
We were on it every day, generally starting quite early in the morning, often traveling quite a bit across the country.
And while people say Israel's not that big, well...
It is four hours from the north to the south, and it's about probably an hour and a half from east to west, so it's not like there's...
And then filming nonstop pretty much.
Are we going to talk about Israel now or later?
No, we're going to talk about it at the end, but I was going to create a little bit of a styrofoam at the two ends.
Oh, I see, I see.
So that was my scheme, my organizational scheme.
But no, I think we should start, honey.
Well, let's start by reacting a little bit to...
The interview I did yesterday with Martha Byrne.
Because you have seen up close, you're on close texting terms with her, how this kind of wrecking ball can really disrupt and even destroy a family.
Oh my gosh.
And they're so strong.
I mean, she's very strong.
And I don't know how...
I know how I felt when you were going through this, but we were basically just starting our relationship when you were going through this.
Yeah.
And so I know how hard it was to not be able to communicate with you when you were in confinement, like overnight confinement.
It was just horrible.
And then in the morning, if you didn't call me, I worried.
I was like, oh my gosh, what happened to him?
In my case, it was also a confinement center.
I mean, I was in overnight, but I wasn't in, you know, federal prison apparently is, at least in a white-collar sense, it may not be that onerous.
There are other white-collar guys, by and large, with you, but you are there 24-7.
You do have prison meals, which, of course, I didn't, I mean, I never ate in the confinement center.
They served food, but I didn't eat it.
It was inedible to me, so I would eat outside and then go in, go to sleep, get up, get out.
But the other thing is the Byrne family.
I mean, you can tell that this is a solid Catholic family.
They live in New Jersey.
They're very straight-laced.
They're salt of the earth.
We met Mike McMahon, a really nice guy.
And from what I can see in this case...
He did nothing wrong.
I mean, it's not like...
In my case, I shouldn't have exceeded the campaign finance law, so I did do something wrong.
My penalty exceeded the crime, but there was an offense.
This guy, as far as I can see...
No offense.
No offense.
He did it by the book, and he is getting the shaft.
And he got, basically, he was the sacrificial lamb.
And you know, had this case come up 10 years ago and people said to me, you know, Dinesh, the FBI lied and the prosecutors lied and they suppressed evidence.
I would be reluctant to believe it.
But, you know, I've been through it.
You've been through it.
Through my case, we've now seen other cases January 6th.
That's right.
We've made the movie Police State.
So all of this now through that lens, this is a gross injustice.
Injustice.
I mean, you know, it reminds me a little bit about, you know, with our friend.
Oh, my gosh.
Lost my train of thought.
You know, and her baby, and her beautiful baby.
Bevelyn.
Bevelyn Beatty Williams.
Yes.
Because she didn't do anything either.
No.
She did nothing.
And they took her to federal prison because...
She got a preposterous sentence.
She was the sacrificial...
You know, they sacrificed that Roe v.
Wade decision on her, basically.
She was the face...
Of their rage.
She was.
And that's the only reason she got what she got.
Because they were fuming over Roe v.
Wade.
Fuming.
So they were like, we've got to stick it to these people.
And it didn't matter to them that she was black.
It didn't matter to them that she had a two-year-old kid.
It didn't matter to them that she had an intact family, not so common in the black community.
It's like, no problem.
We will take out our vengeance on her.
And something similar is happening here.
That's right.
Which is that...
The government is, they should be going after these corrupt Chinese guys who are doing business in this country.
And what they do is they go after the guy who was hired as a private detective.
He had no idea what he was involved in.
Because you're given a task, you're paid a fee, he did what he was told, he did nothing illegal, and boom, they lower the, on him.
Yep, no, for sure.
I mean, it's just, it's infuriating.
And I hope...
I hope and pray that Trump sees this for what it is and that he quickly gives him a pardon.
I hope so.
It's hard to get a pardon, as you know.
And in fact, I remember I told you when I got my pardon, I called up Ben Brafman, one of the most prominent New York attorneys now close to retirement.
But I said, hey, Ben, I said, I got this presidential pardon.
Now, what do I do?
What happens next?
And he was like, Dinesh, he's like in my entire career representing so many celebrities and so on.
He goes, I've never heard of anybody getting a presidential pardon.
So this is a, it's a Hail Mary pass.
It's hard to get.
And yet I think Martha's best chance is that this is something similar has happened to Trump himself.
So if there's one thing that he is like alert to.
It is this type of sacrificial lawfare that targets people who are innocent.
But also, you know, as Martha pointed out, he was an NYPD officer who actually, his brother just passed away because he got that lung disease or cancer from 9-11.
He was at the site, and so was Mike.
And Mike has something that he got from being there with those ashes and everything.
So Mike is not healthy.
So he's taking medication.
He may not be able to get it while he's in prison.
This is very, very bad.
This is another reason.
Martha didn't even go into that.
But it is a really...
It's a travesty if that happens because, you know, he was a hero on 9-11.
We seem to have forgotten 9-11, like everyone, you know?
It's such a shame.
It really is because...
Well, what I hate is the fact that under, you know, the regime of the left, the best people in the country get targeted and the worst are allowed to go free.
The absolute gangsters, the gangbangers, the rapists, the pedophiles, you know, they get a favorable deal, a la Epstein, or they are just, the government looks the other way, or the government is in on it.
And then a guy like Mike McMahon...
Oh, no, they're not outraged about Mike, but yet they're outraged about Trenderawa member getting deported.
I mean, talk about, like, upside down.
Psychology of the law.
Psychology!
Totally.
It's ridiculous.
Really ridiculous.
You were saying a little earlier that a Trump-appointed judge in Brownsville says that Trump cannot invoke the 1798 law.
Was that right?
Is that what you were talking about?
Yes.
Yes.
He just said he cannot do it.
That he's forbidden to do it.
So let's take in the big picture of this, right?
Because all these judges were completely silent when Biden was letting these illegals in.
So let's follow the logic of it.
Biden evidently has the discretionary authority to circumvent the immigration laws and in the guise of enforcement to decide we're not going to enforce this, we're not going to enforce that, we're going to let all these people in.
Trump comes in with an electoral mandate to send those people home.
And he's not even sending all of them home.
He's just focusing on the criminal ones.
And judge after judge after judge says, in effect, you can't do it.
So Biden has the authority to open the door, but Trump does not have the authority to shut the door.
Yeah.
It makes zero sense.
Zero.
Because it is...
You remember, and I think you've talked about this, about when the Arizona law...
And then they said, oh no, the state cannot usurp the federal government.
The federal government is the only entity that can put a stop to illegal immigration or not.
What happened?
Right.
So what we're talking about here is that many states, very frustrated under the Biden years, tried to say, we will take our own steps to enforce immigration.
Texas will enforce its own border.
Arizona will enforce its own border.
The courts came in, including the highest courts, the Supreme Court ultimately, and say, no, immigration is a federal responsibility.
Exactly.
So what happened?
And that even if the federal government does a bad job, it's their job.
It's their prerogative.
And if they do a bad job, they do a bad job.
But the states can't take over federal responsibilities.
And what you're saying is, gee, what happened to that?
What happened?
Well, I think what happened to that, and this is why so many of us are becoming almost allergic or dismissive when they keep saying, rule of law, rule of law, because at some level I accept that there is a hierarchy of law, district courts, appellate courts, Supreme
Court. But when it's so naked that these judges don't care about the law, they just don't.
But this Trump appointee...
That's interesting.
No, because, you know, honey...
Is it because he's on the border?
No, it is the nature of the process.
So Trump doesn't personally know these judges, right?
An opening comes up, and this probably goes back to Trump 2016, right?
An opening comes up in Brownsville.
So what happens is, typically, the senator or the governor sends some appointees over to the Trump administration.
Trump, not even himself, some other guy vets them and looks...
Well, this guy looks good.
He's a longtime Republican.
Let's appoint him.
Not recognizing that this guy is just a conventional establishment guy.
And so this is how you get...
So I think the lesson here is that there needs to be a very careful vetting process going forward for these judges because we get these losers.
Sure, but I mean, look at Amy Comey, Coney Barrett.
Yeah, I mean, I'm still holding out some hope for her.
I'm reluctant to toss her off the side of the vote.
I don't know that there's such a thing as a conservative judge.
I don't think that that exists.
I don't think there's such a thing.
You don't think Scalia was a conservative judge or Clarence Thomas or Alito?
I think they're constitutionalists, but I don't see them as activists on our side.
I really don't.
I still don't.
Even I don't think they are.
Yeah, you're saying that the guys on the left will throw their weight on the left of the boat, and our guys will hew to the center, hew to the law, hew to the constitutional text, but will not do what the left is doing and throw their weight on the right side of the boat.
It just so happens that the Constitution and the right-wing politics line up.
They're the same.
It's country first.
It's, you know...
But not always, and let me give you an example of why.
Let's say, for example, that Biden does something that's really bad, but is constitutional, okay?
Now, we know there were some shenanigans under Obama with regard to Justice Roberts, but let's say that Obamacare passed through the Congress, was signed by Obama, right?
So, no conservative judge is going to step in and say, I'm going to put a temporary injunction.
I'm going to put a hold on this.
I'm going to drag it out as much as I can.
I'm going to block it because the judge is going to say it is authorized by the Constitution.
So even though Biden did it, even though Obama did it, because the law allows it and the Constitution allows it, they're going to go with it.
But the liberals don't do that.
The liberals will say Trump is doing something that is manifestly within his own authority.
They know that.
But they'll be like, guess what?
I happen to be the judge.
I can block it temporarily, so I'm going to do that.
Unfortunately, with Obamacare, you know that's not what happened.
No, with Obamacare, what happened is that it's almost like Roberts was very eager to let it...
So he conjured up a plausible reason to allow it, even though that was manifestly not the stated reason for the law.
I mean, you know how we all came down on him when he did that.
We're like, how in the world?
How dare you do that?
It was truly appalling.
It was appalling.
It was truly appalling.
And we have suffered the consequences.
And you know that when these things go through, how difficult they are to undo.
And to this day, we haven't undone it.
In fact, Republicans of campaign will undo Obamacare.
I think that is like...
Did anyone this time around campaign against that?
Like, we're going to undo Obamacare?
I don't remember anybody, not even Trump, talking about that.
No, I think that's right.
So I think it's like once it's there...
These entitlements, all of this, it stays.
It stays.
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Let's talk about Trump and the first hundred days.
It's been a juggernaut of activity.
And let's kind of candidly assess, like, what are the most important things that have been accomplished?
And then what are the sort of trouble spots that we can identify?
So let me start by just asking a simple question, which is...
If Trump were to point to his greatest achievement of the top first hundred days, what would it be?
Do you think?
Well, that I can see is bringing home like 50 hostages from all over the world.
Okay.
I mean, that's an achievement.
And that's undeniable, right?
Undeniable.
Nobody can deny it.
I think prices have gone down a little bit.
Well, what about this?
The fact that...
The porous border has been shut down.
And the border, of course.
That's a big one, right?
Yeah, that's a big one.
Because essentially no one is getting through.
Trump was even joking that he's like, well, I hear that there may be two or three guys that got through.
Eight people.
Yeah, and he's like, I called up Tom Holman.
I said, why did you let those three guys through?
I mean, it's a way of humorously italicizing the point.
That we have sealed the border.
And not to mention, the border patrolmen are just, they are super happy.
Super happy.
Because they can do their jobs.
Because they finally get to do their job.
Yeah.
They finally get to enforce immigration law.
And they are just really happy about it.
So...
What we're saying here is two parts.
On the one hand, the border is sealed, where Trump is having more difficulties on the second part, which is sending the bad guys home, back.
And he is being...
That's because what the left has done is they find liberal judges.
And remember, there are 650 or so circuit district judges.
So it's not hard to find liberals.
About half of them are nominated by Biden or Obama or even going further back to Clinton.
And by coordinated, I don't mean these judges are calling each other, but I mean they're all acting in the same direction.
Block him, block him, block him, block him.
I think all of this will be uncorked over time, but it could be a year before Trump is able to get the higher court rulings that allow this.
So in other words, what we're saying is that in the first year, it's quite possible that Trump will be successful in sealing the border, but will not have made enough progress.
On the deportation front.
Yeah, I knew deporting people was not that easy.
I told you.
Like, you know what?
Deporting millions of people...
Very difficult.
Well, we're not even talking about millions right now.
No, we're talking about hundreds.
We're talking about hundreds and probably cumulatively thousands.
And so you can see how hard the left is fighting for criminal aliens.
For criminals.
It's ridiculous.
I mean, they became so attached to Abrego Garcia, right?
And now it's come out that this guy has had multiple.
Domestic violation complaints.
Evidently, there was one that was filed.
You know how the wife has been out there fundraising and she's also been out there going, you know, he's the dad to my kids.
Well, it turns out he's not.
She has the kids by some other man, right?
And the other man filed a judicial petition where he told the court, he's like, I need to have my kids back because she is out with a gang member.
So in other words, I've noticed that the left has suddenly gone a bit silent on Abrego Garcia.
Remember there was a congresswoman, she goes down to El Salvador and she goes, I'm not coming home until this guy's released.
Who did that?
It was some female congresswoman.
We went down there, and guess what?
Like three days later, she's back.
She came home without him.
She's back without him.
And who was the one that had a margarita with him?
Oh, that was Senator Van Hollen from Maryland.
Bukele is so funny.
Bukele is a genius.
He's hilarious.
Apparently, according to Van Hollen, it was the Bukele people who produced the margaritas.
And then this stupid senator, he's up there in a press conference, he's like, well, I didn't touch the margarita.
And I can prove I didn't touch the margarita because you can still see the salt all the way.
So he's actually giving forensic arguments for why he didn't actually.
We drink the margarita.
But Bukalé's made it really clear.
He's like, listen, I'm not sending this guy back.
And here's the point.
The guy is a Salvadoran citizen.
He's from El Salvador.
Yeah, this is not a case where they grab some guy and send him to a third country.
And you know MS-13 originated in El Salvador.
In El Salvador.
You know, here's the other thing that's going on on the side of the Democrats and the media.
All of this nonsense about you're deporting a two-year-old and a four-year-old without due process, right?
It's worth noting that no two-year-old or four-year-old has been deported.
By and large, what's happening is criminal illegals are being deported.
Now, in some cases, they have had kids in this country.
So you've got a two-year-old or a four-year-old kid.
Now, no one's deporting the kid.
They're just deporting you.
You have the choice to take your kid.
Right?
Remember, this kind of separation, if you will, happens to criminal families all the time, right?
And so the idea that...
Yeah, they don't go to jail with their parents.
They don't go to jail.
No, that's true.
So the point here is that if you're deported...
You have a choice.
And most of these people, I mean, obviously, this is the logical choice.
I'm going to take my two-year-old with me.
So the two-year-old is going not because there's a legal deportation on the two-year-old.
There's only a legal deportation on the parent.
And remember, it was just a few months ago, the left was complaining about, you're separating families.
We can't tolerate family separation.
And so Homan's point is...
I'm not separating families.
I'm just deporting the person who deserves to be deported, and they're choosing to take their kid, which is absolutely their right, but there's no illegality on the part of the kid.
That's what the left is trying to make an issue with.
That's what they're trying to make an issue, and it's ridiculous.
It's just so ridiculous.
I mean, just, you know.
And, you know, here's another point, back to Bukele.
I think Bukele...
Should do a Central American summit, teach all these presidents in Central America, I don't know about South America, but Central America, how to treat the cartels and the gangs and the criminals.
Because I was reading an article a couple weeks ago, and it was horrifying.
Mexico, okay?
So what happens in Mexico is these people run for office.
And if they don't, like, you know, if they're not in cahoots with the cartels, they get murdered.
And a couple of people were murdered.
One of them was like a mayor of a town, a woman, murdered.
And then another one was a governor, I think, of a state there.
He was murdered and decapitated.
And, you know, it's really scary to live in a place where these gangs, these cartels, rule the coup.
I mean, when they rule.
So, if I was someone that lived there, I would want to escape that.
And that's why we've had a lot of people come to America.
I know people don't want to hear this because the reality of illegal immigration is it's illegal.
You can't do it.
You're saying the motive.
I also think that the motive behind a lot of it is due to fear and due to these horrific cartels and gangs that terrorize their citizens.
But I mean, I think the sad truth is that...
When I was listening to what you were saying, what was going through my mind is that the existing Mexican politicians, consider Claudia Sheinbaum, right?
And if it is the case that you cannot rise up through Mexican politics without making a deal with the cartels, it follows, as night follows day, that that's what she's done.
Okay, but if she doesn't do that...
Guess where her head's going to be?
No, exactly.
On a platter.
Exactly.
Now, what Bukale is saying, which is right, is it doesn't have to be this way.
What he's saying is that, and maybe what he's saying is, you know what, you need to have a bit of a tough guy like me who's not scared, because what I will do is I will mobilize the Mexican army.
I will go after these cartels.
I will shoot to kill.
I will find people who are in the army who are in league with the cartels and I will put them in jail.
And I will put them in jail similar to the jail we've got in El Salvador.
I mean, he's showing that there is another way.
There is.
They may not take that way because they're too compromised.
Yeah, I think it might be too late for the Mexican government.
Meaning the influence is so...
I think it's already deep.
It's too deep.
Right.
The termites have taken over the building.
That's right.
And the infestation is just...
Too deep, I think.
But it's interesting that I sent you a list of countries that are on the Do Not Travel list, and El Salvador is one of them, which I thought was interesting.
Mexico wasn't even on that list.
And that's very strange, particularly coming from the Trump State Department, because, I mean, we have seen that you have in El Salvador today really nice resorts.
You have peaceful streets.
You have a lot of companies are relocating, or if not relocating, they're at least opening up offices in El Salvador.
So with Bukele, it's not simply a matter of, I'll take the gang members off the street.
He wants to create a kind of Zurich, or a Singapore, or a Dubai in El Salvador.
A magnet for entrepreneurship, a safe place for tourists, a pleasant place where people want to go.
Yeah.
And we've talked about going to sea for ourselves.
And then when I saw this, I was like, maybe not.
Maybe not.
I don't know.
Well, I do think that if we do go, we might want to have security just in case because it is a little scary.
Going to Central America is scary.
When I went to Guatemala with the medical missions back when I used to go, it was a little scary going to the airport and landing and all that because...
You see all these men with machine guns everywhere, and you're like, hmm, I guess there's a reason why they have these machine guns.
Well, on the surface, it's there to protect you, right?
But you're always worried, who's really paying that guy, right?
Or who's paying him on the side?
Or what happens if I get apprehended?
What kind of rights do I even have?
And do they even need an excuse to do that?
And will the U.S. Embassy be able to help me?
All those.
I always thought about those things, especially because we would walk from where we were staying to the hospital that, you know, we were in.
So we would walk the Cobblestone Street all the way there.
And it was a little scary.
And not because I saw anybody, you know.
Well, there was an incident where one of the doctors, you know, got stabbed because somebody was trying to take their backpack.
Oh, yeah.
But other than that, I didn't really witness anything else.
Well, we had an interesting, you know, we've been going now for several years to Mexico.
Yes.
And it's a lovely resort, but we have to confess...
That the resort itself is encased in a kind of gated community, right?
And so one of the questions is we will often eat all our meals inside of the gate.
And when we talk about, hey, should we go into the town, eat in the restaurants?
We're always like, nah, maybe not.
So the point being that even though we're in quite a safe area, nevertheless, we have to be extra cautious.
By contrast, you and I went to Grand Cayman for one of our little getaways, just a long weekend, really.
It was a completely different vibe.
We felt like you can walk in Grand Cayman and it's dark, no problem.
The streets have plenty of people on it.
It's a whole different vibe.
You don't get the feeling at all that you have to look over your shoulder.
And it's safe.
I mean, it's just an important aspect of...
It is.
When you're on vacation, the last thing you want to be doing is like looking out for...
Well, also just, you know, I was always a little scared driving from the resort to the airport because you are, you know, on a public street, you know.
You're in straight out, ordinary Mexico, right?
Yeah.
And even though that is a safe area in Mexico, I'm not sure that there's really such a thing.
Well, I mean, when you look at, let's just take the ambience of the airport, right?
You come out.
The moment you're out, it's a sea of faces.
And by the way, I shouldn't say, this is not unique to Mexico, right?
This is exactly the same if you come out in India.
You come out there, but you've got all these people.
Hey, you want to ride?
Hey, you want to ride?
Hey, can I carry your bag?
Hey, you want to buy this?
Hey, you want to buy that?
Hey, I'll take you here.
Hey, I'll take you there.
Sightseeing, yes or no?
And the point is, you know.
I mean, first of all, you can take for granted that there are various kind of operators and shysters, right?
Pickpockets, this kind of thing.
But the question is, are there also some more dangerous hoodlums who are there to kidnap people?
Or let's just say it's a couple of college girls who are going there like, okay, that's our next target.
So we're probably not at the top of the list of the targets.
But on the other hand, we're not immune.
So we try to be very careful.
Let's talk about one other aspect of Trump that we talk about quite a bit.
No, not Iran, but rather the tariffs.
And I think the point that you make, and you should pick it up here, is you're a little worried about the order in which Trump has done this.
And you're a little worried about the midterm.
So spell out, what are your concerns on the tariff front?
Well, on the tariff front, I'm concerned that prices are going to skyrocket, that things are going to get more expensive, cars are going to get more expensive, washer-dryer is going to get more expensive, things like that, electronics.
And that people are going to see that, and they're going to perceive it as Trump is not trying to help us, but rather hurt us.
Because they don't understand that tariffs in the end are actually screwing over people that have screwed us over for so many years.
I mean, that is the case, right?
And that's why Trump is doing it.
But you're saying, hey, the immediate effect...
Right.
But the immediate effect is not that, right?
It's going to be a little bit...
It's going to hurt.
And people are so short-sighted, and they don't go and try to make sense of the tariffs or anything like that.
It's just what they see and what their pocketbook sees.
I would have liked to have seen Trump give people a tax break, people that make $150 or less, no income tax, immediately, you know, if possible, right?
That is like...
First and foremost, before these tariffs...
And think of how difficult that is to oppose politically.
Exactly.
If Trump were to come out and say, basically, no income tax below $150,000, we're going to be getting the money from tariffs, people would be more than on board.
Oh, totally.
But when he does it the other way, people are like, wait a minute, what happened here?
I don't get any tax benefit and I'm paying more.
And I'm paying more.
So they don't see the benefit.
And depending on how long this lasts, Is going to affect the midterms, like it or not.
It just is.
And, you know, when people go to the polls, they're going to be like, well, let me see.
Am I better off today than I was two years ago when Trump came into office?
Not really.
I think I'm going to give the Democrats a chance again.
And I'm just afraid that people are that dumb that they would do that.
You know, to look at the example of Reagan, he took a big gamble.
Right after he came in, on kind of the same, his gamble was not so much on tariffs.
His gamble was on squeezing inflation out of the economy by raising interest rates and controlling the money supply, and the country plunged into a recession.
And the effect was exactly what you feared.
Reagan took a major beating in the midterms, and then the recovery came in the next year, 83, so Reagan swept.
To re-election in 84. I think what you're saying is, is that we don't want to lose the midterm.
We want to hold, there's a lot of benefits.
Yeah.
You know, look, I complained, you know, yesterday on the podcast, what has Congress done?
But I still feel better with our team in charge, even if it's a narrow majority, even if they're sitting on their hands, which they shouldn't be.
Nevertheless, the other side would do bad stuff.
Well, you know what?
Why is it that when we're in control, we're not really in control?
Why is that?
Well, I think the reason has got to be this, and that is that we've got a, what, a minor few-seat majority, right?
But there are enough weak Republicans.
Or, if not weak Republicans, and, you know, Brandon has talked to us about this.
You've got Republicans who are there.
And they're like, they're so excited to be elected to Congress that doing anything is the furthest thing from their mind.
Or they come in on one thing.
They're like, I'm going to get some tax breaks for small business.
And then you're like, well, we have to do something about Ukraine.
They're like, no, no, I'm really focused on tax breaks for small business.
So you get these doofuses.
And, you know, to some degree, I have to also blame our voters because...
Is it the case that in an entire congressional district, the best you could come up with is this loser?
Because we've met some of these guys, and they are losers.
I mean, they're successful in that they got themselves to Congress.
But what I mean is that they don't come at it with the same ruthless energy of the left.
They have to, because the left, when they come in, even if there's a narrow majority on the left...
They kick ASS.
Right.
They really do.
You have to admire, at some level, from a distance, even take a Rashida Tlaib or an AOC, or even some of the Democrats who are elected in middling purple districts.
They come in and they go to work for the left.
They unite and they work for the left.
Look at Elisa Slotkin in Michigan, for example.
It really is baffling to me how even with a narrow majority with the left, they do kick butt and we cannot do the same thing.
We can't.
And so what happens?
We lose midterms.
We lose midterms because we cannot.
Do what we're supposed to do.
No, what we are trying to do, the one thing, and I think the Trump people know this, and they also know that Mike Johnson, who has some strengths, also has some real weaknesses.
And it's almost like we can't count on Mike Johnson to do seven things.
We need to count on Mike Johnson just to get one thing through.
And so it's this so-called big, beautiful bill.
What they've done, instead of making it 10 bills, Because they know how the Republicans are.
You lose five votes here.
You lose seven votes there.
You can't get anything through.
So put it all into one bill.
And then Trump literally rides on the elephant of every Republican and basically demands that they vote for this one thing.
I think that's what they're trying to do.
It's a big thing.
But I will say that this one big, beautiful bill is also a mixed bag because it has a lot of good things, but it spends too much money.
Now, in its defense, it spends a lot of money more on our priorities than their priorities.
So it spends more money on oil drilling and it spends more money on our...
Yeah, but oil drilling will produce a lot.
Will produce benefits, but then subsidies to farmers in Republican states.
I mean, these are a lot of...
And then the hardcore...
You know, Republicans like Chip Roy, like Massey, are going to say, we hate this bill because it adds to the deficit.
We should be reducing the deficit and the debt.
Instead, we're going in the other direction.
Well, I mean, do farmers understand that we don't have money?
Do they understand that?
Unfortunately, the logic of democratic politics, and to me this is a big strike against democracy, is that no one cares.
Because what happens is that you give these farmers ethanol subsidies or you give them soybean subsidies or you give them and they start corn subsidies.
And think about it.
You know, we all know how bad high fructose corn syrup is, right?
We're actually giving farmers subsidies to produce this.
To do that.
So why?
Because we...
Why do we need seed oils?
I thought we were getting rid of seed oils.
Now we're actually going to buy more seed oil?
No, this is the point, is that what we do is we pay farmers sometimes to produce and honestly sometimes not to produce.
Can you think about the insanity of this?
You pay someone not to produce.
Why?
Because if you produce too much, the prices will come down.
Then the farmers go, the prices are too low.
So we pay them not to...
So this is...
This is all a reflection of the mess the country is in.
And frankly, even Republicans are uneasy in knowing how to deal with it.
Because think about it.
Joni Ernst is the senator from Kansas, right?
She is very pro-farm.
Is she from Kansas?
I thought she was not from Kansas.
Oh, no, she's from Iowa.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Okay, but the logic applies to the Midwest, a lot of the Midwest generally, is you've got Republican senators who have a stake in continuing these benefits.
It helps them get re-elected.
It keeps the farmers on their side.
They like to be seen as a champion of farmers.
And see, this is actually a bad way to think, right?
Because you shouldn't be a champion of farmers, right?
You should be a protector of the system of the free market.
But politicians don't think that way.
To them, the free market is a theoretical idea.
Farmers are real people.
They're real voters.
They can have a farm convention and I'll be the keynote speaker and I'll get money from them and they'll vote for me.
So this is a...
A bit of an Achilles heel in democratic politics.
All right, let's pivot to, you want to say a word about the Iran deal before we talk about Israel?
Yeah, so, well, I mean, they kind of go hand in hand, right?
They're connected.
In fact, one of the men that's going to be in the movie, Ido, Let him have it.
nuclear facilities once and for all.
And as you know, Senator Fetterman has been very vocal about Israel.
He's very supportive of Israel.
And so I think that the
Nothing but harm came out of that Iran deal that Obama did.
That's why he did it.
That's why he did it.
Absolutely.
So I'm not quite sure why we need to do a deal with them again.
Do you know?
Yeah, we're not really doing a deal with them again.
I think what it is is that, well, let's frame the objection that you were alluding to.
Basically, we talked to more than one Israeli who said to us, hey, we thought we heard Trump say, Hamas better release the hostages or, quote, all hell will break loose, end quote.
And I remember Trump saying exactly that.
Yeah.
In fact, he tweeted that.
He did.
He posted that.
And so the Israelis are like, wait a minute, has Hamas released all the hostages?
No.
Has all hell broken loose?
No.
What's with Trump?
What's with this back and forth?
What's with this all hell is going to break loose, but not really?
This is what they're getting at.
They're a little bit confused.
They're pro-Trump, but they're confused.
This guy's supposed to be a friend.
He said he would do it.
He warned he would do it, but doesn't a warning lose its punch if you don't actually do it?
Right?
Now, let's turn to the Trump side of things, where I think what's going on is that what Trump is thinking is, look.
I would rather unwind these two wars, which is Ukraine and Israel.
To unwind the two wars, I've got to try to make a deal.
Now, in the case of Ukraine, the deal has got to involve Zelensky and Putin.
Who else is going to stop the war?
In Israel, it's going to involve Israel and Iran.
So this is Trump rightly intuiting that Hamas has no power on its own.
Hezbollah has no power on its own.
They're merely pawns.
They're frontmen of Iran.
So the Trump people are like, let's talk to Iran, probably to give Iran some ultimatums directly.
Because if you can get Iran to say, all right, we'll pull out.
All right, we'll do this.
All right, we'll do that.
Then you have achieved by negotiation what you don't need to use force to achieve.
So I think we're in that interregnum while they are exploring those options.
Now the Israelis, understandably, they're like, why are you talking to Iran?
Iran is a terrorist power.
I don't trust Iran either.
As you know, I have been very weary of Iran for...
Right.
Because of what they've done in Venezuela.
You know, I don't trust them.
I think they probably already have a nuke in Venezuela.
You know, Venezuela is very rich in enriched uranium.
Right.
And that's what is needed for these warheads, for these, you know, nukes.
And so I think that they already have something planned 1,300 miles away.
So I think that...
Us wiping out their facilities in Iran, they're like, oh no, but guess what?
We have facilities elsewhere, a lot closer to you, you know?
So, I don't trust them.
Yeah, that's a good point.
I don't trust them.
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It's D-I-N-E-S-H Dinesh.
Israel.
This was our second trip.
Our first trip was very wide-eyed, right?
And we were also part of a large tour.
We went with 300 or so people.
A Salem trip.
Sebastian Gorka and I were the speakers.
And we were seeing everything for the first time.
It had a big...
I think, impact spiritually, emotionally on us.
And I think it was very important in showing me.
I've long wanted to make a film that incorporates some aspects of Christian apologetics, but I never saw the visual of it.
Like, what would you show?
Where's the cinematics of such a movie?
And it was in Israel that we saw, wow, we are like in the land of the Bible, and there's a lot here, not just the land, but the people, and a lot of things going on in Israel that this would actually make a movie.
And the movie is about Israel, but it's about a lot more than Israel.
It's ultimately about the...
It's about...
It's about Judaism.
It's about Christianity.
It's about the authenticity and reliability of the Bible.
And it's also about prophecy.
It's about the future.
And making a case for the moral side of Israel and why they need to be Israel.
Why it needs to be only Israel and not Palestine or any other place.
And I think that the movie will definitely prove that because...
You know, you go deep into the archaeology.
I mean, you go way down there.
Well, we do the past, we do the present, and we do the future.
It is kind of funny because before we went on the trip, people said to us, and mostly to you, they'd be like, you're not...
You're not going to Gaza, are you?
You're not going to go to the West Bank, are you?
You're not going to go to where the fighting is, are you?
Gaza Strip or anything?
I'm like, no!
No!
Are you kidding?
Never!
Why would we do something for those movies?
Why would we do that?
Dumb!
Oh my gosh.
And yet, when we get there, somehow...
Yeah, I'm looking at the list of places we're going in the second...
Well, the Tuesday, because on Monday we went to Shiloh.
But Shiloh is...
Shiloh is right in the middle of the West Bank.
And we needed an armed guard to go with us.
And when we say an armed guard, we don't mean a guy with a pistol in his pocket.
We mean a guy...
A guy with a massive AK strapped onto his shoulder walking around with us.
Yeah.
Kind of ready for action.
On a bulletproof SUV.
We were in a bulletproof SUV, which I've never been in before.
Oh, my goodness.
But the two things I noted about it are, number one, the door weighs about as much as our house.
I know.
And the second thing is that when you...
First of all, you can look through the glass.
It looks normal.
But you can't hear anything.
Outdoors.
Yeah, and when you tap the glass, it feels like cement.
Yeah, yeah.
No, it's totally...
Right?
It's not glass.
Or at least it's not normal glass.
No.
Well, it's several layers of glass.
It's like, you know, the windows in your house, you know, double pane window, triple pane, whatever.
So this is like 10 pane or whatever.
It is.
And the whole car is bulletproof.
So we end up, we go to the West Bank, which, by the way, is important to go to, particularly if you're traveling in the steps of the Bible, because that's Judea, that's Samaria.
Ultimately, all the greats, you know, Nazareth, where Jesus was raised, Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.
The site of the first tabernacle, which was amazing.
Right, which is Shiloh.
And then later, unbelievably, we go to the Gaza border.
So when I saw the second day, it said Gaza, the kibbutz, and the Nova Festival site.
And I was like...
You've got to be kidding me.
Well, and yet, weirdly, you know, normally I see you as going into total hysterics over something like this.
Yeah, no, I know.
I had a piece about it.
You had a piece about it, right?
Yeah, I had a piece about it.
Well, you know, the cool thing, too, is that there was a woman that I saw on YouTube several months ago that was telling her story.
She was one of the...
The Nova Festival goers.
She went there with her boyfriend and she was telling her the story of survival.
And she was so eloquent and her English was really good.
And I was like, you know, she would be really good in the movie.
So when I suggested it to the crew...
Which is the crew is in Israel.
They were like, yeah, we can find her.
And so, but I thought she was going to come to Jerusalem.
And we were going to be like in a little room overlooking the city of David.
No, I mean, just if you think about it from a movie point of view, we are back on the Nova site.
Yes.
Right?
She was there.
Yes.
Not only was she there, she was...
And we won't go into the details of this because we're going to save it for the movie, but let's just say she was in a gruesome situation.
And for her to come back and to some degree relive it, I mean, it's amazing stuff.
And then the kibbutz you're talking about, the kibbutz is a few hundred feet from the Gaza border.
And not only that, but as we are in the kibbutz having a conversation, we can hear bombs.
Bombs and machine guns.
And machine gun fire, which is going on within earshot.
Yeah.
So, you know, you said to me, I think...
I mean, that means people are being killed right now, and that means that buildings are being blown up.
And I saw a video of that very thing happening as it was happening.
So because I get all these videos from these groups I'm in, they're like, this just happened in Gaza, and it just so happened that it was right when we were there.
So we heard it.
I mean, not only that, but I remember that as we are driving on those roads toward Nova and toward the kibbutzes, Obviously, you've never been there before, right?
But it was deja vu because you've seen so many videos that you were there.
That's just it.
I've seen so many videos of these poor people trying to flee.
And the very roads we were driving in were the very roads that they had to pull over and were shot.
There were bodies on those roads.
There were bodies on the roads.
And so it was just so surreal.
And not to mention...
Even the kibbutz, the story of the woman that you interviewed, I had seen footage of her siege.
And I was just like, I was thinking about it and I'm like, oh my gosh, it happened in this house.
I saw it.
And so it was so surreal, but I also had a very deep peace.
And I was like, this story has to be told because too many people out there do not know the full scope of what happened on October 7th.
And they see it more as a, well, it's a regional thing.
It happened in Israel, in the Middle East.
It's not going to happen to us, so why are we even interested?
But it has so many tentacles.
I think the movie will reveal that.
The other side of it, I'm going to touch on an incident that is not going to be in the film, but I think it validates the stunning way in which biblical archaeology is working and is confirming things that for thousands of years were thought to be matters of faith and is now showing them to be matters of history.
And fact.
And fact.
So, in the book of Jeremiah, We read about an ancient king of Israel named Zedekiah.
And the Zedekiah was a rather immoral character.
We're talking now, by the way, about 600 years before Christ.
And Jeremiah is a prophet, and he goes to the king Zedekiah, and he tells him, stop doing all the bad stuff you're doing, or God will punish you.
Needless to say, the king pays little attention.
And Jeremiah keeps warning, an enemy from the north will invade and destroy your kingdom.
And again, the king pays no attention.
But Jeremiah keeps up his warnings.
Now, there is a courtier in the court of the king who has the weird name Jehucal.
Jehucal.
They're all weird names.
They're all weird names.
But he's Jehucal's son of Shalamiah, something like that.
Jehucal's son of Shalamiah.
And this guy gets word about the preachings of Jeremiah.
He goes to the king and he says, kill that man.
Kill the prophet.
The king decides not to do it.
But just as Jeremiah predicts, there is a massive invasion of the kingdom.
The invasion does come from the north.
The king's family is killed.
The king loses his kingdom.
The northern part of Israel, called Judah, is overtaken.
Jeremiah himself becomes an exile and has to flee along with all the other Israelites.
Now, why am I saying all this?
Because recently, a seal is found in the
In Jerusalem.
And it bears a name that if you didn't know the Bible, would mean nothing to you, right?
And what is a seal?
The seal is the, when you send a private document, you stamp on it a clay seal, and because of the material used, the clay, it gets preserved.
It's preserved over long periods of time, and many of these seals have now been found.
Obviously, they didn't know that.
So, a prominent Israeli archaeologist finds a seal.
And the name on the seal is Jehukal, son of Shalamiah.
So think about this.
A biblical character, not even a major character, but someone mentioned in the Old Testament the exact name, the exact guy, and what does that tell you?
That tells you that there was a Jehukal, son of Shalamiah, without a doubt.
It tells you without a doubt that there was a king, Zedekiah, and without a doubt there was a prophet, Jeremiah.
That whole biblical story has been verified in a most unexpected and stunning way.
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