Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens clash over a romantic rivalry, while donor Bob Shillman withdraws funding after Charlie pivots to pro-Israel causes and Tucker Carlson. The episode counters assassination rumors as noise, then argues Israel defends all citizens equally despite Hamas reducing Gaza's Christian population from 3,000 to roughly 500. Rejecting genocide claims, the speaker asserts that a Jewish state following biblical codes remains un-Christian, concluding that the conflict stems from ideological shifts rather than ethnic cleansing. [Automatically generated summary]
Well, first, we have to realize that something is deeply wrong here.
I think most people have realized that.
The next step is to figure out what exactly is wrong.
What's going on with this woman?
I believe I can answer this question.
On the final question, what to do?
I have merely a common sense suggestion, which I'll give you at the end.
Candace continues her undeclared war against Erica Kirk.
The latest is Candace's multi-episode investigation into Erica's life, Bride of Charlie.
Erica Kirk has been named the new CEO of Turning Point USA.
My husband's dead.
Like, I'm not trying to be morbid, but he's dead.
It's weird to say excited.
Describes your husband's funeral as the event of the century.
Merch has.
We have 50,000 plus hot boarders.
Nobody knows why she's out there in a glittering pantsuit in a recreated tent that her husband tragically was murdered in, throwing merch out.
Everyone greets differently, so if someone's acting weird, don't read into that.
Zionists, the prime minister of Israel, all lied through their teeth about Charlie Kirk.
Her operation was in Constanta, the epicenter of Romania's trafficking scandal.
Weird conversations to have with a 15-year-old.
I'm gonna touch your butt.
$8.6 million to their own shell company.
What is going on?
We have nothing to hide.
My aunt used to tell me, never do something that you don't want on the front page of a newspaper.
Now, this is some weird stuff here.
As my wife says, what business is it of hers?
Why doesn't Candace leave Erica alone?
I'm sure Candace would answer, because there's a chance that Erica is part of the deep state, because maybe Erica had something to do with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, because maybe Turning Point at the highest levels was also involved.
And of course, if that's true, if that's true, then the Assassin's Cabal is now running Turning Point, the most influential youth organization in America.
I'm seeing a lot of memes on social media to the effect that Candace is insane, Candace is a demon, Candace is a secret leftist, and also calls for defenders of Candace, notably Megan Kelly, to dissociate from her.
But we not only have to explain Candace, we also have to explain why people like Megan are so reluctant to simply say she's gone nuts.
Now, as many of you know, I know the main players in the story, not Erica.
I don't know Erica Kirk.
If I met Erica Kirk, I honestly don't remember.
As far as I know, I saw Erica Kirk for the first time at Charlie's memorial.
I was deeply moved when Erica said she forgave Charlie's killer.
Debbie and I were in the front, and I could see, I could feel how difficult it was for her to say that.
Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do.
That man, that young man.
I forgive him.
Yet it is the purest expression of Christian forgiveness of Christ-like agape.
I was deeply moved.
Now, Charlie Kirk, I've known for many years, mainly through various TPUSA events and also by doing his podcast.
Shortly after I married Debbie in 2016, I saw Charlie at a conference and I introduced my wife to him as Dixie, which happens to be the name of my ex-wife.
Charlie laughed.
I laughed more nervously.
Debbie did not laugh.
I've known Candace since her early Blexit days, and I've spoken at some of her Blexit events.
I've always liked Candace.
There's something quite magnetic, quite effervescent about her.
I get why Megan Kelly is so taken by her.
Sure, she's an obvious megalomaniac, but guess what?
Politics is full of them.
Most congressmen and senators are megalomaniacs.
Most public figures are full of themselves.
Being full of yourself is regrettably part of the job description in this field.
I also know people who are very close to Charlie and were and are very close to Candace.
And through them, I believe I've figured out what's going on with Candace and Charlie and Erica.
It's a dark triangle of a familiar sort, but with distinctive elements.
Consider the story of a young man who becomes hugely successful through his entrepreneurial genius, his gift of the gab, and his organizational skills.
He creates a huge organization, absolutely blowing away other conservative youth organizations.
In the process, he befriends Trump and Vance, and he creates a massive donor network.
He becomes Charlie Kirk.
But Charlie Kirk is, in some respects, an awkward fellow.
He has lots of male buddies, but he doesn't relate romantically to women.
I know this from an elderly lady who's one of Charlie's big supporters and was also a longtime friend.
She came on board with Charlie from the earliest days.
She tried to set Charlie up with a number of young women from prominent families, including the Charles Schwab family, but she says none of the women were interested.
Their common complaint, quote, Charlie is a nerd.
I don't have any chemistry with him.
Charlie was a successful guy who hadn't found a woman to marry.
This is not to say he didn't have women friends.
He did, but he related to them as buddies.
Hey, they might as well have been male.
Charlie talked to them like business associates in some cases and like locker room pals in other cases.
Now, Candace was in the latter category.
She was a close locker room buddy of Charlie's.
They hung out a lot.
They swapped messages.
They confided in each other.
But here's the key point.
For Charlie, Candace was merely a buddy, kind of like Tyler Boyer or Andrew Colvett.
These guys whom I also know are now two of the key figures running turning point.
Charlie would no more think of making the moves on Candace than he would think of making the moves on Tyler or Andrew.
Charlie's relationship with Candace was, from Charlie's point of view, platonic.
But from Candace's point of view, not platonic, or at least not according to my sources.
Candace was definitely interested in Charlie.
Candace saw Charlie as some kind of cosmically important figure, just like her.
Candace has made some strange references to how both she and Charlie had extraterrestrial powers.
Maybe Candace thought the two of them were celestial beings placed on earth to find each other.
And then, horror of horrors, Charlie picks Erica.
Erica.
Now, you have to understand not what Erica Kirk really is, but what Erica Kirk represents from Candace's point of view.
In reality, Erica seems to be a lovely person, beautiful, accomplished, someone who came out of the world of pageants and modeling, but also established herself as an entrepreneur and a career professional.
And of course, she also seems to be a devoted mom.
This is how Charlie saw Erica, and this is how most people see her as well, but not Candace.
From Candace's viewpoint, Erica is a nobody.
What does she know about politics, this Arizona beauty queen?
She's a bimbo.
She's a peasant.
She's completely removed from the brightly illuminated celestial realm inhabited by special creatures like Candace and Charlie.
Besides, how did Erica jump out from behind the curtain and grab this guy?
Why on earth did he go for her?
After all, he and Candace had been close for so long.
I believe Candace came to the conclusion that Charlie was hers by destiny, by divine right.
And the fact that Charlie and Erica ended up together was more than she could bear.
Candace has always been somewhat unhinged, but now she went completely berserk.
She was inconsolable in her rage.
She developed a vendetta.
Envy is a very powerful force in human nature.
I'm reminded of Othello, Shakespeare's great saga about the fruits of envy.
In Othello, the envious man is Iago.
And in the play, he expresses the nature of envy powerfully, but not in a line about Othello, but rather about another attractive figure, Cassio.
Iago says of Cassio, he hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly.
And Iago plots his vendetta against both Cassio and later Othello.
Now, part of Iago's dark cleverness is to recognize things that are true, but that public opinion cannot acknowledge.
Iago knows, for example, that Othello's black, and that makes him strange, controversial, even repulsive in Christian Venice.
But you can't say that, not even then, not even there, because Othello is also a war hero.
But Iago plays on Othello's blackness to carry out his plot against him.
Now, Candace, like Iago, knows that there is a public mythology about Charlie and Erica that developed after Charlie's assassination.
It's not that different from what happened to JFK.
Suddenly after the assassination, JFK became this wonder boy.
His wife became the paragon of beauty and culture.
None of this was actually true.
Camelot was a public myth.
Same with Charlie and Erica.
They've been canonized into something far more than they were.
Candace sees behind that veil.
Her attack on Erica is based on the premise, let me show you the real Erica behind the veil of public sanctimony.
This is the key to the fascination with Candace's Bride of Erica series.
From the point of view of her devotees, Candace is exposing the real Erica.
Candace, like Iago, has a vendetta, but against whom?
The conventional view is that Candace is conducting a character assassination campaign against Erica.
Most of the comments I see from Candace's critics are focused on protecting Erica's reputation.
But this, I think, misses the point.
From Candace's point of view, nothing could be more obvious than Erica wanting Charlie.
Why wouldn't she want to marry the prince?
The real mystery is why Charlie wanted Erica and chose Erica over Candace.
Why did Charlie make Erica Charlie's angel?
I think I know the answer to that.
Charlie recognized Candace's talent, her dark energy, but he also knew he didn't want it in his home.
Charlie might have been awkward, but he was, in a way, wise.
He knew that Erica would be a nicer, prettier, more stable life partner than Candace could ever be.
Imagine being married to Candace.
Imagine being her husband.
Imagine life in that household.
Yeah, I'd like to be a fly on that wall.
I bet I'd have enough gossip to last a lifetime.
Yet for Candace, Charlie's decision to choose Erica was the real betrayal.
What I'm suggesting, and this is merely my psychological take on a strange and complex subject, is that Candace's target is not Erica, but Charlie.
Candace's vendetta is against Charlie.
Charlie's my friend.
That's what Candace says repeatedly.
She implies she's doing it all for Charlie, but that is the great deception here.
Worthy of Iago.
Charlie was her friend.
But then Charlie not only chose Erica over her, but just as significant, he expelled Candace from his orbit in large part because of Erica.
No one saw Candace at Charlie's memorial.
That's because she wasn't there.
She wasn't invited.
So that's when Candace became Maleficent, the wicked witch of the West, and when this vendetta got started.
Debbie and I watch a lot of true crime stories.
The standard plot is different from what we've been talking about, but it's still illuminating for our purpose here.
Man and woman have a long-term marriage, but over time, their romantic relationship dissolves and they're just roommates, just friends.
Man takes up with younger, attractive women.
Suddenly, they are always together, hand in hand, lovey-dovey.
They're soulmates, made for each other.
They do everything together.
His old partner cannot understand it.
What do those two have in common?
And soon that incomprehension turns to rage, and sometimes that rage is aimed at the man, not the woman.
That's when the criminal plot to destroy him gets underway.
It's a familiar plot line, and I think the parallels are obvious to our situation here.
But there's a deeper point I want you to consider.
Vendettas are typically between equals.
A duke doesn't have a vendetta against a serf.
Dukes don't fight duels against serfs.
The Duke of York will fight a duel, but only against the Duke of Sussex.
Candace fancies herself an aristocrat.
Hey, have you noticed who she married in the end?
A British aristocrat, or maybe pseudo-aristocrat.
In any case, she went for European royalty, which is fairly common in Europe these days and is also colloquially known as Euro-Trash.
But my point here is that Candace isn't dueling with Erica because she doesn't consider Erica to be her equal.
She's really battling with Charlie.
Or perhaps today we'd have to say she's battling with Charlie's ghost.
Erica, bride of Charlie.
Think about that title.
Erica is a subject, but her only identification is Bride of Charlie.
Charlie is the real villain of the story, and it's Charlie, Charlie's reputation, perhaps even Charlie's memory that this strange, angry, vengeful woman is bent on destroying through her relentless crusade.
And that's the way I see it.
Charlie's Ghost and Precious Metals00:15:32
If you haven't been following precious metals, well, you might want to start.
Look at gold and silver.
Gold last year, 2025, up over $5,000 an ounce.
Silver, over $100 an ounce.
So that means gold is up 64% for the year.
Silver, 150%.
Now, there's been a little bit of a pullback since then, but that's normal.
The reason that people are doing this and the reason central banks are buying gold, they don't trust the government.
They don't trust the dollar.
They don't trust the debt.
You need to find out more about this as you figure out your own investments.
I recommend a kit from Goldco.
It's the 2026 kit on precious metals, a guide to gold and silver, and there's an easy way to get it.
Just go to dineshgold.com.
That's dineshgold.com.
My next conversation could be described in the following headline.
Zionist billionaire who was the largest donor to Turning Point, but stopped giving because of Tucker Carlson, speaks out for the first time.
I'm speaking to Bob Shillman, entrepreneur, philanthropist at his home in California about the inside scoop of his involvement and his break with Turning Point.
Dr. Bob, let me ask you about Turning Point.
You were the largest donor, the biggest supporter of Charlie Kirk, of Turning Point.
And then you stopped.
Why did you stop?
Okay, just a little history.
I think I met Charlie.
It was probably at a David Horowitz Freedom Center conference called Restoration Weekend.
And David was very, very open, always generous with introducing new talent to his audience.
And I was very impressed with Charlie.
I became a donor, probably not his first donor.
I forget the name of the fellow.
He's no longer with us.
But I became the second donor and helped the organization grow and gave him advice whenever he asked for it.
So I was a member of Turning Point the team for probably 10 years, maybe 12 years.
And I supported various projects within Turning Point.
I also helped Turning Point Action, which is a 501c4.
I gave them significant funds to help them, to help President Trump get elected.
But about, you know, maybe it was, I don't know how.
Let me ask you, since you're talking about support, you gave support in the millions of years.
Millions of dollars.
About $5 million, would you say?
It's between $3 and $5.
I honestly, I think.
Over a period.
Over a 10-year, 12-year period.
Yeah.
But I became very concerned.
This was about two months before his untimely death.
I became very concerned with his giving a lot of credence to people like Tucker Carlson.
And when there were big organizational meetings like Turning Point Action, no, Turning Point America or AmeriFest, right up on the big brochures next to Charlie was Tucker Carlson.
And of course, I'd been following Tucker Carlson.
I used to like watching him when he was on Fox News.
I liked his attitude.
You know, he was a little sarcastic.
But then, for some reason, something changed, and he became, in my view, a Jew hater.
I don't use the term anti-Semitic.
And Tucker has his own show where he platformed known Jew haters.
So I talked to Charlie about this, and I was very concerned that he was being influenced and giving a platform.
Tucker Carlson, I think, gave a keynote address at one of the major Turning Point events.
And I didn't get a good answer.
And I told Charlie that, you know, I can't finance you anymore.
I feel very good about my past helping Turning Point and helping you.
You've used the money appropriately.
You really helped President Trump get elected, the ground game that he did in those borderline states.
But going forward, I don't like the trend of the organization going forward.
So I'm going to stop financing it.
Now, by the way, he didn't need it anymore.
I think he was at the run rate of $60 to $80 million a year they were raising.
And it's not like I stabbed him in the back.
We had the discussion.
And it's very common for philanthropists to give to causes they believe in.
And I did give to causes I believed in, but then the organization changed.
What do you think was going on with Charlie?
Charlie seemed to be pro-Israel.
He made trips to Israel.
I've seen him pose with the Israeli flag.
He's been at the wall.
He seemed to be a supporter, a sympathizer with Israel.
Was it the case that, in your view, Charlie was moving in the other direction, or was he just saying, Hey, listen, Tucker's a great buddy of mine, and he has his own views, I have my own views, but on that basis of friendship, I want to give him a platform.
What was going on in Charlie's mind?
Because I think this is something people are grappling with, and you got to see it up close.
Right.
And when he began to become a strong supporter of Israel, and by the way, that was partly motivated by a donor, Bernie Marcus, who was founder of Home Depot, who, as I recall, Charlie told me, gave him a $10 million grant to start a group, a pro-Israel group within Turning Point.
And when I saw that happening, I spoke to Charlie at an event that I was attending with him, and I said, This is a mistake, Charlie.
Even though I'm very pro-Israel, of course, known to be a Zionist, I told him it was a mistake for him to take positions outside of the main core of what Turning Point is all about.
Turning Point is about free enterprise, capitalism, the literal interpretation of the Constitution, and freedom, freedom of speech.
And I said, as soon as you start being involved in other peripheral causes, although they may be good, in my view, it's a good one, you shouldn't do it.
You shouldn't do it.
So, even though he was doing something that I would normally approve of outside of Turning Point, I suggested he not do it.
In the same way, when he became somewhat, not he, but he was promoting people who are anti-Israel or anti-Zionists or Jew haters.
I told him you shouldn't do it.
It seems like what you were saying to Charlie, in effect, was stick to your knitting and stick to America first.
America.
Don't go outside of the American agenda.
Because as soon as you start, and I think what happened, he went to college campuses, and this was after October 7th, 2023.
And there were a lot of questions by the students, which I don't know if they were prepared ahead of time, but they were poking him about Israel.
Why are you so interested in Israel?
It's not American.
It's not pro-American.
So I think that that helped change his mind or his direction.
And he never said anything that would indicate that he was a Jew hater or an anti-Semite.
But certainly by keeping Candace Owens on their website, and you can still, I don't know if you can still find her there, but she was there, probably not, given the relationship with now.
But she was there when I was involved, and I said, I don't like, you know, I thought she was out.
She was still there.
You'd have to find it.
But certainly Tucker Carlson was being promoted.
And I think that's what happened.
It was in reaction to all the questions he was getting by the students on college campuses.
So I think what you're saying here, and to me, this is not an unfamiliar story.
When I was at the American Enterprise Institute, we had free market economists, and we would get sometimes funding from some big business which supported free market capitalism.
But on the other hand, when it came, for example, to a subsidy to that business, they would want the subsidy.
And then the free market economists would revolt and say, you know, we're being bought off.
And so the head of AEI of the American Enterprise Institute was caught between the scholars over here and the donors.
So to me, this is like this happens.
This happens.
Right?
And I think what you're describing is here's Charlie, and he wanted, did he take the money from Bernie Marcus?
Did he take the 10 million?
He did.
Okay.
So he's committed over here.
And at the same time, the students are kind of over here.
So when Charlie said I'm being, he said I'm being pressured by the donors.
But really what...
No, I wasn't pressured by, I never tried to pressure them.
I just said this is not consistent with the mission of turning point.
That's what I said.
You should stick to the mission of turning point.
And although you may get less tweets or less people attending your conference, this is what you should be doing.
Because this is what you set out to do.
That's what he set out to do.
And that's what I funded.
And obviously, I think part of what you're saying as well is that a donor has every right to give money to a cause that you believe in.
And if the organization or the individual marches off in a different direction, why on earth would you want to – there's no entitlement to the money.
Right.
And there's no intentional.
I didn't try to get the money back that I had already.
Right.
Talk about you.
They were going to name a building after you.
Yes, there was the Shillman Center.
The Shillman Freedom Center.
And what did you tell them?
I told them, and I had made most of the payments that I promised to do was in stages based on where the building was and the purchase of the building and everything.
And I said, I'm not going to make the last payment.
But you can name the building.
The agreement was, it was supposed to be named after the Shillman-Shillman Foundation.
I said, you can name the building anything you want, except Shillman.
Don't use your name.
Don't use my name.
Don't use my name.
And what was Charlie's reaction when you told him that?
They said they'd have to think about it.
And they never got back to me.
And they never distanced themselves from Tucker in any way.
I think he was influenced by the number of followers that he gets with Tucker there.
Tucker's an influencer who has a large audience, unfortunately.
It is something that people have grappled with, right?
What caused Tucker to change money?
And you're saying it's money.
The reason I've been myself flabbergasted by it is people do change their mind, right?
Whitaker Chambers used to be a communist and then he became an anti-communist.
But he wrote a 600-page book, Witness, explaining how he shifted, what caused him to change his mind.
Notice that Tucker has never done this.
No.
He's never given any kind of account.
And yet suddenly you have this sort of new Tucker.
And he is saying the things that younger Tucker, the opposite of what he said.
But you think it's financial.
That's my belief.
Yep.
And the country of Qatar has a history of making huge donations to various universities to fund Middle Eastern schools.
And most of those organizations have become centers of radicals and these universities to the negative effect of our society.
Most of the university campuses that were inflamed by October 7th by Israel a day after the war.
Israel didn't do anything for months after they were attacked.
But the next day, there are all these campus protests.
And those come from the organizations within the universities that are financed by Qatar.
And that's well documented, how many billions of dollars they've spent undermining universities in America.
Do you think that Tucker was or maybe is trying to take over Turning Point?
I imagine that would be a goal.
I don't think he'll be able to do that.
I hope he won't be able to do that.
I just say this because Tucker had clearly built inroads into the Heritage Foundation.
So you think of the Heritage Foundation as one of the key think tanks.
You think of Turning Point as the youth organization.
And so looking at it from Tucker's point of view, this is the way I if I'm trying to move the Republican Party in a different direction, what better way?
Heritage, Turning Point.
That would be the way.
And it might be that the Qatar has invested in Turning Point.
I wouldn't be surprised.
That would be very wise of them to do.
So I wouldn't be surprised if they are a large donor.
Have you come across the name of Nick Fuentes in connection?
Did Charlie talk about him?
Never.
He never mentioned him.
No, no.
Never mentioned him at all.
Right.
Yeah, because Charlie had texted me.
I did a debate with Nick on the Iran issue.
It was not about Nick's whole philosophy.
We're debating the Trump strike on Iran.
We had this pretty feisty exchange.
I think I got the better of it.
Most people thought I got the better of it.
But Charlie, when he found out about it, was very agitated and sent me a series of texts basically saying, Why are you platforming this guy?
He's vermin.
He's horrible.
I only say this because he was on Tucker's show.
He was on Tucker's show, and precisely some of the same things that Nick has been saying, Tucker's been saying.
Right.
And so it's very interesting.
I kind of wonder, Charlie, you know, the assassination, there's no more Charlie.
And it's hard to know what Charlie would make of all the stuff going on now with Turning Point and also with Tucker.
Because Tucker's most blatant, I wouldn't say it's not just anti-Israel, it's not just anti-Jew, but now an emerging like pro-Islamic side is emerging, right?
Turning Point Faith Donations00:05:02
Coming back to Tucker and your pulling away from Turning Point, as you know, they do a lot of good and you supported the good stuff they were doing.
Did you think that what Tucker was saying was, what, insidious enough, bad enough, poison in the minds of young people?
I'm trying to get at what is it that you said.
Listen, I love this organization.
I love what they've been doing.
But guess what?
I'm out.
It probably took a lot because I was at the, in 2022, I was in Phoenix at a Turning Point donor event, which I spoke.
You were there.
You stood up and you said something like, which really, I mean, I remember it, so it's so vivid.
You were like, I am trying to give away my money, you said.
I think you had put up $100,000.
You were asking people to match it.
And you were the number one turning point super fan.
Yes, in fact, Charlie put me in that position at every major event to make a ask, to talk about why I'm a donor and that I think all of you who are in this room believe in the mission.
And now it's time to write a check.
Right.
And I'm good at that.
I put my money where my mouth is.
But you're asking about why, okay, why couldn't I overlook it?
It's because it's, you know, in the posters advertising Turning Point Amerifest or whatever, there were lots of speakers.
Donald Trump's son was a speaker and various senators.
But right in the upper left corner for us was Charlie and next to him was Tucker Carlson.
And Tucker was a keynote speaker or maybe the keynote speaker.
So, you know, I could overlook it.
You know, there are people with different views on a lot of things.
You know, I hate Jews if it's one out of 30 other people who are on this poster.
But he was a key element in these presentations.
And that's what did it for me.
That's what did it for me.
And not only me, other donors too.
I mean, I was in contact.
Mainly, they contacted me and told me that they were very upset and didn't understand it and didn't see it getting any better.
That's the problem.
Didn't see it getting any better.
We know a guy in Texas who is a billionaire or close to it.
And we got wind of this because the message from Turning Point was our donors are pulling out.
You need to up your donations.
So they were pitching other donors to make it up.
And so, you know, at the time, we were very much on the outside, but this was very intriguing to hear this rumbling going on.
I don't know if you remember, but you sent me what turned out to be a very ill-timed text.
It was actually like a day or two before Charlie was assassinated.
And you were like, I'm done.
I'm out.
I'm not going to give them another penny.
And then, of course, obviously you had no way of knowing this two days later, poor Charlie is shot, he's killed.
And then you immediately sent me a text going, oh, I feel horrible.
You sent me something basically saying, you realize that this was something that you had sent right before.
And what do you make of all the now?
He was a wonderful person.
Yes, I have to tell you.
Really impressive.
I mean, it's rare for me to give this kind of money to any particular organization.
There are a few.
But in his presentations, he didn't have notes.
He had such a memory for the details.
And he'd go through what he promised last year and how they did on those promises.
And these were two or three hour presentations that he would make.
And they were exciting.
You know, they were interspersed with videos of what his groups were doing, whether it was Turning Point Faith or Blexit or this or that.
And it was just, he was a very impressive individual.
And I thought a good Christian.
And, you know, I admire Christians and I support Christian organizations.
So you had no problem as a Jew giving money to Charlie as a Christian or even Turning Point Faith, which was quite openly, in a sense, advocating.
Charlie was surrounded with pastors.
You wouldn't mind any of that.
I loved it because it was all pro-America.
And he had these different groups.
And it's important to have all these different groups that have a different, slightly different focus.
So he had this turning point faith, which I loved.
And I think probably some of my donations were targeted to turning point faith.
Yeah.
What do you make of the, you know, the, cheers Charlie.
Exposing Trans Activist Networks00:02:36
He's assassinated.
The assassin is turned in by his own family.
He's connected with this kind of trans network.
Lately, a lot of these acts of violence are by trans.
Have some trans.
Yeah, yeah.
We shouldn't make guns illegal.
We should make trans illegal.
Yeah.
And so this is what baffles me, right?
Because you have here these violent networks.
And by the way, some of them do military training.
There's an Antifa side to what these trans activists do.
And yet, just as we're closing in on a public expose of the whole thing, and of course, the trial of this guy, the shooter, we now have these conspiracy theories brewing on the right that, well, some of them, it's the Egyptian planes.
It is Macron.
You haven't heard about.
Oh, no, there's an element, the Macrons, or there's a French Legion military connection.
I mean, 99% of this is coming from Candace, who has essentially made a, maybe not a career, but certainly a portfolio of conspiracy.
Well, I call it the Candace Intelligence Agency, the new CIA.
She's like, me and my followers are going to investigate and bust open and reveal who the true killers are.
And she's saying, I'm not saying it isn't this guy.
I'm simply saying that it's a much wider.
Yeah, I'm going to expose the people.
What do you make of all this?
It doesn't seem like you follow it all that closely.
Thank goodness.
Right.
I don't.
I have other things to do, more productive things to do with my day.
But I know people who follow it closely.
And the only thing I can make of it is that the technology has given everybody a microphone.
Everybody has a microphone.
And the more radical you are, the more people are going to pay attention to you, even to argue with you.
And that's such a mistake.
If you don't believe in what somebody's saying, just turn the channel.
Don't send another text to them or to all your friends about why he or she is wrong.
Just ignore it.
Ignore it all.
It's noise.
And Candace must have something seriously.
And I knew Candace way back when.
Her first job, as I believe, was with the David Harwitz Freedom Center.
He gave her the start.
He gave her the start.
And from there, I think she went to Prager for a while.
Ben Prager Comes Closest00:03:20
She was at Prager University.
And from there, she went to Ben Shapiro.
And Ben finally had to fire her because she became, I think, anti-a Jew hater during that period.
So these are Jews who gave her the start.
David Horowitz, Dennis Prager, and Ben Shapiro.
All Jews.
And she was a nobody.
She was a nobody.
Earlier, you described yourself as a Zionist.
And we seem to be in an atmosphere today where, particularly among young people, there's the sense that sort of that American Jews who are Zionists are putting Israel first, or that Israel is controlling America, or that APAC, the American Israel Political Action Committee, is a foreign front that needs to register under the Foreign Agents Act.
What do you make of all of this?
And how do you address it?
This idea that sort of your interests are not America first, they're Israel first.
Well, I live in America.
America gave me this opportunity, and it is the best, finest country in the world.
And at the same time, I believe that Israel has a right to exist.
The history, as shown by some of your movies, matter of fact, prove that.
The archaeology proves that the Jews were there first.
They are the inherent inhabitants of the land.
And so I think it's important for Jews to have their own country.
There are 52, I think maybe it's more, 52 Islamic countries in the world.
Don't the Jews, shouldn't the Jews have one?
And even though it's a country that's run by Jews and for Jews, everyone has the same rights.
It's the only place in the Middle East where Muslims can practice their faith, Christians can practice their faith, and Jews can, or Hindus, whoever.
There's, let's see, a strange sect in, I think it's in Tel Aviv.
I'll forget about that, but they have the right to practice their faith.
The Abai, whatever it is.
So it's the only country where you have freedom of religion, right?
Of all faiths, any faith.
And it's a very special thing.
But the countries that border it don't believe in that, and they want to destroy Israel.
So when I say I'm a Zionist, I'm in favor of there being a country for the Jews, for the Jews.
And what you're saying is that I can be America first.
I can be pro-American with an allegiance to America.
And I don't think that the interests of Israel conflict with that at all.
Matter of fact, Israel comes closest to the American ethics of freedom and democracy and open free enterprise.
It comes the closest to America.
So of course I want it to exist.
I would like every country to be as free as Israel is.
Thank you very much.
Israel as an Island of Freedom00:15:48
Hey, I'm now on Substack.
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I started out as a journalist writing articles for National Review, The American Spectator, The Washington Post, lots of places.
After my stint in the Reagan White House, I pivoted to writing books.
And that was way back in 1991.
So I've been mainly known as an author and of course later as a filmmaker.
But my first job, journalist, and now I'm getting back to that.
On Substack, you'll get original articles and commentary, groundbreaking investigations, exclusive access to film clips and show clips.
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Go to DineshDeSouza.substack.com.
I'm in Israel, in Jerusalem, in fact, in the very futuristic TBN studios here in Jerusalem.
And I wanted to interview not just someone who is in the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, but a Christian who is or has served in the IDF.
And today we have one.
It is Ethan Hedding.
Ethan, what's a nice Christian boy doing in the military services of a Jewish state?
So I was in the IDF between April 2022 until December 2024.
So it went over that period of October 7th, 2023, the largest loss of life to the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
As a Christian going in, I never knew that I would find myself in that situation.
I certainly didn't expect that at the age of 21, after having done university and started my career, that I would actually want to draft.
But I felt obligated not only as a Christian theologically, but also because of my family and my family's values.
My family come from South Africa originally.
We were exiled in 1986 because my grandfather preached against apartheid and the system of government there.
And the only one of the few countries that still had relations with South Africa at the time was Israel.
Let's slow down and follow this a little closely.
So your grandfather was a pastor.
That's right.
And he was a pastor in the Assemblies of God.
Yeah.
And did he mainly have a white church or a black church?
It was mixed.
It was a mixed church.
But he was a critic of apartheid.
That's right.
And they threw him out.
They threw him out.
And why Israel?
Israel at the time had great relations with South Africa as well as Taiwan.
And South Africa was under international condemnation for the system of government, of course, segregation that only really came to a close in 1995, 1994.
And so they either had the option of going into an internment camp or leaving and going to Israel, which is certainly not as developed as it is today at that time.
And it's an important story for me because while I still retain and fully believe in my Christian values that have come down three generations now, it's guided my life principles and I felt it was extremely important for me as a Christian to join the IDF because in actual fact we have so much in common with the Jewish people as Christians.
We have the similar values we base, you know, half of our book, the Old Testament, is of course the Tanakh, the main source of Jewish life and belief.
And so I woke up one day and I felt that I needed to join and so I volunteered.
Are there Christians in the IDF?
Were you the only one?
No, there's about every year 200 to 300 volunteers.
The majority of them are Greek Orthodox Christians.
That's an interesting statistic.
There's about 70% of Christian volunteers are Greek Orthodox and the rest are generally Messianic Jews, so Jews that believe that Jesus is the Messiah, or in my case, just regular old Protestants that are Christian Zionists.
Now, I've seen these young people in the Israeli military, and it's always a little bit startling because we think of seasoned IDF commandos, and a lot of these young people are 19, you know, and they're kids, really.
And in your case, you were not, there's mandatory military service, but you volunteered.
You chose to go into the military and your reason was what?
My reason was that there is no greater State on the planet that better protects my rights and my freedoms as a Christian and my community to practice my religion freely than the state of Israel.
There are two main events that have affected and changed the way the Middle East is understood to Christians in the area.
And that is ISIS in 2014.
At the turn of the century, Christians made up around 20% of the Middle East population.
Today, that number is 5%.
A lot of that was at the hands of Sunni Islamic jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and Daesh or ISIS that eliminated millions of ethnic Christians such as Assyrian Christians or Aramaics from Iraq and Syria.
Today there's about 16 million Christians in the Middle East, 8 million of which or thereabouts are Coptics in Egypt.
But Israel also has a very sizable population.
We have about 190,000.
That is the only Christian population in the Middle East that is actually growing, not declining, which is contrary to the trend.
And that is because we enjoy the rights that, if we look around us, are being taken away by other Christians.
If we see what's going on in Syria, northeast Syria at the moment, with the collapse of the autonomous region, Kurdish region Anis, we see that you actually have Islamic jihadist groups, many of whom are ISIS, around 10,000 ISIS militants that were in detainment camps, have been overrunning the semi-autonomous region,
which has been populated by some of the oldest Christian communities since the time of Jesus.
These are Christians that have participated in their political life there.
They have their own Christian militias.
And so as a Christian who finds himself in Israel, I understood very quickly that if I want to defend my freedoms and my churches, which many Christians come and visit yearly, I understand that I have to defend the state that protects them.
So you're saying that Israel is an island of freedom, of religious freedom in the sea of repression.
Yeah.
Contrary to Takul Carlson, who says that Qatar instead is that religious freedom haven, I would beg to differ.
Because here you have Christians that since October 7th are actually turning towards Israel.
The IDF reports that volunteer numbers have actually tripled within the Christian community here because young Christians, my age and below, understand what's at stake.
On October 7th, Hamas didn't just kill Jews.
They killed Sunni Muslims.
They killed Thai workers.
And they indiscriminately killed Christians who they for all they cared were Jews.
They didn't care.
And so we have understood on October 7th that radical Islam doesn't discriminate.
It goes after every system of government that is contrary to Sharia law.
It's indiscriminately hostile.
That's correct.
And you're saying, and you can assure us that as based on your own experience over a lifetime and your family, that as a Christian, you're perfectly safe and free to practice your faith in Israel unmolested.
Sunday is a working day.
To us, that's our day of Sabbath.
But while I was in the army, my commanders, from the lieutenant all the way up to the brigadier general level, understood and made sure that at 4 p.m. every day, on a Sunday, I was able to go to church and worship freely, unmolested, without fail.
Christmas, Easter, all of the feasts that many perhaps do not have such a prominent meaning to us, they insisted that I would not have my holidays changed and that I could benefit from being able to celebrate with my own community without fail.
As a Christian, you're saying that the IDF is a force for good?
There is no doubt in my mind that Israel is not only a force for good for the local believers in Israel, but is changing the way that the Middle East itself is.
We look at the Hamas-Israel war.
We eliminated the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasalah, and destroying Hezbollah's command and control system had a knock-on effect where Hezbollah was no longer able to prop up the Assad regime in Syria.
And as a result, the Free Syrian rebel army was able to destroy the regime and fundamentally push back Iranian influence.
And that is a direct result of Israeli intervention in fighting for her people and defending them no matter what.
Is part of what you're saying that because radical Islam is such a threat and is such a threat across such a wide region, the fact that the IDF is almost single-handedly battling these forces of radical Islam and doing it very effectively, that Christians not only in Israel but in the entire region are in a certain sense able to breathe more easily?
I think without a doubt that Christians within Israel are able to breathe more easily.
I think when you start talking about Syria and Iraq and Egypt, it becomes much more complicated, and that's not Israel's fault.
Israel does what it can with what it has, but her power and her influence is limited contrary to what many people, at least in the West, like to inflate.
There are many different actors, both state and non-state, that are vying for control all over the Middle East, not just the United States.
And it's important that Israel does take a stand, which she has traditionally done, especially in the Kurdish case.
Prime Minister Benjamin Nanyao and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar have been very clear from the start that a Kurdish movement in Northeast Syria and northwest Iraq is paramount to Israel's security and pushing back Iranian and Turkish influence.
So Israel does try and exert and build networks of connection and to support those people with humanitarian aid, with other means, but at the end of the day, she can only do so much.
She doesn't have that type of capital that other states might have.
What would you say to the argument that the Old Testament is based upon kind of an ethic of vengeance, an eye for an eye?
The New Testament is based upon an ethic of forgiveness, of love, and that a Jewish state by definition would follow the Jewish code, which would be the eye for an eye, and that this is not only un-Christian but kind of anti-Christian because it's not in the spirit of the New Testament.
As a Christian, how do you think about the relationship of the Old Testament and the New and the seeming shift from an ethic of vengeance to an ethic of forgiveness?
I'm not a theologian, so perhaps I can't quote the exact scripture, but I read my Bible and I go to church, and I know that Jesus also said to feed my lambs.
And how do you interpret that?
I think that means you can't also sit by and watch the world go into flames and say, well, it's somebody else's problem.
No one else is coming.
And this is the understanding that as Christians in the Middle East, we have come and we have paid a price for by blood.
That there is, contrary to many claims, really no other power in the Middle East that is actively putting their sons and daughters on the line, regardless of the fact that 20% of Israel's population is Muslim Arab, that 2% of the population is Christian.
Israel and the IDF does not discriminate in who she defends.
You're saying the Jews are putting their lives on the line to save Christian lives and Muslim lives.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
October 7th showed that Hamas or any Islamic jihadist group that they're allied with, like Al-Qaeda or ISIS, shows the sword to anybody that doesn't follow their ideology.
Christians are in that, and I think Israel will pay any price, as we saw with all of the hostages, the 253 hostages that were taken on October 7th, we will pay any price to protect our people, dead or alive.
Gaza Population and Christian Hostages00:04:00
And we didn't discriminate on if those hostages were believers in Christ, or were they atheists, or were they Jews, were they ultra-Orthodox Jews?
There was no discrimination.
Ethan, you were right in the thick of things, and by that I mean you were in the intelligence services, but in the combat aspect of it.
In other words, you weren't just sitting at a desk, you were actively coordinating operations.
What would you say, has the IDF done as much as it can, as much as it should, to minimize civilian casualties?
We have done what we can and then some.
The Palestinian Authority estimates that 254,000 Palestinians in Gaza have left and or been killed since October 7th.
So the majority of those are people that voluntarily migrated outside of Gaza through Israel and we facilitated as a country to move Gazans that didn't want to stay in the war zone.
So that's about 10% of the 2.2 million Gazans that supposedly stayed there since before October 7th.
And I think if that's a genocide, and it's a very, very poor one, and it's not a genocide at all, it's not ethnic cleansing.
You're saying 10% of the people left, and people do like to run away from war zones.
But are you saying that the population of Gaza has not substantially shrunk apart from that?
Because presumably in the genocide, if you start out with a million people, you end up with half a million.
It's like, where are the other half million?
But you're saying that the missing people are accounted for.
The vast majority of them chose to leave.
I'm not saying that the Palestinian Authority is saying that.
Ramallah is saying that.
So that's not an Israeli source.
And I'll tell you which population has declined radically under Hamas in Gaza, and it's the Christian one.
When Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2007 and gave all of Gaza City and the surrounding settlements to the Palestinian Authority, there were 3,000 Christians there that had been there since before the dawn of Islam.
Today, that number is maybe 500, 700.
And even before October 7th, it was down to around 1,000 Christians.
And that had nothing to do with Israeli administration or targeting of churches, contrary to a lot of Western claims.
That's under Hamas, Palestinian-administered Gaza.
Did you watch that strange interview that Taka Carlson did with the nun?
You know, I sarcastically call her the nun with the mustache.
But the point here is that evidently the woman is the sister of George Stephanopoulos.
She's related to George Stephanopoulos in any event.
And she gave a picture of Christians tormented and persecuted in Israel and Christians flourishing in Gaza and in Muslim land.
And you're saying that that is the very opposite of the truth.
It's the very opposite of the truth.
And I'm not surprised Tako Carlson would put such a mouthpiece of Hamas on his show.
I would say the opposite is fundamentally true.
The Dragon's Prophecy Tour00:00:52
You can go just down the road to the Old City and you can see the rainforest of churches that exist there, Messianic, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican.
It could not be further from the truth.
Ethan, thank you very much.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Step into the world of the Dragon's Prophecy on a tour of the ancient land of Israel.
I'm Dinesh T'Souza, and I'm inviting you to join me and Jonathan Kahn for the Dragon's Prophecy Tour.
We'll walk the ancient streets of Jerusalem and visit iconic landmarks like the Western Wall, the Sea of Galilee, and the Mount of Olives, exploring the real world settings behind the mysteries and what they reveal about the days we're living in.