EZRA LEVANT | Reflections from Jerusalem amid rising antisemitism and looming conflict
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Summary
Ezra Levenson talks to Dr. James Lindsen and Dinesh D'Souza about the anti-semitism conference he attended in Jerusalem, Israel, and his heart to heart with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Transcript
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tonight thoughts from a potential war zone it's january 27th this is the ezra levant show
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oh hi everybody my face looks red that's just the lights from the cars that we're passing by
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it's late at night here in jerusalem what am i doing here well when i left davos switzerland i
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didn't go straight home i came to jerusalem because avi amini and i were invited to a conference
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hosted by a cabinet minister in the israeli government about anti-semitism and i thought
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well you know we're halfway there and we spent our own money to go there i want to let you know
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that because some people take free trips we don't take free trips paid for by government so we flew
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out there and we had some really interesting interviews with not just israeli leaders but
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people from around the world about the state of anti-semitism and how it's so often linked to
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mass immigration so uh we've been out here i'm actually tomorrow morning i'm getting on a plane
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coming back to canada so i will be back tomorrow uh i just thought you know let's jam in a couple
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days since we're all the way out here and the crazy thing is and i didn't know this is the u.s
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chose this time to steam a massive aircraft carrier to the region and they're starting exercises around
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iran and rattling the sabers so there's a chance that when this goes to air i hate to say it that
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there may be another war out here donald trump said he would smash iran if they started killing
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their own peaceful protesters and i saw some shocking reports that in the last two days alone more than
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30 000 peaceful protesters in iran have been killed 30 000 in two days and trump said that was his red
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line i mean look i have no idea if that strike's going to happen if the aircraft carrier is just
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some sort of walk softly carry a big stick kind of thing as uh teddy kennedy would say but uh there's
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a chance that we'll actually be in bomb shelters tonight because of course even if america attacks
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iran they'll most likely fire missiles at israel america's ally in the region um i tell you it's
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all israelis are talking about um hopefully uh the casualties will be low on all sides and hopefully
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it'll be almost uh surgical like it was when nicholas maduro was snatched by the u.s military anyways i'm
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recording this in a taxi as we head out into the night i want to tell you about two interviews i did at
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the conference today and that forms the bulk of my show today the first was with dr james lindsen you'll
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remember dr james he's the one who studies so deeply the philosophic the philosophy of being woke
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and a couple years he invented the idea of what he called the woke right and i didn't understand that
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i said what woke to me means left it means critical theory marxist theory like you know just like
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marxist race theory or marxist gender theory i thought how can you be woke right i didn't get
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it maybe i wasn't smart enough or maybe i wasn't listening carefully enough but now i get it it's
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largely internet groipers as they call themselves who are anti-semitic and in some cases anti-american
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and anti-trump and it's this whole new phenomenon online and i hate to say it my former hero tucker
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carlson is going down that road so i talked to james lindsen but i just want to understand how did
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that happen i'm 53 years old and for the first 50 years of my life the idea of encountering an
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anti-semi a born in canada conservative anti-semi i'd never seen one never seen one in my whole life
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and now suddenly the internet is crawling with them how did that happen so i talked to james lindsen
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about that and then i had a heart-to-heart with dinesh d'Souza you know who i'm talking about so both
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these men were here for this anti-semitism conference and dinesh d'Souza is so smart i keep
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forgetting what a public intellectual he is and not only did we talk about that but we also talked
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about his new movie and other work he's doing so that's uh the show for today i'm in a cab i'll sign
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off but enjoy these two interviews that i did at the conference on anti-semitism
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dr james lindsen i bump into you in all the best places we're here at an anti-semitism conference
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in jerusalem what's your message well i mean we're not just at an anti-semitism conference in jerusalem
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we're here on holocaust memorial remembrance day as well 81st one right and so that's important to
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remember uh my message i mean obviously the big picture message is uh that never again is now we
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have rising anti-semitism kind of from the three axes the left the radical islamists and then now
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is new anti-semitism on the right i've been warning about it for a while i got in trouble called it woke
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right but trying to get people to understand where this comes from where this you know politics of
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friend and enemy this uh grievance oriented envy oriented alienation centered mentality comes from
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and how it metastasizes and becomes very radical very dangerous movements that threaten our free
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societies and western democracies you know you and i've been talking i really love our in-depth
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interviews for years now and i remember when you first said woke right and i confess i didn't quite
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understand it because i thought that was a an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp how can you be woke
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and right i think i finally get it now tell me a little bit about where it came from though because
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from my whole life until about two years ago the idea of someone in north america on the right
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being anti-semitic was almost unheard of i mean i and i just it suddenly it i suppose it's slowly
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slowly and then very quickly it happened where how did it start i'm talking about a lot of online
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groypers they call themselves and others even some would-be christian leaders are taking an
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anti-semitic line i've never seen before where's it from there are three answers to that question
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kind of meaningfully one is reaction we've been under this woke left tyranny frankly in canada
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especially now tyranny uh for at least a decade very clearly 2015 by that point it's clearly a problem
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2020 it's undeniable and taking over our societies and there's a reaction to that and that reaction
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has alienated white men it's alienated um a lot of white christians in particular and there
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you alienate somebody long enough and they say we're going to band together and fight back
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and they take on a toxic identity to politics and start looking for philosophies that justify it
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and they take elements from the thing they're reacting to and say the tactics they're doing work
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so we can do that so that's the reaction another is that this is a current that has been there
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the groypers are not new the alt-right was a conversation people were having 10 years ago
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as a concern 2014 15 16 17 it erupts at charlottesville president trump calls it out
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and it goes underground so it's been insinuating into the conservative movements ever since
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playing nice making friends fitting in filling positions short march into the institutions you
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might call it but that it's the continuation of the alt-right which is this alternative european
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style conservative philosophies that the right-wing philosophy is not conservative
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the anti-conservative that are now making their way into the north american continent very alien to us
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and then the third answer is foreign powers the enemies of america the enemies of the free world
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the enemies of canada i mean your prime minister now notwithstanding are very invested in splitting
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apart our countries to take over to destroy america the great satan as it's called you know here in
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the middle east by certain players the chinese regime has every incentive to try to break american
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and uh western hegemony in the world the russians besides the fact of wanting to get back on the
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world stage and always playing these kgp games have the insult of having lost the soviet union
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in revenge so there's a new axis rising around the world which i think sadly canada is now declaring
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allegiance to or your prime minister at least has there's a new axis rising and they want america to
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fail they want israel to fail they want western democracy to fail and so what will they do seed these
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movements the existing alt-right this growing reaction with the worst ideas possible to fragment
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everything to make everything worse to isolate people to set people who are friends as enemies now
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and to transform the world to their own advantage and they'll sweep in and pick up the spoils when
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things are broken so three sources reaction foreign interference and uh this long-running kind of
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existing movement of radical right-wing european style politics that's been hiding under the surface
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and is now trying to emerge you know tucker carlson who i think is the most respectable
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of the woke right he was a hero of mine for years i looked up to him i was delighted to be a guest on
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the show from time to time and i've seen him say i'm worried about sharia law i'm worried about radical
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islam conspiracy theories about 9-11 disrespect the victims that day like i saw him say reasonable
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national populist conservative things now he's saying 180 degrees the opposite
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was and i'm not asking you to read his mind and none of us can but what's your theory about how
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a great leader of conservative populism is now talking up in his own way maduro and promoting
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every anti-american tyranny says he hates christian zionists more than anything his daily newsletter
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is often 20 30 40 percent about jews in israel i just i mean i don't want to pretend he was a close
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friend but i admired him how did he do a 180 you know i would like to know i don't know you mentioned
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you know some of his new alliances he's just they came out just the other day i saw it it's all in
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arabic that he's going to be speaking at the kingdom of saudi arabia's 2030 conference coming
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up soon with some new company you know unexpected characters like john kerry and hillary clinton
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are on uh the docket alongside him which is a you know interesting company for him to be keeping
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and again in saudi arabia of all places as well for a 2030 agenda beyond that but no i don't know if
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this is how far back this goes i know he has a different political philosophy i don't know how much
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of an opportunist that he's been over the years in 2019 he was already talking about post-liberal
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economic policies agreeing with many in many respects openly it was a controversy at the
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beginning of 19 with elizabeth warren with her so-called accountable capitalism act that she had
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put forth at the end of the previous year that caused a stir he's had this paleo conservative leaning
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for a while but for some reason in the past three to four years i think it's a little longer than
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just since october 7th or just in the last year or so he's been trending more and more in that
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direction he's been interviewing characters like on stage got he taught brought up that his
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interview with uh his infamous interview with with uh daryl cooper who is you know a david irving style
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historical revisionist nazi apologist and in truth um to forward the idea that perhaps we've
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misunderstood world war ii and the the who the good guys and bad guys were as though there weren't
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as though it's not a pretty clear moral question to answer and he that that kind of was a this
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big signal flare that he's now taking this other direction there's i don't know i don't know i don't
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know what what degree he's he's emboldened by his new friends i don't know what degree this is a long
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running agenda the text messages previously came out that he was not a fan of trump he wished trump
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would go away i think he believes i guess i guess he believes i'm guessing that maga represents
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the post obama opportunity for a paleo conservative rise not to have done so maga stole his thunder
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he does like this uh different economics accountable capitalism common good economics whatever they call
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it i don't know how much of it's that i don't know how much of it's um rank opportunism i don't know
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how much of it is just once these are weird roads when you take the anti-semitic road
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it's a very one-way street it's very it's not impossible forgiveness is all it's very hard to
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come back so you go this way you interview daryl cooper what do you say next do you say i'm sorry
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do you back down what do you do and there are things that are very hard to come back from so it's like
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uh the the old metaphors crossing the rubicon so when he interviewed daryl cooper did he cross the
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rubicon if so he has one direction to go only which is forward either to victory or defeat and i feel
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like there's an element of that he just has gone past where he can easily come back maybe there's
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other motivations for why maybe it's personal maybe he's made a mistake but it's hard to come back so
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that's i think an element in this as well uh but he certainly in my opinion crossed the rubicon if he
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didn't with daryl cooper once he interviewed nick fuentes charlie's mortal enemy um after charlie's death
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uh which by the way that interview came out while i flew home from israel last time it came out while
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i was on the plane flying like what is this on an el al aircraft i mean what is this you know and so
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once you've crossed these lines it's very difficult to come back but maybe he wants to go that way
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maybe he's stuck going this way maybe there are other forces compelling him to go this way but it i don't
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know how he actually comes back so what is there otherwise to do but now go to a conference with
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hillary clinton and make new friends you know i'm jewish myself and so i want to make sure my
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thinking about anti-semitism isn't just a personal reaction and so sometimes i think okay let's
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substitute anti-black racism for example the use of the n word like that word is so powerful
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that if someone says it at least i change my view of who they are
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because it is freighted with so many things that it implies and so there's a social pressure
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in polite company you wouldn't say that maybe you would secretly sneakily say it but you would never
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say the n word loud and proud and and that's what i think i mean anti-semitism i think was sort of the
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same thing you would be very cautious about it because it would keep you out of certain circles i mean
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but i think that taboo is being smashed to pieces partly because of social media um ironically the
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best thing that's happened the last few years elon musk freeing twitter has also enabled people to do
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things and comedians i think are doing it because they love breaking taboos and this one is safer than
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going after islam but that's the thing once you've broken that taboo can someone can someone else come
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back i think i see lots of young conservatives maybe who i consorted with in recent years
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and whether it's for attention or clicks or to seem edgy they're they're tiptoeing into saying the n-word
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so to speak but about jews and literally i feel like they are burning bridges because they're doing
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something that's not just immoral it's dumb it it violates conservative principles of take personal
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responsibility for your life don't just blame everything on the jews don't judge people
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collectively well the jews did like there's there's a lot of reasons being anti-semitic can be
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tempting this cosmic enemy that caused all your problems like there's a lot of reasons people
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indulge in it but i'm worried can it can they come back i hope so so i'm going to say two things but
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the first of the two is like i think it's like this is a weird metaphor and it's it's easier if we had a
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visual but you know sometimes when you're you have the little wand and you're taking your kids to
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blow bubbles for the first of the soap bubbles right and it stretches and it stretches and it
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stretches and then it breaks off and it's a it's an orb in the air right so right now it's stretching
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and stretching and stretching and they're in the tunnel and they can come back far enough or it can
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detach and they're stuck right so you go too far in this road you want to play the edge game
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you go too far eventually the bubble detaches you're trapped in the bubble and what does a
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soap bubble do is it floats through the air for a while and then it bursts and it's over so you
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don't want to be stuck in the bubble i wish a lot more young people would realize this is the dynamic
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they're in but let me steel man their position i'm always trying to be as fair to my adversaries
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and their views as possible i wish to honestly maybe it's a little bit of an intellectual flex i want
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to know it better than they do and then i want to show them i know it better than they do and i'm very
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proud of all the things that i think that happened one of the things i'm most proud of and it happened
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recently at yale i spoke at yale and it happened people come up to me and they'll say i'm trans or
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i'm a communist and i thought you were going to be a demagogue i thought you're a blowhard
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i disagree with you but you represented my views correctly i think that's important so let me steel
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man the situation they're in with why this edginess is so popular and i call this i have a name for this
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this is pretty deep actually i'm excited because i got it from a friend so i can say it's deep it's not me
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it's called the politics of the third rail so when you have a word like the n-word is a great
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example you brought up or anti-semitism and you said within polite society there's taboos you'd be
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create there's there's there's a core where you must not and should not and cannot go because it's evil
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because it's wrong because it's moral uh confusion and and and failure and just unnecessary and then you
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have this halo around it so for example a few years back in the woke madness there was a professor i
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think he's at usc he's a communications professor and he's teaching his communications 300 level class
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over zoom is during covet years teaching them if you communicate with a chinese businessman you are
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going to encounter a very common phrase in mandarin which means um or here in hebrew em yeah it's the
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it's it's the filler word it's when you can't think of it well in chinese they're very literal in some
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ways so it literally means inside thing nega nega so you'll talk to a chinese and they'll say
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something in mandarin nega nega nega ezra you know they'll try to remember your name nega nega
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someone thought i remember this story someone thought that was the n-word well he was explaining
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that it wasn't yeah do not think that that's what it is right you might be as a communications class
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and somebody watching the video said he used something close enough and it was offensive and he lost
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his job right i remember that this is what i'm saying with a third rail politic there are perfectly
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reasonable things to do for example if you were quoting directly to make a historical point from
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huckleberry finn and the n-word's there and you say it that's called the mention of the word not the use
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of the word you didn't declare it loudly and proudly right you you used it historically accurately
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goodbye reading from a text that's perfectly valid we all know that's perfectly valid but there's
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been a grievance mongering around it like the nega nega experience from mandarin that was not valid
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and so in this space there have been censorship and control of things that are ridiculous and the
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left excels at creating this third rail space and what's happening is these edgy people are stepping
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into that space not responsibly not with clarity and not following leaders with clarity
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but irresponsibly recklessly and following not just fools but actual demagogues so i so they have the
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instinct of i want to rebel i want to break taboos i want to tell the censors to hell with you i want
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to defy i want to be a rebel but they're not being thoughtful about it there is what is that a summary of
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what you're saying a little bit that's a little bit it's a little more important how this works which is
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that there is an illegitimate taboo that they want to break that transitions into a legitimate taboo
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and they don't know the boundary right you know you've been very generous with your time and you're
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in such high demand here everyone wants to buttonhole you but i i have one interesting observation i think
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it's interesting in the last couple of days i've seen a couple of people who've been part of this woke
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right maybe take a step back kanye west published a full-page apology in the wall street journal where he
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said look i was a little i was off my meds basically he said please i i wasn't myself and i i think there
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was some honesty there i think there was from the heart and i mean i could be wrong but it felt
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meaningful and i see andrew tate who i think has been one of the worst i i feel like he think things
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went too far when he was in that van going to a nightclub in miami and they were all playing
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the kanye song heil hitler and and they all got banned from all the clubs in miami and i think it
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was the real world coming into the internet world and he's recently been saying and jews aren't the
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universal problem don't always talk about jews and like i see sort of he i sense that he feels like he
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went too far on the jew thing so i feel like some of them are are getting a bit of buyer's remorse
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and i'm part of me hopes that other young would-be andrew tates or kanye west are saying
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maybe i won't go full in anti-semitism i don't know yeah do you have any thoughts on those two
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small observations about kanye west and andrew tate maybe blinking a bit well i mean i think it's
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a fair observation that kanye may really well have been off his meds and that this is a mental issue
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but what would you do if somebody has a visibly known mental issue you have compassion you have
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understanding you can have forgiveness but you also recognize you're still dealing with a crazy
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person so you don't put them up in a position of authority you don't hold them up as an icon
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he's a singer and i think he was built into something much more right you must understand
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what these people are and what they represented that he's a wonderful singer i mean i the thing is
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he transformed his personal capital from great songs into political capital and that's sort of
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what tucker did he took 30 years of building up capital with the american viewer and now he's
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saying i'm going to draw down my personal capital with tens of millions of people
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and try and persuade i mean in their own way they did the same thing they were famous for this
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they wanted to capitalize that and do that so look some people are acting in good faith or so they
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think and making mistakes that's error other people are acting in bad faith and that's malice
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the difficult part for us is telling the difference between error which we forgive and we welcome
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people back and help them get on the right course and we welcome their friendship and allyship
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afterwards and then there's malice so i don't trust and your take flat flat statement i don't trust him
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i think he's a bad faith act i think he's a lot of bad things i think he's covering his ass i think
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nick fuentes is doing the same thing he's covering his ass we have a synagogue that got burned down in
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jackson mississippi the most well the only one jackson but the most historic oldest synagogue in
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mississippi burned down by all appearances the character likely followed some of what nick fuentes
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said if he wasn't a griper outright terrible thing that happens he's finally getting the jews calls it the
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synagogue of satan which is not something that uh you know nick says as much as candace but he's in
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this right wing edgy orbit clearly and his influencers and there's a moment now where i mean we even see
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democrats hedging back from this where it's time to start to back away from this ledge and some of
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that will be people realizing they made mistakes and this is our challenge good people have this
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challenge so much but there are bad faith actors who are saving their ass to have the next narrative
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so they can push the next one and get away with it again and so we have to the same thing if kanye's
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crazy maybe he is maybe he's not but if he's crazy we remember that he's crazy in dealing with him in the
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future if people have led us in a wicked road we also must remember that they've been wicked
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and so trust is earned and trust is earned slowly you can destroy trust in an instant as you said
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with people who use the n-word but it's earned back slowly we can't be so in a hurry to have a big
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platformed ally or a powerful friend to say you know what everything's fine come on back in
00:24:50.100
when the wolf is laughing from under his sheep's clothing we've got to be discerning we've got to
00:24:55.040
we've got to make those that have acted wickedly hard to discern we have to they have to go through
00:25:01.620
true penance or be left out you know i could talk to you for hours but i can't do that here it's great
00:25:08.540
to see you i hope to see you in canon again we love it when you visit there and thanks for coming on
00:25:12.940
my show from time to time too yeah anytime nice to see you cheers
00:25:17.020
some of america's leading thinkers have come here to jerusalem for the conference
00:25:25.080
on anti-semitism one of them is dinesh d'souza author filmmaker and uh i'd say public intellectual
00:25:32.440
great to see you thanks for taking some time ezra great to see you again and it's a pleasure to be here
00:25:36.640
now why would you come here uh you're not jewish yourself you in you historically have have talked
00:25:42.860
about other issues for example the democrats and the history of the democrats and slavery even maga
00:25:49.400
why are you interested in anti-semitism i made a movie about uh not anti-semitism but what about
00:25:56.140
israel hamas radical islam and the bible uh the film was a bit of a departure for me in that
00:26:02.960
my earlier films have all been in one way or another about the meaning of america
00:26:06.880
this one um connects the um issue of biblical archaeology ultimately the argument is over whose
00:26:17.660
land is it that's where the archaeology comes in uh politics but also a hint of biblical prophecy
00:26:24.160
so it turns out it's a topic that's been on my mind the other issue that's developed is the
00:26:32.440
schism on the right over israel and uh and to me it's very dismaying because with the emergence of
00:26:41.700
the red green alliance uh you have two groups the left and the radical muslims they don't have that
00:26:51.500
much in common but they're united by a common hatred toward jews and christians toward america toward the west
00:26:59.500
toward israel and uh so it seems quite obvious that jews and christians should come closer together
00:27:06.380
america and israel should draw closer together to uh repel this threat which and yet you've got
00:27:15.700
prominent figures on our side of the eye on the right who are um driving a wedge
00:27:22.360
both theological and political and uh this is in a sense territory that interests me a lot
00:27:29.620
uh arguments about replacement theology for example arguments about whether israel is a friend or an
00:27:36.380
enemy to the united states and so i decided pretty early on to try to be outspoken in the debate and
00:27:44.140
take a strong position against the sort of tucker candises of the world and that's tough to do
00:27:51.820
in some ways because they're so large they have very large audiences and there's been a sort of
00:27:58.280
harmony on the right for a while and this was this feels like if not on the grassroots it feels like
00:28:04.580
at least online it's a kind of civil war which are the worst wars fighting against someone who was your
00:28:09.740
friend 10 minutes ago is very difficult emotionally it's almost like a divorce isn't it well initially it
00:28:17.040
seemed to me that the debate was over israel and jewish influence in american politics once tucker began
00:28:26.200
to migrate further out defend uh you know maduro in venezuela talk about the benefits of sharia law
00:28:35.160
make some sympathetic comments toward toward hamas one time he talked about apologizing to bin laden
00:28:41.940
it's pretty clear that this guy has gone off the reservation and so i actually feel much more
00:28:51.400
comfortable in opposing this whole movement ideologically uh and i'm doing so in the sense
00:29:00.580
that i think the effect of it is very harmful and destructive to the maga movement to trump
00:29:06.660
um certainly to the republican party as we've known it since the reagan days uh and so and the other
00:29:14.400
thing about it that's to me very strange uh is that tucker for example is now developed a curious new
00:29:21.980
interest in theology not a topic that interested him at all but it appears to be motivated by a desire to
00:29:28.060
drive a wedge uh between israel and the evangelical community he says he hates christian scientists more
00:29:33.720
than anyone in the world he said that right and he also says things like well this is the oldest
00:29:37.860
heresy in christianity well i mean christian history is a topic of interest to me i mean i know about the
00:29:43.480
various heresies the manichaeans and so on christian zionism is not on the list so when you have this kind
00:29:51.380
of um strange um doctrinaire pronouncements by a guy who's manifestly ill-informed on the topic
00:30:01.520
something insidious is afoot uh and for this reason i think it's not a time to ignore it right
00:30:07.920
and we don't know if if he's being we know he's making a lot of money from from his subscriptions
00:30:14.820
and there was at least one registration with the foreign agent uh registration act um that qatar paid
00:30:22.980
two hundred thousand dollars to get their prime minister on a show i don't think we have any evidence
00:30:28.020
at least and he seems to deny that he's being paid to say these things i was talking earlier to dr
00:30:35.040
james lindsay who suggests some of these ideas were always with him but i think some of them are very
00:30:39.680
new and it just it's so opposite to what he used to say it feels like it's bought and paid for i know
00:30:45.100
that that i'm impugning his motives but i can't think of any other motive how can you do a 180
00:30:50.660
on radical islam sharia law on islamic dictatorships i just like he's being radicalized either
00:30:59.700
ideologically or financially but something's happened there the financial motive doesn't make sense to
00:31:06.860
me not to me i mean he's a rich guy yeah exactly and he and he has a big enough following he doesn't
00:31:11.720
need it right and and also he has gone so um he's veered so far off no one in the mainstream of the
00:31:22.920
republican party can endorse this even the gripers will not defend the particularity of tucker's
00:31:29.320
positions they'll say things like tucker has a right to say it but that's a whole different thing
00:31:34.540
from saying that tucker's right on sharia so to me tucker is um taking far too much risk with his
00:31:44.880
own future and his own career to be worth some kind of payoff from qatar i don't i don't really i think
00:31:53.020
you're right yeah it's and it but it's just so radical i mean it's almost like he's platforming
00:31:59.520
each of america's international enemies now too that's it yeah the the fact that he was willing to
00:32:06.460
go to the extent of churchill is the bad guy in world war ii and tucker interestingly he's very
00:32:14.020
selective in his guests his guests he practices what i would call ventriloquist journalism he he doesn't
00:32:23.580
have people on who challenge him he has people on who say what he wants them to say and what he
00:32:31.020
knows they're going to say but he pretends like he doesn't know and so he feigns astonishment like
00:32:37.840
wow this is a mind-blowing insight uh and and uh and he coaches the viewer how to respond wow that's
00:32:46.800
amazing i haven't heard that that's been covered up before right we're the only people who are brave enough
00:32:51.360
to say it right it's a kind of a shtick and it it travels it makes headway with people because it is
00:32:58.760
camouflaged as a certain type of open-mindedness and so i run into mainstream republicans all the time
00:33:05.760
and their view is what happened to tucker you know part of it is that they were fans of the old
00:33:10.800
tucker me too yeah and they they can't grasp the fact that he has metamorphosed into a completely
00:33:17.420
different creature and my view is look you can be on board with the old tucker and get off the bus
00:33:24.920
when it comes to the new tucker i don't want to get too political i really admire donald trump and
00:33:30.800
that's tough to say as a canadian because he's always sparring with us but he has hosted tucker in
00:33:36.000
the white house as recently as a couple weeks ago now perhaps trump is not extremely online i mean he
00:33:43.560
tweets but i don't think he spends his day scrolling on the phone trump is busy trying to fix america
00:33:48.720
and save the world but tucker still obviously has access to the highest heights and there are some
00:33:54.520
who say he's close with the vice president his son works for the vice president are you worried about
00:34:00.980
any of that i mean i know that you are a very strong republican strong maga what do you make of the fact
00:34:06.500
that tucker's still very welcome in the heart of power yes that's true i am concerned about tucker's
00:34:14.120
aspirations with jd vance i think tucker's view is that i'm not going to get trump um i if i can get
00:34:25.020
heritage and if i can get turning point usa and if i can put vance in my back pocket i will have
00:34:33.660
tremendous leverage on the republican party post trump that is a real issue now with trump
00:34:43.320
why is it the strange thing about him is that his instincts are conservative but he is not ideological
00:34:49.560
trump is transactional um and trump thinks of himself as the ceo of um the um united states of
00:35:02.080
america llc and um and for trump when he encounters some kind of an ideological debate he always backs
00:35:11.200
away from it and he tends to reinterpret it in the form of personal loyalty what can you do for me
00:35:22.860
versus what i can do for you and i think if you wanted to poison trump's affection for tucker you don't
00:35:32.160
go to trump and say tucker's wrong on maduro what you say to trump is tucker has been bad-mouthing the guy
00:35:42.300
that you endorsed in florida that will infuriate trump and um and i think ultimately trump will break
00:35:51.240
away from tucker based based on the fact that tucker is becoming increasingly hostile to core
00:35:59.020
institutions in the republican party but trump sees that uh you know this is going to affect
00:36:05.880
evangelical christians this is going to affect groups that he cares about and he needs
00:36:11.600
and even the jews have moved in in some direction towards trump especially in the last two years
00:36:18.800
to break the jews off from the republican party i don't think that's a net positive demographically
00:36:25.140
or voter and certainly not financially no and i think this is actually where the the online world
00:36:31.240
and the rank and file mainstream of the republican party are two different animals you know you'll
00:36:38.140
sometimes see people sort of inch and others they'll be like you know trump is alienating alienating his base
00:36:44.580
and i'm like no trump's base is not the guys who are active on x trump's base is like the federation
00:36:54.540
of republican women these are old ladies and hats who go door to door at election time and uh and that's
00:37:03.140
the rank and file republican that that base is not is undisturbed by tucker and candace they still have
00:37:09.380
a certain measure of affection for those two but they would not be on board with the itemized list
00:37:15.160
of where they stand today well i'd say i really appreciate your insight here i don't want to
00:37:20.680
monopolize you i know you're very popular with the crowd here tell our viewers in closing what your new
00:37:25.800
projects are or the best way to follow you if they want to hear more from you follow me on x at
00:37:32.340
dinesh d'Souza my latest film is called the dragon's prophecy it's about uh israel hamas radical islam
00:37:39.220
in the bible where can they get that film it's now on amazon uh it's on uh itunes apple oh great
00:37:45.680
and uh the website is the dragons prophecy film.com so you can stream it you can buy dvds
00:37:52.580
um and um and it's uh it's a very timely film and it's a little different than the other films i've
00:37:58.600
made before i haven't seen it yet but you got me really interested especially if there's that
00:38:02.580
biblical layer there absolutely the um the film is a bit of a foray into also biblical archaeology
00:38:09.540
which bears on the question of you know whose ancestral homeland is this um it's not the only
00:38:17.140
way you establish the title deeds to a country but my argument is that generally if you look at the
00:38:23.040
map of the world you can get title deeds for a country in one of three ways one you were there first
00:38:30.120
uh you're the original inhabitants two you got it by some treaty or negotiation three you got it by
00:38:36.660
conquest i can't think of a map that's been drawn not based on one of these three and the beauty with
00:38:41.920
israel is it checks all three boxes the jews were here first they got it from the un after world war ii
00:38:47.880
and they fought a bunch of wars 48 67 73 right to hold the land so i think that the claim of the jews to
00:38:57.520
israel is perhaps stronger than it's certainly stronger than the claim of the white man to be
00:39:03.160
in america because of course the american indians were there first so arguably the american indians
00:39:08.720
have it by ancestry now the white man has it by conquest so it's a disputed claim but in the case
00:39:15.540
of israel there's no dispute amazing well i look forward to watching that film thanks very much for
00:39:20.300
all your time today pleasure good to see you nice to see you ezra levant here along with abhi amini i'm
00:39:27.120
in jerusalem for an international conference of leaders against anti-semitism to follow all of