The Auron MacIntyre Show - Analyzing the Ted Cruz vs. Tucker Carlson Debate

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00:00:30.000 Hey, everybody. How's it going?

00:00:31.720 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.

00:00:33.460 I am Oren McIntyre.

00:00:35.840 So a few days ago, Ted Cruz appeared for a very long,

00:00:40.140 involved interview with Tucker Carlson.

00:00:42.980 And it was very contentious.

00:00:46.300 These guys really went at it in a very important way, I think.

00:00:51.000 I would say that both of them had some moments that were not their finest.

00:00:56.340 They didn't always treat each other well,

00:00:58.300 but they really were very passionate about their positions.

00:01:02.260 And the good part about passionate positions is that they will often reveal important things.

00:01:08.020 Now, you've probably seen some clips from this interview already.

00:01:11.620 It's made its rounds, and some of them are pretty bombastic.

00:01:16.820 Most people focused originally on Ted Cruz not knowing some pretty basic facts

00:01:21.820 about the country that he would like to do regime change on, Iran.

00:01:27.400 He didn't know the population.

00:01:28.820 He didn't know any of the ethnic breakdowns and anything.

00:01:31.660 Some of that's been portrayed as a gotcha,

00:01:34.400 though I think it's fair that if you're someone who is saying,

00:01:38.160 we need to go in, we need to change this regime,

00:01:40.120 we need to take some kind of serious action,

00:01:42.720 you should have a few of those basic facts under your belt.

00:01:45.960 Maybe you don't know exactly the population.

00:01:47.880 Maybe you don't know exactly the ethnic makeup,

00:01:50.280 but you can ballpark it, right?

00:01:51.620 That seems pretty important.

00:01:53.920 That said, I didn't focus on that in this show

00:01:57.920 because first, I think the problems there are pretty obvious.

00:02:02.340 And also, I think there are more important issues hidden inside this.

00:02:06.980 Not that that doesn't matter.

00:02:08.200 The fact that Cruz didn't know those things is important.

00:02:12.240 But this is a two-hour interview.

00:02:14.020 Obviously, we're just not going to be able to watch the whole thing today

00:02:17.540 in our usually hour-long episode.

00:02:20.280 But I tried to go ahead and cut out some important things to highlight.

00:02:25.840 I'll bring in some of the things that happened during the interview.

00:02:28.960 But I encourage you to watch the whole thing.

00:02:31.120 It's very good and I think very important, very timely in this moment.

00:02:35.280 But we won't be able to watch every clip.

00:02:38.020 So we'll just have to comment on what we can get to now.

00:02:41.520 And like I said, I selected some things that I think are overall more important.

00:02:45.000 Though, again, the whole thing is well worth watching.

00:02:48.220 So that said, let's dive in here.

00:02:50.640 And I'll just stop and add some commentary as we need to.

00:02:54.060 But can you feel the frustration of people, including your voters, every American,

00:03:00.900 at the emphasis on foreign countries and the threat we supposedly face,

00:03:05.600 a lot of which is fake, obviously,

00:03:08.020 over the kind of slowly unfolding tragedy of what's happening to our country?

00:03:14.540 The dollar spent, the aid packages to Ukraine to pay the retirement of civil servants in a country

00:03:22.680 that we have nothing to do with, the endless support for Israel, very expensive.

00:03:29.200 When people are literally buying groceries on credit in the United States,

00:03:33.200 can you feel like nothing against Ukraine or Israel or any other country?

00:03:35.980 So here, Tucker, is just explaining a feeling that I think is growing more and more in the country.

00:03:43.520 People are very tired of being told that we can't solve problems at home,

00:03:48.880 but we do have to solve problems overseas.

00:03:51.960 And the thing to remember, of course, is that America having internal problems

00:03:56.160 doesn't mean that the world disappears, obviously.

00:03:58.780 And so we can't just completely cloister ourselves here in the United States

00:04:04.060 and only focus on what's happening here.

00:04:06.160 But it's hard to avoid the fact that our government regularly basically leaves massive

00:04:12.660 and really important problems completely untouched in the United States

00:04:17.160 while telling us that we have to go find money to do everything else.

00:04:20.760 We don't have money to build a border wall.

00:04:22.700 We don't have money for deportations.

00:04:24.780 We don't have money for taking care of American veterans.

00:04:29.420 We don't have money for a lot of things that are really critical.

00:04:33.320 However, we always have money to rebuild the, you know, as Tucker pointed out,

00:04:39.120 the pensions of Ukrainian bureaucrats, right?

00:04:42.560 We seem to have infinite money for Vladimir Zelensky,

00:04:46.540 which Ted Cruz totally supported.

00:04:49.020 And we seem to have lots of money to help out Israel whenever they need it.

00:04:53.040 And this is just something people are very tired of.

00:04:56.640 They're very frustrated.

00:04:57.600 They look inwardly at crumbling infrastructure inside the United States,

00:05:01.900 the fact that we aren't funding critical things like mental health or other issues.

00:05:06.420 And yet, ultimately, we seem to continuously have money to involve ourselves in foreign conflicts.

00:05:12.760 Again, that doesn't mean that there's just never a foreign conflict you shouldn't involve yourself in.

00:05:17.500 It doesn't mean that you shouldn't take action abroad when necessary.

00:05:21.900 But it does become difficult when every time there's a foreign conflict anywhere,

00:05:27.160 we suddenly discover all this money that we can put towards these issues,

00:05:31.560 all this focus, all this effort.

00:05:33.740 But when it comes to the United States, we just never seem to have the dollars to scrape together.

00:05:39.700 The support for Israel, very expensive.

00:05:41.960 How much support do we give to Israel?

00:05:44.100 Well, you tell me.

00:05:44.780 You vote for it.

00:05:45.340 Yeah, it's about $3 billion a year is the military assistance.

00:05:47.600 Is that the only assistance?

00:05:48.940 Yeah, we just have military assistance.

00:05:50.760 Israel does not have additional assistance.

00:05:53.020 There's an MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding, and it's $3 billion a year.

00:05:56.560 So what is it costing to support the bombing campaign to protect Israel right now?

00:06:02.600 So Tucker sees the trick here, right?

00:06:06.120 Well, there's only $3 billion to go to Israel.

00:06:09.440 First, $3 billion too much.

00:06:11.160 And I don't just say that for Israel.

00:06:12.580 I don't think we should be sending any foreign aid to any country right now.

00:06:16.320 The United States has too many problems.

00:06:19.040 We are in a giant fiscal crisis.

00:06:21.620 Guys like Ted Cruz tell us endlessly about how important it is to keep our eye on the budget and work against our debt.

00:06:29.380 And every bit helps.

00:06:31.260 I understand that ultimately the $3 billion going to Israel is much smaller than the things driving most of the debt, like entitlement programs.

00:06:39.440 But if you're serious about paying down your debt, if you've ever listened to Dave Ramsey and he tells you to pay down the debt, the first thing he tells you to do is cut those fast food trips.

00:06:49.860 Cut those little expenses.

00:06:51.800 The big stuff is harder to cut, and you might need to cut it.

00:06:54.340 But the little stuff, if you're not willing to cut that, you're not going to cut anything.

00:06:58.660 And so if you're actually worried about the debt, if you actually think we're heading toward a fiscal crisis, which, again, guys like Ted Cruz go on about endlessly, you're going to take action on these kind of things.

00:07:08.940 But we're not taking action on those things.

00:07:11.740 Tucker also points out correctly that, well, okay, there's $3 billion earmarked every year to go to Israel.

00:07:18.440 But what about the money we spend kind of acting as their bodyguard, right?

00:07:24.340 Like something happens in the Middle East.

00:07:26.520 We start deploying troops.

00:07:28.000 We start sending our boats over there.

00:07:29.640 We start preparing.

00:07:30.600 We start giving military assistance and aid and training and all kinds of stuff.

00:07:35.740 What is that costing us?

00:07:36.900 Is that part of the $3 billion?

00:07:38.360 No, as Ted Cruz is going to go into here.

00:07:40.320 And so all of a sudden, it's $3 billion plus whatever money we're spending in addition with military deployments and everything else.

00:07:48.460 So we don't have any hard numbers.

00:07:50.900 There's not real accountability as to how much money is going to this nation.

00:07:54.800 Now, we give money, again, to many nations.

00:07:57.120 If you take all of our foreign aid budget, it's going to be more than we give to Israel or probably even spend with the deployments and everything else.

00:08:03.740 But the question is, I think, a valid one, and the fact that deployments and other actions aren't folded into that budget item every year isn't being accounted for when he gives this answer.

00:08:14.940 From Iran.

00:08:15.940 So I don't know right now, but I'll tell you this.

00:08:18.920 Let's go back to the touchstone on foreign policy, American interest.

00:08:23.320 Our support, our military support for Israel is massively in America's national security interest, and it benefits us enormously.

00:08:31.200 Well, before we can make independent judgments about whether or not that's true, and I'm certainly open to it, I think we need to know what it costs.

00:08:38.060 So what's the annual?

00:08:39.580 So, again, Ted Cruz's justification for the money we spend with Israel and the things that we give them is that ultimately we get big benefits from Israel being our close ally.

00:08:53.960 Anyway, he'll go into a little bit of the benefits there, but, you know, first, you know, are you sure, right?

00:09:02.480 Like, again, maybe Israel does give us some help, but it costs us a lot to be Israel's ally and not just in the money we're spending, right?

00:09:11.820 We engender a lot of anger towards us because of our defense of Israel, our participation in Israel.

00:09:20.080 Now, you might say, Oren, we should do that no matter what.

00:09:23.520 It doesn't matter.

00:09:24.420 You know, we shouldn't be cowed by any of these Arab countries that hate Israel.

00:09:28.660 We should do what we're going to do.

00:09:30.060 And fair enough, but you can't tell me that's not a cost, right?

00:09:33.920 So when we're talking about the cost of what it is, you know, when we're supporting Israel, it's not just the money directly going to Israel.

00:09:41.000 It's not even just the money going directly to military deployments and these things.

00:09:44.860 It's all the money we have to spend to keep the rest of the Middle East stabilized.

00:09:48.200 It's all the money we have to spend against terror attacks from people who hate us because of our involvement in the Middle East and Israel.

00:09:54.820 And, again, I'm not saying that you just you never take military action because it will make someone angry at you.

00:10:00.040 Of course, military action at some points are necessary.

00:10:03.840 And, of course, military action is always going to anger somebody.

00:10:06.400 So it's not in and of itself enough to say yes or no, we do this.

00:10:10.780 But ultimately, you have to factor that in.

00:10:13.140 And when you balance what we're getting from Israel and what we are spending for Israel, you have to take that.

00:10:20.740 If your actual goal is, as Ted Cruz stated, caring about what America gets, putting America first, making that your first priority.

00:10:30.040 If that really is your first priority, then obviously you should be thinking not just about that immediate dollar sign, how much is going across to the Israeli government or even the troop deployments.

00:10:41.380 But what is this costing us with, you know, the blood of our troops, the mental health of the people who are being deployed?

00:10:48.480 What is it costing us with the attitudes that we get, the diplomatic relations we get from the Middle East?

00:10:54.720 What does it cost us oil price wise?

00:10:57.080 What does it cost us?

00:10:57.920 All of these things.

00:10:58.680 All of these things matter.

00:11:00.080 Not any one of them is sufficient to say yes or no, but it is a holistic understanding of what our involvement with Israel ends up costing versus the benefits.

00:11:09.920 The cost of defending Israel, do you know?

00:11:11.820 Three billion a year.

00:11:12.760 No, no, no.

00:11:13.080 That's the aid.

00:11:14.140 But, I mean, the cost of the weapons, for example, the cost of U.S. personnel there, the cost of moving ships to the region, which we're doing right now, the cost of moving tankers to the region, all of that.

00:11:25.300 Do we know what the cost is?

00:11:26.140 So, look, the last week, I don't know.

00:11:28.180 And there's some lag when the administration on the Constitution, the commander in chief, has control of the armed forces.

00:11:33.700 And so President Trump has made some decisions that will know the cost over time.

00:11:38.380 But I don't know the last week.

00:11:40.120 That, that, I don't have visibility on that.

00:11:43.100 The annual.

00:11:43.580 So, basically, the point is, he just doesn't know, right?

00:11:46.960 Like, and that's the great thing about having a lot of that money being tied up in military spending.

00:11:52.020 Often military appropriations have a certain level of secrecy.

00:11:55.080 The way that the money is spent is open-ended.

00:11:57.540 We don't get immediate numbers.

00:11:58.700 And so, like, none of this gets tacked on.

00:12:00.680 So, the raw budget item of $3 billion is the minimum we're going to spend to help Israel.

00:12:08.160 But it's in no way the maximum, right?

00:12:10.620 We clearly spend much more than that on a pretty regular basis.

00:12:13.840 And because so much of it is tied up in the defense, you know, industry and in the defense department, we don't know.

00:12:22.460 We can't account for it all.

00:12:23.640 The annual cost is $3 billion.

00:12:25.320 That's, that's, it's a 10-year memorandum of understanding.

00:12:27.840 And that's, that's the principal driver of the cost.

00:12:30.060 But let me make a point.

00:12:31.020 We get massive benefits from Israel.

00:12:34.940 Israel shares the Mossad as one of the best intelligence sources on the planet.

00:12:39.920 The enemies of Israel, the people who hate Israel, they all hate us.

00:12:44.140 It's almost a perfect overlap.

00:12:46.460 And so, if we tried to recreate, if we're just trying to defend America, we tried to recreate the national security benefits of our alliance with Israel, it would cost, I don't know, $30 billion, $300 billion.

00:12:58.320 So, can you elaborate?

00:13:00.080 So, there's a huge problem here.

00:13:02.120 So, first, okay, Mossad gives us intelligence.

00:13:05.040 That's good.

00:13:05.580 That is a real benefit, right, ultimately.

00:13:07.700 However, there's a problem.

00:13:09.180 Mossad is not loyal to us, right?

00:13:11.400 So, maybe they get intelligence or they share it with us.

00:13:14.620 That's important.

00:13:15.520 Maybe they get intelligence that's important and they don't share it with us.

00:13:18.240 We just don't know.

00:13:19.540 We have no idea what's going in and out of the intelligence agency.

00:13:23.060 And I'm not saying that we don't get benefits from it.

00:13:25.080 I'm sure we do.

00:13:26.380 But we do not know if Israel is giving us all the relevant intelligence.

00:13:30.080 We just aren't, you know, we aren't, they aren't under our control.

00:13:34.420 And so, we're not completely familiar with what is happening here.

00:13:37.760 And this has the old Machiavelli mercenary problem, right?

00:13:41.140 Like, paid mercenaries are always an issue because they're not loyal to you.

00:13:44.960 So, they tend to give you the things they want to give you.

00:13:48.180 They do a lot of bluster, you know, when they think it's going to cost them very little.

00:13:52.600 They'll fight battles when they think that they're, you know, not going to lose much.

00:13:56.660 But when you really need something, when, you know, the, when everything really hits the fan, you can't trust mercenaries.

00:14:04.220 Because ultimately, they don't work, or they work for you for pay, but they're not on your team.

00:14:10.240 They're not loyal directly to you.

00:14:12.160 And so, ultimately, when you really need them, they can easily falter.

00:14:16.540 The same is going to be true when you farm your intelligence out to a foreign actor.

00:14:21.120 Yes, you might be getting a technical, you know, deal on this, though I'm not necessarily sure that's true.

00:14:29.580 I don't know how you would quantify that exactly.

00:14:31.580 Like, what would it really cost us to replace the Mossad intelligence we get?

00:14:36.620 How do we put a number on that?

00:14:38.220 I'd like to try, because we're just kind of assuming that we can't.

00:14:42.160 But, you know, it's not just the dollar cost.

00:14:44.760 You're, you're, you're, by farming out portions of your intelligence operation, you're making yourself dependent on another country.

00:14:52.740 And you're making yourself vulnerable to possible manipulation or betrayal or, you know, just mistakes that they're making that you don't know about because it's not internal to you.

00:15:01.880 Maybe they're just screwing up an intelligence operation, but you don't know because you're not the one running it.

00:15:06.720 And so, the information you're getting ends up being unreliable.

00:15:09.520 We just don't have control of this whole process.

00:15:11.860 And so, the same way we shouldn't wait for, I don't know, England or someone to defend our country, we shouldn't make England like a key part of our national defense just because we're allies.

00:15:23.080 We shouldn't make Israel an indispensable part of our intelligence operation, if they even are.

00:15:29.100 So, you know, Ted says we're getting a benefit here.

00:15:31.460 I believe him to some extent.

00:15:32.860 I'm sure we're getting intelligence from the Mossad, and I'm sure they're very good at what they do.

00:15:36.560 They are internationally renowned as operators at a certain level.

00:15:40.600 But they're not ours.

00:15:42.180 It's an external force that sometimes might work to our benefit, but ultimately is not and can't be, by definition, loyal, first and foremost, to the United States.

00:15:54.660 It doesn't mean you can't receive some benefit.

00:15:57.000 It doesn't mean you can't work together at some capacity.

00:15:58.880 But if this is some, like, critical part of our intelligence operation that we just don't own, and that means we have to keep supporting Israel no matter what, well, that's a failure.

00:16:08.740 That's a huge failure for our sovereignty, and we need to fix that problem.

00:16:12.440 And, again, I'm going into this as someone who's always liked Israel and still does.

00:16:17.400 But I also think at this point, given where we are, it's fair to ask rational questions about what the benefits are.

00:16:22.140 Good.

00:16:24.240 So does Mossad share all of its intelligence with us?

00:16:27.960 Oh, probably not, but they share a lot.

00:16:30.280 We don't share all of our intelligence with them, but we share a lot.

00:16:32.780 It's a close alliance.

00:16:33.660 So, Tucker echoes my concern here that, yeah, we might be getting some benefit, but it's a selective benefit, right?

00:16:40.840 We get to see what the Mossad shows us.

00:16:43.620 Now, again, that doesn't mean they have a malicious intent, but they are an intelligence organization.

00:16:49.580 Like, the purpose of intelligence organizations is to manipulate the information that your enemies receive.

00:16:55.880 That's a big part of their job.

00:16:57.860 It's very common for intelligence agencies, including ours, the CIA, to leak specific information to specific actors to create a specific perception.

00:17:06.940 Again, that's not like some specifically evil thing Mossad does.

00:17:10.680 That's just what intelligence operations do.

00:17:13.560 And so when you're reliant on a foreign intelligence operation, you just don't know what they're doing.

00:17:19.220 And that's what Tucker's pointing at here.

00:17:21.280 How do we know we're getting the whole story?

00:17:23.060 How do we know we're not getting selective intelligence?

00:17:25.780 We just don't.

00:17:27.860 Do we know we're going to spy domestically in the United States?

00:17:29.320 Oh, they probably do.

00:17:30.400 And we do as well.

00:17:31.340 And friends and allies spy on each other.

00:17:33.240 And I assume all of our allies spy on us.

00:17:35.960 And that's okay with you?

00:17:37.460 You know what?

00:17:38.260 One of the things about being a conservative is that you're not naive and utopian.

00:17:42.900 You don't think humans are all.

00:17:45.040 Part of the reason socialism doesn't work is the mantra from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs doesn't work.

00:17:52.380 As a conservative, I assume people act in their rational self-interest.

00:17:55.780 So it's conservative to pay people to spy on you?

00:17:58.220 So Ted gives a really terrible answer here.

00:18:01.820 And the reason it's really terrible is this.

00:18:03.700 Yes, it is a truth of statecraft that even friends and enemies are spying on each other.

00:18:10.040 Right?

00:18:10.340 That's going to be true.

00:18:12.280 Always.

00:18:13.340 That's just wise to have intelligence on everyone if you are operating as a nation and want to maintain your advantage.

00:18:21.200 And that includes your allies.

00:18:22.700 That said, as Ted has admitted here, Israel is a client state of the United States.

00:18:29.020 Right?

00:18:29.220 It gets payments from the United States.

00:18:31.380 It receives significant military and diplomatic and intelligence benefits from the United States.

00:18:38.260 So you have a lot of leverage with Israel that you wouldn't have with, you know, some other country that's an ally like England, again, or Germany.

00:18:48.360 You know, we're not financing England's existence.

00:18:53.020 Right?

00:18:53.160 We're not ensuring their military capacity.

00:18:56.380 That's not what we do for England.

00:18:58.420 Right?

00:18:58.600 We're not fending off existential threats all around them.

00:19:02.540 So we have a lot of leverage with Israel that we don't have with other nations.

00:19:07.700 If there's another, you know, there are plenty of other nations that we're paying money to.

00:19:10.960 And if they're sending people here to spy on us while we're funding them, then the quickest way to end their spying would be to just stop funding.

00:19:21.780 Right?

00:19:22.680 And that's Tucker's point here.

00:19:23.960 Ted seems really casually okay with a country that we are paying to exist spying on us.

00:19:32.080 And that's not okay.

00:19:33.280 Again, I understand why they're spying on us.

00:19:35.900 I understand that this is a normal part of what states do when they are sovereign.

00:19:40.940 But Israel is taking money from us so that they can continue to exist.

00:19:45.640 They are getting military support from us so they can continue to exist.

00:19:49.260 It would be the easiest thing in the world to end their ability to spy on us immediately by just putting the aid up against that option.

00:19:58.520 But we're not doing it.

00:20:00.040 Why?

00:20:00.480 How is it in America's interest not to use our leverage from Israel to end our spying?

00:20:06.180 I understand, again, the idea is that, like, there's this mutual everybody spies on each other thing.

00:20:10.820 Fair.

00:20:11.480 But we're the powerful one in this relationship.

00:20:14.540 If we care about America first, if that's actually the goal, why not use that basic power to stop Israel from spying on us?

00:20:22.820 I don't care if Israel doesn't like that it doesn't have intelligence on the United States.

00:20:26.960 That doesn't bother me because we're the ones that should be in the driver's seat.

00:20:31.560 We're the ones shelling out the money.

00:20:33.440 We're the ones putting the troops in the Persian Gulf to make sure that everything's OK.

00:20:38.260 Like, we're the ones who should be leading this relationship.

00:20:42.420 Why is Israel getting a blank check on this?

00:20:44.360 And Ted just doesn't have a good answer.

00:20:45.680 It's conservative to recognize that human beings act in their own self-interest.

00:20:50.040 And every one of our friends spies on us.

00:20:52.400 And I'm not...

00:20:53.040 Do you like it?

00:20:53.740 That's my question.

00:20:54.560 I'm not asking whether they have motive to do it.

00:20:56.200 Of course they do.

00:20:57.000 I understand that.

00:20:58.460 And I...

00:20:58.780 And by the way...

00:20:59.340 I'm not mad at them.

00:21:00.300 But you're an American lawmaker.

00:21:01.860 So I just want to know...

00:21:03.100 Hold on.

00:21:03.380 I want to know your attitude.

00:21:04.420 You said that your guiding principle...

00:21:07.820 In fact, the only principle, the only criterion...

00:21:10.140 I said guiding.

00:21:10.800 The overwhelming.

00:21:11.940 I wouldn't say only.

00:21:12.620 Is it in America's interest?

00:21:13.920 Is it in America's interest for Israel to spy on us, including on the...

00:21:16.700 So that should actually be the only interest.

00:21:19.700 Ted kind of walks back his own strong statement about America first.

00:21:24.100 It's more like a guiding principle.

00:21:25.780 It's not my only principle.

00:21:26.960 OK, what is your principle as American lawmaker other than what's good for the United States?

00:21:31.300 Please be explicit.

00:21:32.260 What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue?

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00:22:03.560 Seriously, please be explicit.

00:22:05.400 What are your...

00:22:06.000 If you're an American lawmaker and you are motivated by other things besides what is good for the

00:22:10.760 United States, I think we have a right to know what.

00:22:14.060 Please tell me.

00:22:15.020 Maybe you have a legitimate answer, but I would like to hear it.

00:22:18.180 And Tucker points out that, you know, basically you're saying...

00:22:22.200 Like, we understand why Israel would like to spy on us for the same reason we would like

00:22:25.820 to spy on everyone else.

00:22:26.940 Because having intelligence gives you power.

00:22:29.200 But why are we okay with Israel having that power over us when we are the ones facilitating

00:22:35.620 their military action?

00:22:37.360 Like, that doesn't make any sense if your stated goal is what's best for America, right?

00:22:44.640 What's best for America is to not have people spy on them.

00:22:47.300 Now, maybe we can't stop other countries who are more self-sufficient from spying on us.

00:22:53.140 But we can stop client states from spying on us, surely, right?

00:22:57.580 If there's one advantage to being the hegemon, it's your leverage against the countries that

00:23:03.420 are dependent on you.

00:23:04.920 So if we're going to be the hegemon, can we at the very least actually act in our own interest?

00:23:10.320 President, it is in America's interest to be closely allied with Israel because we get

00:23:19.140 huge benefits for it.

00:23:20.380 And you want to see the clear...

00:23:21.820 But I just want to stop on this spying for a second.

00:23:23.680 That it takes place, as you know, including on the President of the United States and several

00:23:29.020 precedents.

00:23:29.840 And I just want to know if that's okay.

00:23:32.120 And why is it okay?

00:23:33.180 Wouldn't an American lawmaker say to a client state, you're not allowed to spy on us?

00:23:37.920 I'm sorry.

00:23:38.300 I know why you want to.

00:23:39.180 I'm not mad at you, but you're not allowed to.

00:23:40.960 Sure.

00:23:41.140 And I don't care for it.

00:23:42.140 I don't want to be spied on by you.

00:23:43.480 Is that it's kind of weird not to say that, but you don't seem able to say that.

00:23:49.000 Sure.

00:23:49.360 I would say don't spy on us.

00:23:50.500 They're going to anyway.

00:23:51.360 And by the way, the...

00:23:52.380 So again, Ted acts as if there's just nothing to be done here.

00:23:56.820 Oh, sure.

00:23:57.180 I'll just ask them not to spy.

00:23:58.540 No, Ted, like you're handing them money.

00:24:01.340 You're putting troops in deployment right next to them to make sure bad stuff doesn't happen

00:24:07.160 to them, that there are any retaliations.

00:24:08.980 You hold all the cards.

00:24:10.520 Again, this is not malicious.

00:24:12.780 It's just you shouldn't have spies on a country who you are dependent on.

00:24:18.020 Like we have the relationship where we can leverage it.

00:24:20.520 But Ted just acts like, well, all I could really do is ask him real nice.

00:24:24.320 Nobody.

00:24:24.940 You tell him we're cutting your funding.

00:24:26.240 You tell him we're not responding to any military action by another country against you until you

00:24:31.680 don't have any more spies in the United States.

00:24:34.120 It's really simple.

00:24:35.400 It's actually the simplest thing in the world.

00:24:37.660 You're dependent on us.

00:24:39.100 You don't get to have spies here anymore.

00:24:41.620 The end.

00:24:42.560 You should hold all the cards in theory.

00:24:45.660 And yet you act like, well, what can I do?

00:24:48.440 I'm just a literal senator who has the power to influence public opinion and vote on serious

00:24:57.040 legislation.

00:24:58.140 What could I do?

00:24:59.220 I don't know, Ted.

00:25:00.000 You're not me.

00:25:00.700 You're not some guy with a TV show or a Twitter account.

00:25:03.360 You're an elected official of the highest order.

00:25:06.700 You are one of the most powerful people in the country.

00:25:09.540 You could do something if you wanted to, which is Tucker's point here.

00:25:14.460 You don't seem to want to.

00:25:16.620 Sorry.

00:25:16.960 The Canadians are like, I don't think.

00:25:19.040 Well, I'm not for that at all.

00:25:20.140 I think it's disgusting, but we don't actually pay their, you know, we're not their most meaningful

00:25:25.180 sponsor.

00:25:25.720 We're not sort of paying for the operations of the British government.

00:25:28.480 So I gotta say, and this is, it's weird.

00:25:31.940 We're talking about isolation.

00:25:33.280 It's the obsession with Israel.

00:25:34.880 Why is Israel?

00:25:35.940 I don't think I'm obsessed with Israel.

00:25:37.340 Okay.

00:25:37.500 But I think a lot of people are.

00:25:38.620 And like the question.

00:25:39.920 Okay.

00:25:40.620 So there's some great things here.

00:25:41.980 I did, because I was trying to keep this concise, as concise as I could.

00:25:45.580 It's already too long.

00:25:46.380 I didn't put the earlier clip in here, but they'll reference it here in a second.

00:25:50.480 So you'll still see Ted Cruz say what he said early on, even though I didn't include it.

00:25:56.260 You'll see it in a second.

00:25:57.320 But he says early on, the reason I ran for Senate, like the reason I ran as a politician,

00:26:04.560 like one of the things I committed to was to be the strongest supporter of Israel possible.

00:26:11.940 That's what he said, like unbidden to Tucker Carlson at the beginning.

00:26:15.620 And again, you don't have to take my word for it.

00:26:17.100 They'll reference it again in a second.

00:26:18.800 I didn't just cut it out for no reason.

00:26:20.660 You'll see it.

00:26:21.740 But, you know, he made that announcement.

00:26:24.460 And yet here he is accusing Tucker Carlson of being weirdly obsessed with Israel.

00:26:31.000 Now we're literally about to go to war, or at least the thought is we are very likely to go to war

00:26:37.880 because Israel took an action.

00:26:40.500 So first and foremost, let me make it clear.

00:26:42.800 If you are about to go to war because a country took an action, it is not crazy to talk about that country.

00:26:51.220 It is not weirdly obsessed to talk about that country.

00:26:54.700 Second, when we were trying, when we were fighting a proxy war with Ukraine

00:27:01.780 and almost ghost walking into a hot war in Ukraine, many people, myself included, talked endlessly about the Ukrainians

00:27:11.600 and Vladimir Zelensky on and on and on for a good reason.

00:27:15.960 Not because I have any animus towards the Ukrainian people, not because I hate Ukraine.

00:27:21.100 I think they're in a terrible situation.

00:27:22.920 The men of Ukraine are just being absolutely savaged and been treated terribly.

00:27:28.760 But ultimately, I'm talking about that country because we are being driven towards war with it.

00:27:35.040 We are still, to this day, with Ted Cruz's assistance, sending money to fund the war in Ukraine.

00:27:43.260 Nobody talked about that ad infinitum.

00:27:47.960 Didn't hear a single person say, whoa, whoa, man, so weird for you to be obsessed with Ukraine.

00:27:53.380 Nobody said that.

00:27:55.220 Because it's perfectly reasonable if you don't want to go to war on behalf of another country

00:28:01.560 to talk about that country when people are trying to get you to go to war over it.

00:28:05.840 That is literally the most reasonable thing you could possibly do.

00:28:10.580 And yet, for some reason, while we can talk endlessly about whether or not we should go to war in Ukraine,

00:28:17.360 whether or not Ukraine is deserving of that aid, whether that aid benefits the United States,

00:28:23.540 despite the fact that you can talk about that endlessly, the minute you say,

00:28:27.740 but maybe, you know, if we're going to go to war in Iran, we should look at whether or not we really need to.

00:28:32.560 Is this really good for America, or is it really just benefiting Israel?

00:28:38.160 The minute you say that, you're, oh, how weird.

00:28:41.520 How weird that you're obsessed with the country that we're trying to aid in a war.

00:28:47.240 No, I'm not more obsessed with that than I was with Ukraine.

00:28:51.120 They're just both countries I don't think we should be going to war on behalf of.

00:28:55.680 But, Ted, you'll see the exchange here in a second.

00:28:58.940 Israel spies on us.

00:29:00.060 Well, so does every other country.

00:29:01.060 Why are you mad at Israel?

00:29:01.820 I guess, no, no, no, I'm, I'm, I'm hardly the one who's, I've never taken money from the Israel lobby.

00:29:07.280 Have you?

00:29:08.580 Taken money from the Israel?

00:29:10.020 From AIPAC.

00:29:10.800 So AIPAC raises a lot of money for me, but it's actually a misnomer because the people who raise money are individuals.

00:29:16.660 So it's not the PAC itself, but they're individual members who believe in the American-Israeli friendship and relationship.

00:29:23.600 It's AIPAC of foreign.

00:29:24.180 So this is weird.

00:29:26.440 This is, I know what Ted's doing here, but this is like, I don't know why he thought he'd get away saying this to Tucker Carlson.

00:29:33.980 So in case you were wondering, in case you've, I worked, you know, for some Republican politicians on their staff.

00:29:39.860 So I was at a number of these fundraisers.

00:29:42.620 And this is not just how AIPAC fundraisers work.

00:29:46.240 This is literally how all fundraising and lobbying works.

00:29:50.760 Yes, the PAC does collect money.

00:29:52.820 And yes, they do distribute the money.

00:29:56.220 However, most of the money is not raised directly under the legal umbrella of the PAC because there are restrictions and that looks bad and there's other issues.

00:30:05.320 The way this is done is the PAC hosts a fundraiser.

00:30:09.460 And that way, individual people show up to the fundraiser who are members of the PAC, but they are not giving the money through the PAC.

00:30:18.700 They write the checks directly to the politician or their campaign.

00:30:24.540 And so what happens is that while the number, the official number from APAC may be one number, the actual money raised is far larger and is usually not disclosed in the same manner because it's coming from all the individual source.

00:30:40.280 Again, this is not some nefarious thing that just APAC does.

00:30:43.160 This is how every fundraiser works.

00:30:45.240 If you go to an NRA fundraiser, I've been to I've been to fundraisers in the houses of diamond merchants.

00:30:50.980 OK, like they do the same thing every time.

00:30:54.760 This is how fundraising works.

00:30:56.960 So this is very disingenuous to say, oh, well, it's not the PAC that raises the money.

00:31:01.220 It's individuals.

00:31:02.580 Well, yes, of course, because every PAC is made up of individuals.

00:31:05.840 And in order to avoid many of the rules around different, you know, funding issues when it comes to campaign finance, they tend to do it this way.

00:31:16.180 Right.

00:31:16.740 This again, not not specific to APAC, not particularly nefarious to APAC.

00:31:20.980 This is just how fundraisers work.

00:31:22.500 But the fact that the way Ted Cruz is explaining this is as if APAC is not the one driving the donations, it's just not true.

00:31:31.260 And that's I don't know why he thought he would get away with this.

00:31:34.440 Like Tucker Carlson just doesn't has never been to a political fundraiser before and lobby.

00:31:38.920 No, it's an American lobby.

00:31:40.320 It's the APAC stands for the America Israeli political action.

00:31:43.720 What is it lobby for?

00:31:44.620 So, to be honest, not a whole lot effectively.

00:31:48.060 Listen, I.

00:31:50.600 OK, this is amazing, right?

00:31:52.380 Like you feel how you want about APAC, but obviously they give out a lot of money.

00:31:57.400 I think I saw it was Ted Cruz was like one point six million dollars.

00:32:01.080 There's some politicians upwards of six million dollars.

00:32:05.260 You want to say that that doesn't influence them?

00:32:07.020 OK, but like the idea that they don't lobby for anything is very strange.

00:32:12.880 Like, obviously, this is a very vigorous lobby.

00:32:19.500 Thomas Massey literally said that every politician in Washington, D.C. has an APAC minder.

00:32:25.460 Now, you can tell me that Thomas Massey is a liar, but I don't know.

00:32:30.340 That seems like a agent, a lobbying organization that's got some reach, or at least even if it if it's not influential, it's certainly trying to be.

00:32:39.580 And so this is a very weird thing to say.

00:32:41.300 Now, you can say, ultimately, look, they're just lobbying for things that are good for America.

00:32:44.820 They're just lobbying for for positive interactions between.

00:32:48.300 There's a lot of things you could have said there.

00:32:50.020 But the idea that they're just not lobbying for much again, like what are you talking about, Ted?

00:32:56.300 I came in to to Congress 13 years ago with the stated intention of being the leading defender of Israel in the United States Senate.

00:33:05.040 I've worked every day to do that.

00:33:06.540 So he just says that again, right?

00:33:10.140 Like, I went in with the intention of being the number one defender of Israel.

00:33:14.700 Now, that's going to be important here in a second, because he's going to go on and on about how Tucker Carlson is obsessed with Israel.

00:33:20.360 But Ted Cruz is a American politician who stated his goal upon entering office of becoming the biggest defender of Israel in the United States.

00:33:29.420 Now, maybe you think that's a great thing.

00:33:32.580 That's fine.

00:33:33.840 But you can't honestly say that other people are obsessed with Israel when that's literally what you say is your job in Congress or in the Senate.

00:33:44.560 Like your job is to or one of your main goals is to be the strongest ally of Israel.

00:33:50.000 So I think it's reasonable to call that an obsession.

00:33:53.420 You know, I care about friends I have in England and South Africa.

00:33:57.180 If I got elected to office and I said, my goal upon entering this office is to become the number one, you know, advocate or defender of, you know, Afrikaners in South Africa.

00:34:12.600 That would be a little weird.

00:34:14.280 But if someone said, oh, well, you seem kind of focused on the Afrikaners in South Africa, we'd be like, well, yes, that would be an obvious answer.

00:34:22.640 Yes, I am.

00:34:23.260 It wouldn't need to be a weird thing I'd need to avoid because I just stated it as like my goal.

00:34:28.300 And if someone else started talking about the Afrikaners, it would be strange if I turned around and said, well, how how could you be so obsessed with the Afrikaners?

00:34:35.020 Right.

00:34:35.140 Like that just wouldn't make any sense.

00:34:38.020 APAC, a lot of times.

00:34:41.640 APAC, I wish were much more effective, like their folks on online who are in the fever swamp of terrified of APAC and APAC.

00:34:49.600 I'm not terrified of APAC at all.

00:34:51.060 Well, I'm you're the one who seems a little uncomfortable when I'm asking.

00:34:53.360 No, it's not uncomfortable at all.

00:34:54.280 I'm just asking what APAC does.

00:34:56.700 My understanding, having known a lot of people who want to APAC, is that it lobbies on behalf of the Israeli government.

00:35:03.640 Oh, OK.

00:35:04.480 So, you know, Tucker says, well, I think the obvious thing is that this organization, which has declared itself to be working with the interests of Israeli-American relations, is strongly correlated working on behalf of the interests of the Israeli government.

00:35:24.540 Ted Cruz says wrong.

00:35:25.360 Well, well, confusing, but maybe he's got a better answer here, right?

00:35:29.280 When was the last time APAC took a position that deviated from Prime Minister Netanyahu?

00:35:34.680 All the time.

00:35:35.920 No one.

00:35:36.920 OK.

00:35:38.560 Let me go back and give a little history.

00:35:40.000 If you want to do a deep dive on APAC.

00:35:41.260 I don't.

00:35:41.580 So he doesn't have one, right?

00:35:43.660 Like, he doesn't immediately.

00:35:44.640 Now, maybe there is.

00:35:46.340 Probably.

00:35:47.340 But but ultimately, he said, you know, can you give an example of a time where APAC and Netanyahu did like vehemently disagreed and worked in different interests?

00:35:59.260 No, all the time.

00:36:01.360 OK, can you name one?

00:36:02.200 No.

00:36:03.700 Well, there you go, I guess.

00:36:05.320 I want to do a shallow dive.

00:36:06.220 No, I want to get to the core question.

00:36:08.940 APAC is lobbying for a foreign government.

00:36:10.620 And I don't it's not no lobbying for the United States.

00:36:14.460 It is lobbying for a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship.

00:36:18.400 OK, so it's not has nothing to do with the foreign government.

00:36:22.300 It it wants America and Israel to be closely allied.

00:36:26.520 OK, but it's lobbying on behalf of the interests of another country.

00:36:31.740 So that's not true at all.

00:36:33.100 And it's not true.

00:36:34.260 No.

00:36:34.860 How much contact do you think APAC leaders have for the government of Israel?

00:36:38.920 No idea.

00:36:39.460 I imagine some.

00:36:41.000 I think the government of Israel is often frustrated with APAC because APAC is not nearly strong enough.

00:36:45.120 Do you think there's any coordination between the government of Israel and APAC?

00:36:48.360 Do they talk?

00:36:49.240 Sure.

00:36:49.460 If you're lobbying for more U.S.-Mexico trade, would you talk to people in the U.S. and Mexico and the government?

00:36:55.920 Sure.

00:36:56.100 Like like if so, I'm not mad about that.

00:36:58.780 There are a million countries that lobby Washington.

00:37:01.220 I like a lot of those countries, including but APAC or Americans, but there are tons of Americans who lobby on behalf of foreign governments.

00:37:08.540 I know them.

00:37:08.960 I'm related to some of them.

00:37:09.860 I know how it works.

00:37:10.540 I'm from here.

00:37:11.080 So my question is not, is it outrageous that foreign governments lobby the United States?

00:37:15.460 They all do.

00:37:16.220 Okay.

00:37:16.560 Including Israel.

00:37:17.780 My only question is, why don't we admit that is what's happening?

00:37:21.420 You're denying it, but it's true.

00:37:22.840 And why aren't they registered as a foreign lobby?

00:37:27.260 Because they're not.

00:37:29.340 So Tucker points out, I think, what's pretty obvious here.

00:37:32.900 If you're working, if your specific organization is named after a foreign country and its relationship with the United States, you're probably going to be coordinating to some degree with that country's leadership, which means you're going to be taking some of the interests of that country into the United States.

00:37:49.500 That's a fairly obvious answer.

00:37:51.840 And it's not something, again, that has to be malicious.

00:37:54.940 As Tucker Carlson points out here, lots of countries come to the United States and lobby on behalf of their interests.

00:38:01.840 Again, I have met people who do this.

00:38:04.000 I am friends with people who do this.

00:38:06.240 I'll just go right back to this example because it seems the most easy one, right?

00:38:10.340 I am friends with guys from Afroforum in South Africa.

00:38:14.120 They come to the United States.

00:38:15.740 It's not just because they really like McDonald's fries.

00:38:18.360 They come to the United States because they are trying to influence people in the United States to their benefit, right?

00:38:26.960 And in some cases, that works.

00:38:28.700 I am more aware of what is going on in South Africa because of their efforts, right?

00:38:33.880 Maybe that means, ultimately, that I might say something in their benefit.

00:38:39.320 Now, I would never put the interests of South Africa above my own nation.

00:38:45.260 I would never tell my nation to send them a dollar, honestly.

00:38:48.680 I would never put boots on the ground in South Africa, even if I think what's happening there to the Afrikaners is horrible.

00:38:55.320 I would not lobby for them to receive large amounts of military and monetary aid.

00:39:01.720 These are not things that are in the interest of my country, even though I care about what's happening over there because I'm friendly with some of these people.

00:39:08.800 Ultimately, that's not what the United States government should be doing, and I strongly believe that.

00:39:14.700 But for Ted Cruz, it's like, well, no, this just doesn't happen.

00:39:18.800 It's like, well, no, this obviously happens, even with guys like me who aren't interested in having the government intervene in any of this.

00:39:25.900 And Ted Cruz is.

00:39:27.700 He has said so.

00:39:29.320 This is one of his number one goals.

00:39:31.940 It's what he wanted to be known for is becoming the strongest defender of Israel.

00:39:36.020 So the idea that this doesn't just doesn't influence and this like crossover in connection with a foreign government just doesn't matter is a problem.

00:39:44.000 Also, Tucker points out, why isn't a pack of foreign lobby?

00:39:47.340 Like why it doesn't have to register like everyone else?

00:39:50.140 And he's like, oh, well, because they're not working for a foreign government.

00:39:52.840 But OK, even if they're not directly like this is the lobbying agency of Bibi Netanyahu, like they obviously are working with a lot of those interests in mind.

00:40:06.600 So, like, why shouldn't they?

00:40:07.900 Yeah, again, not not that there's a particularly malicious part of Israel as opposed to all the other nations that try to lobby the United States.

00:40:15.200 Literally every other nation in the world is trying to lobby the United States in some way, shape or form.

00:40:20.540 So, like, that's not a weird thing that Israel does.

00:40:23.100 It's just a weird thing that they're the only one with a lobby that isn't technically registered as a foreign agent.

00:40:29.600 Right.

00:40:29.740 If there was a if there was an organization for Russian-American relations.

00:40:35.980 Right.

00:40:36.440 And like, oh, well, it's just Russian descendants in.

00:40:40.000 But they are American and they're in America and they just happen to be, you know,

00:40:44.640 talking about how we should be close to Russia and how we like that would be weird.

00:40:48.500 Right.

00:40:48.980 Like we would all recognize that as a strange thing if they weren't considered a foreign lobby.

00:40:53.720 I mean, a lot of leftists would be screaming their heads out.

00:40:56.280 Russia, Russia, Russia has all this influence in the US.

00:40:58.760 Right.

00:40:59.160 They do that without them having a lobbying agency.

00:41:01.240 Same thing if it was, you know, Armenia.

00:41:03.520 Right.

00:41:03.800 Like if if these there are a lot of Armenians in the United States, they do actually influence our politics in favor of Armenia.

00:41:11.320 But if they specifically had a lobby about, you know, and it was driving for these issues, you would expect to be labeled a foreign lobby.

00:41:19.180 Right.

00:41:19.360 That would just be reasonable.

00:41:20.840 That doesn't mean it's evil.

00:41:22.620 It just means, you know, having that clarity is important.

00:41:26.680 They're not a foreign lobby.

00:41:28.080 No, they're not.

00:41:29.040 And this is that there's a fever swamp.

00:41:31.260 Look, it's not a fever swamp.

00:41:32.420 These are very reasonable questions.

00:41:33.740 And you've accused me of being obsessed with Israel, which I'm not.

00:41:36.020 I actually haven't.

00:41:36.900 I've said isolationist.

00:41:37.320 I'm being feverish about it, which I'm not at all.

00:41:40.080 I'm just I find it.

00:41:41.520 It's a very tender spot when you ask it.

00:41:43.340 And I don't know why.

00:41:44.660 So you're making the case that AIPAC is not as powerful as people say it is.

00:41:47.360 And I completely agree.

00:41:48.460 So that jump there, they talk about how AIPAC was unable to stop the Obama Iran deal.

00:41:54.680 It just they go on about it for a long time.

00:41:57.260 And Tucker concedes the point that ultimately AIPAC does not have all the power in the world and can lose things.

00:42:03.500 It doesn't like have total control of Washington.

00:42:05.780 He's acknowledging that.

00:42:07.020 And you'll see him talk about that in a second.

00:42:09.360 I've watched that.

00:42:10.240 And I'm not I'm not making the case that AIPAC is all powerful and they're running everything and putting Florida in the water.

00:42:15.440 I'm not making the case at all because it's not true.

00:42:17.540 I'm only trying to get to the question of what AIPAC is.

00:42:19.700 And I don't think you're being straightforward about it.

00:42:21.160 AIPAC is lobbying on behalf of the interests of a foreign country.

00:42:26.020 And they're not registered.

00:42:26.940 And you're saying, no, that's not true.

00:42:28.220 You're saying that they don't coordinate with the Israeli government.

00:42:30.840 I coordinate that.

00:42:32.240 Do they talk with them?

00:42:33.380 I don't know what they do.

00:42:35.020 I can tell you.

00:42:36.060 So this is actually a huge problem.

00:42:38.540 This is one of Ted Cruz's largest donors.

00:42:41.040 This is literally he stated that this is what he wanted to be known for in the United States Senate was being a representative who cared or a senator that cared deeply about defending the state of Israel.

00:42:54.360 And you're telling me you don't know what AIPAC does?

00:42:57.440 Like, that's weird, right?

00:43:00.260 That's pretty strange that you have no idea if they have any communication with the prime minister or his government.

00:43:08.340 You just don't know.

00:43:09.720 So you're getting a massive amount of money from an organization.

00:43:12.500 You're declaring boldly that it has, you know, it's not lobbying on behalf of a foreign nation.

00:43:17.200 Of course it's not.

00:43:18.220 That's ridiculous.

00:43:19.100 But then when you're asked, okay, well, what do they do?

00:43:22.040 You're like, well, I don't know.

00:43:23.980 Then how do you know they're not?

00:43:25.500 Like, what are you talking about?

00:43:27.040 Either you know or you don't.

00:43:28.620 Why do you only know when you're denying influence, but you don't know the minute you're asked, okay, well, then what do they actually do?

00:43:35.080 Like, that's an amazingly selective understanding of one of your largest donors.

00:43:40.480 Like, do you know what AIPAC does or not?

00:43:42.620 If you don't know, you can't tell me they're not working on behalf of another government.

00:43:45.820 If you do know, you should be able to tell me exactly what's going on with their connection with the foreign government.

00:43:51.900 You're getting millions of dollars from these people.

00:43:54.580 You should be able to explain one direction or the other.

00:43:57.320 This is just an obvious contradiction, and it's really clear you're just being evasive.

00:44:01.460 Don't you care?

00:44:02.480 Isn't it meaningful if a foreign government?

00:44:05.040 Hey, I talk with Israel all the time.

00:44:06.880 Of course you do.

00:44:07.520 I talk with foreign countries all the time.

00:44:08.780 But the law is, and a lot of people have been prosecuted under this law, that if you are lobbying on behalf of foreign government, you must register.

00:44:14.420 That's it. It's really simple, and I don't know why, if I'm working from Malaysia or Qatar or Belgium, and I'm working on behalf of its government's interests through a group of Americans who are representing the friendship between those two nations, I have to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and if I don't, I can go to jail.

00:44:31.520 People have gone to jail, including people I know.

00:44:33.500 So I don't understand why we don't just be honest and say they're lobbying on behalf of foreign government, they're coordinating with the government.

00:44:40.480 You know that that's true?

00:44:41.340 That is not only not true, that is false.

00:44:44.320 They're not coordinating with the government.

00:44:45.800 So he literally said he doesn't know what they do.

00:44:48.780 Ted Cruz literally, when asked, what do they do, Ted, if they're not coordinating, what do they do?

00:44:54.980 What level of connection do they have?

00:44:56.920 What level of communication they have?

00:44:58.420 He said, I don't know.

00:44:59.820 I don't know what they do.

00:45:01.180 And then he turns around and says, oh, of course they don't do that.

00:45:04.500 How do you know?

00:45:05.680 Which is it?

00:45:07.780 This is the most politician answer ever delivered.

00:45:11.620 Do you know how AIPAC raises money?

00:45:15.340 What?

00:45:15.940 For elected officials, like what they do, like what the actual mechanics is.

00:45:19.360 I mean, they go to people who are sympathetic to Israel and raise money and then send it to candidates who agree with them.

00:45:24.300 So what they'll do is, so in my last election, AIPAC endorsed me.

00:45:28.100 And they'll host a fundraiser and they'll host a fundraiser in Dallas or Houston or Atlanta or New York or L.A.

00:45:34.620 And they'll do a fundraiser and they'll get someone who will host it.

00:45:37.040 And it's usually all right.

00:45:38.180 So he just explains what I explained.

00:45:39.940 That's how the fundraisers work.

00:45:41.100 Again, this is deeply disingenuous, though, because this is how all political fundraisers work.

00:45:48.140 Again, I was not operating at the highest levels of Republican politics.

00:45:52.240 I was doing relative small ball, and this is how our fundraisers work.

00:45:57.560 So he's just explaining how fundraisers work.

00:46:00.400 This is not this is not refute anything.

00:46:03.200 You're just explaining the basic mechanics of political fundraisers.

00:46:06.980 A business of the Israeli government there you have when you're in Dallas.

00:46:10.780 You're meeting with false and silly conversation.

00:46:12.880 I know all this.

00:46:13.740 I know all this.

00:46:14.240 The question is, is our apex goals shaped by the goals of the Israeli government to any extent?

00:46:19.340 Okay, that's a really simple question from lobbying on behalf of.

00:46:22.580 It's a simple question.

00:46:23.720 Is our apex?

00:46:25.660 So it's not it's different.

00:46:28.640 It's the same.

00:46:29.420 If the goals of another government are influencing your lobbying efforts, then whether it's official or not, whether you like wrote it down in stone or not, you are working on behalf of that government.

00:46:40.160 Like, obviously, that's obviously the case.

00:46:43.140 Just because you don't get a direct call every week from the president of whatever country you're lobbying for, be it Israel or Mexico or China or wherever, doesn't mean you're not working with their interests in mind.

00:46:57.980 Again, it's just insane.

00:47:00.080 It's an insane level of invasion.

00:47:01.600 Goals shaped by the goals of the Israeli government.

00:47:04.460 And I'm just going to ask you a question straightforwardly.

00:47:06.540 And if you say no, I think we both know that's not true.

00:47:08.860 Hey, are they shaped by is that are they coordinating with the Israeli government?

00:47:13.540 Are they talking with them?

00:47:14.560 Yes, it's really directing them.

00:47:16.700 What are you want to talk about farah?

00:47:18.360 The law on lobbying on behalf of someone.

00:47:20.460 Yeah, it is.

00:47:21.180 I hire you and you lobby on behalf of me.

00:47:23.500 I direct you.

00:47:24.480 Does Israel direct AIPAC?

00:47:25.640 No, they're not lobbying on behalf of them.

00:47:27.960 Do they care about them?

00:47:29.520 Yes, but do you think that it's just interesting because what you're now describing in a very defensive way, I will say, is foreign influence over our politics.

00:47:39.280 No.

00:47:39.760 And you began and it's so transparently obvious to everybody.

00:47:43.420 I don't know why you would be embarrassed of it.

00:47:44.760 You've said that you are sincerely for Israel.

00:47:46.300 I believe you.

00:47:47.020 I don't think you have some weird agenda.

00:47:48.340 You seem to be sincere.

00:47:50.160 By the way, Tucker, it's a very weird thing.

00:47:54.540 The obsession with Israel.

00:47:56.540 When we're talking about foreign countries.

00:47:57.660 It's hardly an obsession.

00:47:58.340 You're not talking about Chinese.

00:47:59.640 You're not talking about Japanese.

00:48:00.760 You're not talking about the British.

00:48:01.760 You're not talking about the French.

00:48:02.740 The question, what about the Jews?

00:48:04.060 What about the Jews?

00:48:05.040 Oh, I'm an anti-Semite now.

00:48:06.520 Senator, you're asking the questions, Tucker.

00:48:08.880 You're asking, why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?

00:48:13.160 So there we go, right?

00:48:14.440 It didn't take Ted long.

00:48:16.020 He got there.

00:48:17.180 So if you're talking about anything when it has to do with Israel, you're an anti-Semite by default.

00:48:23.260 Now, he says, oh, Tucker, you're not talking about China.

00:48:25.960 You're not.

00:48:26.780 He has.

00:48:27.580 Tucker has talked endlessly about the influence that China has.

00:48:32.640 Tucker has rung the bell on very many occasions about the terrifying amount of, you know, farmland that China owns in the United States.

00:48:40.420 By the way, Ted Cruz is doing nothing about that.

00:48:43.460 Absolutely nothing.

00:48:44.360 The Republican Party goes on and on endlessly about the dangers, the existential threat of China, about the fact that China is going to be our biggest geopolitical competitor and we have to be ready for them.

00:48:55.980 They go on about this constantly.

00:48:57.760 And yet they do nothing.

00:48:59.580 They do nothing.

00:49:01.120 Chinese students come into the United States.

00:49:03.080 They steal our technology.

00:49:04.560 They get educated here.

00:49:06.040 They work their way into jobs where they can gather intelligence.

00:49:09.580 The United States government doesn't care.

00:49:12.120 The Chinese buy up our real estate.

00:49:14.040 They buy up our farmland.

00:49:15.180 And the United States government doesn't care.

00:49:18.520 So, yes, Tucker has talked endlessly about the influence that other countries have in the United States.

00:49:25.040 This is just a lie from Ted Cruz.

00:49:26.640 This is a bald-faced lie.

00:49:28.180 He is lying to this guy's face and he's lying for the singular purpose of getting to call him an anti-Semite.

00:49:32.880 He says, you're asking about foreign influence.

00:49:36.240 You must be a Jew hater.

00:49:39.680 Now, yeah, I know you do entire segments, spend years talking about the influence of China.

00:49:45.320 But for some reason, if you talk about the influence of this one country, you hate them.

00:49:49.500 Again, Tucker went out endlessly about Vladimir Zelensky, the undue influence of Ukraine, and the fact that this guy gets to lobbyists endlessly for money.

00:49:58.500 He talked about that for years, as did I, as did many other people.

00:50:02.880 It is very clear that there's not some monomaniacal obsession with Israel for a lot of people.

00:50:07.600 Now, don't get me wrong.

00:50:08.740 There are real anti-Semites out there, right?

00:50:11.140 There are people who just endlessly talk about the Jews and the Jews control everything and everything is the Jews.

00:50:17.040 There are people out there.

00:50:18.820 And for them, okay, you can apply this label.

00:50:22.220 But to throw it at Tucker Carlson and pretend like he has made his life's work about attacking Israel,

00:50:27.840 when, in fact, he has spent much of his life pointing out all the influence other governments have in the United States.

00:50:34.560 But then he gets to this one, and all of a sudden he's an anti-Semite.

00:50:38.580 The game is so obvious.

00:50:40.260 It's so cheap.

00:50:41.500 This is just yelling racist and Nazi.

00:50:44.420 Ted Cruz is just using woke tactics.

00:50:46.560 He's just a woke leftist on this issue.

00:50:48.640 It's all identity politics.

00:50:50.140 I'm sorry, did you question the influence of a foreign nation here?

00:50:52.760 Oh, you're a racist.

00:50:55.040 You're an anti-Semite.

00:50:56.320 You're a bigot.

00:50:57.500 You're a Nazi.

00:50:58.740 You're a fascist.

00:50:59.800 That's all Ted Cruz is doing here.

00:51:01.420 He's just being a leftist.

00:51:02.780 I will shut down this conversation.

00:51:04.260 I will shut down your points by just calling you one of the forbidden words, right?

00:51:09.020 That's all that's happening here.

00:51:10.600 It's not an argument.

00:51:11.700 It's not a point.

00:51:12.940 He just wants to silence Tucker by lying directly about what Tucker has done in hopes that he will stop asking questions.

00:51:19.560 But you just asked.

00:51:20.880 I am hardly saying that.

00:51:21.560 That is exactly what you just said.

00:51:23.560 Well, actually, I can speak for myself and tell you what I am saying.

00:51:26.020 Good.

00:51:26.680 On behalf, not simply of myself, but of my many Jewish friends who would have the same questions, which is to what extent.

00:51:32.820 And it's interesting you're trying to derail my questions by calling me an anti-Semite, which you are.

00:51:36.720 I did not.

00:51:37.480 Of course you are.

00:51:38.600 And rather than be honorable enough.

00:51:41.000 I mean, obviously, like Ted Cruz is clearly implying this.

00:51:45.100 I mean, oh, I don't know what you're talking about.

00:51:46.660 Like, of course, you know exactly what you're doing.

00:51:48.360 To say it right to my face, you are in a sleazy, feline way implying it.

00:51:53.160 Oh, just asking questions about the Jews.

00:51:54.620 I'm not asking questions about the Jews.

00:51:56.980 I have, there's nothing to do with Jews or Judaism.

00:51:59.680 It has to with a foreign government.

00:52:00.880 Isn't Israel controlling our foreign policy?

00:52:03.040 That's not about the Jews?

00:52:03.820 You said, I'm asking you.

00:52:05.120 And by the way, you're the one that just called me, I think, a sleazy feline.

00:52:08.120 So let's be clear.

00:52:09.340 It's sleazy to imply that I'm an anti-Semite, which you just did.

00:52:12.800 No, I just said, why is that the only question you're asking?

00:52:15.860 That's not the only question he's asking.

00:52:17.620 Again, this is so dishonest.

00:52:19.600 Tucker Carlson has gone on ad nauseum about his concern about the influence that other

00:52:26.660 foreign governments have in the United States, China, Mexico.

00:52:30.080 Like, we literally just had a Mexican politician talking about how the people in L.A.

00:52:37.200 should continue to riot until we don't get remittances in the big, beautiful bill.

00:52:42.200 Like, we don't want to tax on remittances because it's so much money going to Mexico.

00:52:45.860 We should have our people continue to apply pressure and stop that from happening.

00:52:51.520 We're going to use greater Mexico and the Mexican diaspora to put direct pressure on

00:52:55.840 the United States and its politicians to try to influence them.

00:52:59.040 That literally just happened.

00:53:01.220 The president of Mexico just did that.

00:53:03.460 And guess what?

00:53:03.940 I wrote articles about that.

00:53:05.380 I decried it.

00:53:06.260 I'm sure Tucker Carlson did too.

00:53:08.460 So yeah, we don't like foreign influence.

00:53:10.340 We don't like it from Mexico.

00:53:11.200 We don't like it from Ukraine.

00:53:12.500 We don't like it from China.

00:53:13.920 And if it is happening from Israel, then you don't like it there either.

00:53:17.720 Guess who else warned about this?

00:53:19.200 George Washington.

00:53:20.600 Like, this is not some radical position.

00:53:22.740 This is a basic position that every conservative should obviously be able to take.

00:53:27.620 But for Ted Cruz, for some reason, this one, this question is just too much.

00:53:33.900 That's right.

00:53:34.380 Give me another reason.

00:53:35.300 If you're not an anti-Semite, give me another reason why the obsession is Israel.

00:53:38.740 I am in no sense obsessed with Israel.

00:53:41.420 We are on the brink of war with Iran.

00:53:43.580 And so these are valid questions.

00:53:45.100 But you're not asking about Iran or the ISL.

00:53:46.700 If I can finish, you asked me why I'm obsessed with Israel.

00:53:52.440 Yep.

00:53:52.960 Three minutes after telling me that when you first ran for Congress, you elucidated one of

00:53:57.400 your main goals, which is to defend Israel.

00:53:59.480 Yes.

00:53:59.880 And I'm the one who's obsessed with Israel.

00:54:01.820 I don't see a lawmaker's job as defending the interests of a foreign government, period.

00:54:05.860 Any government, including the ones that my ancestors come from.

00:54:08.060 Okay.

00:54:08.740 It seems like a kill shot to me there, right?

00:54:10.780 Like Ted Cruz has announced his intention.

00:54:13.820 He has made it clear.

00:54:15.200 My, my, one of my biggest goals going into office as an American politician has become

00:54:20.740 the number one defender of Israel.

00:54:22.080 By the way, you're obsessed with Israel.

00:54:26.020 Like, what do you even say to that?

00:54:28.080 Like Ted Cruz obviously embarrassed himself here, here.

00:54:31.340 He just did not have an answer.

00:54:32.820 The only thing he had left to do was go, oh, you must be a fascist.

00:54:36.300 You must be a Nazi.

00:54:37.300 You must be a Jew hater.

00:54:38.360 That's it.

00:54:39.040 That's all he's got.

00:54:39.680 So that's my position.

00:54:41.520 That does not make me an anti-Semite.

00:54:43.040 And shame on you for suggesting otherwise.

00:54:45.100 And I mean that.

00:54:46.060 And that's low.

00:54:46.740 And you know it's low.

00:54:47.720 So why don't you just answer my questions in a straightforward, rational way.

00:54:50.760 You certainly have the IQ to do it.

00:54:52.860 Shame on you is cute, by the way, Tucker.

00:54:54.940 It is.

00:54:55.440 It's not cute.

00:54:56.120 I'm offended.

00:54:57.220 I'm obsessed with the Jews.

00:54:58.900 You just told me.

00:54:59.920 You just called me a sleazy feline.

00:55:02.120 It is sleazy to imply that I'm an anti-Semite for asking questions about how my government is wrong.

00:55:06.940 You want to count how many questions you asked about?

00:55:08.820 What about the Jews?

00:55:09.380 What about Israel?

00:55:09.960 What about Iraq?

00:55:10.340 I never asked about.

00:55:12.480 You're in an interview that's literally about whether or not we're going to go to war with Iran because Israel attacked them.

00:55:19.300 That's the purpose of the interview.

00:55:23.600 If the interview was about the war in Ukraine and Tucker Carlson kept asking questions about Zelensky coming to the United States and lobbying for money for Ukraine.

00:55:34.160 And you turned around and said, you're obsessed with Ukraine in an interview that was based on that conflict.

00:55:42.100 That would be weird.

00:55:43.900 Everyone would look at you like you're an insane person.

00:55:46.480 But that's exactly what Ted Cruz is doing here.

00:55:48.580 It's the purpose of the interview, Ted.

00:55:51.220 If he was interviewing you on the deficit or on our military response to China, should China move on Taiwan or something, then he would be asking a lot of questions on those issues.

00:56:03.320 But this is literally the central point of the interview.

00:56:08.060 So what are you doing?

00:56:09.860 Like, do you think anyone is fooled by this?

00:56:12.140 The Jews.

00:56:13.200 I have.

00:56:13.980 This has nothing to do with the Jews, whatever that means.

00:56:16.980 This has to do with a foreign government.

00:56:19.500 And once again, shame on you for conflating the two.

00:56:23.040 They have nothing to do with each other.

00:56:24.580 I'm talking about the influence.

00:56:26.060 Yeah, this is also really important, right?

00:56:27.960 This is this is another this is another very common maneuver.

00:56:32.460 And when Ted is deploying here, Israel questions about Israel and Israel's foreign government are questions about Jewish people in general.

00:56:40.840 And therefore, anti-Semitic.

00:56:42.960 This is the this is the the shell game that gets played.

00:56:45.900 You're not allowed to criticize Israel, because if you do, you're actually hating all Jews in the world.

00:56:51.660 As if Israel is not its own specific sovereign nation with its own specific interests.

00:56:59.160 It's a mot and bailey.

00:57:00.620 When it's convenient, Israel is just it's just another nation.

00:57:04.360 But the minute you actually criticize it, all of a sudden becomes magically every Jew in the world.

00:57:09.020 They're the same thing.

00:57:10.840 Like, you just move it around whenever it becomes convenient.

00:57:13.900 Israel and Jews have nothing to do with each other.

00:57:16.120 All Jews are an attack on all Jews, which I am not, nor would I ever be undertaking.

00:57:22.700 Now, I'm not attacking anybody.

00:57:24.040 By the way, that's that's who Iran wants to kill is all the Jews and all the Americans.

00:57:28.000 And I'm totally opposed to that.

00:57:29.740 OK, but now because except you don't want to do anything about decisions need to be made.

00:57:34.720 We can talk about those decisions.

00:57:35.820 And I plan to.

00:57:36.540 Good.

00:57:36.660 But I just want to get a sense of whether you think having described yourself as an America first person who's only criterion for judgment on foreign policy is America's national interest.

00:57:45.900 To what extent you're influenced by a foreign government, which gives you a lot of money through its lobby.

00:57:50.020 And you're claiming this has nothing to do with the foreign government.

00:57:52.280 They're not coordinating.

00:57:53.020 Yes, you're spying on us, but doesn't bother you.

00:57:55.120 And I'm sort of wondering, like, what is this?

00:57:57.060 This is the one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had.

00:57:59.140 I'll tell you what.

00:57:59.700 I'm only trying to get to the question of to what extent is the U.S. government influenced by other governments.

00:58:08.660 And it's a lot.

00:58:09.480 Of course.

00:58:09.940 It's hardly just Israel.

00:58:11.200 It's hardly just Israel.

00:58:12.340 I don't think Israel is the main one.

00:58:13.740 There are lots of governments.

00:58:14.760 China is a massive influence on the city.

00:58:16.640 And it's a huge problem.

00:58:17.280 As you know, I couldn't agree more.

00:58:19.440 And there are lots of other.

00:58:20.200 The U.K., which is a truly sinister place, in my opinion, as an ethnic Brit, I can say.

00:58:25.620 I think that's my view.

00:58:27.000 Maybe you disagree.

00:58:27.740 I think they're on the wrong path.

00:58:29.060 I love the Brits, but their government has gone off the rails.

00:58:32.880 Without even getting into that.

00:58:33.140 I'm just saying, I don't think Israel is the only one.

00:58:35.040 But it's the only one where you're instantly called an anti-Semite for asking questions.

00:58:39.340 And Tucker makes a perfectly reasonable point here, right?

00:58:41.980 Yes, of course, we're concerned about China, which has a massive influence in the United States.

00:58:46.340 Of course, you're concerned about, again, Ukraine or England or any of these other countries

00:58:52.020 having influence inside the United States.

00:58:54.300 And pointing out that they have too much influence is fine.

00:58:57.400 Everyone's okay with it, right?

00:58:59.720 Asking the question, how much influence does China have in the United States is a totally

00:59:03.780 reasonable question.

00:59:05.480 But for some reason, if you ask it about this nation, all of a sudden, you hate everyone.

00:59:11.940 Do you hate every Chinese person?

00:59:13.480 If you ask if China has too much influence in the United States?

00:59:15.880 I know they have too much influence in the United States.

00:59:18.100 Does that make me anti-Chinese?

00:59:19.660 Am I a bigot against the Chinese?

00:59:21.620 Or is that just a reasonable question to ask about a foreign nation operating in the United States?

00:59:27.060 Why?

00:59:27.740 What is this reaction?

00:59:29.820 And it's also the only government that no one will ever criticize.

00:59:33.880 People criticize Israel every minute of every day.

00:59:36.580 Like, the only government that people will not criticize?

00:59:39.420 Rashida Tlaib just tweeted out calling Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal.

00:59:43.740 Rashida Tlaib?

00:59:46.400 No, I'm not.

00:59:46.840 You said no one will criticize.

00:59:48.340 I'm talking about Republicans that I would vote for, including you.

00:59:51.860 And I'm saying, you know, whatever.

00:59:54.460 I don't even like talking about Israel.

00:59:55.740 What I care about, I never do, because it's not worth being called anti-Semites from AIPAC recipients.

01:00:03.680 But now we are on the verge of joining a war, and I just want to be clear about why we're doing this.

01:00:11.560 All right, so.

01:00:13.020 Again, that feels pretty reasonable, right?

01:00:15.700 The context of the discussion is whether or not we go to war with Iran because Israel has already begun strikes on them.

01:00:23.060 That is the entire question.

01:00:25.740 So if you're trying to answer that question, you necessarily must talk about the countries involved.

01:00:31.700 That's a pretty basic thing.

01:00:33.440 And trying to demonize that is, it's just a scummy move by Ted.

01:00:36.440 And let's get into Iran momentarily.

01:00:39.140 But you suggested it was a strange thing that I said a minute ago that when I came into the Senate, I resolved that I was going to be the leading defender of Israel.

01:00:47.540 And that is a strange thing.

01:00:49.700 Again, it's a very strange thing, right?

01:00:52.440 There are plenty of countries I care about.

01:00:53.760 There are plenty of countries where I have friends, and I hope I wish them well.

01:00:57.980 But it would be very strange if I got elected to the Senate and I said, I am now the number one defender of South Africa.

01:01:03.640 I am now the number one defender of the UK.

01:01:06.440 That would be weird.

01:01:07.620 That would just be strange.

01:01:08.760 What you didn't ask is why, so let me tell you why.

01:01:10.380 No, you said I was obsessed with Israel, and you had just told me that, like, your driving motive to get to the Senate was to defend Israel.

01:01:17.580 I'm like, I don't think I'm the one who's obsessed with Israel.

01:01:19.740 Okay.

01:01:20.340 I don't even think about Israel.

01:01:21.500 So, Tucker, words matter.

01:01:22.780 Uh-huh.

01:01:23.100 And you know that.

01:01:26.440 I said I resolved to be the leading defender of Israel, and you said your driving motive, the reason you're in the Senate.

01:01:31.440 You want to be the leading defender of Israel.

01:01:33.180 I would think if I ran for Senate, I'd be like, there are people dying of drug odies on the street.

01:01:37.140 My driving motive is to fight for Texas and America and to fight for jobs and to fight for the Constitution.

01:01:42.700 And you played a very, very careful word game of a lie to you.

01:01:47.100 No, the one who said it.

01:01:48.200 Not me.

01:01:48.980 So, you still haven't asked why, but I'm going to.

01:01:51.500 There's not a lot of word games here, Ted.

01:01:53.780 Like, you declared this openly.

01:01:55.820 It's not a word game.

01:01:57.200 If you're okay with that, if you're fine with that decision, then just defend it.

01:02:03.140 But you said it multiple times in the interview.

01:02:06.280 You made it very clear.

01:02:08.620 It seems pretty obvious on its face.

01:02:11.380 I'll tell you why.

01:02:13.240 Okay.

01:02:13.700 And the reason is twofold.

01:02:15.760 Number one, as a Christian, growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible,

01:02:21.140 those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.

01:02:25.980 And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things.

01:02:29.600 So, this is probably the most important part of the issue, of the interview.

01:02:33.560 There's a lot of important parts of the issue, but this part of the interview is the most important part of the issue, I think.

01:02:41.040 Because at the core of this, Ted Cruz is making a claim that it's theological in nature.

01:02:46.320 And, you know, we're fond of saying that all political issues are ultimately theological, and boy, does this make it clear.

01:02:54.820 Now, I've already had, you know, Joel Webinon as a pastor to talk about dispensationalism and explain, you know, what it is and some of the issues that it might create and some of the problems.

01:03:04.760 But what we're going to see here is Ted Cruz is just going to go through his dispensational beliefs and use them as a justification for why the United States needs to ultimately be loyal to Israel no matter what.

01:03:18.580 And this is a very important discussion that we need to have.

01:03:21.960 We've, you know, we've been on the edges of this discussion.

01:03:25.020 Again, I've had people on to talk about this, but it is now breaking into the general consciousness that this is like a huge issue.

01:03:31.400 And the reason this is so important is, again, I grew up as a Southern Baptist.

01:03:35.220 I'm an evangelical Christian.

01:03:36.400 And most evangelical Christians at some point turned into dispensationalists.

01:03:43.820 Now, this isn't the historical view of the church.

01:03:46.040 This is something that's relatively new.

01:03:48.700 It's been around for like 150 years or so.

01:03:51.440 So this isn't like a deep doctrine.

01:03:53.740 And it's still not what most Christians believe.

01:03:55.840 But because evangelicals do make up a large chunk of the Christians in the United States, this belief permeates, right?

01:04:02.900 Now, this is not what every evangelical believes.

01:04:04.680 It's not what I believe.

01:04:05.400 But, you know, I thought this was the default understanding before I encountered what dispensationalism actually was.

01:04:11.880 I didn't know there was any other way to understand the Bible.

01:04:14.320 I thought that was just the default, right?

01:04:16.400 And so Ted Cruz is just going to say this as, you know, I learned it in Sunday school.

01:04:20.600 And I would like to be very clear here.

01:04:22.360 I am somebody who is very, very pro-Christianity, having an influence on every aspect of American life, including American foreign policy.

01:04:32.120 I am not one of the people who, I'm not some Reddit atheist who's like, ha ha, look religious fanatics saying stuff like this, right?

01:04:38.940 That's not me.

01:04:39.500 I'm pro the United States having a very Christian understanding of the world and its laws and its foreign policy and everything else.

01:04:47.020 But that means it matters very much what you believe, right?

01:04:51.180 The theology matters quite a bit.

01:04:52.860 And the very strange thing is that this belief set that Ted Cruz is about to explain is something that a lot of people who are explicitly against Christian nationalism believe.

01:05:07.760 And so the people who agree with Ted Cruz on this issue also tend to be the people who are very scared of the idea of Christian nationalism.

01:05:16.720 Ted Cruz is about to explain how his Christianity and his very specific, particular understanding of eschatology influences his decisions to go to war or not.

01:05:27.940 Again, I'm okay with ultimately those things having an influence, but that means it really matters what Ted Cruz believes on this and what other people who back this understanding believe.

01:05:40.880 And if you are attacking Christian nationalism while saying our foreign policies should be dictated by your particular understanding of eschatology, then I start to scratch my head.

01:05:51.120 Because what Ted Cruz is explaining here is the most explicit form of Christian nationalism one could understand.

01:05:57.160 And many people who attack Christian nationalism hold exactly this view.

01:06:00.340 So I am very confused as to the position of many anti-Christian nationalists who will 100% nod along with everything and cheer and defend what Ted Cruz says here while decrying Christian nationalism.

01:06:13.200 Is Christianity deciding what we do with the United States or not?

01:06:17.020 I need a consistent answer to that question.

01:06:20.400 Those who bless the government of Israel?

01:06:22.540 Those who bless Israel is what it says.

01:06:24.040 It doesn't say the government of, it says the nation of Israel.

01:06:26.600 So that's in the Bible.

01:06:28.220 As a Christian, I believe that.

01:06:29.740 Where is that?

01:06:30.780 I can find it to you.

01:06:31.820 I don't have the scripture off the tip of mine.

01:06:34.540 You pull out the phone and use the Bible.

01:06:36.300 It's in Genesis.

01:06:37.780 So you're quoting a Bible phrase.

01:06:40.600 You don't have context for it.

01:06:41.400 You don't know where in the Bible it is, but that's like your theology?

01:06:43.660 I'm confused.

01:06:45.020 What does that even mean?

01:06:46.560 Tucker.

01:06:47.720 Again, I want to make it clear.

01:06:49.300 I'm not a theologian.

01:06:50.840 If you put me up on some kind of trivia test, I'm going to fail.

01:06:55.940 When it comes to theology, it's just not my bag.

01:06:58.140 Like I'm, my autism is entirely on political science.

01:07:01.160 I don't have all the theology ironed out.

01:07:03.600 But if you're citing a theological principle as to why the United States must be loyal to Israel, no matter what, you should probably know more about it.

01:07:14.380 Right?

01:07:14.820 You don't have to be able to quote every part of the verse.

01:07:17.360 I don't even need you to have the exact address.

01:07:19.620 But you should have a little more general understanding than at some point I learned this in Sunday school.

01:07:24.940 And this is not knocking learning things in Sunday school.

01:07:27.280 But this is something unfortunately happens a lot with Christians, right?

01:07:30.460 They learn the low resolution understanding of the Bible that they get when they're a child.

01:07:35.460 And then they just never spend time upgrading that knowledge.

01:07:38.560 Again, I'm not a theological expert, but I am far more knowledgeable about it than I was when I was a kid in Sunday school.

01:07:44.820 But Ted is saying, well, that's my understanding of the issue.

01:07:47.820 And that's what's informing my foreign policy.

01:07:50.480 Nobody, you got to go a little deeper.

01:07:52.220 Like if you're going to use this as a grounding for going to war, you really got to have this nailed down.

01:07:57.680 It's pretty important.

01:08:00.300 I'm a Christian.

01:08:01.120 I want to know what you're talking about.

01:08:02.220 Hey, where does, where does my support for Israel come from?

01:08:06.240 Number one, because biblically we are commanded to support Israel.

01:08:10.060 So, again, his number one, and to be fair, as someone, again, who's a Christian first and then an American, that is my orientation too.

01:08:18.500 These are my orders of loves as well.

01:08:19.920 But when you say my number one reason for backing a foreign country, my number one reason for backing a foreign country is the Bible, then you need to be very aware of your theology and where it comes from.

01:08:39.460 And if there are alternatives, like what the church believed up until the 1800s, and most Christians still believe, if there are alternatives to that view, you should be familiar with them.

01:08:52.880 Because what you're saying is the love of my country is not the first thing that is deciding whether or not we go to war with Iran.

01:08:59.900 The love of my country is not the first thing that decides whether or not we have a strong relationship with Israel.

01:09:04.520 Well, the first thing that decides how I relate to Israel as an American politician with the power to go to war, the thing that determines that is my biblical understanding of Israel.

01:09:16.480 God has commanded me to be loyal to the government of Netanyahu.

01:09:21.560 Like, that's pretty serious.

01:09:23.520 So you've got to have a firm grasp.

01:09:25.360 Again, if that's really what you think the Bible has told you, fair enough.

01:09:30.340 I understand having that loyalty first.

01:09:32.280 But you need to be very familiar as to why you have that belief system.

01:09:37.100 This is very critical.

01:09:38.820 You can't just, oh, I don't know, like, nobody.

01:09:41.680 You've got to have this nailed down.

01:09:44.040 Very much so.

01:09:45.520 Hold on.

01:09:46.280 No, no, no, no.

01:09:47.600 Hold on.

01:09:47.960 You're a senator, and now you're throwing out theology, and I am a Christian, and I am allowed to weigh in on this.

01:09:52.180 We are commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel?

01:09:55.020 We are commanded to support Israel.

01:09:56.980 What does that mean, Israel?

01:09:58.020 We're told those who bless Israel will be blessed.

01:09:59.880 But what, hold on, define Israel.

01:10:01.220 This is important.

01:10:01.920 Are you kidding?

01:10:02.860 This is a majority Christian country.

01:10:04.640 Define Israel?

01:10:05.520 Do you not know what Israel is?

01:10:07.100 That would be the country you've asked, like, 49 questions about.

01:10:10.180 So that's what Genesis, that's what God is talking about.

01:10:13.520 The nation of Israel, yes.

01:10:14.920 So is that the current borders, the current leadership?

01:10:17.440 He's talking about the political entity called Israel?

01:10:19.320 He's talking about the nation of Israel, yeah.

01:10:20.900 So Ted Cruz's understanding of the biblical injunction is literally the government of Netanyahu, the political entity of Israel.

01:10:31.320 It's not like even a looser understanding of, like, oh, well, you know, Jewish people, you need to protect them or something like that.

01:10:38.300 It's specifically the government and the nation of a foreign, or it's a foreign government.

01:10:43.900 It's a foreign nation.

01:10:44.900 That's what he understands it to be.

01:10:46.560 It's not like, oh, well, protect the Jews in your country or even globally.

01:10:49.760 It's, no, the political entity of Israel, that foreign government, God has commanded you to be loyal to them and to protect them.

01:10:59.100 That's kind of huge, right?

01:11:01.040 Like, it's also the wrong way to understand.

01:11:03.160 I've already done an episode on dispensationalism, so I'm not going to break it down here.

01:11:07.840 But ultimately, the view of the church up until the 1850s or so, and certainly it's still the view of Catholics and Orthodox and even, you know, evangelicals like myself, is that, you know, the covenant was fulfilled with the coming of Christ.

01:11:24.740 There is no Jew or Gentile.

01:11:26.580 We are all one.

01:11:27.900 Christ is the seed of Abraham referenced in the Bible.

01:11:32.000 That's what it says in the Bible, in the New Testament.

01:11:34.380 So if you understand it that way, your loyalty is to the church.

01:11:40.320 Those are the new Israel.

01:11:42.600 That is what the Jews that chose to become Christians merged with the Gentiles and they became one church.

01:11:50.480 That's why there is no Jew or Gentile.

01:11:52.640 That's why Judaizers were rebuked in the epistles.

01:11:57.180 Because the whole point was not that Jews maintained some separate identity, but that they became part of the church.

01:12:04.380 And the church was the fulfillment of the promise.

01:12:06.300 It was Israel.

01:12:07.620 So no, the Bible is not telling you that you have to be loyal even to Jewish people.

01:12:13.020 Because actually the Jews that were Christians became part of the church.

01:12:16.720 And that is the new Israel.

01:12:18.860 But even if you understood it to be to all Jewish people, it would still not define the current modern secular foreign government in Israel.

01:12:29.700 But that is exactly how Ted Cruz understands it.

01:12:32.560 And that's pretty important because he's literally talking about going to war because they struck another country.

01:12:38.240 Like, that kind of matters.

01:12:40.220 Nations exists, and he's discussing a nation.

01:12:42.520 A nation was the people of Israel.

01:12:43.960 Is the nation God's referring to in Genesis, is that the same as the country run by Benjamin Netanyahu right now?

01:12:49.820 Yes, yes.

01:12:50.600 It is, okay.

01:12:51.600 Again, he just says, yes, yes, of course, obviously.

01:12:54.100 Obviously, that is the nation that the Bible has told me to be loyal to.

01:12:58.760 And that is the nation I'm loyal to.

01:13:00.940 First, he said, first, because I'm a Christian.

01:13:03.760 My loyalty goes there first because I am a Christian and God has commanded me to do that.

01:13:10.420 Like, that's a problem, guys.

01:13:12.360 That's a huge problem.

01:13:14.120 You can love the nation of Israel.

01:13:15.900 You can support the nation of Israel.

01:13:17.700 You can do that entirely on its own.

01:13:21.580 But if your actual belief is, God has commanded me, and my first loyalty is, of course, to God, as it should be.

01:13:30.440 Again, you should be a Christian first.

01:13:32.520 But my loyalty being first to God, that means I must first care about Israel because God commanded me to.

01:13:39.140 I must first love and protect Israel because God commanded me to.

01:13:42.720 And in my understanding, that is literally the secular state of Israel as it exists now.

01:13:49.240 That's a problem.

01:13:50.060 That is a huge problem.

01:13:51.580 And by the way, it's not run by Benjamin Netanyahu as a dictator.

01:13:54.500 It's a democratic country that elected.

01:13:56.800 He's the prime minister.

01:13:58.200 What?

01:13:58.940 But just like, you know, America is the country run by Donald Trump.

01:14:02.600 No, actually, the American people elected Donald Trump.

01:14:04.440 The same principle is there.

01:14:05.680 This is silly.

01:14:05.940 I'm talking about the political entity of modern Israel.

01:14:08.740 Yes.

01:14:09.080 And that is Israel.

01:14:09.640 You believe that's what God was talking about in Genesis.

01:14:12.680 I do.

01:14:13.620 But that country's existed since when?

01:14:16.140 For thousands of years.

01:14:17.480 Now, there was a time when it didn't exist and then it was recreated just over 70 years ago.

01:14:21.160 I'm saying, I think most people understand that line in Genesis to refer to the Jewish people, God's chosen people.

01:14:31.880 That's not what it says.

01:14:33.140 Okay.

01:14:33.880 Israel.

01:14:34.820 But you don't even know where in the Bible it is.

01:14:37.360 So, I don't know if we can.

01:14:39.020 I don't remember the scriptural citation.

01:14:41.700 But.

01:14:43.360 So, again, I am a Protestant.

01:14:48.760 So, please understand that when I make this critique, I understand all the issues with Catholic Church and other problems.

01:14:58.320 But I will say that a clumsy reading of the Bible here without any context really yields quite a problem.

01:15:06.580 And it's very obvious from Ted Cruz.

01:15:08.920 Tucker Carlson is pointing out that there is a larger context, both theologically and just inside the Bible itself, of those statements, right?

01:15:21.140 Like, even in that passage, they're not referring to the literal borders of any given country.

01:15:27.760 That's not what people understood nations to even mean at the time.

01:15:31.260 I mean, nations mean a specific people.

01:15:34.140 It does not mean a geopolitical entity.

01:15:37.660 But Ted can't grasp that.

01:15:40.080 He's like, no, the literal Bible says Israel.

01:15:43.160 And so, therefore, it means the Israel of today that was created in the 1940s.

01:15:50.460 Need some guidance on this.

01:15:51.940 Need some help understanding that passage.

01:15:53.680 Because his current understanding is very dangerous and he is basing foreign policy on it.

01:15:58.680 And I keep...

01:16:00.300 It's like Genesis 16 or something like that.

01:16:02.360 But yes, it's in the earlier part of the book.

01:16:03.900 But the point is...

01:16:05.080 All right, Tucker, you keep interrupting me before I finish my sentence.

01:16:07.000 No, it's just important to know what you're talking about.

01:16:09.480 I don't know what you're...

01:16:10.480 So you're saying as a Christian, if I believe in Jesus, I have to support the modern state of Israel?

01:16:15.380 No, I'm not saying that.

01:16:16.860 I'm explaining for...

01:16:18.280 That is actually what he said, to be clear.

01:16:20.900 Like, very directly.

01:16:22.800 Ted Cruz said the reason, the first reason,

01:16:25.200 I think that we should be friends to Israel, be loyal to Israel, is the Bible says so.

01:16:33.800 And I'm a Christian and that's what the Bible says.

01:16:36.040 He gave that as his first reason.

01:16:37.340 He said, there's another reason, I think, that ultimately, you know, that relationship is advantageous.

01:16:41.300 But his first reason was very specifically that as a Christian, he's commanded to do that.

01:16:45.340 And then he just told Tucker Carlson, no, I'm not saying that.

01:16:47.760 Except that's literally verbatim what he said.

01:16:50.560 We all heard him say it.

01:16:52.120 And he defended it.

01:16:53.740 Regularly.

01:16:54.220 So, I don't understand what he's doing here.

01:16:56.580 For me, what my motivation is.

01:16:59.560 But you...

01:17:00.180 Okay, so I'm just trying to understand.

01:17:01.880 You said God tells you to support the modern state of Israel in the Bible,

01:17:06.200 in some place in the Bible that you heard about, but you don't know where it is.

01:17:09.620 That's your theology?

01:17:10.840 You're going back, am I a sleazy feline again?

01:17:13.280 I mean, don't be...

01:17:14.020 If you accuse me of anti-Semitism again, I will say that, but I don't think you will.

01:17:17.420 Try to be a little less condescending.

01:17:19.400 I'm trying to have a conversation.

01:17:20.440 You're not being condescending.

01:17:21.020 You're throwing this stuff out and it's my job to figure out what you're talking about.

01:17:23.460 Okay, but I don't understand.

01:17:24.340 But you're not letting me...

01:17:26.220 Okay.

01:17:27.060 I'm sorry.

01:17:27.740 I want to be polite.

01:17:29.440 But can you...

01:17:30.520 So those are...

01:17:31.560 That's what I wanted to talk about from the interview today, guys.

01:17:33.800 Like I said, we're already running long and the whole thing is two hours and I only cut

01:17:37.840 about like 15 minutes out of it.

01:17:39.380 So I encourage you to go and look.

01:17:41.060 There's a lot more important discussions happening there as well.

01:17:45.160 They're talking about, again, Ted Cruz didn't really know much about Iran.

01:17:49.520 He was...

01:17:50.740 There are some very strange moments on a couple of different issues.

01:17:54.900 It's not just Israel, actually.

01:17:57.880 But this was important because like I said, the theological part here is really critical

01:18:02.640 because this is what a lot of people are using to justify how we should interact with

01:18:07.460 foreign nations.

01:18:08.280 And again, as a Christian, I actually do think that Christianity should favor, should factor

01:18:13.720 pretty heavily into how we understand the world, how we run our nation, how we interact

01:18:18.420 with other nations.

01:18:19.140 And that means we got to get this stuff down real quick.

01:18:21.980 And that means it's very strange when people who talk like this then attack like Christian

01:18:25.940 nationalists.

01:18:27.180 Either we believe the Bible is guiding us and should guide our actions or we don't.

01:18:32.560 And very clearly, Ted Cruz and many others who agree with intervening on behalf of Israel

01:18:37.260 believe that because the Bible told them so.

01:18:40.780 So either you're for this and you should be for it, not just in foreign policy, but how we

01:18:45.900 run our country domestically as well, or you don't believe this.

01:18:49.260 Uh, and then you can, I guess, put your attacks towards Christian nationalism, but you can't

01:18:53.320 do both.

01:18:53.780 You can't tell me you oppose Christian nationalism and then also you're going to go to war because

01:18:59.520 the Bible told you, you have to support the current modern incarnation of a political

01:19:04.320 entity.

01:19:05.820 Like you have to make a decision on that.

01:19:07.900 And again, you know, I spoke, I spoke at this with multiple people.

01:19:12.080 I talked with Jen Ellis about this, uh, on her show recently, and this is just a discussion

01:19:17.240 we need to have.

01:19:17.880 Now, again, I want to make it clear.

01:19:19.480 We can have a good faith debate about this.

01:19:21.940 I don't think we should be attacking other Christians about this.

01:19:24.840 I don't think that we should, uh, be besmirching their character here though.

01:19:28.380 I think Ted Cruz, you know, did just straight up lie multiple times in this interview and

01:19:32.900 it's on the tape.

01:19:34.020 You can't really avoid the fact that he did that, but ultimately I don't think we should

01:19:37.860 be treating most Christians as if they have bad faith because they have a different theological

01:19:41.600 understanding in this arena.

01:19:43.840 But we do need to have this discussion.

01:19:46.220 We absolutely have to have discussion because it's literally being put forward as a reason

01:19:50.040 for war.

01:19:51.200 And if that's your actual motivation, not like, oh, it's in America's national security

01:19:56.040 interests and, oh, we get intelligence.

01:19:57.880 But if your literal motivation, uh, through all that smoke and mirrors at the end of the

01:20:01.740 day is that the Bible is telling you, you have to be loyal to Israel, then we need to

01:20:07.820 figure out whether that's true or not.

01:20:09.240 That's a really important question that has to be answered and has to be answered immediately

01:20:12.680 because if that is true, well, then I guess our understanding of national sovereignty changes

01:20:19.520 radically.

01:20:19.920 And if it's not true, then we really need to stop relying on that argument as some justification

01:20:25.220 for our foreign policy.

01:20:26.780 It could be ultimately that being involved with Israel is best for the United States,

01:20:30.900 but that has to be separate from whether or not God told us to, because God tells us to

01:20:35.080 do a lot of things that are not necessarily in our self-interest.

01:20:37.720 That's actually what makes religion a thing that you sacrifice on its behalf, right?

01:20:42.640 Like religion is one of the few forces in the world that can make the human not act in

01:20:46.920 their own self-interest as Ted was talking about in this interview.

01:20:50.820 And so if we are doing things that are not in our self-interest because the Bible tells us

01:20:55.920 to, well, that's good.

01:20:57.080 That's what religious tells us to do.

01:20:58.420 But then we better get those things down.

01:21:00.260 We better understand those things correctly.

01:21:02.300 And if the commandment from the Bible is that the United States exists primarily to like

01:21:09.640 be loyal to Israel, protect Israel because the Bible said so, that's a thing we should

01:21:15.080 know, right?

01:21:15.860 We should be very clear about whether that's the case or not.

01:21:18.720 That shouldn't be a question that's hanging out there.

01:21:20.920 We should have that theology nailed down.

01:21:22.380 It's very, very important.

01:21:24.260 It's literally driving us towards war.

01:21:26.660 All right, guys, let's check out the questions of the day here.

01:21:30.500 And I do ask you to keep them respectful.

01:21:32.600 Remember, we are trying to resolve these issues in a manner that helps people gain understanding.

01:21:39.840 We don't need to be hateful and we don't need to be attacking anyone.

01:21:42.880 So let's see here.

01:21:45.040 Oh, let me take this down.

01:21:47.240 Uh, so Jonathan Dinan says, uh, Aaron McIntyre's on the case.

01:21:53.620 Uh, yes.

01:21:54.320 Thank you very much.

01:21:57.460 Let's see.

01:21:59.180 Uh, Count, uh, Arthur says Galatians 3, 25, 29.

01:22:03.880 Sorry, I don't have that address right in front of me.

01:22:06.520 Uh, but, uh, appreciate it.

01:22:10.700 Uh, Applied Virtue says, how can we trust the American government to manage the Middle East

01:22:14.800 when it can't even manage its own budget properly?

01:22:17.140 Another good question, right?

01:22:18.580 Like if we can't handle things here at home, how can we trust the government to decide who

01:22:24.320 should be in charge in the Middle East, right?

01:22:26.020 Like ultimately that might be something that we need to get involved in, but perhaps we

01:22:30.280 should make sure that we got everything squared away here first.

01:22:33.620 Prove our competency.

01:22:34.820 You know, as Jordan Peterson says, you know, take, take care of your room, you know, clean

01:22:38.600 up your room before you criticize the world.

01:22:40.240 Um, Matt Gredier says, our politicians are so owned by Israel that Ted can't even say

01:22:44.820 it's bad for Israel to spy on him.

01:22:46.720 And again, you know, Tucker Carlson made the point in here, and I think it's important

01:22:50.360 to acknowledge, and that's a big reason I left it in, uh, you know, that AIPAC does

01:22:53.640 not run all of Washington, that it's, uh, influence is waning, right?

01:22:57.780 Like Tucker Carlson says that directly and Tucker's put quite a bit on the line by making

01:23:02.340 his assertions here ultimately.

01:23:04.120 So I think it's fair to point out when he says, you know, AIPAC is not, doesn't own

01:23:09.600 every politician.

01:23:10.840 It doesn't have all the influence.

01:23:12.500 It's not coordinating our whole government or anything.

01:23:15.100 Uh, so, uh, but, but it is, it does seem to have an influence on Ted, right?

01:23:19.180 That much seems clear.

01:23:20.980 I don't know about every politician.

01:23:22.160 I don't know about running, you know, all, all the things behind the scenes, the big conspiracy.

01:23:26.220 I I'm doubtful of that.

01:23:27.760 Uh, Tucker says explicitly that he, he disagrees with that.

01:23:31.320 Um, but, but for Ted, it is an issue.

01:23:33.560 Uh, Matt says again, uh, is there any parallel in world history where the tail wags, the

01:23:40.320 dog this hard, we pay Israel billions of dollars annually, effectively prop up their military

01:23:44.600 and, uh, and sometimes, and sometimes act as their military yet we have, they have all

01:23:49.820 this way.

01:23:50.280 Well, again, you know, I don't know if that's true, but it certainly begs the question,

01:23:53.660 right?

01:23:53.880 Like why is Israel allowed to spy on us if we're giving them this money?

01:23:58.480 Why is Israel allowed to spy on us if we're the ones making sure that they continue to exist?

01:24:04.320 Seems like the most basic thing in the world to use our leverage there.

01:24:07.400 If we don't have the leverage, we should say so.

01:24:09.320 And we should know why.

01:24:10.580 If we do have the leverage, we should deploy it.

01:24:12.700 I feel like that's a pretty simple thing to make a decision on.

01:24:16.680 Fly Virtue says, Paul writes in Roman 9, 6, that not all who are descended from Israel

01:24:21.740 are Israel.

01:24:22.700 And in Galatians 3, 7, uh, that, uh, understand then that those who have faith are children of

01:24:28.800 Abraham.

01:24:29.320 Yes.

01:24:29.600 I appreciate that clarification.

01:24:30.540 And yes, there are many passages that are pretty clear, ultimately, that Israel in the

01:24:38.060 New Testament is the church.

01:24:39.720 I think this is pretty strong.

01:24:41.380 Again, I'm not a theologian, but I feel like there's lots of strong evidence.

01:24:45.180 I've looked at it.

01:24:46.360 I'm convinced by it.

01:24:47.740 There are many passages making it clear that, you know, that the fulfillment of the covenant

01:24:52.640 came with Christ and his resurrection and that, you know, the Jews who became Christians

01:24:58.960 merged with the Gentiles who became Christians.

01:25:01.760 There's neither Jew nor Gentile anymore.

01:25:04.220 We are one in Christ.

01:25:05.680 We are one church.

01:25:06.780 That is the church, both Jew and Gentile.

01:25:09.200 You don't need to become more Jewish to be Christian.

01:25:11.600 You don't get special, uh, treatment because you're Jewish and Christian.

01:25:14.860 We're all just Christians.

01:25:16.540 We're all the new Israel.

01:25:17.960 We are all one in Christ.

01:25:19.680 Again, people can differ on this issue of theology.

01:25:22.240 They will differ on this issue of theology, but I feel like the argument is very strong

01:25:27.600 and very evident.

01:25:28.340 And by the way, was again, uh, the, the, you know, the, the core belief of the church

01:25:34.220 until just 150 or so years ago, uh, Florida Henry says fully understandable why Jews fled

01:25:40.780 Europe for Palestine, but the return on investment for America has been a disaster.

01:25:44.860 10 trillion dollars in wars for us unsustainable.

01:25:47.560 Well, and again, yeah, especially given, uh, the way that, uh, you know, Jews have had

01:25:52.620 problems in different countries throughout history, understand why they want their own

01:25:57.260 nation.

01:25:57.580 To be fair, this was the complaint that most people had of Jews in their country at that

01:26:03.560 time.

01:26:03.800 Oh, they don't have their own nation and they're always in our nation.

01:26:06.260 So like the existence of a state for Jewish people, especially after World War II, entirely

01:26:11.400 reasonable, right?

01:26:12.180 It makes sense to, to a large extent, but obviously like the constant fight for that geography has

01:26:18.760 been very difficult.

01:26:19.740 And even the formation, if you go into the history of it is a fraught with problems.

01:26:24.340 Now, again, every country has to do difficult things.

01:26:28.300 And so, you know, I don't know if Israel is more or less justified in its founding and the

01:26:33.220 way it was done than any other country.

01:26:34.720 You know, everyone has skeletons in their closets.

01:26:37.580 The United States certainly does.

01:26:39.360 Uh, but ultimately, uh, you know, the, the, the long-term difficulty of maintaining that

01:26:44.060 state in that location has been very high and will probably continue to be very high.

01:26:49.100 I don't see that changing anytime soon.

01:26:52.500 Philosophical thirst worm says, I'm just so jealous.

01:26:54.560 I wish I could get these fervent, angry diatribes on behalf of America from our politicians,

01:26:59.220 nationalism by proxy.

01:27:00.380 Yeah.

01:27:01.000 You know, and I did an episode with this, uh, Jeremy Carl too, right.

01:27:03.940 Is, is it does feel often like because America has been fed this line about propositional

01:27:10.100 nation and everything, uh, people often look at foreign countries, uh, like the, uh, like

01:27:15.800 Israel and say, Oh, I want to behave like that.

01:27:18.360 So they like do this nationalism by proxy thing.

01:27:20.200 You'll even see this with Americans who normally would not like ever advocate for some ethno

01:27:25.800 state in the United States or whatever, but they see what's happening in England and

01:27:29.220 they see that and they're like, Oh no, you should like drive out every single foreigner

01:27:32.400 in your country.

01:27:33.180 Right.

01:27:33.600 Because like they see those other nations as being somehow like more real and then more

01:27:38.240 deserving of that level of nationalistic fervor, but they have a hard time applying it to

01:27:42.780 the United States.

01:27:43.500 It is a weird phenomenon and it doesn't just happen with Israel to be fair.

01:27:48.620 Uh, word E curb, uh, probably another way to pronounce that.

01:27:53.280 Uh, Ted Cruz claimed that Israel we see on a modern map is the same as ancient Israel.

01:27:58.760 We read about the Bible and a lot of American Christians think this biblical illiteracy is

01:28:02.560 a problem.

01:28:02.940 Yeah.

01:28:03.200 Like I said, this, this is critical.

01:28:04.800 This is why I said, this was the most important of the part of the interview, even though there's

01:28:08.060 lots of parts and you should go watch it.

01:28:09.640 But I clip specifically the things relating to this for a reason, because this debate has

01:28:15.960 to happen.

01:28:16.580 We have to understand the, the, the, the eschatology here matters.

01:28:20.380 Unfortunately, like if we're going to base our decisions on foreign policy on whether

01:28:25.940 or not the current Israel is like the Israel of the Bible and the Israel of the end times

01:28:30.520 and everything like we need to know, like we need to understand this.

01:28:33.400 If we don't understand it, then we don't understand the motivation of our leaders, which is, you

01:28:37.300 know, Ted Cruz stated outright, this is what he believes.

01:28:40.640 And this is why he's doing what he's doing.

01:28:43.140 Also says reading the Bible with an understanding of its historical context is a necessity.

01:28:47.160 It's not about what scripture says, but what it means that matters.

01:28:51.080 Yeah.

01:28:51.260 Right.

01:28:51.500 To understand any document, you have to have historical context, right?

01:28:55.520 That's critical.

01:28:56.940 It's not that there isn't an absolute truth in these things, but the absolute truth is

01:29:01.060 grounded in a wider understanding of how and why it was written and what those things

01:29:04.900 mean.

01:29:05.700 And so you have to have a grasp on this.

01:29:07.480 And again, because we're basing our foreign policy on that, it only becomes more critical.

01:29:11.800 All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and wrap this one up.

01:29:14.320 Thank you very much for coming by.

01:29:16.480 If it's your first time, please make sure that you subscribe to the channel, put the

01:29:20.560 bell on notifications.

01:29:21.380 So, you know, when we go live, if you'd like to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you need

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01:29:28.500 Thank you everybody for watching.

01:29:29.640 And as always, I will talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - June 20, 2025

Analyzing the Ted Cruz vs. Tucker Carlson Debate ｜ 6⧸20⧸25

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