00:00:56.000Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
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00:02:57.000Reports indicate the United States is preparing for a possible weeks-long ground operation in Iran that would include thousands of U.S. service members.
00:03:05.000Over the weekend, the USS Tripoli, manned with 3,500 troops, including 2,500 Marines, arrived in the CENTCOM area of operation.
00:03:14.000This comes as the United States and Israel launched a series of strikes against Iranian military infrastructure over the weekend, including hitting Iran's nuclear development facilities.
00:03:24.000So we're obviously getting a lot of folks ready over there.
00:03:28.000Thousands of U.S. troops are getting stationed and ready to go.
00:03:31.000And I just want to be very clear where I stand, where I believe Blake stands, where I think Turning Point stands, frankly, is we give President Trump a lot of trust, a lot of patience when it comes to this.
00:03:43.000He's proven that he doesn't do quagmires.
00:03:48.000And we've been willing to sort of, you know, be a part of this, watch, wait, understand that waiting is part of this game and to see how this plays out.
00:04:07.000And as we've warned, whatever you make of the merits of the conflict itself, it is likely to be politically disastrous if it continues long term.
00:04:18.000And we want to make that clear, especially because I think there's a lot of people who will just be determined to sell anything the president does and say, oh, it's really popular.
00:05:14.000I don't know if this was to encourage the markets.
00:05:18.000You know, a lot of people are skeptical sometimes about these truths, but he says the United States of America is in a serious discussion with a new and more reasonable regime to end our military operations in Iran.
00:05:29.000There was another quote where he basically said, regime change is already done, essentially, to end our military operations in Iran.
00:05:36.000Great progress has been made, but if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately open for business, we will conclude our lovely stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells, and Karg Island, and possibly all desalination plants, which we have purposely not yet touched.
00:05:55.000This will be in retribution for our many soldiers and others that Iran has butchered and killed over the old regime's 47-year reign of terror.
00:06:02.000Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.
00:06:05.000And part of what's complicated here is we want this to end quickly.
00:06:09.000We want this to end without escalation.
00:06:12.000And we are aware that the president's negotiating style does include lots of very aggressive threats and saber-rattling in order to then back off.
00:06:22.000And so everything we say has to be couched in those terms.
00:06:26.000Like if the president playing super hardball does help him get out faster, we have to support that because we want us to get out faster.
00:07:32.000We're having very good meetings, both directly and indirectly.
00:07:35.000And I think we're getting a lot of very important points.
00:07:38.000So I'm very pro signaling that this thing can get done, that there can be a route forward, that we can have peace quicker, sooner, without boots on the ground.
00:07:50.000Now, if President Trump is moving those assets into the region in order, to Blake's point, to saber adult, to strengthen his negotiations, that's okay.
00:09:32.000Through Hillsdale College's free online courses, he studied the great works of the classics, the principles of the American founding, and the life-changing truths of the Bible.
00:09:43.000They shaped his character, strengthened his convictions, and prepared him for the challenges ahead.
00:09:47.000One of the courses he took was the Genesis story, taught by Hillsdale professor Dr. Justin Jackson.
00:09:53.000This free online course explores the relationship between God and man, what happens when that relationship is broken, and the path toward reconciliation.
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00:10:34.000But if you are not on X this weekend, you have missed out in one of the great cultural exchanges I have ever seen, actually.
00:10:42.000And what's amazing about it is that, you know, so there's a guy on Twitter that I think he's kind of like the guy who, or X, he announces all the big changes, right?
00:10:53.000And he said that the number one country on X, actually, per capita, is Japan.
00:11:08.000And he says they have more daily active users and more overall time spent on X than any other country in the world.
00:11:14.000The U.S. has more users overall, but they're not on it as much.
00:11:17.000Whereas over two-thirds of Japan uses X on a least monthly basis.
00:11:23.000And they used to be very much in their own world.
00:11:26.000They speak a difficult language that no one can understand.
00:11:28.000But especially with modern AI tools, it's really easy to translate everything and have it be pretty accurate.
00:11:35.000And so what X has started to do, and it really ramped up in the last few weeks, is they started to share a lot more cross-language content.
00:12:06.000It turns out the Japanese are awesome and everyone loves the Japanese.
00:12:10.000Well, I heard it put this way, that there's like four really cool foreign countries in the world and the rest of them are awful, but Japan is definitely one of the really cool ones.
00:12:51.000And that's honestly really nice to see.
00:12:53.000Like, the timeline is just filled with Japanese people talking about American culture, predominantly like red America culture.
00:13:00.000We're talking like monster trucks, barbecues, pickup trucks, Texas in general.
00:13:06.000And obviously Japan, you know, Americans have always had a thing for Japan.
00:13:09.000So that's, you know, the weeb thing's always been there.
00:13:11.000But the tweets are so it's I have to say, it's so nice to see an ally actually like us because we get so much smugness from Europeans these days that it's really nice to see something.
00:13:21.000So like there was one, they actually showed the photo there.
00:13:24.000It's the one with all the guys around the barbecue.
00:13:27.000This Japanese guy just posts a photo and it's a bunch of white dudes probably in the south somewhere with just a gigantic pile of steaks over a giant grill.
00:13:37.000And he says, I'd love to see this photo.
00:13:39.000I want to participate in this event in person someday.
00:13:45.000Yeah, no, these guys are like, I've been told that if I just post a picture of nice looking meat, I'll get a lot of comments and then like, you know, millions of engagements later.
00:13:53.000And the other thing that's been really interesting about this is that I feel like it's transforming people's brains in real time right now about something called cultural appropriation, right?
00:14:04.000We have been told in this country that cultural appropriation is so terrible and it's bad.
00:14:10.000You can play the B-roll of these Japanese people dancing to American music if you want.
00:14:16.000They are all about appropriating American culture.
00:14:19.000And they're show, like, I think they're doing the twist, right?
00:14:21.000Yeah, this is a thing that has been the case in Japan for a while and people are more aware of it, that Japan actually has a lot of nostalgia is not the right word, but a lot of enthusiasm for like what you'd consider really iconically American parts and especially classic America.
00:14:57.000And it's just so sweet because these people, here's what you realize.
00:15:02.000And this is what I was thinking about this morning, is that Japan is a pretty closed culture, meaning they don't have a ton of immigrants.
00:15:08.000The reason you have the current prime minister of Japan, who's a big Trump fan, is because they got flooded with a bunch of Muslims and they started seeing mosques pop up and they closed it down instantly.
00:15:20.000Now, I'm not saying the problem's completely fixed, but that is a new wave in Japan that they haven't had to deal with as far as foreign cultures coming into their own.
00:15:31.000They don't have to, and these videos of them not having to lock up at the Apple store, their Apple phones and their Apple devices because nobody's going to steal anything.
00:15:40.000There was one tweet where I saw this American guy had it, their baby, and they had a stroller.
00:15:46.000They're baby in a stroller and they're going to cross Jaywaka Street and this old Japanese man stops them and says, the downfall of civilization starts with a single individual.
00:15:55.000A single individual, which is an amazing lesson to learn.
00:16:58.000And it just, I happen to believe that what you're seeing is going to be this re-energizing behind the nation state and about the purity of a culture and the beauty of a culture.
00:17:08.000This mass migration, this invasion-level migration that we've suffered under doesn't need to be the case across the world.
00:17:15.000We can build antibodies to it and relearn these old lessons against stopping the invading hordes.
00:17:22.000I think that the other reason this is really blown up on the right is a lot of the stuff that's gone viral from Japan is Japanese people just saying really right-wing stuff.
00:17:28.000Yeah, I'm really tired of all of these immigrants.
00:17:31.000And then there was one like some, I guess, some Muslim migrant to Japan was complaining because in Japan, the tradition is to cremate bodies instead of burying them.
00:17:50.000And I think one of the best summaries I saw, this was by an American, but it really gets at the heart of it where he says, the new auto-translate feature is great.
00:17:58.000Right-wing Americans get to read and retweet their cultural allies, high, conscientious Japanese who cook delicious food and respect craftsmanship.
00:18:06.000And left-wing Americans get to retweet their cultural allies, bio-Leninists, communists, and third world rapists.
00:21:11.000It's going to be rough getting the Protestants on the same page of this, but we should set this up for people that aren't aware of this.
00:21:16.000So there's a major church in the heart of Jerusalem in the old city, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
00:21:22.000It's built over the site, which Catholics, Orthodox, a lot of other Christian groups believe is Jesus' tomb.
00:21:28.000I say that because I know when Charlie went to the Holy Land, there is another tomb that a lot of Protestants like.
00:21:33.000But this is the one, this is the traditional one that's been the case for a very long time.
00:21:37.000And it's in the heart of the old city.
00:21:39.000And since the beginning of the war with Iran, they have closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for religious services.
00:21:46.000Now, what's not brought up by a lot of people, they have also closed Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, and they have closed the Western Wall for like a large number of pilgrims.
00:22:20.000A PR nightmare for the Israeli government, which eventually quickly, Benjamin Netanyahu did step in and say, I am going to take steps to make sure religious services can be held during Holy Week.
00:22:31.000But Michael, you were commenting on this a lot online as well.
00:22:36.000So this was an egregious mistake by the Israeli government in the thing itself, because the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem should not, under any circumstances whatsoever, be prevented from going to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, much less on Palm Sunday, during which time we commemorate Christ's entry into Jerusalem as a king, you know, feted with palms, and it starts off Holy Week.
00:23:32.000And so there's a silver lining, though, to this really unfortunate incident yesterday, which is there was a global outcry, and everybody seemed to agree.
00:23:44.000Protestants, Catholics, eventually the Israeli government.
00:23:47.000You had Mike Huckabee come out, U.S. ambassador to Israel, who is as pro-Israel as any person ever has been since Theodore Herzl.
00:23:55.000And he came out and he said, Hey, this was a mistake, guys.
00:24:25.000He's going to be allowed to say these private prayers and, you know, smaller events, celebrations, not 200 people masses, but we want to make sure that there's a presence at the Holy Sepulchre during Holy Week.
00:24:38.000And the thing that I noticed on top of all of it is this really showed you the bot accounts on social media, some of the operative accounts.
00:24:47.000I mean, people were making all sorts of disgusting claims about Cardinal Pizza Bala.
00:24:53.000This is a man who, during the Gaza war, he offered himself to Hamas in exchange for the Israeli hostages.
00:25:00.000He's just a wonderful man of the church.
00:25:03.000And so the people who were going after him still and defending, keeping him out of the Holy Sepulchre, I said, hold on.
00:25:08.000When you have Netanyahu, the Catholic Church, and the Protestants all on the same team, and you're on the other team, I think you're the problem.
00:25:29.000And we got on the same page on Palm Sunday, which is ironic.
00:25:33.000I actually didn't make this connection.
00:25:35.000I'm sure everybody on X already did, you know, days ago, but this whole like no kings rally, meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Palm Sunday, celebrating literally the arrival, the triumphant arrival of Christ, our king, to the city of Jerusalem.
00:26:02.000Because the thing is, if you're a person of faith, especially if you're Christian, Christianity has a very, very symbolic view of the world.
00:26:15.000And if you think that God is real, then like stuff is playing out in history beyond our own actions and our own imaginations.
00:26:23.000And so the libs who did their stupid no kings protests this weekend with Maisie Hirono accidentally admitting that Trump is not a king and never will be.
00:26:30.000Anyway, that's a point for another time.
00:26:32.000When they were doing that, I'm sure they didn't realize the symbolism of it all, but the symbolism is there nonetheless.
00:26:38.000I mean, frankly, there is even symbolism to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem being denied entry into the Holy Sepulchre, whether people intended it or not.
00:27:30.000And I do agree with you, though, that when you see, And I really, that was the spirit, actually, of inviting you on the show was this ecumenical, like, I just felt, I've just been feeling in the ether, Michael, like a little bit of like tension between the Prots and the Catholics.
00:27:49.000But it felt like, you know, in recent years, we kind of put most of that stuff behind.
00:27:54.000I mean, I, as a cradle Catholic, I mean, Blake disagrees.
00:27:57.000I just think in general, we tend to see each other very, very much as allies, same team.
00:28:03.000Yeah, we disagree around the edges or we disagree about that.
00:28:05.000But I want that to be the case, especially somebody who grew up as a cradle Catholic, like I said, went to Catholic high school and things.
00:28:14.000I got to know, I get annoyed when these Protestant churches go squish and they like delete the stuff from their statements of faith that the Pope is the Antichrist or whatever.
00:28:28.000Right before this interview, I was talking to Doug Wilson, who I adore because he is like the most hardcore Protestant I've ever met in my life.
00:28:38.000But I do agree with you on this point, especially, look, it comes full circle with the devil goes into overtime during Lent and Holy Week.
00:28:45.000The devil really loves to stoke division.
00:28:47.000And you've seen this politically within the administration, trying to stoke division in this really unified admin.
00:28:54.000And then you certainly see it among Americans of other types, especially people of faith, is you think, hey, guys, the left wants to harm us.
00:29:06.000The left wants to slaughter babies and redefine marriage and extirpate Christianity from public life.
00:29:13.000And while I would love to get into the 30 years war, while I would love to discuss all of the nuances of Luther versus Zwingli versus Calvin versus the one holy Catholic and apostolic faith, like that's cool, guys.
00:29:30.000But to suggest that we should be spending all of our times relitigating like 1517 when there is an actual imminent political problem that is threatening all Christians is to me a little, I don't know, a little misguided.
00:29:44.000I don't think of politics as debate club.
00:29:46.000I think of it as real political communities where people have to live together and hopefully flourish.
00:29:51.000And I think we got to get real sometimes.
00:30:19.000Well, so I think, you know, we obviously touched upon the drama around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but I think all of us understand this is part of a bigger debate about Israel, America's relationship towards it.
00:30:34.000And we see a lot of surging skepticism or outright hostility, anti-Semitism.
00:30:39.000More than skepticism in some quarters.
00:30:41.000So I was wondering, do you have any thought?
00:30:43.000If you've been following this, in addition to the scuffle over the Holy Sepulchre, there's also been claims about the last Christian settlement in the West.
00:30:53.000The all-Christian settlement in the West Bank has claimed it's getting attacked a lot by Israeli settlers.
00:30:59.000There's a lot of constant violence there.
00:31:00.000There's also reports of kind of the last Christians in Syria getting wiped out as a result of the government there.
00:31:09.000And I guess if you've been following either of those things, if you have thoughts on them and how they relate to America's alliances and relationships in the Holy Land.
00:31:33.000These are the oldest Christian communities in the world.
00:31:35.000And it's kind of funny when missionaries from America or Europe say, we're going to go and evangelize in the Middle East.
00:31:43.000So, you know, they were the first ones.
00:31:44.000They evangelized you, believe it or not.
00:31:46.000And so they've been decimated over the last 25 years.
00:31:49.000You see this even outside of the Middle East with Armenia.
00:31:53.000You know, Azerbaijan was unfortunately kind of won the war with Armenia, destroyed.
00:31:59.000Armenia is the oldest Christian nation in the world.
00:32:02.000It became Christian before even the Edict of Milan, before Emperor Constantine.
00:32:06.000And they've been really put on the back foot as well.
00:32:09.000And it's ironic there because in the case of Azerbaijan and Armenia, and this kind of brings it back to the Israel issue, Israel was backing Azerbaijan, which is a Muslim country, against Armenia, which is a Christian country.
00:32:23.000But it's because Armenia had better relations with Iran, which is a Muslim country, and Iran is the existential threat to Israel.
00:32:29.000So, bizarrely, the United States, which has a good relationship with Armenia, was funding the weapons that were going to Azerbaijan, and it becomes a real mess.
00:32:38.000So, how do we make sense of these things?
00:32:42.000Well, right off the bat, I would say, obviously, one can criticize the Israeli government and should in some cases.
00:32:48.000One should be skeptical of entangling alliances broadly.
00:32:52.000But I would just caution people: I would not allow your skepticism of or even antipathy for Israel to push you into the position of being pro-Islam.
00:33:02.000You know, the Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere who are persecuted are persecuted by Muslims.
00:33:07.000We saw on Palm Sunday in Nigeria, at least 10 Christians were massacred by Muslims in Nigeria and the plateau region.
00:33:14.000Just adds to the number, you know, which has grown immensely in recent years.
00:33:22.000And I think that sort of ideological or shallow responses to these issues in the Middle East really miss the point.
00:33:31.000You know, this is a long-standing problem.
00:33:33.000Islam has been a long-standing problem for 1,400 years.
00:33:36.000The question of sovereignty in the Holy Land has been disputed for roughly 2,000 years right now.
00:33:42.000And so, a little skepticism, I think, is merited.
00:33:45.000It's just it has to be done with some balance and with some prudence and with some charity.
00:33:49.000To look at Twitter, to look at some podcasts, you would think that we've just been in a quagmire in the Middle East for 2,000 years because someone didn't read the pseudonymous Twitter accounts post.
00:34:01.000If only we had the Twitter, we could have solved it all.
00:34:03.000No, these are immensely complex problems that are not only religious, but also political.
00:34:24.000The problem, though, is because I didn't just throw a grenade at this country or that country or whatever, I'm not going to get as many clicks.
00:34:43.000So we started the show off, and we'll give you one last hard one here.
00:34:48.000So it does appear that President Trump, the Trump administration, are positioning assets in the Middle East for a potential boots on the ground situation.
00:34:58.000We don't know yet if this is saber-rattling.
00:35:00.000We don't know if this is to strengthen a negotiating hand to, you know, listen.
00:35:06.000If you doubt President Trump's will to do military strikes of any nature, you shouldn't.
00:35:12.000And I think he understands that he has that card to play.
00:35:16.000What do you expect to transpire in the next coming weeks?
00:35:21.000And if he does use boots on the ground, what do you think the political ramifications would be?
00:35:26.000The political ramifications will be very, very tough.
00:35:29.000And the reason that I think some people don't understand that is because the war itself or the strikes themselves, whether you want to admit it's a war or just call them isolated strikes, regardless, it has a lot of support among conservative Republicans, 90% support about.
00:36:18.000We cannot let the Iranians get away with closing the Strait of Hormuz.
00:36:22.000If we let them get away with that now, we will have only strengthened the Iranian regime.
00:36:26.000I don't care how many missiles we took out.
00:36:27.000I don't care how many Ayatollahs we killed.
00:36:29.000That will have strengthened them tremendously.
00:36:31.000The next time we have any disagreement with them, they're going to close that straight and they're going to feel confident that we're not really going to do anything about it.
00:36:39.000He's got a better record on foreign policy than any president in my lifetime.
00:36:43.000And what I've said since the beginning of this war is I would have argued against it and I did argue against it, but Trump says five weeks, I'll start worrying on week six.
00:36:50.000The issue right now, I think, for the polling and for the administration is, okay, we're at the start of week five.
00:36:56.000That means we're entering into week six.
00:36:57.000Trump says we're close to a deal in the coming weeks, but I think you could see that 90% support start to crater pretty quickly.
00:37:29.000They are, they just rarely, they're expensive, and they're just, they're rarely, they rarely give you the outcome that you're promised is the most likely one when you start.
00:37:40.000Well, and listen, when you look at some of this stuff, you know, there's that video going viral online of the no kings in LA, and they're saying, you know, shoot ICE agents.
00:37:48.000It's like, well, there's a lot of enemy combatants here that I wish we would have spent $200 billion addressing.
00:37:55.000So, yeah, anyways, even just the focus of it, I agree.
00:38:13.000If you're a parent, you don't need to be told that online safety is important.
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00:38:45.000In addition to the already built-in safety and privacy protections, family pairing gives parents more tools to shape their teens' online experience based on what's right for their family.
00:38:55.000Remember, when safety comes first, discovery and creativity can follow.
00:38:59.000Learn more by going to tick tock.com/slash guardiansguide.
00:39:05.000Welcoming now to the show are three TPSA frontlines journalists.
00:39:11.000We've got Bo Alford, Frontlines TPSA reporter.
00:39:14.000We've got Gabe Victoll, Frontlines Photojournalist.
00:39:18.000And then we have Ro Ortiz, a new edition, frontline TPSA photojournalist.
00:39:59.000There was a pretty good size turnout, but the people there couldn't answer some of the more basic questions I had to ask them, which we can get to that in a little bit.
00:42:24.000One of them said, I think there was some sort of, there was like a musical rally that was, yeah, it was like Bruce Springsteen, Bernie said.
00:42:30.000It was something where like the youngest person there, Jane Fonda, like the youngest person on the stage was like 78 years old.
00:42:35.000Another thing I saw, they mentioned, this actually, the Bulwark posted this.
00:42:39.000They were pointing out turnout in the villages, you know, a very Florida heavy part of Florida.
00:42:44.000They were saying it was double the turnout of last year, and there's video of, you know, them racing by all this turnout.
00:42:50.000And okay, yeah, I guess turnout is turnout.
00:42:53.000But it does strike me that really the sort of mass protest, it's a lot of people who wish they were still protesting the Vietnam War.
00:43:01.000It's very old lib boomers, basically, which there's a lot of great boomers out there, too, but this is a subtype.
00:43:29.000I would say it was slightly more diverse, but it is important to note that I was assaulted twice, and both times I was assaulted was by old white men.
00:43:40.000There were a few people that were diverse, but for the most part, it was old white people that felt like it was their need to speak up for minorities.
00:43:50.000Yeah, I would say that it was very middle-aged, like older millennial, younger Gen X kind of people that were at this protest for sure.
00:45:34.000You know, like these people, the reason that they get so violent, at least in my opinion, is over and over again, they're told that conservatives or that right-wingers, that even just journalists in general, are Nazis, that they're violent.
00:45:48.000And, you know, if you were to think that our grandparents or grandparents of great-grandparents of many other people, they went out and they fought Nazis on the front lines.
00:45:59.000So they think that in their mind, it is justified to attack us, to hurt us, because they truly believe deep down that we are all these evil, authoritarian Nazi types.
00:46:10.000Ro, you seem very sweet, not like Bo or Gabe.
00:46:15.000Did you get accosted at all by any of these protesters?
00:46:41.000There was the one I went to in D.C., there was a correspondent from MS Now, and he had an F Trump shirt on as he's like talking on a reporter, did?
00:48:58.000I'm really interested in knowing if these people understand the origins or the people that are funding these networks that put on the No Kings rallies.
00:49:07.000For example, Roy Singham, somebody that we've brought up on this show a number of times, he's a billionaire in Shanghai.
00:50:16.000But I don't know if there's anything else really to surmise other than that is really just an anti-Trump rally that is spread across the country.
00:50:24.000And I believe they're trying to spark a color revolution.
00:50:28.000This is why you hear them talk about we just need 3.5% of the population in order to spark a color revolution.
00:51:12.000We were praying very hard before going to New York again because, you know, this past weekend, it's definitely something that could have happened, right?
00:51:21.000These radicals, they typically don't show up to these mass events where there's, you know, over like 100,000 people at it, but 100% they could, especially if they're, you know, expecting any pushback from right-wingers, from conservatives.
00:51:36.000And I 100%, you know, was praying before, praying that, you know, me and Bo would be safe and that also the other frontlines reporters would be safe across the country.
00:52:00.000I was just going to reflect and say basically what he said when I got home, definitely hugged my wife a little bit harder.
00:52:08.000And then I'm not going to lie, I think that when we were told that we were going back to New York City for No Kings, it definitely was something in the back of my head.
00:52:17.000Like, you know, the previous history of New York, of course, and then also who we have elected as mayor in New York.
00:52:24.000That's definitely something that's always going to be in the back of your mind.
00:52:28.000So we definitely prayed a little bit harder and we're thanking God when we were safe.
00:52:32.000Yeah, isn't that wild that that's the world we live in now?
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00:55:22.000So, for those of you in the audience who are maybe not aware of Ridvan's story, he was born and raised a Muslim and then sort of broke away from the faith.
00:55:33.000And now he's a Christian, which is excellent.
00:55:36.000But he gives incredible insights about the Muslim mindset, the frame of mind, their ideology.
00:55:44.000And so, Ridvan, I tasked you with a specific task to go figure out what the vibe is in Iran right now.
00:55:52.000The people on the ground, I know you have a lot of Iranian friends, Persian friends.
00:56:35.000The internet has been entirely and completely shut down by the Islamic Republic, the Islamic regime, with the excuse that they have to tackle misinformation and international global foreign interference and all that.
00:56:51.000But shutting down your own people's access to the internet is, of course, a very miserable way to treat your own people.
00:56:58.000And it's clear why this is being done.
00:57:00.000It's to prevent organizing, to prevent mobilization, to prevent people communicating with each other.
00:57:08.000So, the average Iranian has great difficulties accessing information, understanding what's actually going on.
00:57:14.000Those Iranians that we see, we usually see video recordings, we receive some limited information.
00:57:21.000The majority of Iranians, according to the latest research of all different sources, say that over 85 to 90 percent of Iranians despise the Islamic Republic that is in charge and want it gone.
00:57:35.000So, they have no good feelings about this government.
00:57:39.000Many of them look with hope at the current war.
00:57:42.000I know for some people, it seems like it's a little bit puzzling and confusing that they would cheer on the bombing of their own country, but that's not really what is happening.
00:57:52.000The current U.S. and Israeli strikes are vastly carried out on military sites and government facilities vastly, not exclusively, but vastly.
00:58:05.000The Iranians generally seem to be happy about it and celebrate it.
00:58:09.000You can see them sharing videos of themselves, singing about it and smiling and enjoying it, and hoping for the downfall of the Islamic regime.
00:58:18.000The problem is that the Islamic regime is a strongly and firmly embedded regime, an authoritarian government that also has its own militia and its own forces.
00:58:30.000So, Iran has two separate militaries: the regular national military, and then the one that is purely loyal to the Islamic regime, that is an Islamic military.
00:58:40.000And that military is very vicious and very loyal to the Islamic regime.
00:58:46.000They have their own special forces, the Basij, they have the IRGC, which is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is all about protecting Islam and the ambitions of the Islamic Republic.
00:58:58.000Those people are the problem because as much as the people of Iran are willing to get rid of this regime, they are dealing with a very, very barbaric, very ruthless, very vicious force that is loyal to the Islamic regime.
00:59:15.000They might make up only less than 10%.
00:59:18.000Those who are loyal to the regime might only make up less than 10% of the population, but they have very strong organized military and police forces that protect them and that have no issues shooting down civilians in masses in the thousands if they mobilize, which is why we have not seen much of an uprising.
00:59:37.000And I'm sure you're going to ask that as a follow-up.
00:59:40.000But so that's the situation right now.
00:59:45.000People are hopeful that America and Israel will together do something to weaken and destroy this Islamic regime, but they are also a little bit uncertain and frightened, also because Donald Trump has kind of sent mixed messages to the people of Iran, such as the latest is stay inside while bombs are falling, but also at the same time, seize the moment and be ambitious, make the change, and all that.
01:00:15.000So there is uncertainty, there is hope, there is some fear, but I would say the most dominant feeling that I perceive from Iran is that there is hope at the moment.
01:00:27.000Obviously, we hope you're right, Ridvan, but at the same time, I guess I just sometimes wonder if when we see these clips or when we see these narratives, like, are we being worked?
01:00:38.000Because I feel like certainly before the strikes were launched, I think I perceived on X, I perceived on media, a lot of efforts to sell, like, oh, it's really on the tipping point.
01:00:48.000It's clearly just about to fall and it looks really convincing.
01:00:54.000And it's not even that the government doesn't collapse.
01:00:56.000It's that there's not obvious signs that it would be, you know, on the ropes.
01:01:01.000And I guess inevitably, is it the case that when we're seeing videos come out of countries like Iran, we are going to see the people who are most likely to have access to the internet, have access to smartphones, have access to stuff, even when there's the middle of a war going on.
01:01:17.000And that's just not going to be a representative group for a country like Iran, where there are rural people, poorer people, who are more likely to be backing a fundamentalist regime like this one.
01:01:28.000So first again, I would like to establish, I mean, these are legitimate concerns and questions.
01:01:32.000But so according to all the research, even by Iranian organizations, Gaman and certain others, when the Iranian people themselves are polled, this is prior to the war, when they are polled and asked about their opinions on the government and who or what should be in charge, over 85% of them say that the Islamic regime should not be in charge.
01:01:57.000The most popular option for people to pick as for who should be in charge is half or up to a half of the population says that the crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, should take over and should lead the country towards some kind of democracy or something like that.
01:02:16.000So the people are really, really severely disheartened.
01:02:19.000Much of the videos that come out are, many of the videos that come out come out after blackouts, when somebody records something, then we wait for a while and then they somehow gain access to the internet, they publish it and then we see it.
01:02:33.000So I do have a lot of sources, a lot of people.
01:02:37.000I can recommend many people who are doing this all the time.
01:02:40.000One of those is a Canadian politician, former politician actually, who was kicked out because she was speaking about, you know, critically about Islam, Goldi Amari.
01:02:51.000She posts about this or reports about this and talks to Iranians within Iran every day.
01:02:56.000And so the sentiments there are generally that the people have hope.
01:03:02.000Now there is one misunderstanding, which is you mentioned tipping point.
01:03:08.000I would have been, I was also at the beginning of this war very careful to say that the Islamic regime is about to die or about to crumble.
01:03:15.000I was sure that the supreme leader, Khamenei, would die and be killed.
01:03:20.000He was on the list very high of people who are to be killed.
01:03:24.000But the Islamic regime, as I said, is not necessarily at a very terrible tipping point.
01:03:32.000They are weakened, but even when they are weak, they have a very firm ideology that they stand by.
01:03:38.000They are hardcore ideologues and loyalists.
01:03:42.000If they only had three people left in that government, they would still not give up and they would still fire whatever they have at their surroundings in order to survive.
01:03:51.000This is not a government that actually cares about the people.
01:03:56.000If in a Western nation, the majority of the population walked toward their government buildings and demanded that the government steps down, in a civilized Western society, the government would most likely eventually give up.
01:04:10.000In Iran, Iranians are also very, very much unlike most of the Middle Eastern people, but their government is a very barbaric Islamist regime.
01:04:19.000And they don't understand any of this.
01:04:22.000If the entire population walked toward the government and demanded them to step down, they would have no problem shooting down and mowing down the entire population in order to preserve their ideology and their ideological apocalyptic government, which has the ambitions of bringing about their end time figure and expanding Islam or Shia Islam to the whole world.
01:04:46.000So there's also one aspect, which is at the beginning of the war, Israel itself was trying to explore whether they could help the Iranian people overthrow the regime.
01:04:59.000The latest reports are that the Israeli government itself is a little bit frustrated because they don't seem to really be able to mobilize the Iranian people.
01:05:09.000It's because the Iranian people are scared.
01:05:11.000The last time they stood up, the last few times they stood up, they were massacred.
01:05:15.000Just a few months ago in January, over 30,000 of them were killed.
01:07:51.000And that's also one of the main issues why the Iranians are not really rising up to overthrow the regime.
01:07:57.000Rising up to overthrow the regime is not something that the Iranian population would really be, you know, would lovingly do.
01:08:06.000It would result in mass violence and killings.
01:08:09.000And it's not a very good Iranian trade that they are really, really into, unlike most of the other Middle Eastern or Arab countries, for example.
01:08:35.000But then Trump also said that he's actually in good talks with the current Iranian leadership, whereas the Iranian side said we are actually not.
01:08:43.000So we are receiving lots of mixed signals and there is a complex situation on the ground.
01:08:49.000The Iranian military says there are no talks.
01:08:51.000We will not surrender to any of your demands.
01:08:54.000You will lose this war, publishing leg AI videos and things like that.
01:08:59.000What the American government currently demands from them is that they completely roll back their nuclear enrichment program because Iran made it very clear that they plan to enrich uranium to absurd levels of 60 or 80 or 90.
01:09:14.000And civilian, reasonable civilian use is capped at 5%.
01:09:19.000So they are clearly aiming for military use.
01:09:23.000To dismantle most of the nuclear facilities, to stop completely and disband all their proxy military units like the Hezbollah, the Houthis and all that.
01:09:53.000It is also, I would say, from my perspective, a moral issue.
01:09:58.000This is a regime that brutally mistreats and kills its population over nothing, over women or girls refusing to cover themselves properly and all that.
01:10:08.000For a power like America, it would be a good and moral thing to help them take out this regime.
01:10:14.000That said, I also would not like to see boots on the ground in the traditional way.
01:10:20.000It would be a very difficult situation.
01:10:23.000It would bring suffering to America, to Americans, and it could also escalate very quickly and result in massive bloodshed over there.
01:10:32.000What I do think is reasonable is if America and Israel take this seriously and gain complete air superiority over Iran which is, by the way, one of the goals of the, of the, of the, of the current uh proposed peace deal, to have complete, you know, intrusive surveillance over Iran.
01:10:54.000If they gain proper air superiority, I think the only way that uh boots on the ground could be done would be to send in a special force to take out certain targets and then to establish a, you know a a, a proper force for the people inside that country.
01:11:08.000But that is um, I am at this point just uh, speculating and um, you know, wishing and hoping for something, but it's unclear.
01:11:18.000I just it makes me concerned where people say, as you say the, the regime is bad, the regime must go.
01:11:25.000But if we're going to say the regime must go, what is actually the expense we're willing to bear?
01:11:30.000Because I think if you could topple this government entirely with air power, it would have happened by now, and so instead once, you're committing troops.
01:11:41.000Three times the size of, I think, three times the size of Ukraine, it's like five times the size of Texas, something like that, 90 million people, very rugged, very mountainous, it's got a lot of big cities, it's got a lot of deserts, it's got a lot of mountain forests, and I don't think a few thousand people could topple that government.
01:12:01.000You would actually need a big commitment and at that point I don't think we have the political lift for that in the United States.
01:12:08.000I don't think we have the readiness to spend that sort of thing.
01:12:12.000And then you're stuck asking yourselves, okay well, we say the regime must go, but do we actually think that?
01:12:18.000Or can we tolerate this lesser irrigation?
01:12:21.000Yeah, my issue is then, it's like, well listen i'm, I don't want a nation build.
01:12:25.000I mean I, I I want regime change for the Iranian people, but I want stuff for America too.
01:12:30.000And the whole time we're focused on this.
01:12:32.000We're not spending 200 billion dollars here at home to get it fixed.
01:12:36.000So I I, just as an American, you're kind of going, okay, if we can't get everything we want, but we can get the Straight Of Hormuz open and we can get, you know, no nukes, no nukes, end of their ballistic missiles, whatever.
01:12:49.000Right, at some point, Iranians need to take this into their own hands.
01:12:52.000Uh and, and maybe Reza can do it, maybe he can spark this, this revolution, maybe.
01:12:56.000I mean, he try, he tries to appeal to the loyal forces all the time the, the issue is um, so you know that there is one conversation that people have and that people raise, which is that um, that that the Islamic regime in Iran does not pose an imminent threat to the United States Of America.
01:13:12.000I agree that it doesn't pose an imminent threat to the United States Of America.
01:13:16.000However, it does pose a threat overall.
01:13:18.000And you know, when you have a, when you have a very vicious, fierce enemy uh, you usually don't wait until they pose an imminent threat.
01:13:24.000So um, even if it is simply for our own interests uh, if America just lets them be and and comes out with a deal that prevents them from advancing their nuclear enrichment program.
01:13:37.000First of all, i'm not, I I do not believe for a second that the Islamic regime will actually honor that uh.
01:13:43.000Second secondly, the Islamic regime has it in their constitution and in their words the entire time.