The NXR Podcast - April 01, 2026


THE SPECIAL - The GOP Civil War Over Israel Is Here wâ§žJames Fishback


Episode Stats


Length

55 minutes

Words per minute

158.52957

Word count

8,819

Sentence count

453


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 What do you think about that?
00:00:01.020 That just even the term Judeo-Christian?
00:00:03.760 Well, I don't, it doesn't make any sense, actually.
00:00:05.660 Just, it doesn't, it's just a historical,
00:00:08.460 you know, someone says that, by the way,
00:00:11.040 the term first emerged in the mid 20th century.
00:00:13.520 If this was a term that was used in the 1790s,
00:00:16.040 perhaps we could entertain it,
00:00:17.460 but none of our founding fathers were Jew.
00:00:19.520 I mean, it's just, it's just what it is.
00:00:20.840 And it's like, why is it that just telling the truth
00:00:24.840 that none of our, I had this,
00:00:26.320 I was doing a fundraiser in Palm Beach
00:00:28.360 at the Ritz-Carlton, and one of the residents had us, and there were about a dozen geriatric
00:00:35.060 patients in the lobby who were protesting me. And they said, why do you say, why are you against
00:00:41.600 the term Judeo-Christian? I said, because none of our founding fathers were Jewish. How dare you?
00:00:46.160 How dare I what? I'm telling you the truth.
00:00:48.580 The 30-year-old CEO of an investment firm, Fishback says he would build on DeSantis' legacy.
00:00:54.960 it is absolutely vital that james fishback wins
00:01:05.380 james fishback welcome back uh this episode you know you kind of go back and forth it's like
00:01:19.380 we're going to talk about the bears, the bulls, the Jews. Now, you and I don't have the same
00:01:26.900 position. So I'm expecting that you will push back on some of this stuff. And it'll give me
00:01:32.480 an opportunity to clarify some of my position. But both of us agree in the sense that America
00:01:37.880 should be a free speech nation, right? Yes. Yes. And both of us agree that America's current
00:01:45.000 relationship with Israel is not great. It's horrendous. It's horrendous. So you don't have
00:01:52.060 to make something about an entire ethnic people, right? It doesn't have to be about the Jews. I
00:01:57.600 say some of that tongue in cheek, although there are some things that I might bring up in this
00:02:01.080 episode and you're free to disagree. You're a free person and I know that you will. But let's start
00:02:06.160 with the nation state of Israel and America's ties and our relationship with our greatest ally.
00:02:12.660 Why do you see this, as I do, in many of the same ways, as problematic?
00:02:19.740 Well, perhaps it's problematic because while I think Ron DeSantis has been a great governor,
00:02:25.420 I deeply disagree with the decision to go sign a hate speech bill against anti-Semitism,
00:02:31.440 period, but to do it in Israel felt like a real affront to our sovereignty of our country.
00:02:38.120 Look, Israel has a right to defend itself against murderous Islamic terrorists.
00:02:42.560 No one's debating that.
00:02:44.000 The bigger debate is whether we should continue to fund a country that consistently undermines our interests, pushes laws in our country that are antithetical to what our founders set in motion, and then ultimately punishes our own citizens.
00:03:03.440 There was a 16-year-old boy from Melbourne, Florida, not too far from where I grew up, down in Broward.
00:03:09.840 He visited family in the West Bank.
00:03:11.520 He's an American citizen born in the United States, grew up in Florida.
00:03:17.500 He went to the West Bank last February to visit family.
00:03:20.620 While he was there, he was accused of throwing a rock at an IDF armored vehicle.
00:03:25.720 Throwing a rock at an armored vehicle hurt no one.
00:03:28.700 He was detained in Israeli military prison for eight months as a 16 year old. He lost 27 pounds
00:03:37.240 and contracted scabies. Why do we let our greatest ally treat anyone, least of all an American
00:03:45.320 citizen like that? And Randy Fine of all people literally called me. I don't know how he has my
00:03:50.420 number, but he called me and berated me for 42 minutes on the phone about this and other things
00:03:56.260 like me running against Byron Donalds for governor because he said it was anti-Semitic for me to
00:04:00.520 speak out against a Muslim boy for being detained by the Israeli government. I don't care what you
00:04:05.620 are. If you're an American citizen, you have no business being detained by the Israeli government
00:04:10.900 or any government, any foreign government. I would have said the same thing if it was Qatar
00:04:15.640 or if it was China or if it was Russia or it was Ukraine, to be detained by a foreign government
00:04:20.520 as a teenager with no due process, no trial, no hearing for eight months is disgraceful.
00:04:30.060 And so, no, I'm not holding Israel to a double standard. I'm holding them to the same standard
00:04:34.800 that we have in the United States. A 16-year-old boy who threw a rock at an armored truck in the
00:04:40.800 US would likely be punished, would likely have a deal, would likely go to a juvenile detention
00:04:46.060 facility, but there would be a trial, et cetera, et cetera. They would not be thrown into a prison
00:04:50.320 where they're given no daylight, where they're contracting scabies, they lose 27 pounds.
00:04:55.720 And it wasn't until Republicans and Democrats, no, not Republicans nor Democrats, that's kind
00:05:01.360 of the line we go to, where no one really stood up. I was privileged to meet with the family
00:05:07.740 of Muhammad Ibrahim, this young man from Florida, and be really the only Republican in my state
00:05:14.200 who said, no, no foreign country can detain American citizens, least of all our teenagers,
00:05:21.460 without any semblance of due process. That is wrong. And yet, what did the Randy Fines,
00:05:27.860 what did the APACs of the world do? They criticized us for being anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism,
00:05:34.600 that label, has become like racism. It means absolutely nothing. Is there hatred of Jews
00:05:43.240 in society? Of course there is. It is wrong. It is reprehensible. Justice's hatred of Muslims is,
00:05:49.360 and especially hatred of Christians, which I view as the most systemic, systematic, virulent,
00:05:54.260 and ubiquitous form of religious hatred in our country. We have to call it all out. We have to
00:05:58.860 condemn all of it. But if we're going to talk about discriminating and holding antipathy for
00:06:05.320 a religion, none other than Christians actually face the most persecuted form of discrimination
00:06:11.760 in America today. Yeah, that's absolutely true. If there's any discrimination from a racial
00:06:17.480 standpoint, it's actually systematic. And on the books, it is racism towards whites. If there's
00:06:24.420 any religious hatred that's actually being carved out with provisions systematically, it is a hatred
00:06:31.640 towards Christianity. That said, and we'll come back to the topic at hand, speaking of Israel.
00:06:36.660 That said, I do think without harboring some kind of wide swath, universal, unjustifiable
00:06:45.360 hatred towards an ethnic people as a whole or towards X, Y, and Z, fill in the blank.
00:06:52.500 I do think that there is a way without harboring hatred to still give special preference, deference,
00:07:00.120 esteem, preeminence.
00:07:01.640 this is where i struggle with a lot of gop guys and you and i may just not see eye to eye on this
00:07:09.700 particular topic and that's okay um but i i don't think that it's equal i i don't think it is look
00:07:17.140 there should be um if you're muslim or if you're christian or if you're you know um if you uh if
00:07:23.740 it's judaism or hinduism or buddhism or you know fill in the blank that um you know they they all
00:07:30.280 should receive certain provisions and this no i christianity should be preeminent because america
00:07:37.620 is a christian nation it's our heritage it's our history so let me give you a tangible example so
00:07:43.600 you actually know what i'm talking about um i would say that uh islamic calls to to prayer
00:07:49.540 prayer sirens should be banned church bells should be legal well that's that's not fair
00:07:58.740 correct it's not supposed to be fair right it's not go to any muslim nation that they're not fair
00:08:06.680 they're able to unapologetically simply say um we're but we're a muslim nation we are a christian
00:08:14.160 nation now i'm not talking about like if you ever saw tom cruise minority report where you're trying
00:08:18.720 you know you're sneaking into people's homes to preemptively you know you have your suspicion
00:08:22.840 that so and so is going to be you know dudes i'm not talking about the muslim police i'm not talking
00:08:27.000 about the jewish police i'm not talking about any of those things i'm talking about public um
00:08:32.340 borderline intrusive expressions of religious worship i think that it's perfectly justifiable
00:08:42.060 on the basis of our founding and the basis of our heritage to say um certain religious public
00:08:49.800 symbol for instance here's another example um from the white house happy easter good happy
00:08:56.860 Diwali. Bad. Why? Because we're a Christian nation. Well, my view in all of this is
00:09:04.720 as a Christian, I would not partake in any other religious tradition or festivity. I just wouldn't.
00:09:18.560 And so that would mean I'm not wishing anybody a happy Diwali, not because I disrespect Diwali,
00:09:25.160 not because I hold contempt for the people, not at all. It's because as a Christian,
00:09:30.040 I celebrate Christmas and Easter. Those are our holy days in our faith. And it shouldn't be
00:09:39.820 controversial. It sure as heck not anti-Semitic to say that I don't plan to have a menorah in
00:09:46.520 the governor's mansion if I'm elected on August 18th. In 1989, there was a county in Pennsylvania
00:09:54.380 that committed the mortal sin of putting up a nativity scene without a menorah right next to it.
00:09:59.780 And so the ACLU sued Allegheny County and went to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court,
00:10:04.220 in its infinite wisdom, found that nativity scenes, without being immediately accompanied
00:10:09.780 by other religious symbols from other faiths, were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has
00:10:16.820 erred before. And all we need now is a governor who will step up and put a nativity scene
00:10:22.660 at a courthouse or a state building,
00:10:25.340 let the ACLU sue us.
00:10:27.100 And I'm confident that today's Supreme Court,
00:10:29.120 whether it's five, four, six, three,
00:10:30.540 will depend on how she's feeling that day,
00:10:31.980 but that's okay.
00:10:32.800 We'll win.
00:10:33.960 We have to be unapologetic about our Christian faith.
00:10:37.940 Allow me just to push back on the Muslim siren call,
00:10:41.680 called prayer and the church bells.
00:10:43.540 They're not exactly directly comparable.
00:10:45.420 No, they're not.
00:10:45.960 They're not.
00:10:46.480 One's intrusive.
00:10:47.680 One is pleasant.
00:10:48.380 Well, one is objectively different.
00:10:52.660 So I'll give you an example. Let's just do an actual apples to oranges. A church has an Apostles' Creed reading on a giant speakerphone twice a day, five times a day, and there's a mosque that has a Muslim call to prayer five times a day. That's a direct comparison.
00:11:13.100 Right. Objectively, church bells have a melody to them. They are pleasant to the ears. An Islamic call to prayer, I'm not saying is unpleasant, but it is not of the same frequency, quite literally, it is not of the same intonation as musical bells.
00:11:33.040 Yeah. Right. I think we can, we can do this in a way that's actually principled and respect the fact that, look, as Christians, what we want more than anything is we want to bring people to Christ. I don't think we bring people to Christ by deliberately ostracizing or othering our friends of other faiths. We want to bring them over.
00:11:56.460 we want to bring them over to our faith. I don't think that happens through, and it's not that
00:12:02.940 it's ridicule, but I think it could be perceived that way. I want nothing more than to bring
00:12:07.400 people over. Is that going to be vinegar? Is that going to be honey? My grandmother said it was
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00:13:20.980 i hear you and i appreciate your position um for me i think of the kings in israel under the old
00:13:31.060 covenant and there was something substantial and significant and good and right about saying no
00:13:38.860 we're not going to carve out space to the asherah poles or the balls we're going to to say you you
00:13:47.540 can't erect high places to foreign gods i i believe in a very real tangible sense
00:13:53.360 that america is currently underneath god's judgments you know we say god bless america
00:13:59.700 but america has long neglected to bless god we um are not the christian people that we once were
00:14:08.060 we don't have fidelity to christ as we once did and freedom of religion i understand that many
00:14:15.280 people are i'll say it is as politely as i can i under the impression that um that this is a
00:14:23.820 founding principle although i struggle to see how the founding fathers could have even possibly
00:14:29.480 conceived of that provision being used as a way that it is today i don't i don't think the
00:14:36.100 founding fathers could have even conceived of millions and millions of other people with
00:14:41.980 other religions here in America. So I understand the instinct of saying, well, this is uniquely
00:14:49.140 American and it's who we are. But at the same time, I look at the scripture and there are clear
00:14:58.900 judgments for idolatry. And there actually is such a thing as national judgment. Certainly we each in
00:15:06.740 the eternal sense, the ultimate judgment, the final judgment, we stand before God as individuals.
00:15:12.320 We won't be able to point to our nation or to our parents or to some group identity to somehow
00:15:17.540 either indict ourselves or exonerate ourselves. It'll be you and Christ alone. Did you trust in
00:15:24.240 him? Did you love him? Did you serve him? Those will be the questions. And God's final judgment
00:15:29.860 is on an individual basis, but there is in biblical terms in this temporal realm, something
00:15:35.180 to be said for corporate judgments even national judgments and when i look at the bible and i think
00:15:41.040 about you know what are the particular sins that nations found themselves under god's judgment for
00:15:48.080 um one of them was idolatry and i i don't think that you have to be inhumane i don't think that
00:15:55.060 you need to be cruel i'm not saying that um that people need to be disrespected or that they need
00:16:01.660 to be undignified that you know um but i but i do think that there there is it's a it's a dangerous
00:16:10.420 line that we're walking i agree exercising hospitality trying to catch more flies with
00:16:16.400 vinegar doing the work of an evangelist being loving to our neighbors and trying to win them
00:16:22.820 over compel them with the love of christ all those things are good and right but it's such
00:16:28.600 a fine line between doing the work of an evangelist who wins people over to the sweetness
00:16:34.400 of the gospel, and yet at the same time, on the other side of the road, there's another
00:16:39.700 ditch of tolerating and even exemplifying and esteeming idolatry.
00:16:47.620 And I look at this and I think, what would God have us do as a nation?
00:16:54.220 What is the right course of action?
00:16:58.080 and i've tried because i don't think the civil magistrate just for the record i i'm a christian
00:17:02.900 nationalist i don't believe in forced conversions i don't believe because god alone converts the
00:17:07.660 heart this is you know it's not just coerced outward manifestations it has to be a true work
00:17:12.820 of the holy spirit and so i'm not saying that the state should ever be involved in such matters
00:17:17.400 but there is a difference between sin and the state doesn't actually punish sin it punishes
00:17:23.480 crimes. Not all crimes are sin when the state is acting unjustly and labeling something as a crime
00:17:29.940 that's not actually immoral, but then certainly in the other direction, not all sins are crime.
00:17:35.680 So for instance, the 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet. I don't want the state to form the
00:17:41.960 coveting police. I don't want thought crimes, right? I don't want that. I don't think that
00:17:47.820 that's biblical. So there are certain sins like coveting that in the final judgment,
00:17:52.900 God will hold each individual accountable.
00:17:55.680 In a way that the civil magistrate can't.
00:17:57.300 Right, in a way that can't and also shouldn't.
00:18:00.960 It would actually be unjust and immoral.
00:18:03.820 But one of the differentiating factors, I think,
00:18:07.160 between these categories of sins and crimes
00:18:10.140 is the publicity, the public nature, right?
00:18:15.500 So something like drunkenness, for instance.
00:18:19.580 If someone gets drunk in their home privately,
00:18:22.200 I believe, as a Christian minister, that that's a sin. If somebody is publicly intoxicated and
00:18:29.320 they're shouting curse words, then they actually can be penalized. It breaches that boundary from
00:18:41.420 sin to crime. And when I think about the worship of false gods, it's hard for me, James, to get
00:18:49.380 around it like how how can i ask god to bless our nation while also not just tolerating but actually
00:18:57.600 as a nation priding ourselves on how accommodating we are to public forms of idolatry like what would
00:19:07.920 you i know that's a difficult thing you're running to be a politician a state governor i'm putting
00:19:13.020 you in a hard place right now but you're also a christian how how do you i'm just curious how do
00:19:18.620 you thread that needle well i think it's all it's all downstream of immigration actually yes right
00:19:24.660 so this didn't just come about it didn't spawn in the middle of florida yeah it's not a bunch
00:19:29.700 of heritage americans were just decided to run over to islam to hinduism or whatever the case is
00:19:35.160 this is all a consequence of migration so let's get to not to sound trite but let's get to the
00:19:40.680 root cause if the root cause is importing all these people from the indian subcontinent and
00:19:46.200 then we're frustrated by everything that comes as a result of that. Why try to regulate all of the
00:19:51.380 downstream derivatives and why not just actually get to the source of it, which would be unfettered
00:19:58.840 migration from the third world? Two things. Blasphemy laws were actually upheld in the early
00:20:08.040 days of the country in the first 50, 60 years, as consistent with the first amendment. There's
00:20:13.520 fascinating readings at the federal and appellate level, different decisions that came about because
00:20:18.620 they recognized at the time that the First Amendment protected political speech. It didn't
00:20:23.400 necessarily protect blasphemous speech against our Lord. It's a fascinating argument. There are
00:20:28.780 good arguments on both sides of it, actually, because what is political speech and where does
00:20:33.360 it become religious blasphemy? And that becomes difficult. But if we're just going to be straight
00:20:40.160 about this. The first amendment as currently interpreted by every single justice on the
00:20:47.240 Supreme court would side against you with your view. Yeah, I know. Right. Where they would not
00:20:52.420 side against you. In fact, where six out of three would side with you, six out of the six to three
00:20:57.180 would side with you is allowing us to restrict the migration that imports the very things that you
00:21:06.380 feel are anathema to the United States of America and our Christian founding. You know, why, you
00:21:13.040 know, we can sit here and there's all of this in the house. Let's get to the root cause of how it
00:21:17.860 got here. And by the way, if we're serious about evangelization, about evangelism, let's send
00:21:25.680 missionaries as the Catholic church has done now, has a presence in every single country in the
00:21:31.520 world. Let's have missionaries evangelize in these different parts of the world. We don't
00:21:37.040 need to import the third world to come here and then evangelize. And so it is a fascinating debate.
00:21:42.680 I think the bigger argument though, is if we are serious about reasserting our Christian identity,
00:21:52.940 we have to recognize that large parts of the Republican party are in direct contradiction
00:21:59.560 of that. Yes. Direct contradiction. We talked earlier in our conversation about divorce and
00:22:06.340 we talked about my opponent very clearly now unequivocally living in an open state of adultery
00:22:11.940 with his first, with his now second wife, but against his first wife. And I think the state
00:22:17.420 has a moral responsibility to deter that behavior, to punish that behavior, to discourage that
00:22:23.060 behavior. And the best way to do that is if you are a man and you are caught cheating, if you're
00:22:28.800 a woman and you're caught cheating and you're married. End of story. You are forced to give
00:22:33.260 up everything. You have that happen about half a dozen times and it'll get national, perhaps even
00:22:38.160 international news coverage. One, you're going to see cheating and adultery end as we know it,
00:22:46.860 as we know it. But also you're going to see the covenant that is marriage.
00:22:53.440 people really start to think that it's not a transaction right it's actually a covenant
00:23:00.580 and the lord is party to that covenant and that's something that should be more of the
00:23:07.540 conversation in politics that this is not a covenant between a man and a woman it's a
00:23:11.680 covenant between a man a woman and the lord right i also think that if we want to get back to a
00:23:20.200 that venerates the sanctity of marriage, we have to be willing to dispossess in their entirety
00:23:27.280 any man or woman caught in a state of adultery, full stop, all financial assets, home, cash,
00:23:35.300 and strip them of their custody. Make examples out of them. What you'll see, the cheating will stop,
00:23:42.140 the adultery will stop, divorce will be really rethought entirely, but also people will enter
00:23:47.600 marriage, knowing full well what the consequences of their actions are. And that's what I think
00:23:55.140 society, American politics, if you could synthesize it to just a few issues, one of those issues is
00:24:02.360 that our actions are so disconnected from the consequences, right? You kill someone in 1992,
00:24:10.100 you'll be put to death in 2026. So disconnected. You send men to die overseas. They'll never be
00:24:19.060 the men of a senator. Never be the daughters of a congressman. They'll die overseas. There's
00:24:25.080 total disconnection. There's no skin in the game. And that is a real problem. That's why we keep
00:24:31.220 getting these disastrous consequences. If Congress, if you said, all right, we're going to send some
00:24:36.800 people to war. And if it was anyone under the age of 40, who was a son or daughter of a congressman
00:24:43.500 was going to get drafted as well, there'd be very few authorizations to send people to war.
00:24:48.560 We are so disconnected as a society, as a political operation from the consequences
00:24:55.420 of our actions. And what I think I bring to the governor's mansion is a business background where
00:25:04.160 I was responsible for my actions. If my company did well, I got paid more. If it did poorly,
00:25:10.140 I got paid nothing. I had to hire people. I had to let people go. I had to give up my own pay for
00:25:15.940 six months at one point to make sure that my employees were taken care of. No member of
00:25:20.260 Congress has ever had to deal with that. In fact, when we shut down government, when the Republicans
00:25:24.600 and Democrats shut down government, our own service members don't get paid, but members of
00:25:29.640 congress still get their full pay they are immune to any consequences for their disastrous actions
00:25:36.620 yep well said so going back for a moment with religion would what do you think all right so
00:25:46.980 taking aside some of the things that you and i we just we would see different paths different
00:25:53.180 solutions um we would just have some disagreements but when i think of judaism specifically um
00:26:03.420 right i don't really hear anybody saying you know um islamic christian you know or
00:26:11.980 hindu christian you know but we do hear judeo-christian would you would you at least
00:26:18.780 admit on the religious question uh that some degree of if we talk about in a spirit of fairness
00:26:27.240 which i would you know push back to that as i already have but even if we you know assume that
00:26:32.540 for a moment for the sake of argument um would you agree that it seems like there is more than
00:26:39.000 just fairness or equality but but a clear like public and political preference given to judaism
00:26:46.440 above any other religion except for maybe christianity in these united states probably
00:26:54.560 unequivocally what do you think about that just even the term judeo-christian well i don't it
00:27:01.160 doesn't make any sense actually just yeah it doesn't it's just a historical uh you know
00:27:06.480 someone says that by the way the term first emerged in the mid-20th century if this was a
00:27:10.660 term that was used in the 1790s perhaps we could entertain it but none of our founding fathers were
00:27:15.920 Jew. I mean, it's just, it's just what it is. And it's like, why is it that just telling the truth
00:27:21.420 that none of our, I had this, there was a, I was doing a fundraiser in Palm beach at the Ritz
00:27:26.140 Carlton and one of the residents had us. And there were about a dozen geriatric patients in the lobby
00:27:32.880 who were protesting me. And they said, why do you say, why are you against the term Judeo-Christian?
00:27:39.240 I said, because none of our founding fathers were Jewish. How dare you? How dare I what? I'm telling
00:27:44.260 you the truth. The founding fathers of Saudi Arabia were Muslim. The founding fathers of
00:27:52.240 this country were Christian. It is just the truth. It's not hateful. It's not antipathy.
00:27:57.960 It's just the truth. And so why is everything, why is the knee-jerk reaction to everything
00:28:04.800 anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism? The next time somebody says this is a Judeo-Christian
00:28:11.260 country, ask them, how is it a Judeo-Christian country? And this is not to slander Jews. This
00:28:22.140 is just very simply historical observation. What exactly makes America a Judeo-Christian
00:28:29.020 country? What? There's actually more Muslims than Jews in the country. There's more Muslims
00:28:35.060 than Jews in the country, right off the bat. It's not an Islamo-Christian country.
00:28:41.260 Although in say what you want about Islam, Islam holds our Lord in higher regard than Judaism does.
00:28:46.940 Yeah. Every, every major world religion does.
00:28:50.020 So, but, but it's fascinating because we've gotten to a point in the political discourse where simply stating facts is, and that sounds trite, but it's, it's especially true on this point.
00:29:01.300 Our founding fathers weren't Jewish. Oh my gosh, do you hate Jews? No, no. I'm just telling you our founding fathers weren't Jewish. That's all I'm saying.
00:29:08.240 And, you know, it's funny because I've had a lot of Jewish folks in Florida reach out to me and say,
00:29:14.040 you know, we're supporting you because our identity is not tied to Israel.
00:29:19.120 I know a lot of Jews who feel that their identity is tied to Israel,
00:29:21.960 who hold dual citizenship, or at the very least hold a dual allegiance.
00:29:26.460 I don't know why that would be anti-Semitic to say that they hold a dual allegiance.
00:29:30.360 We're taught in Matthew chapter 6 that we can only serve one master.
00:29:34.240 My view is very simple.
00:29:35.520 if you are a hyphenated American, as President Roosevelt, Teddy said, you have no place in this
00:29:43.260 country. No place, zero, no place. Think about our pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to
00:29:49.080 the flag of the United States of America, right? When you are pledging allegiance to one nation,
00:29:55.420 one nation, singular, one nation under God, you're pledging allegiance to this nation.
00:30:05.520 If you were worried, you know, my mom grew up in Columbia.
00:30:09.200 I visited Columbia.
00:30:10.380 It's the country I visited most outside of the U.S.
00:30:13.300 I have no allegiance to the Colombian political situation.
00:30:18.060 My allegiance is the United States of America.
00:30:20.460 It doesn't mean I can't care for my Colombian family or heritage or food and cuisine and
00:30:24.980 sometimes root for their team in the World Cup if the U.S. team gets kicked out in the
00:30:28.840 early innings, of course.
00:30:29.600 but if your sole singular unwavering conviction is not to the United States of America, get out
00:30:38.220 of our country. And if that's to Israel, get out. If that's to Qatar, get out. If that's Saudi
00:30:42.800 Arabia, get out. But it does seem though, that especially in the upper echelons of power,
00:30:49.860 that that allegiance is to Israel. I mean, it was President Trump himself
00:30:54.080 who recognized Miriam Adelson
00:30:56.740 at the Knesset last year,
00:30:58.640 where he said,
00:31:00.600 perhaps not recognizing the irony,
00:31:02.860 that Miriam, you care about Israel
00:31:04.960 more than the United States.
00:31:06.420 His words to Miriam Adelson
00:31:08.440 while they were sitting in the Knesset.
00:31:10.640 Does anyone doubt whether Miriam Adelson
00:31:12.600 cares more about Israel than the United States?
00:31:15.620 Right.
00:31:16.060 Right?
00:31:17.060 So this is part of a bigger debate,
00:31:20.460 but what I will say is
00:31:23.180 the term judeo-christian and i mean no disrespect it is it's utterly ahistorical
00:31:32.900 it spits in the face of our founding it it's just it doesn't line up with any of the facts
00:31:39.980 and it's like well why why and i think you know maybe you tell yourself why not just tell this
00:31:44.400 lie we don't tell lies in this country we don't you know we don't sit here and say
00:31:52.700 well because of xyz because of our relationship with israel which is not all that great i mean
00:31:58.000 again they're our greatest ally nonsense actually nonsense but at what point do we say
00:32:06.660 we're not going to tell lies anymore we're not yes if israel gets bombed tomorrow by hamas they
00:32:12.960 have a right to fight back of course any country has a right to defend itself to defend its own
00:32:16.940 people but what i'm seeing in gaza that's not self-defense yeah right and i'm going to hold
00:32:21.980 and they say, well, look at the blitzkrieg and hold Israel to World War II casually figures.
00:32:26.360 How about this? Let's hold Israel to Israel's standards. When Israel conducts a military
00:32:31.220 operation in Tehran, they can target the exact apartment unit on the 15th floor and nail it
00:32:38.040 without affecting the floor above or the floor below. When they target Hamas in Doha, in Qatar,
00:32:44.940 They can target the exact floor with very limited, if any, collateral damage.
00:32:51.520 Yet, why does Gaza look like a parking lot?
00:32:54.280 Why?
00:32:55.860 And it's like, well, and, you know, the staunch Israel defenders will say, well, look at the
00:33:02.020 Israel casualty ratio compared to World War II, compared to Vietnam.
00:33:06.700 No, no, no.
00:33:07.260 What were we talking about?
00:33:07.820 56 years ago.
00:33:08.660 Let's compare them to Israel in the present day.
00:33:12.300 The same IDF that carries out attacks in Tehran against the Mullahs in Qatar against Hamas there, look at how they minimize collateral damage there.
00:33:25.720 And it's actually quite interesting that, you know, the same Israel apologists, they'll say, well, they're not, the civilian damage, it's all hyped up fake numbers from Hamas.
00:33:43.220 And then five seconds later, they'll tell you that everybody in Gaza hates Israel and wants to kill every single Jew in the world, right?
00:33:49.620 So they're also rationalizing the civilian deaths.
00:33:53.620 They're rationalizing the civilian deaths.
00:33:55.200 Now, if you look at some of that video after October 7th in Gaza, there clearly is some hatred of Israelis and hatred of Jews amongst parts of the population in Gaza.
00:34:10.300 That's undeniable by some of that video.
00:34:11.920 I mean, they were jubilant.
00:34:13.700 It also begs the case that a four-year-old does not have a political position on Israel.
00:34:18.000 A five-year-old does not have a political position on Israel.
00:34:20.180 And when Randy Fine comes out and says, starve away with respect to Gaza, that is not American of him. That is not Christian of him. This is a Christian country. We should not tolerate any of our elected officials talking about any innocent life anywhere in the world like that.
00:34:36.640 Yeah. Yes. What, what power would you actually have intangible, intangible categories as governor of Florida as it regards Israel? Is there anything that, is there anything that you would be able to do in order to save taxpayer money or what kind of authority would you have?
00:34:58.860 really three things. The first of which is the most bizarre, which is as we sit here today,
00:35:07.720 Tallahassee, our state capital is lending $385 million to the Israeli government by virtue of
00:35:14.060 buying Israeli government bonds on the open market. We are lending money from our pension fund
00:35:19.460 to the IDF. They could buy fart coin and it might have a better return.
00:35:26.020 they could buy treasuries and they have a much better risk adjusted return.
00:35:29.660 Let's zoom out for a moment. Let's not make it about Israel. Let's zoom out for a second.
00:35:33.420 Our money should not be lent to any foreign country, period. Can we agree on that? Because
00:35:38.360 I think everybody, whether your position on Israel is this or that, anyone can agree on first
00:35:43.740 principle that our money should not be lent to any foreign government, period. Israel, Turkey,
00:35:50.780 Sweden, Australia, doesn't matter. So what I would do is I would fully divest. When you say
00:35:57.160 divest, it's not some bilateral agreement that was negotiated with Netanyahu. We literally own
00:36:02.380 a third of a billion dollars of Israeli bonds. We have to sell them on the open market. I'll do it
00:36:08.040 myself. I was a sovereign bond trader at a hedge fund for years. I'll log onto the Bloomberg
00:36:11.540 terminal myself and sell them. That's fine. It sends a very powerful signal, by the way, that
00:36:15.900 we're not going to be investing in foreign countries, least of all that foreign country.
00:36:20.480 The second thing I'd do is I'd repeal and refuse to enforce the anti-Semitism law in Florida.
00:36:27.620 Now, look, Jew hatred is wrong. Muslim hatred is wrong. Christian hatred is wrong. All forms
00:36:34.920 of religious hatred are wrong. But as anti-Semitism is defined today in Florida State Statute 10105,
00:36:42.300 you can actually be punished for criticizing the israeli state in the name of stopping
00:36:49.780 anti-semitism yeah and you would also be punished from my understanding even if they chose to press
00:36:57.080 charges for quoting scripture verbatim you mean revelation well i think of not the synagogue of
00:37:04.620 satan not the synagogue of satan uh that one probably too but um first thessalonians it talks
00:37:10.820 about that they killed the prophets and the apostles and the lord jesus christ and have become
00:37:18.560 opponents of all mankind speaking of the jews in a particular region at that time this is
00:37:25.160 saint paul writing um so he's literally i mean the text is the jews at that time
00:37:31.480 have killed the prophets and the apostles and the lord jesus christ and have now become enemies
00:37:36.740 some translations say were opponents of all mankind um if i said that and i'm in florida
00:37:45.820 i could i could be street preaching you know public air preaching and be preaching a you know
00:37:52.900 a sermon from first thessalonians and that's literally my text and and just reading that
00:37:59.160 and my understanding correct me if i'm wrong but under the current laws i could be penalized you
00:38:05.260 goodby for quoting scripture correct i i don't understand ron de santos has been great in so
00:38:10.820 many ways i don't want to be disrespectful to him um he's he's set kind of the gold standard
00:38:15.880 for governors in the united states i mean he was great on covid he was great on a host of issues
00:38:21.160 um at the same time correct me if i'm wrong but he's catholic right yeah why is he passing
00:38:28.240 legislation that goes against the quoting of the Bible? I wish I knew the answer to that.
00:38:38.580 What I do know is that the governor is a good man and I'm not going to judge him by his mistakes.
00:38:43.740 I'll judge him by his successes. The truth is that the political situation in Florida is bizarre.
00:38:50.120 Republicans and Democrats universally are on the same page about the antisemitism law.
00:38:56.100 I'm not enforcing any law that violates the constitution. That law plainly, simply violates
00:39:04.400 the first amendment of the United States constitution. It's not even close. And this
00:39:08.060 is playing out in real time, Joel. Last month, a woman was confronted by armed police at her home
00:39:16.680 in Miami beach. And they showed her on the whole thing's on video, a Facebook post where she was
00:39:22.260 criticizing the mayor of Miami Beach for being pro-Israel. The police banged on her door to
00:39:29.600 confront her over a so-called anti-Semitic Facebook post. This is not a theory. This is not,
00:39:39.880 well, you're just concerned. This is not actually how it's playing out. This is exactly how it's
00:39:44.460 playing out on the ground. That's unacceptable. You know, just zoom out for a sec, historical
00:39:50.360 observation time. If our founding fathers knew of a man who sent armed police to confront a woman
00:39:58.440 for criticizing the government, they would have executed him publicly. I'm not calling for a
00:40:04.840 public execution, the mayor of Miami Beach. I'm merely observing the historical record of this
00:40:09.720 country that we recognized that men who did crimes like that needed to be tarred and feathered.
00:40:16.920 there's no room for anyone in this country
00:40:21.360 who would try to intimidate someone
00:40:24.600 over criticizing this government
00:40:26.420 or that government or any foreign government.
00:40:29.780 And so this is playing out in real time.
00:40:31.080 It has a real chilling effect
00:40:32.340 on our colleges and our universities.
00:40:34.480 You know, can you even bring up
00:40:36.060 who committed war crimes?
00:40:38.160 Can you even bring up
00:40:39.020 whether or not there's a genocide in our colleges?
00:40:41.920 I want our colleges to be a place
00:40:43.280 of free speech and open debate.
00:40:44.400 for the longest time fringe part of the left weaponized the hate speech idea and said you
00:40:55.000 can't talk about this you can't bring up race stats you can't be insensitive whatever and now
00:41:00.660 it's the fringes of the right that are increasingly institutionalized and backed by really big money
00:41:05.220 in apac well that's that's my concern like just you know to interrupt for just a moment um i despise
00:41:11.540 the left on every moral issue. I've always been a GOP voter, although I've become incredibly
00:41:22.580 disenchanted by the GOP. But one of the things that's not just disenchanting or disappointing,
00:41:28.600 but it is quite terrifying, is I can conceive of a real possible outcome in the future,
00:41:37.700 in the near future in my lifetime perhaps in as short as just a few years where it wouldn't
00:41:45.300 actually be the left that uh that caused my children to be without a father because their
00:41:51.800 dad is in jail but it would actually be the right and it would be on the basis of anti-semitism laws
00:41:58.520 affecting speech like if that that's that that is a real reality where it feels like
00:42:05.960 stuck between a rock and a hard place it's like i either vote for champions of abortion and gay
00:42:13.260 marriage or also champions of abortion gay marriage let's you know let's not kid ourselves
00:42:18.440 on the gop but but guys who are a little bit better on those issues at least you know some
00:42:23.540 degree um but over here like it it really is concerning um the gop's devotion to israel
00:42:32.660 to judaism um i like kamala harris will ruin the country in her own right but probably won't throw
00:42:42.300 me in jail for my podcast no jd vance might like i what what is what is someone like me
00:42:53.520 what team should i even be rooting for at this point like well if if you were me and you held
00:42:59.220 some of the views that i do and i know that you don't there's there's there's things that we agree
00:43:03.080 on on on israel as as a nation state um but you know there are obviously clear distinctions
00:43:10.540 between us because i don't i don't want i don't want to hurt your chances of winning i like you
00:43:15.120 and i support you even though we disagree on some things i want you know the public to to be fully
00:43:20.720 aware that um i'm endorsing james fishbeck you're not necessarily endorsing joel weapon and um and
00:43:27.720 that's clear but what would you do um if you were me like what horse would you be betting on who
00:43:35.520 would you be wanting to win knowing that i have a book sitting on the dresser behind you the
00:43:41.300 hyphenated heresy subtitle judeo-christianity i i actually view it as religious terms um judeo
00:43:49.480 Christianity, I think is a heresy. In political terms, I think it's a weaponized rhetoric to make
00:43:55.300 Americans tax slaves to a foreign interest. At every level, politically, religiously,
00:44:01.760 I believe it's poison. I believe that these United States, we have Israel wrapped around
00:44:08.580 our neck. I think it is a serious issue, quickly becoming one of the quintessential issues. I think
00:44:15.240 of abortion i've always held that as serious issue but at this point it's getting close to
00:44:21.580 immigration and israel being right up there with it and i think that's in large part that's why the
00:44:28.900 right is beginning to fracture in many ways is because the traditional you know issues
00:44:35.140 platform policies that we've all kind of agreed on are not really enough anymore because there
00:44:42.220 are new rising threats and one of them is a threat to free speech so what would you do with guys like
00:44:49.060 me and you know some of the guys that i represent you know the people that i speak for who are
00:44:54.680 patriots they love our country you may not agree with everybody in my camp but you know that we
00:44:59.260 we love the lord jesus christ and we love the united states of america we love our country
00:45:04.660 we're not traitors we're not trying to sabotage american interest we genuinely believe that
00:45:11.700 is just it's just at odds with um with america's prosperity america's benefit the good of america
00:45:23.020 so what what do you think my camp and the guys that i speak for um what would you do if if you
00:45:31.300 Ross. Would you be voting GOP? What do we do? I'd be voting in primaries and getting good
00:45:43.620 America first patriots to run first and foremost. If we just vote the GOP in as is, we get what we
00:45:51.220 deserve. And so the question then becomes, what are we actually going to do to push back against
00:46:02.260 this? Because they've got money. We've got patriots. We've got the truth on our side.
00:46:06.140 We've got history on our side. We've got our heritage on our side. What are we actually
00:46:09.200 trying to do to advance our version, which is the true, correct, noble, and righteous version
00:46:15.020 of our movement. But perhaps the bigger point too is
00:46:19.380 we can't let this stand, right? If a woman gets arrested, a man gets arrested
00:46:31.200 in the face of an anti-Semitism law for criticizing Israel, there should be a hundred
00:46:36.240 patriots outside of the jail with AR-15s. Yeah. Full stop. Yeah. Full stop. It's tyranny.
00:46:44.440 It's tyranny. And it'd be no different than someone grabbing somebody off the street and arresting them for whatever random crime without any semblance of due process. This violates the core of what our nation was built on, which is free expression and free speech.
00:47:05.220 and anyone who in the name of upholding the law would break the law of the land,
00:47:11.520 the United States constitution is utterly disqualified from holding office.
00:47:15.760 Yeah. Well said. So I think you were going to list three things.
00:47:19.720 Oh, right. So, so we did the first one of course was to divest, right? And what I've also said is
00:47:24.740 that I would bring back the $385 million. I would also separately launch a $385 million
00:47:31.740 statewide down payment assistance programs
00:47:34.020 for young married couples to buy their first home.
00:47:37.180 If we're going to invest money anywhere,
00:47:39.460 it should be right in Florida
00:47:40.640 in young people and their ability to buy a home,
00:47:43.920 get married, have kids.
00:47:45.800 That's what matters.
00:47:47.180 And so I would want to bring that money back,
00:47:48.960 the $385 million,
00:47:50.280 and then launch what I call Rise and Shine,
00:47:52.120 the statewide down payment assistance program.
00:47:54.400 If you're a Florida resident,
00:47:55.620 if you're married,
00:47:56.340 if you're under the age of 30,
00:47:57.680 if one of the two of you works full-time,
00:48:00.020 There's a $10,000 check with your name on it to buy your first home. Let's bring back home ownership
00:48:07.460 because nothing else matters if you can't buy some dirt and raise a family.
00:48:12.980 The second thing, of course, is refuse to enforce and then work to repeal the anti-Semitism law.
00:48:17.840 People say, well, you have to repeal it. You need the legislature. Yeah, but as governor,
00:48:21.440 my job is to execute the laws passed by the legislature. I'm not going to execute any law
00:48:26.240 that violates the constitution.
00:48:27.860 So I am not going to enforce that law.
00:48:30.040 The third thing,
00:48:32.020 and this is not about a law,
00:48:35.300 it's about positioning.
00:48:37.900 There is no reason for me to ever
00:48:39.500 visit the country of Israel.
00:48:41.460 Full stop.
00:48:42.780 Full stop.
00:48:43.920 Tiny hat?
00:48:46.040 Wall?
00:48:47.060 No wall.
00:48:48.400 You know, it's funny,
00:48:49.260 I got criticized by the Department of Justice,
00:48:51.040 literally one of their chief officials,
00:48:53.080 Leo Terrell,
00:48:53.780 who's the senior chairman
00:48:55.480 of the anti-Semitism task force.
00:48:57.760 By the way, there is no anti-Christian bias task force.
00:49:01.040 Yeah, because nobody cares.
00:49:02.060 Nobody cares.
00:49:02.520 You can trample Jesus Christ
00:49:05.140 and blaspheme him all day long.
00:49:06.940 You can ransack a church and be called Don Lemon.
00:49:09.320 Right, yeah.
00:49:10.020 I mean, the sisters of perpetual indulgence,
00:49:13.120 like literally publicly blaspheming Jesus Christ.
00:49:16.020 Somebody dressed up like Jesus on a cross with nuns,
00:49:19.520 pretend nuns gyrating in front of him
00:49:21.740 while children are watching.
00:49:23.580 these things have happened recently on american soil public displays a blasphemy towards the lord
00:49:30.020 jesus christ um but if i say yeah i don't i don't want this judeo crap in my country um simply by
00:49:38.820 just even saying that on a podcast you'll get demonetized yeah good pulled yeah
00:49:45.560 the this doj official attacked me by name over my i refuse to kiss the wall comment
00:49:53.920 and he said kissing the wall was the proudest moment of my career yeah then step down what a
00:50:02.660 sad career but interesting how we use the word career because kissing the wall is careerism at
00:50:09.140 its finest. It is transactional in nature. It's just transactional. The proudest moment of your
00:50:15.920 career is because if he was actually genuine, and this was some spiritual journey, and this
00:50:21.620 was some religious symbol that meant a lot to Leo Terrell, who was a black Baptist.
00:50:26.520 The proudest moment of my spiritual journey.
00:50:29.280 Of my spiritual journey of my life. I hope to go to the Vatican one day as a proud Catholic. I hope
00:50:34.340 to meet Pope Leo. As governor, I would want nothing more than to formally invite the Pope
00:50:41.020 to visit my state as Pope John Paul II did when my father was growing up and he visited
00:50:46.740 with my grandmother. But it would not be the proudest moment of my career to meet Pope Leo
00:50:54.280 or to visit the Vatican. It'd be the proudest moment of my life, of my spiritual journey.
00:50:58.540 It's all a facade with these people.
00:51:00.980 Everything they do is to bend the knee to a foreign country.
00:51:08.560 That's all it is.
00:51:09.820 And the sooner we recognize that, the better.
00:51:11.900 There's nothing religious about a Republican or a Democrat visiting the wall.
00:51:17.040 There's nothing religious about that.
00:51:18.720 Certainly for Jews, there is a religious significance to the Western world.
00:51:22.180 There is.
00:51:23.240 And we shouldn't deny that.
00:51:24.720 There's no significance to me as a Christian, to you as a Christian.
00:51:28.120 But for those who view it as a religious rite of passage, let that be their right.
00:51:33.780 But for those who would, like the Israeli government, use it to prove fealty to another
00:51:41.360 $5 billion we have to borrow from China, put that debt on the children and our grandchildren
00:51:46.520 to give Israel more money, kissing the wall is merely genuflecting before a foreign nation.
00:51:53.860 There is no religious significance for someone like Leo Terrell or any member of Congress or
00:51:59.920 any governor for that. Now, what I have said is that I think visiting foreign countries is important.
00:52:06.800 Trade, jobs, investment. I'd love to visit Japan and build a nonstop flight between Tokyo and
00:52:12.520 Arita Airport and Miami International. I want to bring thousands of Japanese tourists who are high
00:52:16.780 spenders to Miami, to Orlando. I want to connect Florida with East Asia. It's great for businesses
00:52:23.000 in Florida would be great for jobs, great for tourism, but I'm not going there for any other
00:52:30.020 reason. The truth is that Israel is not a big trading partner in Florida at all. Our largest
00:52:35.040 trading partner is Brazil. I actually studied abroad in Brazil. I would want nothing more
00:52:39.400 than to visit Brazil in my first 100 days to ink a trade package with large Brazilian companies who
00:52:45.240 can invest to create thousands of new jobs, not for skilled people. We're going to have some
00:52:49.760 skilled jobs too. But my gold standard when creating a job is, is it paying a good dignified
00:52:55.480 wage? Is it for local labor? And does it, can it be fulfilled by high school grads?
00:53:01.680 I want a labor market where our high school grads are well-trained in our public schools or our
00:53:06.400 homeschools and our private schools. And I'm proud of the school choice work that Governor DeSantis
00:53:09.820 and First Lady DeSantis have done. I want a labor market where our high school grads can get paid
00:53:15.600 50, 60, 70 grand right out of high school. And I also want employers who recognize the value
00:53:20.380 of the reforms that we're going to make in our high school. We got a lot of work to do in our
00:53:24.160 high school. I said today, you know, we're filming this on president's day. I said,
00:53:26.820 you're not graduating from a Florida high school unless you can give a five minute speech in front
00:53:31.220 of the class saying who your favorite president is and why. No notes, five minutes. It's a very
00:53:37.240 good proxy by the way, for a lot of things that matter, right? Do you know your history? Can you
00:53:41.580 articulate an opinion. Can you defend that opinion? And most importantly, can you speak
00:53:46.760 publicly without notes? What better way? And, you know, the libertarians already attacked me.
00:53:51.540 This is indoctrination. Everything for the libertarians is indoctrination.
00:53:56.120 Everything actually is indoctrination. It's not whether, but which. Every child will be
00:54:00.400 indoctrinated. Children will be taught. They will learn. So the question is not whether we
00:54:06.060 indoctrinate them. It's who gets to indoctrinate and what they indoctrinate with.
00:54:10.760 correct so i want to see indoctrin is to train a child up in the doctrine in the doctrine right
00:54:17.100 so then the question is just which doctrine whose doctrine and who's doing the teaching
00:54:20.760 right the indoctrination is going to happen irrespective so the question is are we going
00:54:26.620 to play a role in it are we going to throw up our hands surrender and cower which one right
00:54:31.280 i want to here we go i want to radicalize american youth what do you mean you want to
00:54:37.820 what are you a Marxist? I want to radicalize the next generation of young Americans to know their
00:54:42.140 history, the good, bad, and the ugly, to love this country, to recognize that we are unique
00:54:48.200 in the world, that our freedoms, our identity, our heritage, our Christian faith, that is something
00:54:56.640 that is inseparable to our nation's founding. I do want to radicalize people. And it would be the
00:55:01.620 honor of a lifetime to do that as the next governor of Florida. James Fishback, thank you for coming
00:55:05.800 on the show. Appreciate your time. My pleasure.
00:55:35.800 You