The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - September 10, 2025


Chatting with US Congressman Randy Fine - Islam, Immigration, and Israel (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_872)


Episode Stats

Length

43 minutes

Words per Minute

185.17073

Word Count

8,069

Sentence Count

575

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

46


Summary

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

In this episode, I sit down with Jewish-American Congressman Randy Fine (R-Florida) to discuss his life growing up in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and what it was like growing up Jewish in the post-World War II era.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I am delighted to report that I have joined, as a visiting scholar, the Declaration of
00:00:04.760 Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi.
00:00:10.560 The center offers educational opportunities, speakers, internships, and reading groups
00:00:16.060 for the University of Mississippi community.
00:00:19.000 It is named in honor of the United States founding document, which constitutes the nation
00:00:25.020 as a political community and expresses fundamental principles of American freedom, including
00:00:31.340 in the recognition of the importance of Judeo-Christian values in shaping American exceptionalism.
00:00:38.180 Dedicated to the academic and open-minded exploration of these principles, the center exists to encourage
00:00:45.460 exploration into the many facets of freedom.
00:00:49.000 It will sponsor a speaker series and an interdisciplinary faculty research team.
00:00:54.600 If you'd like to learn more about the center, please visit Ole Miss, that's O-L-E-M-I-S-S dot
00:01:01.660 E-D-U slash independence slash.
00:01:05.760 Hi everybody.
00:01:06.760 This is God Sad for the Sad Truth.
00:01:08.300 I've had all sorts of people on my show, famous scientists, philosophers, lawyers, all kinds
00:01:14.420 of people, but I don't think I've ever had a sitting congressman on the show.
00:01:20.040 Congressman Randy Fine, how are you doing, sir?
00:01:22.480 I'm doing great.
00:01:23.480 Glad to be the first, and it's an honor to be here.
00:01:25.580 I'm a huge fan of yours, and I'm grateful for everything that you do.
00:01:28.700 Thank you, sir.
00:01:29.740 For those of you who don't know who Congressman Fine is, he is currently the U.S. representative
00:01:36.820 for Florida's sixth congressional district since only recently, April 2025.
00:01:41.360 Prior to that, he was in the spicy politics of statewide politics, served in the Florida
00:01:50.340 Senate, served in the Florida House of Representatives.
00:01:54.160 Prior to his political life, was a gambling executive, which I'm actually interested in hearing
00:01:59.120 about because I've written about the evolutionary roots of pathological gambling.
00:02:03.860 Anything else you want to add, Congressman, before we get going with the chat?
00:02:07.100 Well, I just, I mean, I've been in Congress for five months.
00:02:11.320 I'm known, I'm the only Jewish Republican ever elected to Congress from Florida, one of only
00:02:17.240 four in Congress today.
00:02:18.880 I was the only Jewish Republican in the entirety of my time in the Florida House, those eight
00:02:23.760 years.
00:02:24.800 And yes, I was in the casino business, but really what I did, I spent 22 years, started building
00:02:29.880 and growing three different companies.
00:02:31.880 The third one was in the casino business and, you know, just started as the child of two
00:02:38.160 public educators.
00:02:39.080 My mom was a middle school science teacher and my dad was a college professor.
00:02:42.760 So that's-
00:02:43.440 A college professor in which field?
00:02:45.280 In metallurgical engineering at the University of Kentucky.
00:02:49.080 So I grew up in Kentucky while my family's from Florida.
00:02:52.620 You go where you can get tenure.
00:02:54.040 And for my father, that was at the University of Kentucky.
00:02:56.080 So were you the only Jewish family in Kentucky?
00:02:59.340 We weren't.
00:03:00.540 There were two congregations there, a Reform and a Conservative.
00:03:04.720 Look, anywhere you find universities, you're going to find a Jewish congregation.
00:03:09.020 I just think it's the nature of our culture.
00:03:12.400 But there were not a lot.
00:03:14.000 And they used to call me a Kentucky Fried Jew in school.
00:03:17.360 It was not a term of endearment.
00:03:19.340 It was what some of them wanted to do to me.
00:03:21.140 It was not an easy place to grow up Jewish.
00:03:23.260 But no, I was not the only one.
00:03:24.800 By the way, you may not know this, but this year, this upcoming year, I will be a, or I am a visiting scholar at Ole Miss.
00:03:34.960 So I'm really going down south to show all that Jewish intellectualism in the beautiful city of Oxford, Mississippi.
00:03:43.920 Have you been there?
00:03:45.240 I have.
00:03:46.020 And I will tell you, you know, the world has changed.
00:03:48.360 I think Jewish kids in America, probably the safest conference for them to go to, athletic conference, would be the SEC these days.
00:03:58.200 You know, I think that, you know, the Southern, the evangelical community, they're the warmest towards Jews.
00:04:06.500 It's the North.
00:04:07.720 It's the Northeast where you're going to find, you know, the worst of it.
00:04:11.340 So the Columbias and the Harvards of the world.
00:04:13.360 So I don't think you'll have any trouble.
00:04:15.600 Although, although I hate to say this, my alma mater of Cornell is trying to become the most inhospitable place for Jews.
00:04:25.660 I remember when I was there, there was such a Jewish influence at Cornell that you can have sort of Cornell University written in cursive, making it look as though it were in Hebrew.
00:04:38.160 That's the kind of influence you had.
00:04:40.100 And now it might be dangerous to be Jewish there.
00:04:42.660 Is there any chance, Congressman, for us to be able to wrestle back control into sanity from all these Ivy League schools?
00:04:50.540 Well, we have to.
00:04:51.020 I went to Harvard and I will tell you, I actually met with the president of Harvard a few weeks ago, and I'll hopefully be meeting with him again soon.
00:04:57.640 And what I told him is it was not easy to be a conservative, political conservative.
00:05:01.660 I've always been super conservative.
00:05:03.540 It was not easy 35 years ago to be conservative.
00:05:07.240 But as a Jew, I don't even remember like a whiff of anti-Semitism, like let alone being afraid to be Jewish.
00:05:16.660 And now I feel terrible for these Jewish kids.
00:05:19.980 I think what will fix these universities, I'll be blunt, it's the same way I fixed the universities in Florida.
00:05:26.920 I chaired higher education in Florida.
00:05:29.520 There's a reason we don't have anti-Semitism problems in our universities in Florida.
00:05:33.260 It's because of the bills I put forward.
00:05:35.240 And what I will tell you is with universities, it's money that works.
00:05:38.500 They behave this way because it is financially beneficial for them to do so in terms of the foreign students they get, in terms of the money they're getting from people who hate us, like the Qataris.
00:05:51.560 They are responding to their donors.
00:05:54.160 And so what we have to do if we want to fix these universities is cut off the donors, cut off the hateful students, and make them responsive to Americans.
00:06:03.360 Because the notion that our private institutions in this country are private is a lie.
00:06:07.740 None of them are private.
00:06:08.700 They would all go under if it wasn't for taxpayer money.
00:06:11.920 So they're all public institutions to some degree.
00:06:14.520 And so we simply need to require that they be accountable to us as taxpayers.
00:06:18.460 And that's what we did in Florida.
00:06:19.680 And that's how we solved the problem.
00:06:21.280 We didn't have encampments.
00:06:23.340 We didn't have any of this stuff.
00:06:25.000 You may have seen the story at Florida State about the Jewish kid wearing an IDF shirt that got assaulted by a female student.
00:06:32.240 She slapped his phone.
00:06:33.420 Had that happened at Cornell or Harvard, they would have made excuses for her, religion of peace and all that stuff.
00:06:38.100 But she was suspended and trespassed from campus within 15 minutes of me calling the university.
00:06:45.540 So it's just a different world in Florida.
00:06:47.860 And there's nothing that we've done in Florida that can't be done everywhere else.
00:06:51.300 We just need the right policy to get it done.
00:06:53.580 I think the case that you're referring to, didn't she just get expelled or am I mixing?
00:06:58.620 We did.
00:06:59.160 Yeah, she did.
00:06:59.980 Yeah, she got expelled.
00:07:00.680 She got arrested, too.
00:07:02.000 I mean, in Florida, we don't put up with that stuff.
00:07:05.320 And by the way, as a result, it doesn't happen.
00:07:08.540 I'll tell you a good story.
00:07:09.620 A number of years ago, CARE, you know, the loving, you know, the completely non-terrorists at CARE, they were going to block the street in front of my house because I said, you know, I don't like Muslim terror.
00:07:22.840 And when the newspaper called to ask me what I would say to these peaceful protesters, I said, no, no, no, they're mostly peaceful protesters.
00:07:30.240 When they when they were going to block the street, I said, why don't you ask them just to be four wide when they block the street?
00:07:37.360 And they said, why four wide?
00:07:38.920 I said, then I won't have to back up.
00:07:41.440 So and by the way, do you think they block the street in front of my house?
00:07:45.380 They did not.
00:07:46.760 See, that's what they understand.
00:07:47.820 So we passed a bill in 2020 that said, if you block the street, you can get run over.
00:07:53.340 And so the same protesters that block streets in New York and California and Chicago and Washington, D.C., they don't block streets in Florida.
00:08:00.320 Why?
00:08:01.060 Because they know they're going to get run over.
00:08:03.200 So what I've learned is you if you fight hard, you can you can solve the problem.
00:08:08.880 Look, all of these laws are wonderful, but to me, they're Band-Aid solutions in that, as you well know, the the old maxim demography is destiny is perfectly apropos.
00:08:23.900 So, for example, in Quebec now, which is very much founded on the principles of secularism and so on, some Quebecers are waking up to I mean, if you think that there are these types of issues in the United States, you should try to come to Quebec where it's absolutely insane.
00:08:38.420 I mean, it's it's sort of much closer to Europe than it is to the United States in terms of the rate at which we are being Islamized.
00:08:46.820 Well, now they are looking into passing a law that says, hey, you're not allowed to pray in public.
00:08:56.460 And so people go, yes, great, great.
00:08:58.040 But the reality is you're just, you know, stopping what is the inevitable once you have more folks who share the, you know, the values of the Islamic immigrants.
00:09:09.920 Right.
00:09:10.200 So now you're at 10 percent, 12 percent, 14 percent.
00:09:13.440 So you could still pass those laws.
00:09:15.380 So broader question, do you worry that we're not even talking about illegal immigration?
00:09:22.020 Do you worry that legal immigration from folks who don't necessarily share the foundational values of the West, let alone the United States, is something that a greater number of politicians are now starting to think about?
00:09:37.500 Or is it still Islamophobic and hateful to do so?
00:09:41.240 No, I don't think those labels work anymore.
00:09:43.720 I'll tell you a story about real quick about Islamophobia.
00:09:46.120 When I was running for Congress, I got a call from a major national newspaper and they said, we've done a six week investigation into you.
00:09:55.860 There are serious charges that you're that you're Islamophobic.
00:09:59.180 And before we go to print, we we want to, you know, give you the opportunity to to to defend yourself.
00:10:06.800 And I said, wait, I thought this was well established.
00:10:10.280 Islam fear.
00:10:11.480 Yes, absolutely.
00:10:12.520 One hundred percent.
00:10:13.720 And their response was, well, we can't run the article if that's your position.
00:10:16.940 I said, well, that's your problem.
00:10:18.240 I said, if you're not Islamophobic at this point, you're an idiot.
00:10:21.040 So so, you know, I think I think the key thing is to do what you do, which is tell the truth and not be afraid to tell the truth.
00:10:28.960 Now, I will I'll address your question this way.
00:10:31.640 The fight over illegal immigration, unfortunately, has crowded out the fight over legal immigration.
00:10:37.860 We have been so focused on dealing with this illegal immigration problem.
00:10:41.740 We have not yet focused on legal immigration.
00:10:43.980 Let me give you a great example.
00:10:45.600 Rashida Tlaib was allowed to become an American.
00:10:49.480 You know, I mean, this is someone who is an American.
00:10:51.400 Elon Omar, these are people who never should have been able to become Americans.
00:10:55.660 So what we have is a legal immigration system in America that rewards people who hate our country, who do not wish to assimilate into the great melting pot and oftentimes don't want to add any value.
00:11:09.540 Just want to live off the dole.
00:11:11.040 This is a huge problem in Europe.
00:11:12.920 So don't share our values, hate our country, don't want to assimilate, don't want to add value in America.
00:11:19.640 I'm determined to change our legal immigration strategy to fix those things.
00:11:24.180 We should welcome immigrants to America.
00:11:26.540 The American story is one of immigration.
00:11:29.080 And but those immigrants who made America great shared three things.
00:11:32.880 They loved America.
00:11:34.320 They wanted to be part of America.
00:11:36.120 They didn't want to conquer it.
00:11:38.000 And they didn't want to live off the dole.
00:11:40.280 They wanted to add value and make America great.
00:11:42.740 We need to shift our legal immigration to do that.
00:11:45.780 And that's why, by the way, I was very focused when I found out that Gazans were being welcomed into the United States.
00:11:51.540 I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:11:53.020 They can stay there.
00:11:53.920 They screwed that up all by themselves.
00:11:55.960 We don't need to be letting them into America.
00:11:58.020 And so I'm fully supportive of what Marco Rubio did yesterday and said no more Gazans in the United States.
00:12:03.980 We need to kick out everybody who doesn't share our values.
00:12:06.900 They need to go home.
00:12:07.700 And we need to rebuild our system around those who want to make America what it's always been.
00:12:13.400 So I've often talked to people who, when I tell them, look, you know, you really have to look into what a specific religion espouses.
00:12:23.620 And that allows you to know whether it is congruent or incongruent with our values.
00:12:28.920 And the first reflex I get, Congressman, over and over again, including from lawyers, American lawyers, is, but we have freedom of religion here.
00:12:38.740 So it's as if the fact that you've got that concept of freedom of religion makes you impotent if said religion would absolutely annihilate all of the foundational values of the host society.
00:12:54.620 So can you ever foresee, you know, a constitutional amendment?
00:12:59.300 And I understand that you're not a lawyer, but, you know, you're an intelligent person.
00:13:04.580 Could there ever be a constitutional amendment that says any ideology?
00:13:08.900 It could be communism, which is not a religion.
00:13:11.320 It could be a specific religion.
00:13:12.920 It contains seditious materials, hence rendering it no longer protected under sort of the freedom of religion clause.
00:13:22.140 Well, I actually would push back.
00:13:23.980 I don't think we need that.
00:13:25.280 I think the problem we have is you're talking to people who believe in bumper sticker constitutionalism.
00:13:31.540 They say these phrases, freedom of religion, but they don't actually understand what they mean.
00:13:37.340 If you and I created a religion right now that said we're going to sacrifice children and that is our religion.
00:13:43.700 And by the way, in the history of the world, there have been religions that believe in child sacrifice.
00:13:51.600 You would not be able to do that under freedom of religion.
00:13:54.660 If if if Muslims in the United States wanted to follow the path of Mohammed and marry a nine year old,
00:14:01.920 they would not be able to do that in the United States.
00:14:04.700 So you have a freedom of belief, you have a freedom of religion, but it is not a it does not give you a card to behave however you want and to do whatever you want.
00:14:14.880 And so I think we need to acknowledge acknowledge these things.
00:14:18.260 And I think people, for whatever reason, have been so afraid of being labeled or named or anything else that they've just they've just shut down.
00:14:28.440 And a big problem that we have, I've often said the difference between liberals and conservatives.
00:14:32.800 Liberals live in the world the way they wish it was.
00:14:37.380 Conservatives live in the world the way it is.
00:14:39.840 Oh, yes.
00:14:40.660 The best example of this is the you know, is gays for Gaza.
00:14:45.160 You know, I mean, they they get killed.
00:14:47.440 I saw a story last week about about a gay group in Michigan that was devastated that once the Muslims took political power,
00:14:54.200 they said, no, no more gay stuff.
00:14:56.000 And there we feel betrayed, by the way, that's not the fault of the Muslims.
00:15:01.220 That's the fault of the gay groups.
00:15:02.800 The Muslims didn't hide their view.
00:15:05.000 They just chose not to believe it.
00:15:07.560 And so I think that the key is for people to just be willing to speak the truth and to not be so afraid.
00:15:16.060 That is what they use to shut us down.
00:15:18.880 All of these groups are focused on trying to silence dissent under the name of Islamophobia or whatever it is.
00:15:25.560 And I just say the truth and I don't worry about it.
00:15:28.520 Have you so I don't know if you're are you familiar with my reference to the honey badger?
00:15:33.240 Are you are you aware of that?
00:15:35.160 So tell me again.
00:15:36.360 Yeah.
00:15:36.580 So so in the last chapter of the parasitic mind, so it's sort of there's many calls to action.
00:15:42.660 One of which is I ask people to activate their inner honey badger.
00:15:47.840 And this is in reference to the fact that the honey badger has been ranked as the fiercest and the most ferocious of all animals.
00:15:55.360 Right.
00:15:55.660 Even though it is the size of a small dog, it can withstand an approach from six adult lines because it is so ferocious.
00:16:02.320 So when I tell people activate your inner honey badger, I'm not imploring them to be violent.
00:16:06.220 I'm saying stand tall and defend your principles.
00:16:08.700 So you certainly and I'm sure you're going to put this on your CV, Congressman.
00:16:12.140 I hereby grant you the title of honey badger.
00:16:16.060 Have you always been a honey badger or is this something that you found that honey badger voice once you became a politician?
00:16:24.640 No, I think I've always been like this.
00:16:26.740 Look, it was not I did not have an easy childhood growing up Jewish.
00:16:29.900 To be clear, it wasn't Muslim kids that were that were tormenting me.
00:16:33.900 It was others.
00:16:34.420 But when I was 13, I made a decision.
00:16:36.640 I would never again apologize for being Jewish and I would never be afraid to be who I was.
00:16:41.380 And I made a promise that my kids wouldn't have to go through what I did.
00:16:45.500 And it's a promise that I've failed to live up to.
00:16:48.100 I mean, my children live in a world of far more anti-Semitism than even than even I experienced.
00:16:53.440 I think that from an early age, I became a pretty conservative, outspoken guy.
00:16:59.720 I think my views around this, I don't even know.
00:17:04.120 But but, you know, certainly probably 9-11 affected me.
00:17:07.060 And I guess I realized when I was in college, even though it wasn't about about Islam, I realized in college that liberals live in a deluded world.
00:17:17.660 They live in a fantasy world.
00:17:19.920 They live in a world where they don't understand the consequences of their actions.
00:17:23.520 They live in a world where if you give people a guaranteed minimum income in their world, people will still work.
00:17:31.500 They live in a world where if you give welfare only to single mothers, you won't somehow destroy the family and incent more single mothers.
00:17:39.480 They live in a world of delusion.
00:17:41.500 And I think I learned that when I was in college.
00:17:44.100 And I thought that that when you give into those delusions, you can destroy the world.
00:17:49.260 And I think that's where we are as it relates to the fight with Western civilization.
00:17:53.420 We are fighting people who wish to use our values to impose theirs on us.
00:18:00.380 They will destroy that freedom of religion.
00:18:02.920 Find me a Muslim governed country that that exists.
00:18:06.740 So they will come here.
00:18:08.280 They will use our values.
00:18:09.740 And then the minute they're in a position to change our values, they will do that.
00:18:13.740 And I think you're seeing that where you are.
00:18:15.800 And I mean, you know, so, yeah, I just I think we just need to not be afraid to fight.
00:18:20.880 And I think at least in America, I think most Americans are there.
00:18:23.920 Most Americans want to fight.
00:18:25.720 But it's the radical left that's just delusional.
00:18:28.440 Yeah.
00:18:29.060 Speaking about sort of coming in and using our freedoms against us, you've probably heard of the sort of three stages by which you conquered the West,
00:18:39.740 as stated by many Islamic leaders, you know, many Muslim Brotherhood guys and so on.
00:18:45.540 There are three steps or three parts.
00:18:48.560 Part one is through the womb of our women.
00:18:53.040 Right.
00:18:53.440 We will outbreed you.
00:18:54.860 We'll produce five.
00:18:56.060 You don't even reproduce at replacement rate.
00:18:58.880 And just the math will work itself out.
00:19:01.500 Part two, we will use hijra.
00:19:03.800 Hijra is the Arabic word for immigration.
00:19:06.420 Right.
00:19:06.860 Which is exactly what we do.
00:19:08.100 Open door immigration.
00:19:09.120 We're very kind.
00:19:10.160 We're very empathetic.
00:19:11.200 We're very tolerant.
00:19:12.280 Number three, we will use your miserable freedoms and liberties against you.
00:19:17.720 And they scream it from the top of the mountain.
00:19:20.400 And yet most people go, la, la, la.
00:19:22.760 Please don't be mean.
00:19:23.780 Don't criticize someone else.
00:19:25.340 Do you.
00:19:25.720 So you said that most Americans are already there.
00:19:28.260 They get it.
00:19:28.840 Do you feel.
00:19:29.300 I mean, I'm not asking you to give me a scientific estimate.
00:19:32.140 But if you were to pull most of the people in Congress with you, short of Rashida Tayyib
00:19:39.020 and Ilhan Omar and occasional Cortex AOC, are most people with you in that they recognize
00:19:47.240 that problem?
00:19:48.020 Or is it completely bipartisan?
00:19:50.280 The Democrats think all Islam is beautiful while the Republicans.
00:19:53.940 Give us a sense of how it is allocated.
00:19:58.240 Well, I think I think all Republicans are with us with the exception.
00:20:02.700 We've got a couple anti-Semites on our side.
00:20:04.720 But but, you know, I think beyond that, the ninety nine percent are with us on the Democratic
00:20:11.020 side.
00:20:11.440 It's probably a minority that are with us.
00:20:13.860 There is a majority or probably a minority.
00:20:16.540 Yeah, they're there.
00:20:17.600 I mean, look there.
00:20:18.560 I know I don't want to say their names, but there are those who recognize the threat of
00:20:23.680 Islam for what it is.
00:20:24.760 But I think most of them are religion of peace, you know, great, great, great.
00:20:28.440 Let's all sit around and kumbaya.
00:20:30.920 And just again, because liberal, it's indicative of who they are that they again, they live in
00:20:37.800 the world the way they wish it was in a world in which everyone can sit down around the drum
00:20:45.160 circle and just talk it out.
00:20:47.560 But liberals believe we all share the same values and that all cultures are equal.
00:20:53.820 You know, I used to I used to talk about, you know, there used to be child sacrifices.
00:20:59.100 Liberals today would make would justify it.
00:21:02.320 I mean, look, I've had liberals criticize me when I point out that almost half of children
00:21:07.720 in Gaza are the product of incest.
00:21:09.780 You can't say that that's Islamophobic.
00:21:12.060 I'm like, but I'm not even casting judgment on it.
00:21:14.960 I'm just saying that's a factual statement.
00:21:17.100 I think it's 44 percent are the product of incest.
00:21:19.960 And then you wonder why so many of them are deformed and look like they're starving.
00:21:24.020 I'm not saying it's bad.
00:21:25.120 Maybe it's great, but you have to accept that there's consequences for it.
00:21:28.440 So I think it is endemic to liberalism to live in an idealistic world that is not consistent
00:21:35.920 with reality and where it's and that's where your suicidal empathy comes from.
00:21:40.180 But it's but it's they just they're just not.
00:21:43.320 My dad often put it to me this way.
00:21:45.120 He said, Randy, if Democrats were smart, they wouldn't be Democrats.
00:21:48.140 So that that's that's his way of putting it.
00:21:50.300 But I think I think it is this it is this this illness of living in the world the way
00:21:55.060 you wish it was, not the way it actually is.
00:21:56.960 Exactly.
00:21:57.280 You're correct.
00:21:58.220 You're correct.
00:21:58.840 The Muslim leaders are not quiet.
00:22:02.440 They don't hide it.
00:22:04.280 They say it.
00:22:05.100 They scream it from the rooftops.
00:22:07.200 And yet the left just ignores it.
00:22:09.100 Exactly.
00:22:09.940 I was just going to mention to your point about, you know, the liberals living in a delusion
00:22:13.940 in my previous book.
00:22:15.360 And it's a book on happiness.
00:22:17.740 I talk about the link between political orientation and happiness.
00:22:21.840 And the research is very, very unequivocal.
00:22:24.520 It's consistent that conservative score much higher on happiness indices than do liberals
00:22:32.240 and progressives.
00:22:33.020 And my argument, which jives nicely with some of the things that you're saying, is that a
00:22:38.540 conservative wakes up.
00:22:40.360 And by definition of what the term means, there are things existentially worthy of conserving.
00:22:46.620 Yes, it may not be a perfect society, but, you know, we've got freedom of speech and we've
00:22:50.880 got freedom of inquiry and I've got a wonderful family.
00:22:53.160 And I recognize what is male and female.
00:22:55.220 And so there are all sorts of things that I can wake up and existentially feel good about
00:22:59.400 if I live in the West.
00:23:00.760 On the other hand, the progressive wakes up with existential anger, right?
00:23:06.780 Around the corner lies unicornia.
00:23:09.820 And if only I can eradicate all that currently exists, that is Islamophobic, transphobic, you
00:23:15.800 know, pro-slavery and so on, then I can get to that unicornia.
00:23:20.200 That's why I'm angry as a progressive.
00:23:21.960 What do you think of that theory?
00:23:24.000 I think you're 100% right.
00:23:25.400 It's why I'm grateful that we have people like you in the world to say this and to come
00:23:29.280 at it from an academic perspective.
00:23:30.860 We saw this last week in America with a with yet another mass shooting by a transgender
00:23:37.560 person.
00:23:39.020 Now, liberals wonder when I was a kid at the school I went to in Kentucky, half the kids
00:23:44.160 drove pickup trucks and most of those pickup trucks had a gun hanging in the back of the
00:23:48.680 pickup truck when the person got to school.
00:23:50.680 Yet no one ever thought, hey, I'm going to grab that gun, walk into a school and start
00:23:54.140 shooting people.
00:23:55.260 But liberals wonder why it's happening.
00:23:57.860 And my answer to them is this.
00:23:59.500 When you tell children they aren't sure whether they're a boy or a girl.
00:24:03.620 When you tell children there are 80 pronouns to choose from.
00:24:06.280 When you tell children you get to pick what bathroom to go to and what sports teams to be
00:24:10.720 on, when you rip away the very nature of the innocence of childhood, you shouldn't be surprised
00:24:17.220 when you see spiking levels of mental illness.
00:24:20.500 And so much of this stuff does weigh on the mentally ill and it creates this sickness.
00:24:27.200 And again, we're looking at shooting after shooting after shooting by someone who's a
00:24:30.800 man who thinks he's a woman.
00:24:32.060 That's a disease.
00:24:33.260 Instead, we're we're playing into it and telling people that it's OK.
00:24:36.780 And I think it's right.
00:24:37.980 It's why you see these protests in Washington where people are angry about what President
00:24:42.980 Trump is doing to make Washington safe.
00:24:44.940 It's it's all old white people.
00:24:46.940 It's not the people who are actually being protected, who are unhappy.
00:24:50.300 It's these wackadoo leftist liberals who live in this fantasy world.
00:24:56.080 And this fantasy world will kill us all if we don't start to deal with the world the
00:25:00.220 way it is, not the way we wish it was.
00:25:02.260 Indeed.
00:25:02.480 Indeed, a couple of more points about sort of Israel stuff, Jewish stuff.
00:25:08.680 What do you say to people who reasonably argue and we can debate and maybe you can offer a
00:25:15.360 counterpoint?
00:25:16.280 Hey, I'm not anti-Semitic.
00:25:18.340 I'm not anti-Israel, but I'm a pro-America guy first.
00:25:24.260 And in the same way that I don't think that we should in any way be providing any resources
00:25:29.520 to, say, the Ukraine war, I'm tired of my tax dollars going to Israel.
00:25:34.760 And therefore, I've got tons of Jewish friends.
00:25:37.440 I love Jewish people, but I don't want a single penny of my taxpayer coffers to go to Israel.
00:25:43.580 Is that a reasonable argument?
00:25:45.760 Or if you scratch, it always ends up with having some kind of Jew hatred as part of the mix?
00:25:52.380 Well, I think it's that.
00:25:53.360 But I would also say to them that they're stupid.
00:25:55.600 So first off, I would say they have an America last position, that they hate America.
00:25:59.260 They're like, what, what?
00:26:00.300 I said, 700,000 Americans live in Israel.
00:26:05.000 So are you America first or are you kill Americans?
00:26:10.880 Then they go, oh, oh, oh, I get it.
00:26:13.800 You're non-Jewish America first.
00:26:16.600 Because basically when you do that, they'll usually slip up and go, yeah, but those 700,000
00:26:21.000 are Jewish.
00:26:21.880 Oh, OK.
00:26:23.120 So you're not real Americans.
00:26:24.940 You're not Jewish America first.
00:26:27.520 That's number one.
00:26:28.260 But number two, the other arguments on this, the real arguments are the following.
00:26:32.000 Number one, the people trying to kill Israel.
00:26:35.940 They're coming for us.
00:26:37.780 We've just been talking about all the immigration and the making babies.
00:26:42.460 They want to do the same to us that they're doing to Israel.
00:26:44.980 Why are they focused on Israel?
00:26:46.380 Two reasons.
00:26:47.140 Number one, Israel is little.
00:26:48.700 It's small and it's close.
00:26:51.100 They don't have to get on an airplane.
00:26:52.440 Israel, they're surrounding Israel.
00:26:54.100 That's number one.
00:26:54.840 And number two is for every dollar that we give to Israel, we get a multiple back in R&D,
00:27:01.880 intelligence and other things.
00:27:03.420 Helping Israel helps America.
00:27:05.200 But I think with the vast majority of these people, you peel back the onion and you get
00:27:10.140 to underlying Jew hatred.
00:27:12.080 There's a lot of it out in the world.
00:27:13.560 And with a lot of people, it doesn't take much to see it.
00:27:17.400 I think one of the mistakes we make in looking at anti-Semitism is we put it into two buckets.
00:27:22.740 You either aren't an anti-Semite or you want to put Jews in an oven.
00:27:27.660 And that's it.
00:27:28.700 The problem is there's a continuum of people.
00:27:31.840 There are plenty of anti-Semites who don't want to have another Holocaust, but they still
00:27:36.000 don't like Jewish people very much.
00:27:37.300 And I think that when you recognize there's a continuum of anti-Semitism, it explains a
00:27:42.220 lot of it.
00:27:42.700 But look, the radical stop aid to Israel at the end of the day, the ones that I hear from,
00:27:48.460 they're anti-Semites.
00:27:49.640 Have you been surprised by some of the public figures?
00:27:52.940 I mean, I'll mention one by name.
00:27:54.340 I know him personally and I would consider him a friend, although now I'm wondering about
00:27:58.560 some of his positions.
00:27:59.720 Tucker Carlson, for example.
00:28:01.400 Are you surprised by some of his positions?
00:28:03.460 And some of the other folks that you would have thought might have been a bit more sympathetic
00:28:07.080 to Israel, given what happened October 7th, that don't seem to be very supportive.
00:28:11.820 Are those folks surprising you?
00:28:14.120 Yeah, I mean, the Tucker Carlson thing is very, very sad.
00:28:16.520 I mean, my father was one, you know, who like would hang up at me at 8.59 at night when he
00:28:23.740 was on Fox if Tucker was coming on.
00:28:25.680 Oh, Tucker's going to be on.
00:28:26.640 I have to go.
00:28:27.360 To watch Tucker descend into maybe we should have sided with Hitler is a very, very sad
00:28:34.660 thing.
00:28:34.960 I believe in Tucker's case, it's a money thing.
00:28:38.860 He's a smart guy and I think he's just getting paid to say it.
00:28:42.500 And I think it's unfortunate, you know, that he would sell out, sell himself out for that.
00:28:47.300 But he's too smart to believe the garbage that he traffics on his show.
00:28:53.240 And so the only thing that I can conclude is, you know, is it's Qatari money.
00:28:57.400 And what we do know is the Qataris and other groups that hate us have flooded the zone with
00:29:02.140 money.
00:29:02.800 And I believe for him, it's just a financial decision.
00:29:06.080 Now, look, I wouldn't sell people out for money, but, you know, not everyone's like me,
00:29:10.100 but it's obviously disappointing.
00:29:12.020 I think he's, I think really, I don't think anyone legitimate takes him seriously anymore.
00:29:16.660 I think he's just exposed himself as a nut.
00:29:19.100 I hear you.
00:29:19.500 All right.
00:29:19.680 Let's move to some other issues of relevance to government.
00:29:24.880 What are your thoughts about, let's call it the Nancy Pelosi or anti-Nancy Pelosi bill,
00:29:31.800 whereby she seems to be arguably the greatest investor in the history of humanity.
00:29:39.440 Do you ever foresee a time, Congressman, where it will be absolutely illegal for anyone serving
00:29:45.860 in government to be able to do some of the things that seem to be taking place in government?
00:29:51.320 Well, I hope so.
00:29:52.960 Look, I believe that if you insider trade on your information when you're in Congress,
00:29:57.900 you should go to prison for the rest of your life.
00:29:59.900 And if that is continuing to happen, we need to solve that problem.
00:30:03.520 But insider trading is a real problem.
00:30:05.100 Frankly, people on Wall Street have much more access to insider information than we do in Congress.
00:30:10.780 I think restricting people's rights to live their lives isn't a good idea.
00:30:15.160 But I think if people believe that people like Nancy Pelosi are profiting off the information
00:30:20.560 she gets as a member of Congress, then that means people need to be prosecuted and they
00:30:24.020 need to be put in jail because you shouldn't be able to do that.
00:30:26.520 But how I mean, so, for example, so I don't know whether Nancy Pelosi did anything that was
00:30:30.980 onerous or not.
00:30:31.900 Who knows?
00:30:32.240 But let's say I just saw a tweet, and I haven't checked its veracity, that, you know, Ilhan
00:30:37.600 Omar went into Congress with this worth and then currently is worth this much.
00:30:43.360 When we see such figures, or I know, for example, from my backyard, Justin Trudeau became prime
00:30:49.100 minister with a certain wealth, and now he's apparently worth a lot more.
00:30:53.120 Is it fair for the typical taxpayer to say, I would like to, I don't want to say weaponize,
00:31:01.380 but the, you know, you've got the IRS, we've got the CRA, which has roughly, to say, hey,
00:31:06.160 how come you're not going into, how is this guy now worth $350 million?
00:31:10.720 Do we ever see that in the future happening?
00:31:14.240 Or because most people in government ultimately benefit from the system, we will never see that
00:31:20.440 auto-correction?
00:31:21.040 Well, I fully support, I'm not insider trading, and frankly, I've got to be honest with you,
00:31:27.400 in my five months that I've been here, I haven't seen any information that I would be able to
00:31:33.980 insider trade on.
00:31:35.360 Now, I'm fairly new, so maybe there's stuff out there that I don't see or know about.
00:31:41.180 I'm just giving you five months of experience.
00:31:44.860 But insider trading should be a serious crime, whether you're in Congress or whether you're
00:31:51.020 you work on Wall Street.
00:31:52.460 But there are lots of people who have access to insider information, and frankly, many who
00:31:56.800 have a lot more access than people in Congress do.
00:31:59.480 It should not be okay.
00:32:01.120 And if we've got to lock people up and put them in jail, that's what we ought to do.
00:32:04.220 When you come to Congress, your job is to serve the American people, not to take the information
00:32:09.000 that you learn and use it to serve yourself.
00:32:10.880 Do you feel that the fact that you've had an illustrious, beefy career prior to becoming
00:32:18.040 a politician has served you as a politician?
00:32:20.980 And before you answer, you know, we have politicians in Canada, and I'm sure in the United
00:32:26.400 States, who've only been politicians.
00:32:29.020 I mean, they were high school, you know, class president.
00:32:32.660 And from then, you knew that they were going to become politicians.
00:32:36.760 What are your thoughts?
00:32:37.620 Should this be something that is institutionalized in the way that our forefathers thought?
00:32:43.740 You should be first a surgeon, first a businessman, first a lawyer before you go into politics.
00:32:48.400 What are your thoughts on that?
00:32:49.900 Well, I don't know that you can institutionalize it, but I do think it is good.
00:32:52.620 Look, the fact that I had a 22-year business career, the fact that I have a family, the fact
00:32:57.320 that I have kids, that I've had life experience, that makes me better at this job.
00:33:02.600 But the other thing that makes me better is I don't have to worry about how I'm going to
00:33:05.580 pay my mortgage, that I was financially successful.
00:33:09.120 And I do think people get into these jobs, and they are not financially secure, and it
00:33:15.080 creates the incentive to make bad decisions.
00:33:18.920 You know, I mean, if someone said, hey, I'll...
00:33:21.640 One of the things that shocked me in politics, frankly, was not that people sold themselves.
00:33:26.520 It was how little they sold themselves for.
00:33:30.420 You know, everyone's got a price.
00:33:32.080 You know, there's probably most politicians, if someone said, hey, I'll give you a billion
00:33:36.160 dollars, they'd be like, well, I'll go to jail for a few years for a billion dollars.
00:33:40.140 But for thousands of dollars to see people sell themselves, that's what's surprising.
00:33:46.500 You're correct.
00:33:47.220 For me, I don't have to worry, because I worked very, very hard over those 20 years.
00:33:51.760 I never expected to be a politician.
00:33:53.780 So I ended up in politics eight months after I retired, because I got angry about what my
00:33:58.640 kids were learning in school.
00:33:59.760 That's what led me to become a member of the Florida legislature.
00:34:02.820 It's never...
00:34:03.320 I've never thought of it as a career.
00:34:05.020 It's why I say what I say.
00:34:06.840 I'm not worried about losing an election.
00:34:09.160 I'm going to say what's right.
00:34:10.520 I'm going to do what's right, because the job's not that fun.
00:34:13.080 So if I'm not going to say what I think, then why do it in the first place?
00:34:16.380 I think if you're looking at this as a career and a way to support your family, it's probably
00:34:21.220 going to lead you to make different decisions than the ones that I make.
00:34:24.360 Gotcha.
00:34:24.480 Difficult question now, because it might be critical of your colleagues.
00:34:30.440 If I were to ask you to allocate 100 points in your daily practice, and I say you, not
00:34:39.260 you specifically, Representative Fine, but anybody in Congress, what percentage of the allocation
00:34:46.360 of points is actually because you're serving the American public versus self-serving politicking,
00:34:54.920 in whatever shape that takes.
00:34:56.520 So for example, if you were to tell me 90% of the time my colleagues are working for the
00:35:02.100 American people, and 10%, so it's a 90-10, maybe I'm being pessimistic.
00:35:07.140 I would say 20 points are allocated to working for the American people.
00:35:12.820 80 points are for all the politicking.
00:35:16.600 Can you give us some kind of number?
00:35:18.420 Am I being too pessimistic?
00:35:20.220 I think you are.
00:35:21.740 I mean, also, I think you've conflated two things, which is politics and then working for
00:35:28.020 your own personal benefit.
00:35:29.700 If you consider running for re-election for your own personal benefit, then the percentages
00:35:36.580 would be relatively high.
00:35:38.400 But if your personal benefit is defined as like profiting off being in office, I think
00:35:43.900 that percentage is very, very low.
00:35:45.940 I would guess it's 70, 80, 90% of the time people are focused on being members of Congress.
00:35:53.120 And being a member of Congress is both doing the job and then making sure you stay a member
00:35:57.800 of Congress.
00:35:58.380 The founders wanted us to run every two years.
00:36:02.040 They wanted us to stay in touch with our constituents.
00:36:04.620 They wanted us to be campaigning all the time.
00:36:07.280 They didn't in the Senate.
00:36:08.460 The Senate, six years in the United States.
00:36:10.680 So our system is designed to have people be doing politics all the time.
00:36:15.180 That is what the framers intended.
00:36:16.900 I think my colleagues spend a fairly small percentage of the time on benefiting themselves.
00:36:22.960 And frankly, most of them suffer quite a lot.
00:36:25.960 I mean, the biggest sacrifice in my situation is my children, is my family.
00:36:30.320 And most of my colleagues are the same.
00:36:32.180 So for most of us, we get a lot less out of it than we give up to do it.
00:36:37.520 You know, I missed my son's first football game.
00:36:40.860 I missed his Boy Scout court of honor.
00:36:42.860 That's the case for many of my colleagues.
00:36:44.560 So anything I get personally out of this job is dwarfed by what I give up on the family
00:36:49.420 front.
00:36:49.880 And I think that's the case, frankly, for most of my colleagues, whether they're Republicans
00:36:53.400 or Democrats.
00:36:54.300 The Democrats may be delusional and they may be stupid, but they are doing what they think
00:36:58.540 is right.
00:36:59.160 They're just wrong.
00:37:00.340 Right.
00:37:00.480 And I think most of it, I mean, look, you've got the ones that I think are evil and those
00:37:03.820 do exist.
00:37:04.700 But I think most of them are just misguided and stupid.
00:37:07.380 And I think that's the bigger issue.
00:37:09.920 Without, I'm not asking you to give any names.
00:37:13.040 Are there people in your five, six months that you've been a U.S.
00:37:17.640 congressman that you've met that have surprised you in either directions?
00:37:21.660 Meaning, you know, I was really looking forward to meeting ABC because I thought they were the
00:37:26.200 most charismatic, intelligent person and they turned out to be a complete dullard or vice
00:37:31.460 versa.
00:37:31.960 I thought this person is a poisonous snake.
00:37:34.720 But, you know, now that I'm sitting down and breaking bread with them, my goodness,
00:37:38.340 they're a lovely person.
00:37:39.120 Did you get either of those reversals of the original a priori position?
00:37:43.640 I have.
00:37:44.380 I'm not going to name the names.
00:37:45.500 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:37:45.660 It disappointed me.
00:37:46.920 But yeah, I mean, I'll give you some examples of some that are amazing.
00:37:49.580 I mean, Mike Johnson is amazing, our Speaker of the House.
00:37:52.300 He's someone that every time I'm with him, I believe that God intended him to be Speaker
00:37:57.480 because he's got an incredibly difficult job and the guy is simply unflappable.
00:38:01.880 And you can feel you can feel the religion, the religion in him in a good way.
00:38:08.660 You know, a lot of people who wear their religion on their sleeves, they don't have it in their
00:38:12.500 hearts.
00:38:13.720 He is one who it just comes through overwhelmingly that he is who he says he is.
00:38:20.660 He would be a Brian Mast was a hero of mine.
00:38:23.180 He's the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
00:38:24.860 He's the reason I just got put on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
00:38:28.200 Daryl Issa, the vice chairman, a guy who just blew me away when I spent time with him.
00:38:32.580 There's so many of them.
00:38:33.720 And yes, there are those who have disappointed me.
00:38:36.740 What I will tell you at a high level is I thought they cared about certain issues.
00:38:43.100 And that's why I liked them.
00:38:44.600 It turned out they didn't care about the issues.
00:38:46.420 They cared about looking like they cared about the issues or benefiting from caring about
00:38:51.980 the issues.
00:38:52.460 But they didn't actually care about the issues all that much.
00:38:55.320 But I'm not going to I'm not going to say who they are.
00:38:57.900 Of course.
00:38:58.600 Have you met the big man, the big orange man?
00:39:03.500 Well, President Trump is the reason I ran.
00:39:06.440 It was his idea.
00:39:07.820 He and he endorsed me before I filed to run for office.
00:39:11.600 Listen, I have seen him many times.
00:39:13.520 Look, I believe that God saved President Trump's life so that he could save the world.
00:39:17.540 I believe that America was in free fall.
00:39:20.140 I don't believe we would have survived four years of Kamala Harris.
00:39:23.760 And frankly, I think America is the only thing propping up the world.
00:39:27.260 I mean, you're talking about what's going on in Canada.
00:39:29.820 You see what's happening in Western Europe.
00:39:31.600 I mean, really, Israel and the United States are really the only bulwarks of fighting for
00:39:36.880 Western civilization.
00:39:37.840 And so, you know, it's an honor to be on his team and be one of his guys who are out fighting.
00:39:43.480 So I've seen the president a bunch of times.
00:39:45.380 And and I'll tell you this, I don't there's probably been no one ever who has had as much
00:39:51.760 energy as he does.
00:39:53.260 I mean, he works like 19, 20, 21 hours a day.
00:39:57.100 I mean, it's something to behold.
00:39:59.060 And and I don't know where he gets that energy from.
00:40:02.280 It just it just makes me believe that God works through him.
00:40:05.580 He's he's vigorous, just like Joe Biden, right?
00:40:08.640 I mean, he's nobody can keep up with him, just like with Joe Biden.
00:40:11.540 No, no one can keep up with with Donald Trump.
00:40:14.740 Joe Biden, you know, the diaper changer couldn't keep up with him.
00:40:18.140 But just about everybody else seemed to be able to know Trump's amazing.
00:40:22.020 And and again, I think it's because he knows that he literally has a mission from God.
00:40:27.040 And I think he's he's acting on it every day.
00:40:29.020 Hey, Congressman, you should try to see what it's like to be in academia and be an open
00:40:35.220 supporter of Trump.
00:40:36.660 I think I deserve a Nobel Prize just for that.
00:40:39.680 Never mind anything else.
00:40:41.780 Yeah.
00:40:43.220 Tell us tell us some of the things that are down the the pipeline for for you for yourself
00:40:51.860 in terms of are you thinking of writing a book?
00:40:54.780 Are you thinking of eventually running for reelection?
00:40:58.300 Well, I am I am running for reelection.
00:41:00.460 Look, my life, the last year of my life has been sort of extraordinary.
00:41:04.760 You know, a year ago, I was a member of the Florida House.
00:41:07.980 You told me I'd be in Congress.
00:41:09.740 I would have told you you were out of your mind.
00:41:11.600 I'm actually the first person in the history of Florida to be in the Florida House, the Florida
00:41:15.780 Senate and Congress in the same six month period.
00:41:18.600 So my rise was was very quick and unexpected.
00:41:23.420 I also lost my mom five days before President Trump asked me to run, who's sort of the inspiration
00:41:29.000 for for much of what I do.
00:41:31.240 So I'm really focused on the challenges that are directly in front of us.
00:41:34.760 For me, those challenges are making sure we fight for Western civilization and deal with
00:41:40.200 the greatest threat to Western civilization that we have, which is Islamification.
00:41:45.260 I mean, it is a threat.
00:41:47.140 It doesn't mean all Muslims are bad.
00:41:48.800 They aren't.
00:41:50.180 But but because I have some that are friends.
00:41:52.060 But the problem is, it's also not one percent that are bad, which is what the left would
00:41:56.920 have you believe.
00:41:57.920 And I think it means standing with Israel and making sure we're keeping America safe.
00:42:02.080 And then the other thing for me, I believe the greatest existential threat to the United
00:42:06.280 States is not Iran.
00:42:08.540 It's not Russia.
00:42:09.120 It's not China.
00:42:09.780 It's our budget deficit that we're going to borrow almost two trillion dollars this year
00:42:13.940 that we don't have.
00:42:14.880 We can't do that forever.
00:42:17.600 And if I don't help solve that problem in the time that I'm in Congress, my children
00:42:21.300 will never forgive me for the amount of time that I've missed to do this job with them.
00:42:25.820 So those are the things for me.
00:42:27.720 I don't worry about political futures or or things like that.
00:42:31.540 Yeah, I'm running for reelection because I don't think I can solve every problem in a
00:42:35.520 year and a half.
00:42:36.280 But but my focus is doing the best job as I can as a member of Congress for the people
00:42:41.200 of the 6th Congressional District, for Jewish Americans in general, because I do feel like
00:42:45.320 I'm a voice for them, but also just for the American people as a whole.
00:42:50.300 Wow.
00:42:50.800 What a beautiful ending.
00:42:51.960 Thank you so much, Congressman.
00:42:53.220 Fine.
00:42:53.500 Please stay on the line so we could say goodbye, officially offline.
00:42:57.520 And such a pleasure having you.
00:42:58.920 Anytime you wish to come back, you have an open invitation.
00:43:00.920 Let me say one more thing before you go.
00:43:02.780 So, again, you put you take a lot of grief and a lot of trouble for what you do as an
00:43:08.800 academic.
00:43:09.620 And I cannot the most important thing I could impart in our discussion would be gratitude
00:43:15.560 for you laying out the intellectual framework for the fight that all of us has.
00:43:20.160 I may be elected and I may be a leader because I'm a politician, but you're leading through
00:43:25.060 what you do every day.
00:43:26.180 And I just want you to know my family and I are incredibly appreciative for what you do.
00:43:30.200 Oh, what lovely words.
00:43:31.360 Thank you so much, Congressman.
00:43:32.560 I really appreciate it.
00:43:33.180 Well-deserved.
00:43:33.880 Cheers.
00:43:34.240 Thank you.