B (3:34)

Yeah, your interviews with some of those 07 survivors really stood out to me. Honestly, I've never seen their perspective.

A (3:42)

One of them, I'm happy to say now, her name is Lisha Miran, and she is now reunited with her husband. But she gives this harrowing account of how their family was raided. The Hamas terrorists come in through the window. They rush into a safe room and hide. The terrorists go next door and grab the teenage kid, and they basically put a gun to his head and say, you know, if you don't open the door, we'll shoot this kid. And so this is the kind of horror that they live through. I also realized while I was talking to this woman outside her kibbutz, that we happened to have the footage of her house. So in this case, you know, normally in a documentary, you interview someone and they describe some harrowing events, and then you have to recreate them to give the audience a feel for what it's like. In this case, I don't have to do that because I got the actual footage. So that's part of what I think makes the film so powerful, is that much of this October 7th footage, now the government of Israel has it, but they've never released it. And so some of it is being shown, at least to the general public for the first time in this film.

B (4:46)

Hmm. Do you agree with their decision not to release it?

A (4:51)

Well, their reasoning was that this was a. This was out of respect to the Hostage, family. So I think they had their own reasons for not doing it. But look at it. You don't release it. And so people know about October 7th, but they have no experiential sense of being there. Right, right. To me, as a filmmaker, this is a fatal mistake. It's kind of like, if I were to tell you, Sean, I were to tell you, you know, I grew up in India, and let me tell you about my life when I was 10 years old as a kid, you wouldn't have a good feel of that. But if I say, here's a video, that's me at the age of 10, that's my family, that's what we ate for breakfast. That's the little vendor who came selling bananas on the street, you would get the sense that you were there. I'd be putting you on the scene. And so I think that's very important. That wasn't done. And that's why for the subsequent two years, you'd see scenes out of Gaza. And all people's sympathies went to the civilians in Gaza. And I'm not saying that that's wrong, and. But it was. It was isolated from the original offense. It's kind of like talking about World War II and the Pacific War, but you don't know anything about Pearl Harbor.

B (5:54)

It's a very valid point because I think we're very visual, especially these days with Twitter. You know, you scroll on there, you see these starving kids, and then you're not seeing the other side too.

A (6:02)

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Oh, God, that's right. Well, I mean, what I'm saying is that what people do is they start, I think, in a kind of.

A (6:14)

Natural way. They say, all right, well, look how many civilians were killed on October 7th? Well, maybe a thousand. Right. About that number. Now, why is it that the number of civilians in Gaza exceeds that number? It should not be greater than that. But this is actually not, I think, the correct way to think about it. At least in Christianity, there's a tradition called the just war that goes back a thousand years. And essentially what it says is that in all wars you have civilian deaths. So you cannot say that the presence of civilian deaths by itself makes the war unjust. Otherwise all war would just be unjust. On the face of it. The real issue is this. You should not. First of all, you should not start a war unless you are attacked. And I think Israel can rightly say we were attacked, so our war is justified in that sense. Second, you should not target civilians. So if you're striking at a Hamas communication center. But there happen to be civilians in that building. The civilians do get killed, but it is not your intention to kill them. You weren't targeting them. That, I think, is the critical difference between the idf, the Israel Defense Forces on the one hand, and say, Hamas on the other.

B (7:22)

Right. Did you have conversations with members of the IDF when you were over there?

A (7:27)

They were all around me. I went down to the Gaza border. The IDF was doing a kind of a training session. And you know what's so striking to me was I was just kind of watching, almost mesmerized. You know, these idf, you think of them as these hardened veterans. I mean, these are like 19 and 20 year olds. I mean, males and females. And they're holding these, you know, these long guns and These, you know, AR15s or whatever types of ammunition they have. And I'm like, wow, you know, these are. These people are young enough to be my sons and daughters. So I had almost the sense that, look, here's a country that has to put its own kids on the front line to defend its people. And it's amazing how there are Americans who are like the idea for monsters and so on. These are people who live in a really bad neighborhood. And one thing you notice about people in a bad neighborhood is they're very wary. They look over their shoulder, they lock their car, they put on their alarm at night, they sleep with one eye open. You know, we. When you live in a gated community, you know, like I do or America is a kind of gated community, we have a certain type of, you know, ease and complacency about it. And then we're judging people who are in very different circumstances.

B (8:43)

So when you were over there, did you see pretty rough neighborhoods and get a sense of that for them?

A (8:49)

Well, we were at the kibbutzes, which are really just two football fields away from the Gaza border. And. And what was kind of eerie when I was talking to this woman, Lisha Miran, even when I was at the Nova festival ground, which is where all those Nova Music festival guys got attacked, you can actually hear bombs going off. You can hear machine gun fire, because Gaza is like right over there. And so it was a kind of an eerie feeling to be right there. And then, you know, when you do a film, well, you kind of have to put yourself in the middle of the action. So, like, my film team is like, Dinesh, you have to walk along in. In a field, an open field at the Gaza border. And my wife is like, Gaza's right Over there, a single sniper could take Pradesh out with one shot. And so all I want to say is that you do get that feeling of being in a precarious zone when you're over there. Even though I was just there for nine days, I was just there to make a film, nevertheless, you get the feeling of the Israeli people. And sirens go off from time to time. You're eating at a restaurant, you sudden suddenly gotta go and sit in some safe zone.

B (10:00)

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A (11:06)

Zone. And I asked one of the waiters in the restaurant, I'm like, you know, is this like, normal? How do you live like this? They just go, you know, know, we have to.

B (11:15)

Wow.

A (11:15)

So that is the, that is the ordinary life that they're used to. And it is a condition imposed by necessity.

B (11:22)

That's pretty crazy. Since your film release, there's been a lot of, a lot of stuff that's happened since the hostages got returned. The ceasefire has been negotiated. How are you feeling about the war right now?

A (11:32)

The ceasefire is extremely precarious. This is almost like making a deal with a bunch of guys who just did a home invasion on your house, right? And then they ran away and they've left the carnage and you chase them, but they get into a van and when they come out, they're holding their own wife and like seven kids and they're like, I dare you to shoot. It's going to make you a murderer. So this is what Israel is dealing with. And now along comes America and I think Trump is Well intentioned here. Trump does want to stop the fighting and he has stopped the fighting, but he has not stopped the mindset behind the fighting. I don't think Hamas has given up. I mean, we just read the Hamas charter, right? Charter is like, death to Israel, get rid of Israel from the river to the sea. So I think these guys are like in strategic retreat. That's what they mean by ceasefire. They mean, okay, you have us against the ropes, we'll sign on the dotted line. They did send the hostages back, but they got a lot of terrorists in exchange for that. And I'm quite convinced what's going to happen is the Hamas guys will now found they'll start 30 different organizations. A society for the rehabilitation of Gaza, social justice in Palestine. It's going to be the same characters with, you know, probably shaved their mustaches or reoriented their beards. And so I don't think Trump and the Trump people should be naive about the fact that, like, you've settled the issue. No, you haven't settled the issue. You've caused a delicate peace, but there's a lot more work to be done.

B (13:01)

Do you think at this point it's out of Trump's hands? Like, do you even think he is capable of solving this entirely?

A (13:07)

I think in fairness, the Trump doesn't really need to do that, nor does I think he see his role as that. You know, if you extend the same discussion, say, to Ukraine, I mean, how do you settle the historic issues between Russia and Ukraine that quite honestly go back a thousand years, but the recent grievances go back at least a decade. They involve Crimea, they involve allegations that the US Kind of fomented Ukraine. Almost like encouraging a small puppy to go attack the bear, attack the bear, attack the bear. And the bear lashes out. And so all of these grievances are baked into the conflict again, even if you can hit the pause button, that is kind of all you are doing. And maybe for Trump it's like, listen, I wanna get back to domestic issues. I've got a border to deal with, I've got tariffs, I got a US Economy, I wanna bring back manufacturing. I'm just trying to settle things down over there for a while. So Trump gave a messianic speech like, peace has come to the Middle East. We can all relax and it's gonna be great from here on out. I think it's fair to say that that is more a speech of messianic hope than a realistic assessment of what one can actually expect.

B (14:19)

I know you interviewed Netanyahu Was there anything that stood out to you from that interview?

A (14:24)

Well, I wanted to interview him in an unusual way because all these guys get interviewed all the time. They're accustomed to it. For Netanyahu, I mean, I almost feel he has that weary look on his face, like, what's it going to be now? And he's well rehearsed, and he's a little stiff because he comes with these prepackaged answers. And so what I wanted to do is get him to relax, but I also wanted him to make him more nervous or at least throw him off his game, just because I wanted to bring out the real Netanyahu. So I would spring questions to him, like, so what do you think of Jesus? Right? So you have the Jewish head of a Jewish state. I'm basically asking him about, like, the most famous Jew in the world, and I want him to like. And he did. Like, he was great. He was like, listen, basically where he went with it was he's like, jesus is like one of us. You know, Jesus is a Jew. He's Yeshua. His dad is like Yoseph. His mom is Miriam. This is a guy who, you know, ate pita bread and he bathed in the pool of siloam, and he walked in the pilgrimage road to the temple. So what I got out of it was very interesting, is that I don't think he would have done this 10 years ago. Netanyahu was basically claiming the Christian Messiah as like, he's one of us. So I took that to mean that Netanyahu is very eager to keep the Christian community in America, but also in the world, as supporters of Israel and seeing Israel as their spiritual homeland.

B (15:51)

That's cool. You working on the next film? Are you taking a little break now?

A (15:56)

Well, what's happened is that I have been drawn somewhat reluctantly, and I say somewhat reluctantly because I've been drawn into a kind of social media firestorm with people I've known quite well, sometimes going back as much as 30 years. I first met Tucker Carlson, for example, when he was about 22, and I was about, like, 28. And so I've known him off and on over decades. Candice Owens, about six or seven years ago, I spoke at her group called Blexit. Remember, all these people came up kind of on one ladder, and. And now they are climbing a totally different ladder. And so the awkwardness for me is I have a background with them, but, like, I'm on board with their old ladder, but I don't really like the new ladder that they're Climbing. And yet people are like, well, you're supposed to be Tucker's friend. Like, why are you attacking him? I'm like, because, you know, I signed up to be a fan of the Tucker who was challenging the lies around Covid, who was opposing the police state and the use of politics as a form of criminal a prosecution. I didn't sign up for Tucker, like, the guy who puts the Jews behind all the problems of the world and thinks that Netanyahu is the greatest villain, even worse than Hamas. And most recently, he says that, quote, christian Zionist. Now, I've never called myself a Christian Zionist, but he goes, christian Zionists are, like, worse than Islamic jihadis. And so this is a guy who is saying things. He's not deranged, but he's saying deranged things, and it's causing a lot of political problems. He's also, in a sense, trying to reinterpret Christianity, I think, in very perverse ways. And so I'm in the middle of all that. I have new projects that I have kind of ready to go into the oven, but they're probably not going to go into the oven until 2026, just because I'm mired in this kind of skirmish that seems to be a daily occurrence these days on social media.

B (17:55)

Yeah. Did you. Did you see his interview with Fuentes yet?

A (17:58)

Oh, yeah, I didn't see all of it, but I saw all the kind of relevant clips that are posted everywhere. And. And in fact, I responded to it yesterday by releasing two text exchanges that I had had with Charlie Kirk. So I debated Fuentes about, really about two weeks, maybe three weeks before Charlie was assassinated. And. And the reason I did it is Fuentes was essentially doing his usual arrogant, like, alpha male routine. He's like, I'm the king. He's like, you know, Ben Shapiro is scared of me. Like, Charlie Kirk is scared of me. No one will debate me. So I was like, I'll debate you. You know, and so we had a very interesting debate focused really on the Trump strike, on the nuclear facilities in Iran, but also the broader issue of Iran and radical Islamic. And it was a very measured debate. You know, Nick came all dressed up with his little bow, and he was wearing his navy blazer. He was like a schoolboy. And he was very respectful to me. You know, he wasn't. I was kind of a little worried he'd be like, you know, you're an Indian, you're brown, you need to leave the country right now. He didn't go there. He didn't do any of that. You know, I take that to be part of his shtick, but he didn't do that with me. So we had the debate. A lot of even Nick's supporters were like, man, Dinesh, you really did really well. And, you know, I, I thought Nick would, like, wipe the floor with you, but that's not what happened at all. And then I get these very, like, panicky texts from Charlie Kurt basically saying, oh, no, like, why did you do this, Dinesh? Like, why did you amplify this guy? He's like vermin. That's actually Charlie's word. Now, what I found interesting about all this is that here you have Charlie, who of course represented and founded Turning Point, and this is his view of Nick. He's angry with me for debating stating Nick Fuentes. And then here's Tucker doing this very friendly, almost avuncular, like, you know, I'm the older statesman. You're like the young guy running for office, and like, I'm going to take you under my wing. And yet this is the same Tucker Carlson who is, in a way, I think, trying to become the new leader, or at least the face, the voice of the new tpusa. It's almost like he's trying to take Charlie Kirk's position, but lead TP USA in a very, like, anti Israel, anti Jewish direction. So I think all of this puts TP USA in a very awkward position because they've sort of embraced Tucker. They've already. He's their main speaker in their summit in, in December. And yet Tucker is sort of saying to tpusa, guess what? Charlie hated this guy Fuentes. I'm going to openly, like, amplify him. What are you going to do about it? Like, I don't. I dare you to cancel me. I'm basically now your guy. You're in league with, like, the leading anti Semite in America, whether you like it or not. So to me, this is all very problematic politically, institutionally. I'm a little worried about, you know, young, young minds being poisoned. I'm not against debate, by the way, as my Fuentes thing showed. I'm perfectly happy to engage people who think Israel has a bad influence or too much influence, or we give them too much money or the government's doing stupid stuff. And look, they allowed October 7th to happen, right? Somebody wasn't watching the border. And they've made mistakes, in my opinion. Had Israel, like, carpet bombed Gaza on October 8, they would totally have gotten away with it. Nobody could have said a word. So by stretching it out over two years, people forget about the original injury. So Israel has, in fact, I think, made a lot of mistakes. I'm not taking the view that Israel is always right or anything even close to that. But on the other hand, I do think it's important for the Republican Party and just for the maga, the Make America Great Again movement, not to import the poison of antisemitism.

B (21:54)

Do you think Tucker would have a sit down with you since you've known him for so long now?

A (21:59)

He doesn't want to do that. I've actually proposed it to him and others have, too. So I'm not the only guy who could do it. There are a dozen people who would have a different view than Tucker, and not one of them has ever been asked to be on his show. Now, why is that? I think because Tucker is operating in a very strange way. He doesn't say I believe A, B and C. And here are the reasons he doesn't come out into the open and defend his views. He follows a kind of, I call it the ventriloquist format where he has a guest on and he will ask a leading question as if he's. And he'll rub his chin like he's really curious, but the question already contains the answer. And the guest will then regurgitate the answer that Tucker's looking for and he already knows he's going to get, but he will then act like he's blown away by the answer. It's a brilliant observation. No one's ever thought of this before. In fact, this very idea has been suppressed for decades. I mean, it's like a, it's a shtick, you know, and it's interesting to watch because he does it again and again. He does it with the nun with the mustache, and then he does it with some greatest academic. And the message is always, it's different and yet it's always the same. One time it's like Churchill was the real villain of World War II. The next time it's like Sharia is not so bad. The third one is Qatar is misunderstood. Then Netanyahu is the greatest villain of all time. So it migrates from it's all like, it's a symphony in which there are variations on a theme. But at least these days, it's all one message. It's all, it always comes back to Israel. So this is not the Tucker of Fox News. This is not the young Tucker who actually, particularly on Israel, had the opposite view. So something has happened to Tucker Carlson along the way, and that something is not good.

B (23:52)

Do you see a shift in that regard? Because you got Tucker going that way. Candace, you mentioned earlier a couple other people, like, what do you think's going on?

A (24:00)

What's going on, I think, is we could psychoanalyze the principles, and I have good theories about all of them. They're not the same, by the way. There's Steve Bannon, who's different than Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's different than Matt Gaetz, who's different than Candace, who's different than Tucker. But all of them are sort of pied pipers of a sort. And by pied pipers, I mean they're sort of leading young people. What really interests me is this, that you've got, I think, a younger generation. And I feel a lot of sympathy for this younger generation because these people have been screwed over. They have been lied to not just by the CDC or the NIH or the FBI. They've also been lied to by their teachers and their professors, and they've been beaten down and they've been intimidated, and they've been told, you know, you're white. You're responsible for all the evils of the world. You bear the guilt of the white man through the centuries. You know, you did the Crusades, you did the Inquisition. And these poor young people are like, what the. And, you know, so I think what's happened is that these young people are now being raised in an America that has let them down, but let them down not only ideologically but economically. They don't have the same promise as earlier generations. I mean, I came to America with 500 bucks in my pocket. When I graduated from college, I was basically down to zero. But when I graduated, I didn't have any doubt. I'm going to get a decent job. It's going to be a struggle. I'm going to have to rent for a year or two, but I'm going to be able to put a down payment on a house, and I will own that house over time. And so it is the fact that these kind of fundamentals of the American dream that have gone away for a lot of people. And so I think what's happening is that guys like Tucker and Candace are tapping into the.

A (25:45)

Ptsd, the conspiratorial mindset, this deep sense of frustration. A lot of these young people feel that there's a kind of cabal of elites who run the world, and. And they care about everybody except them. They are, like, at the bottom of the bottom of the list. And again, I don't think These people are entirely wrong, by the way. But I also do think that they are fodder. They are very vulnerable or very susceptible to the conspiracy theory that, guess what? There are all these people lying to you. There are all these elites who are ripping you off, but behind them is another elite, a super elite, a master manipulator. And the name of those people is spelled J, E, W S. Yeah, it is very fascinating.

B (26:32)

My generation, I'm 28, we love conspiracies. When you were my age, did anyone even talk about conspiracies?

A (26:39)

No. And I didn't really believe in them. I believe in more of them now. Why? Because some conspiracies have proven to be true.

B (26:46)

Right.

A (26:47)

And so, you know, who would have thought, for example, that the two year investigation of Trump that was supposedly all about like enforcing the law. No one's above the law. Trump is conspiring with Russia. They made the whole thing up and Obama signed off on it. And Obama told the top intelligence people in the country, basically, go get this guy and even if we can't stop him from being elected, ruin his presidency. And this was a conspiracy. What else do you call it when a group of people in a room make a plan and then carry it out? And that's the very definition of a conspiracy. So for me, it was an education really now in my 50s and early 60s to realize that American politics has a lot of gangsterism, a lot of built in deception. And this is not what I thought when I was your age.

B (27:37)

Yeah, yeah, it is very interesting. Some of them are true, but then there's so many that are crazy. I mean, there's a lot of Israel conspiracy theories. I'm sure you see that on Twitter every day.

A (27:46)

And conspiracy theories about other things, it's not just that they're about Israel. Essentially what's happened is that the line between truth and falsehood is now become more blurred. And the other thing is, I think you've got a lot of people who have, you know, either they have historical amnesia or they've never been taught history at all. And so they jump to conclusions that are based on like a sample size of one case. So I'll give you an example. I was debating Nick Fuentes. He kept thing regime change never works. And if I were to say to him, all right, Nick, well what is that based on? He would say, well, look at Iraq, look what happened in Iraq. Regime change turned out to be a disaster. And I would be like, well, yeah, Nick, but you know, if I were to just look back at 50 years of history. I can give you 30 examples, about five of them coming out of World War II, but many subsequently, where countries have had a regime change and it's obviously turned out for the better. And I said similarly, we can envision regime change now happening in countries where the result would almost certainly be for the better. If Venezuela collapsed, let's say the Maduro regime, which is a gangster, narco, terrorist regime, I don't know what would come after it, but it would almost certainly be better than what we have now. And similarly, if the mullahs fell in Iran, we don't know if they would get a democracy, would they get a monarchy with the old Reza Pahlavi coming back and becoming like the new monarch of Iran? I don'. But whatever it is, it's going to be better than having these radical mullahs with, by the way, nuclear knowledge, even if not now functioning nuclear facilities. That's an extremely dangerous situation. Regime change in Iran would be really a very positive development for the world.

B (29:33)

Yeah, well, we're only taught one version of history growing up too.

A (29:38)

This is true. I think also what's happened is, and this is because of the kind of left wing ideological machine in academia and people think like American history. You have, you know, the, you start with the founding, which is itself seen as problematic. The founders were white males, they own slaves. Then you essentially do a travelogue through slavery to the Civil War. And then you fast forward to like Martin Luther King, you know, so you're leaving out like you're leaving out the, you know, basically the development of the railroads. And you're leaving out all the inventions of that took America from essentially being a non entity to becoming the largest economy in the world by the end of the 19th century. You're leaving out the developments of the car and the airplane and the computer. So large swaths of our history are just put into the trash can because of these ideologues. And all they want to do is emphasize race and gender and sexual orientation. So those are the very narrow lenses through which they try to view all of history.

B (30:41)

Right. I know you went to university, but is that a route you recommend for the younger people these days?

A (30:46)

I'm afraid of it. I sent my daughter to Dartmouth, which is where I went, but I did it in such a paranoid fashion that I reviewed, because I went there, I kind of knew the landscape. I reviewed all the courses, I reviewed all the professors. I told her, stay away from this guy. Definitely like this woman, she's nuts. You know, she'll give you a bad grade unless you go along with her 100%. And so it's almost like I had to steer her through this, like, dangerous minefield or labyrinth. And I sometimes joke with her. I go, I think you're the last person in America who truly got a liberal education. And now she's 30 and she has a 2 year old and a 4 month old. And so what the situation with the universities will be like when those little kiddos kind of come of age. I don't even know. I'm not even sure the university system will be the way it is recognizably, let's say, two decades from now.

B (31:37)

Wow. In what sense?

A (31:40)

I think that what's happening is people are realizing that most young people are not learning either how to succeed in life, which is to say, get a job or create a business, but they're not even succeeding in becoming a sort of mature person. Neither of those two important tasks, which are the key functions of education. Right. I want to get a job and I'm going to become a citizen, I'm going to become a father, and I'm going to become an individual. And I want to learn how to be those things. I want to know how I can grow into those things. And if the university is not giving you that, like, what's it good for, except like a hangout for like four years? So I think that there needs to be an openness to radical new ideas for ways in which education can be transmitted, maybe using AI, maybe using all the techniques that are now available that almost like go around the university. Because in my view, the institutional rot in those places is just so bad. And the sad thing to say is the more elite the university, in some ways, the worse the rot.

B (32:44)

Yeah, I mean, Trump was going at Harvard, right.

A (32:48)

These days, you know, it used to be that in my day, if you had a Harvard student or graduate of Harvard, you could assume an enormous amount about that kid. You could ask them questions. If I were to ask them what was happening in China in the time of the French Revolution, I would get a coherent and interesting answer. It might even be wrong, but it would be intelligent. It would reflect some grasp of the overall sweep of history. But what I found as someone speaking on campus, that as the years went on, the students could be expected to know less and less. And I would now have to say things to them, like, if you don't believe me, pull out your phone right now and look up the word Dixiecrat. So because they would make pompous proclamations that were flatly. Most of the Dixiecrats were Republicans. And I'm like, no, there were about 200 Dixiecrats. All of them were in the Democratic party. One or two migrated to the Republican Party. The other 198 died as Democrats. But don't take my word for it. Look at your phone. So this is because the history teachers haven't done their work, and the political science teachers haven't done their work, and the English professors haven't done their work. So it is a sad state that we've allowed ourselves to get into, particularly when you consider how lavishly endowed these universities are. When I first saw Dartmouth and set foot on that campus, I mean, immediately I was an Indian kid, like, right off the boat. I had been in the country a year, but, I mean, I almost was in tears because I saw, like, tennis courts as far as the eye can see. And I walked into libraries where, you know, they're heated all night, and there's, like, coffee and donuts, like, you know, eat as much as you want. And I was like, is this a joke? I mean, is this real? It is real, and it's real now. But the. Ultimately, the education that's supposed to go with all that, we've sort of lost that along the way.

B (34:41)

How much business success would you attribute to your college experience because you've netted over $100 million from your films?

A (34:48)

I very interestingly went into journalism. Then I realized that journalists normally end up broke. So I said, I better write some books, because author is, you know, it's a little, little more reasonable way to make a living. So I started writing books, and I was at these conservative think tanks for about 20 years. The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. then I moved to the Hoover Institution at Stanford. And so I made a very comfortable living kind of as a scholar, but also as somebody who spoke on campus, spoke at a lot of civic groups and cultural groups. And that was my livelihood until about 2012, when I almost accidentally and backhandedly got into documentary films. I didn't go to film school. I honestly didn't even know what I was doing. But I knew that Michael Moore on the left, had made a Fahrenheit 9 11, dropped it in the middle of the 2004 campaign. It was a massive success. And so I thought, you know what? If I want to reach millions of people the way he does, I'm going to have to convert my books into films. And over time, I got better at doing that. I was the first guy to do it kind of right of center. Now A bunch of people are doing it. And so the success really came out of the fact that I've been able to reinvent myself along the way. But you know something I have not reinvented? I've taken my liberal arts education. I mean, I was one of those sort of true liberal arts grads, majored in English. I studied history, political science, philosophy, and I sort of never quit college, by which I meant I continued to exhaustively read when I was at these think tanks. It was great because it's like a university without students. So you can spend all day, like, reading a book, and it's no problem. That's your job. And so I have been able, unlike most Ivy League grads, I've been able to take my liberal arts education and build a career right on top of it. The typical Dartmouth guy, like, majors in history, but then goes to med school or goes to law school and kind of never picks up a book again. You know, they move into a career, they get really busy, and so their college becomes like a distant memory. Like, yeah, one of the. We know. I remember when I read the Iliad when I was, like, 21, and I'm like, no, I actually, you know, read the Iliad for, like, the seventh time, like, three weeks ago, you know, so. So that's the difference. I've been very lucky to be able to make a life in which I've taken ideas that enchanted me when I was your age or younger and not move away from that life into some other life. I've stayed sort of in that zone.

B (37:26)

Yeah. Always be a student, right?

A (37:28)

Exactly.

B (37:29)

What do you think the biggest threat to America is right now?

A (37:34)

I think the biggest threat to America right now is not economic.

A (37:42)

It is a very strange alliance that is emerging between the cultural left on the one hand and radical Islam on the other. Not Islam. There are peaceful Muslims all over the world. I grew up in India. There are 150 million Muslims in India. They went to school with me. I were friends with them. They've been over to my house. Right next to our door to India is Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. No problems. Not no problems, but no serious problems are coming out of Indonesia. Those Muslims are fine. They have a democracy, and so Islam is not the problem. I also like the fact that Trump, with the Abrahamic accords in the first term, but also now with the peace deal, he's bringing in, like, the Saudis, he's bringing in the Emiratis, the Jordanians, the Bahrainians, the United Arab Emirates. And so what Trump is doing is I think he's trying to show that this is not a problem with Islam. There are a lot of good Muslims who don't like isis, don't like Boko Haram, don't even like the Muslim Brotherhood. So again, coming back to my point, there is a red green alliance. So that's what people are calling it, the red, referring to like communism or socialism. The green, of course, the color of radical or really of Islam itself. A guy like Mamdani, in a very suave way embodies both. He's both the red and the green in one person. And I'm a little worried about. I'm not worried so much about Mamdani, but I'm worried about Mamdaniism becoming the norm in blue cities in the country. This is part of radical Islam's infiltration of America. So the combination of the cultural left and radical Islam, I mean, not a good. Quite a toxic combination for the future.

B (39:27)

Yeah, it really does look like Mdani is going to win too.

A (39:31)

He's going to win and he's going to win not just because, I mean, he's going to win partly because, you know, Andrew Cuomo is horrible and of course Curtis Sliver won't drop out of the race. So when you have a three man race, this is a formula for Mahdani to get through. But he also is going to win because like I say, he almost embodies the two most powerful strains in the Democratic Party. The energy in the Democratic Party comes either out of the red or out of the green. Guys like Nancy Pelosi or Schumer, even Hakeem Jeffries, they are like watching in bewilderment as a new Democratic Party emerges right in front of them.

A (40:15)

And this is not a good development. So one thing that I'm worried about is that you now have a very anti Israel, anti Jewish Democratic Party. The Democrats used to be very pro Israel. They're now leaning. They're not completely, but they're leaning anti Israel. I'm kind of worried the same thing might happen to the Republican Party. The Republican Party used to be very pro Israel. I think the agenda of the Tuckers of the world.

A (40:41)

Is to move it in a more anti Israel, anti Jewish direction. So think of the irony. We could end up in a situation where the Republicans and the Democrats, although they disagree on a whole bunch of things, end up agreeing, but now in the opposite direction. They used to agree Israel is good and we should support Israel. Now they might in some future America agree that Israel is bad and we should oppose Israel. I mean, it'll be quite amazing to me in my lifetime to see that kind of a transformation on the right. I'm certainly going to do what I can to prevent that from happening.

B (41:13)

What do you think would change if that were to happen? If the masses on both parties were to be anti Israel?

A (41:19)

If that were to happen, it would then fit into a worldwide movement that we see in other parts of the West. I mean, look, right before the Trump peace plan, you had all the major Western leaders. This is Albanese in Australia, Macron in France, Keir Starmer in Great Britain and Mark Carney in Canada. All of them came out and basically said, we endorse the idea of a Palestinian state. So think about this. Hamas is the one that launches the attack. They launch October 7th, and two years later, they are winning the propaganda war and they're getting something that they never had before. They're getting the entire leadership of the West. And by the way, if Kamala Harris had won the election, she would have been on board as well. And so essentially, there would be almost irresistible outside pressure on Israel to give in, even though Israel was the one that was attacked. And so look, the Bible predicts, and I'm very careful about like futurology or biblical prophecy, I believe, you know, that the book of Revelation is very obscure. It's very veiled. You're not going to get from me like a week by week or a month by month, like a blow by blow account, none of that. But there are some large, like, indicators or large signs. One of them, of course, is the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland. The Bible repeatedly predicts it, it seemed over the centuries preposterously implausible. In 1948, it happened. That's a big one. Now another big one is that the Bible says that in the end times, everyone will come against the Jews. Now, again, 30 years ago, if you look at that, you're like, that's never going to happen. Look, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, Israel has very powerful friends. And so the notion that somehow everyone will come against the Jews seemed far fetched to me. Now it's not that far fetched because look, There are over 2 billion Muslims in the world. There's an enormous amount of resources behind that. You know, people talk about Israel is paying these influencers like 1500 bucks to make a favorable, you know, Qatar is buying entire political science departments, they're buying Hollywood studios, they're like taking over entire industries. So the power behind the anti Israel movement worldwide is huge. And I think if America were to sort of fall, so to speak, or go the wrong way on this, it would be very dire for Israel. But from a biblical point of view, I mean, the Bible basically seems to suggest that God in the end will always protect Israel, but God will not protect, in the end the people who go against Israel. And I believe that not only theologically, but also politically.

B (43:58)

Yeah, I get so many. I'm sure you get these messages, too, about the $7,000. I get them on every video. I get DMs. It's pretty crazy.

A (44:06)

It's so insane. You know, when Debbie and I first saw this biblical archeology, now, I've written three books on Christian apologetics. I've debated a number of the world's leading atheists. People like Christopher Hitchens, who's now now passed away. But we did about 10 debates together. Richard Dawkins, the philosopher, Daniel Dennett. So when I saw this biblical archeology stuff, I told my wife, I'm like, this stuff is so interesting because this is taking the Bible out of the province of Revelation. The Bible, in a way, is a very interesting book because it doesn't prove anything, right? It declares, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It's like, take it or leave it. I'm telling you the way it is. I'm not going to prove it. And in fact, if you think about it intelligently, you're going to have all kinds of questions to which there are no immediate answers. Like, okay, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Like, who's speaking? Who else was there? It doesn't say, in the beginning, I God created heaven and earth. It says in the beginning. So it's written in the third person. So all of the Bible raises these sort of questions to thoughtful people. And yet it is very declarative in its sort of finality. Now, the beauty of biblical archaeology is it's not like that. It's that you've got a guy who's in the Bible, even a minor figure. The Bible may mention him like once on, like, page 278, you know, and no one's given the guy another thought. And suddenly, out of the ground in the city of David, in Jerusalem will come a clay seal. And that guy's name is on it, right? And he's like the royal chef, the King Hosea in, like, the 6th century BC. And suddenly you realize I'm standing on a spot now. And King Josiah's chef, his steward, was like, right here.

B (45:57)

Wow.

A (45:57)

And was right here, 2600 years ago.

B (46:01)

That's pretty.

A (46:02)

So basically what I'm. Where I'm getting at with this is that. So Debbie and I are like, listen, you know, we're. We're not super wealthy or anything, but we give money. So let's give, like, $100,000 a year because we just believe in this biblical archeology. We think it's going to be really fascinating over time, more things to come out of the ground. So we've been doing this now for years, three years at least, and we're gonna keep doing it. So can you imagine, for a guy like me, I get nothing out of Israel. I'd never gotten $7,000. I've never gotten $1. I'm actually giving money, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And you have these idiots on social media who are like, you're in the pay of Israel. I'm like, no, I'm not on Israel's payroll. If I had to tell you the truth, they're on my payroll. I'm being facetious, but. But this is the. This is the kind of foolishness we have to deal with.

B (46:51)

Yeah, yeah. That. Their propaganda war. I mean, I know it's. It sucks for you, but there is effective, right? It's working.

A (47:00)

It's working. And it, you know, it's. It's based upon the idea that there is no legitimate disagree. The people who say these things have the view that if you disagree with them, it cannot be because you have a different view. You have information that they don't have. To them, it is either you are being controlled or you are being paid. They cannot think of any other reason. So either Israel, like, has something on you, Dinesh, like, fess up, like, what is it? Or you've made millions of dollars from these people, and they're sending you a monthly check, and you're just doing their bidding because it's all about the, you know, it's all about the shekels. And so, I mean, look, you know, I can see why I have, you know, Jewish friends, conservative Jews, and they are very, like, unnerved by all this because they're like, you know, this stuff, if it gets out of hand, I mean, this is like, what leads to people like us getting the Star of David, like, tattooed on our arm and getting us locked up and our stores getting burned. So they've seen this before. I'm not Jewish. I'm Christian. And so to me, like, some of this stuff, I have to laugh out loud. But I also have to remind myself, you know, I'M not. I don't have that PTSD that Jews have, which comes from historical memory. It's not a fantasy. They're not being paranoid about the fact that they have faced a lot of pogroms, a lot of discrimination, and then, of course, the Holocaust. So when you have a guy like Fuentes, like, making light of the Holocaust, and I admit it, it doesn't hit me the same way as it hits, say, my friend Josh Hammer, because a Holocaust joke, you know, to me, I could be like, that's dumb, or that's childish, or that's immature. Nick, cut it out. But Josh's view is a little different.

B (48:44)

Yeah. Well, Dinesh, thanks for your time. Anything you want to close off with here?

A (48:48)

Well, let me just throw out the website, which is the Dragons. Plural. The dragons prophecy film, dot com. It's now in streaming and dvd, and I think you'll find it. I mean, whatever your politics, you know, I think you'll find it a really provocative film, and it deals with the most profound issue. And it's not just about what's happening, like in Israel over there. It's about moral choices that I think all of us face as individuals. You know, there's a battle between good and evil, and in the end, we've got to go one side or we got to go the other side. That is the ultimate message of this film.

B (49:20)

Awesome. Well, we'll link it below. Check out the link, guys. Thanks for your time again.

A (49:24)

I really appreciate it.

B (49:25)

I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.