← Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels
Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels
TRUMP TO INVADE GREENLAND, RESCUE IRAN, & RUN VENEZUELA?!
01:01:28
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- [00:02]
A
We know the slogan America first, but does that mean America only? Or does it mean we break the regimes that threaten us? We're looking at the map today. The oil fields of Venezuela, the nuclear sites of Iran, and yes, even the strategic acquisition of Greenland. Where's the line between national defense and building an empire? When does bringing the troops home turn into letting the world burn? My guest today is a man who's defined the conservative narrative for a generation. He's a best selling author, a filmmaker, and a political arsonist who never backs down from a fight. Dinesh d' Souza is here, and you do not want to miss this one. Keeping It Real with Jillian Michaels. Dinesh, welcome to the show. How are you?
- [00:51]
B
Hey. I'm doing well, thank you. Good to be on. Thanks for having me.
- [00:56]
A
I got a lot of questions for you. I wanna start with this one. What does America first actually mean these days? Because it seems a heck of a lot like America only, which really isn't what's best for America necessarily. So can you explain this to me? What does this mean for conservatives now?
- [01:18]
B
Well, just to think about it, Gillian, in the most basic level, let's say, for example, I want to say I am Dinesh first, right? I'm all about myself, and I just want to advance myself and my own interests in the world. All right? I still wouldn't take the view that I am the only person in the planet. I would say, all right, well, you know what? I've got other people who are important to me. Family, maybe a member of some tribe or group. I'm an alumnus of a certain university. I've got certain neighbors whom I care about more than people who are complete strangers. And so my way of being Dinesh first is going to try to identify who my friends are, who my enemies are. I would try to ally with my friends, perhaps against my enemies who seek to do me ill. I would trade with other people to our mutual benefit. So apply this logic now to America. America is a powerful country in the world. And America First, I think, means paying attention to advancing American values and American interests to the benefit of Americans. In no way that does that imply any kind of isolationism. It implies making common cause with people who are like us, who share our values. It also means recognizing that there may be people who don't share our values who nevertheless share our interests. You know, it's kind of like if I go to a grocery store, that guy may not share my values, but I still want the milk and he still wants my $4. And so we're still able to do some business together to our mutual benefit. So life is not just about common values. It's also about common interests. And that's all really, we're saying about America's role in the world, to be attentive, that we live in a big neighborhood. We've got interests, we've got values, and we want to promote those.
- [03:26]
A
So where does regime change fall? Because when I look at something like Venezuela, if I was to look at this as America first, it sure seems. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it sure seems like America first. Cheap gas, bad guys out of our hemisphere, security. No more Iran building suicide drones in Venezuela. No more Russia over there, no more China over there. Gold for like, all the things, oil, minerals, bad guys out. That seems a heck of a lot like America first, but it's very, very different than rejecting regime change or a war in Venezuela, which I want to even get to like. What does that even mean, a war in Venezuela? But why then are so many of these I'm America first people really? America only. I feel like they have no nuance.
- [04:23]
B
Look, the regime change sort of conundrum only arises when our interests and our values are in opposite directions. So here's a hypothetical example. You have a dictator who's a really bad guy. He beats up on his own people. He maintains himself in power by force, but he's a great friend of America. He's pro American. And so then we have a conundrum like, we don't really like this guy. He's not good for the people over there, but he happens to be our friend or want to be our friend. So. So then we have to sort of essentially wrestle with our conscience over that one, right? But Iran and Venezuela are easy cases. They're really bad guys in charge. They're really bad for the people in those countries. It would be really good for the Venezuelans to topple the Chavistas. It would be really good for the Iranians to get rid of the mullahs. And it happens to be overwhelmingly in our interest. So these are really easy cases. Now, even once you've established that regime change would be good, that doesn't settle the question of how much should we commit to it? Should we commit a dollar? Should we commit diplomatic aid? Should we commit CIA advisors? Should we send four SEAL teams? Should we send lend them a B1 bomber for one day to do its job? Should we occupy the country? That's a whole prudential question about how much we should give to this worthy cause. But I think what makes people like Dave Smith and the others strange is that they purport to be libertarians. Oh, we care about freedom. We believe in human freedom. And I'm saying, all right, you have in Venezuela 25 million people yearning for freedom. You have in Iran 90 million such people. Right? And you're against, quote, regime change. Well, what if we could achieve regime change by. By spending $1? Would you do it? Is $1 worth the freedom of like 27 million Venezuelans? And if they agree, then you say, all right, how about $10? In other words, they invoke these sort of generic, non interventionist principles, even though those principles conflict with their own libertarianism. Any genuine libertarian should support the advance of freedom in the world.
- [06:48]
A
I want to walk this back for a second, because whenever regime change comes up, everybody talks about Iraq and Afghanistan. First question, though is where is Iraq today?
- [06:59]
B
Afghanistan.
- [07:00]
A
Yes, I know, we spent a fortune, we lost a bunch of young kids, and we gave it back to the Taliban, which is nuts. But I never. Where is Iraq? Do they have. Are they a terrorist government? I don't even know what the heck's going on over there. Did that go as badly as everyone says that it did? Saddam's gone. Everybody hated that guy. Like, how is Iraq? It is a disaster. Yeah. Or no?
- [07:25]
B
It actually is pretty much of a disaster. Let me say a word about each of those two countries. So let's start with Afghanistan. The problem here was not the regime change. The regime change was, in fact, excellent and in fact fully justified. By why? Because it was the Taliban that hosted the terrorists who did 9 11. 911 was organized out of Afghanistan. It was organized by an Al Qaeda gang made up of some Saudis, some Pakistanis, some Egyptians. But they needed a hospitable government and they found one. The Taliban. So the United States had every right to strike at the Taliban, drive them out of power. So the mistake came after the regime change. We expelled the Taliban. And if we were smart, if we were smart like the British were for centuries or the French, what we would have done is we would have gone in and found some rival tribes that hated the Taliban and basically said, these are the bad goons who are anti American. And we have kicked them out. And guess what? The country is now yours for the taking. So we realize that you too are goons, but you can be good tribal goons who, who are pro American. We're not gonna tell you how to organize your society or how to run your schools, but we are gonna demand that you be pro American, and that's all we're gonna ask. And then we should have gotten out of there and empowered the Northern alliance and these rival tribes to take over. Instead, because we listened to people like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, we decided to go in there and you have American commanders trying to oversee the meeting of Afghan tribal leaders about how you conduct the operations of democracy and what do you do about minority rights. To do this with, like, 8th century tribesmen is absurd. So the point is not the regime change, which was justified, but the managerial responsibility that the US Took on after that, which I think was a great mistake in Iraq. The mistake was a little more profound because Saddam Hussein was not connected with. Nevertheless, the Bush administration said, well, he has weapons of mass destruction. As it turned out, they couldn't find those weapons. So to me, the government misled us. I supported the Iraq war certainly in the outset of it, because I basically took the word of the Bush administration that these people had these catastrophic weapons. Remember that in life it's always easy to look in the rear view mirror and say, okay, well, knowing what we know now. But we didn't know those things then. So I think that the Iraq War, in retrospect, we should not have done it at all. And it has not worked out in general. Well, the current Iraqi regime is very much on the side of the Iranians. They're not as actively destructive. They aren't directly supporting, you know, Hezbollah or Boko Haram in the way that Iran has been. But nevertheless, there's essentially a hostile anti American regime in Iraq that is allied with Iran.
- [10:36]
A
I want to stay more on some of the ways regime change has gone wrong. I have a question, and forgive the ignorance. I was under the impression that we got involved with groups like the Taliban because we wanted them to go fight Russia. But we ended up creating these problems by. By giving them the weapons and giving them the training and giving. So then if we. And I bring this up only to say if the Taliban was gone, and then we said to some other tribal group like, okay, here's weapons for you. Now you go, do they then become a bigger problem? Assad's gone, but now the guy in charge is just as bad, if not worse. Is it always, like, what's right behind it is gonna be worse than what we kicked out?
- [11:20]
B
No. It is true that sometimes when you set about to solve one big problem, you do solve it, and the world is much better because you did. But you do inherit another problem. So the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 with 100,000 troops. The United States under Reagan did not commit troops. They. So Reagan did not adopt the Bush view of direct intervention. On the contrary, Reagan said, we don't fight for other people's freedom. They fight, we will help. So the United States supported these so called Mujahideen armies, by the way. They came from all over the Muslim world to fight the Soviet Union and drive it out of Afghanistan, by the way, a massively successful operation which contributed greatly to the end of the Cold War. The reason Germany is unified today, the reason countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria are free countries today, is precisely because of what we did. This was a giant victory. And you know, for people today, I see these young gripers like, what have you conservatives ever conserved? Well, basically the victory in the Cold War was a liberation of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Even Russia is much better off. A little bit of a gangster regime, but it's a lot better off than when it was the Soviet Union. Undeniably so. So the truth of it is this was a very successful operation. We should not minimize our own successes. But the truth of it was that yes, having pushed the Soviet Union out, we now had a new problem. And the new problem is that radical Islam was kind of warming up, gearing up. Now, radical Islam has been around a long time. It's been around since the 1920s. But essentially radical Islam began to gain force in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, when not having to worry so much about the Soviet Union, they began to focus their fire on the new Great Satan, which was the United States.
- [13:35]
A
Wow, Okay. I was under the impression that, again, forgive me, this is not my area of expertise, so hopefully there are no dumb questions here, that Saudi Arabia, when they came into all of the oil money, Cause I thought that radical Islam was almost extinguished. And then when Saudi Arabia came into all the oil money and when the mullahs took over Iran, that's what really gave it new life and new oxygen. And it began to grow again. And that there had been 14 years of jihad. I'm sorry, 1400 years of jihad. And it was almost done. And then these two things happened and it started to catch fire once more. Is that accurate or inaccurate?
- [14:20]
B
Well, it is accurate. I would state it slightly differently. So radical Islam. Well, Islam really began to get empires from the very beginning. Unlike Christianity, which was, you know, a ragtag religion, persecuted in the Roman Empire, the Muslims began to take territory and a lot of it starting really almost at the death of Muhammad. And so most of the, for example, the Middle east used to be Christian. It was overrun by the Muslims. They conquered Syria, Jordan, all of Israel. So they took that whole region. The Muslims did, and they took it by force. There were multiple Muslim empires, and power shifted from one to the other. The last of them was called the Ottoman Empire. And the Ottoman Empire essentially was defeated, carved up, destroyed after World War I. So from World War I, the Muslims were kind of simmering because they didn't have any empire at all. And in fact, the countries that they used to dominate were now dominated by Britain, by France, later by the United States. And so radical Islam was created to sort of solve this problem, which is to say, to bring the Muslims back to power, to get them new empires and control of new states. And in 1979, they got one, which was they got Iran. So for the first time, radical Islam gets a hold of a major state. I mean, Islam now has 90 million people. At that time, they had about 70 million. It's clearly one of the most important countries in the Middle East. The other thing that the Muslims discovered is that they were sitting on a lot of oil. Not just the Saudis have the most, but Qatar has a lot. Iran has a lot. A lot of those Gulf kingdoms were very rich because of oil. And in fact, they like to joke and say, like, you know, the Jews think they're the chosen people. We're the real chosen people, because that's why God made it so that we don't have to work. Money just comes out of the ground. And, you know, we basically hire foreign laborers to come and do everything for us. So you are right that radical Islam, which was kind of born in the 1920s out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, gained fuel from the oil wealth, and it gained a major state from Iran.
- [16:43]
A
Jumping over to Iran, I don't think most people understand that Iranians are not Arabs. There's a great video, actually, of a young girl explaining the fact that, like, it's a different language, it's a different religion, it's a different everything.
- [17:02]
C
Again, Iranians are not Arab Islamists. They're Iranians. They've always been Iranians. They have occupied by a regime that is not their own, by a regime that is not speaking their language, by a regime. And let's make that very, very clear, because sometimes it's, like, hard for us to understand what happened inside of Iran. The Islamist ayatollas came to our country, and the first thing that they did, they took our flag. You know, our flag, the Iranian flag has a line and a sun on it. And it's like green, red and white. And they started to write on it. On. With Arabic writing, which is not Persian. It's not our. It's not our language on there. They took out our symbol of the lion and the sun and replaced it with an Allahu Akbar Islamic symbol in the middle. Just imagine Islam is taking over Washington, taking the American flag, taking our flag, you know, keeping the colors in there and putting an Islamist symbol on it and an Arabic writing on it. Would you think that's our flag? Would you think, oh, this is. This is the government of. Of America now you would be like, this is an Arab Islamist jihadist occup. They took down our flag. Then they started to replace everything that's Iranian. Our ministries, our churches, our. Our synagogues, our. Our Jewish community. We had the biggest Jewish community inside of the Middle east, outside of Israel. They wiped them out. They wiped out our Christians, our Zoroastrians. They forced people to convert to Islam. They changed our language in our schools. They started teaching Arabic, our national anthem. They replace the national anthem with some weird anthem that no Iranian can even identify with, because every other word of it is Islamic.
- [18:47]
A
I. I think the vast majority of people don't understand that. So when I keep hearing things and, you know, you hear the same about Venezuela. Oh, you know, we're going in and we're invading a sovereign nation. But is this not a counter revolution? I mean, you've heard Machados say, we were kidnapped by Maduro. We voted him out.
- [19:06]
D
Some people talk about invasion in Venezuela, the threat of an invasion in Venezuela. And I answered, venezuela has been already invaded. We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents. We have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, operating freely in accordance with the regime. We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels that have taken over 60% of our populations and not only involved in drug trafficking, but in human trafficking, in networks of prostitution. So this has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas. And what sustained the regime is a very powerful and funded, strongly funded repression system. Where does that funds come from? Well, from drug trafficking, from the black market of oil, from arms trafficking, for human trafficking. We need to cut those flows. And once it happens and repression is weakened, it's over, because that's the only thing the regime has left. Violence and terror. So we asked the international community to cut those sources because the other regimes that support Maduro and the criminal structure are very active and had turned Venezuela into the safe haven for their operations into the rest of Latin America.
- [20:30]
A
The Iranians are begging America to come in. Now, I'm not suggesting we should lose 18 year old American kids over this. You suggested there are a million different ways to tackle these types of issues. But can you talk a little bit about the history of Iran and how the mullahs ended up taking over?
- [20:50]
B
Absolutely. Iran in ancient times was a country that was religiously Zoroastrian, meaning it followed a Persian prophet named Zoroaster. And so this was a, this was their religion, it was not Islam. Islam took Iran by force. They conquered Persia and they converted, usually by the sword, the Zoroastrians into Sunni Muslims because it was a Sunni Muslim empire that overran Iran. Now, some of the Zoroastrians fled. In fact, they came to my native country of India. There's a small community in India now of Zoroastrians. And who are they? They're Iranians who fled going back to the seventh century when the Islamic armies showed up. Now, over the centuries, Iran went from being, oddly enough, a Sunni Muslim country to being a Shia Muslim country because another Islamic empire overran them again and converted them within Islam, basically, sort of like from Protestant to Catholic, meaning converted them from being Sunni to being Shia, which is what they are today. And then in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini came in and he created a theocratic Islamic state. Now this is really important that Islam has never had a theocracy like this ever in its history. And by that I mean a rule by the actual clergy. Typically in Islamic empires, you know, it's some king who would rule and you might have some clergymen who advise him. But it wasn't the priests who are actually running the country. But in Iran, as even now it is, the priests are running the country. And that's totally new. So a lot of the Iranians, first of all, they have chafed for 50 years, almost 50 years under this Islamic regime. They hate it and they want their old way of life back. The Shah of Iran, who, I'm sorry to say the United States under Jimmy Carter played a very bad role in, in destabilizing the Shah, pulling the Persian rug out from under him. We really helped Khomeini get into power. So, you know, talk about regime change, we actually helped regime change in a really bad way in Iran. That was bad regime change. In fact, Jimmy Carter, in trying to get rid of what he thought was the bad guy, the Shah got the worst guy, which is Khomeini. So that's some of the background of this, you know, truly great country, which at one time had its own great empire. They've got a deep history, they've got an educated middle class. Iran is fully capable of governing themselves. If we found a way to help getting rid of the mullahs and turn the country over to the people, they would know what to do. Same with Venezuela.
- [23:55]
A
You've seen, Honestly Democrats, Van Jones put out a video where he advocates for us helping to liberate Iran.
- [24:07]
E
If you like peace and if you like democracy and if you like women being free and if you like innovation, unleash these Persians. Well, I mean, I think what's happening in Iran may be the most important thing happening in the world. You're going to unleash 90 million people who come from one of the most creative, imaginative and regal cultures in the history of the world, which could help all humanity tomorrow. Instantly, it's worth the fight to get them free. A lot of stuff you were dealing with today, they invented. And so they just had a lid on their head for half of a century. And so I think a freed up Persian culture can be incredible for technology, technology can be incredible for humanity, can be incredible for the arts. It could be the end of a lot of BS in the region. You need a free Iranian people. You need the Persians back on the map for this century to work out. Well. People don't even know how good it's going to feel to have a world where the Iranian people are allowed to actually do what they've always done, which is to contribute to world culture. Like, we don't even know what we're missing. When we get that back, we're going to be mad that we let it take this long.
- [25:25]
A
And I thought, I haven't agreed with Van Jones in quite some time. And Dinesh, I may have retweeted it, it is so powerful. And he talks about the history and the culture and how the evil regime took over. And then I saw this young rocker named Youngblood who is just, I mean, the antithesis of the conservative movement. Hates Trump, hate everything about conservatives, also advocating for America to go in and help. And I thought, there seems to be a genuine, gosh, what's the right word? Altruistic desire for some to help Iran. And I'm guilty of this and I don't come at this with any understanding of foreign policy. But when you see these videos of these people begging for help and you see the videos of them being slaughtered and you see, I mean, it is, it is just, it is painful to watch.
- [26:26]
D
Al Miran here is Mashat City.
- [26:32]
B
Ayatollah killed my people.
- [26:34]
D
Please help my people. Please head to Reza Pahlavi.
- [26:39]
B
Come to Iran, baby.
- [26:41]
D
Netanyahu. Police call to Iran. Police help to Iranian people.
- [26:46]
B
Ayatollah killed my people.
- [26:49]
D
Please help.
- [26:54]
A
And I. What could a positive regime change look like? We keep waiting, you know, but this show will go up on Sunday. We're recording this on Friday. I keep thinking, like, I checked my. I refresh my browser every 30 seconds to see if Trump is done something or gone in. Do you think he will? What would you recommend if you were advising him? How do you avoid boots on the ground forever and keep this from turning into Iraq? Because that's what the Dave Smiths say. And he's got all of this history on his side to be like, oh, yeah, never worked out before. And, you know, you kind of. It's hard to argue with. Shopping is hard. I can never find anything in my size. I don't even know my size. I buy my clothes the same place I buy my groceries. There's a better way. Make it easy with Stitch Fix. Just share your size, style, budget, and done. Your personal stylist sends pieces picked just for you. That was easy. Stitch Fix online. Personal styling for everyone. Free shipping and returns. No subscription required. Get started today@stitch fix.com.
- [28:00]
B
Well, Gillian, first of all, this never worked out before is complete nonsense. I'll give you a bunch of examples where it's worked out beautifully. So right after World War II, the United States made forcible regime change in Germany and Japan, right? And not only that, the United States went in and rewrote the constitution of Japan. And look how it's worked out beautifully. Japan has been a pro Western, pro American, stable country for now 75 years. And it's a non western country. And we wrote their constitution and we fixed them and it has worked out splendidly. Now, at the end of the Cold War, there was regime change in the following countries, certainly in the Soviet Union, which is Russia. There was regime change in Poland. Ceausescu was out in Romania. The dictator was out in Bulgaria. The dissident Vaclav Havel came to power in the Czech Republic. So one country after another. By the way, Germany had been carved into two. And East Berlin was Communist. There was regime change in East Berlin and that's how we have Germany now. Both east and West Berlin became reunited. Fast forward past the Cold War. We fought the Korean War. South Korea would be communist today if we didn't fight the Korean War. We basically won the Korean War. And South Korea is a free, prosperous, technologically advanced, pro American country today because of the regime change that we did. Then we moved to the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein was in charge of Kuwait. The United States used force and pushed him out of there. Kuwait is a free country today. They're pro American, they're stable. That's regime change. That's worked out beautifully. So I could go on like this and give numerous other examples from all around the world. Where Nicaragua was run by the Sandinistas who were communists. The United States basically supported the Contras. There was forced elections in Nicaragua, the democratic side, the opposition came to power by free elections. Now over time that deteriorated and the Sandinistas came back, but they weren't the same communists that they were before. So bottom line of it is when we look at case after case after case and you know, the problem with these guys like Dave Smith is that their whole history, quote, history relies on like two examples mostly drawn from like the last 20 years. There's no history behind that. I mean, I realize Dave was born in 1983, but that doesn't mean you can't read books and learn about the world before 1983. But he obviously doesn't. So as a result his historical compass is really narrow and completely distorted. Now having said all that, the fact of it is I do not think the United States should try to rebuild any country. What it should look to do is create a mechanism where the country can be governed by its own citizens. Now arguably there are some countries which are in the Stone Age or they're so far behind that it's a good question of whether they can even govern themselves. But this logic does not apply to Nicaragua, does not apply to Venezuela, it does not apply to Iran. Venezuela, for example, has an American style system of government. They have an American style constitution that they already were a prosperous oil rich country doing very well in the 60s, 70s and 80s. So there is no reason to believe the Venezuelans can't run their own country. In fact, many of them who are in the United States can't wait to. My wife is Venezuelan by the way, so I really know what I'm talking about on this subject. Iran is the same. If you brought the old, the son of the Shah back to Iran, and I don't know if Iran would be a democracy or a benevolent monarchy under the the Shah, it doesn't really matter. They will be better off than they are under the mullahs and they will be pro American. So coming back to America, first, we care about our values and we care about our interests and both will be advanced greatly to have regime change in these two countries.
- [32:12]
A
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- [35:18]
B
This is the case, Gillian, where knowing less of the details, nevertheless, you are correctly seeing the forest and Dave Smith is focusing on the trees and missing the forest. In other words, you have the big picture completely right. Iran is the menace of the region. And this is recognized not just by Israel or the United States. The Saudis know it, the Kuwaitis know it, the Bahrainis know it, the Emiratis know it. All of them would be delighted if the mullah is collapsed. And so this is good for the region, it's good for Israel, it's good for the uae, the United Arab Emirates, it's good for the Saudis, and it's good for us. It's hard pressed for me to think of a result better to be wished. If you told me I can have one wish in foreign policy, what should it be? Would it be for Putin to be out in Russia, Xi to be out in China? I would say no. We have problems to deal with in China and so on. But I would rather see the mullahs like hit the eject button and out they go and that country will start to heal itself. It's not to say it'll be perfect, but remember, in the world of foreign policy, the lesser evil is better than the worse evil. So even if the country is flawed in many ways, it'll be better than it is today and it'll be more pro American than it is today.
- [36:43]
A
Okay, here's another one for you. You just said that this would be better for the Saudis, this would be better for uae. And this was making the rounds. The fact that UAE said they're not gonna fund their students to go to school in Europe because they're afraid the kids are going to be radicalized in Europe. And my wife actually lived in Kuwait for a while and she was saying, like, they don't tolerate there's no radical Islam happening there. It's like See something, say something. They don't allow it. When Palestinians are in crisis, they don't take them. They're not going in to liberate the Persians. Why don't they ever do anything? I don't get it. It's always us and Israel and then Israel gets demonized. But Saudi doesn't like Iran. How come they're not helping?
- [37:42]
B
Well, they are. Okay, so this is a little bit tricky. The rival countries in the Muslim world are against Iran, but they also recognize that the mullahs are, you know, claiming to be speaking for Islam. They also recognize that the Iranian people, even though they were in ancient times, Zoroastrian, most of them today, many of them certainly are Muslims. And so the problem is when is Muslims going up against other Muslims. And that's why, for example, even the Saudis and the Bahrainis and so on, they're actually pretty pro Israel. But you know what, they always will say we need a Palestinian state, we need a two state solution. Because they don't want to be seen as supporting the Jews over a bunch of Muslims who are demanding a land of their own. And so there is a little bit of this kind of playing back and forth, I will admit it. Now, that being said.
- [38:48]
A
But they don't save them, Dinesh. They don't help, like take the Palestinians in Egypt. I was watching Coleman Hughes and he was talking about the blockade at Egypt and how they were gassing Palestinians in the tunnels, drowning them in sewage when they were trying to cross over. And I'd never heard that narrative just how evil Israel is. And listen, I'm not here to excuse Smartrich or Netanyahu or any of that. It's the ways in which people don't apply their morality evenly that bothers me. But why aren't they taking Palestinians who need refuge quite literally? I just feel like I get what you're saying. And they'll never be seen supporting Israel over the Jews, over the Muslims. But the Jews, this has nothing to do with the Jews in Iran, does it? I mean, I know everyone thinks Netanyahu is going to grab Iran, but that's not going to happen. So I don't know, I feel like they make everybody.
- [39:54]
B
They don't want, they don't want, they don't want, they don't want the Palestinians. I mean, they see the Palestinians as the troublemakers that most of them actually are. They know that this is a society that has really festered. They know, for example, that, I mean, how did Hamas come to power in Gaza? The people of Gaza Elected them now elected them in, like, 2005 or 2006. So it wasn't yesterday. And in fact, quite frankly, Hamas has not had an election since then. But I do wanna say a word, kind of in praise of countries like uae, because I recently saw one of the high officials in uae and he said, number one, he goes, anti Semitism in the west and in America is an opinion. He said, anti Semitism in the UAE is illegal. He said, you notice that there's no Muslim Brotherhood in the uae. He said that we don't allow massive Islamic prayers in the middle of the street, blocking traffic, loud horns. He goes, none of this is even tolerated. He goes, it's only you idiots in the west who. Because you. What happens is the Muslims are able to trick you by appealing to your own principles, right? And so they come and say, well, listen, you know, we are going to buy a thousand acres in Texas, and we're going to build an Islamic madrasa for a thousand Muslim boys, and we're going to instruct them in Sharia. And then when people go, you can't do that, they go, wait a minute, don't you believe in freedom of speech? Don't you believe in private property? Don't you believe in the free market? Don't you believe in private education? So what happens is we become trapped by our own commitment to these, quote, you know, classically liberal principles, and the radical Muslims are able to travel on the passport of our own freedoms to move us to a destination where those freedoms would, in the end, be extinguished. So the people in the UAE look at this and they go, this is stupidity. Like, if somebody came to the uae, let's say a bunch of Christians showed up in the UAE and said, hey, listen, we want to buy a thousand acres in the UAE and build a massive cathedral bigger than any mosque in the uae, they would go, no. And if you said, why not? You allow mosque to be built, why can't we build a church? They would go, because we are an Islamic society, and so that's who we are. And. And so we'll give you permission to have some churches. But no, you don't get to build this big church that's bigger than any of our mosques, because we're not just gonna. We're just not gonna allow it. And so we don't have the confidence, Gillian, to say the same thing, which is to say, hey, listen, Muslims, you're welcome to come to our society. You can live here, you can work here, and so on, but you don't get to Buy a thousand acres in Texas. Because that's not what American society is all about. That's not what the American dream is all about. That's not what we want around here. And so we don't have to give you a reason or prove that we're being intellectually consistent. Our answer is quite simply a big fat no.
- [42:57]
A
Right?
- [42:57]
C
Yeah.
- [42:58]
A
You can't even. And it cracks me up, because in most of these Muslim countries, Americans can't buy and own land. I was listening to, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't even think you can wear a cross in Qatar. And you hear the gripers, and it's like the Jews and what they've done to Christians. And the thing is, these guys point out things that are just so flagrantly ridiculous. I'm thinking, well, Muslims are slaughtering Christians in Nigeria, like, by their own set of rules. Qatar outspends on lobbying Israel 23 billion to 1.8 billion. I mean, you want to talk about slaughtering Christians, Christians live freely in Israel. Like, an idiot knows this. When these kids say this, and then someone goes, they've got some good points. I want to jump in front of a bus. I'm like, wait a minute. No, they don't. That's actually just an insane lie. But I'm digressing here real quick. To put a button on the situation with Iran, what would you tell Trump to do? Send in Delta Force? Blow some shit up from the sky? What would you tell him to do?
- [44:18]
B
You know, the weird thing, Gillian, is that I think that Netanyahu was ready to go in and pulverize the mullahs and overthrow the mullahs. And Israel, by the way, has every reason to do that. Right? Iran was one of the concocters and hatchers of the October 7 attacks. So in retaliation, Israel has every right to go. And who stopped them? Trump. Trump basically goes, I'll loan you a B2 bomber and some protective flights for 48 hours, but you need to stop. Right? And so the Israelis reluctantly. And by the way, this proves who's controlling whom, right, people? Well, Israel's controlling the United States. Really? Trump is the one who told Netanyahu, enough, stop. And Netanyahu's like, okay, I'll stop now. My point is, I don't think the United States even needs to lift a finger. If we just tell Israel we're out of it, you have the green light. You can pursue your own interests, do whatever you want. They will do it themselves. And the Iranian people, if you look at the Iranian protesters. They like America, but they love Israel. A lot of them are actually wearing Israeli paraphernalia. They have the Star of David because they know that the best people in the world to fight radical Islam is, in fact, the nation of Israel. And that alone is a good reason, by the way, for us to ally with Israel, because we don't know how to fight radical Islam. Gillian, our record is horrible in fighting radical Islam. And look, it's not because the Jews are smarter than we are. It's because of this. They live in a really bad neighborhood, Right? It's kind of like people who live in a downtown where you have to learn to look over your shoulder and be on the watch and be really nimble and, you know, carry Mace. So you become kind of smart at doing that. And the Israelis have lived in a bad neighborhood, and they're really good at being able to deal with it, whereas we do really stupid things like letting all these radical Muslims in, and then they blow up our twin towers or they launch a major terrorist attack, and we. We profess to be shocked, even though we're the ones who let them do what they do.
- [46:27]
A
Right? Okay. With regard to war, I've seen so many different people, honestly, from like Mark Ruffalo at the fricking Golden Globes to people like Dave Smith saying, you can't just start wars. I'm thinking, we're not a war. Am I again, am I an idiot? Are we at war with Venezuela? But then, in all fairness, someone like Dave Smith is like, oh, yeah, and we weren't at war in Vietnam, and we weren't at war in Korea. We weren't at war in Iraq. And what then is war? Is there a definition of war? Because technically, we haven't been at war since World War II. Right. I don't. What's the decision?
- [47:13]
B
You know, I think that. I think that this is where these guys like Dave, they have a point in the sense that there have been some very extended military expeditions. Vietnam is a classic example, by the way. A disastrous. Talk about. The United States has had some disastrous foreign involvements, and that's one of them. Big mistake, by the way. Driven by the Democratic party. This was LBJ's war. He was completely committed to it, and it ended up in a lot of disgrace for the country and also for him. So I don't support that and never have supported it at any level. Now, that being said, blowing up a drug boat is not a war. Even capturing Maduro is not a war. So we have to Be able to make certain distinctions. If we send the SEAL team over to Nigeria, let's just say, and we hit back at the Al Qaeda terrorists, the ISIS terrorists, the Boko Haram terrorists that are killing Christians, you can do that in, like, three days. And we're not at war with Nigeria. We are basically having. And so, yes, Congress has to declare war, but the president is the commander in chief. And the president does have the discretionary authority to use the military, of which he is the head, in defense of America's interests and in defense of the American homeland.
- [48:45]
A
I was just speaking to a constitutional attorney. I was speaking to Josh Hammer about this, and he's like, first of all, Maduro was indicted. We had president with Noriega. It's a law enforcement operation. It wasn't an act of war. He actually takes the position that Congress's declaration of war is an afterthought, although he claims, you know, it's controversial and people will argue the opposite, but he says, like, this is when you get funding and so on and so forth. But then my simple question here is, where was the outrage when Obama was dropping drone strikes all frigging over the place? How the same Democrats, literally the same Democrats. And you see it with everything. You see with immigration. It's. It's everything. The same Democrats that were behind Obama doing all of this are now outraged. My God, Trump is declared war. And again, I just go back to. I don't know what's right or wrong here, but what me off is the double standard and the selective outrage. How come it's okay for Obama, but it's not okay for Trump? And what about the fact that these groups pose a threat to us as Americans? Doesn't Trump have a right to strike if there's a threat to us?
- [50:04]
B
Well, the answer is absolutely. These double standards, look, they drive our whole debate. Right? Let's look, for example, right now, if you look at Harvard Yard, how many activist students, and we're talking about the same activists who not that long ago were like, you know, human rights in Gaza, we demand, you know, humanitarian aid. Let the humanitarian aid aid through. Don't block people from getting food and supplies. Those people. I'm talking about those people. Where are they in Harvard Yard right now? Not to be seen. Where are they in Columbia? Not to be seen. At Berkeley? Not to be seen. And when I say not to be seen, I mean not a single one. It's not like there used to be 800 for Gaza and there's now 40 for Iran. There's zero for Iran. Zero. And what that tells you is that all of this rhetoric, and this is part of what I tried to get at my debate with Dave Smith was I said all you do you think that the world is run sort of at the rhetorical level. It's all a matter of the Constitution, and it's all about principles. And I said, the truth of it is the world is a very messy and dirty place, and a lot of time, principles don't even enter into it. The principles are the sort of cosmetic language of foreign policy. But behind the operations of foreign policy are deep rooted human political interests. I think that is just as true today. So a lot of the people who say, I care about human rights, what they really mean is, I care about human rights for these people, but not for those people. And when they say, I care about democracy, they care about their definition of democracy, but they're perfectly happy. Like right now, I think the left would be really upset if the mullahs collapsed in Iran. They won't say it, but they don't want that to happen. They would rather they're on the side of the mullahs, and that's why they are not in Harvard Yard. They don't back the Iranian people. They want the mullahs to stay. Hard is it to believe? There's no other conclusion.
- [52:20]
A
Israel wants it, so that's why it's evil. Before I let you go, can we talk a little bit about Greenland? I admit that this is a little bit alarming to me at this point, like Venezuela, I'm like, okay, Maduro is a monster in a scumbag, and he's illegitimate. The mullahs and the ayatollah are monsters and scumbags, and they invaded. But Greenland is sovereign. So when Trump turns around and basically says, I'm going to do something whether you like it or not, I'm not.
- [52:56]
B
Talking about money for Greenland yet. I might talk about that. But right now, we are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not. Because if we don't do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighborhood. I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don't do it it the easy way, we're gonna do it the hard way.
- [53:18]
A
That's the part where even I am sort of like, okay, he's bluffing, right? Like you're bluffing. I understand why we want Greenland, but surely there are limitations with regard to what he would do. Now, Hannity, who sometimes talks to me offline, because I'm like, sean, what is happening? And he's like, no, no, no. We. We need Greenland. This is just a negotiating tactic. What is this, Dinesh? What do you think this is?
- [53:48]
B
Yeah. So there's. I mean, I'm on the same. I'm on the same page as you with this. I don't exactly sort of get it, because let's just say Greenland is important to us. Well, Greenland right now is in the orbit of the West. It is, in fact, under the sort of authority of Denmark. It is not exactly doing what Iran is doing and not even what Maduro is doing. So let me put it this way. I think that it's been long understood in foreign policy that if there are important strategic interests, but the interests are on the side of your own allies, you need to figure it out. So if it were me, I would not be making threats against Greenland. I would go and sit down with the Europeans. I would cut a deal where I basically said, hey, Greenland, listen, it's very important for us to have, let's just say, a military base on Greenland. I'm just thinking out loud here. And because it's strategically valuable to us. So what do we have to do for you, for you to allow us to establish this necessary military base that I think is the right way to go about dealing with Greenland. And so I'm hoping that, again with Trump, and I said this in my conversation with Dave Smith, you do have to separate sometimes his rhetoric from his actions. Trump will sometimes say really outrageous things. They'll say, well, if that's the case, throw out the Constitution. I mean, Trump will literally tweet that out, throw out the Constitution. And people will be like, wait, wait, impeach him. But the fact of it is, when judges will say to Trump, no, you can't send federal troops into, let's say, Chicago. Trump will comply. When Trump, of course, believes, and I think he's right, that he won the 2020 election, but nevertheless, his legal case didn't prevail, so he exited the stage. So my point is Trump will say things, but Trump is more accurately judged by his conduct.
- [55:52]
C
Okay, Okay.
- [55:53]
A
I appreciate it, Tinesh. I really. I'm so grateful for the time you've given me and for helping me kind of reason with and rationalize some of the craziness that's going on right now. Where can people learn from you on a regular basis? Watch your documentary, read your books, follow your podcasts, tell them everything?
- [56:16]
B
Well, follow me on X Inesh d'. Souza. I've got a whole bunch of content up on YouTube, so search me and it'll pull up my YouTube channel. And I'm starting a new weekly show this year. It probably start the beginning of February, so look out for that. It's just gonna be called the Dinesh Show. I'm not doing my daily five day a week podcast anymore, but I'm looking to launch this new weekly show. And then check out my latest film, the Dragon's Prophecy. It's available on Apple itunes. It's available in DVD from Walmart and from Amazon. And the website for the film is thedragonsprophecyfilm.com.
- [56:52]
A
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it and I hope you'll let me call on you again.
- [56:57]
B
I'd love to do it. Good talking to you.
- [57:00]
A
You too, boss. Have a good one. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed the podcast, please like comment, subscribe and share. And make sure to let me know what guests you want to see on in the future.