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- [00:00]
Joe Arteshorn
Ancient ruins, mysterious giants, fallen watchers, and
- [00:05]
Donna Howell
the destruction of entire cities.
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Joe Arteshorn
Some of the Bible's most fascinating passages are also some of its most mysterious.
- [00:12]
Donna Howell
But what do places like the Golan
- [00:14]
Joe Arteshorn
Heights and Sodom reveal about the supernatural world described in scripture? Why does Genesis 6 matter so much to understanding the Nephilim and the origin of demons? Today's guest is here to talk about all of this and more right now. Hello everybody and welcome back to Skywatch tv. I'm Joe Arteshorn. Today we're going to start a fascinating discussion on a brand new book from Defender Publishing that my father would be very proud of. But before we dive in, let me introduce who's here. His broadcasting career has spanned for more than 40 years. He's the best selling author of the groundbreaking books Last Clash of the Titans, the Great Inception, the Second Coming of Saturn. Derek Gilbert.
- [01:01]
Sharon Gilbert
Yay.
- [01:06]
Joe Arteshorn
And she's an absolute legend and pioneer of podcast radio.
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Donna Howell
Christian television personality and best selling author
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Joe Arteshorn
of the Red Wing saga, the one, the only, my good friend, Sharon Gilbert.
- [01:24]
Donna Howell
You know, I say that with all the affection, but I do have a little bit of fun doing these intros. A little bit. Is it obvious I'm having a little bit too much fun today? Ladies and gentlemen, the topic of discussion, a brand new book by Derek P. Gilbert. And I'm going to bring this up on the screen right now so you can take a good look at this
- [01:42]
Joe Arteshorn
cover War of the Watchers from BAAL
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Donna Howell
to Balfour, Book one, Ladies and gentlemen, this is a book without doubt my father would be so proud of. He would be saying, well done, Derek. This is incredible. Somehow you managed to do it.
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Joe Arteshorn
You brought yet more illumination to a
- [02:03]
Donna Howell
topic that he was very passionate about and wrote about many, many times. Let's just hit the ground running, Derek. There's never enough time to get through all of the details in a book like this in these short 28 minute programs that the networks take. What inspired you to write this book?
- [02:19]
Derek Gilbert
This was inspired by, by our 2024 trip to Israel. Sharon and I have been there. We've been blessed to go back to Israel five times. This was our fourth trip and we had a small group. We called it our solidarity mission because the spring of 2024, the war between Israel and Hamas had only been ongoing for about five months. So we had a group of nine, four from the uk, two from New Zealand and three from the United States.
- [02:44]
Unidentified Female Guest
We called it the Fellowship of the King.
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Derek Gilbert
Fellowship of the King, right, yeah. Which is a Lord of the Rings reference, of course. And we visited some of the communities that had been attacked on October 7th of 2023. Israel, in many places, looks very Western. So we go into this community called Sderot, which is at its closest point, a quarter of a mile from the border fence. We went to an overlook, looked down into Gaza, and we could hear in the distance the artillery of the Israel Defense Forces as they began the assault on the Rafah crossing. Then we went to the police station where a group of Israeli police officers and prisoners were overrun by Hamas terrorists. And that conflict, that particular encounter, was brought to an end by an IDF tank that was just said, look, there are no survivors left in there. Everyone who's in the building is a terrorist. Then we went to a small community called Ofakim, which was a residential neighborhood. And we could see the bullet holes from the automatic weapons fire going up the walls, walls of buildings that had been blown out. We were shown by the neighbors of one of the homes that had been attacked, video recording from the security camera footage over the front door, where the family dog, terrified, had been trying to get away from the gunfire, scratching at the door. And one of these Hamas terrorists walks up and just shoots the dog in the head. And then they break into the house. So we saw that. We visited with IDF soldiers who were recovering at a rehabilitation hospital in Tel Aviv. We saw one of the young women who had been released on day 50 of her captivity, and you could see the haunted look in her eyes. And later she testified to the Knesset. And the worst things that you can imagine that were done to these young women were done to her. And it struck me. And of course, there, just as we're recording this, a new report that's come out from a group in Israel that's documented with video footage what had been done on October 7th. And it is some of the most horrific things that people can imagine. And as we were flying home from Israel after seeing this and meeting with these people and also encountering Israelis who were shocked that there were Christians who had come from across the planet to say, we're just here to show you the world does not hate you, at least not everyone. We're here because we love Israel and we love the people. And it struck me that this evil that was done on that day that Israel has been contending with since before it declared independence in 1948, is so beyond humane that it is, in fact, inhuman in a literal sense. This is a supernatural war, and that's what inspired this book.
- [05:20]
Donna Howell
Our good friend Rabbi Zev Porat told me confidentially, and I To this day have never. Not because he asked me to keep it a secret. He never did. He never said. These are confidential comments. He was just sharing with me as a friend because he lives in Israel. For those unfamiliar, look up Rabbi Zev Porat. The guy is amazing. He's prophetic. His books are incredible. But he told me, you know, Joe, people see this stuff on their TVs and they're getting mainstream news, propaganda and Western civilization have no idea what we're dealing with. And then he described to me some of the families that he had been ministering to where things that I still have never said on camera were being done to children and the parents were being forced to watch this stuff happen. It is like you inhumane. There has to be a spiritual explanation for how someone becomes capable of doing this with. What is the word, Derek? No soul. I mean, a total divorcing of humanity.
- [06:20]
Joe Arteshorn
It's a supernatural war.
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Derek Gilbert
It's a different God. It's a different God that has inspired this. And for all of the ecumenical outreach, for example, Pope Leo recently awarding a high diplomatic honor to the representative from the Islamic Republic of Iran. I'm sorry, Allah is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
- [06:41]
Donna Howell
If this book, War of the Watchers, if this is about the supernatural war for the land and the people of Israel, why did you decide to start in prehistoric times?
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Unidentified Female Guest
Good question.
- [06:53]
Derek Gilbert
Well, a couple of reasons. I wanted to demonstrate that this did not begin in 1967 or on October 7, or with the Oslo Accords in 1992, or Israel's declaration of independence or the Zionist movement of the late 19th century. This goes back to the garden and the enemy of God and the people that he then called out through Abraham about 4,000 years ago. The enemy has been preparing for this struggle in and around the land of Israel since before the invention of the written word.
- [07:25]
Unidentified Female Guest
Right.
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Derek Gilbert
And we can document that, I think, or at least make a good case for it, based on what is on the ground in Israel. As Jesus said, the stones cry out.
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Unidentified Female Guest
Yeah.
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Donna Howell
How does the Golan Heights factor into this? You do a lot of reveal in this book about the archaeological significance of locations like this and how this plays into what we're seeing play out.
- [07:49]
Unidentified Female Guest
We've spent a lot of time up there looking at the archaeological ruins. So, yeah, you can see on the ground what happened.
- [07:57]
Derek Gilbert
The Golan Heights roughly corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Bashan, which was the kingdom of Og. He was the first military objective of Moses and the Israelites. You know, God brought them to the plains of Moab. And then instead of saying, okay, cross over to Jericho and, you know, take care of that. No, he had to march all the way to the Golan Heights from Jericho, which, when you're walking with flocks and herds and elderly folks and little kids, is probably at least a month to get from there to there. I mean, today we think it's, you know, a road trip. We'll get there in, you know, 30, 40 minutes. When you're walking in sandals and you gotta take care of your sheep and your cattle, it's a long walk. And of course, then they had to fight a battle against Sihon, the king of Heshbon, on the way. So it was not an easy thing. But the Golan Heights is literally covered with megalithic structures that go back, according to the archaeologist we met on the site of one of the most famous, Gilgal Rephaim, which means Wheel of the Giants. Dr. Mike Friedman has done the most recent excavations there. The Golan Heights, ancient Bashan, covered with structures that are similar to Gilgal Refaim. Now, this is a massive structure about 500ft across, with, they estimate between 40 and 60,000 tons of stone. For comparison, they estimate Stonehenge has about 2,500 tons of stone, 60,000 tons of stone. Big blocks of granite moved, or basalt, rather, moved into place by some culture years ago. And as Dr. Friedman pointed out, he said, well, they didn't build these walls to keep out dinosaurs. So why did they do it? Why did they spend so much time doing it? It took it probably three, four years to do it, it is likely. And with other similar structures, which just within the last couple discovered something like 28 others on the Golan Heights, using aerial photography and satellite imagery that they didn't even know were there, probably related to the cult of the dead. In other words, ritual dance around a central core where a priest or a shaman would enter in and then commune with what he thought were the spirits of the dead. But of course, we argue demons, the spirits of the giants destroyed in the flood of Noah.
- [10:15]
Donna Howell
You talk about the giants. I know that Genesis 6 gets brought up a lot. The War of the Watchers, the origins of demons. This is something that you cover a lot in your new book, War of the Watchers. Do you want to talk about that?
- [10:28]
Derek Gilbert
Yeah. It's something that we aren't often taught in the modern church, but in the first couple of centuries, really up until about the time of Augustine in the early 5th century, so about the first 400 years after the resurrection, it was Christianity 101 demons of the spirits of the giants who died in the flood for the first, maybe 125 years after the resurrection. That was also the belief of Jewish religious scholars. Now changed after a split between Jews and Christians following the rebellion of Simon bar Kokva between 132 and 135 AD. He wanted Christians to fight. He was declared the Messiah by a very famous rabbi, Rabbi Akiva. Christians said, no Messiah is coming in clouds with great glory. Simon, you're standing on the ground. We're not fighting for you. That led to a real nasty split which has not healed to this day, which is. Again, I'll cover in more depth in book two of War of the Watchers. But the point of focusing on demons, where they came from, and the fact that their progenitors are these rebellious Watchers, mentioned very briefly in Genesis 6:1 4, as the sons of God who saw that the daughters of man were fair and took wives of any they chose, is to show that this is a spiritual war, a supernatural war. And that that area where this took place from Mount Hermon, which is the northern border between Israel, Lebanon and Syria, and the Sea of Galilee, the Upper Galilee and the Golan Heights, Bashan. That area in the ancient world was known not just to the Israelites, but the surrounding Canaanites as the haunt, the place of the Rephaim, the literal entrance to Canaanite hell. And Jesus did not disabuse anyone of that notion.
- [12:16]
Unidentified Female Guest
Valley of the Shadow of Death.
- [12:17]
Derek Gilbert
We believe that that is the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The valley through which the Jordan river runs between Mount Harmona and the Sea of Galilee has got 1100 dolmens on either side, the hills on either side. Dolmens are these massive megalithic structures that look like tables. And in fact, the word dolmen comes from a Celtic language. Platonic.
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Unidentified Female Guest
Platonic, yeah.
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Derek Gilbert
That means table. So a couple of vertical slabs and a tabletop and the valley of the Shadow of Death. I mean, it's referenced In Matthew chapter 4, when Jesus moves from Nazareth to Capernaum, which is the city on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, at the south end of that valley. It was to fulfill that which was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. Those dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. Those dwelling in the region and shadow of death. On them, a light has dawned. And of course, a thousand years before Jesus walked the earth, David wrote about the valley of the Shadow of Death. And the Lord, preparing a table for me in the presence of mine enemy, Sharon did a presentation on the 23rd Psalm at a conference once. And when she got to that and explained the significance, 300 people went all at once.
- [13:26]
Unidentified Female Guest
And the ritual that was done there was pouring of water, providing food and nourishment to the dead. The Lord not only prepares a table, he prepares a cup that doesn't have to be done multiple times. It flows over.
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Derek Gilbert
Yep.
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Donna Howell
Wow.
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Derek Gilbert
So it's. Yeah, it's amazing
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Donna Howell
here.
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Joe Arteshorn
In just a minute, we're going to
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Donna Howell
tell you how you can get your very own copy of this incredible new work. But, Derek, before we do that, in just a couple of minutes, by the grace of God, one of the things that we're enjoying right now at Skywatch TV is the constant exposure to brand new viewers. They do not have a fundamental grasp of the giants or this word called the Nephilim. We open this program, we're talking about Israel. You're talking about an attack from Hamas, a battle. Wait a minute. Now they're talking about something called a fallen angels and something called a Nephilim. Can you just briefly, because we're building this framework about this being a supernatural war for the brand new, for the brand new to Skywatch TV that are out there just learning this, can you somehow encapsulate tying those things together from the war to why it's supernatural and who these characters, the Nephilim are and what all this has to do with the same unfolding the fallen realm, the
- [14:47]
Derek Gilbert
fallen angels, if you will. And Watcher is just a class of angel. In fact, they're mentioned in Daniel, chapter four. And apparently they've got some responsibility that's been assigned to them by God. Because in Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar is a dream of a watcher who descends and basically tells him that they have decreed his punishment for his excessive pride. This is by decree of the watchers, by decree of the holy ones, and so on, according to the book of first Enoch, which is not in the Bible, and there are good reasons for that, but clearly it was known to and respected by the apostles and the early church. It expands on that. It names a number of these fallen watchers, rebellious angels, fallen angels who decide to corrupt humanity through commingling with human women, creating this hybrid race of giants, presumably to eliminate the human race from the earth, but perhaps also knowing that once they were deceased, their spirits would not be allowed into heaven or into shale, but to wander the earth, tormenting humanity, creating essentially a demonic army. And they happen to do it, according to one Enoch. But also there are clues throughout the Old Testament. I go into that in War of the Watchers that they were in place in the Holy Land thousands of years before Jesus walked the earth. And in the book I also show that where Jesus did most of his deliverance ministry was at Capernaum and in that region, the Upper Galilee, Bashan, and those areas that were believed to be under the control of the Rephaim, as the Nephilim were called after the flood of Noah. So long War. And Jesus, when he began his ministry, basically declared war on these fallen entities not only by what he did, but where he did it.
- [16:28]
Unidentified Female Guest
Don't you love that Jesus battled the giants? Seriously, he did
- [16:36]
Donna Howell
well.
- [16:36]
Joe Arteshorn
Ladies and gentlemen, we want to remind you that Skywatch TV is a viewer supported ministry. And right now when you partner with us, your support not only helps us stay on the air, it also enables us to continue the mission through our networks and digital platforms, reach areas of the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ that are unable to support us financially. Right now while supplies last. For your donation of only $45 or more, we're not only going to send you Derek Gilbert's brand new book War of the From BAAL to Balfour, but we're also going to send you his all time best selling book, the Second Coming of the Great Conjunction and the Return of the Watchers with the exclusive 13 part companion DVD featuring Derek Gilbert as he walks you through ancient artifacts, maps and other teaching tools on the subject of the second Coming of Saturn. These amazing works, sold separately, hold a retail value of $70. Yours now for your donation of only $45 or more, which includes free shipping to all US addresses. So again, your support helps Skywatch TV continue reaching the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can scan the QR code on your screen using the camera app on your phone for instant access this special opportunity. You can also Visit us at skywatchtvstore.com or call 1-844-750-4985 and ask for the Derek Gilbert War of the Watchers special offer right now.
- [18:09]
Sharon Gilbert
I love that you're going here too because you know, growing up, 1980s culture, Christian culture generally, nobody knew what demons were. We just knew they were the bad guys and you shouldn't talk to them. Try to contact. There's like all the rules, all the don'ts, but nobody knew where. And I agree with you guys, knowing the origin of the demons as the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim, the giant inhabitants of the earth. That brings you into what Mike Lake says, the Gospel of the Kingdom Our role in meeting God as close as we can. You have the gospel of salvation, what he did for you, and you have the gospel of the kingdom, what you do for him, and how you live. Understanding the warfare behind. How can you march into battle and not even know who the players are? Exactly. I love that.
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Unidentified Female Guest
And it explains why Paul admonishes us to put on our spiritual armor in Ephesians, chapter six. Because you're born on a battlefield.
- [19:06]
Sharon Gilbert
Bingo.
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Unidentified Female Guest
We are in a spiritual war from the moment we take a breath until we take that last one.
- [19:10]
Sharon Gilbert
Love it.
- [19:11]
Joe Arteshorn
Amen.
- [19:12]
Unidentified Female Guest
Love it.
- [19:13]
Sharon Gilbert
Amen.
- [19:16]
Joe Arteshorn
Derek, with just a few minutes left
- [19:18]
Donna Howell
on the clock, there's a couple of things I want to make sure we hit on that. Your book covers so beautifully. You include several chapters about a deity known to the pagans around ancient Israel by several El Dagon, Enlil, and Molech, among others. Why is that?
- [19:33]
Derek Gilbert
This entity, I believe, and I made the case in the book. The second coming of Saturn is to be identified as the leader of that rebellion in Genesis 6. He's named in the book of 1 Enoch as Shemyaza. I think he is also the angel of the bottomless pit who emerges in Revelation 9 as Apollyon or Abaddon the Destroyer. Again, I get into all of that in the second coming of Saturn. The reason I bring him into the war of the Watchers is because I also believe this entity is Allah. There are a number of clues. It's circumstantial evidence in every one of his iterations. El Dagon, Enlil, Molech, Saturn of the Romans, Kronos of the Greeks. He's connected to the underworld, often connected to human sacrifice and often child sacrifice. Kronos, in fact, had a nickname among the Greeks, Technophagos, meaning child eater, if you know the Greek myth. Of course. He's the one who was told by his parents, Gaia and Ouranos, earth and sky, that he would be overthrown by a child of his. And so he ate all of his children as they were born. Now, it took his wife Rhea, six of these, to detect a pattern. So she saved Zeus, who was number seven. And according to the myth, Zeus then led a rebellion and overthrew Kronos and the Titans and banished them to Tartarus. Peter writes of a group of fallen angels who are in Tartarus, 2nd Peter 2, 4. The angels who sinned, God thrust down to hell in our English Bibles, but the Greek word is Tartarosis, you thrust down to Tartarus. That's a Special level of the netherworld reserved for supernatural threats to the divine order. So we're dealing with the same entities. The sons of God from Genesis 6 are the Titans of the Greeks. And there's more evidence I go into in the book there that we don't have time here to get into some etymological links between the origin of the name Titan and where it comes from. It actually originates with the Amorites who surrounded ancient Israel. Enlil was also known to the Akkadians as Ellil. That derives from Semitic words il ilu, meaning God of gods or God of all the gods. Now when we go to Isaiah 14, verse 12, how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? Lucifer is Latin translated from the Hebrew Hillel Ben Shakar or Daystar, son of dawn or Lightbringer Hillel. According to a scholar named William Gallagher in a paper that he published 30 years ago, peer reviewed journal showed that etymologically that name Helel is actually the west Semitic or Hebrew transliteration of the Akkadian name Elil. So it's this entity we're dealing with here. El Dagon, Enlil, Elil, Molech Asher, the chief deity of the Assyrians. Okay, what's the derivation of the name Allah Al Ilah, the God dawn, the God.
- [22:31]
Donna Howell
Donna Howell's brain just came out of the left side of her ear and spattered me on the face, I think.
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Joe Arteshorn
Did you see that?
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Donna Howell
Very seldom do I see my sister blow apart like that.
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Derek Gilbert
Yeah. And when you look at the fruit of the followers, the fundamentalist followers of Allah and there are many very wonderful Muslims. I mean, we've been to Jordan three times and met some wonderful people, treated very well, treated very well. But at its most fundamental, following the teachings of Muhammad, the followers of Muhammad, well, you can see the writings and I wrote about this in my book Bad Moon Rising, quoted throughout history going back to the seventh century. We love death the way you love life. That's this entity here. And that's who we got in Isaiah 14 as Lucifer, angel of the bottomless pit.
- [23:16]
Donna Howell
Derek, with just a couple of minutes left, how did the Anakim factor into all of this?
- [23:21]
Derek Gilbert
The Anakim were the target of Joshua's conquest of Canaan. And we see this at the end of Joshua chapter 11, where it summarizes the war after he has fought the battles, and he fought the battle of Jericho, of course, and then AI and then the valley of Ailon with the sun standing still for a day. When all of that is concluded and it Summarizes the war. It says there were none of the Anakim left in the hill country of Israel. Only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod did some remain. Now, why is that significant? Because Gaza, Gath and Ashdod, that's the Gaza Strip. Today, basically, Ashdod is on the Israeli side, but still, that roughly corresponds to the Gaza Strip. Also, interestingly, is that the hill country of Israel, the hill country of Judah. When you look at a map today, and I only realized this about a year and a half ago, somebody said, look at topographical map of the hill, what the world calls the West Bank. Israelis call it Judea and Samaria. So that's how we prefer to refer to it. Judea and Samaria, where most of biblical history took place. That's the hill country of Ephraim, Israel and Judah. That's what the world wants Israel to give back. That's what the world wants the. What the Israelis to give to the Palestinian Authority for an independent nation. The strongholds of the Anakim. The Anakim were reputed to be tall. They were counted as Rephaim. We argued in our book Veneration, and I mention it here as well, that we don't know for a fact that the Anakim were giants. But we do know from Canaanite texts that the Rephaim were venerated and worshiped. And I believe that the Anakim, based on the evidence, likewise venerated those spirits. They were likely an elite warrior cult that controlled the highlands of Israel. And very probably, since they were worshiping the Rephaim, those demonic spirits also probably worshiped El of the Canaanites. And of course, then they went to the Gaza Strip where the chief God was Dagon. That's the territories. Those are the territories that Today in the 21st century, the world demands Israel give back for a homeland to the Palestinians.
- [25:30]
Donna Howell
Derek, the way that you explain this, I always learn something every time you're so thorough, and yet you explain it in a way that laypeople really, they're capable of grasping it. I think you have such a unique perspective, ladies and gentlemen, War of the Watchers. Make sure that you take advantage of this special opportunity that we're running right now@theskywatchtvstore.com how many of you think we have to have Derek back next week?
- [25:53]
Derek Gilbert
Oh, yeah.
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Joe Arteshorn
I feel like we're just getting started. Derek and Sharon, ladies and gentlemen. Unfortunately, we're all out of time for this particular installation of Skywatch tv.
- [26:04]
Donna Howell
For everybody here in studio, everybody up here on panel. Derek, Sharon, my mother, my beautiful wife,
- [26:09]
Joe Arteshorn
Donna Howell, whose brains just got blown. I'm Joe Hardest. Horn.
- [26:13]
Donna Howell
Keep your eyes on the prize, which is. Jesus Christ. We will be back.
- [26:36]
Derek Gilbert
Oh, my goodness. You caught one.
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Unidentified Female Guest
Look at that little tiny fish.
- [26:43]
Derek Gilbert
I caught one. Another one. You're famous now, sugar. Sam.