VIBE CHECK: Iran War, Day 17 | Guest: Billy Hallowell | 3/17/26

Summary

Steve Deace Show — "VIBE CHECK: Iran War, Day 17"

Host: Steve Deace (Blaze Podcast Network)
Guest: Billy Hallowell (Christian Broadcasting Network)
Air Date: March 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Steve Deace Show delivers a whirlwind of snarky, principled commentary on international and domestic events, with a spotlight on the Iran war ("Operation Epic Fury") at Day 17. The first hour is a "vibe check" on the war, shifting from surface-level news coverage to deeper cultural and spiritual discussions, before segueing into a spirited interview with Billy Hallowell on supernatural phenomena, angels, and demons. The second hour features a unique "Fake News or Not" exercise, probing key controversies and schisms currently dividing the American right, especially across "podcaster wars" and the Israel/Iran debate. The conversation is peppered with humor, cultural asides, and a call for men to lead at the local level.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Iran War Update & Vibe Check

[04:53–18:19]

• Major Developments:

  • Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) strike, killing high-level Iranian officials including Ali Lariani and Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani.
  • President Trump expresses optimism:

    "Can we wrap this war up this week?"
    "Yeah, sure."
    "Will we?"
    "I don't think so, but it'll be soon." — Trump [05:35]

  • U.S. allies like France are graded favorably by Trump ("On a scale of 0–10, he's been an 8. Not perfect, but it's France…” [05:55])

• Panel Reaction:

  • The team discusses the “vibes” around the war — are we being gaslighted like with "two weeks to flatten the curve"? Or is real progress being made?
  • Todd:

    "There's a new bad guy who is dead every single day. There's verifiable progress." [14:13]

  • Aaron highlights even Al Jazeera is running positive analyses of U.S.-Israeli action [15:09].

• Cautionary Notes:

  • Todd expresses concern about the unknown deployment of U.S. Marines and the need for accountability, emphasizing the need for clear objectives, purposeful leadership, and transparency to the public [16:12–18:19].

2. Political Developments: Domestic & International

[06:08–08:41]

• Cuba: President Diaz Canel seeks U.S. collaboration, facing a historic energy crisis. Marco Rubio comments on Cuba’s influence over Venezuela.

• Capitol Hill:

  • Senator Mike Lee urges passage of the Save America Act, warning against the “zombie filibuster.”

    “If your senator is not willing to alter the filibuster back to an actual filibuster...they are not for the SAVE Act." — Steve Deace [19:24]

• Media & Cultural Satire:

  • A tongue-in-cheek segment on a viral "leprechaun sighting" in Mobile celebrates St. Patrick’s Day, humorously lamenting the “tatters” of American traditions. [08:52–11:00]

3. Local Activism: Bondurant, Iowa Library Book Dispute

[21:54–27:44]

• Steve’s son-in-law and a group of local men successfully challenge a middle school book club promoting "This Book is Gay" at the Bondurant public library, leading to the event’s cancellation.
• Todd recounts the bureaucratic evasions at city meetings and underscores the power of simply showing up:

  “It wasn't even a close victory… it was done in dominating fashion.” — Todd Erzin [24:00]

• Steve’s lesson:

  “The mission makes the plan, the plan doesn't make the mission. And the first step in any plan, men, is to show up.” [24:43]

4. Pop Culture & Supernatural: Billy Hallowell Interview

[32:31–48:03]

• Billy Hallowell discusses his award-winning supernatural documentary series:
  • Previous installment covered miracles; latest focuses on angels and demons.
  • Steve observes the documentary’s appeal:

    “I thought the miracles one was very good. I think this one is absolutely better. …You're scratching me where it itches.” [33:37]

• Spiritual Warfare & Modern Politics:
  • Hallowell unpacks Ephesians 6’s message about spiritual battles, spiritual apathy, and demonic vs. sinful impulses:

    “We are in a battle. We've got to understand that and we've got to navigate it…not seeing a demon under every rock, while also realizing there are a lot of demons roaming and impacting things.” — Hallowell [35:07]

  • Steve distinguishes between sinfulness (“exploiting natural desires beyond what God allows”) and the demonic (“denying created order, nihilism”):

    “The demonic is when we deny those things...we become ingrates. We act against the way we are naturally created.” [36:47]

• Notable Quote:

  “You can't win a battle you don't know you're in.” — Billy Hallowell [39:15]

• Supernatural as Apologetics:
  • The supernatural, Hallowell argues, offers young people a gateway to apologetics and faith, as Gen Z seeks answers in a culture of deception and nihilism [41:01].
  • Hallowell on a wild story:
    Describes Hugh Ross’ account of demonic manifestations among Soviet military personnel during a lecture—neutralized only by prayer [45:30–46:32].
  • The new documentary is available at cbn.com/supernatural [47:35].

5. Fake News or Not: Podcaster Wars, Influence, and Israel

[53:40–95:36]

• Format: Steve flips the "Fake News or Not" format, grilling Todd and Aaron on hot-button claims trending in right-wing online spaces.

Sample Notable Questions & Responses:

• Q: The "podcaster wars" reflect deep division on the right.
  A (Aaron): "Fake news” — Data shows 80% Republican support for the Iran war; the online war is not as representative as it appears [54:13].

• Q: Is Tucker Carlson an anti-Semite?
  A (Aaron & Todd): "Fake news" — Tucker is new and sloppy on these issues, not overtly anti-Semitic; they draw distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism [80:21–82:27].

• Q: Are the podcaster wars driven by engagement/clicks more than principle?
  A: Mixed; some, like Candace Owens, are click-driven, but not all; Tucker is “genuine” (even if wrong-headed), while others may be more mercenary [57:07–59:35].

• Q: Did the CIA review Tucker’s communications?
  A: Skeptical, but not impossible—if true, a severe breach by the CIA; if false, implies Tucker’s unreliable [65:29–67:24].

• Q: Tucker Carlson sincerely believes he can reshape U.S. foreign policy.
  A (Todd): "Not fake news" — “He may end up running for President of the United States...hubris, hell of a drug.” [73:38–74:38]

• Q: Is it possible to be anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic?
  A (Aaron): Only if you use a “bastardized” definition of Zionism; currently, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are conflated [82:37–84:48].

• Q: Trump’s public support of Mark Levin was a rebuke of Tucker and Megyn Kelly.
  A (Both): “Not fake news” — “This is a way of shooting, taking some clear shots across the bow.” [85:38–86:22]

• Q: Will the podcaster wars affect the 2028 GOP nomination?
  A: Aaron says “overstated,” Todd sees potential for chaos if Tucker runs and becomes a "political arsonist" [88:47–90:57].

• Q: Are these online schisms as unpredictable in their outcome as what may happen in Iran?
  A: Both say: “Fake news”—the fate of Iran is less knowable; these podcaster feuds will burn out or self-destruct [93:23–94:19].

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Male Leadership at the Local Level:

  “The mission makes the plan, the plan doesn't make the mission. The first step in any plan, men, is to show up...Just being there is most of headship.” — Steve Deace [24:43]

• Steve’s snark on tradition:

  "Our traditions are in such tatters. We are like five seconds away from everybody thinking like St. Patrick is actually one of those guys." — Todd Erzin [10:51]

• On clickbait conservatism:

  "This is one world where this is idolatry and the cost of idolatry...the ruination they're bringing upon their own idols through their idolatry. I mean, it's Gollum worshipping the ring." — Todd Erzin [94:19]

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Selected Timestamps for Important Segments

• Iran War Update & Trump Comments: 04:53–10:38
• Capitol Hill: The Save America Act / Filibuster Explainer: 06:49–21:20
• St. Patrick’s Day Satire ("Leprechaun" segment): 08:52–11:09
• Bondurant, Iowa Local Activism Recap: 21:54–27:44
• Billy Hallowell Interview (Angels, Demons, Apocalypse): 32:31–48:03
  • Miracle v. Demonic, apologetics angle: 35:07–41:54
  • Soviet demonic manifestation story: 45:30–47:17
• Fake News or Not (Podcaster Wars & Influence): 53:40–95:36

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Tone and Language

The show mixes snark, humor, and high seriousness, with in-depth scriptural references and unapologetically conservative, Christian worldview. Commentary is direct, at times blunt, and self-aware about the right’s internal dysfunctions. Deace encourages men to act with courage, even in uncertainty, and is not afraid to call out grift or idolatry on his own side.

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Summary Takeaway

Steve Deace uses March 17, 2026, to check the "vibe" of ongoing events, challenge his audience on spiritual and cultural apathy, and push for boots-on-the-ground activism. The episode’s interplay between headline events (Iran war, U.S. politics), culture-war skirmishes, supernatural belief, and intra-right infighting provides a snapshot of a modern American conservative movement wrestling with enormous change, internal distrust, competing egos, and spiritual confusion. At its core, the call is for sincerity, discernment, and action rooted in truth—not merely clicks or virtue-signaling.

Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by

[B]

Nespresso introducing Vertuo up, the latest in

[A]

a long line of innovation from Nespresso.

[B]

It's innovation you can touch, sense and taste in every single cup. With a three second start, easy open lever and dedicated brew over ice button, it's even easier to enjoy your coffee your way. Sip for yourself. Shop Vertuo up [e-mail]. And greetings. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the Steve Day show here live and on demand. Happy St Patrick's Day to all of you. I am Steve Dase. I'm here at the Man Cave Command because I've got to catch a flight right after today's show and head to Tennessee where I'll be doing a tpusa Faith ask me anything. On the campus of Middle Tennessee University, formerly known as Middle Tennessee State. The Blue Raiders, they've kind of been one of those mid major March madness Cinderella teams a few times over the years. So I'll be there in the middle of March talking about Jesus and answering your questions. Coming up tomorrow on campus, Todd, Erzin, Aaron and Tyre are back there in studio. Hello to them. We're brought to you by our friends over at Preborn. They are hoping and praying to save 6,800 babies here in the month of March. And that means they need 124 partners. Saying yes every day. You could say yes for as little as 28 bucks. 28 bucks can fund an ultrasound that doubles a baby's chance at life when mom is confronted in her conscience with the knowledge that, yes, as you kind of knew and suspected all along, it's not an unviable tissue mass. It's a human. It's your baby. All right? And if you want, if you want to do five in a day, that's only 140 bucks. And all these donations, tax deductible for the five star charity known as Preborn. Make your donation today. So many of you have been so generous. Let's keep it going for the greatest cause of them all, the cause of life. Preborn.com Steve Again, that's preborn.com/steve. And just a little quick housekeeping note. So yesterday we opened the show with the, the Apple error. It was fixed right at the end of the program and apparently, gentlemen, it's been very fixed because this podcast, according to Apple, is currently more popular than Oprah Winfrey's. And so you did it. We're not, we're not making anywhere near which she is, of course. All right. But we have our highest podcast ranking of all time. I think we're ranked 161st of every single podcast on the planet that that Apple currently lists. So that's the highest we've ever had rated. We're in the top five of our native category. So you guys helped us fix the problem, as did Apple, as did the management here at the Blaze as well. And now I apparently I've got to now go into a contract renegotiation looking at these rankings. So whatever you guys are doing, keep doing it because it's working, all right? And we are currently more popular than Oprah, so thank you for that. All right. Coming up at the bottom of the hour, my good, good friend Billy Hallowell is going to join us. He just won a movie guide award for his last super. He's doing a series of documentaries for the Christian Broadcast Network on the Supernatural. And he just won a movie guide award for best documentary for his latest installment or his previous installment on miracles. His latest is now out today. I believe I've had a chance to watch it on Angels and Demons. It's very compelling, it's very well done. And Billy's going to talk to us about it and preview it for us on Pop Culture Tuesday coming up at the bottom of the hour. And then next hour. Normally I let them do this to me, but today I'm going to do it to Todd and Aaron. I have 10 questions or 10 statements. None of them are questions. 10 statements about what is currently happening on the right and in the social media world and in policy. 10 statements that people of great audience and influence have been seen uttering in recent days. And I'm going to let Todd and Aaron, and maybe I'll chime in every now and then, but I'm going to let Todd and Aaron determine, are these statements fake news or not? We're going to spend the next hour on that. Coming up here on the show. I'm greatly looking forward to that conversation and their reactions to some of these statements. At least a few of them are probably statements they didn't think we'd discuss on the show. But we are going to in the next hour of this show. But first we're gonna discuss Aaron's rundown of what happened while we were away.

[A]

What happened while we were away, brought to you by another one Bites the Dust. The IDF says more airstrikes yesterday took out the highest profile target since the slaying of former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. IDF says it took out Ali Lariani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and one of the most effective remaining leaders and politicians in the country. Lariani was seen just a few days ago out and about on the streets of Tehran and now he is gone. IDF says it also took out the remainder of much of the Basij command structure, including Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani. Basij is of course, basically Iran's street enforcer thugs. Yesterday, President Trump said, once again, things are going swimmingly with the Iran excursion.

[C]

Can we wrap this war up this week?

[B]

Yeah, sure.

[C]

Will we?

[B]

I don't think so, but it'll be soon. Won't be alone and we're going to

[D]

have a much safer world when it's wrapped up.

[A]

Asked about the help from our allies in the operation, specifically France and President Emmanuel Macron, Trump says, I have spoken to him.

[B]

He's been On a scale of 0 to 10, I'd say he's been an 8. Not perfect, but it's France. Are you expect perfect.

[A]

Meanwhile, we're starting to I Cuba, where President Miguel Diaz Canel announced over the weekend he's attempting to work with the United States on on a yet unnamed concession to repair the US Cuban relationship. The announcement came amidst the longest energy crisis in recent Cuban history, as the country faced as of yesterday, total darkness. As a reminder, here's what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said about Cuba after the United States operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro back in January.

[B]

It's amazing this poor island took over Venezuela. In some cases. One of the biggest problems that Venezuelans have is they have to declare independence from Cuba. They tried to basically colonize it from a security standpoint. So, yeah, look, I live Havana and I was in the government. I'd be concerned.

[A]

On Capitol Hill, Senator Mike Lee says we're going to see debate today on the Save America Act.

[B]

Save America act comes to the floor of the United States Senate. I invite all within the sound of my voice who would like this bill

[A]

to become law to reach out to

[B]

as many people as possible, friends, neighbors, especially United States senators who might listen to you. Ask them, please get this passed. Tell them we need to invoke the talking filibuster in the United States Senate. No zombie filibuster will suffice on this one. We've got to turn to this bill, we've got to debate it and we've got to stay on the bill until it becomes law. There can be no surrender. There can be no ifs, ands or buts. There can be no cheap imitations here the republic is on the line checking

[A]

in on Joy Reid.

[D]

Our regime has secret police.

[B]

They have secret police.

[D]

Our regime is oppressing women, taking away abortion rights, taking away women's rights rights in like 26 states, some states where they're trying to have the death penalty for having an abortion. They also oppress women. They have the highest rate of women who are in STEM careers. We're kicking women out of the military, out of university. We're saying that DEI means women can't be hired for high positions in the sciences. So we're marginally better. And we're doing it for Christianity, they're doing it for Islam. Right. So it's like we don't get told those things because it would take away the kind of American exceptionalism taking out

[A]

the trash in our own backyard. Update. Steve's son in law, Steven Hibbs, organized a group of men, including Todd, together in Bondurant, Iowa, to speak up in opposition of a grooming session disguised as a book club at the local library targeting grades six through eight, featuring the book this Book is Gay. The men showed up to the Bondurant board of trustees meeting and the night ended with the grooming session disguised as a book club meeting canceled citing security concerns. Helmet stickers one and all to the men who showed up. And finally, happy St. Patrick's Day. Well, just in time for St. Patrick's

[B]

Day, crowds are coming by the dozens to get an up close view at what some say is a piece of Irish folklore. Some people in the Crichton area of Mobile say a leprechaun has taken up residence in their neighborhood. A leprechaun. NBC15's Brian Johnson has more. Curiosity leads to large crowds in Mobile's Creighton community, many of you bringing binoculars, camcorders, even camera phones to take pictures.

[A]

To me, it looks like a leprechaun to me. All you gotta do is look up in a tree.

[B]

Who outs seen the leprechaun say? Yeah. Eyewitnesses say the leprechaun only comes out at night. If you shine a light in its direction, it suddenly disappears. This amateur sketch resembles what many of you say the leprechaun looks like. Others find it hard to believe and have come up with their own theories and explanations for the image.

[A]

My theory is it's casting a shadow from the other limb.

[D]

Could be a crackhead that got hold

[B]

to the wrong stuff and it told

[A]

him to get up in a tree

[B]

and play a leprechaun. We don't get down to the bottom of this. Yeah.

[A]

Still on there, guy.

[B]

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, man. This guy helping to direct traffic says he's prepared for his encounter with the leprechaun. He's suited up from head to toe. This war is all spells right here. This is a special leprechaun flute which

[A]

has been passed down from thousands of

[B]

years ago from my great, great grandfather who was Irish. And I just came to help out. Others just came to get lucky in hopes a pot of gold may be buried under this tree. I'm gonna run a backhoe and uproot that tree. I want to know where the gold at. I want the gold. I want to go where the gold at. The gold. This is Brian Johnson, NBC 15 News.

[A]

And that's what happened while we were away.

[B]

All timer, Absolute all timer. That's the reason for the season right there. That's it right there. Aaron's montage brought to you by. I want to go. Where'd it go that I want to go?

[D]

Our traditions are in such tatters. We are like five seconds away from everybody thinking like St. Patrick is actually one of those guys.

[B]

Indeed. And I think I might be.

[D]

I might be fine with it.

[B]

Ireland with the leprechaun flute. Yes. His flute playing was so bad, the rats left. That was the secret the entire time.

[D]

My grandfather was Irish.

[B]

Who needs. Who needs. Who needs anointing when you're just so bad at it that they flee on their own? Indeed. Aaron's montage brought to you by a brand new partner on the show that I was supposed to try last weekend. And then we decided to have a blizzard so I could not. So this weekend it's going to be 85 or something. I. It's nuts, man. March weather in the midwest is nuts. But blizzard on one weekend and 84 high on the next. I've never seen that in my 53 years. But that's coming our way. So I'm going to try out my new pocket hose. All right. You know the old fashioned hoses, particularly as you get them out of the shed this time of the year, they've got kinks, creases, right. But the copperhead's pocket pivot swivels 360 degrees for full water flow and freedom to water with ease all around your home. When you're all done, this rustproof anti burst hose shrinks back down to pocket size for effortless handling and tidy storage. So it is on my to do list to play around with this thing this weekend because I just had to salt the drives again because we had a blizzard, so I already cleared all the salt and everything off. All right, now I got to do it again. So I'm going to take out the pocket hose and spray out the garage and the walks and everything this weekend with the warm weather. And I'll come back and let you know how it does. All right, so for a limited time, you guys can get the free pocket Pivot and their 10 pattern sprayer with any purchase of any size of copperhead hose. Just text a DACE to 64,000. All right, my last name? DACE. Text DACE to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. That's DACE to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. That's DACE to 64,000 to try the new copperhead from pocket hose. All right, let's get into Aaron's montage, shall we? Again, there's really no way of knowing for sure, right? And we kind of have a short week this week because we have our annual spring break coming up. So we have an evergreen on Thursday, which I think you guys will very much enjoy. We taped it right before Amfest last Christmas with Lucas Miles, my good friend, head of tpusa Faith that I'm going to be doing the event at Middle Tennessee with tomorrow, in fact. And just you know what Life Post Charlie looks like and will look like in the future. And we're going to have him in that evergreen interview coming up on Thursday. And then Friday we just have a day off. All right, so we kind of have a short week this week. And so I've asked this a couple times now, but we're into week three. Let's just do a vibe check here. Is there a sense Epic fury is going well? Is there a sense the Iran war is going well? When you guys hear Trump say it could be wrapped up soon, but not yet? Are you beginning to feel like this is two weeks to flatten the curve, four weeks to slow the spread, or what's the vibe? I don't know. There's some news we have, right? This guy's dead. And again, every time a member of the Iranian high command gets killed, an angel gets his wings, right? But what's the vibe?

[A]

Well, unlike a microscopic virus, there are verifiable things that you can actually say, is this virus alive? Is the spread stopped? It certainly seems like we're killing some viruses here. Now we're talking about human life. These are evil people. So it's not a one to one comparison. But the vibe I get is not two weeks to flatten the curve. Because we knew back then you don't shut down your economy for a virus ever. Like ever, ever, ever. We knew that at the time. We knew it and yet we still did it for reasons. On this thing, there's like a new bad guy who is dead every single day. There's progress, there's verifiable progress. We saw it was a former spokesman, I think, for Netanyahu or one of the prime ministers called his shot, circled some dude in the background of that picture with Liriani walking around on Friday and saying, I know this person in the background of this photo. Liriani is next. Okay, I thought I saw that at the time. I'm like, yeah, this guy's full of bunk. But okay, here we are. Maybe one indication that this is going swimmingly. Did you see what I said to you guys last week or last night in our text thread? Yeah, yeah, the Al Jazeera op ed basically doing a better job than cnn, Mississippi, now whatever the hell it's called. Cbs NBC News put together on a level headed assessment of the US Israeli coalition against Iran and painted it actually in somewhat glowing terms from Al freaking Jazeera. Now, of course, Qatar is very much ducking tail and reversing their course, at least their stated course when it comes to Iran. But maybe that of all things is just an indicator of how powerful this operation has been. So that's not to say that I think it's gonna wrap up this week. That's not to say that this could become protracted. I don't think that. But you asked. As of right now, the vibes are good.

[B]

All right, Todd.

[D]

There does seem to be a clear sense of purpose. We seem to, to have arrived in a leader with the President Lincoln vis a vis Grant and Sherman. He fights, they fight. So I'm heartened by that. The part that's unsettling when it comes to these things is we, we can't have all the information that people certainly like, you know, that do the work that we do to make intelligent choices we like to have. We just, we can't because it may app, it may jeopardize missions. But once again, like I said yesterday, the fact that 24 Marines have been called from as far away as the Far east to that area and we don't know necessarily why, I don't think that that's necessarily because, oh, things are going badly, but we need to remember that that's happening and hold their level of involvement to a very, very high level. Of accountability. It is an absolute tragedy. Those that have already been lost, however many, I think that number is roughly a dozen people. Now Aaron's named them my name and we owe him credit for doing that. I will simply say that those people were people already stationed over there on a base or in the case of the flight. They were not called to that environment anew. It was not an escalation. So we are raising the stakes by putting more people into that arena. And again, prosecuting. What he's prosecuting right now has got to get done in short order before he, we, he, he has to give us answers for why those men are there.

[B]

I love the messaging of grading France on a sliding scale. That's. That's very nice. Well, it's France. Yeah, I've given them a good grade is for being cooperative. But again, it's. It's France. Just a quick note on the save act I want to make sure because you guys in our audience, that apparently is now bigger than Oprah's, I guess, okay, you guys in our audience are going to hear this from a lot of your members, a lot of your senators, when you contact them or already have. I'm already on, I'm already on record as being for the save act. I might even be a co sponsor of the bill. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All right, here's the reality. If they are not willing to alter the filibuster back to an actual filibuster, right. When Mike Lee talks about the zombie filibuster, what does he mean? It just means, it's just, you know, I object. So we can't pass this. Okay, cool. And you just move on, people. That's why you don't see people standing up there and talking like you did, you know, over Obamacare and when Ted Cruz did that or over the Snowden stuff and the drone stuff, like you saw Rand Paul do that. All right, they got rid of those platforms. So now that you can just, you know, make a blog post and shut down key pieces of legislation in the u. S. Senate not making any of that up. So that's what Mike Lee means by the zombie filibuster. And so if, if you're, if your senator is not willing to sign on to going back to what a filibuster actually means. Right? We transd the filibuster. It's not a filibuster. We trans it. All right, so we're not asking to get rid of the filibuster. We're actually, we're asking to do A filibuster to actually do what a filibuster is and what it means if your senator is not willing to do that they are not for the SAVE act and that I want to make sure everybody within the sound of my voice understands that. Because a lot of you are getting lied to and are about to be lied to. Do not call your senators and ask them, are you for the SAVE Act? Ask them, are you for getting rid of the zombie filibuster so we can pass the SAVE Act? Ask the question that way. You guys have any thoughts on that?

[D]

Well, along with doing that to the particular senator in your state, the entire nation and the entire state legislature of South Dakota, you need to be making John Thune's life absolutely miserable. That your, your the group that got together, led not by me, I was there as just to help out. But Steve should be very proud of his son, son in law and his son for helping what happened locally. But it's the same.

[B]

We're getting to that in a minute.

[D]

Hammer, South Dakota, it's your senator who is leading this scam. And it's out there for everybody to see. This is on you. Your state legislature's up there in red state South Dakota. Enough is enough.

[A]

You know, St. Patrick's Breastplate, Christ with me. Christ on my left. Christ on my right, Christ before me. Christ. You get that? That's St. Patrick's Breastplate. When you call your Republican senators, just know. Lies with me, Lies before me. Lies on my right. Lies on my left. What you said about being lied to, Steve, that is an Evergreen Post. Evergreen Post. So you have to know that going in, if you are willing to call your senators, you need to ask very specific questions because they have no problem. They love lying to you.

[B]

So I want to bring up, and I did not ask Aaron to put this in the montage. So thank you, Aaron, for doing so. But I want to, I want to bring up what happened here in suburban Des Moines last night. But first, Todd, I'm going to go to you because you were at this event and so you've got an eyewitness account. All right. Aaron kind of alluded to the book in question. I've read some excerpts of this book in the Bondurant Iowa library, the event they were planning to have in commemoration of this book. There's a take on this that I think is applicable to every male within the sound of my voice. But before I get there, just kind of give the lay of the land, the event, how this happened, who was

[D]

there, et CETERA well, it was a, as you saw, that was roughly, that picture was taken at the back of the room. So that's roughly the crowd that showed up for the library board meeting today. On Sage Patrick's day. There was supposed to be a middle school book club meeting. This book is gay. And the people there on the board had this deer in headlights look about them and many, many bureaucratic excuses were made. We went over an hour later to the city council meeting and there it's like we have to look into our policies. And you, to Aaron's point about lying, not addressing the simple, you fund these people, you know, and I pointed out you should, people should be arrested after this. This shouldn't just be a hum and a hum and a. We'll have to look at our policies because if this book is given out by any other man out on the sidewalk, they do get arrested and they should be. But your library director gets into it and we're just going to, we'll evaluate our policies. It's a lot of people were there that had nothing to do with the group your son in law is a part of. But people stepped up on lot of fronts and it was a, it was, it wasn't even a close victory. It we, it was done in dominating fashion.

[B]

Here's I think what everybody needs to know then about how this was done. It was done with a, a 14 point master plan, all seven figures of funding. And then people that are experts in activism were brought in in order to help to not. It was, it was not done with any of that. None of that happened. It happened just because men showed up. That's it. Men showed up. Jesus tells his disciples, go ye into all the world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

[D]

All right?

[B]

Teaching them the commands I have given you, first to Jerusalem and then to Judea, then to Samaria and then to the ends of the earth and I will be with you always until the end of the age. That's known as the Great Commission. So he gave them a commission, which is another way of saying mission. Did he give them a plan? Did he, did they huddle together and before he was ascended, they, they hatched out exactly what churches to go to, where the money would come from. Did he give them a plan or did he give them a mission now? Did they have plans? Did they come up with plans? Yeah, we see that throughout the New Testament. Well, all right, we're going to send Paul and, and Silas here, Paul and Barnabas here. All right. And you know, we're going to send this apostle here, okay? And well, you know, we have to collect, you know, revenue for these people from these people here to go to those people in need over there. Right? But the planned, followed the mission. It did not define the mission or precede it, all right? The mission makes the plan, the plan doesn't make the mission. And the first step in any plan, men, is to show up. That is the first step in any plan. You just heard Todd say there were people there that weren't a part of what my son in law is trying to start. And you know who's my son in law? He's a soldier and he works in a factory. I mean, I think he's a pretty cool dude. Otherwise I wouldn't have married, married him to my daughter myself. I performed the wedding, but he's just a dude, okay? He's just a dude. Doesn't have a huge show, a huge podcast, a huge following. All right, Just did this with shoe leather. Just showed up, said, you know what, man, someone's got to do something about this. This just cannot stand. Started with people that he knew, like his brother in law, my son Todd, few others, and branched out from there. Other men just showed up on their own. I, every able bodied male voice in the sound of my voice could just show up, could just show up. And I think just showing up is most of leadership. Just being there is most of headship. Just being available is most of headship and leadership. A willingness to be, a desire to be. And that's the lesson of what happened here and the lesson of why it got to this point, therefore that these men had to show up now is because we didn't, as men, sufficiently show up before.

[D]

Which is why I'm in a different school district now, correct. I didn't have a full room.

[B]

If you believe in the sovereignty of God as I do, then when you come to evil and tyranny in the world, you have to reconcile with it. And there are two ways to reconcile it. Well, three really. Number one, would we even know what evil is if there wasn't a God? How would we know what immorality is if there wasn't morality? How would we know? Why do we desire to know? Why do we need to know? Why are we offended at immorality and evil? Why don't we embrace it? Unless there's a God. That's number one. Number two, you have to account for human nature and its role in being the vessel for the, for this kind of darkness. And then Number three, you have to then come to the conclusion that most of the time we will suffer as much evil and tyranny as we are willing to tolerate. Or as the Declaration of Independence says, men will suffer through these things as long as they're sufferable, as long as it doesn't interrupt their plans and conveniences. But history is made by the men who make those things happen before it gets to that point. Now we can't make up as men. I'm not here to beat you down for what you didn't do yesterday. I'm here to encourage you for what you can do today and tomorrow. We can't fix that. We let it get to this point and there is no point in lamenting that, provided we get the point that we're going to get up and do something about it today. Can't fix yesterday, but I can do something about it today. And most of this is just showing up. That's most of it. That's it. Just showing up. Just being there, being available. To quote one of Charlie's favorite verses from Isaiah, Here I am, Lord, send me. When the shofar sounds, raise your hand. I'll go. We'll figure out the plan along the way, but the mission precedes the plan. Billy Hallowell is going to join us about his latest documentary next. The steve day show. All right back here on the Steve Day show and we are powered by our friends over at an upcoming conference I'm looking forward to speaking at. And hey, you guys know I made a blood oath. I am never subjecting myself to the Denver TSA ever again because I, I, I will, I will blood let they. There is a self harming line at the Denver TSA where you just, when you give up, you're gonna get home. They just tell you just go over there and we've got, you know, vinyl flooring over there and just go ahead and start cutting yourself because you're not getting home. And that's where you just give up and start self harming. So if I'm willing to brave the Denver TSA after 10 years of, of, of exile, you know, it's a big event and it's an event being put on by my buddy Seth Gruber because we are in the last stand as we were just discussing, right? So I mean, I can't tell you guys to go to the library board meeting if I won't even brave the Denver tsa. So once more unto the breach, dear friends. Or you can join me, Pastor Rob McCoy, Frank Turek, Ali Beth stuckey and more. You can also preview Seth's latest film, the Last Stand. This event coming up in Englewood, Colorado, just Outside of Denver, first weekend in June, June 5th and 6th. Join us there. TheLastAnd.com TheLastAnd.com is where you get tickets and use the promo code Steve to get 15% off at the last stand.com promo code Steve but I am not responsible for what happens to you in the Denver TSA from there. All right. TheLastAnd.com promo code Steve for 15% off. But you'll find me. I'll be right there. Already I've got shotgun in the self harming line. Just join me. All right. TheLastStand.com promo code Steve well, he's become a good friend and now he's an award winning filmmaker because he just won the movie guide award, I think it was, for best documentary. Billy Hallowell here from the Christian Broadcasting Network. Good to see you, brother. How are you?

[C]

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

[B]

So congrats on winning the movie guide award for the previous installment in this series on investigating the supernatural dealing with miracles. And I gotta tell you, I thought you were up against some pretty stiff competition because I know that that Kevin Costner nativity documentary was nominated as well, that that ABC aired on network national tv. Kevin Costner literally said one of the biggest stars in the history of Hollywood literally said to how many millions of people on network TV in America in the year of 2025, I believe in the resurrection of Christ. So and I thought that was pretty well done. So I thought you were up against some pretty stiff competition. But congratulations, my friend, you guys won that.

[C]

Well, thank you. You know, I would have been happy. I was actually very excited for Kevin Costner and or Lee Strobel, both of whom were nominated. And I thought this is great. I think I even said to you this is great, they're going to win. And I get to just watch it. And I'm so happy we were nominated. And then when they called, when they said we won, I was like, oh no, I have to get up and actually say something. And so but no, it was, it was really an amazing God has done some amazing things this year. And so it was pretty exciting.

[B]

So the latest chapter is out now, which I had a chance to watch in preview last week on Angels and Demons. And I thought the miracles one was very good. I think this one is absolutely better. Maybe it could also be that this is a topic, as you well know very much in my Wheelhouse. Okay, so you're, you're hitting me. You're scratching me where it itches. Okay. I've always been very fascinated by this topic before I became a believer and, and becoming one is only, you know, is only confirmed my fascination with this topic and spiritual warfare and things of that nature. Now, before, I looked at these things from a more worldly and occultic perspective. I look at them now from a biblical perspective, as you do here as well. And so the first thing I guess is how much of a role does the supernatural still play? Right. I think of my buddy Brad Stein's joke, all right? Catholics see Mary everywhere and Protestants see the devil everywhere. Okay. Right. And we see. So we see the supernatural in either case, everywhere. Right? Okay. And so how much. But you know, you have the cs, the classic CS Lewis warning, don't be a materialist or a magician. Right. And what I think that when I watched this documentary, it was clear you kind of went into this with, I'm open, but, you know, I'm going to need more than theatrics. Right. I need some truth.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I wanted proof. I mean, my thing. I've been a Christian my whole life and I've always believed in all this. I hadn't really experienced much of it until I got into my 30s.

[B]

Right.

[C]

I hadn't seen things, I hadn't looked to see things. And so I'm very skeptical, even though I'm a believer. And so I went into every case and I was like, okay, you need to prove this to me. If you're telling me you had this near death experience, you saw an angel, you dealt with a demonic entity, what does that actually mean? Give me evidence. And what was so interesting to me is how much evidence is out there. So when you ask that question, how much of this is still going on? I love the way you framed it because there, there's two camps, right? Unfortunately. And one camp is there's a demon under every rock. The other camp is, we don't ever want to talk about this. Let's pretend it's not happening, and we'll just say we believe it, but we won't actually do anything that shows we understand biblically what is happening in the world around us. You know, our friend Charlie Kirk being murdered. I mean, there's a million events we can look at in the last year that we could say that was evil. Right. We can see true evil in the, in the news every day. We also see these struggles in our own lives. And so that's a great question. Of how much of it is still happening. I think Ephesians 6 gives us the answer, right? The truth is in the middle. And that truth, I mean, being in the middle, is that we are in a battle. You've got good, you've got evil, and it's pouring over and all of us are sort of consumed with the us versus them. And there are times that we need to do us versus them, don't get me wrong. But we have to understand that, that what is actually happening is spiritual and it's way deeper. And you know this better than anyone, that a lot of what we're fighting about politically and socially and culturally is actually rooted in the demonic realm and the battle between good and evil. And we are just sort of in that. And so we're in a battle. We've got to understand that and we've got to navigate it without seeing a demon under every rock, while also realizing there are a lot of demons roaming and impacting things.

[B]

When I first broke into this because I've always wanted a biblical worldview to be the, you know, the bulwark of the show, essentially. And so I wanted to define things in spiritual terms. And so when I first started doing this, this was going to be my 20th year working full time in politics and political media. I used a term that people had not heard a lot in recent era, in the recent era, and that's pagan. And I describe things that are either biblical or Judeo Christian or whatever framework you want to call it. And then what is pagan? What is foreign to that? And I would say things like, pardon me, the new progressivism is really just the old paganism. It's just taking us back the pre Christian understanding of the world. Now I'm using a term that I never thought I would use when I broke into this, and that was considered like really edgy 20 years ago. And I even had other believers that were. That had experienced the success I hoped I would one day have, telling me, you can't use that word pagan and stuff. That's too heavy. And now I just flat out call literal policies demonic. And the way that I draw this distinction, Billy, to me, human sinfulness is when we take the natural desires, instincts, gifts, skills, ambitions that God has placed in us and we exploit them beyond the parameters and the guidelines that God has given us for those things. All right, the demonic is when we deny those things. So the sinful is when we say to God, hey, thanks for the gifts, thanks for the desires, thanks for the ambitions, thanks for the talents. But I think I'm going to follow my own rules here and what to do with these things. Right? I'm going to, I'm not going to wait. I'm going to have sex outside of marriage. I'm going to go from success to materialism. Right. And greed. Okay? The demonic is. When we now deny those things. The demonic is. I'm not going to ask a girl out at all. She could tell me no. So I'm just going to, you know, troll only fans. The demonic is I'm not going to use any of my talents or skills. I may fail and who knows? And I'll just get on a government subsidy and do UBI and just live in mom's basement and turn Mountain Dew Code Red into a food group. It's when we take those things now and we deny them, we become ingrates. We act against the way we are naturally created. We invert those things. And I see a lot of physical manifestations of this, of demonic phenomena in what trends in our culture today and even what we see in terms of the public policy debates we're having right now.

[C]

Absolutely. I mean, this is to understand. You can't understand anything. And this is what's so dangerous about certain facets of the church right now, right? When we don't. I used to be more concerned with the demon under every rock, people. And I, and I still am. I have concerns there because it's just bad theology. It's like sometimes you just did something stupid and you're paying the price for it, right? You use your free will to do something stupid. But I'm more concerned with the people who don't want to talk about this because not only are we setting people up on an individualized level to be like, hey, you're in a battle, you don't know you're in it, so good luck winning it. You can't win a battle you don't know you're in. But culturally and politically, how do you understand anything that's going on policy wise, anything that's happening if you don't Understand what Ephesians 6 says, if you don't understand that there are powers and principalities and there is evil and good, and we can talk about the good part too, you know, and, and this. We know the battle is going to be won. We know that Jesus already won it, but we're still in it. And I think even the way we read the Bible. I'd love to get your take on this. When I, when I look at the Bible, I have traditionally read it as Though, even though I know there's prophecy in it, I've read it as though it's a book that is already done looking in the past. And my mind, the last two years, I've totally shifted as I've gone through the Bible a number of times now. And I'm like, wait, we're still in it. We're reading a book that is still happening and parts of it have not happened yet. And so to what you were saying, to understand the evil that is going on in public policy among certain political groups, you have to understand that battle. And I think we are not equipping people to understand it. And I would also say the thing that's really opened my eyes with all of this, the Miracles documentary and now. And if people are interested in this documentary investigating the supernatural, angels and demons, they can go to cbn.com supernatural and watch it there.

[A]

But.

[C]

But when, when I started getting into this, I realized I was like, wow, you know, this is an apologetics tool. All of this supernatural, you know, commentary and conversation is actually an apologetics tool. You have a lot of young people looking for answers right now because they've been lied to. And they're realizing, oh, no, Gen Z is like, wait, we've been lied to. Relativism doesn't work. We can't make our own rules up. All of this stuff is nonsense. And we've been left alone, destitute, suicidal, you know, depressed, addicted to our phones, addicted to pornography. Go down the list. And we're looking for the truth. And that is why young people are flocking to the truth. And we're seeing that the supernatural actually provides evidence. And that was sort of our goal here. Is there evidence? We're gonna provide it for you. We're gonna show it to you. We've got reenactments. We present it all to you. You make a decision. But I. I've actually reframed my mind to see a lot of this as a form of apologetics for not just young people, but for all people.

[B]

Completely agree and listen. All of us have desires. We have nerve centers in our loins. We understand why our parents and grandparents wanted a sexual revolution and to break free of that, to get those dopamine hits more often than they thought they could otherwise have. Now, there were disastrous consequences for breaking through those guardrails, that God who placed those nerve endings in the body. There were disastrous consequences for breaking through those things. But as fellow sinners, we can understand why that temptation exists. There is no. There's no net. There's no net dopamine hit nothing. It's nihilism to what we're doing with gender, for example. Right. Nobody's benefiting from this now. You're looking at lawsuits coming against medical providers that have been conducting these. Lives have been destroyed. There's no net benefit. It's darkness personified. It's pure nihilism. That to me is a clear example of the sexual revolution. Was sinfulness given a policy manifestation? No, no. We're going to do with these nerve centers what we want, not what God says anymore. Now how we've now descended into the next realm. That's just pure nihilism. There's nobody's even, even sinful temptations are being satiated by what we're doing with this. It's just darkness personified.

[C]

Well, you know who is benefiting from it? The enemy. Satan. Right. I think for the Christian, because you know, the Bible and a few years ago I wrote a book you had me on to talk about it, Playing with Fire. That was the first time I looked at only the parts of the Bible that talked about evil and only the, you know, just isolating it and looking at it. And it's so clear that the Bible says, you know, Satan comes to kill, steal, destroy and confuse. And everything about that issue, that gender issue, is killing, stealing, destroying and confusing. And so you see the hallmarks of it. There are very few issues, I think abortion, the gender issue, where you can see every single hallmark of the enemy. And on that issue you can. And the deceitfulness. And then so many people being roped into that and feeling like they had to be silenced and not telling the truth to, you know, preserve people's emotions. All of that was so. Has been so toxic, but it's beyond anything else we've really seen before. And I think a lot of people, and this is why this is a moment to be talking about angels and demons and all this. A lot of people woke up and they really woke up and realized this is even people. I have people contacting me who are not Christians, they are not conservatives and they are horrified by the gender issue. And so it's just one of those moments. And it's a rare thing that you get this where everybody kind of says, okay, this was evil, and then you can start having the conversation, well, what is evil and how does it affect us? And I think that issue shows from a 30,000 foot level, if we are lazy and we are stupid and we are not doing what we're supposed to be doing, not just as human beings but as a church, and we've allowed this to happen, then we've got to recalibrate. But we've got a real opportunity then to also reach people. And you've been a huge voice in doing that.

[B]

All right, we got about three minutes here, and I don't want to spoil it because, folks, you are going to want to see this. It's really compelling. There are two stories in particular that are wild and blew my mind. I'm going to save one, so I don't spoil them both. Okay, and let's go to the. Let's go to the one with Hugh Ross. All right. Who is kind of known as an intelligent design, old earth creationist guy. He's done scientific apologetics all over the world. The story that he told about going in to the old Soviet Union and just how deeply embedded in a cultic practice openly into their own. Into their own understanding of the world, in public policy. That. Wow, that, man, that part of your thing blew my mind when I watched that.

[C]

Yeah, he. You know, it was so interesting hearing him tell the story because, you know, I didn't know. I didn't know the whole history of them relying in the USSR on, you know, occult science to try to build their military. And this is something that, you know, they were very engaged in. And a lot of people might dismiss that and say, oh, it's fringe. Well, guess what? You're opening all sorts of demonic doors. And so when Hugh Ross went to go and speak, and it's interesting that he was even invited to go and speak, the minute he starts talking, he's got this full room of, you know, military personnel and professionals in the ussr.

[A]

They.

[C]

They literally all start manifesting. It's demonic. They're manifesting. And he wasn't even able to get through his speech. And so the way he tells the story, there's a friend that he has come in with him and sit in the back of the room the next day. So he's like, I gotta stop. I can't do this. He leaves. This friend comes. Comes with him the second day and sits in the back of the room and prays against all of that. And he was able to actually get through and speak to them and share the gospel and share the truth.

[A]

But it's.

[C]

But it was so in the way that we actually visualize and show it. It's exactly how it unfolded, and it blew my mind hearing it. And then when we did the reenactments, I thought, man, this is. And it's. Stories like that, though, that so many people around the world have had experience with. And so there's evidence for it. We can corroborate it. And it sounds crazy and yet I think the natural intrigue and I know we have to go in a minute here, but what you said before, I just want to bounce back to this. Before you were a believer, you had an interest in this. It wasn't a healthy interest, but it was an interest in this topic. Most people do because it's a human, common human experience. Right. Dealing with the spiritual realm. And so my hope is that people on either side, whether they're believers or skeptics, will watch this and start asking some important questions.

[B]

All right, the documentary is out now. That's just. There's a few wild stories. There's two that were my favorite. I spoiled one. I'm not going to spoil the other one. All right. But it, it deals with the demonic possession and this one is absolutely wild. Okay, you have to see. So, Billy, how can people go and see your documentary here? We've got about 40 seconds left.

[C]

Cbn.com forward/supernatural. You can donate any amount. So it's not a fixed amount. Give whatever you want and you can stream it today [e-mail] supernatural and again,

[B]

I mean, Billy's last installment just won the movie guide award for best documentary. Up against some pretty stiff competition. I saw that when it was good. This one is even better. This one is even better. You absolutely want to see this again? Get that address one more time, Billy.

[C]

Cbn.com forward/supernatural.

[B]

All right. Great work, my friend. All right.

[C]

Appreciate it so much.

[B]

Thank you. Yeah, you guys absolutely want to see this thing. It's wild. Wild. And the other, there's several stories. But then the, the second one that was my favorite in here, dealing with the demonic possession. Wild. I mean, it's very compelling. Back in a moment. All right, Back here with hour two, live and on demand on Blaze tv, radio and podcast. I'm Steve Dase. He's Todd erzin. He's Aaron McIntyre. You can let us know who you are and what you think about what we think by emailing the show. Steve dace.com that's D E A C E. Like it's on Facebook. Me, we and Gab. You can follow me at steveday show on X Instagram and tick tock. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at Day show on YouTube. That's at Day show on YouTube. Aaron, I did look at your YouTube memo. Did I? And did I. I sent you a quick reply back Did I not read it properly?

[A]

You did not read it properly.

[B]

I did not.

[A]

Yeah, I think you were. You were still in a very bad headspace.

[B]

Okay, I was. Because what I saw was we essentially have to contrive a crisis every single day is what we have to do.

[A]

No, it's just driving news cycles like crises. Ever since November, basically our YouTube channel has been on the uptick. But especially the last three months, it seems like. And what helps is that the Blaze has given us an individual who is clipping a lot of our show. That's like almost a part time job. I think that's helping as well.

[B]

Good.

[A]

But I think, I think objectively what I sent to you was good.

[B]

Oh, the trend line was good.

[A]

We're not. Have we, have we been contriving anything over the last three. Three months?

[B]

No, I. But I mean, I'm willing to.

[A]

Okay, well, there's the eye of the tiger right there. He's back.

[B]

Forget all that high minded talk last hour. I'm totally willing to just contrive. If you need me to, just tell me. We'll contrive for food. In fact, that's our new show motto, Will contrive for food. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel, ayshow, and then again hit subscribe. Or if you're on Apple itunes, follow. And then you make sure every single time we drop a new episode of this podcast, it's in your podcast feed every single time. And leave us a five star review as many of you have. Thank you guys for that. But this last week, tens of thousands of you have. So let's keep those going this barrel. Almost a week ago, we lost tens of thousands of subscribers without any guarantee we were ever going to get them back. Now, YouTube or. I'm sorry, now Apple is telling me my show is more popular than Oprah Winfrey's podcast. I have no idea what's true. See, except this. I know that if you get it directly from us, you don't have to worry about any of this stuff. Okay? So if you subscribe to BlazeTV, use the promo code DACE to get $20 off your annual subscription, then you don't have to wonder, hey, is there a spot glitch next? And we just went up on Spotify with video as well for Spotify subscribers, so you get that too. Okay, but is there a Spotify glitch? What else will glitch out next? Don't have to worry about any of that if you just come right to us and get the [e-mail] dace as well as all the other exclusive content we do for subscribers there every day at BlazeTV. BlazeTV.com DACE use the code DACE. You'll get $20 off your annual subscription at BlazeTV.com DACE and also if you use my code Steve over at patriotmobile.com, you'll get started with a free month of service as well. And why do you want to do that? Because they're my. Our family's a mobile service provider and they have been now for almost six years. Exactly. And we've never looked back. Outstanding customer service team us based. Which means you can understand when they speak, they've got all the bells and whistles of the communist company out there without any of the communism. And they take what they invest, what you invest in them and reinvest it back into the values that you guys have in common. All right, make the switch today. Keep your number. Switch your number. Keep your phone. Upgrade your phone. Maybe you're locked in to a terrible deal with a communist company. They've got contract buyouts as well. Use the code DACE to get started today. Patreonmobile.com Steve I meant not DACE Steve. Patriotmobile.com Steve and use the promo code Steve to get started with a free month of Service [e-mail] Steve Code Steve. All right, let's get to fake news or not. We're going to spend an hour on this today and Todd and Aaron do not know what's coming. Normally I let them and have them do this to me, but this week I'm going to do this to them. I have 10 statements that have been said, perpetuated, popular, popularized by major blue check mark people on X and social media platforms and their followings, including within our own, I guess now bigger than Oprah fan base. I'm going to play that card until I can't. All right, so which is probably like another 24 hours, frankly. So you guys ready to go?

[A]

You bet.

[D]

Think so.

[B]

All right, you guys have not seen any of these, right? You'll verify that you have no idea what is coming?

[D]

None.

[B]

All right, all right. There's 10 of these and I put them in a certain order on purpose. They're not randomly ordered either. You should realize that too. All right, all right, number one. And Aaron just has no graphics because I didn't want him to to know what was coming. All right, number one. The current podcaster wars represent the broad division that exists on the right.

[A]

Fake news.

[B]

All right, fake news. Aaron Go.

[A]

Well, right now, the podcaster war controversy du jour is the Iran war. And you look at the Republican approval so far, it's like 80, 20 approve, with more than half of those saying that this thing is going very well. That's the latest poll that I saw. So it's, it's fake news, Total news.

[D]

I'd say there's enough there that I'll say true news is counter programming it. I mean it is the. We've come on this show to realize that X isn't real life is not accurate. It drives a lot of the narratives and the obsessions of lot a lot of the intelligentsia and it defines way too many of our terms. It defines our psychology, which is why I've told you why I'm so stubborn about going after anons. So I think there's enough there that I'll say that's true news.

[B]

Can I ask a follow up question that I didn't write down, but I was going to save it based on whether or not you guys answered the way that you did, which is a split answer. Okay. Is it possible, going to your polling data, Aaron, that I've also seen, is it possible that the, the podcaster wars over the Iran war are those that are dissenting online just represent that 20%? And one of the reasons why they may. There's a couple of reasons, like I saw this analysis this morning of the libertarian comic Dave Smith, 90% of his engagement on his anti war postar from accounts outside of the U.S. for example. Okay, so there's an element of that. But is it also possible because there's only a few high profile ones, Megan Tucker, that they're kind of consolidating that entire 20%, you know what I'm saying? There's not nearly the competition for that audience that there is for people that are representing at least a supportive view or a willing to be. I would call our view on our show at least my view, because that's not my name on it. I'm willing to be convinced. All right? Skeptical, but willing to be convinced is kind of how I would define my view of all this. But maybe it's just the numbers don't they do reconcile and that they just represent that 20%. And there's a handful of these podcasters that have kind of consolidated that audience,

[A]

maybe listen, because 20% is still hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. So I'd be fine conceding that.

[B]

All right. You okay with that, Todd?

[D]

Sure. Okay.

[B]

Number two, that one went way faster than I thought it was going to go all right. Number two, the current podcaster wars are driven more by seeking clicks and engagement than principle, fake news or not. Todd, you go first this time.

[D]

I think that's fake news. I think there's certainly an appetite for going after clicks. But I, I think this being, being too smart by half is, is very much a principle in and of itself. And we become addicted to not having a Socratic dialogue, but playing king of the mountain and making sure, uh, that everybody is, uh, looking, uh, at us and telling us how pretty we are, uh, at the end. But they're doing it. Listen, arguments are being made, very bad, very sloppily using AI. But there, and there's been a cost to them. I don't think this is merely about getting clicks at all.

[A]

I'm going to say it just, it depends on, depends on whom you're asking about. I think this is on a case by case basis. I think that there are some times where Tucker Carlson, I think most of the time actually Tucker Carlson believes himself to be extremely genuine. I'm not sure. Again, I, again, I don't know all. I'm not God, I don't know all of these people's motivations. If you put a gun to my head and said, hey, Megyn Kelly, you know, what are her motivations for this? What are, you know, with her? I just say it's something like that, kind of catching which way the breeze is blowing in terms of clicks and views and things of that nature. But I just have to take this on a case by case basis. If you're talking about the kind of, I don't even know. You can't group all of these people on one side or the other either. So it's just, it has to be on a case by case basis. I think clicks when it comes to Candace Owens, that's all she cares about. Clicks and views. When it comes to Megyn Kelly, I don't know. Up until very least recently, I kind of like Megyn Kelly. She seemed to be on a trajectory that was, at least in the era of Trump, politically. Not worldview wise, but politically kind of similar to my own in the Trump era. I kind of liked her up until recently. So I just don't know. So I don't know if that's a cop out. Do I need to hug Lindsey Graham now or something like that. But this is too broad a question that I think deserves maybe more nuanced an answer, which I'd love to answer. If you want to do, follow ups.

[B]

All right, let's do a quick follow up and we'll start with Lindsey Graham. All of Lindsey Graham's life was pointing to this one shining moment of finding out the new Iranian leader may be a homosexual. Fake news or not,

[A]

this is fake news. This has been a roller coaster for Lindsey Graham. An absolutely emotional wreck right now. Roller coaster. I mean, he was on a fricking bender when we started dropping bombs on Iran. He wanted to invade every single Middle Eastern country. And now come to find out he could have had a happy ending with Mataba Khomeini. Now he's conflict. Put yourself in his. Don't do that. He could have. He's conflicted right now. I kind of feel bad for him in a weird way.

[B]

This one wasn't on my list, by the way. This is another just add lived follow up here.

[D]

You know how Desantis sent that, like, refugee plane to Israel to get people out of there a while back? You think Lindsey Graham sent a plane to try to get this guy out of Iran?

[B]

I have seen sometimes in my for you feed trying to send me content. Some of the right wing female thirst traps out there will show up in my for you feed on immigration and they'll hold up signs of like, hot illegal aliens that are about to be deported and, or pictures and they'll say, it's okay, nines can stay. Have you guys seen any of that nines can stay? Stuff like that? Okay, that's Lindsey Graham right now finding out this guy is a homo. Listen, we've got our. He's got. He gets to be evacuated. He gets to come over. Right? But everybody else, screw you. Yeah, no, let's. All right, let's be serious for a second. And I meant to say this at the stop, at this at the start. No, not that there usually is on this show at all that much, you know, provided we can back it up, you know, but because of the subject matter that we're going to be discussing here, by all means. There are no sacred cows here. You guys are welcome to say whatever you want to say about whoever comes up naturally in the conversation. Like Aaron, you just did with your impressions of Megyn Kelly, for example. I don't think we can make this a constructive conversation if we self edit, you know, beyond. Are we going to slander, you know, obvious stuff, you know, bear false witness that God says not to do. Right. So short of what God says not to do here, in order for this conversation, I think to be constructive, there's not a restrictor plate, a restraining bolt on any of this. Okay. So you guys feel free to be as blunt as you're comfortable owning later on on these conversations and what you said about Tucker, I 100% agree with Aaron. I 100% agree that Tucker believes that he is being genuine and sincere, that he sincerely believes Israel's an evil country. He sincerely believes Bibi Netanyahu is a hub of evil in the world and sincerely believes we'd be better off aligned with Islam. I 100% believe that he believes that. Not just because of what I know of him, but what he's revealed to me of what he really thinks. I 100% believe that he thinks this. I 100% believe. On the other end, you know, Mark Levinas swam against the entire tide of what's been going, of what's been the algorithm approved for the last couple of years here on this anti Semitism, anti Israel stuff. 100% believe in the sincerity of what he is saying. I'm not drawing a moral equivalency between either man's positions on the matter. I'm just saying my read as someone who knows them both at least a little bit, is that I think in both cases, both these men view themselves as sincere crusaders of history. In both cases. Is that thoughts on that?

[D]

Yeah, I, with, with those two men in particular, I, I think by and large that's true. I don't think, I don't think it's airtight. The, the argument about Tucker that you've made many times not needing the money is, is true. That's a reasonable take. But I also think that when you talk about the Islamic angle of this and now all of the money that they have and they are their own version of China kind of westernizing and having. Trying to have both at the same time. Listen, I just think it does beg the question about whether Tucker needs the money or not. Is just such sloppy, insane money being thrown around that. Is that part of the reason that he's going down this road because it pays well?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Go ahead, Aaron.

[A]

I generally agree with your assessment of those that you just pointed out specifically.

[B]

Okay, one last serious quick follow up. Taking Candace off the board. Whom do you guys view as insincere? Whom do you view as just doing is just running a grift? Candace is the automatic. Although I would say it's a satanic grift. But if we take Candace off the board, who else would you guys say that your view is? Looking at what's going on and their motivations.

[A]

You don't trust it right now, I don't trust Megyn Kelly.

[D]

Okay, I'll say always take care of your own tribe first if you can. I'm Catholic. This whole Carrie projean Bowler thing is totally made up. It does forget the actual argument being made, whether it's AI or somebody else doing it, for this is obviously an op.

[B]

All right, number three, fake news or not, the CIA went through Tucker Carlson's emails and referred him to the Department of Justice.

[A]

I'm going to say fake news on that, though. Either answer is very, very concerning. So if you believe that Tucker Carlson, if you believe that the CIA did not go through Tucker Carlson's texts and referred him to the doj, what you're saying is that Tucker Carlson completely made that up. Okay. Now, he might have sincerely believed that for one reason or another. Again, it's very chaotic. And then he also dropped this in that video as well. Hey, I was talking to people inside Iran before the war. Which people? Now you're putting the DOJ in a very uncomfortable position. You've got somebody admitting out loud a journalist with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of listeners and viewers that they were talking to somebody, somebodies within Iran. And this happens to be a journalist that made multiple trips to the White House in recent months. So it's very bizarre. It's very odd. However, I would not put it past. Even though he is independently wealthy, Tucker Carlson is, or at least we think so, and we don't have any indication that he's not. I mean, I think his wife is a part of a big empire or empress to a huge business family. So he's got no money problems. Is this all just, again, principle for him? His own weird set of principles that I'm not doing this for the money. I genuinely believe cozying up to Qatar and maybe even the Iranians is the right thing to do. It might be, but I don't think there's enough evidence right now, outside of Tucker's word, which I don't think is very good right now. I don't think there's enough evidence outside of his word that the CIA went through his texts and referred him to the doj.

[B]

Todd, what do you think?

[D]

Well, at least the part about the CIA going through his texts, whether. Whether or not they've been referred to the doj, I don't know, but I find that plausible only because the CIA is probably going through a lot of our texts, really, which. Which isn't a good thing. But then when you enter the realm of whatcha doin, Tucker Carlson which isn't even like, even he, if he's just sober enough, he's got to realize, you know, this is, and I think he likes that part of it. He take, Tucker likes to be iconoclastic in his own way. You know, he did kind of pull off his own Donald Trump act, career wise wunderkind, kind of lost his way in the middle now ascendant. And now whatever this Howard Hughes act is going on. So, yeah, I don't think it would be shocking at all if the CIA is asking questions.

[B]

Number four. Now, the next few are follow ups, which is why I don't have a follow up to that one. Number four, Trump planted false information on Tucker Carlson during his recent White House appearances to deceive Iran since he knew Tucker was leaking to the Iranians. Fake news or not.

[A]

Well, I have to say fake news because I think, because I said fake news on whether or not the CIA went through Tucker's texts. But holy cow, God's anointed, man. God's anointed. When it comes to Trump. If that is true, it's just, I mean, mind blowing. If that was true. Mind blowing. Now, if it was true, do you think we'd ever hear the truth, at least in our lifetimes?

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

But mind blowing, I mean, that is a level of Machiavellian maneuvering that you just can't, you just can't contrive on your own. That'd be incredible if that happened. I don't think it did, but that would be incredible.

[B]

You have to think over the years that doing all these high finance deals in Manhattan and all over the world, Trump knows what a gadfly is, knows somebody can't keep their trap shut. I mean, you know, I've done this several times in my own career. I have, I have said things to people that were in private, but since I knew they were going to spread rumors and stuff about me anyway, I just told them what I wanted them to know. Figured if they're going to talk about me, might as well say, right. What I want to be said since I can't stop them from talking. Right. That's. So that's essentially what it's being claimed, Todd, that by some that was perpetuating this weekend as well, in response to the, the whole CIA Tucker story, that maybe that's why Trump had Tucker to the White House. What was it three times, I think here in the last couple of months.

[D]

I absolutely wish that were true. But I'm going to have to say fake news. If that level of shrewdness were in play, the save act would have been passed already. Because you can use that.

[B]

I think that's a good take, too.

[D]

You can use that same level of leverage against all of these fools if you want to, and we should, but we're not, at least as far as we know.

[B]

All right, number five, Tucker Carlson is an unregistered foreign agent, fake news or not. Todd, you take this one first.

[D]

I think there is enough prima facie evidence that that's a legitimate question that could be asked of Tucker Carlson.

[A]

The laws pertaining to foreign agents, as I understand, are purposefully so vague what actually accounts for a foreign agent. The definition of that is so vague that I think this is absolutely not fake news. I mean, saying that you have a property in Doha or Qatar, I think that's what. But didn't Tucker Carlson say that at one point that he wants to buy a house there or something like that?

[B]

Yes, he was going to buy some property there.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

So when CNN is granted access by the Iranian regime, I think we all recognize that they're not going to show, like, you know, legitimate casualty counts and how much of their missile banks have actually been obliterated. Right, right. That they're inviting CNN in because they're suspecting they're going to get favorable to their narrative coverage. Would that make CNN an unregistered foreign agent? I guess what I'm asking is what's. What's the line between I'm, I'm a. I'm just a journalistic douchebag and I'm a foreign agent. Right. What's the line there? That's what I'm asking.

[A]

Well, if it's. Yeah. Money, if it's verifiable that you passed information that the average journalist or that any journalist would not be privy to or have access to, you pass that along to decision makers.

[B]

Okay, That's a good decision. Conduit for propaganda is not an unregistered foreign agent. Without question, Tucker has been a conduit for propaganda.

[A]

But if you're a conduit for privileged information, then, yeah, I mean, that's espionage.

[B]

All right, so if you're doing privileged information in one direction, then you are an unregistered foreign agent. Or if you're lobbying their interest on their behalf, then you are, in your view. But if you're just a conduit for propaganda that fits your own bias, then you would not be an unregistered foreign agent.

[A]

Is that what you would say? If you're a conduit for propaganda, but you're also being paid for it, then I still think you could be considered a foreign agent. If you're a conduit for propaganda and you're not being paid for it, then you're just exercising your First Amendment rights.

[B]

Okay, what do you think? Top of that distinction. You okay with it or you want to, you want to, you want to amend it?

[D]

No, there's, there's no need to amend it. I'm good.

[B]

Okay. All right. All right. And then number six. Tucker Carlson sincerely believes that he has the influence to completely reshape American foreign policy.

[D]

Bye. Which is why I think he may end up running for President of the United States. States, as I've said several weeks back.

[B]

So it's not fake news, is what

[D]

you're saying, because I think you said, sorry, yeah, not fake news. And listen, it's all of us, including this show. I mean, this, we've been down this road with David French, and this is that on a million times more consequential of many people we're talking about Instead of Trump 2.0, Tucker running for president of the United States. And I mean. And would have, without thinking, voted for him. So listen, hubris, hell of a drug man. And right now, he really does think that, I mean, the Donald Trump line, you know, only I can solve. I mean, he's personified that way more than Donald Trump has.

[A]

Aaron, I think Tucker Carlson may be a lot of things. I think he may take some really dumb and retarded positions on things. He might espouse some really dumb, retarded, and maybe even evil things. What I don't think is that he is unintelligent. I don't think he's an unintelligent person.

[D]

Agreed.

[A]

An unintelligent person would continue to go as hard against the prevailing wisdom of foreign policy, knowing that they had no idea or no inkling or no influence on how to influence said foreign policy. An intelligent person, if they think that they have that sort of influence, goes as hard as he has gone against the prevailing wisdom of foreign policy. You catch my distinction there? He's not an idiot. An idiot lacks self awareness. Now, an intelligent person may not have an accurate view of self awareness, may not have an accurate view of the self. He may not actually have the influence that he thinks he does. But if he thinks he has that kind of influence, then, yeah, why wouldn't you go as hard as he's gone on, you know, going against, as I said, the common wisdom when it comes to foreign policy, particularly on the case of Israel. So I think this is absolutely not fake news.

[B]

You just, I'm sorry, Todd. You opened a loop and we got two minutes here. We need you to close this. You invoked the name of David French in relationship to Tucker Carlson. You've got to clarify that for people because that's a grenade with a pinpole right there. Briefly, what's the comparison to you?

[D]

Well, David French also, as at one point before. Well, no, I mean at the beginning of Never Trump but was talking about running for president of the United States. David French was one of the leading lights of the conservative movement at the time. I mean he was one of the, one of the must reads. He was viewed in many corners as a man of genuine principle, not only in word but in deed. Becoming a JAG officer, if memory serves. But then like just absolutely fell into this hubristic nonsense where it was simply against, I mean it was simply against windmills perpetually that would he be fighting and he to the point where he became. I have, I must defend Drag Queen's story hours a blessing of liberty. But he was never the threat and the fault line that Tucker Carlson has become. And I think Tucker Carlson's potential to cause havoc in a presidential election is far more provocative than David French. But this whole Israel is utterly evil is very much in line with Drag Queen story hour as a blessing of liberty. It's not that you don't have to defend it in any knee jerk reaction or defend it at all. But I mean, this is upside down territory.

[B]

All right, we have four questions left. We're going to get to those when we come back on fake news or not here on the Blaze. Stay tuned. The steve day show. All right, back here on the Steve Day show. You know, about 20% of the world's worst oil supply goes to that Strait of Hormuz right there. That's a tipping point right now in Operation Epic Fury. And that is a big deal in terms of what that could do to also escalate prices for that oil that we were hoping was going to help us ship, ship a lot of those goods and products that we're buying. So. Oh, by the way, among those products and goods could be medicines. That's why again, want to make sure that you've got all the backups you need from our friends over at Jace, their Jace case. 10 essential antibiotics and emergency medications. They're prescribed to you online, shipped to your door so you're ready before you even need them. You're ready for the next time that could never Happen here happens here yet again. All right. The Jace Daily can provide up to a 12 month supply of your everyday medications as well. So you've got that peace of mind too. You can even put the verboten yet Nobel prize winning drug Ivermectin among your customizable options as well with the Jace case. So you're not sweating out supply chain issues or natural disasters. You are prepared with our friends at Jace. So enter the promo code DACE at checkout for a discount on your order. That's promo code D E A C E- A S E.com promo code dacease.com again, promo code dacease.com all right, back here with a full hour of fake news or not. And this time I'm putting Todd and Aaron on the spot to get their takes on things that are being much discussed and bandied about within the the American online right at the moment. All right, we're at number seven. All right, we have four more of these to go. Tucker Carlson is an anti Semite, fake news or not?

[A]

Not. Okay. If you're going to go on and platform, positively platform Nick Fuentes and you are truly an anti Semite, why would you go to the trouble multiple times during that interview? I would have loved to see him go a little bit harder, a lot harder. But why would you have gone to the trouble multiple times in that interview if you are truly an anti Semite to try to correct Nick Fuentes on his overt anti Semitism, Why would you go to the trouble about that? I don't think he's to the extent that he's very intelligent, as I said at the end of last segment. He's also very sloppy a lot of the times because he's new at a lot of these things when it comes to the intersection of modern Israel, Christian theology and some segments of eschatology. He's very new at this. So he's very sloppy at times with some of this. I don't believe he's an anti Semite though. So I think that would be fake news.

[B]

Todd.

[D]

Yeah, I, I agree. I don't think he is an anti Semit. I mean in effect in many ways that's how it carries out. But we, we have unfortunately a rich trove of nonsense that we can mine online and all there is real Jew hate out there and I see how it manifests itself directly and that's not yet at least what Tucker is doing it. I think Aaron perfectly surmised what he's doing it. It's he's new and he's sloppy at this. And this is why, you know, the lone gunman with scripture. I mean, by all means, dive in. It's, it's the best place to start and quite frankly the only place to start in terms of getting your turned around. But there's a lot, all those last demons inside you are reading it too at the same time and then they start pushing your buttons and Tucker's buttons are getting pushed.

[B]

As a follow up question, how is someone, how can someone be an anti Zionist and not be an anti Semite?

[A]

Using the unbastardized definition of Zionism that we discussed I think a couple of times in recent weeks, which is the belief that the Jewish people have an historical and moral claim to the spit of land we call Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean. If we're using that as the definition of Zionism, then yes, anti Zionism is antisemitism. If we're using the bastardized version of Zionism, which is the belief that whether or not you're an evangelical Christian or a Jews Jew or an Israeli Israeli, and you believe that in Israeli nationalism above all else, in Israel's interests above all else, if you believe that to be the definition of Zionism, which it's not, it's the bastardized version. But if you believe that to be the definition of Zionism, then yes, anti Zionism is not anti Semitism, but you're mixing up terms and intentionally using a bastardized term.

[D]

Well, this is a huge problem. There's many, way too many Christians have way too many different definitions of what Zionism is. I mean, if being a Zionist is that this iteration of Israel is the exact same thing as every other iteration of Israel, then I'm anti, I mean a prophetic nation. Yes. Then I'm anti Zionist. I'm not anti Semitic. So there it is.

[B]

Correct. We've got a. And I would even grant prior to the formation of the nation of Israel, you absolutely could believe that you can have valid reasons for why you think reconstituting a nation of Israel, given how that region had been completely overrun by Islamists and everything else, was maybe not the most prudent idea from a geopolitical standpoint. Well, what are you going to do then with all the people that are living there? Right. What about 2 million Muslims living in, in Israel? I think it's 1.75.

[A]

80 years into this. Right. Close to 80 years into this.

[B]

But now that there's a nation there, how do you draw that distinction? That's what I don't Understand. Right.

[D]

Agreed.

[B]

Is that what you're going to say?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. Like you say, Todd. I mean, there is a nation of Israel now, so.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, cool. So what? So what are we going to do with the N. With the 9 million Jews that live there then? Right. What are you going to do with them? Or 8 million Jews that do? Okay, it's called prudential question now, but flipped on its head.

[D]

It's called prudential judgment. There's no hypocrisy in the Pope at the beginning of the 20th century saying, maybe not such a good idea, guys. And the popes now forget the specific popes and what they have said are dead. But just because of your principle, Steve, it does exist now. We didn't exist. Yeah, we got to deal with that.

[B]

Jews that live there. Yeah. All right. Number eight, President Trump's public support of Mark Levin was a clear and public rebuke of Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, fake news or not.

[D]

That's not fake news. I mean, it's not.

[B]

Okay, explain.

[D]

Well, so it is. I'm saying it is a clear and public rebuke. Yes, yes. Yeah, I totally agree with that. This is, you know, Donald Trump has clearly, whatever happened with having him in the Oval Office and trying to break bread with them, you know, feel, you know, if Donald Trump feels betrayed, I mean, I don't need you. Don't need me. I mean, Steve has had direct interaction, has all kinds of little birdies, you know, you know, he can hold a grudge. And I think, absolutely, this is way of shooting, taking some clear shots across the bow. Absolutely.

[A]

I think he said, anyone who goes against Mark Levin will quickly fall by the wayside. They are not maga. I am maga. I don't know how much clearer you could get than that.

[D]

And I think it's way more like, quite frankly, outcomes. It's way more likely it's that. Than him using. Aligning himself permanently and irrevocably with any specific policy issue that Levin has, because that's not Trump. What Trump is doing here, even if he thinks he's right on this in this particular time, you know, he'll pivot away from Levin or anybody else if he thinks it's time to disagree. He's just fed up with Tucker Carlson.

[B]

Interesting. I saw some folks pointing out, well, Levin didn't support Trump in the 2024 primary. Didn't support him. He supported DeSantis. I don't think Mark made a public endorsement. Maybe he did. I mean, I don't recall That.

[A]

I don't recall that.

[B]

What's that?

[A]

I don't recall Levin supporting DeSantis. I know he was friendly towards him, but I don't recall a public endorsement.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, they're friends. And I think his stepson, if I recall, worked for Governor DeSantis and then supported Cruz in 2016, which. That's true. I remember that. But I find it fascinating now that there are people online that think they're a better judge of who's supportive of Trump. Trump than Trump is. Okay, we can argue whether Trump gets to define MAGA or not. You know, I would argue he does. It's his political brand. Now, America first is an ideological assertion, and we can debate the meaning of that. MAGA is his political brand, though. I mean, he coined it. So, yeah, I mean, he gets to define what that is. Just like Burger King gets to define what have it your way means. Right. Okay. That's their brand. But I find it fascinating that some were claiming, well, actually, Levin hasn't been supportive enough of Trump. So you care more about who is supportive of Trump than Trump apparently does. You know, that's a fascinating phenomenon to me. But, you know who else didn't support Trump in 2016? J.D. vance also didn't support Trump in 2016.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Number nine. Speaking of Vance, the impact of all that, all of this will have on the race for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination is currently overstated, fake news or not.

[A]

This may be the least fake news, least fake news that you've laid out. I'm trying to think. Make sure I got my terminology right there. So this is the least fake. So you're saying it's overstated the amount of impact. So, yeah, this is the least fake news. So this is not as currently.

[B]

As currently assessed. Yes, as currently assessed.

[A]

So, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of other things, a few other things that could impact 28. I don't believe this is one of them. I really don't. I think we've hashed this out. I don't believe a Tucker Carlson Thomas Massie ticket is going anywhere. Can you imagine Tucker Carlson campaigning in Iowa? Can you imagine Tucker Carlson at the world's largest truck stop? Or in Lamars at the Blue Button? I can't. No.

[B]

Or almost anywhere in South Carolina, for example.

[A]

Or anywhere in South Carolina. So I don't see that ticket or a ticket like that going anywhere. I don't see an MTG Massey Carlson ticket going anywhere. Again, that's right. Now, maybe things could change. I just don't see this happening. So, yeah, this is way overstated. And to the degree that it continues over the next year and a half, I still think if it was to this fever pitch in a year and a half, I still don't think it would have that much impact.

[D]

Yeah, I have the opposite take. I'm so glad we're doing this, though, because, I mean, my appreciation for Aaron's instincts on all manner of things are very high. But you know what else we didn't think was going anywhere? Donald Trump coming down that escalator and being on a stage with 16 people and coming out clean on the other side. I just. If I. And I'd be. I'd be lying if I said, yeah, I think he's thinking about running for president and saying that has no consequences on this thing.

[A]

Thing.

[D]

I look at Tucker Carlson Will, if he decides to do this, he's going to go in and he's going to be the equivalent of a guy with C4 strapped to his chests. He's just going to decide that this whole thing needs to get nuked. And I just think if we've learned anything from what's happened since 2016, like, we're. We have to be prepared for anything.

[B]

Now, that's an interesting angle, because you're assuming you. You think that I. I think you think he is serious about running for president. And let me tell you why I don't think he'll ever do it. For all the same reasons. He doesn't put people like me or Jack Hibbs or Joe Rosenberg on his show.

[A]

Yes. The exposure that you're opening yourself up to.

[B]

Correct, correct. That's a jaw.

[A]

Ideologically, if you view yourself as having enough influence on foreign policy that you can actually influence it, and then you run for president and you get like, 3%.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You find out people punch back. And the Mike Huckabee, Tucker Carlson interview, if Huckabee never gets flummoxed to that one moment and says, fine, I guess maybe Israel should have it all, then. If he never says that, that. Who's the clear winner of that discussion?

[D]

The Huckabee.

[B]

Huckabee, clearly. I mean, it's a tko.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, there were no knockouts, but, I mean, he won every round except that one round. He let that slip. He dropped. He dropped his, you know, his arm. He dropped his hands and got. And gave Tucker one good punch right at him. And that's the only. And that's the main high. That's Tucker's really, really his only real highlight, he had some other decent points, but the one highlight he had was Mike way overextending himself there. But remember, Mike doesn't do that. He wins this by tko. That would happen consistently in a presidential campaign. Consistently.

[D]

What if Tucker's goal, though, as I said, is to be an arsonist? He doesn't really care as much about winning as making sure everybody on the right loses.

[B]

Well, then you. Okay then if you're saying that in those cases, he just responds with everything other. You're all just saying these things because you're a Zionist kind of. Meaning that there's no rationale or reasoning. He just goes full. Candace, is that kind of what you're saying? All right, he's just a. He's a jihadist at that point. You're right. That would be very destructive.

[D]

You're kind of. If he decides to go turncoat on what was apparently his friend, I don't know where that is with J.D. vance. That makes things very difficult for J.D. vance.

[B]

All right, let's get to the last one. It's just as unclear how these podcaster wars will ultimately end as it is what happens in Iran if the regime falls, fake news or not.

[A]

Could you restate that?

[B]

Again, it is just as unclear how these podcaster wars will ultimately end as it is what happens in Iran if the regime falls.

[A]

Fake news.

[D]

That's fake news. Yeah, it's more unclear. Well, I think it's more clear in Iran.

[A]

Yes. Yep, that's my read on it as well. I.

[B]

Two words.

[D]

Hawk to a. Yeah, let's.

[A]

You just cannot sustain this level of acute fame and attention forever. It eats away at your soul. It eats away at your credibility. It just doesn't have. You can't sustain it forever.

[D]

Yeah, this is.

[A]

This will end with Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly doing JQ coin on Coinbase and then rug pulling everyone.

[D]

Yes, this is one. This is one world. No, this is one world where this is idolatry and the cost of idolatry. But the smashing is kind of not totally, but self enforcing on this front. The ruination that they're bringing upon their own idols through their idolatry. I mean, it's Gollum worshiping the ring. So, yeah, this is. This is our own destruction. This is. It's a worthy destruction. I hate it. We work in this industry. We come here and we, we. We mean to do far more than clicks and just merely cash a paycheck. It is absolutely missional for us. Which is not to say it's just about clicks or just about money. But it's about a very shallow mission on many fronts and it's, it's, it's ruining what was a genuine political miracle that happened just a little bit more than a year ago.

[B]

All right, we've got a minute left and then I'm going to eject and let you guys do the overtime. All right, fake news or not, this was a constructive exercise for the audience

[A]

this last hour, not fake news.

[D]

Todd yeah, it was not fake news to try it, but as with many things these days, we're going to have to verify. I don't, I don't know, Steve, but it was, it was worth doing.

[B]

Well, hopefully all of you out there that are listening and tuned in and watching you agree and think the same thing thing. Back at it again Tomorrow, noon to 2 Eastern, right after Glenn Beck right here on Blaze TV. Todd and Aaron going to do the overtime. I'm out of here. Until then, go hard. Romans 8:28.