So this is someone who they're saying is undermining their foreign policy because of his raging anti-Semitism. We also know the State Department had actually internally put out a memo about one of the other, the young woman who was disappeared. We also have the video of these masked officers, 5 or 6 of them, [00:00:16] coming and taking her because she wrote a student newspaper op ed. I mean, what do you make of this direction and what it means not just for these students, but for all of us? Yeah. No, that guy sounds like a terrorist to me, right? I mean, it's just so ridiculous. [00:00:35] Yeah. So there you have it. As we said, some staunch Donald Trump supporters, like Dave Smith, who we saw there coming out against Donald Trump following this week's arrests of pro-Palestinian activists. Mohsen Badawi, but would you believe me if I said [00:00:51] that it also includes Charlie Kirk? So something's going on here. Yeah. So, look, Obviously, I took a lot of criticism for even talking to Charlie Kirk and not yelling at him the entire time and trying to find common ground. [00:01:09] So the fact that we have found common ground on this is amazing. And it makes a big difference. We'll talk more about that. But I must admit, I'm surprised that the common ground was on this issue, because Charlie Kirk has had a massive pro-Israel bias his entire career. [00:01:29] So the fact that he apparently is now opposing what Trump is doing is amazing. So let's give you the details of that, and then we'll talk through on whether it's real or not. Real. And does it have an effect and or doesn't it? Yeah. We'll get back to Dave Smith too. But as you said it, you know, avid pro-Israel supporter Kirk is however, [00:01:47] he did shock many people last night criticizing the Trump administration's efforts to deport and imprison critics of Israel. After this video of former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman started making the rounds. A government, the United States government, [00:02:03] or the government of of France, or the government of any other country, has the power to rein in anti-Semitism in a much more effective way. And, you know, people say, well, you know, the governments are not in the business of changing the way people think. That's true. But, you know, to my thinking, most people who are, you know, anti-Semites, [00:02:21] most of these people running around, we're not going to win their hearts and minds because they don't have hearts and they don't have minds. So, you know, how are we going to there's no reason to think we're ever going to convince them, but we can deport them. We can put them in jail. We can make their lives miserable. We can cut off their funding. And that's what the Trump administration is doing for the first time. [00:02:39] So applause there. But that didn't sit well with Charlie Kirk, who posted this on X. No non-Jewish person my age has a longer clear record of support for Israel, sympathy with the Jewish people, or opposition to anti-Semitism than I do. [00:02:55] I regularly refer to anti-Semitism as a is lie from the pit of hell. Because it is. But I have to disagree with Ambassador Friedman here. First amendment, in our strict freedom of speech, is one of America's greatest rights and sets us apart from every other country in the world. [00:03:12] One of the central promises of Trump's 2024 campaign was to restore and protect American freedom of speech. Racism and anti-Semitism, both evil and must be opposed. But government organized around jailing, impoverishing, silencing people based [00:03:29] on racism is what our enemies wanted. If you don't like a person's opinion, that doesn't mean they are an anti-Semite. But once anti-Semitism becomes valid grounds to censor or even imprison somebody, there will be frantic efforts to label all kinds of speech as anti-Semitic. [00:03:46] Not only that, but all of this won't even work. Legal crackdown won't make anti-Semitism go away. In the long run, it would make it worse. America's free speech tradition is our birthright. We should never get rid of it. [00:04:03] For those who follow Charlie Kirk, I don't even know if they. If we didn't tell you who wrote all that, they would believe it was him. Yeah. Isn't. Look, I, I know that people are wedded to their positions, and so they [00:04:22] usually never come off of them, no matter what the overwhelming facts are. So, look, guys, Charlie Kirk has a history that is not pleasant. And we massively disagree with him on many other things. Right. And we all know what he said about black pilots, right? [00:04:37] We all know what he said about MLK day, right? So those things this opinion does not wash away all of those other statements and all of those other positions. Right? At the same time, those other positions don't wash away this agreement [00:04:52] because this agreement is super important. So we have to be able to fight on other issues and, and agree on on things where we could build a effective coalition. And who is Trump more likely to listen to? Me or Charlie Kirk? All of us, or Charlie Kirk, Dave Smith. [00:05:10] And by the way. Breaking news. Steve Bannon. So I'm going to get to Steve Bannon in a second. Okay. So, you know, any rational person knows he's more likely to listen to them. Who's he more likely to listen to. The left wing base or the right wing base. These are not complicated questions. You all know the answer. [00:05:27] So if we can swing the Charlie Kirk's of the world to have this position. That's amazing. That's amazing. Take the win. I'm taking the win. I don't mean for me. I mean in the policy position. Right. And so without if the if these guys had joined in and said, oh, yeah, [00:05:46] round up all of Israel's critics. No, no, freedom of speech is not important. Who cares? Let's cancel them. Right. Then it would have been much, much harder to stop this madness. Now it just got a little easier to stop the madness. It doesn't mean that it's going to stop overnight. It doesn't mean Trump's going to listen to Charlie Kirk or anyone else. [00:06:04] Right? But this is a big step in the right direction, and I'll take those wins. Dave Smith A little bit more complicated. Dave Smith has always been a critic of how Israel is conducting this war. The Israeli government overall. And he voted for Trump and he's a Trump supporter. [00:06:21] And he has positions that are also what we would consider right wing and wouldn't agree with at all. But he he's a complicated and really smart guy. And on foreign policy, a lot of times he agrees with us and he's definitely antiwar. So you see, it's it's a mix of different folks with slightly different opinions. [00:06:40] But coalescing around this idea of no freedom of speech means freedom of speech. And Israel doesn't get to take that away and start arresting and deporting people because they criticize Israel. And in the case of the people that have been arrested so far, it's crystal [00:06:55] clear they have no evidence connecting them to Hamas or terrorism or anything. All they have is an op ed criticizing Israel. One guy, a Palestinian student that went to Columbia who went on TV and was talking about how terrible anti-Semitism is [00:07:12] and how we have to build coalitions with Jewish brothers and sisters to stop the war and save everybody's lives. So, no, they picked the worst possible targets. We got lucky on that, in a sense, on that. We're now getting a little bit lucky to get even Charlie Kirk [00:07:27] on this issue to join us. And so now on the overall issue of of Israel, Sharon, Steve Bannon just weighed in on the New York Times article we discussed earlier in the show, and that was New York Times reporting that Netanyahu wanted Trump [00:07:43] to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. And Trump said no. And that was shocking and great news. And and I'm very encouraged by that. And and Bannon agrees with that. And he says, and, you know, he does this for usual thing that Charlie did, too. [00:08:00] Oh, we all love Israel, blah, blah blah, right? Then he gets into the certain hardcore elements of the neocons went absolutely nuts today. They were also not happy about Jack and I, who were big supporters of Israel. But here's the reality. If you read the New York Times and I haven't seen any counter to that is the arrogance of essentially Bibi forcing his way here twice coming. [00:08:20] When President Trump dropped Gaza, Trump dropped Gaza about a month ago. It's fine to come over and update. And, and he continues to talk about how, Netanyahu is trying to force the issue, and he's arrogant and and basically saying it should be America first. [00:08:39] Look, America First has some downsides, as we all know. But if the upside is no, Israel doesn't get to order us into a war with Iran and Israel doesn't get to order us arresting and deporting people based on criticism of Israel. Well, that's an upside of America first. And and and I'm happy to see it. [00:08:58] Yeah. Perhaps this one instance. Netanyahu overplaying his hand, with Trump and the influence of Trump and those around him. You mentioned Dave Smith, of course, comedian, libertarian. He went on breaking points and ripped into Trump after watching [00:09:14] his 60 minutes appearance. Can't show you that interview because of copyright constraints. But in the clip, Maddow recalled his reaction to someone yelling Death to Jews during a walkout in November 2023, quoting him, [00:09:29] I was shocked, and I walked directly to the person and I told him, you don't represent us because this is not something that we agree with. And I took the megaphone and I gave a speech and I said, we here are conscious, educated students and we know how to separate right from wrong. [00:09:49] What this guy has said is clearly anti-Semitic against Jews. To be anti-Semitic is unjust, and the fight for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against anti-Semitism go hand in hand, because injustice anywhere [00:10:05] is a threat to justice everywhere. So Dave Smith watches that and here's his reaction. Yeah, no, that guy sounds like a terrorist to me, right? I mean, it's all just so ridiculous. And I have not seen that before. [00:10:22] And that was like, exactly what you'd want someone to say. I don't know, sounded perfect to me. I mean, mass supermajorities of the American people support mass deportations. Donald Trump, it is his signature issue. He won every swing state and won the popular vote. [00:10:38] You have won the day. And so then you're like, okay, well, how do we go about doing it? Because obviously this is a very tricky thing that you want to get right. So let's wade into the most controversial issue and start deporting legal residents for having the wrong opinion on an issue where the majority of Americans are with. [00:10:58] I mean, it's insane. It's it's jaw dropping to hear him talk like this. But he took himself who supports mass deportation out of the equation and looked at this from a humanistic point of view. [00:11:16] And so that's just from from the perspective of even being pro mass deportation. But just then from the perspective of just being a human being. I mean, it's like, okay, yeah, if people entered your country illegally, they don't have a right to be here. There probably should be some type of order of, you know, operation [00:11:34] or some hierarchy of who should go first. And, you know, we probably all agree with like, violent criminals and gang members and things like that, but, you know, to to do it with because someone is like an eloquent defender of one side of a conflict is just I don't know, it's it's horrific. [00:11:52] It's also it, you know, an incredibly scary precedent to to set. You know, this idea that we can label you a terrorist. You know, it's one because this is the game that they always play. It's like, oh, well, it's only if you're a pro terrorist group or if you [00:12:08] hate Jewish people or something like that. And just like with all speech regulations, it's like, fine, but who gets to decide that? I mean, it's amazing. You know, I'm so down on mainstream media or whatever, but to expose someone [00:12:24] like Dave Smith, others to the truth. I agree with you. To me, that's that's a win. Because now he's repeating. And, those who tune in to him are hearing that message, so I, I like it. [00:12:39] Yeah. So I'm not super surprised that Charlie Kirk is, disagreeing with Trump around the edges. And on some issues. I am surprised it's on this issue, but I'm not surprised that Dave Smith is disagreeing with him on this. And that's because I talked to Dave Smith and he, before the, you know, [00:12:59] the race and I and I, and I was in a debate where he and I were on the same side, on an Israel debate. Right. And so, guys, we have to be open minded enough to find the right allies to build coalitions so we can win. So it would be amazing to win on this issue. [00:13:16] If Trump walks this back, it would be a huge win, not just on the issue of Israel. Right. And being against that war and being in favor of peace, but also on the issue of protecting our rights here in America. [00:13:31] So some people come to our side and say, yes, we'd like to protect those rights with you. Let's take that and run. So it's a good day in America today. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.