Why is Everyone Fighting Over Israel?

[00:00:10] Speaker A: It would cause someone apologetically who's totally an unbeliever who says care less about those sites. You know, they're great history, whatever, but I don't think we need to like shed blood over it. If somebody's saying that. It does beg the question. Man, this is a very. This is like the size of from Jacksonville to Orlando. It's a small piece of real estate that doesn't boast of great resources. They're not sending us tons of oil. All these kind of things that the whole world is fighting over. And from an unbeliever's perspective, surely that gives them pause to stop and go, why does everyone want this land so badly? [00:00:48] Speaker B: I think your key word there is an unbeliever's perspective. For me, I'm not sophisticated enough to to go down too deep in a rabbit hole. But it comes back to God's word. Is God's word true? Now for the unbeliever. They could care less. So it comes down to the believer. I believe God's word is true. He chose Israel. It's in the Old Testament. Who is Israel? Is that a government? He was mad at the government of Israel a lot in the Old Testament. You know, it's not like it was the people. We don't understand fully why he chose them, except the Bible does say they were a hard headed, stiff necked bunch and he wanted to prove his grace and mercy to a group of people, you know, but so I take it back to God's Word. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Welcome back to Code Red. My name is Zack Terry and I am your host. I'm very excited about this episode because I have two of my dear friends that are going to be joining me today. We have Steve Maxwell, who has made a tremendous impact across the nation with Citizens Defending Freedom. And this is one of our all, all time favorites. We brought in Jeff Childers again for what we call a Coffee and Covid episode. And so these guys were just teeing them up and letting them go and work through as Christian men how to look at some of the things that are happening in our world today. So help us out like this episode. Share this episode, invite others to watch it with you. Welcome to Code Red. Well, this is one of our now maybe infamous coffee and Covid episodes. Jeff Childers is back again. This time we have a guest with us, Steve Maxwell. Steve, you've been on the program before, Citizens Defending Freedom. And both of you guys kind of have separate followings, but there's a Venn diagram where all of our followers probably overlap to some degree. And so for the ones that don't know who Steve is, tell us a little bit about your background and then maybe how you guys connected. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Well, I'm a business entrepreneur, got into the nonprofit world of trying to. Trying to redeem a great nation back about five years ago. And that's how Jeff and I met. Our model at Citizens Defending Freedom from the beginning was we felt like the attacks that were coming to our nation were at the grassroots level. And there was no real pushback there because we didn't have a system in place. So we've put a system that required real intelligence on the ground, a media team that could get a story out outside of the bubble of the media, but mainly to have legal representation at the grassroots level. So fast forward five years, we've had 130 successful legal endeavors in the courts. Part of that in the courts. Part of that was minor legal things, but in zero losses. And how Jeff and I met is just really one of those God things. In the very early stages, I think we had not even gotten incorporated yet. We're in the process of getting incorporated. We had a local citizen in Polk county who got really angry. This is back during COVID and the mask mandates, which were terrible. And she got online. We helped the media team get her online. And Jeff, I think, met through that process. And we just hit it off from day one. Because in that era, most people forget, Pastor, that there were very few attorneys that would stand up against the regiment. And then Jeff Childers was one of those guys. And we got together and by golly, at the end result, he took that, that, that case on and brought it all the way to the Florida Supreme Court and, and got it ruled the mask unconstitutional. Mandatory mask. So that's our opening, opening statement, right? [00:05:02] Speaker A: If I remember right, dude, you, you. [00:05:04] Speaker C: Are far too humble. Oh my gosh, he just totally undersold himself. [00:05:08] Speaker B: No, no, no. [00:05:09] Speaker C: That's like the worst bio you could have possibly given. Let me, let me try this again, please. All right. And sorry, I, as my readers well know my family has had the flu, so I'm on the tail end of it now. But I still got a little couple pieces in there. But so we're talking about you. You remember the crazy days of 2020. [00:05:31] Speaker A: Do you think you should wear a mask? [00:05:34] Speaker B: I'm kidding. [00:05:34] Speaker C: I'm sorry. [00:05:35] Speaker B: Well, doctor, that's ruled out, right? [00:05:37] Speaker C: I had to go there. How about, how about a cut up T shirt? Would that make you. [00:05:42] Speaker B: You're good. [00:05:42] Speaker A: Go for it. [00:05:44] Speaker C: So back in 2020, you know, it was the, it was really the crazy time. We saw things that had never happened before, at least in our lifetimes. And I don't think there's much precedent in American history like the extended lockdowns. Right. Where they were closing businesses for a long time. So people were freaking out. People were like, wait a minute, this is, this could be like a communist takeover of the country in disguise as a public health experiment or something. And nobody knew what was going on. So anyway, Steve mentioned how we got connected because it was the mask controversy. But what I was doing up in Gainesville was, you know, my little one man battle against the county mass government that put me on the map and started this whole thing rolling. But Steve at that time, he was an incredibly successful businessman with a bunch of different businesses, like I think the big ones in software packaging and packaging of you know, just like, you know, blue collar stuff. But, but you do it in volume and you do it well better than competitors. And I mean they're. You're moving produce all over the country and stuff like that. Logistics and things. Right. Boring stuff. But, but, but he did it for a long time and well, and was very successful. He could have retired any time he wanted. And so when this pandemic thing happened, he decided that he was going to fight back. And he wasn't a lawyer or anything like he was, you know, a logistics guy and a software manager. I don't. You don't do the coding yourself? [00:07:21] Speaker B: No, no, I don't do that. [00:07:23] Speaker C: And. And started putting a lot of his own money and actually hiring people. He built out an office for this non profit that he started at that time, I think County Citizens Defending Freedom, something like that. And, and, and he just like went all in. And I think he was probably spending then my guess the majority of your time working on freeing the country. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:52] Speaker C: And not managing your own businesses and so. And flying around meeting with everybody you could that would talk to you and trying to put pieces together and everything. And so that's how he got, he was doing that and he got connected to me. And so one of the first things I remember was going down there and having a meeting with all these conservative luminaries from all over the country that you had gathered together in one place. [00:08:17] Speaker B: General Flynn was head was there, Patrick. [00:08:20] Speaker C: Byrne was there a whole bunch. I mean I could keep going and naming all of them. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Tom Rens, big attorney up in Ohio that fought it. [00:08:28] Speaker C: Yeah, everybody who was freaking out, you know, about what was going on, Steve. [00:08:31] Speaker B: Got them all together about 80 order organizations there. [00:08:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:34] Speaker B: July of 22, 21. July of 21. [00:08:38] Speaker C: Yeah. That was early. [00:08:38] Speaker B: Early. [00:08:39] Speaker C: And so he, he deserves much more credit than whatever he just suggested with his little description quietly in the background. This man was, you know, organizing a resistance that I think had tremendous effect behind the scenes. And as he said, that organization is still running and they still, I mean, they filed tons of lawsuits. They got full time counsel on staff. [00:09:06] Speaker B: Yeah, we got our own Remnant. We got our own PIL for law firm now, you know, so Remnant Law, which you started, you know, you were our first attorney that we brought on board and worked together with you. And so it was a great. It was a match made in heaven really, at that time for that chapter. [00:09:20] Speaker C: Yeah. So we have been through, you know, the, the early battles together, you know, on the battlefield. [00:09:29] Speaker B: Let me just make a comment on that. We pulled in about. General Flynn was a big effort behind that too. We pulled in about 80 separate organizations from the conservative side. We were really trying to just assess the situation. We had just done a study in Polk county where we found there were 29 NGOs sponsored or supported by George Soros in Polk County, Florida, which is one of the most conservative counties in the state. It was a shocker. That study came out in April of 21. So we had just met with General Flynn. He said, we got to get. We got to find out what's going on on our side. And that's what. That. Where that meeting originated. The purpose of it was to go, okay, what are you doing? What are you doing? And we found out we were very fragmented. Everybody had good hearts, everybody was working hard. Totally underfunded. You know, how do you raise your money? We do bake sales, we sell T shirts. I mean, you got source over here with millions. So that was. And it was so critical at that time, people forget. And I want to make sure we state this clearly because you hit on something. We had SWAT teams on our roof. We flew these people in, had to put them on buses to get them to our place. We had full time 24, 7 security. Why? Because of the threat of us getting together to assemble. So it was crazy. Those were crazy times. [00:10:47] Speaker C: You had to check your cell phone in at the door. You couldn't bring your electronics in. [00:10:52] Speaker B: We had electronic scanners like you go through an airport. We had bev come, cooked 600 meals with her friends, my wife. We fed everyone right there, put them back on the bus, back at the hotel. It's a three day gig. [00:11:05] Speaker A: I think one of the things I've Learned from both you gentlemen. And that's kind of been an awakening in our community and much broader than our community. I will still hear every week at least of my life, usually a pastor saying, you know, it really, whoever's in office doesn't make that big a difference. And you know, your life's not going to change that much. And in a sense, I get what they're talking about. But what I think I've learned through this process of reading Coffee and Covid and working with Citizens Defending Freedom is that there is real money, real organization and a real intention that does get in my business. It goes right down. That has a target on my. On my family and on my children, on your church and on my church. And you know, every, every week of my life, I'm counseling some poor mother whose kid is being trans. And it didn't just happen that way. There has been a grooming effect to that. And so we see it in real life. And you're right. Prior to really 2020, there wasn't. It was a lot of well meaning people doing the best they could with bake sales and all that, but there wasn't a real machinery behind it. The 80 people. When you brought in 80 people, like, how did you. I'm just curious, were you sending emails out? I mean, how do you do that? How do you. [00:12:28] Speaker B: Well, I'll give credit, a lot of credit to General Flynn and his staff because they knew a lot of these people. I was new to the game, so we only knew a handful. Paul Blair was one. He runs Liberty Pastors. He was there. We have a picture. [00:12:41] Speaker A: Liberty Pastors running at that time. [00:12:42] Speaker B: They had just started the year before with the COVID things coming on. They just started. So Paul was there. We have a picture. I can give you of that meeting of everybody. Jeff's in the picture. We're all in the picture. I don't know if you have that picture or not, Jeff, but I'll get it to you. [00:12:58] Speaker C: Yeah, get me a copy. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got it framed in my office. But it was a historic day. But no, there was no. The frightening thing for us, not frightening, it really emboldened us more than anything else. It was a shock, though. And you're right, most people still, either they're afraid to look through the window, you know, and take a look at things, or they're just naive and they go about their business with the attitude you just described. But once you see the reality of what is against us, we're the last standing hope for the world. Not for Western civilization. And we are under attack. The globalists, the communists, the Marxists, the Islamists, the political Islamic. And so it's a multi layered attack. And many of these people that are doing the bad work at the local level, they've been in the system for a long time. I was talking to a couple of folks high up in D.C. last week, and one of the biggest challenges they're having there right now, we keep saying, why can't we get this bad stuff that happened? Why can't these people be held accountable? Probably, I'm estimating, but probably based on what I was, the conversations I had, probably at least half of the doj, half the FBI, is still the old regime. And so if you don't have your lieutenants in place to execute, you've got people that are gumming the works up and that's what's happening. [00:14:26] Speaker C: Before we go down that road, I want to praise you some more. [00:14:29] Speaker B: No, come on. [00:14:32] Speaker A: The Bible says, let another man speak well of you. Not your deal. [00:14:37] Speaker C: I always forget that. But in that 2021, early summer, 2021 meeting, the first one, you laid out the NGO problem that you had discovered in central Florida. And that was the first time I ever heard of the NGO problem. Now everybody knows about it. And the other thing I remember, like it was yesterday was this crazy graph that y' all showed us. [00:15:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:04] Speaker C: With Arabella advisors in the middle. George Soros's philanthropy. [00:15:08] Speaker B: Yep. [00:15:09] Speaker C: And all the connected, you know, money flows that go to Disney and the big news networks and, you know, and all these other so called foundations and everything. And again, it was like, you know, it was almost difficult to take it all in. And I don't know how you could possibly simplify it. It's so complicated. But now Everybody now in 2025, I think most people understand that problem. And so. And what's Trump been doing? Closed, usaid, reined in all these independent agencies. Right. So when people say to me, well, Jeff, you know, it doesn't matter who I vote for, because it's always the same. Well, the reason it's always the same is because these so called independent agencies really run the government without any oversight from Congress or the executive branch. [00:16:04] Speaker B: And so to add to that, we actually went down to meet with Donald Trump a year later to show him that same presentation. He had heard of George Soros, of course, but he had not heard of Arabella advisors at that time. [00:16:20] Speaker C: Yeah. And now they're basically, I mean, they basically announced a RICO investigation. [00:16:25] Speaker B: That's exactly right. [00:16:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fascinating and it's hard to believe, you know, when, when Roe versus Wade was overturned, it was probably the first of many things that I watch on the news. I'm like, is this really happening? You know, we really gaining traction now. And I, it seems like now, at least once a week, if not every day, Trump will make an announcement that I remember hearing guys like you all talking about months ago. And it's like, wow, it's actually, they're moving the needle. It's actually happening. And so, you know, praise God that that's come together. I've seen on. We're all east coast, we've seen this movement kind of developing on the east coast. And not to, not to segregate conservatism to a coast, but turning point in the, in the west coming up out of, they're out of Arizona. They're main base, at least seeing the, the movements happening, coalesce, getting organized, getting a voice, Trump getting elected. So many good things happening. And Charlie Kirk's assassinated. That happened a hundred years ago today from this state. That was 100 days ago. 100 days ago. 100 days ago was when we were dealing with that. And since then, there really hasn't been a clear replacement for the voice of Charlie. And there seems to be a civil war developing within the conservative movement. Do you guys observe that to be actually happening? Is it rumor what's going on? Why do you see people that used to speak in tandem and kind of view the world in a similar way suddenly divided? [00:18:18] Speaker C: Well, first of all, if Charlie Kirk could have been easily replaced in 100 days, he wouldn't have been Charlie Kirk. [00:18:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:24] Speaker A: Do you think his influence was just, was he holding conservatism together more than we realized. [00:18:36] Speaker C: Charlie Kirk was giving voice to a kind of quiet, reasonable, logical conservatism that, that when he says it, it sounds easy and reasonable. Right. [00:18:50] Speaker A: And Charlie would say, it's not threatening, it's. [00:18:52] Speaker C: Yeah. And you would say, yeah, that's exactly right. You would agree, but you couldn't say it. Right. I mean, he just had this way, this genius right of being able to distill these concepts down into, you know, what sounded like sound bites, but they left people speechless. Right. It was just the answer. And when he said it, this whole crowd of college students got quiet and started thinking about it. And you could see it. [00:19:17] Speaker B: I think Charlie didn't we work with Charlie's organization even now on the grassroots level, and we knew Charlie well. He had a unique insight into the mindset of these young people. When you think about what they've gone through, you know, they got to. They've seen a lot that we never saw in our generation. When we were their age, things were fairly stable. But they've seen the COVID lockdowns, They've seen all the bad things that happened. They saw the attack on the white male, which is, again, a strategy of the enemy. And so he steps in and says, wait a minute, these folks, they can't even afford a house. We got to start talking. He began representing that. That group coming out of college and looking for the job and they've got the college debt, and things didn't make sense. He made sense and pleaded their case. What I loved about Charlie, he tied it to biblical principle. He would take this issue out here in the political realm and he'd bring it right back down to biblical principle and he'd prove me wrong. So he was very skilled, and I agree with you, it's going to be hard to replace him. [00:20:27] Speaker A: Do you think the fracture that appears to be happening, I wonder sometimes if it's a true fracture or if it's an opportunistic approach that, you know, we can create speculation around Charlie's death and get more views that way, build an audience that way. And that's how the algorithm works. I mean, you have to create something for people to be curious about. And I'm speaking in particular with like a Candace Owen that presented a thousand hypothesis of what led to his death, including Turning Point USA being behind it. And so that happens, and you see just a fracture taking place. Israel is extremely divisive right now within the conservative movement. I don't know what the percentages are on that, either of you guys. Have you looked at any of the polls and seen. [00:21:26] Speaker C: All I can tell you is that among my readers, it's about 50, 50. It feels like the ones that comment. [00:21:31] Speaker A: What would you say is the particular issue? Is it that we're overfunding an ally? What is the particular problem that they have? Is it that we didn't speak out to overstepping with Gaza? I heard Tucker. He posted it today. Actually, he posted a link where he was speaking at Turning Point Faith and he absolutely blasted pastors for their support of Israel, and he framed it as we were not speaking out when babies were being murdered. And I'm going, okay. I listened to probably more pastors than anybody I know. I didn't hear anybody doing that. So what is the actual issue? Help me understand. [00:22:21] Speaker C: Well, let's take them one by one because there's A bunch of them. And I think they're all. And I want to do what Charlie does, which is to meet people where they are and talk to them like intelligent adults. [00:22:34] Speaker A: And let's say this before we get too far into it, because it's true of your audience, it's true of mine. We've got good friends that really differ on these issues. And I'm not sure we've never really, the three of us together, unpack this issue. I don't know where each of us land on this issue, but with that said, we're not castigating anyone's particular opinion about it. We're just trying to have a conversation. [00:22:58] Speaker C: Right. And I would also say that none of us at this table have any special access to the truth. [00:23:04] Speaker B: True. [00:23:05] Speaker C: So, you know, it's our opinion and nobody. [00:23:07] Speaker B: It's a sole opinion. There's this idea that it's truthfully known. Everybody is all. It's all opinion from every source you're talking about. [00:23:16] Speaker A: And there's this idea that Israel somehow funding pastors to step into these areas. I've not gotten a dime. Anything I've ever done with Israel, I've had to go pay for it myself. And so it's just there's a lot of rumors like that out there that, of course, that could infuriate people. [00:23:35] Speaker C: So what I'm going to do is at the risk of offending some people on my side, and I would characterize myself as mildly pro Israel. That is, I'm biblically pro Israel, but that does not mean I endorse the government and everything that the government does and think they should have, you know, some kind of card that allows them access anywhere they want just for. [00:23:57] Speaker A: Is the. Is it perceived that there are people who do that, who believe that Netanyahu speaks ex cathedra and can do no wrong? Is there a group that actually believes that, or is that a straw man? [00:24:12] Speaker C: So I'm going to try to steel man. In order to respect people who have different opinions, for me, I'm going to try to portray their opinion as strong as I can. And so I think what they would say is, look, it's not right that politicians who represent voters in our government, congressmen, high officials, should have dual citizenship with Israel. [00:24:38] Speaker A: And that would include who? [00:24:40] Speaker C: Well, I don't want to name names, but there are. [00:24:42] Speaker A: There are. [00:24:43] Speaker C: There certainly are. [00:24:44] Speaker A: There are people in our government that have dual citizenship. [00:24:46] Speaker C: And that's a problem for some people because it suggests divided loyalties. And then the pro Israel people would say, but our Our interests are aligned, and that's not good enough. [00:24:56] Speaker A: But you're not congressmen, Senators. [00:24:59] Speaker C: Yes. [00:24:59] Speaker A: People in the. Okay. [00:25:00] Speaker C: Who hold dual citizenships with. With this. [00:25:02] Speaker A: And I'm sure that could be Googled. [00:25:04] Speaker C: And then you've got, you know, this lobbying outfit, aipac, who donates money to a surprisingly large number of American politicians and is exempt from many of the regulations for other foreign lobbying groups. And that bothers some folks. They're like, well, why should this foreign lobbying group from Israel get special access to our politicians and, for example, not have to disclose their interests? That's one of the rules. And you may remember the fara. The FARA stuff, the Foreign Agent Registrations act and everything. They're exempt from that. So that bothers people. And then, of course, there's lots of money, maybe not relative to places like Ukraine, but we give a lot of money to Israel and we go over there and shoot missiles down when Iran fires them out and stuff like that. And so people were like, well, you know, what does Israel ever do for us? And, and listen, I have looked into this. Israel is not a terrific ally for the United States. They're just not. They, they don't do. They take a lot from us and they don't do a whole lot from us. For us. [00:26:17] Speaker A: Compared to now, who would you say is a great ally to the United States? [00:26:22] Speaker B: That's a good question. [00:26:24] Speaker A: I mean, Great Britain. [00:26:26] Speaker C: So I would quantify it in terms of, like, helping to defend. So up until recently, in modern terms, in NATO, for example, Right. Allowing us to put military bases in key strategic places for us. Right. To contain the Chinese and the Russians, the Soviet Union back then, in the bad old days and that kind of thing, committing financially to those kinds of relationships, things like that. [00:26:59] Speaker A: So who would rank higher than Israel? And these are questions I'm not like, asking from a position of. I've got an opinion on it. I'm honestly just thinking out loud. But who would you say we wish Israel was more like Canada or. I mean, who are. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Who were you? [00:27:17] Speaker A: Because from my perspective, nobody does that. There's nobody really giving the US Money right now. [00:27:21] Speaker C: Correct. And maybe that's not fair to single Israel out, but it is. It's a valid criticism that, you know, they don't bring much to the table. Now, I have an answer to that one. And to me, it's very simple. You know, why we support Israel in the Middle East? And the, the textbook answer is they're the lone democracy over there. And some people are like, so what? You know, what does that even mean in terms of our democracy and so on? But, but they're the lone democracy over there in this Middle east region that's, you know, notoriously and historically difficult. But that's not good enough for people. And I, and I understand that there's other democracies, other places we don't support. There's Christians who are getting massacred in borderlands in Nigeria, and we haven't historically done anything for them. But I think there's a bigger answer, and it's totally satisfactory for me, and that is that Israel is the Holy Land. It's the archaeological home of Christianity. It's got the roads that Jesus walked on, the place where he was crucified and buried, and all those biblical sites that you can read about from literally thousands of years ago in a Bible you can buy at books a million. And the only thing stopping that from getting torn down and paved over is Israel. If the Arabs ever got control of that country, they would tear down all those monuments, they would tear up all those roads, they would bury it all the caves in. They would get rid of the whole thing. Right? [00:29:11] Speaker B: So you got 1400 years of history, of the critical, critical history. [00:29:16] Speaker C: And we're a Christian nation. Nobody argues reasonably or rationally about that. So how much is it worth to pay Israel to continue guarding those archeological sites? If nothing else, if you just take away everything else, for me, that's, that's enough to protect, to help protect Israel from its enemies. You know, forget about the biblical reasons to do it. Some people aren't going to buy that. Forget about, you know, this fuzzy notion of the lone democracy in the Middle East. But just somebody's got to take care of those archeological sites. [00:29:46] Speaker A: I think that's a, that's a great factor. I think that it would cause someone apologetically who's totally an unbeliever, who says, I could care less about those sites. You know, they're great history, whatever, but I don't think we need to, like, shed blood over it. If somebody's saying that, it does beg the question. And this is a very. This is like the size of from Jacksonville to Orlando. It's a small piece of real estate that doesn't boast of great resources. They're not sending us tons of oil, all these kind of things that the whole world is fighting over. And from an unbeliever's perspective, surely that gives them pause to stop and go, why does everyone want this land so badly? [00:30:28] Speaker B: I think your key word there is an unbeliever's perspective for me, I'm not sophisticated enough to go down too deep in a rabbit hole. But it comes back to God's word. Is God's word true? Now for the unbeliever, they could care less. So it comes down to the believer. I believe God's word is true. He chose Israel in the Old Testament. Who is Israel? Is that a government? He was mad at the government of Israel a lot in the Old Testament. You know, it's not like it was a people. We don't understand fully why he chose them except the Bible does say they were a hard headed, stiff necked bunch and he wanted to prove his grace and mercy to a group of people, you know, but so I take it back to God's Word and then I try to identify, Pastor, I try to identify what's the Spirit behind all of this Anyway, if you can identify the Spirit behind it, the kingdom behind these conversations, it helps me to make good decisions. [00:31:27] Speaker A: And when it comes to. I want to go into the theology of it a little bit. But before we do that, the reason that I think it's significant for the stone cold unbeliever, the secularist that's just looking at is hard to describe or explain. Apart from scripture, apart from the history, if someone cares about neither one of those things, it is very difficult for me to understand how they would explain the controversy around that little bitty piece of land, that little sliver of land. [00:32:04] Speaker B: I tell you it would. It would cause anyone with common sense to pause and think about that, make you. [00:32:10] Speaker A: Because something's going on. [00:32:12] Speaker B: You're going to go. You go down that rabbit hole and you're going to find the answer. [00:32:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:32:15] Speaker B: And I think we're going to get to it. [00:32:16] Speaker C: How many UN resolutions have been directed at that tiny little smaller than New Jersey country, than any other country put together. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:32:26] Speaker C: The focus, literally the focus of the entire world has been on that country since it was reconstituted in 19. [00:32:32] Speaker B: I know we don't get into theology part yet, but then you go back to scripture and look at the end time. The whole world is going to be focused on it. It's where Jesus returns is that little strip of land. So again I go back to. When you chase that, you have to take pause. Wait a minute. This is something bigger than countries trying to get rid of another country. There's something bigger going on here. [00:32:57] Speaker A: And the broad camp of orthodox Christianity, by that I mean Protestant. Anyone who believes the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Bible is the word of God, I'll Put them in that category. There's divisions on eschatology. I think you and I would be perfectly in lockstep at what we expect to go down. We have the actual right perspective. And others, we're kind of waiting for them to come along. [00:33:19] Speaker C: Right. [00:33:20] Speaker A: But, but, but I've got a lot of friends who are on in a different camp of eschatology. Nevertheless, however you read, seems that when Christ does return, we all agree Jesus is coming back. That there are certain things that are present. And one of those things is there is an Israel that's here. The temple is established, the sacrificial system is in place. I can't understand how they can get around that at all. So just looking at this, all the cards on the table, this is what I see scripture saying. And there's a very good people who will disagree with me that are probably much more intelligent than I am. But I believe that the nation, ethnic Israel, will be reborn in a day. Right now, if you have the most faithful Jewish rabbi in all of Jerusalem, without Jesus Christ, he's not going to heaven. He needs Jesus the same way we need Jesus. That's their Messiah, as he is our Messiah somehow or another. And what I believe is going to happen is going to be when they bring that temple to bear and they start putting up that tabernacle, which could happen very quickly, sacrifice is going to be made and a nation is going to be born in a day. I believe that's yet to be fulfilled. And it's going to happen. And so from. I can't think of a better or more commercial word than the predestinarian view of it, I believe one day they're still chosen to be in the kingdom and they're going to radically be saved. And for that reason, if I can help, I'll help. Not because necessarily they are my brother yet, but I believe one day they will be. And I think that's the way Paul looked at it. [00:35:18] Speaker C: Well, even. Even now, even today, let me ask you this. Who makes. Which New Christian is the strongest New Christian from any particular group? [00:35:29] Speaker A: Not sure. [00:35:29] Speaker C: I'm following religious Jews that convert to Christianity. They slide right into. [00:35:34] Speaker A: They're all in. [00:35:35] Speaker C: They know the Old Testament inside and out. They get. And they make all the connections to what Jesus or the reason he was there and why and what he was talking about. They understand the whole thing on day one. Things that take years for people like me to get our arms around. And even just the glimmers, right, The Messianic Jews, they get it right. So when that happens, when what you talked about, when a large number of. It's going to be unbelievable. [00:36:04] Speaker A: It will be tens of thousands of Billy Grahams overnight. The thing that's part of this is just my experience with people in that. [00:36:15] Speaker B: Part of the world. [00:36:17] Speaker A: And it's a strange, strange irony to be there and talking to a Palestinian who technically, this is a Christian Palestinian. Okay. This is someone in Bethlehem who believes in Jesus this same way the three of us do. Technically, that's my spiritual brother in Christ. And he's supposed to be the enemy of the Jews, right? I mean, that's the storyline, that's the narrative. But he will agree. There's just something special about those people, that God's going to do something remarkable. The gospel came through the Jews and it's going to end up there again one day. And so this brother in Christ, then you have a Jewish person who follows the tenets of Judaism that we want to come to Jesus Christ, my Palestinian brother or sister. And we're discussing all of these same things. It's not like I'm this Americanized Republican Christian over here. And that's the math that works for me. It's the way that they see it. You know, my brother in Bethlehem or my brother in Italy that grew up in the Jewish quarter, but he loves and he weeps over Israel waiting for that day that Paul talked about that. He said, if I could, I would go to hell so that this day could come about. That's the yearning that the Apostle Paul had for Israel to be saved. And you bring all of that back to policy in Washington, D.C. if we can help these people that we know God's going to work in, I think that's where evangelical Christianity has just landed to say, all things being equal, we agree with that. I think what's happening right now, that's not a bad conversation, is to say, as you said, God didn't always agree with the leadership of Israel. He looked at the kings and said, I'm getting another one. I'm getting somebody after my own heart. Right? And so I think it's perfectly fair. And I guess I just don't hear anyone arguing against that pastorally to say it's improper to sometime have a critical view of a decision made by BB Netanyahu. [00:38:49] Speaker C: Well, let's be. Let's steel man it more than that and tie it back to your original point. [00:38:55] Speaker A: And if I'm wrong, if I'm totally wrong, if there are pastors preaching that let me know. I just stopped not hearing it. I Listen to a lot of different guys. [00:39:04] Speaker C: So you brought up Candace Owens, and she's maybe leading the charge of this, let's just call it a conspiracy theory. And when I say that, I don't mean that pejoratively. I believed in lots of conspiracy theories that came true. And so, you know, oh, it could, it could happen. It could happen. So, so her, her theory is that the Israelis killed Charlie Kirk because he was in the midst of some kind of transition where he would be more in line with Tucker Carlson, who's very anti Israel right now, or Nick Fuentes, and I'll ever see Charlie going that far. But there is apocryphal or claims that Charlie had been writing Netanyahu telling him that, you know, Israel needed to change its policies and so on. And then it didn't help that Israel was the very first country to find out, even before Americans did, that Charlie Kirk had died in the hospital. They announced it on social media, which was weird. And then Netanyahu made some kind of video that was just poorly executed where he said, we didn't hate Charlie Kirk. And it just, it was like that, that lady who said, I'm not a witch from the Tea Party. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Right, Right. [00:40:20] Speaker C: Just. This is not a good look. So the, the, there's this, there is this deep cynicism and suspicion of the Israelis and, and what they're up to over there, and that they have an undue influence on the United States and our political system and that they take advantage of us and do horrible things sometimes like murder our beloved icons like Charlie Kirk. Now, I'm just going to say, what would that. [00:40:49] Speaker A: Do you think that the motive behind that, if there were truth to it, the motive behind it would be because he would lead so many evangelical Christians to also hate Israel. Is that the motive? [00:41:00] Speaker C: Right. And so that's where you get into the first sort of logical problem, which is that this, you know, this idea that the Jews control all the media. Okay. And that apparently, and by the way, I'm new to all of this. I was just minding my own business before the pandemic. I didn't follow any of this stuff. So I'm not claiming to be an expert, but the, I think the conventional wisdom, and if you go down these rabbit holes, it's that the Jews control all the media, Hollywood. [00:41:33] Speaker A: And that's always been around, and it's always been around. [00:41:36] Speaker C: It's not new. But if they do, they're doing a horrible job because who's. The. Who else is hated as a people group More than the Jews. [00:41:45] Speaker A: It's not a great PR scheme, if that's what. [00:41:47] Speaker C: No, it's not working. Right. They need to fire that guy and get a new one. [00:41:51] Speaker A: I would, I would presume, you know, we've read things. I've had people on the program that would suggest that, man, Mossad is everywhere. They've got their fingers and everything and this, that and the other. And I look at it and think, well, they probably do. I mean, we probably have our fingers and everything over there. We're probably, you know, listening in on as much as we possibly can. We do it to the Americans, I would assume. We probably do it to the Russians. We probably do it to the British. That's just how the state arts work. You know, that doesn't trouble me per se, but that Israel would have spies in America and they're listening into our. I don't think there's anything you can do about that. Even if you said, yeah, I would prefer to have some privacy. Yeah, well, good luck. There's probably not a whole lot we could do to fix that. [00:42:40] Speaker C: No, and there's a very hard truth there, and I wish more people would get their minds around this, that because the United States is the lone superpower, every other country has an interest in figuring out what we're up to and controlling. [00:42:54] Speaker A: Totally. [00:42:56] Speaker C: People complain about the Chinese being here and how many students are in all the universities. And they're, you know, they're. They're different programs where they pay money to the universities to set up these Buddha departments or whatever it's called. And Israel's doing the same thing and the Russians are doing the same. And any country that, that has a scrap of sense is over here trying to guide the way the United States goes. We're like a. We're like a Tyrannosaurus rex. If we step in the wrong place, we're going to squash them. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Who was Steve, when you were. When you were in the. In the food sector, who was your biggest purchaser? Like, I mean, what is the dream like getting into Costco, Walmart? [00:43:36] Speaker B: Well, when I was on the sales desk selling produce, I mean, really, what's interesting is in my career path, I started in early 90s, there used to be a lot of people, a lot of people to sell. It's been reduced down to a handful now. Publix here in the Southeast is a big one. H E B in Texas is a big one. Kroger was a big chain, but Costco, Sam's Clubs, BJ's is. [00:44:00] Speaker A: So I would I would presume that if someone, you know, had, had, you know, Tyson, you know, foods, if they were wanting to get into Costco or whatever, and they're going to get as much information on that institutions they possibly could. [00:44:18] Speaker B: I think, too, there's more to it than that. I mean, not only we're the big cash cow in the world, how we've still maintained ourselves as a country, when you see all the money that's been literally leaked out, some estimate in the trillions unaccounted for. But we are the bank. We're the bank account, right? We're the piggy bank for the world. So. But I think there's more to it than that. I think that's part of it. There's a lot of corruption. We see a lot of corruption today where people could, what Jesus, the Bible tells us the love of money is the root of all evil, right? So there's a lot of corruption that's on the take. I mean, people are getting paid. But at the same time, there is also a sinister part of this that I go back to the two spirits, two kingdoms at war that began before this world was even created. And those two kingdoms are looking to. To fight one another, to strip away and bring either all the humans that ever coming on the earth to hell or to bring them to heaven. That's the dividing point. So there's a spirit of the Antichrist, if you will, that is a part of this that gets deeper and bigger. And so I know we're talking about surface stuff, but that's what I try to do. I try to identify, for example, the Candace Owens thing. And I know she just met with Erica a few days ago. As a Christian, I mean, Matthew 18 is pretty clear. Before you go spout stuff off and get it out there, go talk to people individually and privately. It's just 101. I know in this line of work at CDF, we can't just take a story. I just heard a story at lunch a while ago. That's a scandal in Jacksonville. They want me to go do this or go do that. Dude, I got a lot of homework to do before we just go out and say things. So again, I go back to where's the discipline? Where's that discipline? Maybe they've got those sources. But to me, I look at what's happened like you the very beginning, talking about Charlie's vacuum, and all of a sudden we're at each other's throats. That's a human nature thing. It's a power thing. It's a money thing. It's always that true. So what's the spirit behind that? So there's a discipline that has to. As Christians, we should have that. We love one another and we gather together, we have private meetings, and then if something's true, we speak it in love, but we speak it right. So that's what's missing in this whole thing. For my. I'm just a layper totally. [00:46:52] Speaker A: And I wrestle with what I'm about to say. I wrestle with this, but I think it's a good thing and helpful thing. [00:46:59] Speaker C: So. [00:47:01] Speaker A: Right now, for whatever reason, with the world, you know, earthquakes that are happening politically around the world, it's no longer like NBC Nightly News that people are looking to for guidance on that. It's not FOX and CNN as it once was. Now they're looking to people like Tucker Carlson. Right. [00:47:23] Speaker C: And they can't trust the news anymore. [00:47:26] Speaker B: That's right. That's exactly right. [00:47:30] Speaker A: These concepts and understanding and figuring out what's happening, they're happening in places like this with people like us just sitting around and trying to figure it out sometimes. Right. We're not coming in as experts that say we know exactly what's happening. And I think that's where I have a problem with someone like a Candace or. I've literally heard, like, two things Fuentes has said, so I know nothing about the guy. What I've heard's not been great. Tucker seems incredibly talented, a brilliant dude, but he will come out with things that are pretty. As if they're pretty concrete that may not be so concrete. And so I think the advice that you're giving is. Has some implications for the. The podcast world. [00:48:22] Speaker B: Oh, there's no doubt. [00:48:23] Speaker C: Which. [00:48:23] Speaker A: For what, whatever reason, right now, that's where people are listening and learning and digesting information. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Well, I tell you, the podcast world is what really probably saved us through the COVID pandemic and your. Your writings and people like you. So we've been geared toward that. I mean, the. The basic fundamental media organizations that we grew up around are gone, basically. So, yeah, that's where, you know, I just. I don't know. You've got the individual. This is where the problem is. I see it. The individual's got to be disciplined enough not to jump on the first thing they hear. And we've all been guilty of it. How many Instagrams have we sent forwarded to our family or friends? It was something that didn't turn out right, you know, so that's. [00:49:08] Speaker A: It's a strange. [00:49:09] Speaker B: It's A really strange thing, right? [00:49:11] Speaker A: And you're so right. But it's so strange because I learned about Charlie Kirk on X and I watched as soon as I saw it, the video was on X. Julie and I were eating dinner, I think, over in Jacksonville. As soon as I saw it, I began to watch CNN.com fox news.com and count. How long would it take them before they. Well, they're going to do a little more due diligence. They're going to go back and verify sources. You know, they. This was from someone who was at the event. So it's great. In one sense that news travels remarkably fast. I do think there's this. Have you. Have you heard the people say if your pastor doesn't get up tomorrow and speak about X, he's of the devil type thing? I haven't heard that. [00:50:00] Speaker C: Critical of the past. [00:50:05] Speaker A: And it's like that's the not going. Like, I can't imagine not addressing the assassination of a Christian evangelist. Basically, I'm going to do that. But if somebody comes out and says, you know, if the bandwagon is demanding that I preach on something, it's like, that's not how this works. And I think that's where we do have to have enough decency and common sense to go. I'm not even sure if what I would say right now is accurate. [00:50:33] Speaker B: And so developing that requires humility. [00:50:35] Speaker A: It does. In developing enough discernment that it doesn't take us six months to figure out that the assassination of Charlie Kirk was horrible. That's something. We can come to that conclusion quickly. But to be able to pump the brakes and say, I might want to be careful before I go and float an idea here, does that make sense? I think the more the attention. [00:51:09] Speaker C: But there's different ways to look at it. Okay, so let me give you a more positive way to get to the truth. First of all, we're never going to know the truth, okay. About anything. That's the world we live in. The deception, the level of deception is only growing. AI, have you been fooled by an AI video? [00:51:33] Speaker A: Of course. [00:51:34] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, it's only getting worse, right? That's not going to get better. So in. How do we get to the. We can't get to the truth by trusting CNN and CBS and abc. We tried that. It didn't work. We can't trust the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post. We tried it. It didn't work. Right now we got podcasts and so on. We're trying that. The only way to get to the truth is through free speech. So if somebody like Candace Owens has got a theory, she needs to be able to talk about it. Right. [00:52:11] Speaker A: I don't disagree with that. [00:52:12] Speaker C: And I may hate that. Think that's the dumbest theory ever. [00:52:15] Speaker B: Right. [00:52:15] Speaker C: But we're not going to get to the truth until we get it all out on the table and sort through it. [00:52:19] Speaker A: And if she does that, if Nick Fuentes says whatever stuff he said. And you know, I heard 10 minutes of Nick Fuentes, and I said, cole. [00:52:32] Speaker C: You gotta watch the whole Tucker interview with him. [00:52:34] Speaker A: Actually, actually, I did. Actually, I did watch the whole Tucker interview. [00:52:38] Speaker B: Okay. [00:52:41] Speaker A: And then I've seen several shorter clips of Nick, and he's not. He's not a young man that I want my son looking at as an example of how to talk to people or about people. I would put. Who's the. Who's the two brothers that just got out of jail in Romania? One of them, you know, I'm talking about. [00:53:06] Speaker C: Yes. The other red pill influencer guy. [00:53:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Andrew. Is it? Tate. [00:53:14] Speaker C: Andrew Tate. [00:53:15] Speaker A: Andrew Tate. Same kind of thing. It's like, yeah, he's. He's going to say some things that are probably right. Probably accurate. It's all of the other things that you would get stoned for in the Old Testament that he says that I probably would shy away from. You know, does he have a right to say it? Totally. Totally. But it's not. But if suddenly, if we hear these people and remove them from our platform. Free speech is not free platforming. [00:53:43] Speaker C: You know, the only reason guys like Andrew Tate have any power is because the true things that they say, nobody else is saying. If other people would say those things, then they would get no mileage out of revealing and saying to young men the things that nobody else is saying. Like, y' all are getting abused. Right. Y' all need to. And y'. All, there's a lot of you. And you could stop this anytime that you want to. Nobody's saying that to them. [00:54:08] Speaker A: And so when he says it, it resonates. [00:54:11] Speaker C: That's right. And then he can say these other terrible things to them because he's gotten foot in the door. [00:54:15] Speaker A: And that's where. That's where a spirit's behind it. That's where a spirit gets in that can use an opportunity to say one thing that's true and put some strings to them that I go back to. [00:54:27] Speaker B: Jesus, I go back to the Bible. I'd love to study how he handled things like that, but, I mean, at one time, he Literally gets in an argument with some religious leaders of his day, and they can't see what he's saying. And he says, the reason you can't see this, I'm paraphrasing, is your father is the devil. He didn't try to save him. [00:54:47] Speaker A: Can you imagine? I mean, that just, even the way you put that. [00:54:49] Speaker B: I mean, hilarious. So I don't try to change their minds. [00:54:53] Speaker A: He called one time. [00:54:54] Speaker B: He said Jesus didn't wag him down. You're whitewashed tombstones. I mean, that was as bad. As bad a cuss word as you could come up with during that day with. With the elites, you know, Eloquent. Very eloquent. I love it. I mean, it's just so, you know, you look, you go back and it's so he. Again, you identify the source. Right. And I'm not saying you go out and tell people the father of the devil, but do you waste energy on that? I've got that much energy in my bucket on a daily basis. I don't have time for this stuff. But I'm going to find the truth. I'm going to keep listening. I'm not going to get riled up about it. I just wish our people, I mean, some of these people, and Tucker's one of them, he's talking about Israel started in 1948, which. I don't know if he's retracted that or not, but in one of his. I mean, Israel didn't start in 1948. That's simple. [00:55:43] Speaker A: He's been. [00:55:44] Speaker B: He's been good. [00:55:44] Speaker A: He's. He's retracted a few things. [00:55:46] Speaker B: Okay. [00:55:47] Speaker A: I don't know about that one. He's. [00:55:49] Speaker B: I'm not getting on him. I'm just saying I'm just a little more disciplined. [00:55:53] Speaker A: Yeah. When he says. When he says something about how much he hates evangelical pastors that are dispensationalists, that bothered me slightly. But he did, in all fairness. He did. He came back and he retracted it. And again, I totally, absolutely. Man, if we lose free speech, we lose everything. That's the secret sauce in a lot of ways. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Well, we got a snippet of that during COVID when they really tried to shut everybody down. And we saw the trinkling of you and your program and your. You took off with COVID and coffee. Why? Because they had a fresh perspective that was telling the truth. And look at what happened during that era. I mean, these people we're talking about now with their big podcast, it all happened. Really? Tell me during that. [00:56:39] Speaker A: Because they were telling Truth tell me this. And we're coming up on our time, but I think this would be. You guys could contribute to this in a unique way. We all agree that we're a country that should have free speech. You should be able to stand up and say the most horrible things in the world in the United States of America and legally do it at the same time. We have. This is going to be on any number of platforms. We've got apps, we've got YouTube, we've got Castos. This is going in so many different platforms that may or may not decide to throttle it. So is that infringing on free speech? If a private business says we do not want to help you get your message out there and this is where I'm coming from. This I can't reconcile the fact that I do believe they've got the right to do that. I've got the right to say what I want to say and they've got the right to say that I can't do it on their platform. Am I wrong there? [00:57:41] Speaker C: No, that's a 100% legally correct with a couple of minor exceptions. You should, you know, probably give a nod to types of speech that are legally regulable. Yeah. Such as calls for violence and commercial speech and things like that. That where the government can do things. The Constitution is a limitation on government. That was the genius of the founders. They inverted the whole thing and instead of making a contract, it says what the government can do, it says what the government can't do. So what Obama called the charter of negative liberties Orwellian doublespeak. But anyway, it does not apply to private entities. It doesn't apply to you and me. It doesn't apply to private companies like Facebook or Twitter or whatever. They can do what they want and they have done. The problem in Covid was not that Facebook was throttling speech, it was that the government was telling Facebook to throttle speech. There was a constitutional violation happening there. And what would have been different is Facebook was in the business of selling subscriptions and engagement and so they don't. They're not likely incentivized to throttle speech. If people want to talk about how bad they hate masks and how vaccines don't work, it's in Facebook's incentive to let them talk. [00:59:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:05] Speaker C: The only reason that censorship happened was because the heavy handed government totally agree. Facebook's back. So if, if what you're asking me is could you know, Twitter or Instagram or TikTok or Rumble voluntarily limit the reach of somebody like Nick Fuentes or Andrew Tate. They could, but that might not be in their commercial interest. So. But the. But you described the law correctly. [00:59:37] Speaker A: Okay, I don't really have anywhere to go from that. I just, that's something I've wrestled with. And I don't think that we as conservatives have really good platforms. Your rumbles get out there and hopefully it'll get some traction and try to get on that platform and different ones. But it does seem like the ones that are commercially effective have had more of a leftist agenda than a conservative agenda. And I'm wondering, you know, when Musk bought Twitter, you know, that was the first time I've seen a conservative take over a liberal institution. It's usually the other way around. And so to see that. And I wonder, is he tempted to throttle the left? You know, is that something that he's going to have to deal with ethically? [01:00:30] Speaker C: Let me give you this. So in the realm of free speech, one of the most widely quoted propositions in Supreme Court jurisprudence that started with one of the great all time Supreme Court justices, but has been quoted by every good Supreme Court justice we've had ever since then, is the following. It's short and simple. The answer to bad speech is more speech. The answer to bad speech is more speech. [01:01:07] Speaker A: Unpack that. [01:01:09] Speaker C: So rather than trying to shut up bad speech, we've got to lift up good speech beside it. Because when people hear a bad idea in a vacuum, they may be enticed by that bad idea, but if they can also hear the reason why that's a bad idea and a better idea, then they'll probably choose the better idea. And that's the marketplace of ideas concept, which is that none of us has a leash on the whole truth. And the only way we get to that truth is by putting all the ideas in the marketplace, letting them compete with each other and seeing which one performs the best. [01:01:50] Speaker A: And the day is coming when the government will be on the shoulders of Christ and he will separate out the sheep from the goats, the truth from lies. But until then, that's the best idea I've heard. [01:02:02] Speaker C: Well, Jesus Christ is the way, the. [01:02:04] Speaker B: Truth and the life. Amen. That's right. [01:02:07] Speaker C: So he. He probably can decide, right? Tell us what things are true and what aren't true. [01:02:12] Speaker B: I tell people it's time for the triple bs. It's. [01:02:17] Speaker A: That's what I'm calling my Christmas sermon. [01:02:19] Speaker B: Oh, really? Triple bs? So time for a brain stimulation based on Bible study to determine bad spirits, to find out where the source is coming from. And then all of a sudden, you can make your decision and determine what's good and what's not good. [01:02:34] Speaker C: Is there an app for that? [01:02:35] Speaker A: No, that may be the title of the episode, actually. Well, gentlemen, thank you for joining me today. And thanks are grateful to have you guys here. [01:02:44] Speaker C: Pleasure. [01:02:44] Speaker B: Good to be here. Thank you for what you're doing. [01:02:47] Speaker C: All right.