Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1077 | No, Tim Walz. Jesus Doesn’t Support Illegal Immigration | Guest: Josh Hammer

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Today, we sit down with Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer to discuss the latest details on Iran's latest missile attack on Israel. And does America bear any responsibility to intervene? We also recap last night's vice presidential debate between Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz. Spoiler alert: Our predictions were right! Vance, of course, was the most well-spoken person in the room. Knucklehead Walz tried (and failed) to support his arguments with the Bible and apparently lied about being in Tiananmen Square? Pre-order Allie's new book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": https://a.co/d/4COtBxy   ---   Timecodes:   (00:40) VP Debate Recap (07:17) Nervous Tim Walz (11:51) Vance opening answer (16:35) Hurricane Helene and Climate Change (18:44) Immigration (42:09) Walz lied about being in China (44:20) Abortion lies (52:50) Intro to Israel/Iran issue & Josh Hammer (54:15) Hezbollah & Iran proxies (01:06:00) What has Biden/Harris gotten wrong? (01:10:40) The Left’s Hamas support (01:13:11) America’s responsibility   ---   Today's Sponsors:   Carly Jean Los Angeles — Go to https://www.carlyjeanlosangeles.com and use code ALLIEB to get 20% off your next CJLA order (one-time use only) and start filling your closet with timeless staple pieces.   Good Ranchers — get bonus $25 off with my code ALLIE! Go to Go.GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE, get the ALLIE box.   Covenant Eyes — You can join a safe, confidential community of women where your story and struggle matter. Get the free resource by visiting the QR code on screen: http://ariseforwomen.com/.   Jase Medical — Go to Jase.com and enter code “ALLIE” at checkout for a discount on your order.   ---   Relevant Episodes: Ep 1076 | Hurricane Aftermath: Christians Step Up While Biden Vacations | Guest: Ron Simmons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1076-hurricane-aftermath-christians-step-up-while/id1359249098?i=1000671464494 Ep 905 | What's Really Going On in Israel? | Guest: Josh Hammer https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-905-whats-really-going-on-in-israel-guest-josh-hammer/id1359249098?i=1000634310661 Ep 1067 | This New European Law Is About to Change the World | Guest: Justin Haskins https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1067-this-new-european-law-is-about-to-change-the/id1359249098?i=1000669739236 Ep 1074 | OBGYN Busts Myths on Miscarriages & Late-Term Abortions | Guest: Dr. Christina Francis https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1074-obgyn-busts-myths-on-miscarriages-late-term/id1359249098?i=1000670827855   ---   Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Tim Wall says Jesus supports illegal immigration. He also calls abortion a fundamental right. We've got a breakdown of the vice presidential debate that occurred last night. Also, we've got Josh Hammer with us to tell us what is really going on with Iran and Israel and why we should care. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go.gov.goodranchers.com slash alley. code Alley, go. Go. Go to Ranchers.com slash Alley. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. All right. Let's talk about this vice presidential debate.

If you want to hear how our predictions came true, go back and listen to or watch yesterday's conversation with my dad. TLDR, for those of you who don't know, that means too long, didn't read. basically my dad's prediction came exactly true that Tim Walls was going to focus on Donald Trump and he was going to basically act like he was debating Trump rather than debating J.D. Vance, which was a smart strategic move on his part. But unfortunately for Tim Walls, he did not come out of this debate on top. That strategy, while probably the smartest one he had to employ did not earn him the title of Victor in this. And of course, it's a little subjective because I wanted J.D. Vance to dominate.

But as you guys know, I am not afraid to be critical of our Republican candidates. In fact, I want to be critical when it is due because I want them to win. I want them to do the best they possibly can. so when they slip up, when they make a strategic error, an unforced error, I'm going to call them out on it. I don't think they need to be surrounded by yes men, yes advisors, yes commentators. They need people who are going to do our best anyway from our own fallible and finite subjective perspectives. Give them the best possible advice that we can, at least from my vantage point as I, a suburban woman, a Christian mom who understands, at least in large part, what women in my

demographic are seeing and thinking and feeling. And that's what I'm thinking about when I'm watching these debates. Who is appealing to that woman, to that voter? Many of whom are either undecided or they're feeling apathetic because it's very overwhelming right now to turn on the news to scroll through social media. There's so many problems both here and abroad. And rather than that being a motivation to be engaged, it actually can be so demoralizing and discouraging that many women will just opt out of the political process altogether and think, okay, I don't have control of what's going on at the border. There's nothing I can do about the lawlessness in the streets. I have no idea if we're about to have World War III. And, you know, and, you know, I don't have control of what's going on at the border.

And I can't control inflation, but what I can control is what's happening in my home and my life. Part of that is healthy, actually. I think to look more locally, look more immediately at what's in front of us to do the very next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God, whether that's changing a diaper with joy or sending an email with competency and excellence, those things are good. But that does not mean just because we're focusing on what's right in front of us, we can be. completely disengaged because remember the policies that we're voting for actually matter and so these debates like the one last night they actually matter they give us a taste of what we could get when we get a particular ticket in the white house and i wanted to see which candidate is going to

appeal to that woman who is feeling overwhelmed who just wants order instability who wants to be able to survive on one income if her family so chooses who wants to be able to go to a clean park close by and not have to worry about her children's safety, who cares about her community, who cares about good schools, wants her kids to be able to get a good education without progressive ideology. But this woman is not necessarily the most political. Who is appealing to her? And the last debate, I thought Kamala Harris was the only one. really appealing to women, albeit in ways that I completely disdain. But Donald Trump's demeanor and the way that he posited his positions,

they just weren't appealing to that demographic. So I was interested in how J.D. Vance would play this. And honestly, we're going to get into some of the details. I thought J.D. Vance overall did so well. I thought he had a great mix of aggression and fact-checking when needed while also showing compassion and softness, which is exactly what hillbilliology is. I thought, you know, he's got to bring who he is and hillbilliology to the debate stage, which is hard.

Gosh, it's a completely different format. That is tough to do. And I know that he's a skilled communicator, but for anyone that's a challenge, and yet that's exactly what he did. The way that he interwove, his personal upbringing, his genuine working class, hard-knock background with his policy positions, defending Donald Trump's policy proposals better than Donald Trump himself. It was a masterclass. It was honestly beautiful. And Tim Walls actually, he didn't do bad. I knew he wasn't going to do bad. I, a lot of people on their right said,

oh, this is going to be just a complete slaughter and there's nothing that Tim Walls can bring to the table. I knew that that wasn't the case. Now, I will say, look, at the two up there, I was like, okay, J.D. Vance has got at least 25 IQ points on everyone in this room right now. That was obvious. But Tim Walls, he held his own. He held his own. And he's got good comedic timing. He does have this kind of relatable demeanor. At first, I thought picking him over Josh Shapiro was a mistake for the Harris campaign and a gift to us. But the more I've seen Tim Walls, how he performs in these rallies, how he's speaks in interviews. I'm like, I totally see it. I know exactly why they chose him. Yes, he's politically radical, but he doesn't come across that way. And so I understand why they chose him. But I also saw his serious, serious weaknesses in this debate, which of course is good for us. So the first weakness that I saw was actually at the very top of the debate in just his demeanor. We've got a full screen of picture of Tim Walls at the very beginning. He was asked a question about Israel and

Iran. And as I've already said at the top, we've got Josh Hammer at the end of this. And he's going to tell us all about what is happening there. So he was asked about that in the beginning, which, of course, he should not be surprised by that. That was the headline yesterday in all the news organizations. And his answer was fine. But, immediately I noticed how nervous he looked. And okay, this is going to be gross and I don't like to be gross. But he had this like dry mouth spit thing going on. And I thought, and I know this sounds superficial. I'm not trying to just be like a middle school insults. But this kind of thing actually, it matters. The optics matter. How someone looks actually matters on screen. And I was

like, if he's got that spit thing going on the whole time, like they're going to lose this election. No joke. I know that sounds silly, but it's so gross to look at. But thankfully for him, that actually went away. But I don't think his nervousness did go away. I was actually surprised because he's pretty dynamic on stage. He looked like a deer in the headlights. This is not just a bad screenshot that we've got up. Like this is how he looked the whole time. Mouth the gape, eyes really wide, constantly jotting down little things. I'm always confused when they're taking notes because I'm like, there's no way that you could have actually written something that fast. Do they just scribble out of nervousness? I would probably do that too. So I'm not blaming him.

But J.D. Vance never did that. J.D. Vance was looking really strong. He was looking very vice presidential, if you ask me. And I just thought Tim Walls look nervous. So that's, that's my thought on that. Here was his, here was his quote, part of his quote, after he answered the Iran-Israel question in which he actually said something that a lot of us would agree with. He said Israel's got a right to defend itself, as we'll talk about with Josh, that's not really what this ticket believes. But he said, what's fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter. It's clear and the world saw it on the debate stage a few weeks ago, a nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump. Funny that we were talking about age. Oh, no, it's okay to talk about age. We couldn't talk about

age when your daughtering candidate was running for president. He was, we were supposed to believe that he was super youthful and confident. But now we can talk about age when it's Donald Trump. That's hilarious. He said Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment, which is a good strategic move for him. Both of them were competing with who is actually the more chaotic candidate because they know everyone wants stability. You don't have to convince people that the world is chaotic. People want stability and normalcy. Both of them were trying to claim that Harris, or, you know, J.D. Vance trying to claim that Harris is the chaotic one. And then we had walls trying to claim that Trump was the chaotic one. So that was basically the

back and forth and how it started out. We'll get into some details about their immigration and abortion positions in the second. Let me go ahead and pause and tell you about our first sponsor for the day. It's Carly Jean, Los Angeles. I am wearing all CJLA right now. I got this jacket a few years ago and this tanked up and these jeans, actually. I've had all of these pieces for several years. And that's actually what I love about CJLA is that their stuff is so classic that it doesn't go out of style. I've heard Carly say before, if you don't like it in five years, then it wasn't a classic piece. It wasn't a piece that you should have invested in. But all of the stuff that I've gotten from CJLA, I've been able to wear through every season of life,

every season of the year, every season of trends, because they're not trendy. And yet you look effortlessly chic when you're wearing CGLA, and it's so comfortable. I love that their entire basics line is made in the U.S. And so there's so many options for you, no matter what your style is. If you go to Carlyjean, Los Angeles.com, and use code AliB at checkout, you'll get 20% off your next order. That's Carly Jean, Los Angeles. com code ali b so brey and i have just a slight disagreement about jd vance's opening answer so he was also asked about iran attacking israel and he responded basically by saying i came from a working class

family and i was watching this and i was like is this a joke is he kidding is this a joke because this has become a meme for Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris, she answers every tough question in an interview, which she's done very few interviews. I can only think of maybe three compared to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance's 60 combined interviews that they've done in this election cycle, just crazy. But it's because she's terrible in those extemporaneous circumstances or situations. And she answers serious questions about economics or foreign policy. By starting out, I come from a working class family. And so I actually thought that J.D. Vance was joking. But he was taking the moment to introduce himself, to tell people who he is, what his background is. Personally, I found it off putting. I had to leave the room because I was uncomfortable. But other people on X thought that it was great, that he took a moment to introduce himself because he knew that he wouldn't get a chance to do that, to show people his background, his upbringing, the rest of the debate, and that it kind of, of gave people context for who he was. Bree, did you think that this was a good first answer?

Yeah, I agree with you that it was a little awkward how he started it because it was kind of a call to how Kamala answers everything. But I thought it was good to establish himself. And Walston did do that. He did later in some random answer, I think when he was talking about China, stop and explain that he was like a public school teacher and he loved being a teacher. and it was so random. And I thought that that was way more awkward, him having to go back and kind of explain his past later on in the debate than straight from the beginning.

So I kind of liked how he established himself. I mean, yeah, it's going to be awkward either way because they don't give them a chance to do it. So he had to not answer the question right away. But I think it was probably the smarter move than to like try to fit it in elsewhere. Yeah, you know, I, and this hindsight is 2020. And everyone, I'm sure J.D. Van, is looking back at last night and thinking of different things, maybe he would have done differently.

So I'm not trying to be overly critical. I probably would have preferred him answering the question quickly by saying Israel has the absolute right to defend itself. And Donald Trump has a policy history of promoting peace in the region. And he will absolutely do that and protect Israel when he becomes president again. But I want to tell you a little bit about my background before we move on. With the rest of my time, I'm going to introduce. myself. One of the reasons why I'm so passionate about this is because of my time in the Marines. And then back up. And I got to the Marines from, this is my upbringing. I think that would have been a lot more natural. And because it was such a pressing and we're talking about like a life and

death issue to pivot. I thought was awkward. But that's just my personal opinion. A lot of people thought it was awesome how he did it. And I thought the rest of the debate that he did really well, except I thought abortion was like a little squishy. But gosh, he held his own and he is such a good communicator. Yeah. I was so impressed. And I know people on Twitter were impressed too. I saw a lot of tweets that were like, okay, a star is born because a lot of people didn't

know that he was going to perform like that. Oh, yeah. I mean, I really had no doubt that he was going to be articulate because I don't think I've ever heard the man say, um, in his life. He's so good. But I didn't know how he would display compassion. I didn't know if he would be too harsh and then knucklehead Tim Wals's. His words, Tim Wals called himself a knucklehead on stage.

We'll get to that. But I thought that it'd be like, oh, Grandpa Tim against a mean old J.D. Van. So I just wasn't sure how he was going to play it because J.D. Vans also does look like a Civil War hero. And so he could come across like as a little harsh looking, but he did. I thought he balanced that really, really well. one of the most impressive answers, I think, most impressive pivots, because you got to pivot. You got to go on offense all the time. Donald Trump took the bait in the last debate every single time and defended himself.

And when you're defending yourself, you seem, you just come across as weak. I think that you can say one thing in defense of yourself and then you go on offense. I thought J.D. Vance did that beautifully. So on climate change, Nora O'Donnell started describing the devastation caused by her, Kane, Helene, and then turns the questions to climate change, which as soon as she started this, I knew it wasn't going to be about the human cost. I knew it wasn't going to be about even the government response or the lack of government response that we've seen in the southeast from the Biden administration, but that she was going to turn it into a climate change

issue. So she asked Senator Vance about this, what responsibility the Trump administration would see themselves having in response to climate change. And I thought Vance, did this really well. He basically said, let's not debate the cause of climate change or all of that. Let's just assume that it's true. If it is true. And if Democrats really care about it, the way that they say they do, then they would be investing in more manufacturing and more energy production here in the United States, the way that Donald Trump did when he was president, the way that Donald Trump will when he's president again. He said, quote, clearly Kamala Harris herself doesn't believe her own rhetoric on this. If she did, she would actually agree with Donald Trump's energy policies. Nora O'Donnell, very strangely,

added her own editorial to this. She said the overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the Earth's climate is warming at an unprecedented rate. Okay? That's not even anything that he said. And you know, these moderators, they were definitely better than the last debate in that they weren't openly arguing quite as much with J.D. Vance, although it was still very lopsided. We knew it was going to be lopsided. It was at times three against one. And thankfully for J.D. Vance, he has a higher IQ than all three of them combined. I thought the moderators were extremely awkward. And I know it's a tough job, but they were weird. I'm sorry. But to borrow a term from the Harris Walls campaign, they were just odd. Like the things that they would say was like almost like it was AI. It was very weird. And then immigration, of course, understandably was I think Vance's strongest moments because Harris is so weak on this.

The Biden administration has been awful on this. The devastation because of illegal immigration is so obvious and so massive that, I mean, this was going to be a home run. Actually, Trump did not do well in the debate against Harris on this. He could have hit a home run on this, but he didn't. He pivoted, I forget what it was, but he pivoted to something really weird on immigration, which should be his strongest point. As I've said before, I would vote for Donald Trump on the issue, based on the promise of mass deportations alone.

I would because I think it's so important. all of the other issues we care about so much can't be fought for if we don't have a country. And you do not have a country if you don't have borders. You don't have borders if you're not enforcing border law. Your citizenship doesn't matter. It means nothing. If everyone can vote, if everyone has a right to government subsidies and all of the welfare and all of the access that the government gives its citizens. If everyone gets those things, no matter whether you are a citizen or not, no matter whether you're even here legally or not, then your citizenship means nothing, which means you have no rights that are afforded to you as a citizen. You have no protections

that are afforded to you as a citizen. And so the country itself means nothing. If citizenship means nothing, that means we don't have any sovereignty. You're being sold out, by your government. That means literally, not hyperbolicly, the dissolution of the United States of America. And if that happens, you will see more devastation, more chaos than you can even imagine. A strong America that believes in due process,

that believes in the rule of law, that still believes in free speech, is the only impediment to a global regime that wants to control every single part of your life. And I wish I were exaggerating. Go back and binge, listen to or watch every episode I've done with Justin Haskins. And I've said before, like, I understand if you're just living your life and you're like, I don't want to believe that. I want to believe that that's a conspiracy theory because it's too much. I get it. Ignorance is bliss to an extent, but look, like, we have power. We still have a voice. Use it. Use it. So let's get into this a little bit on on immigration.

So Vance said this in response to Margaret Brennan's question about Trump's plan to deport a bunch of people here illegally. He said, before we talk about deportations, we have to stop the bleeding. We have the historic immigration crisis because Kamala Harris started and said that she wanted to undo all of Donald Trump's border policies, 94 orders, suspending deportations, decriminalizing illegal aliens, massively increasing the asylum fraud that exists in our system. And he said that's open the floodgates. Then he said, right now in this country, we have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost. Some of them have been sex trafficked. Hopefully some are at home with their

families. Some have been used as drug trafficking mules. The real family separation policy in this country is Kamala Harris's border. Now, where are all the pro-life evangelicals for Biden? Where are all those social justice Christians that a few years ago were sounding the alarm about Trump's draconian family separation policies, who used that as a justification for Christians voting Democrat because, well, yeah, Democrats support abortion, but look at the evils that Donald Trump's administration supports by separating these children from their parents.

And by the way, most of the time, that's not what was happening. The adults that were taking these children across the border were not really their parents. They were coyotes. They were traffickers. There was no way for the United States government to prove that these children actually belonged to these parents. These parents were committing a crime by crossing the border. Just like when you commit a crime in the United States, you are separated from your children when you are placed in jail.

I'm not saying that's an ideal scenario. I want every baby and every child to be with their mama forever. Okay? Like I absolutely support that. But if you're going to say, wow, that's why Donald Trump is so evil. He's just like Hitler, which literally professing Christian. said that kind of thing at the time, where are you now? Where are you now? If you care about these children, like you say you do, you would be for stringent border policy. You would. And so I'm

really glad that he pointed this out. When Walls faced a question about the immigration crisis, he said basically that President Trump didn't do anything about it. He undermined efforts by Congress to guard the border. But that's not true. We've got a fact check on that in just a second. Let me pause and tell you about our second sponsor. It's good ranchers. All right.

It is so hard right now to be an American farmer. And to raise livestock that you are then using processing for meat because there's so much foreign competition that are able to make this really cheap meat, sell it for a lot cheaper. and so it's just it's hard on these farmers. The American government makes it hard on these farmers. And yet I think it's part of our responsibility as Americans to help our fellow citizens as much as we can to buy meat from these farmers so that they can continue to not only stay in business, but provide for their families. And so that's why I love getting all of my meat from good ranchers.

It's all from American farms and ranches, whether it's better than organic chicken, or the craft beef or any of the seafood, the bacon, all of it is from American farms and ranches. Plus, this is a Christian family-owned company. Corley was on stage with me at Share the Arrows, sharing part of her healing journey. They're just the real deal. And so it's a win all around. Plus, you get that meat to your front door once a month, which just makes your life a lot easier. It certainly has for us.

go to good ranchers. Go. Go.com. Go. Go. Good ranchers.com. New link slash alley. Go.

Dot good ranchers. com slash alley. Get my alley box. So you've got all kinds of good stuff in my alley box. If you go to go. Go.com. slash alley code alley. So Walls repeated this lie that the Senate border bill that was put

Ford last year would have secured the border and Donald Trump called up some friends in Congress and told them to vote against it. But that's because it was an awful bill. That's why Republicans voted against it. It didn't actually secure the border. So here's the Senate border bill. This is via the Federation for American Immigration Reform. It allowed 5,000 illegal border crossings per day before closing the border. So it basically said you had to hit that threshold of 5,000 the legal crossings before they would secure the border at all. Okay. Keeps catch and release in place.

So that means say you catch someone at the border. Say it's someone with a terroristic background. You release them into the interior of the United States. Does not stop parole abuse. That means people that are placed on parole in the United States and they don't, they don't appear for their court date. All kinds of abuse is there since hundreds of millions to the nonprofit organizations that actually facilitate illegal immigration.

immigration make it easier for these people to be incentivized to illegally immigrate and requires that any illegal alien who claims asylum be released into the country and granted work authorization immediately. Okay. We can have a debate about how many asylum seekers we should accept, but it's definitely not unlimited and unconditional. That is for sure. If you claim that everyone who comes from a poorer country, then the United States is an asylum, that means we have a responsibility to welcome every single person in the world into the United States? Is that loving your neighbor? I promise it's not. Speaking of loving your neighbor, Tim Walsh had this to say about Jesus's take on illegal immigration sought to. I don't talk about my faith a lot, but Matthew 2540

talks about to the least amongst us you do unto me. I think that's true of most Americans. They simply want order to it. This bill does it. It's funded. It's supported by the people who do it. And it lets us keep our dignity about how we treat other people. The bill doesn't do that at all, as I just fact-checked. And also, that's not what Jesus is talking about there. I promise you that when Jesus is referencing the least of these, he's not talking about the illegal aliens that were just arrested for raping minors in Nantucket. I promise you that. Actually, when Jesus is talking about the least of these here. He's not even talking about the world's poor. He is talking about persecuted Christians. Like if you look at the context of what is being said here, he is talking about persecuted

Christians. He is not talking. Yes, the poor matter, of course. And those who are on the margins, true margins of society, they do matter. But that's not who Jesus is referencing here. He is certainly not talking about the military-aged men who are coming into this country illegally. Remember, borders and order are God's idea. This is toxic empathy. This is that phrase that I've been using so much recently, the tool of manipulation that is meant to emotionally extort you into believing that the righteous biblical, loving, compassionate, empathetic side is the progressive one.

And here's how they do that. They hoist up this particular victim. In my book, Toxic Empathy, that's out October 15th, I show you exactly how they do this. There's a woman named Maribel Diaz, and her story was told by the Washington Post a few years ago. She and her husband and her three children fled poverty and violence in Mexico, came to the United States for a better life, settled in Ohio,

and got to work, raised their children. And then when Donald Trump became president, she was deported. She missed her family. She missed her baby. She missed her husband. She wasn't sure what was going to happen if her husband was deported to when she would ever be reunited with her child. That is the victim that is hoisted up by the media and only that victim. We are told that that is the only story that matters. And we are meant to only feel for her, to feel how she feels, to think, wow, if I were a mother, I would hate to be separated from my child in that way. And while we can have compassion to her, the reality is there are people who matter on the other side of the situation too. So we read about Maribel's story and our heartstrings are pulled.

And if you're only reading about her, you think, wow, the loving, righteous, Christ-like thing to do is to vote for Democrats because they don't believe in deporting these people who have just come here for a better life. But then I want to read you an excerpt from toxic empathy here. Here are the people on the other side of this issue who the media don't talk about, who all the also should pull on our heartstrings. Help me, Daddy. This was Kate Steinle's last plea before she died on July 1, 2015. Moments earlier, 32-year-old Kate, her dad, and a friend had been strolling down Pier 14 in San Francisco. Out of nowhere, a stranger shot a gun. The bullet hit Kate in the back, piercing her heart. Her dad desperately performed CPR as Kate screamed in pain before losing consciousness. He held Kate's limp body, begging her to hang on. She died in the hospital,

two hours later. Authorities quickly arrested the killer and booked him into San Francisco County Jail on suspicion of murder. But two years later, despite ample evidence and eyewitness testimony, Kate's killer was acquitted of all murder and involuntary manslaughter charges. His name was Juan Lopez Sanchez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico. Despite having been deported five times and having seven prior felony convictions, Lopez Sanchez was living safely in San Francisco, which had recently declared itself a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. Only a few months before Kate's murder, ICE issued a detainer for Lopez Sanchez. According to the Los Angeles Times, as the date neared for him to be released into ICE custody,

prison officials in Victorville shipped him north to the San Francisco Sheriff's Department on an outstanding drug-related warrant despite an immigration detainer. The San Francisco District Attorney's Office declined to prosecute what authority said was a decade-old marijuana possession case, and Sanchez was released April 15th. After Lopez-Sanchez arrived in San Francisco, ICE issued another detainer request. They asked that they'd be notified

before his release from jail so they could take him into custody. The request was ignored. Sanctuary cities earned their name because they don't work with federal authorities to detain and then eventually deport illegal aliens who have committed additional crimes. And because of those sanctuary city policies, which Kamala Harris champion when she was the district attorney of San Francisco,

when she was the Attorney General of California, when Kate Steinley was murdered, a woman lost her life in the prime of her life. And so when we hear about Maribel Diaz's story, our heartstrings are pulled, but our heartstrings should also be pulled when we hear about Kate Stynley or Molly Tibbitts or Lake and Riley. So if we feel empathy for someone on one side, there are also people who get our empathy on the other side. So the question is for Christians, what do we do with that? If we can feel sadness and sorrow for people on both sides of the issue,

what do we do? That's why we cannot be led by empathy because we can have feelings for people on both sides. The question is not how do we feel, but what is right and what is true and what is good because every policy has tradeoffs, but at the end of the day, we have to look at what is factually true, what is biblically true. What is factually morally and biblically true is that countries are good and borders are good and immigration laws are right. And every country has the right and responsibility to take care of its own citizens first. It is a righteous, wise, discerning, and even loving and compassionate government that puts its needs and the welfare of its people first.

Because countries are like families. And just because you love your family most and you take care of your children's need first does not mean that you hate your neighbors. It doesn't mean that you never invite your neighbors in, but you do have a right to say who comes into your house. Why? Because you love your kids. God created borders. Everywhere we see walls depicted metaphorically are literally in the Bible, they are seen as good. They are seen as depictions of order and protection and safety and security and stability. Remember, Satan is the author of chaos. God is a God of order. From the very beginning, we see he has a way of doing things, a process of doing things. God put us not in a jungle, but in a garden, and told us to work and to keep it.

Order is good for human beings. Borderlessness is disorder. Sexual degeneracy, immorality, gender confusion, abortion, all of these things that the Democrat Party unapologetically champions, they're not only immoral. They are disordered. they are deceitful they are against genesis one from the very beginning we see the answers to these questions that's why i wrote the book toxic empathy because it is so short-sighted to use our immediate feelings of empathy which are not necessarily bad to make these big policy decisions

that have so much of an impact on so many so many christians have been duped via toxic empathy into believing that putting your country first is evil or wrong or against the kingdom of God, and that is not true. Your country is like a family, and God gave it to you for your good. Just as in Jeremiah 29, the exiles in Babylon were told to seek the welfare of the city that God had placed to them in, for in its welfare was their welfare. So we, as exiles in this life are called to seek the welfare of the communities that we have been placed in. You do not have the capacity nor the responsibility to feel equal empathy for everyone at all times. You're not God.

And God, I wouldn't even argue, is feeling empathy for all people at all times because God is love. We don't read that God is empathy. Empathy and love aren't the same things. Love rejoices with the truth as we read in 1st Corinthians 13, 6th, and that is the driving force behind toxic empathy. And I just really encourage you to get it. It's out October 15th. Go ahead and pre-order.

That helps me out a lot. And it will give you these stories, these tools, these facts to be able to be armed with all the information you need when you are voting and when you are trying to encourage your friends to vote to. I love this quote by C.S. Lewis in my chapter that I included. love for one's country means chiefly love for people who have a good deal in common with oneself. And he talks about in his book, The Four Loves, how love of country is a natural love that is good because it leads to higher loves. Like love of God.

And God has placed this natural love and affinity for our own country and our hearts and we can cultivate it in really healthy ways. One of the ways that we can do that is to secure our border and to put the need. of our nation and its citizens first. Tim Miller, he is the host of the Bullwark podcast and MSNBC analyst. He said that this is the grossest line of the night so far by J.D. Vance. He said, the people I care most about in Springfield are the American citizens. He said, that is the grossest line of the night so far. Why?

Explain that to me in detail. I guess talk slowly because I don't understand that at first glance. Why is that gross? How is that not the responsibility of the American government? Are you telling me? Do you apply that same moral standard to every country? Should the government in Norway care as much about me as a citizen of Norway? Should the government of Zambia care as much about you and your rights and what you need?

person living in Kentucky as they care about their own citizens? Is that their responsibility too? Are they bigoted and awful if they don't allow you to enter their country to enter Kenya or Indonesia illegally set up camp there, change the culture, live on the taxpayer, diem, commit crimes without being deported? Like, is that their moral right and responsibility to do? You would say no, right? Of course, because you have been absolutely brainwashed by leftist ideology and critical race theory and intersectionality into believing that it's only American white people who are morally obligated to sell out our fellow citizens for the sake of people who are not citizens. And that's a stupid lie. It's dumb. And Christians

aren't called to be dumb. We're called to have wisdom. All right. Next sponsor for the day is Covenant Ice. So this is such an important tool. If you are just a single individual or if you're a mom or dad and you are looking for ways to protect your own eyes and mind and heart or to protect your children from the predation of the addiction to pornography, which is unfortunately everywhere people look online. And sometimes you just need an extra layer of accountability and protection to make sure that you are making good, pure, excellent choices when it comes to the content that you are consuming. And this is not just a male problem.

Barna conducted a study in 2016 and found that one and three Christian women were struggling with pornography use, which is why Covenant Eyes came up with this 21-day video series for women designed by women to overcome pornography addiction and to accomplish sexual healing. If you go to ariseforwomen.com, you can check out this program for women. That's arise for women.com. Okay, before we get to abortion, I just have to do this. So, oh my goodness. So Tim Walz lied and said that he was there in China when the Tiananmen Square protests

happened in 1989. And to the moderator's credit, they actually called him on this. and said, you know, you said you were there, but you weren't there. So how do you explain that discrepancy? Here's what he sets up for. Governor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy? All I said on this was, is I got there that summer and misspoke on this. So I will just, that's what I've said.

So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be. and in governance. Also, he had said previously that he was a knucklehead. He said, I'm just a knucklehead. And that's why I just forgot, which I actually think was kind of brilliant in the moment. Now, they could extract that the Trump campaign and use that as an ad. But at the moment, it kind of made him probably relatable to some people.

But that's not really who you want second in line to the presidency, someone who was a knucklehead. Like, who wants Phil Dumfie running the country? Like, I understand that that character is likable. It's who sitcoms have been, you know, that's what sitcoms have been telling us masculinity is for decades now. This silly, fumbling man who can't ever get it together is kind of wimpy and feminine, married to the feminist boss lady who really runs the show both in and outside of the home. And that's what they're trying to sell us. Tim Wals, too. Okay, that might be funny to watch on a TV show. That's not funny when they've got the nuclear codes. So Little Knucklehead Tim Wals, I loved that pregnant pause there when they

just kind of let him bask in the awkwardness and they tried to continue to let him respond. And he didn't have anything to say. Oh, my goodness. Well, it is a day ending in Y and so was yesterday when the debate happened. And so that means we've got Democrats lying about abortion. That's all they do. That's all they can do on a lot of subjects, if not every subject, but especially on abortion Democrats lie. They lie, lie, lie, because at the end of the day, they can cite all the polls saying Americans are pro-choice, but they know when Americans are actually told about what an abortion is, what it does, that it's not palatable to them. Like saying that abortion, Poisons and Dismembers Babies is just bad PR.

That's why they use all the euphemisms. That's why they use bodily autonomy. That's why they use things like reproductive rights. That's why they always pivot to miscarriages. When they're talking about abortion law and J.D. Vance tried to pin him on the fact that he supports abortion through all nine months and he pivoted to misinformation, disinformation on tragic stories of women dying because of their abortions. about Amanda Zorozki. He talked about Amber Thurman. We have fact-checked these stories. Amber Thurman, we talked about that story with an OBGYN last week, and we can link that. And Tim Walls basically tried to say that women aren't able to get miscarriage care,

and they will continue to not able to get miscarriage care under Donald Trump's presidency. There is no pro-life law, no pro-life law that restricts miscarriage care anywhere. And when someone brings that up to you, when someone brings up these stories, you make them cite the law in the state where this incident happened and the line in the law that restricts or prohibits miscarriage care in any way or treating ectopic pregnancies. You make them cite it. Because remember, doctors have always had to navigate different abortion restrictions. And the idea that now they don't know how to is absurd. As Dr. Christina Fram, Francis said on our show last week, Amber Thurman, she took an abortion pill via telehealth to kill her twins.

And when that didn't work, and parts of the baby's bodies were left inside her, and she clearly had an infection, she went to the emergency room in Georgia, and they refused to treat her for signs of infection. She should have gotten antibiotics and a DNC right away. A DNC, in the case of either a miscarry, or a failed abortion is not illegal or restricted in any way in the state of Georgia. You can go look at the law yourself. And even if she had been actively, you know, taking those pills right there, or even if she had wanted an abortion, even if the babies had still been alive at this moment, she actually would have still been able to get a DNC because Georgia law allows for abortion to save the life of the mother or even to,

protect a woman from serious bodily harm. And so it would have been legal, even if the babies had been alive inside her at that point for her to get an abortion. But the babies had died. She just had remnants of those babies inside of her. She definitely legally could have gotten a DNC in Georgia, just like you can absolutely everywhere in the United States, no matter what state you live in. And yet she wasn't. It was medical malpractice. It was hopefully not, but perhaps malice for political reasons, but it was not because of any pro-life law. The same is true of Amanda Zeroski. In Texas, he repeated the lie that Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies, track women's cycles. That is an absolute lie. And then remember how evil this is, that when

it comes to abortion, this is what both Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are most animated about. It's what they get the most flustered about, the most excited about. It's actually, I shouldn't say flustered because it's when they zero in. It's when they focus. It's when they're the most articulate is when they are talking about the fundamental right to kill an unborn child. Here's five. For so many of you out there listening, me included, infertility treatments are why I have a child. That's nobody else's business, but those things are being proposed. And the catch-all on this is, is, well, the states will decide what's right for Texas might not be right for Washington. that's not how this works.

This is basic human right. A basic human right to be able to slaughter your child. No, it's a basic human right to be able to live. That's the most fundamental basic human right is the right not to be murdered. Without the right to life, neither the right to liberty nor the right to happiness exist, which is guaranteed to us in the Declaration of Independence.

The listing of those things, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not arbitrary. It is extremely purposeful. because without life, neither liberty nor happiness can exist. And so once again, this is disorder, asking a child, a baby, to sacrifice on behalf of the wants of adults. Abortion is wrong.

It kills a child. It is violent. It is barbaric. There's not a need for abortion. If a woman is suffering, if her health is truly in danger, then the option is delivery. and you do the best that you possibly can to save them both. There is no reason to intentionally dismember or poison a baby before removing that baby from a mother's womb. You don't have to be a doctor to understand that logic.

And of course, both Walls and Kamala support babies who survive abortion being abandoned and left to die. And Vance pointed this out. He said, as I read the Minnesota law that you signed into law, the statute says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survived. the doctor is under no obligation to provide life-saving care to a baby that survives a botched late-term abortion. And J.D. Vance is absolutely right about that under Governor Tim Wals. At least eight babies have been born alive during botched abortions between 2019 to 2020, 2021. And that was, it was required reporting to report these babies who were born alive after botched abortions, those eight precious image bears of God. And yet it is not right.

required anymore to report those babies born alive because in 2023, he signed a law, while signed a law saying that reporting is no longer necessary. He also signed an omnibus bill known as SF-2995, which repealed previous laws ensuring a baby born alive after an abortion will receive medical care and laws requiring that these births after an attempted abortion would be reported. He also signed the Protect Reproductive Options Act. He also signed the Protect Reproductive Options Act, or HF1 in 2023, which enacted a fundamental right to abortion with no limitations at any stage of pregnancy. There you go.

There's that empathetic ticket. What did Latasha Morrison say on the evangelicals for Harris call that Kamala Harris represents meekness, that she represents the beatitude? that she is most Christ-like. Both of them support abortion through all nine months unapologetically. And she voted against the born-alive infant survivors protection act in 2019, which guaranteed a right to health care for the babies who survive abortions, babies outside the womb.

We're talking a pro-infanticide ticket. We're talking a pro-pagan Roman empire, basically exposure of children. that happened back 2,000 years ago, we're talking about people who support that. And if you support them, supporting that, then you are no better than the pagans in ancient Rome. And what happened? Then Christians came into pagan ancient Rome and disrupted all of that. So do you want to be on the side of evil pagans or not?

That's the choice. That's the choice that you've got. All right. That's all we have time for when it comes to breaking down this debate. I do want to give you just an explanation from Josh Hammer on what exactly is happening with Iran and Israel. You will hear him refer in the beginning of our conversation to the Shah. And he's referencing the 1979 Islamic Iranian Revolution. It was a series of events that concluded in the overthrowing of the,

the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979 that was under Jimmy Carter. And so that's what he's talking about in the beginning here. But he's just got so much knowledge and so much information on that. And he explained so well how we as people who are America first, how we should see this and why we should still care about it and how it affects us. So without further ado, here is Josh Hammer. Josh, thanks so much for joining us. All right. Tell us what is going on with Iran and Israel right now.

Ali, where to begin? I mean, it depends how far back we want to go. I mean, we quite literally could go back to the overthrow of the Shah and the forcible takeover of this radical Islamist theocracy all the way back in 1979. You know, as I saw someone on Twitter post the other day, you know, Jimmy Carter just turned 100 years old. I mean, we literally could see the return of the Shah potentially in his lifetime. It happened while he was president. So, I mean, we could actually start there if we want to. I mean, back when the Islamic regime took over in 79, they had been in a state of war with the West since then.

I mean, we have not had diplomatic relations, the United States, Israel, or many Western-style countries, for that matter, for the past 45 years. But, you know, this thing really starts to escalate, to the extent that it was not already escalated, I guess, on October 7. So the correct view of the Hamas massacre on October 7th, which we are getting ready. It's hard to believe it's been a year already, but we're getting ready for the one year anniversary, I suppose, this coming Monday. The correct view is not as an isolated attack by Hamas. Hamas is simply the Palestinian Arab offshoot of the broader Muslim Brotherhood, which is a radical Sunni Islamist outfit founded in Egypt a very long time ago. The correct view of October 7th is that this was one tip of the broader Iranian regime's ring of fire sphere, trying to pinch Israel on all sides, ultimately trying to take away land, take away their morale, ultimately trying to destroy them, as the tip of the spear of Western

civilization that they are and that they have been since the modern state was founded in 1948. So Iran indirect, well, they directly fund Hamas, but Hamas also gets other patrons. But Iran also has many other proxies in the region that they fund directly and fairly exclusively. So Hezbollah, which is probably the crown jewel of the Iranian terrorist proxy network, has been in power in Lebanon to one extent or another for many decades. Hezbollah was the jihadist out, but that was responsible for the bombings of the U.S. embassy in Beirut back in 1983, and the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 that same year, 241 U.S. Marines tragically slaughtered that day there. And Hassan Nazarala, who was really the head of Hezbollah for the past 32 years.

He was hand-installed by the current Ayatollah Khomeini all the way back in 1992. He was the Ayatollah's point man in Lebanon. Israel took him out. Now, apparently Israel wanted to go for Hezbollah shortly after October 7th. Apparently, we recently learned the Biden-Harris administration said, no, you can't do that. So Israel finally did the world a favor and got rid of this horrific terrorist. They've gotten rid of some other high-ranking Hezbollah militants as well, Fuad Chakor, Ibrahim Akiil. Other terrorists involved back in the 1983 bombings. Those two individuals I just named had a $5 and $7 million FBI bounty on their head.

Israel has now done it for us, essentially. They've taken these guys out that have American blood on their. their hands. But Hezbollah has long been viewed as the Iranian regime's insurance policy, so to speak, because they have a very sophisticated arsenal. Hamas is more of kind of a rag-tag group of jihadists, which makes the fact that October 7th, all the more inexplicable, frankly. But Hezbollah, by contrast, has between 100 and 150,000 missiles, rockets, and drones in their arsenal. Most of them are precision-guided missiles. This is a formidable terrorist organization, a highly formidable terrorist organization. And Iran has viewed them as insurance in

far as the fact that these missiles are pointed at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv of the two main population centers in Israel is viewed by Iran and most geopolitical strategists as basically saying, okay, this is going to put Israel in place. They're not actually going to start taking out Iranian nuclear sites. But now that Nazarala is out, now that Hezbollah is crippled, the likes of which they have never been in the organizational history going back, at least as far as that wild pager walkie-talkie explosions that happened a few weeks ago, 5,000 Hezbollah militants lose their legs, they're out of commission there.

You know, now the window is open, and Iran is finally trying to retaliate. They did a similar thing back in April, where they launched a similar missile drone and rocket barrage from Iran. This time it was actually even bigger, 181 ballistic missiles, so substantially bigger than it was in April. Thank God, Israel working closely with the United States and some other allies able to intercept each and every one of these missiles. I don't think that there was a single civilian casualty. There actually was one Arab who tragically died in the Palestinian town of Jericho, but there were no actual Israelis within Israel, so to speak, who actually died there. That's nothing less than a miracle.

But things are heating up really, really, really quickly now. But I guess just in closing here, Ali, the way to think about what's going on, again, is not Hamas in isolation or Hezbollah in isolation or the Houthis in Yemen, which are Iran-funded rebels in isolation there. It's all coming from Iran. Iran is the head of the snake in the region. And the Iranian threat is what brought us the Abraham Accords peace agreement under Donald Trump, where you have these Arab countries like the United Arab Emirates in Bahrain and

Morocco that see the Iranian threat for what it is. Therefore, they want to come to terms and get peace with Israel as its protective shield. Virtually all of the woes and the evils in that part of the world right now can ultimately be traced to the Iranian regime. And at this point, the ball is in Benjamin Netanyahu's court, I guess we shall say. Yeah, so a couple weeks ago, you mentioned this briefly, the pager situation, when the bombs were placed in 5,000 pagers, and that's what killed several members of Hezbollah, correct? And I actually saw some people, of course, trying to strike some nuance or some subliminal criticism of Israel after that happened,

saying, oh, oh, my goodness, just because they were attacked doesn't justify them doing something so subversive like this. Just imagine if something like that happened here. But again, any time I see a criticism of anything that Israel has done over the past year, I think, but isn't that the natural consequence of flying into a music festival and raping and slaughtering hundreds of innocent people? And I get very confused when people seem to forget what started all of this, as if Israel is just randomly acting out and randomly trying to target civilians. I'm like, do we forget that they actually paraglided into a music festival and brutally raped and murdered and kidnapped a bunch of people? Maybe they shouldn't have done that

if they didn't want their countries, their regimes to be threatened. So I just continued to be completely confounded by many of the commentators here who just, I don't know, don't seem to understand the moral calculation that's going into these moves. Yeah, there's a few moving parts here. So I guess let's try to unpack it one at a time. So sticking to Hamas and Gaza just for a second here, you know, you do have a lot of people that are outraged over the situation. And I'm upset myself.

I mean, no one likes seeing an entire territory of land. that is home to between one and a half and two million people utterly decimated. I mean, this is not a joyous thing. No one is happy about this. But we do have to talk about kind of the mechanics of urban warfare to an extent. And I mean, to the extent that we even care about rational analysis, we're not just having kind of an emotional, you know, highly kind of hormonally induced, you might say, kind of just paroxysm of rage.

I mean, if we're going to have a sober rational debate, it's important to look at numbers. So for instance, John Spencer, who's the head of urban warfare studies at West point, you know, he's crunched the numbers. He's, he studied this at great length. We published many op-eds of his actually a newsweek where I work. And John Spencer has concluded that the, that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza over the course of this war is roughly 1 to 1.5, which he says is by far, by far, the most humanitarian ratio he has ever calculated ever in the entire history of modern warfare. This is a man who was actually on the ground in Mosul, Iraq in 2016 during the ISIS counterinsurgency.

The U.S. military's ratio back then was about 1 to 2.5. So the IDF in Gaza has done an even better job than that. Again, I mean, if you care about numbers, the numbers just simply don't lie. And, you know, speaking of Hezbollah as well, because, again, these strands just totally relate to one other. You know, Hezbollah up in Lebanon, they started raining down rockets and missiles on Israel the day after October 7th, on October 8th. In fact, there were a lot of people in the military brass, the security.

brass over there who actually said that they wanted to respond to October 7th, not necessarily by first going into Gaza, but by taking care of Hezbollah. So to back up a little bit here, what happened was the second Lebanon war ended with something of a stalemate in 2006. It was considered a strategic failure by the Israeli troops. They really did not accomplish a lot of their missions. But the UN put into place, I think it's UN Security Resolution 1701, where they said that international peacekeeping forces, and Al-U and I both know that that's total nonsense, but they said that they must ensure that Hezbollah does not go south of the Latani River, which is basically 20 miles north of the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Obviously, that's been flagrantly ignored, and Hezbollah has had now 150,000 missiles, rockets, and drones right there on the border, staring from the high terrain from the mountaintops, looking into the valley of the Israeli population center. So Israel cannot deal with this. So the conflict in Lebanon, in particular, has been a long, long time brewing right now. And specifically, because they started raining down some of these rockets the day after October 7th, you've had a situation where between 16 and 80,000 Israelis in the north of Israel, everywhere from Haifa on the coast, all the way over to the Golan Heights,

a little bit further east near Syria. They've been evacuated from their homes. I mean, they have not been there for a year. I mean, no one talks about this, frankly, but I was over in Israel back in January and speaking with Israelis there, this absolutely is a weight on the conscience. I mean, let's think about the fact if the Mexican drug cartels just start dropping thousands and thousands of rockets into El Paso or San Antonio or here in Florida, maybe Havana, the Cuban regime, starts firing directly at Miami. I mean, what would we do? I mean, you obviously do not just sit there and take it. This is a sovereign country and you can't just seed territory to an evil enemy regime or an outright terrorist outfit. So, I mean, it's going to be a slog, but ultimately, I hate to say it, but ultimately, none of the,

of this is probably going to fully go away unless and until the head of the snake in Tehran is ultimately neutralized. And I suspect that's probably where this conversation is ultimately going. I know people in Israel are probably having that conversation right now, but it's complicated stuff, obviously. Quick pause. Tell you about our last sponsor. It's Jace Madical. So I don't know if you are hearing all of this about the port strikes that might happen. That's really going to affect our ability to get the medications that unfortunately we rely on other countries to make for us. And so you probably want to go ahead and get you an emergency stash of the antibiotics that you need. Add on an epipen, ivermectin, Tamiflu, just in case you need it. That's the Jace case. You can get

that at jace.com code Alley with a discount. And then you can also get a year-long supply of the prescriptions that you and your family rely on. Again, if you're in some kind of emergency situation, there's a really good chance that you'll need this. And that's called the Jace Daily Kit. So go to Jace.com, get both of those things. Use code Alley at checkout for a discount. That's jace.com code Alley. Where has the Biden administration got it wrong

over the past few years that has perhaps precipitated what we're seeing now from Iran? Well, they basically just reversed the Trump administration's foreign policy when it came to the Middle East. So you essentially had a broadly bipartisan consensus when it came to U.S. policy vis-a-vis the Middle East for a good period of time. And the bipartisan consensus was typically wrong with the Palestinian question, but it was typically correct when it came to U.S. geostrategic interest in the region. What I mean by that is that Republican and Democratic administrations for a long time recognized that the American value there was with Israel and then with the Sunni Arab states. So Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the U.E, Bahrain, and so forth.

The Obama administration comes in, and for reasons that are still not entirely clear to me, to be honest with you, Alley, just decides to totally flip the script on that. And to create deliberate distance, to create daylight, as the infamous Obama administration put it, to deliberately create daylight between the U.S. and traditional allies in the region, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and so forth. and then to mollycoddle to cozy up with the regional arch foes, namely the Iranian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is best represented by the tiny but very wealthy Emirate of Qatar. And that's how you got the Iran nuclear deal. They basically tried to legitimize Iran as a great power on the national stage. Again, it's unclear to me why they did this. I have literally spoken with people who were born in Tehran, who have fled here.

They tell me about how since they were in kindergarten, you know, their equivalent in Iran, Their equivalent of saying the Pledge of Allegiance, like we say here in the United States, is to literally pledge that they will do everything they can to destroy the little Satan of Israel and the big Satan of America. They actually say that in school every single day. I'm not even kidding. So it's not entirely clear to me why the Obama administration wanted to do this, but Trump administration, to their great credit, they reversed it. And that's how you got Mike Pompeo, a secretary of state. They refer to it as the maximum pressure campaign. They put tremendous sanctions on the Iranian regime.

they really put the pain to their oil exports. That's where the wealth is in that particular country there. And more generally, the Trump administration really warmed up to Israel. It restored relations with Saudi Arabia, which the Obama administration had downplay. Trump's first foreign trip was actually to re-ad Saudi Arabia to visit the crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman. That's how you got the fruits of peace in the Abraham Accords a few years later in 2020, this Iran containment alliance in the Middle East there.

Then Biden comes in and essentially tears all that up and goes right back to the Obama policy. So, you know, he's less into the sanctions on the Iranian regime. I mean, he paid them $6 billion, Allie, for five U.S. hostages there, $1.2 billion a hostage in ransom. I mean, look, I care as much as anyone about returning U.S. hostages home that are illegitimately held by terrorist regimes overseas. But, I mean, that is a payoff. That is a payoff to a horrific, horrific outlet.

And more generally speaking, we have kept the money flowing through all sorts of international intermediaries there. we have tried to legitimize yet again Iran on the world stage. And it's actually even worse than this. You know, there was a fascinating article, I think it was semaphore that published yet. It was just a few weeks before the October 7th massacre. It was last September. And they were talking about an Iranian regime influence operation happening right here in the United States.

The exact name escapes me. But this was coming directly from Tehran. They were trying to make inroads in U.S. universities, U.S. think tanks, and in the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. itself. At the time, there was a U.S. State Department staffer who was named by this. The State Department did a very lousy job of looking into this. You had Republican senators like Josh Hawley, if I recall, who were apoplectic about it. What is this Iranian agent doing in the State Department?

And probably the most infamous example of someone who was essentially outed as a quasi-Iranian agent is actually Robert Malley himself. Robert Malley was both the Obama administration and now the Biden administration's special envoy to Iran. Turns out he's, I'm not sure if he's literally on the payroll of the Iranian regime, but he is in close contact with them and we might even go so far as to say that he is taking orders. So, I mean, there is an outright subversive element to this as well, which is something that a lot of people don't talk about either there. But the Biden administration has done everything possible, just like the Obama administration before, to warm up to the Iranian

regime, to isolate America's traditional allies in the region, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and so forth there. And the very predictable result is that the Middle East is on fire much the way it was the last time under Barack Obama. The first question of the debate last night was about this. Tim Walls answered first. And he said what I think a lot of us would want to hear when it comes to Israel's right to defend itself and calling Hamas terrorists. That's not typically what we hear from the progressive side. Is that just rhetoric when you're thinking about a potential Harris Wall's presidency. Do you think that they are truly on the side of Israel, as both Harris and Walls have said they are?

No, of course not. I mean, look, they're, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, I mean, they're trying to have it both ways when it comes to this particular issue. I mean, you know, to this day, there are a lot of wealthy Jewish donors who give to the Democratic Party. Trust me, I pray more than anyone else that those days come to a rapid end because it is catastrophic. There was really no racial or ethnic group in America who so clearly and consistently votes against their own self-interest, as do my fellow Jews. So I pray for a political awakening when it comes to that. But the fact is that there are a lot of wealthy Jewish donors in the Democratic Party.

So they have to appease them. On the other hand, they have this Hamas wing. I mean, I don't know how else to say it. They actually have this wild in the streets, Hamas wing in places like Dearborn, Michigan, Hamtrak, Michigan. I mean, just a few days ago, I was reading a social media post. from a leading imam in Dearborn, Michigan, referring to Hassan Nasrallah,

who has literal American blood on his hands, the now eliminated Hezbollah chief, referring to him as a martyr. They were holding a memorial service for the great martyr, Hassan Nasra. I mean, this stuff is like increasingly out in the open right now. But no, I mean, Ali,

I obviously do not trust Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. It'll just be the exact same Barack Obama, Joe Biden, foreign policy all over again. I remember Ilhan Omar a few years ago. There was a video released of her doing some kind of interview where she was making fun of people who were scared of Hamas and Hezbollah. She was kind of using this mocking voice like, oh, Hezbollah. And of course, she is a representative from Tim Wal's estate. And Tim Walz has, you know, he's got a lot of these

communities as well because of the large Somali refugee population there who are at the very least often sympathetic to these Islamic terroristic organizations and their goals to wipe out Israel in the United States, which is pretty troubling. On the last, on the last point, for those who are thinking, because they're like you, you're an America first guy. And when we were talking about Russia and Ukraine, it was like, how much should America really get involved? How does this really affect us? When you're looking at this Israel conflict and you're thinking, of course, you know, as a Jewish man, you love Israel, you love your friends, your community, your family, your history, but also you're in America first person.

Tell us how we balance those two things. And in this kind of conflict, what do you think America's responsibility is? I'm so happy you ask this question, Ali. Actually, I was in Washington, D.C. in July, speaking to a Yaff conference, Young America's Foundation, talking about this exact topic. I actually have, you know, shameless plug.

I have a whole chapter in my upcoming book, Israel and Civilization, the fate of the Jewish nation and the destiny of the West on this exact topic as well. When does it come out? which it, March, March, God willing. Okay, good. So we've got a few months. Got it.

Yeah. So I have a whole chapter on this, which is a realist Jacksonian foreign policy, as I call it, and U.S. Israel relations and all of that. And the very short answer, and then I will unpack it a little bit, is that not only are these two things not intention, they actually go together perfectly. You know, it's funny. A lot of people in their minds, you know, associate the neo-conservative boondoggles of yesterday year with U.S. support for Israel. I mean, there is this nefarious talking point. I mean,

you see it deep in the battles of Groyper, Twitter, and places like that, that, oh, you know, America's fighting Israel's wars, you know, we're just taking orders from Tel Aviv. You know, first of all, that's really just not accurate on its face. So as part of the research for my book, I was going back to what Israeli national leaders, including the more hawkish elements of the Lekud, their concerted party. I was looking back to what they were saying back in 2002 as the Bush administration was being the war drums for the Iraq war. Now, some people did support over there say that you should go in and topple Saddam Hussein. But at the time, Ariel Sharon, who was at that time still the leader of the Israeli rights, he was actually adamantly opposed to it. He said to Colin Powell,

he said that George W. Bush, don't do this. This is the wrong target. It's actually Iran that is a threat there. You go in there. You have no idea what's going to come next. You're just going to topple someone for the sake of toppling someone. And, you know, more generally, the Israeli mentality when it comes to jihadism and radical Islam, you know, it's not this moralistic nation-building impulse. I mean, it's very much kind of just a precision tactical strike and then get the heck out of their sort of impulse. Very similar, frankly, to the Trump administration. And the Trump administration was the America first foreign policy. I mean, Michael Anton had a great essay for foreign policy magazine back in 2019 laying out the Trump doctrine. Well, the Trump doctrine is, you know,

is we might say, I guess in political theory, you might call it Jackson and Jackson and Jackson kind of channeling the Andrew Jackson National Populist political tradition, which is, you know, we're not seeking to get abroad overseas. John Quincy Adams famously said America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy, but when you prick us, then we're going to hit back at you hard. And we saw that in action with the Qasem Soleimani strike, for instance, at the Baghdad Iraq airport in 2020. But more generally, from an America first foreign policy,

perspective, what do I care about the most on the foreign stage as an American? What concerns me the most? The answer is very simple. It's communist China. Communist China is by far, without question, the number one civilizational threat to America this century. And I support a broader strategic and military redeployment of assets to the Indo-Pacific. Here's the key point, Alley. Look, America is always going to have some sort of vested interest in the Middle East for various regions. We're going to care about it for energy, for oil. Yes, we're going to care about it for moral and religious reasons as well. I mean, for as long as America,

God willing, continues to be a strong Christian majority country. There will always be people who care about the holy sites and the holy land. So we're going to continue to care about this part of the world. The question is, how can America better geostrategically redeploy for the Indo-Pacific to deal with China while making sure the Middle East does not burn on fire? The answer is the Trump foreign policy and the Abraham Accords. And what Trump did, working with Benjamin Netanyahu, is you emboldened Israel.

You make it clear that the U.S. is not backing down from our ally there. So Trump obviously moved the embassy from Tel Avid to Jerusalem. He recognized Israeli sovereignty or the Golan Heights. And I could go on and on. And in so doing, when you see the great power warming up to Israel, you get these other Arab states that say, oh, wow, Israel's not going anywhere. I mean, we're not going to destroy them.

We better make peace with them. So as it comes to our big enemy, the Iranian regime, the Saudis realized that whether or not, they formally join the Abraham Accords. They probably, in my view, actually will join the Abraham Accords in a second Trump administration if we actually go ahead and get that there. So by making it clear that America stands with Israel, you can actually then get these Arab states to join forces with them to allow this combined Sunni Arab-Israeli coalition to better police

their region so that America does not have to. That's kind of the key point there. So it's kind of all a very realist approach to the region there. America does not need to fight anyone's wars for it. This is a totally false talking point, by the way. I mean, it's actually Israeli policy and has been since day one that they will never, ever ask a foreign soldier to die for their cause. It goes against the entire point of Zionism, Jewish nationalism, whatever you want to call.

I mean, the idea that they would ask non-Jews to fight for them is literally is antithetical to the entire idea of Zionism, frankly. So it's not going to happen. But by continuing to make sure that America rhetorically and diplomatically stands with Israel, and ideally, Ali, and here's where I make some people on the pro-Israel side a little uncomfortable, I actually think that America should wind down its massive annual aid to Israel as well. So we get this massive $3 to $4 billion aid package there. To me, it would be in both countries' interests if that agreement ultimately ends.

So from a U.S. taxpayer perspective, U.S. aid to Israel ends up being an implicit sub-executive. of the defense industrial complex. It ends up really just funding North of Grumman and Boeing. That's really what you're funding with that money there. And from Israel's perspective, you know, why would you want to make yourselves more dependent on an increasingly fickle and mercurial great power? I mean, why would you want to put your munitions and your tanks and whatnot? Why would you want to put that at the whims of people like Kamala Harris and Tim Walz? Obviously, you don't want to do that. So ideally, we would wind down these massive aid packages as well, all these countries will become more self-sufficient. But, but, you know, specifically

right now, and I guess I'll end with this, when it comes to the Iranian threat, and we'll have to see what Netanyahu does, I do predict he's probably going to have a, you know, a pretty serious strike. I think that I think we'll probably see Israeli warplanes start bombing nuclear reactors for the first time ever. That, I think we probably actually are there. If that actually starts happening. Nothing is needed from the United States other than diplomatic cover at the United Nations. I guess maybe some specific munitions that might be necessary. Some bombs here or there. Ideally, in the mid to long term, that can become self-sufficient as well. But really, other than diplomatic cover, a place like the U.N., there's not a whole lot that is necessary

from a U.S. perspective. Wow. Yes. Very well said. Well, this was so informative. Thank you so much. and where can people follow you, find you. I'm sure your book is available for pre-order soon. Let everyone know. Yeah, thanks so much, Ali. So I'm on X, Josh underscore Hammer. Instagram is Josh B. Hammer. I host two shows, The Josh Hammer Show,

and America on trial with Josh Hammer. And the book is due out in March. It's just barely available for pre-order on Amazon, Israel and civilization, the fate of the Jewish nation, and the destiny of the West. Awesome. Thank you so much, Josh. Thanks, Al.

Okay. And to close us, I just want to tell you all about Blaze Unlimited and the new magazine that we've got. It's called Frontier. It's amazing. We've got original journalism, really insightful, incisive commentary. It's a beautiful magazine. If you want to support independent journalism, America-loving, objective journalism, then go to blazeunlimited.com slash alley. You can become a founding member of Blaze Unlimited. You'll get VIP event access, behind the scenes, content, a chance to have your voice heard, go to blazeunlimited.com slash alley.