The Charlie Kirk Show - The Debate Heard Around the World

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Democrats may impose their latest inventions from the top down, but on the right debate is allowed to thrive. At the Student Action Summit in Tampa, Charlie moderated a fiery, energetic, and mostly-peaceful debate between Josh Hammer and Dave Smith about Israel. The two of them battled it out over the war with Iran, the right policy for Gaza, lobbyist power in the U.S., and a lot more. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com!    Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here live from the Bitcoin.com studio. A debate heard around the world. Dave Smith versus Josh Hammer that I moderate about Israel. They talk about AIPAC. We talk about foreign influence. October 7th, we talk about the brain rot of anti-Semitism. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation. Email me, freedom at Charlie Kirk.com, who you think won and how you think I did moderating get involved with turning point USA today

At tpusa.com buckle up everybody here. We go Charlie what you've done is incredible here Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Charlie Kirk's running the White House folks I Want to thank Charlie's an incredible guy his spirit his love of this country He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created turning point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. That's why we are here.

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Our last bit of programming here is going to be a debate. As many of you guys know, I speak a lot about this on college campuses. I get so many questions about this topic on college campuses. Some of my best memories ever, I've been going to Israel, traveling to Israel, seeing where Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus walked on water, spoke in the garden of the guest and gave the sermon, traveling to Israel, seeing where Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus walked on water, spoke in the Garden of Gethsemane, gave the sermon on Mount Beatitudes, Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob, and Hebron. And some of my greatest experiences have been in the Holy Land and defending Israel. But as you know, this is a very hot topic on campus and increasingly a hot topic in conservative circles. And I thought, hey, let's lean in to that disagreement. Let's lean in to that debate. Let's have two people that don't agree on this topic that are some of the best defenders of the position

when it comes to Israel, when it comes to the 12 day war, when it comes to whether or not we should be supporting or sending aid to Israel. Because we as conservatives, we wanna have this debate. We don't wanna just all of a sudden say, say oh you're not allowed to say that no. We want to foster an environment where we get to the truth. We want to find the best ideas and have the best ideas win. And so we are thrilled to have two men and they know what they're talking about. I'm gonna be moderating this. We're gonna

make sure that this remains mostly peaceful. So give it up for Josh Hammer and Dave Smith everybody. So Josh and Dave welcome to Turning Point USA, welcome to Tampa and give it up for both these men again. So we have a clock here, we can blow through that if this is going well and respectful and spirited. I first wanted to start by introducing both these men. Josh Hammer, Newsweek Josh Hammer Show. Josh is a very passionate and eloquent defender of Israel and also is a great friend and someone that we talk about a lot of other issues as well.

So Josh, welcome, great to have you. Great to be here Charlie. Also Dave Smith. Dave is comedian, a lot of fans of yours here in the audience Dave, and also a libertarian and we're not going to talk much about that but we were talking about how much we agreed backstage on certain things and Dave means a lot that you made work here you took an awful flight to get here from halfway across the country and Dave, you could plug your stuff as well, because I don't know the name of your show and stuff.

But I want to start with this. I want to start with opening statements, if you will. There are three big things that I want to cover. And we just did a focus group with some of our students here earlier. The three big things I want to cover. I want to cover the 12-day war between Israel and Iran. What do we think of that?

Good, bad, how did Trump handle it? Number two, we want to talk about the appeared, the appeared, the fake or the real amount of Israeli influence in American politics, from AIPAC to how congressmen are involved and kind of have our discussion debate. And then finally, it's one thing to be against stuff, everybody.

You can always, I don't like this, I don't like that. I want both of these men to present what their solution is, their proposition of how, what they are proposing. So with that though, Dave, I thought it would be helpful, this is your first Turning Point event, some people aren't familiar with your work, introduce yourself, make an introductory statement, and the floor is yours, my friend.

Well, thank you very much and thank you guys for having me. Yeah, as Charlie mentioned, I took a flight here, so I'm going on no sleep. So if Josh wins, it doesn't count. But I'm a stand-up comedian and I'm also a libertarian. I'm really a follower of the greatest congressman who's ever lived, who is Dr. Ron Paul, who is turning 90 years old. Happy birthday to him. And as far as, look, I would say I think that American foreign policy for my entire life

has been insane. And like criminally insane. We've launched war after war. We've talked about peace through strength the whole time, but all we've gotten is permanent militarism and forever wars against countries that pose no threat to us. And a huge part of the reason why we've embarked on this is because the neoconservatives hijacked our foreign policy and they were in power after 9-11. And the neoconservatives, as everybody who's followed it knows, were joined at the hip with the Likud Party. That's

just a fact. They all admitted in their own words. And you can go back and you can read the Clean Break memo. You can read the companion piece, Coping with Crumbling States. This was written by David Wormser and Richard Pearl. And they laid out their plan. Now, their plan was that to help Israel, the Clean Break is a break from the peace process, a break from Oslo, which was designed to give the Palestinians their own state. And these neoconservative geniuses decided that instead of the Israelis making peace with the Palestinians, they could just have the U.S. overthrow all of the surrounding governments that were giving Israel a hard time. And this is where four-star general Wesley Clark says that he saw the plans right after

9-11 to overthrow seven countries in the next five years. And what was the last country on that list? It was Iran. Okay? This is a big part of what the whole conflict is about. Now the neoconservatives, neoconservative has kind of become like a pejorative for warhawks these days, and don't get me wrong, I support that. Keep calling them neoconservatives, neoconservative has kind of become like a pejorative for war hawks these days and don't get me wrong, I support that. Keep calling them neocons. But the actual neoconservatives,

the self-identified neoconservatives aren't really in power anymore. But Benjamin Netanyahu is still in power in Israel and the Likud party is still pushing for this. I want very quickly, I'll try to not go too long here. They actually did focus group testing back in the 90s before the first Gulf War in Iraq. And you know, Americans weren't really moved by, we have to reinstall the King of Kuwait, but they were moved by the nuclear threat. Now if you go read Coping with Crumbling States or the Clean Break memo, in the 90s when the neocons admitted they wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein,

they never said it was because he had nuclear weapons. They said it was a problem for Israel in the region. They only made up that lie after 9-11 because they knew that's what would sell you, maybe not you, you're too young, but sell your moms and dads on going and fighting this war. And by the way, when they talked about wanting to overthrow Iran, it was the same thing. Never had nothing to do with a nuclear threat. That's just the thing

they use now as the excuse. So yes, there is tremendous influence by Israel in our government. That doesn't mean I'm subscribing to some crazy conspiracy or telling you to hate Jewish people. I'm Jewish. I'm just saying they have influence. They've used it in a very negative way and we should reject this insane foreign policy and embrace the foreign policy That dr. Ron Paul advocated which is the foreign policy of the founding fathers stay out of entangling alliances Stay out of unnecessary wars be friends with the world and trade with the world. That's the key to prosperity. Thank you, Dave Josh Opening statement feel free to respond

and then we'll proceed as we go. So that was about three and a half, four minutes, so same amount of time. All right, so it's really great to be here. Thank you, Charlie, for having me. Thank you, Turn Point, for having me back. It's really wonderful to be at this amazing conference. You know, Dave joked that he didn't get any sleep last night.

Today's actually also a fast day on the Jewish calendar. I'm not eating or even drinking water. So we're all on the same page here. We're all just totally screwed. So you can kind of get off the same starting place there. Look, there's a lot of substance to respond to. I'll just really briefly do that and then talk about what I actually want to talk about in my opening remarks. Dave mentioned this alleged coordination between the neo-concertists, which I presume he means Bush-era foreign policy, and the Likud party. I presume half of you probably don't even know what the Likud

party is. It's referring to the Israeli right. It's very instructive and Dave always conveniently neglects to inform the audience of this that the actual leader of the Israeli right back in 2002, a man by the name of Ariel Sharon, vehemently opposed the Bush administration going into Iraq. So this whole notion that that Israel is talking America into foreign wars is total nonsense. Actually in 20 in 2011 when the Obama administration toppled Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, it's actually well known that Libya actually sent secret diplomatic envoys to Israel trying to tell them to then talk to the United States and France to talk NATO off

of that attack there. So this whole narrative is totally backwards there. But I want to kind of dumb things down a little bit here. I see a lot of people wearing 47 hats. I voted for President Trump multiple times. I love our president. You guys love our president, right? You love President Trump? Okay.

This is turning point freaking USA. Charlie, God bless you. You have built the largest MAGA grassroots army in the country. Seriously, my friend, you deserve this. You all are car-carrying members of it. We hear a part of that. The good news is that while no one should be afraid to debate,

and this debate is a nice thing here, the MAGA movement is actually quite unified, believe it or not, all the talk to the contrary when it comes to these issues. An overwhelming majority of self-identified MAGA Republicans supports close U.S.-Israel relations. According to a CBS News poll, moreover, majority of self-identified and MAGA Republicans support close U.S.-Israel relations. According to a CBS News poll, moreover, after the recent operation of Midnight Hammer B-2 bombers in

Iran, 94% of self-identified MAGA Republicans supported President Trump's dropping those B-2 bombs on four Donatons and the other Iranian facilities there. This is a wildly, wildly popular policy there. What did Dave Smith say about this? He re-upped his now years-long crusade to call for Donald Trump's impeachment. You all probably don't know that about Dave Smith, do you? He's now called for Donald Trump to be impeached multiple times. But Dave, you know, look, I mean, I don't like when people misquote me either. You probably don't like when people misquote you.

So I actually have a little bit of a highlight reel here of Dave Smith's tweets over the years. Dave Smith, March 19th, 2024. Donald Trump is responsible for around 500,000 deaths in Yemen in between the weapons to Ukraine and the Abraham Accords Jerusalem embassy. He is at least partially responsible for the two worst humanitarian crises in the world. He's a war criminal who spent his life in prison. He is calling Donald Trump a war criminal who spent his life in prison. You should be living at that. I am live that as a trump supporter.

Donald Trump, David Smith, June 16 2025. Trump allegedly had full prior knowledge of Israel's attacks and gave it his blessing while pretending to be negotiating with the Iranians as a cover. If this is true, Trump is the most impotent b**** of a leader imaginable. He's calling our president, the greatest president in my lifetime, an impotent b****. Are you kidding me? June 21st, 2025, Donald Trump has now launched an illegal war of aggression against Iran. The risk of an absolute catastrophe is very high and the benefits are non-existent. Dave Smith, June 21st. Dead wrong.

This notion that World War III would start, not a single American casualty. We should be celebrating that. Donald Trump fulfilled multiple, he fulfilled multiple campaign promises. The escalator speech in 2015 at Trump Tower. He literally said, I'm not going to let Iran get nuclear weapons. And guess what? I also, he said, I oppose a new conservative foreign policy. He did both of those things with Iran. He deprived the Iranian regime of nuclear weapon while not losing a single American sailor soldier Marine while depriving them of nuclear weapons. And

finally, trial island on this Dave Smith, July 8 2025. In the last month, Donald Trump has launched a war of aggression on behalf of a foreign government, exploded the debt, announced that he's continuing the Biden policy of army Ukraine, and covered up a giant child rape operation. So according to my interlocutor, Donald Trump is not just engaging in wars on behalf of a foreign government, he is also covering up the world's giant pedophilic child sex trafficking ring, allegedly, I presume, on behalf of a foreign government as well. So I'm disgusted, frankly, that this man man is on stage but I'll end it at that. Okay, well, got it. So, you can see peace is hard. I'm trying to keep the peace. Now, Dave, I want to give you an opportunity, about four minutes to respond to that. But also, I do want to, now that we had the opening salvos, and the Tomahawk missiles launched,

let's respond as you see fit. No, and then bring us to the 12 day work. Is that right? Let's stay focused on that. Yeah. Well the thing Charlie is- Defend yourself, obviously. Well the thing is Charlie, as you may have noticed,

some of you may have seen some of my other debates, every single time, I come up here to debate issues, and they come up here to debate me and my character. It's all they have every single time. Because they can't actually take on any of the arguments, and so the most pathetic, low-hanging fruit of, you guys like Trump, this guy said bad things about Trump. Listen, guys, I'm a free American. I supported Donald Trump in this last election.

Yes, he did just actively cover up a giant child rapist ring, and I'm going to criticize him for that, okay? And I'm sorry, after all these years of us right-wingers saying, protect the children, come on, that's bad for your soul if you don't. You speak up about that. It's horrible what he's doing. And, you know, as far as the actual substance of what Josh said here, which there really wasn't much, but I already pointed this out the last time we debated. His topic about how Sharon was against the war in Iraq is total nonsense. Sharon's envoy initially opposed it when he found out that Bush was going to invade Iraq, not because he didn't want Saddam Hussein to be overthrown, but

because he wanted regime change in Iran first. And then, when the George W. Bush administration assured him that Iran would come next, they got on board with it and they started pumping regime change in Iran first. And then when the George W. Bush administration assured him that Iran would come next, they got on board with it and they started pumping out all types of propaganda about how Saddam Hussein's nuclear secret sites that didn't exist. And Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history, that year in 2002 came to Congress and testified under a congressional testimony that anyone can go watch and advocated not that the US let Israel do it, but that the US overthrows Saddam Hussein, I believe his words were, I guarantee that peace will spread through

the region, and he also advocated that we overthrow Muammar Qaddafi and the mullahs in Iran. So that's just, you're just wrong about it. That's not true. And yes, have I been critical of Donald Trump when I think he gets things wrong? Yeah, I mean, I think that's what we should do. This is America. You criticize the government when they get things wrong.

And so I don't even know what else we're gonna do. We call him a war criminal. Josh, wait one sec, Josh. I gotta keep the peace here. Dave, about a minute-ish. Okay. No, I'm taking your time. I'm just, take about a minute and a half

and try to do the 12 day war thing. Yeah, sure, as far as the 12 day war goes, I mean, look, I'll be honest. Donald Trump, it might be the greatest thing he's ever done in his life, that at the end of the 12 day war, after the Iranian response was as weak as it was and they gave us advanced warning

so there were no American casualties, he started pushing for a ceasefire. And that was great that he did that. But the point is that the war never needed to be launched to begin with. Iran did not have nuclear weapons. Iran, according to all of the intelligence, including our director of national intelligence, until a day after Israel bombed them

and she changed her mind, go read the annual threat assessment from earlier this year. Iran had not made the political decision to acquire a nuclear weapon, and they were in negotiations with Donald Trump at the time to bring their enrichment down. There was just no need other than the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu wants that regime

overthrown. Josh, feel free to respond. Yeah, I'd be curious if Dave Smith also believes in the toothed farrier and pink unicorns. I mean, what lie does Dave Smith not believe, frankly? Look, the recent 12-day war is literally the encapsulation of the Trump doctrine of foreign policy. Donald Trump ran against neoconservatism. He is not a neoconservative. That's good because neoconservatism is actually really, really bad.

I actually have a whole chapter in my book, Israel and Civilization, talking about how bad neoconservatism is. It's chapter seven. If you haven't read it, you should go ahead and pick up a copy. So it's really good that Donald Trump opposes moralistic nation-building boondoggles. Guess what Donald Trump is also not and never has been since day one? He's never been a hardcore isolationist. He is a foreign policy nationalist and realist. We would say that he is a Jacksonian. He is in the mold of Andrew Jackson, one of his favorite presidents of

all time, because he believes in generally following the very wise advice of George Washington in his farewell address that you should beware of foreign entanglements but when you are attacked you are going to punch back three times as hard. How many times has Trump said that in a debate there? When he's punched he's gonna punch back really really really hard. What happened in the 12-day war was you had a close ally Israel that through their wonderful control of the skies and they're taking out the missile launchers and the IRGC command there essentially paved a very clean runway through that and their neutralizing Hezbollah last year in 2024 that

then allowed the United States to come in with the B-2 bombers and the death blow. It was a perfect alley-oop for you basketball fans. It was kind of like Kobe Bryant tossing it to Shaquille O'Neal back in the way. It was a perfect tag team operation to neutralize and set back by many years the threat of a regime that whether or not we care to admit it has actually been at war with the United States at least since the 1983 Beirut, Lebanon, Hezbollah barracks bombings that slaughtered 241 Marines, arguably since the 1979 hostage crisis as well. Again, Donald Trump fulfilled multiple campaign promises.

He set back the nuclear program. Not a single American soldier, sailor or Marine died. It was a brilliant, brilliant move of statesmanship, a fantastical move. Frankly, it's a borderline Mount Rushmore worth the accomplishment, I would say. By the time the show ends, another American family farm will shut down. Not because they stopped working, but because a lot of grocery store meat doesn't come from them anymore. Over 85% of the grass-fed beef in the U.S. stores is imported, and most people have no idea. That's why I get all of my meat from GoodRanchers.com.

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Use my code Kirk to get your free meat for life plus $40 off. GoodRanchers.com. American meat delivered. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to insert myself because I don't want us to talk past each other because these conversations have a tendency to do that. So I'm gonna try to I'm gonna ask both of you a critical question that both of you guys already launched. Josh to you first Dave's contention and Dave, you can correct me if I'm wrong is that the nuclear program was not a threat. Correct? That it was a Intel push. Would you even say that, I'm strong manning your argument, steel manning it. Josh, what do you have to say to that, to the veracity of the claim that there was an imminent threat of Iran getting a nuclear bomb? That is a core point of Dave's argument. Then Dave, I'm going to throw back an equally difficult question for you. Josh.

Okay, so I profess agnosticism as to the imminent nature, Charlie, because I have not seen the reports. Neither have you, neither has Dave. Literally no one in this room has actually seen the report. So I do not know literally what the exactly imminent nature of the threat was. It would be impossible for me to say, I'm not going to bull you and pretend like I know

because I simply don't know. What I can say is the following. Iran has transparently and obviously been trying to acquire a nuclear weapon for two and a half, three decades. We know this for approximately one to two million different reasons. Among them that we can point to is that the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Administration, which is essentially the nuclear watchdog for the United Nations, they have been sounding

the alarm about this and they have said very loudly and clearly that Iran has blocked their inspectors from going to inspect their enriched uranium and that they have concluded over recent years especially, including recent months, that Iran is enriching uranium at a much quicker rate and to a much higher percentage and rate of enrichment than any civilian program would ever justify. By the way, the notion that Iran even needs a civilian program in the first place, I think is kind of bonkers, is one of the most petroleum, oil and gas rich countries in the world. So that's kind of a bit of a red herring in and of itself.

But we know from a million different international organizations that they have been doing this. And Charlie, more to the point, again, Dave likes to say, oh, they just chant Death to America, which they do. They literally chant it every single day in their Potemkin Parliament. But they actually do act on it. They killed hundreds and hundreds of American soldiers on the roadside of Fallujah Al-Ambar province during Iraq with Qassem Sulaimani supplied IEDs. They have

killed Americans going back to the 241 Marines in Beirut, Lebanon. By the way, the Hezbollah jihadists who organized that operation to slaughter those Marines in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983 was a man by the name of Fuad Shakur. The U.S. State Department had a five million dollar bounty on his head following the 1983 slaughter of the Marines there in Beirut. He went alive for 41 years. You know who killed him last year? The IDF. Israel took out this guy that the State Department had a five million dollar bounty on for 41 years for killing 241 of our boys back in 1983 in Beirut. So I'm going to now ask, I'm going to, a really tough follow-up for you.

You do not want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. Bad. Would you, if it ever took, if it required US troops on the ground, would that be worth Iran not getting a nuclear weapon? I, Charlie, with respect, I reject the premise. I simply do not think it does, actually. I know. It's a hypothetical, but it's worth thinking about.

OK. Dave, I've got to ask you tough questions now. Yeah, I want to respond to some of this stuff, because all of that's wrong. You will. Hold on. I don't want us to talk past each other, or else we're going to spend all this time on prime ministers

in 2002 that the audience doesn't know about. No, but if he's making claims about something that's just not true. Fair enough, I want you to get to that. I want to just ask a very simple question. From your perspective, because I just asked the tough one to Josh, is are you okay or do you think we should do anything

to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb? Anything, sure. Yeah, there's lots of things I think we should do. Is military action ever justified? Well, again, Yeah, there's lots of things I think we should do. Is military action ever justified? Well, again, this is a... Yes, there are times when military action is justified, but if you're saying what we could do to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, what we were doing... Donald Trump was in negotiations with them, and I think he should have continued those. And the truth is that the big problem with the JCPOA that Obama got us into was

that there were sunset provisions. They opened up a whole new inspections regime. It is not true that the IAEA is saying that Iran was about to get a nuclear weapon. Anybody you want, it's published online. You can go read the conclusion of their last report where they explicitly said Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is not trying to develop them. They are enriching it 60 percent and they were in negotiations to maybe bring that down. But you know, when you bring up the fact that the Marines getting killed in 1983, it's actually interesting. Ronald Reagan,

who was president at the time, he wrote about this in his memoir. Now, if you know what Ronald Reagan did, was he pulled out after that. He turned tail and run. And he said in his memoir, he said, I underestimated the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. And we never should have gotten involved in that. Now, if you want to say that Iran backed them, okay, a couple years after that, Charlie, there was a scandal in the Reagan administration. It was the something contra, Iran contra. That's right. Ronald Reagan was selling weapons to the Iranians a couple years after this happened.

So to come back now 40 plus years later and use that as the excuse why we gotta go to war with Iran, I mean just think about how crazy this is. And the stuff he said about the roadside bombs in Iraq is just not true, it's been debunked. It's more war propaganda that's been debunked. I highly recommend anyone can read the book enough already.

Have you spoken to a doctor? Josh, one second I highly recommend anyone can read the book enough already. Have you spoken to a... Josh, Josh. One second. I highly recommend people read the book enough already. It is the best book that's been written about the terror wars by Scott Horton. He has all the footnotes in there. You can go through it yourself. It's completely debunked.

Those roadside bombs were built by Shiites in Iraq. Now I'm not... Now some of them did have relationships with Iran, but the majority of Iraq is Shiite. So, yes, we invaded the next door country and we got into some fights with the Shiite groups there. But to say that's a reason why we now have to invade Iran or we have to bomb them or something, it just doesn't make any sense. I just... So, one or two really quick crisp follow-ups and then we'll do this. Both sides need to get under good cross-examination. Do you think it would be bad if Iran got a nuclear bomb?

Yes, I think it's bad. Okay, good. And I think we can all agree on that. That is a moral agreement. I don't think anybody should be allowed to have nuclear weapons secretly. Right, and so. How about that?

I will ask Josh about that, because that's a not so subtle dig at Israel. Hold on, are you suggesting that Israel has nuclear weapons? I don't know, actually, I probably do. Yeah Yeah you do. I don't know the intelligence, I'm not the head of DNI, but I mean they probably do. But let me ask you Dave, now another question. What is your now, let's just say criticism, no US troops were killed, it required no US troops on the ground, there was no war, it lasted 12 days. Fordow was pretty eliminated. Even the Iranians say it. So looking at it now, 12 days later, what is your problem with what

seems to be a master class in 12 days, in, out, no problem, no U.S. troops? We've kind of moved on. What would your problem with that be? You know, I think, and I do think there's something really sick and poisoning about this is that our country has become so addicted to war that if we launch a war and you go, well, hey, it wasn't a complete catastrophe. I mean, a million people didn't die in this one like in Iraq, or hundreds of thousands didn't die in this one like in Afghanistan or Libya or Syria. It's like, okay, look, people died in this war, okay?

There were both Iranian civilians and Israeli civilians who died in this war. It was a terrible thing for them and their families. This was a catastrophe. And my point is that the war never needed to be launched to begin with. But there's no reason why we even have to be enemies with Iran.

They oppose, no, this is a third world country in the Middle East that does not have nuclear weapons, does not have intercontinental ballistic missiles, does not have an air force capable of hitting us with anything. This is Israel's problem. We don't need to be involved in this. Sorry, we got our own issues here.

And look, again, I'll give Donald Trump credit that, okay, it didn't turn into a catastrophe. He took the off ramp when he had the chance But look a lot of that was out of Donald Trump's control the risk of this war like a lot of people love to like Josh likes To read my tweets when I was saying this could turn into a catastrophe because you were dead wrong. He looks stupid Josh Josh No, no, let's de-escalate the stupid stuff. No, no. Let's let it respond to you. No, actually, what Josh is saying is the lowest IQ argument that anyone can make.

I'm warning, I was warning that there's a risk of a catastrophe, and he's saying you're stupid because there wasn't a catastrophe. This is on the level of playing Russian roulette, and if the bullet doesn't go off, you go, see dummy, you were warning that could go bad. That doesn't prove anything. Listen, for all you guys, you talking about how big and bad the Iranians are and what a scary threat they are, what if they hadn't given us advance notice?

What if Iran was actually as suicidal as people like Josh pretend they are? And what if their response had killed a few hundred Americans in the region, which by all military assessments, they are capable of doing. What would Donald Trump have had to do then, Charlie? What would he have done?

I'm not the moderator. No, no, no, okay, sorry. Come on, Dave. It was a rhetorical question. I know, but both sides are getting tough questions here. The point is Donald Trump would have had to respond even harder. How many would have, could have,

or were gonna have to? It's not living in reality. Let's give Josh a chance to respond, but first. Yes, Josh, it going to happen? It's not living in reality. Let's give Josh a chance to respond. But first, hold on. It's a counterfactual. One second. If you hadn't have had BOPFIST, this is what you feel. When people talk over each other,

they don't like listening to that. So that's why I'm here. Josh, I want you to respond to that. But to Dave's point, do you think Israel has a secret nuclear program? And is that a problem? Yeah, I think it's not particularly disputed that Israel has a nuclear program.

We know exactly where it is based. This is not a particularly hidden thing there. I mean, it's so well known, in fact, Charlie, that I don't know exactly why it's officially a secret. Unofficially, it's not much of a secret. I'm non-Israeli. I have no idea why the exact policy is the way it is. I don't particularly have a program with it. As I said, it's one of the world's worst-kept secrets. It kind of just is what it is. But more it is. I don't particularly have a program with it. As I said, it's one of the world's worst kept secrets. It kind of just is what it is. But more generally speaking, I don't understand why we're going so far down this rabbit hole of would have, could have, should have.

The people, look, let's say something very simple here. The people who said that Donald Trump's involvement in the 37 hour operation of the B-2 bombers flying from Missouri to Iran and back with not a single shot fired at our boys. By the way, as I said, that was partially due to the fact that the IDF had so neutralized the Iranian Air Force and their defenses there.

So the fact that he was able to accomplish that so amazingly there, we should have seen that coming because it was actually pretty easily foreseeable. And the people who did not see that coming are the people who have lost credibility to comment, frankly, on these affairs. People who warned about thousands and thousands and thousands of dead American lives. Who said that China and Russia would swoop in and that this would be World War III. Well, you know what? God bless you all because you apparently survived World War III. It was the shortest World War III of all of our lifetimes. But I didn't say any of that. So what are you...

Dave, Dave, I restrain. Josh, Josh, keep going. Again, this is the Donald Trump forum policy doctrine in action. I didn't say any of that. Dave, Dave, Dave, I restrained Josh. Josh, keep going. Again, this is the Donald Trump foreign policy doctrine in action. It is quick surgical strikes. Roger Stone was talking about earlier. It's exactly right. He is not a neocon. Neoconservatism, bad.

Isolationism, also naive and stupid. Donald Trump agrees at both of those things. The nationalist, realist, MAGA, America First approach to foreign policy is to have strong nationalist allies that are generally capable of securing and patrolling their own regions in a way that redounds not merely to the allies national interests, but also to the American national interests. That is exactly what Israel has been doing for 40, 50 years as they have taken out Islamist and Sharia supremacist thugs in Gaza, in Yemen, Hezbollah. I mentioned Fuad Shakur, the Hezbollah jihadi who killed 241 marines in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983.

There's a million examples there. That is the definition of an America first ally. And what just happened in the 12 day war is an encapsulation of the America first Trump doctrine that in this case, this tag team between the. and Israel against the mutual threat of Iran in action. Private student loan debt in America totals about $300 billion. Yreify refinances private student loan debt and they do not care what your credit score is. Many clients aren't even able to make the minimum monthly payment on their private student loans when they first contact Yreify. Go to yreify.com, that is y-r-e-f-y.com. You don't have to ignore that mountain of student loan statements on your kitchen table

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So I think we have on full display a difference of opinion on the 12-day war. Now let's go to the next one. It's inferred in both of these points, but you only get to answer as yes and no one at a time. Is Israel an ally of the United States? Yes, of course. No. Okay, so now we have disagreement.

We're going to now figure that out. And then I want to then indicated in that is, is Israel influencing American politics? So I'm going to start with Josh and then we'll go back to Dave. You say Israel is an ally, spend a minute on that and then address how some people have concerns that Israel is, is influencing the U.S. government and then I'll allow Dave to have some time. Josh. All right. There are, there's multiple reasons why, why Israel is an ally. First and foremost, I think most people in this room are believers of some stripe, right? I am Jewish, most of you are probably Christians, and God bless you for that.

If you have any attachment whatsoever to the holy sites, if you have any attachment whatsoever to this narrow strip of land between the river and the sea, as the Hamas propagandists call it, then you're going to have some reason to care about this particular sliver of land. That's point number one. Let's just kind of get it out there. Especially if you understand that we in Western civilization are fundamentally at war with barbarism, barbarism being best represented by the Islamists and Sharia supremacists. When you understand the Western civilization really just is the Bible, there is a special

calling to have an ally with a certain part of the Middle East. That's point one. Point two is just the Islamist deterrent point, Charlie, which is that America has faced jihadism time and time again, going back for 40, 50 years. 9-11, obviously the most tragic example. We just saw it again on the streets of Bourbon Street in New Orleans on January 1st, just a few months ago there. If you care about deterring Islamism from conquering Western civilization, a point that you have very astutely been talking about a lot recently on your TV hits and on social media, a very, very important point. If you care about defending Western civilization from the barbarians, you absolutely have to place a special premium on this particular relationship. And then third is that if you actually care as I do, you know, you know, paradoxically I actually care a lot about China. In fact, I think that

America's by far number one biggest threat this century is China. If you care about effectuating this broader pivot to the Indo-Pacific as American foreign policy people have been talking about for 20-30 years now, you have to have some way of stabilizing the Middle East. The way to do that is not just adopt the stupid and asinine Barack Obama foreign policy of appeasing America's enemies. And the way to do that is to embolden your allies. Again, that is the Trump doctrine. So we didn't get to the second part of the question. So do you want to start on the ally and then we'll do? Yeah, you can incorporate both. He had two answers in a row. So take

three to four minutes. Well, look, this idea that the great battle of our time is us versus the Islamists, us versus these barbarians, you know, that's really the problem here in the United States of America. Lebanon, that's what you've got to worry about. Listen, I think everyone here, all you guys should know this at this point, our problem in America is the deep state of the United States of America, okay? They're the ones who framed Donald Trump for treason. His own intelligence agencies framed the sitting U.S. president. And you know what that deep state wants, by the way? Permanent war. That's what they always want. That's how they and their friends make their money. And so all of this talk is just so ridiculous, man. I mean, this talk about how, like, if you care about the holy

sites in Israel, like, okay, sure. Obviously, Christians and Jews and Muslims have a connection to that land. But that doesn't mean we have to bomb Iran for Israel. Who was saying that? That doesn't... Well, we just bombedbed Iran that was the first topic. Okay, okay. Anyway, it doesn't mean that we have to support Israel slaughtering people in Gaza, none of that has anything to do with the holy sites and in fact a lot of sites get destroyed when there's bombs flying. But listen, the real problem for America, if you want to even talk about like the Islam taking over America or taking over Europe, well how did that happen?

That happened because we completely destabilized the region, fighting war after war after war that did nothing but slaughter hundreds of thousands of people. And then our western governments had the most insane open immigration policy that was basically suicidal. We're doing this to ourselves. We're $37 trillion in debt, and we're looking for another enemy to go fight. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we've spent $20 trillion on empire and wars. And you know what? We can't tax enough money to pay for it. We can't tax enough money to pay for it we can't borrow enough money to pay for it so what do we do we print the money and

now you guys are coming out into the world and you're wondering why your six figures in debt from college and you're getting a job at door-dash and the average house goes for 800 grand. Because we've destroyed the currency, chasing these monsters that were never any threat to our country. Listen, one quick point. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis couldn't bring down America. Joseph Stalin and the commies couldn't bring down America. The British Empire couldn't bring down America. But you think the Hezbollah in Lebanon are a threat to us? They're a problem

for Israel to deal with. We got our own problems. Say that to the families of the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983. Seriously, say that to them. Have you spoken to the families of the people who have been killed in 1983 in Beirut, Lebanon, the people who have been killed by those IEDs in Iraq that you're just casually dismissing? Have you actually spoke with any of these families? First of all, yes, I have the 9-eleven families any of them. Yes, I have Yeah, okay, you're just asking me questions. I'm stupid. This is why I'm here So Why don't we both just take a deep breath because they want to see a debate where they can make their mind up.

They don't want to see interruptive stuff, okay? That's why this is going to be a different type of discussion. So let me both steel man your both arguments, you have to answer to me, okay? So Josh, well actually to Dave first and then to Josh. Josh is saying what about all of the Islamist death that they're responsible for? Beirut bombings. You mentioned the Shiite.

That's basically the essence of your argument, right Josh? By saying, did you talk to, he's saying, why are you minimizing this? That would be Josh's contention. Is that fair, Josh? And 9-11 is, there's so many examples. Right, Dave responded to that, and then I will throw it back to Josh.

Well, I certainly don't think I in any way minimized any of those deaths. I made the point that Iran's, that Ronald Reagan still sold weapons to Iran a couple years after that. And I made the point that those roadside weapons were built in Iraq by Shiites there. That's not minimizing it. This is a huge part of the reason why we never should have invaded Iraq to begin with. Because we get our bravest young boys killed. It's ten, you know, tens of thousands of them have committed suicide in the last few years, and that doesn't seem to stop anyone from wanting to pursue the next attack.

So the point is, right, that I think if we want to really understand this stuff, it's wise to look at what some of the motivating factors for the hatred against us is. All you've got to do is listen. Yes, I have talked actually to families of people who have died in Iraq. You know what? Overwhelmingly, they're non-interventionist anti-war people now. In fact, did you know that in 2008 and in 2012, Dr. Ron Paul got more money from active duty military than all the other candidates combined including Barack Obama, because the active duty military are actually the ones who are the most hardcore anti-war now. Don't invoke them to try to sell another war.

But Dave, I'm going to follow up with a tough question. I want you to make the case, because I don't want to have you be able to get past this. You say Israel is not an ally. That is not an opinion that people hear a lot. Why is that? Look, all I'm saying is Israel has at every turn—and look, again, when I say Israel, I'm talking about the government of Israel. I'm not talking about the people there.

And I'm specifically talking about Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party who have been in control for most of this time, for most of my lifetime, yeah, and right, most of the 21st century. And so when I say they have been constantly pushing America toward more aggressive policies, toward getting in more fights. And just like I always say, if you went out to the bar every single night with your friend, and every night your friend's trying to convince you to get into a fight, and while you're beating a lot of people up, you're also taking a lot of wounds,

and you're going to jail, and you're getting in trouble, you gotta stop hanging out with that friend. And so I think that my position, I don't believe in wars of aggression and wars of choice. I don't believe in sanctions. I don't believe in that. We should be friends with Israel. We should trade with Israel and have a good relationship with them.

But you know what? I also don't believe in welfare and they shouldn't get another dime of U.S. taxpayer money and they should not. Hold on. Their lobby should register as a foreign agent. That's a good segue. a foreign agent and they should stop blackmailing our politicians. Got it. So, back to Josh.

Back to Josh. Dave had some uninterrupted time there. Let's now address that because, you know, again, there's a text chain. I have all the text to prove it. Everyone knew where this debate was going, right, Dave? There's been no surprises. Josh, you knew that there are some concerns, and Dave mentioned it, as, I think you're saying AIPAC, is that correct? Well, the broader Israel lobby, but that's certainly part of it.

Fine. Fine. Can you address this, Josh? Because this is a question people are confused about. Take two to three minutes on this. And then build out the ally Israel at the end of it, but Josh, Dave is making a point I'd like you to respond to. Okay, so first of all, I'm not a fan of AIPAC. I have, I donated once to AIPAC $54 like a decade ago and I basically got swindled into doing it. So I'm not a fan of AIPAC, but AIPAC is not this nefarious bogeyman that Dave Smith and Peel make it out to be. It stands for America-Israel Political Action Committee. It is a group of Americans who place a premium

on the U.S.-Israel relationship, the same way that the NRA is a group of Americans who place a premium on the Second Amendment. I do too, I'm a concealed carry kind of guy myself. Same way that there are any number of other lobby groups that support any number of other things. By the way, there's also similar groups, similar to AIPAC, for American citizens to support U.S. relations with other foreign countries.

Funny how these other groups never get brought up in this debate. For instance, anyone who's been to Glendale, California, you've probably heard folks in ANCA. That's the Armenian National Committee of America, a very loud active group in Washington, D.C. Perhaps more nefariously, there is the NIAC, the National Iranian American Council. It's funny how in these debates, when you talk about various American citizens who get involved to lobby or to express their political opinion as the first amendment gives you the right

to do because they think that the U.S. national interest is served by allying with a certain country, it's funny and perhaps a little worse than funny how the whole register as a foreign agent talking point comes up only in one context and one context only which is APAC. Look, the notion Charlie that APAC, which again I'm not a fan of, I have literally... Why are you not a fan of APAC? I'm not a fan of APAC... Why are you not a fan of APAC? Yeah, I'm not a fan of APAC for the reason that I'm just about to give actually, which is that

APAC exists, their raison d'etre, their entire purpose for existing is to secure large scale annual appropriations, currently about $3.8 billion annually, in U.S. aid to Israel. I'm not a particularly big fan of foreign aid in general, and I've been arguing for literally a decade that the U.S. should wind down foreign aid to Israel in particular. I think it actually is a bad idea for both countries. Do we have agreement on that? If you want to wind it down to zero tomorrow, we have agreement on that.

I can't do it tomorrow because... So we have agreement on an end point? Yes, sure. Okay, keep going Josh. So you obviously... Oh, you guys are good people. They just cheered for agreement. I like this crowd. That's the point. We're not here just to hurl insults. You could do that online. This is here to actually have some sort of,

we're a nation, these are our fellow citizens. We gotta figure this stuff out. Josh, keep going. Yeah, so you obviously can't do it tomorrow because that would be to betray an ally in the middle of a hot war that would send a terrible signal to other allies, Saudis, Emiratis, you name it.

So you can't do it tomorrow. But I do agree that you should have a game plan, five, 10, 20 years, whatever it is. I don't really care. Honestly, get a game plan in place to phase out this aid. It's not good for the United States, it's crony capitalism, Eisenhower, defense industrial complex, Boeing, Northrop Grumman,

all of that is totally true. And then from Israel's perspective, it's also bad for them too, because it makes them overly reliant. It actually ends up undermining the entire notion of Zionism, the notion that the Jews should control their own right to their own existence and their own homeland undermines Zionism in the long run. So it's actually

bad for both countries. But Charlie, this notion that AIPAC is this big, powerful lobby can be dispelled with literally one anecdote. And I only need one anecdote to dispel this oft-repeated notion, which is the entire 2014 to 2015 Barack Obama-Iran nuclear debate. The fact that the JCPOA Barack Obama's joint comprehensive plan of action nuclear deal passed is literally the singular data point that disproves the entire alleged existence of the nefarious Israel lobby that controls all Politicians there they failed epically to get that passed, but I do have a question Charlie for Dave there Which is I will translate it. Okay. Well, Charlie, I will be very, very curious.

Based on Dave's recent tweets about Donald Trump doing XYZ things, whether it's covering up for a pedophile ring or engaging in foreign wars, all on behest of a foreign power, does Dave actually think that Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, the entire Trump administration are literally bought off by the Jews? Is that actually your honest stance? Okay. So what Josh is asking... Well first... Yeah... Well first off... It's always... Look all of this... I mean literally... And I do have a tough follow-up for you...

No but I'm sorry but just like everything you just said like all of it I just find to be like the cheapest debate tactics. First off I never said anyone's bought off by the Jews. We're both Jewish and that's a dirty little trick you play when I'm talking about... I'm the only non-Jewish guy on stage... Well's a dirty little trick you play when I'm talking about foreign... I'm the only non-Jewish guy on stage. Well, I'm talking about a foreign... Yeah, I'm talking about a foreign government and then you kind of imply... And no, again, this is all just straw men. It's this whole thing of like Dave saying, APAC is this big bad monster that controls everything.

You just said foreign agents. Hold on. Therefore, if I have one data point of where a policy that APAC didn't want gets through, that disproves the whole narrative, and then this distraction with talking about the Armenian lobby or the... It's like, yeah, well, if we were having a discussion about that, maybe that would come up, but we're talking about this. And to compare APAC to the NRA, who, by the way, are kind of sellouts and don't go nearly far enough.

I agree with that. But enough, but I'm a hardcore gun rights guy. We've got more agreement. We love our guns, don't we everybody? You know the NRA guys who always go, the key is to enforce existing gun laws. No, the key is to repeal every last one of the existing guns. There should be one law, one law of the Second Amendment. That's the law.

Okay, but all that... No, it is totally different to have a group of Americans advocating on it for a constitutionally protected natural right for American citizens than to have a group of Americans advocating for a foreign government

in conjunction with that foreign government. That's a different thing. That's not what's happening. And to even compare, let me finish Josh, and to even compare them is ridiculous. And listen, by the way, I'll just say this, every single person in this room, you have to hate AIPAC. You don't even have a choice. You're here at Turning Point USA. AIPAC contributes millions of dollars to woke progressive Democrats if they support Israel. In other words, it's okay to destroy our country as long as that helps Israel.

So I'm sorry, I don't know, Turning Point USA, this is my first time here. Quick question, are we allowed to support groups that contribute millions of dollars to woke progressive Democrats? Because I thought the answer was no. Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here. Democrats? Because I thought the answer was no. Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here. Brand new year, brand new opportunities to change the world for the better. It's easier than you might think. You can save babies by providing ultrasounds with preborn. Together with the sanctity of human life month, we're going to save 35,000 babies to show the world that

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I'm a donor. You should be too. CharlieKirk.com preborn banner. and click on the preborn banner. I'm a donor, you should be too. CharlieKirk.com preborn banner. So Josh, and then Dave, I'm gonna have a tough follow up for you. So take a drink of water.

Josh, what would you say to that? Because look, I wouldn't, some people would ask the question, okay, does APAC have more power than like your traditional like Armenian lobby and Bush more broadly let's just take it more broadly like is there any concern that Or how would you address the concern? Let me put it this way How would you address the concern that some people have that a foreign government tends to have an outsized amount of?

platform in the US government? Charlie, I think that there are tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans who care a lot about US relations with the state of Israel for understandable reasons. This literally goes back, by the way, those of you who are familiar with your American history, this literally goes back to the American founding. The American founders were extremely, extremely eloquent and outspoken about this. From George Washington to John Adams to Hamilton to Abraham Lincoln's famous February 1861 speech referring to Americans as an almost chosen people, they quoted the

Hebrew Bible over and over and over again. They understood that the Christianity upon which America is predicated is not exclusively, but has a lot of Old Testament Hebrew Bible emphasis therein. And that's been part of our constitution, part of our legal code, part of our moral code since day one. So it is completely reasonable for people in the year 2025 to look at that, to look at all the other things we've talked about when it comes to deterring Islamism and Sharia supremacism, when it comes to trying to achieve this Abraham McCord-style nationalist realist

foreign policy, when it comes to deterring the Iranian regime and their various proxies, it's very, very understandable for American citizens, again, Americans, to look at that and to conclude that we have important reasons for outlying with Israel. They are not doing so on behalf of a foreign government. This framing is absurd. It's utterly absurd. They are doing so because they are patriotic Americans and they feel it is their subjective sense

that as patriotic Americans that this alliance is further. And they are US passport holders. Yes, of course. Some people think that they're strictly foreign nationals. Is that correct? Yes, and that's just simply just not true. Now again, I say that by the way, as someone who's been very critical of AIPAC,

but it's just simply not true. We again, I say that by the way, as someone who's been very critical of AIPAC, but it's just simply not true. We're using that as a filler term. So now Dave, for you, two quick ones. Do you think that the Council for American Islamic Relations should register as a foreign agent? Yeah, I don't think there should be any groups advocating on behalf of foreign governments that are... Okay, you're being consistent.

Yeah, that's right. Secondly though, and Josh did not say this, but he laced it in through one of the salvos that was, he said, you know Dave, you're accusing them of being bought by the Jews. Now, Dave, there is a rise of, I just think, some disgusting stuff online. I'm not blaming you for this. I'm not one of those people, right? But what do you have to say that there's this like dark Jew hate out there? And you see it and I see it. I hate it. It's not good.

And everyone in this audience guys, don't get yourself involved in that. I'm telling you, it will rot your brain. It's bad for your soul. It's bad, it's evil, I think it's demonic. And so Dave though, how do you navigate being critical of a foreign government while also like some people say,

well your fans hate you, you're not responsible for your fans. That is dumb, that is terrible, I don't believe that. At the same time though, Dave, you have a big responsibility on your shoulders, right? Because you're saying something that is heterodox, not in popular opinion, that some people are trying to use to push a much more sinister agenda. Yeah, well I think there's a lot of truth to that,

and I think that the fact is that the policies that the U.S. government is pursuing are almost guaranteed to create this. And look, I think there's a lot of factors here. I don't have nearly enough time to kind of give all of my thoughts on this, but I think as you young people know, right, even though kind of over the last year with Trump's victory, like wokeism has been receding, at least to some degree, it really can't be overstated how much every institution in American life bought into racialism over the last 15 years. And it's like these young kids came up in an environment where that was just considered

normal. Like you judge people by their race and make racialist arguments. And yes, now that has also been embraced by some people on the right. I will say that I think what I think the best thing to always do in these situations is tell the truth, try to be a good person, try to deliver your message in the most compelling way, and let the chips fall where they may. But I do think that the level of Israeli control over our politics is frankly pretty undeniable as much as people try to. Look, just think one example, right, of this. So Donald Trump, you remember at the end of the 12-day war when Donald Trump

starts pushing for a ceasefire, and then what does Israel do? They come in and start bombing regime targets, not nuclear sites. They come in and start bombing and then Donald Trump was furious with Netanyahu. Obviously, he had his most angry moment toward Netanyahu when he said they both don't know what the F they're doing. I kind of loved that moment from the record. I loved it. I loved that moment too. But then the next day he's right back to just advocating that they drop the charges against

Netanyahu. He's still going to continue funding Netanyahu unconditionally. You know anyone else, Donald Trump, would have come up with a nickname for him already and just been smashing him all over the place. He was trying to lure America into a war that Donald Trump didn't want to get into. Except he did because he literally chose to get involved. That was Donald Trump's decision. Right, but it was also his decision.

The Israelis had a backup plan for it. Right, right, right, but it was also his decision to push for a ceasefire and to try to end the thing. And Israel agreed immediately. No, they bombed the crap out of him immediately. That's why Trump was so upset. Same old question. I want to phase out USAID to Israel, okay?

I established that. Allegedly, Prime Minister Netanyahu is now getting on board with that as well. Certainly a lot of people in his coalition too. I'll believe that when I see that. Well, he's basically said that, so you should believe it. But what exactly- No, a politician saying something

doesn't mean- Let Josh finish his question. You should believe it. Let Josh finish his question. If the Israeli government were to agree that that is the best policy, and if the United States were to do that, then what in God's name is your actual problem? Well, I'm sorry, so if America was not propping up Israel and America was not...

If they wind down the foreign aid then what is your issue? Well, there's other military intervention obviously so I'm not sure I'd follow. I'd be very happy to wind down the foreign aid. But other than that what is my... Listen, I'm a non-interventionist so I'm not saying America should get involved but no, I mean I do think objectively what Israel's doing to Gaza is horrible. I think they couldn't do it without us.

And I want to talk about Gaza. So make that case. But if they were, I would still be against that. We have to go fast because people have flights and stuff, but I want to get to this, right? And we still haven't gotten to the final conclusion. So let's talk Gaza, because first I want to go, Josh, on October 7th, because I want you to remind people what happened on October 7th. And Dave, I'll be honest, I think your portion of the debate,

your portion of your community could do a better job of remembering the horror on October 7th. I'm just going to be honest, I'm not putting that on you, I'm saying just your community. I want you to just think, because I think we kind of forget, because there was something unique and terrible. Josh, I want you to talk about that, and then I want you to make the best case you can, because every human being is made in the image of God. I don't like seeing dead kids anywhere. I don't like seeing dead kids in Gaza.

I don't like it. So we're Christians here. So Josh, I want you to kind of walk us through the series events, because it can't be lost in us. Talk about Gaza. Talk about the whore of October 7. Then Dave, I want you to talk about your criticism about Gaza.

And then I'm going to ask you a follow-up, Dave, about something that happened from the Joe Rogan show. Josh, you first. I'm just curious, has anyone just put your hand up and make some noise? Have you been, any of you to the parts of Israel that were slaughtered by Hamas? Anyone? All right, a few people. Okay.

So, I was also there a few months after it happened. If you haven't been there, it's very difficult to describe what you see. You see these kibbutzim, these small villages. By the way, these were typically left-wingers. These were peaceniks that were establishing their villages on the border to try to engage in pen pal diplomacy, if you will, with the Arabs of Gaza. These are very kind of left-wing peacenik people. And you see just kitchenware throughout the streets, teddy bears everywhere, blood-stained walls, bullet holes as far as the eye can see. It's very difficult to describe. The only time that I had that similar feeling walking around places like Kofaraz was when I was in Treblinka, the Nazi

concentration camp itself. So look, in total, and there's a brand new report talking about the extent of the mass raping and sexual violence that Hamas committed on October 7th, combines, you're looking at roughly 1,200 people slaughtered. By the way, not all Israeli nationals. Dozens of Americans were either murdered or taken hostage in Gaza as well. In total, something like 40 to 50 different nationalities were represented of those who were slaughtered on October 7th. In fact, just looking at it from a very strictly narrowly American perspective, October 7th

amounted on its own terms to the largest American-only hostage crisis since Tehran in 1979 because of all the American citizens who were then taken hostage into Gaza. So it was an unspeakable atrocity. We don't really have all the answers to this day as to how it happened. Perhaps we never will. I certainly hope to get some clarity at some point there. But it was the single deadliest day for the Jewish people since World War II. And given Israel's small size, it's roughly the equivalent of 45 to 50 9-11s, if you can

possibly contextualize that. So that was what precipitated this war. And it was a war that Israel, Charlie, did not want, as you know. Hamas took over in 2007. Israel repeatedly, time and time again, decided not to try to topple Hamas under the idea that you could potentially have an even worse alternative, better to deal with the devil that you know, and so forth there. October 7th, I think extremely reasonably, given the sheer level of carnage and terror

and just outright satanic demonic evil that happened, they quite reasonably concluded that that policy simply had to end. And what's happened in Gaza for the past year and a half, almost two years now, has been a protracted war in one of the most condensed urban environments in the world. It is very, very, very, very difficult war fighting conditions. I would like to remind you just of at least one or two very simple facts. One is that let's not forget that Hamas, who Israel is at war against in Gaza, is a U.S. recognized foreign terrorist organization. They are indistinguishable in that respect from Al Qaeda or ISIS or any of these other

foreign terrorist organizations. They are in a rabid jihadist network that like all these other jihadis and Sharia supremacists, also wants to kill not merely Jews, but Christians and all infidels. They say that very clearly in the 1987 founding charter. That is point number one. Point number two, Charlie, you mentioned that this is a very Christian audience.

I am Jewish. We happen to share most of the Bible. And I am a firm believer in Genesis 1.27 that we are all made in God's image. that is one of my foundational beliefs in everything. I write about this at great length in my book Israel and Civilization. To me that's a single foundational ethical imperative of all of Western civilization and it forms my pro-life views and so much else. So I, like you and like so many others others also weep whenever innocent people are dead There are two points to make I'll make them very briefly because I know I'm sensitive at the time one is that

We know because we actually have people like John Spencer the head of urban warfare studies at West Point who have actually been able to crunch Numbers we know that when you actually look at the civilian to combatant death ratios in Gaza It is the most humane civilian to to combatant death ratio in the entire history of urban warfare. John Spencer was there, by the way, in 2016, 2017 in Fallujah, Iraq during the Trump-led ISIS counterinsurgency. The United States Army, God bless them, did not even do quite as well as the IDF in terms of civilian to combatant death ratio, according to John Spencer of West Point. Point number two, which is a very simple point

that Dave Smith and his friends always like to look over, is that when you're just trying to ascribe moral culpability to every single tragic death in Gaza, Charlie, you made this point so, so well in your recent debates over in England against these high-falutin' British foe intellectuals at Cambridge and Oxford, when you said that the moral culpability comes to people

who are using human shields. That is just how it works. That is the law of war. That is the law of combat. That is just basic morality and logic 101. So that is essentially how I see Gaza. I know Dave has plenty to say in response to that. So Dave, take two minutes and then I have a crisp follow-up. Yeah, I mean, geez, there's a lot there. First of all, look, if you support what Israel's doing to Gaza right now, I would just, like, my advice to you guys is just know that you never have a leg to stand on claiming to be pro-life for the rest of your life. Just saying that. If you...

Oh, it's okay to support a policy... Let's not boo our speaker, Dave. It's okay to support a policy that is killing babies. All of a sudden killing babies is negotiable. Alright, fine. I'm just reading the room. So Dave, why don't you- No, no, no, I'm not talking about for Hamas. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You're being chilled, dude.

You're being chilled. Hold on, back up. Dave, why don't- I just let you go on this whole long thing. I know, I'm gonna actually help you out here, Dave, okay? What I'm doing, I want you to tell the audience what's going on in Gaza, because some people in the audience

don't know what's going on. So don't assume they know, and let's not get back- Oh, okay, well I did assume that most people know that lots of babies are being killed in Gaza, but maybe I shouldn't have assumed that. Don't be sarcastic about it, Dave. Instead, I mean this because... No, I meant that literally. I did assume that.

...there's an information loop where they're on social media all the time, okay? So walk through numbers, walk through what animates you to say something like that. Well, okay, well let me respond to a few of the things that Josh claimed. I mean, if you want to go... There was just a major report a couple weeks ago in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, where they had a bunch of IDF soldiers. They actually had one who went on record, uh, who was saying that they were ordered to shoot at crowds of people who were going into- into- uh- desperately- Alright, what a liable left wing filth by the way.

Josh, I let you talk. Let's please let Dave make his case. Well is the IDF soldier who went on the record also filth? Probably. Okay. Alright, there you go. So who went on the record also filth? Probably. OK, all right, there you go. So if they're, see, if you're, whatever, that's when you'll criticize the IDF. Look, Josh is just lying when he says that Israel supported Hamas for all those years

because they feared there might be a worse alternative. It's just not true. And this has been so widely reported. You don't have to rely on Haaretz. You can rely on all types of reporting. Or you can just look at all of the leaders in their own words, what they said. They chose Netanyahu, and this was very controversial You don't have to rely on Haaretz. You can rely on all types of reporting. Or you can just look at all of the leaders in their own words, what they said.

Netanyahu, and this was very controversial in Israel. There were lots of critics of this. Netanyahu thought he had this brilliant idea, which is that he would prop up Hamas and keep them in power. His exact quote was, "'We can control the height of the flame.'" So he was like, we'll keep these terrorists in power, and that way we can tell the entire international community that like, we'll keep these terrorists in power and that way

we can tell the entire international community that look, we have no partner for peace. We have no one to deal with here. And that way we never have to negotiate with the Palestinians. This was the game that he played and it blew up in his face and really blew up in the Israeli people's face on October 7th. And I've never downplayed October 7th. I know, but I'm just making the point that I never have. Thank you for that, because what happened there is totally… It was a horrific day. You don't have to downplay any of that. And in fact, I've criticized

many other critics of Israel who have downplayed that. It was a horrible day. Awful, atrocious acts were committed by Hamas terrorists. But at the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu was propping those guys up. In fact, according to the Israeli former defense secretary, he sent the head of the Mossad to Qatar to quote, beg them to continue shipping the money in. All the meanwhile, they had a blockade around Gaza. They wouldn't let sugar, they wouldn't let potatoes in because they claim that's dual use. That could be used to build rockets, so the kids can't get, you know, food. Yet, hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, directly to Hamas. I guess money doesn't have a dual

use. So, you know, the whole mission of this, of this, what you can't even really call a war, because it's not a war, it's the destruction of a captive people. Gaza's been occupied since 1967 by the Israelis, and they're now just slaughtering the people there. Under, that's a fact, and it's under the, the supposed goal that they want to eliminate Hamas and they want to retrieve the hostages. And yet, Hamas is not being eliminated. The Israeli government is claiming that they've killed 20,000 of their fighters and yet there's still as many as there were at the beginning.

Because more people are talking about it. Let me ask you the follow-up that I wish that I had an answer to when you were on the Joe Rogan show. But that thing descended into a mess, right? It was madness. So I'm gonna try to do it here. This was the best point that I think that you, that for whatever reason it wasn't answered.

How then should Israel have responded to October 7th? Be specific, I know you might say, well don't kill kids, but hold on, how would you say you would be okay for Israel to respond? Because it would be a defensive war at that time. 1300 of their own kids and women were killed and raped. So please just answer, how then would you be okay with Israel responding to October 7th?

Yeah, well I certainly, look, I'm not saying that Israel was going to respond with zero violence from after October 7th, but I think the important thing to remember here is that first of all, for the entire history of Israel's existence, they've been dealing with this terrorism problem. Now I would argue that the Palestinians have been dealing with the terrorism problem from Israel as well, but this is a… and they've never, until Netanyahu, they never treated it as a problem for the regular old military. It was always targeted assassinations and special ops, and look, the truth is, this

is the fact right when you have been occupying a group of people since 1967 you Israel is completely controlled Gaza with true in 20 years ago yes okay and if you want to go back and look at this you can read Sharon's top advisor in his own words said the disengagement was to put we're running out of time I know but I won't be able to go through all of this, but it's not true, Israel continued to occupy the whole time. And when people broke out of- You literally dug out the whole section.

Just give me a second. I think Harry's. No, keep going, Dave. Okay, so when people break out of Gaza and just start slaughtering civilians in Israel, yes, it was a horrible day and the world feels for those civilians, but at the same time,

you have to know if you're Israel that the way that you respond to this is going to be how you're characterized in the international community. And so you would at least make some effort to not kill so many civilians. You can't, dude, Smotrich, the finance minister, was bragging for three months that not one ounce of grain would get into Gaza. Hamas has all the food. They're firing rockets from mosques and schools. Hamas has all the...

Dude, you interrupt every two seconds, dude. God, God, please let him... Hamas has all the food they need. This is a war on the civilian population. And then, as is reported, admitted by IDF... By the way, this is admitted by the Israeli government. You can say whatever you want about harets. They denied that they gave the orders, but they admitted that it was the IDF who was shooting at those people. Then after you deny the civilians

food for three months, then you start shooting at the people who are desperately trying to get some food for them and their kids. So no listen, I'm sorry and I guess I am partly rejecting the premise of your question. But let me just say it like this, Charlie. If you're pro-life, and you say I... This is such a stupid argument. You should not buy this for yourself. Guys, let Dave finish his sentence. Dude, shut up, bro. Hamas is a part of the pro-life here.

It's a stupid argument. You haven't heard the argument. What's the argument that's stupid? Dave, you're not pro-life if... Guys... No, what's the argument? If Hamas said he's not pro-life, come on. What's the argument? You just called stupid. What's the argument that... Hold on one second, Charlie. What's the argument? It's a moss that is not pro-life

What's the argument this is why hold on one second Charlie people like the argument that you okay? What's the argument that you call? Why don't you finish it? Josh? Let him even know what it is He interrupted me before I even said it what okay? Here's the argument if you're pro-life It's not incumbent on you to have a plan for what the mother ought to do with the baby incumbent on you to have a plan for what the mother ought to do with the baby. Like, you don't have to have a plan for daycare and college funds and all that. You just say, hey, I think this option should be off the table. I don't think you have the right to murder the baby while it's inside of you. Likewise, I'm not saying I have to have the perfect plan. If we had more time, I could expand on what I think they should have done.

But how about don't deny one ounce of grain for three months and then shoot at the poor people who are trying to get food. Josh, respond. How about you take that option off the table? Is that argument stupid, Josh? Dave, Josh. The party in Gaza that is not pro-life is Hamas. Agreed.

Hamas is the jihadist, U.S. recognized foreign terrorist organization that in their founding charter, by the way, they were founded simply as the Palestinian Arab offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. We all agree Hamas is bad. Well, I'm not going to sit here while he interrupts me every time I speak and never interrupts him. Look, I know there are a lot of choices when it comes to who you choose for your cell phone

service. There are new ones popping up all the time. But the truth is, there's only one that boldly stands in the gap for every American that believes that freedom is worth fighting for, and that is Patriot Mobile. For more than 12 years, Patriot Mobile has been on the front lines fighting for our God-given rights and freedoms, while also providing exceptional nationwide cell phone service with access to all three of the main networks. Don't just take my word for it as the hundreds of thousands of Americans who've made the switch and are now supporting causes they believe

in simply by joining Patriot Mobile. Switching is easier than ever. Activate in minutes from the comfort of your own home. Keep your number, keep your phone, or upgrade. Patriot Mobile's all U.S. based support team is standing by to take care of you. Call 972-PATRIOT today or go to patriotmobile.com slash charlie use promo code charlie for a free month of service that's patriotmobile.com slash charlie or call 972-PATRIOT and make the switch today. Dave respectfully you are criticizing him for interrupting so don't do that so just let's criticizing him for interrupting. So don't do that. So just let's have an uninterrupted narrative. Thank you. Okay. Hamas calls in their founding charter for the death not merely of every Israeli, not merely every Jew, but of every infidel, which they identify as not merely all Christians, but also all Muslims who don't subscribe to their idiosyncratic

form of Sunni Sharia supremacism. So the group in Hamas, assuming the group in Gaza that is not pro-life is Hamas. And Hamas has the unequivocal, and I would argue sole moral culpability for the human shield induced deaths of all the women, civilians, and babies when they are indiscriminately firing rockets, mortars, and missiles from mosques, from United Nations schools, and on. That is where the blame goes. The blame goes to Hamas. Once upon a time, anyone with any decent functioning moral compass or any knowledge of international law, 101 would have been able to tell you that. So that is where this goes.

But again, it's just you pivot to blaming Hamas, and they're the ones who aren't pro-life, as if I was making the claim that Hamas is pro-life I'm criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu for funding and propping up this horrific terrorist organization So how are you in one breath gonna talk about how terrible they are and then completely remove Culpability from the guy who did I do I am curious got it. I'm curious. I got to interrupt What is your response to the human shield argument? It has been proven. Yeah, it is legit What is your response to a fact? argument? It has been proven. It is legit. What is your response to a fact, we don't know how widespread it's done,

but I think it's rather that Hamas uses human shields. Yeah, they certainly have, like I'm not denying that. But at the same time, like it's kind of, you know, if let's say like in a domestic criminal situation, if there was somebody who killed a bunch of people and then they ran into a school and they're like using the kids as human shields. They're hiding behind the kids.

And then your local police department came over and said, blow up the school and killed all the kids. You wouldn't go, well, they have no moral responsibility because they were using them as human shields. Yeah, as Bill Burr said in his special, you gotta work around that, bro. And like, Hamas is terrible. Nobody's arguing with that.

But that doesn't mean there's no responsibility for the people dropping the body and by the way again as you don't want to talk about how about when they're shooting at people trying to get aid there were no human shields there I do look at a picture of Gaza the human shields does not describe most of what's happened to Gaza yes there are certain air instances and by the way Israel also has a bunch of military targets in civilian areas. I'm just saying, that doesn't actually

mean it's OK to just now you have a moral get out of jail free card to do whatever you want to the poor, innocent people who, as you pointed out, are also victims of Hamas. Josh. That's what people are objecting to. Josh, what is your response to, because I know there was some pushback online,

to the shooting at the aid site with food. Is that as Dave is telling it? Charlie, honestly, I have not spent too much time on the details, but what I can tell you is this. We know for a fact that at least until the recent Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is this U.S. organized NGO distributing aid, we know that prior to the establishment of this, Hamas was pilfering and confiscating a shockingly high percentage of the aid that entered Gaza, sometimes well more than 50 percent.

Because that's what they do. They have a monopoly of Yusufors in Gaza, and they were essentially just artificially inflating the prices of the actual Gazan's goods and then stealing it all for themselves. That's what Hamas does. It is a deeply corrupt kleptocracy in addition to being a jihadist hellhole. Now the new aid group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is a noble and righteous effort that gets to oppose it. Hamas. Hamas are the ones who actually have started indiscriminately shooting even much more so than whatever anecdote Dave Smith is talking about.

Hamas is the one that has actually started indiscriminately shooting at this U.S. perpetuated, this U.S. orchestrated new aid distribution organization because Hamas doesn't like the fact that the United States under Donald Trump, God bless him, has found a way to get around the Hamas Hamas monopoly on a distribution in Gaza. We are way over time. And so now I want to end with what we want. Okay, we both are challenging, we're defending. So we got to go fast. Josh, I'm going to start with you.

What are you pushing for? What is success? What is the end destination? What are you prescribing? What are you offering? And then Dave will let you do it. And then please don't interrupt. Charlie, great debate.

Thank you for moderating this. So I support the Trump doctrine of foreign policy. I have been a staunch proponent of the Trump doctrine since the Trump doctrine first came into instantiation during the first Trump presidency. The Trump doctrine, again, is neither neoconservative nor isolationist. It is a nationalist, realist,

America-first approach to foreign policy that understands three things. One, America's number one focus this century must be on combating our actual civilizational foe, the Chinese Communist Party. Two, America has declining resources. Three, the way to deal with both those two is to prioritize in non-Indo-Pacific regions of the world allies who are capable of securing and patrolling their neck of the woods in a way that redounds not just to their national interests but to the American

national interests. That in the Middle East is Israel. We've seen that time and time again throughout the Middle East. And again, Charlie, just to drive home this point there, the guy who understands this better than anyone, despite this whole kind of very online debate about what MAGO or America First should think about foreign policy and US-Israel relations, the guy who understands this the best,

as he recently reminded us, is the guy who literally defined the terms MAGO and America First. To Donald Trump, it is completely commonsensical. It is utterly logical. It flows from first principles that to be America First is to necessarily support tight-knit, close-knit U.S.-Israel relations. We saw this in the U.S.-Iran war. We saw the B-2 bombers do what they did, and God bless them for dropping those bombs in that 37-hour interval. That would not have been possible were it not for the Israelis laying the groundwork with the Iranian air defenses

and Hezbollah the year prior in 2024. It was the Trump doctrine and US Israel relations at work. So Charlie, my vision is for an independent Israel where we ultimately wind down aid and for Israel to be the beacon of protecting and securing American interests in the Middle East, just like other countries can then take responsibility in different regions of the world, so that America can then focus on China.

Look, I think if you guys are being honest with yourselves, and I do think we should really think about the threats that we really do face here at home, and I'm talking about the Democrats coming back into power. Forget all these made-up threats about other countries that really can't mess with us at home. And I'm talking about the Democrats coming back into power. Forget all these made up threats about other countries that really can't mess with us at all. I don't know if you guys have noticed, and you could say it's a very online debate all you want to, this hasn't been a good month for Donald Trump. His base is really kind of turning on each other, and these are major issues that are dividing his coalition. And this is, JD Vance winning in a few years is not a given. You know, like the Democrats are gonna come back

and offer someone, and if we wanna have a chance to keep progress going and to get our country in a better place, what we have to do is reject empire and return to being a republic that we were supposed to be. The United States of America was never supposed to be an empire. We were supposed to be a republic that we were supposed to be. The United States of America was never supposed to be an empire. We were supposed to be a republic, a constitutional republic, a city on a hill that the world could learn from our example because we do liberty so much better than anybody else does.

And we've gotten so far away from that over the years. And like I mentioned at the beginning, look, this is the big point. We're going broke. We can't afford to do this anymore. It shouldn't even be a question of whether we should be giving Israel money or whether we should be giving Ukraine money as Donald Trump's also decided to do this year. We don't have it. This is like me taking out money on a credit card to lend to my friends so I can act like I'm the big shot who's lending them money. We

are destroying our own young people. You. Not me. I'm not a young person like I'm the big shot who's lending them money. We are destroying our own young people. You, not me. I'm not a young person. I'm fine. I'm in my 40s and I make good money. Your whole generation is getting screwed over by this because we have to devalue our currency in order to keep up with the demands for this spending that we cannot afford. And so the answer is that we need to pull back.

We need to focus on America. That's what America First is supposed to be about. Sound money, fiscal sanity, and true liberty, true free market capitalism. Not a government that spends $7 trillion a year and a crazy casino system on Wall Street with these incredibly low interest rates where people are making tens of millions of dollars off just, you know, speculating on nonsense. And this is what, it's the warfare state that drives it. Look guys, we have spent 20 trillion dollars since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan are over and we're looking at our biggest defense budget ever. This is madness and it will be the death of our country.

No Islamist is gonna take down our country, but drowning in debt and empire will. That's how great nations fall. And the young Republicans need to reject that. A republic, not an empire, like the great Patrick Cannon said. I wanna just summarize, this was time well spent. Both Dave and Josh agree on some plan to wind down US-Israel aid. That was an agreement, correct?

The timeline you could debate about. Number two, they both say every human's made an image of God and we should not trivialize when, you know, people are killed. Also, I think we all agreed October 7th was awful. It was terrible. And it should be talked about more more and it needs to be emphasized. We also agree this Jew hate stuff has no place in public discourse, period. End of story.

And I don't like it, it's disgusting, and we need to call it out when we see it. And finally, I think the fifth is that I hope we demonstrated, and both our participants got a little lively at times, that this is a debate worth having, that it's better to have this out in the open than silence people and censor them and call them names. Instead, this is how we solve our problems. Give it up for Josh and Dave one last time, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Charlie.

Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always, freedom at CharlieKirk.com. Thanks so much for listening. God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust go to Charlie Kirk com