The Eric Metaxas Show - Elizabeth Farah

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Eric joins Elizabeth Farah on her program "The Elizabeth Farah Show" to discuss the immigration crisis that faces America. 

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noble gold investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blobs starring Steve McQueen? The blood-curdling threat of the blob. Well, way back when Eric had a small part in that film, but they had a couple of cut his scene because the blob was supposed to eat him, but he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster.

Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest. Eric the Texas! Hey there, folks. It's Wednesday, so they tell me, which makes it April 16th, my gosh. Okay, today, we have a special presentation. it's kind of an interview of me by Elizabeth Thera.

Some of you know WorldNet Daily. If you don't know WorldNet Daily, check it out. WorldNet Daily is a website, a news site. And Elizabeth Farah is one of the people behind it. And they wanted to interview me about a whole bunch of stuff. I don't want to spoil it. But the conversation was so interesting, I thought, between us. I thought it would be fun to play it on this program.

So that's what we're going to do today. And whenever somebody is interviewing me, you get to see a different side of me, just as you do when I'm interviewing somebody for Socrates in the studio. It's just different or Socrates in the city. So whenever we have stuff like this, I thought we should air it. So we're going to air that today. Now, I mentioned today is when. I am in Lexington, Kentucky, because tonight I'm interviewing Larry Arne. Dr. Larry Arne is the president of Hillsdale College. Now, we're at a point where the Ivy League so stinks and the elite colleges are so horrible that if somebody says, well, tell me about Harvard, I would say, you know, it wishes it was the Hillsdale of the Northeast.

Hillsdale is the gold standard of colleges in America. The president, Larry Arn, is an extraordinary human being and a hero. And so I'm interviewing him tonight in Lexington, Kentucky. If you're signed up for Socrates Plus, you can watch the interview tonight. So if you go to Socratesplus.com, you can sign up. It's $5 a month. You get live streaming. so you can live stream the video of me interviewing him tonight in Lexington, Kentucky.

And it's on the subject of his book. The book is called The Founders Key. It is magnificent. I think I'd like to publish it as a Socrates Library book. We're going to be doing this whole publishing initiative. But it is really so vital. I cannot overstate it. I'll be discussing it with him tonight.

Again, if you want to tune in tonight, you got to hurry up and sign up at Socratesplus.com. I should also say, I think I mentioned it a couple days ago, I was invited tonight to the White House for a very special Holy Week Easter dinner with the president. Needless to say, I'm not going to be at the White House because I'm in Lexington, Kentucky, interviewing the great Dr. Larry Arne on his book. the Founders Key, which is about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It is a magnificent book. And very short, but powerful, important, well-written. So I'm not going to be at the White House. But I should mention we're in Holy Week. And how wonderful is it that we have a president who is really pulling out all the stops to celebrate what for most Americans, is the most sacred day of the year, Easter,

the day that Jesus rose from the dead. That's what we celebrate. If you're not a Christian, if you don't believe in that, let me tell you what we celebrate at Easter. We celebrate that God became a human being. Jesus, he died a horrible death and was resurrected from the grave as the Old Testament prophesies.

And the reality of that, was so astonishing as it would have to be to everyone who witnessed it that it completely changed their lives, made them happily go to their deaths because they didn't believe in death anymore. Now they believe in the resurrection life of Jesus. That's God's invitation to us every day. But we celebrate it each year. I'm happy this year that the Orthodox Easter and the other Easter are on the same day. It's this weekend.

Usually every year, they usually fall on different Sundays. But this year, the calendars match up. But it's a sacred, beautiful thing. And by the way, I should mention, I did a Socrates in the city interview a couple of years ago with Eugenia Constantinou. She is a scholar, an incredibly humble woman, I have to say, who has written one of the greatest books I've ever read in my life. It's called the crucifixion of the king of glory. If you go to Socrates in the city.com, you can find my conversation with her. It is so powerful. Watching it on Holy Week will be a great, great blessing for you. I would recommend that you share it with everyone you know.

You'll see that I'm not blowing smoke, kids. This is real. Eugenia Constantine. She's and the City conversation from a couple of years ago. Her book, The Crucifixion of the King of Glory, it is life-changingly powerful. It is that powerful. And the scholarship that she does in the book, I really admire when a scholar writes on a popular level, that's always my goal as a writer, to write on a popular level while maintaining the scholarly consensus while doing the scholarly research, but, writing in a way that everyone can not just understand, but enjoy. It's so powerful. So Socrates

in the city, we have that website. I'm sorry, we have that video. It's on our YouTube channel. It's also at the Socrates and the city website. But for Holy Week, I recommend it very, very highly. Absolutely. It's power. It's so powerful. Eugenia Constantinu, and the book is the crucifixion of the king of glory. I was there that night when you interviewed her. And then we had the dinner afterwards and she fielded questions. Yeah. Her grasp of the data and the history and the facts was astonishing.

Absolutely astonishing. Everybody should go back and watch it. No, it's nuts. And there's some people that are almost too humble. Like she acts like, oh, who am I? Let me tell you. You're an amazing, amazing human being, Eugenia Constantino. Okay.

Before we go to my conversation with Elizabeth Thera, I want to remind you of our friends at goisrael.com, goisrael.com. That is a website of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism and the government of Israel, goisrael.com. They want to encourage you to plan a visit to Israel, maybe not right now, but when you can, I keep mentioning how it's life-changing. I don't think I have talked to anybody who has said I visited Israel and they didn't say it was life-changing. It's kind of bizarre, but everyone says it. So if you're thinking about it, visit go-Israel.com. I mean, to think this is where the events of Easter of Holy Week actually happened, like it really happened. It's not mythical.

It actually happened. Here are the stones that were here back then. It's nuts. GoIsrael.com is the website. And actually before we go, I also want to mention our friends at Hertzog Foundation.com. They are the premier website, HerdsogFoundation.com, for homeschooling for Christian education.

If you are a parent or grandparent thinking about having your kids or grandkids make the switch to Christian education, which is actual education, right? Why not go to Herdsog Foundation.com. Avail yourself of their significant resources. They're there to help you. They also have a great website called Reed Lion. That's R-E-A-D. Readlion.com.

Readlion.com. They've got a podcast making the leap. Very important. And these are allies in the battle for the culture. So check out Herdsug Foundation.com. Okay, now we're going to play my conversation with Elizabeth Farah. She was interviewing me for WorldNet Daily. These guys are heroes.

And it was an interest, at least I thought it was an interesting enough conversation that it would be fun to play on this program. So here it is. God bless you. Numbers don't lie. The impact that Balance of Nature makes every single day is astounding. You can see the numbers for yourself on their website at Balance of Nature.com. Listen to these stats concerning balance of nature's worldwide success.

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Eric, your book, if you can keep it, is tying American identity, are called. culture, who we are fundamentally, two are founding under biblical principles. And today I'm asking you, look, I've wanted to talk about the subject that we're going to cover today. And I have thought long and hard, who is the first man that I would want to speak to about American culture, American identities, probably a more important and accurate way to say it. And what we have, the debate that is going on in our culture about immigration. I don't want to talk about jobs, which is what I normally do and the corruption of our visa system and all of that. But I do want to talk about preserving America.

culture. The reason why I believe, and I think what I really want to hear from is all of what you believe and what you think on this, is that it is a very sensitive subject. It's establishing some superiority and that it is not pluralistic or multicultural, right, which are... Yeah, the only stuff becomes meaningless. That's why it's great you're wanting to talk about this, because there's so much confusion, and I'm delighted if I can help a little bit because it shouldn't be confusing. It's not complicated.

It's not confusing, but they have made it confusing. So thank you for wanting to clarify this stuff. And I think that my goal, and I've said this more than once on this show, is I want Americans and non-Americans, if they want to be a part of the conversation, to be able to speak about these things, without fear, without fear of man, standing firm on their principles with charity in our heart,

but being able to speak nationally and not fear also being canceled. But if you're going to be canceled, look you right in the face to say, cancel me. We've got to have a national conversation on how we're going to preserve our American identity and our culture. Well, it's actually now become an international conversation. And Elizabeth, thank you. This is so important. And I never get to really talk about this. But for somebody who wants the gist of what I say,

most of what I say is in my book, if you can keep it, the forgotten promise of American liberty. But if you can keep it, I wrote it, came out in 2016. And for the first time in my life, I understood all this stuff. And I said,

I need to write about that. this because I didn't know this. You know, I'm a Christian, I'm educated, I love America, and I didn't understand this. So I'm not surprised people don't understand this. When I finally got it, I was kind of stunned. This always happens to me when I write my books. I'm stunned at the information. Then I'm stunned that I have lived without knowing the information.

And then I feel this passion to tell everyone I know because I'm sick of the fact that I didn't know this and now I want everybody to know this. So what am I talking about? A couple of things. In my book, if you can keep it, now let me first of all say even why it's titled if he can keep because it's tied into what we're saying. At the end of the constitutional convention, sorry, his 1787, Ben Franklin is leaving the constitutional convention. He's like, what, 82 at this point of just like three years from his own death. He is leaving the Constitutional Convention. Somebody comes up to him, a Mrs. Powell of Philadelphia,

a sort of a famous woman, she and her husband would have these salons in Philadelphia, and she knew all of these players. And of course, Ben Franklin had been living in Philadelphia for his whole life. At 17, he went there and now he's in his 80s. And she says to him, after he comes out of the Constitutional Convention, what have you given us, Dr. Franklin, a monarchy or, a republic. Now, when I first heard that, I thought, what is this? Like a joke question, a monarchy. And then I realized, no, in the history of the world, and this is the problem with America today that

we forgot this, in the history of the world, kind of government we have here, this republic, where people govern themselves, is not only an anomaly, it was utterly unprecedented in the history of the world. Human beings had never governed themselves. So, the there was no reason Mrs. Powell would think, oh, they went into this building, Independence Hall for 100 days in the summer of night, 1787, and they came out and now we have a republic. No, she and everyone, including the people in the building, including Ben Franklin and others, were wondering, is it possible for human beings to create a government where they govern themselves? We talk about liberty, freedom, what is liberty, what is freedom? It means I'm free to govern myself. I don't need someone to govern.

I don't need a tyrant. I don't need a king. I don't need a deep state bureaucracy. I don't need any bureaucracy. I govern myself. We govern ourselves. That had never been done in the history of the world. So Mrs. Powell says, Dr. Franklin, what have you given us, a monarchy or republic?

Because she was thinking maybe, and if you know the story and I write about it and if you can keep it, maybe we haven't been able to pull this off. So maybe we need some kind of a benevolent monarchy. You know, not getting the third, kind of like we've got. a parliament or we've got a Congress kind of as oversight and checks and balances. Maybe it's a monarchy. What do we have? He asked him genuinely, what have he given a stock that's a monarchy or a republic? And he says famously, a republic, madam, if you can keep it. And what he means by if you can keep it in the old fashioned sense of to keep it, like, you know, to keep a garden,

you have to tend it, you have to keep it. Are you capable you, the American people? You, Mrs. Powell, we today, are we capable keeping the Republic? And what does it mean to keep? What does it mean to preserve self-government or preserve liberty? It's never been done in the history of the world. So Dr. Frank, with his wisdom, says, a republic, madam, if you can keep it. In other words, we've provided it on paper on the Constitution, but that's meaning. If you, if you, the people, if we, the people, do not know how to do this and don't do this, goes away. And it should go away. It's not the normal state of affairs. It's an extraordinary thing in human history. So he answers this, and this is kind of cavalierly. It's like off the cuff. He wasn't giving a speech, but someone

overheard it and wrote it down in his diary. And it's in my book, if you can keep it. But it's preserved for history that Franklin is on the record saying what we just did in that room, we created the Constitution, it's meaningless if we the people don't live it. We have to live it. A piece of paper does not preserve the democracy. So in my book, if you can keep it, I go into what does it mean to keep the republic? And what it means to be genuinely free is I can sum it up in what's called the Golden Triangle of Freedom, which I'll say in a minute. But there is no doubt, I say this emphatically, there is no doubt that without faith in God, it is not possible to be a free people. Now, this doesn't mean everyone has to go to church.

It doesn't mean the government will force people to become Christians because once the government forces people to do anything, you're not free. So how do we do it? Well, Osgenus, from whom I got this idea, gives us what's called the Golden Triangle of Freedom. and there's a chapter in my book, if you can keep it, about the Golden Triangle of Freedom. So I'll explain it briefly, but it sums up where we are. The Golden Triangle of Freedom, this is the magic, the magic sauce that gives us freedom in America

that has enabled us to be free 250 years. Here's what it is. Asking is calls it the Golden Triangle of Freedom. I'll say briefly what it is that I'll explain it. Golden Triangle of Freedom is freedom, which we say is liberty, which we say is self-government. I'm going to govern myself. I'm not going to be governed by some freedom.

force, we're to free. How does that work? Well, freedom requires virtue. Every one of the founders, every single one of the founders, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, the ones they say, oh, he's a D.S. He's not a great. Every single one of them understood that if you do not have a people of virtue, now not every single person, but a culture of virtue, people who understand the value that we've got to have our own virtue. The government's not force us. We're going to do the right thing. Why? Because we believe it's the right thing. Every single one of the founders understood that freedom or liberty or self-government, we want to call it, cannot exist without virtue. And they all said it. The most famous quote is from John Adams, where he says, you know, our government is is insufficient

for, only sufficient for a virtuous people. It can't, it will not work any other way. But the second part of the triangle, so freedom requires virtue. Virtue in turn, requires safe. In other words, why will you have virtue? Why will you do the right? If the government's not forcing me to do the right thing, why will I do the right thing and have virtue? Why?

Because I listen to a higher authority. I fear God. I love God. I don't steal because God doesn't want me to steal, not because the government might catch me, but because I want to do right by God. All of that stuff was understood by the founders. every single one of the founders understood that state is the most important thing to create virtue

and without virtue you cannot have freedom. But here's the third piece and this is the trick. Freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith. Most people would say, okay, great. Then force faith on people. Make it mandatory. You've got to go to church.

You've got to have a quiet time. You've got to do this. You've got to do that. And the founders understood, no, no, no, no, no, no. We will have freedom of religion in America. if we have freedom of religion, if you're free to be an atheist, free to be a Hindu, free to be Jewish, if you're free, that's the safest bet that people will do the right thing. So this is the big gamble.

Freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith, but then faith in turn to really flower requires freedom. So it goes around and around. Freedom requires virtue, virtue requires faith requires freedom because real faith can't be forced by the government. In France, the government, the monarchy, and the church were kind of one. And everybody in France was supposed to be a Catholic. In other parts of the world, you're forced to be a Muslim. In other parts of the world, North Korea today, China, you're forced to be an atheist. our founders said, we want everyone to be a Christian, but we can't force it. And we believe at the heart of this beautiful thing called Christian faith, real Christian faith, is liberty to choose, that you can't force people.

So we're going to divorce. Freedom of conscience, you have to have that. Because otherwise, what is faith? If you do not truly believe and embrace it, what is faith anyway? Well, all of that, all of that stuff. So if you're a real Christian, you get that. Now, if you're not a real Christian, you think, well, I can force state. Like I'll baptize this person on the sly and magically they're a Christian or whatever.

The founders understood that we have to trust people to choose on their own. So the key to the whole thing is we have to create an environment where Christian faith can flourish, but we can't force it. So we want it to be at the center of American life because without it, it, we're not going to have virtue for very long. We're not going to have freedom for very long. We need people of faith, but we can't force it. So when somebody says to me, is America a Christian nation, the answer is absolutely yes and absolutely no. Yes, in that without it, we are no longer America, but no, in the sense that it's not official. The government doesn't say everyone has to be Christian. And it's because we're free not to be Christians that,

we can really have robust Christian fate. So the conversation we're having in America right now, but it's also international, is what does it mean to be free? How can you be in England right now? If you say the wrong thing, they'll put you in prison. I mean, it's like, wait a minute. Is this the Soviet Union in 1970? No, this is England today.

In Germany, if you say the wrong thing, they can put you in prison. So that's why J.D. Vance says, hey, we used to share these values. Now, where do those values from? They came from our shared Christian heritage. Europe was Christendom. There's no doubt about it. That's what Europe was, was Christendom. We had the shared values. That has gone away dramatically. And what happens? It opens the door to radical Islam. It opens the door to Marxist atheism. And so we're at a really exciting moment right now, Elizabeth. I got to tell you, because we're been forced to look at this. We've been kind of drifting and drifting and drifting.

Now we know where the drifting got us. Now we have to go back to our roots. So that's a long way of saying there is no escaping it. You cannot have freedom on the American model without faith and virtue, but you can't force faith or virtue. And I'll just say this finally. When we say that America is exceptional, we are not exceptional. We are exactly like anybody on planet Earth.

God is no respect or persons. But what we have here, this form of government is utterly exceptional. It's a privilege. We don't deserve it. It's a gift from God. And we are meant to share it with the whole world. Just like we're meant to share our faith with the whole world. It's not for me.

It's to share it. And so something is happening right now where I think people around the world are looking to America, just as Tocqueville in 1826, you know, he's saying, how does this work? Could we have this? This is beautiful. We have faith flourishing. We have freedom flourishing. How come that can't happen in France? How can we add a bloodbath in the French Revolution? This is the question people are asking today. So I'm frankly excited that this could lead to world revival and it could lead to a breakout of freedom in other countries besides America. Yeah, I see that too. Of course, we see in Europe and the forces of one side that it wants to push to restore and to protect cultures of individual nations. Nations were appointed by God. That is not a modern thing like so many people imply. and then the forces of, I would say, evil, but elite power structures, globalists,

that want to crush the liberty and the, I would say, the belief that individual cultures have value. And if you want to preserve your own culture, your identity as French, or identity as Romanian or Hungarian or whatever, German that you have to fight for it. It is not something that remains there without fighting for it. And something that, you know, I come to now really internalizes you can have a multi-ethnic country, but you cannot have a multi-cultural country. ingo, exactly correct. Because a country, a society is a culture. That's the The definition is just organic. It is a culture.

You can have Christians of every shade, shape and size from all over the world, every Far East Asian, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, white Europeans, black Africans, brown Latinos. Bring them all together in one country. And you've got a culture that is one culture. that is one culture multi-ethnic, a beautiful thing. Actually, if you look forward to the kingdom to come, that's exactly what when the Lord returns.

We're going to have. My father came to this country in the mid-50s from Greece. My mother came here in the mid-50s from Greece. My mother came here in the mid-50s from Germany. When they came here, they eagerly adopted American culture. In other words, they said, whatever you have there, we want. I don't cease being Greek. I don't cease being German, but I get to participate in these beautiful ideas. And most immigrants to this country, that the beauty of this country, have recognized that what we have had here is amazing. Wouldn't it be great if I get to participate in that? Wouldn't it be great if I get to raise? Wouldn't it be great if I get to

raise my kids in that world. I don't leave my old values behind. Now, some of them maybe I do, but like when I talk to cab drivers in New York City where I live, many of them, you know, they've got, you know, some Islamic name. Like a lot of them are literally named Muhammad Islam. Like, you know, they have these, you know, but usually if I get in a conversation with them, they're not radical Muslims. They have bought into the idea like, I get to work, I get to make money. In other words, to them,

they're kind of maybe culturally Muslim, but they bought into America. And that's the challenge. Are you willing to buy in enough so that you leave your bonded behind? Let's think about the election of 1960. John F. Kennedy identifies as a Catholic,

Okay, he wasn't that Catholic. He's bringing prostitutes into the White House. We'll put that to the side. But many people are like, oh, he's Catholic. His fidelity is going to be to the Pope, not to the American Constitution. Now, that was a legitimate question. Where's your fidelity? And the point is, if your fidelity is not to America and the American Constitution,

you are living in a theocracy and you cannot truly be an American. you certainly cannot hold office in America. Well, this is where I want to go with this. I want to, I want to, I'm glad you brought up Islam. Because the conversation today, and I think that what has happened is mass immigration against the will of the American people actually didn't start with Biden. The illegal, the insanity that was so visual and visual. to us all, that woke a lot of people up that heretofore had not been awakened to it.

But when you have a culture, if you dilute it quickly to such a degree, you've lost the culture. If you bring in, like, let's just use absurd numbers. If we have 340 million people, like 20, 30, 40 million of those people are not citizens. or, you know, they include illegal and just non-citizens. If you brought in 200 million communist Chinese, let's just use them for a moment, and you just displaced them, and brought them in tomorrow,

America would cease to exist. Correct. Exactly. So now this is the more... And it's not because they're Chinese. No, it's because they... Communists in their mind, that they think along communist

lines and you cannot have a free republic or true America if people don't buy in if enough people don't buy into that idea. You're always going to have some that don't. But immigrants are supposed to come here and assimilate. You're supposed to say you want to come in? You can come in but you have to buy into these ideas.

If you don't buy into the ideas or the rules of the club, you can't come in. The problem with that is when you're talking to an immigrant, you can't see into their heart and you can't see into their mind. So that is something I'll set aside because that is one of the great challenges in who you choose to import and to naturalize in the United States. And everyone doesn't always have the best intentions as we do know as well.

But let's go back to this question. I see the great forces affecting America today or things or places or I use. nations that we consider to be threats either economically or militarily or culturally or culturally or across the board all three of them I will identify as Islam. We know that. That we need to be able to discuss the fact that Islam is a threat to Western society. If you don't think so, you're not looking at England and Europe and the chaos that. it is descended to. Many people feel it's fallen. I pray, and I actually do pray this prayer, that it has not. Communist China is, as we actually created the threat by essentially

funding its rise, we gave them the prosperity to rise to the threat that it has, but it is essentially a great communist threat. And then India, which we, which we, right now, many people see as no threat at all. We recognize that that India wants to import. This is a stated government official policy, is that they want to import as many Indians as possible. So now into the United States of America, for greatly for economic reasons, because their chief asset is only really in the numbers of their populace. My question is this, given that the immigration into America is not primarily Christian right now, or at least we don't know that it is. And if you overwhelm a culture and identity with another culture in mass, or cultures and identities and religions cannot survive.

And so I'll put these, this question to you. That is a question, of course. But my scenario is this. If you went back to 1776 and on the shores of the Atlantic, you had colonies and they were either all Muslim, all Hindu or all communist. which I know that that's a little bit out of the timeline there. But could they have created America?

Would we be living in? No, and not even close. Not even close. Absolutely not. In fact, I'll go back at you and say that even being Christian is not enough. There are plenty Christians that do not get what we're talking. There are plenty quote unquote Christians. That's a good point.

Whether Catholic, Protestant, evangelical, who totally don't get this. You have a lot of liberal Christians that are more in line. with communist Marxism than they are with. So you really have to understand the guts of the Christian faith and how that over time, through the centuries, ends up through the Reformation leading to the possibility of the United States of America. We had Christianity for 17 centuries,

and we had no religious liberty and no liberty and no America. You can have Christianity without liberty. Now, I don't think that's the Lord's will, and I don't know why the Lord, you know, it's like the Levin working its way through the love, why it takes 17, 18 centuries before you have this flower of freedom. But these are ideas that come out of Christian faith, but there are plenty of Christians who don't get these ideas. And And that is why when people just say, oh, it's all about the kingdom, it's all about being a Christian, that's baloney. That's total baloney. God wants you to be a citizen of the kingdom. And because you're a citizen of the kingdom, to care about this world and to care about the nations of this world and they care that people have freedom and this work. You don't say, well, I care about the kingdom. So I don't care about slavery. If you don't care about slavery, you're a bum. You're not a true Christian. You're supposed to care about your neighbor. You're supposed to care about how people live their lives. Are they being subjugated? Are they in bondage to tyranny, to slave masters, if you don't care about that, what kind of Christian faith do you have? So we have to care about those things.

But there are many Christians today that don't get what we're talking about. It's why I wrote the book, if you can keep it. I said, this is fundamental, and I myself didn't understand this. We have to understand this. And so the corollary to that is that you don't need to be a Christian to get this stuff. Now, you need a Christian culture. You need a culture that gets this stuff. But there are plenty of people.

I just mentioned that sometimes I'm talking to a cab driver who is ostensibly Muslim, right? What does that really mean? It means he's an Arab. He doesn't know, you know, if you ask him, what are you? It's like asking somebody Irish or Catholic or what are you. They go, well, I'm Catholic. I mean, as Irish or Italian, you say, what are you? And they go, well, I'm Catholic.

But you start asking them questions. they don't really know much about the faith. It's a cultural identity. So the question is, it is your faith, whatever your faith is, is it something that is open to these American values we're talking about? And so there are many people who are, I could just go down the line. There are Muslims who say, my fidelity is to Islam, 100%. There are other Muslims who are kind of nominal kind of lapsed. They're just cultural. They came here from another country. So if you ask them what they are, they say, yeah, I'm Muslim. But when you start to ask questions, they're not for Sharia law. They're not radical Muslims. They don't want jihad. They want their

kids to thrive. And if you begin to explain these things, they buy into this idea of freedom. And I can make a buck and I have the freedom to be entrepreneurial. They buy into these ideas, even though they have this nominal Muslim identity. They're not radical Muslims. And so what you need in America, whatever people say they are, they have to buy into this set of ideas. And that's where you get religious liberty. The founders didn't say everyone has to be a congregationalist. Everyone has to be a Presbyterian. Everyone has to be Church of England. They said, no, you can be whatever you want, but you have to have virtue. You have to buy into these ideas. They had religious liberty. They had, you know, Maryland was Catholic. We were going to

make Canada our 14th colony. I'm writing a book about the revolution right now. And we wanted to invite Canada, which was in many ways largely Catholic. And we said, well, we can work together. Not everyone has to be on the same page theologically, but we have to buy into these other ideas. Everyone has to buy into these other ideas. If your primary fidelity is to the Pope in Rome or your primary fidelity is to your Marxist overlords, or if your primary fidelity is to, you know, creating a caliphate, then you can't be a real America.