The Eric Metaxas Show - Resident Kraaken: John Zmirak Returns

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Resident Kraaken John Zmirak dives back into the depths with sharp, fearless commentary on today’s breaking news and cultural battles. Expect bold insights, no punches pulled.

Have you checked your bucket list lately? Are you ready to take care of item number seven? Listening to the Eric Mattaxas show? Well, welcome, tune in, and then move on to item number eight, skydiving with Chuck Schumer and AOC. Here now is Mr. Completed My Bucket List at age 12, Eric Mattaxas. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the program. Welcome to Tuesday, August 19th in the year of our Lord 2025.

Anno Dominated. 20, 25. Chris Heim's, you realize that in a few minutes, it's going down. In a few minutes, folks, in case he didn't get the memo, and how could you have? Because I've never mentioned it before. But in a few minutes,

I don't know how to say this. John Smirak is going to be my guest on the program. John Smirak, I repeat, John Smirak is going to be my guest on the program. And if you have blood pressure issues, pregnant women, I just have to say this legally.

Salem Radio makes me say this, that you've been warned. Yeah, it's kind of like a CDC zoological, almost mythological situation. We call him the resident Cracken, and so when he comes out and emerges, it can be scary. There's an island

off the coast of Long Island. It's called Plum Island. And the government conducts... It's like an island of Dr. Moreau. They, by H. Wells, you should read that classic work. And they conduct experiments out there. Yeah. On book projects. Yeah. It's dark stuff. Yes. They create fabulous beasts.

and horrible beasts, and they do things there on Plum Island. And if you have a boat, you know, you don't get too close. Right. And I really believe, you know, I'm just spitballing, but I believe that's where John Zmirach was created.

Yep, we think he was forged in a lab there and taking part of, you know, the brain of a bull, you know, it's sort of stubborn and stocky and the fortitude of a donkey. You know, some of the, you know, different animals mixed in, a camera of sorts.

A creepy chimera or chimera spelled C-H-I-M-E-R-A. Anyway, the point is, folks, that fabulous beast that we call John Smirik is going to be my guest. And I just, I can't underscore enough how frightened and excited I am. So that's in just a few minutes. Okay, we can talk about news of the day ourselves before we bring on Johns Meeraq. Our resident manimal. He's our resident mannimal. Today, okay, so today is MIRAC Day on the Eric Metaxis show.

Yes. I want to touch on the news of the day before John comes in, because you know what happens when John comes, and John comes in. It's really, who cares what I think? So I'm going to take this opportunity on my own show to comment on the news of the day. And Chris, obviously, you're welcome. Yeah. But yesterday the big news was that Donald Trump, what, had a meeting.

at the White House with Zelensky of Ukraine. Afterward, he pulled in all the leaders of the EU. And leaders is in quotes, because except for Maloney, the heroic Italian, they're all pathetic. Most pathetic, Keir Starrmer, the prime minister of the UK, closely followed by Macron of France. there was a clip played and Pichi Kienin. We need to get her back on the program. She's on the East, on the West Coast, so it's tough to get her sometimes.

But she said something about it, which I don't know if I can repeat that word on this program, but she said that Starmor was kind of, he was so pathetic, his two minutes, he had two minutes and 25 seconds. I remember the clip where he kind of said nothing. and it's just a it's it's it's the whole thing is creepy because you have the leaders of the world around the table and they are all clearly not up to the job Trump's genius Trump's alpha male

leader energy and his age 79 he he is the leader and they're like children lined up and these are kind of like they're like the snot-nosed you know, he's the leader. Ivy League grads who know nothing in the room with somebody who has fought wars and to whom they should listen and in front of whom they should shut up. The wiser you are, the more you shut up in the presence of a Trump if you're one of these people. But Starrmer, the prime minister of the UK, who in case I haven't mentioned, is subpar and seriously pathetic. I mean, horrible. He's horrible. He's horrible. He's horrible. He talks for two minutes and 25 seconds and basically says nothing,

not even in a particularly plummy English accent, which would make it more palatable. But he says absolutely nothing. And it just underscores how these folks have nothing to say. They don't know anything. They don't. And the theater, the political theater of Donald Trump inviting them to the White House, It just the whole thing is comedic.

Now, I think Trump is aware of this somehow, and he's, he's very gracious. At one point, they're all lined up for a photo, and he points out a gigantic photo in the room of him at Butler with his fist in the air and the blood coming down. He points it out to them, and he goes, not a good day. That was not a good day. And the whole thing, it challenges us. day President Trump challenges us to try to figure out what's really going on. Did he plan this? Does he have some secret agenda that we're going to line them up here? And you know what? Then I'll point out that photo and see how they react. I don't know what. But it's just pure

entertainment. And it's partially entertainment because it's more than entertainment. There's something actually happening. Go ahead. Sorry. I was just going to say it's he's kind of like, you know, if Andy, not quite if Andy Kaufman had become president, you know, performance artists, but, you know, in the same way that Lincoln was known for his wrestling abilities as a wiry, strong, tall, rassler, I think Trump, not physically,

but in every other way is up to a task to be compared to Lincoln's wrestling skills, I think. He is so wiry and you can't pin him. It's unbelievable. He's wily and, wiry. No, the whole thing, he's not physically wiry, but, I mean, nor was Lincoln necessarily wiry, but sinewy, rangy, I don't know what the adjective would be, but the whole thing is just absolutely hilarious. Before we get to Smirak, so what happened yesterday with everybody? The answer is,

I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. The prospect of Trump being in the same room with Putin and Zelensky. The prospect of Putin and Zelensky being the same room makes me physically ill. So I don't know why that has to happen or whether that has to happen. I don't know that they need to get together in the same room. Evidently, that's Trump's plan. I trust Trump. But I don't, it makes me uncomfortable. The thought of Zelensky, whose people have been murdered by this satanic figure called Putin. All thanks, by the way, to Joe Biden. It's the whole thing's creepy. Okay, real quick, Trump yesterday put out a tooth social saying that, you know, we're going to go to no more mail-in balloting, to paper ballots, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Every time I get this kind of great news, it's like when I was in the room when Ron DeSantis said, in Florida, we're going to stand against women competing, men competing in women's sports.

Everybody cheers. And I thought, this is where we are that to announce something. like common sense. We announced it from now on one plus one equals two. Like on the one hand, it's heroic and wonderful. And on the other hand, I roll my eyes that it took us till now to make this announcement, but

praise the Lord that we have a president who gets this. President Trump, by the way, in case anybody thinks that I think he can do no wrong, the other day following his meeting with Putin in an interview with Sean Hannity, he very foolishly

praised his own Operation Warp Speed stuff. And I thought, oh, no, is he still on this? But I love the man. And he's entitled to make some small mistakes. But the fact that he was praising the operation, we did Operation Warp Speed, I thought, for crying out loud, your whole face is thriving. I put Fauci, folks.

When we come back, my guest, let me warn you, He's in the lagoon. He's been spotted in the lagoon. John Smirak is on his way. A major retail chain just canceled a massive order, leaving My Pillo with an overstock of the classic My Pills, and this is your gain, because for a limited time, my Pills are offering their entire classic collection

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Plus, when your order totals $75 or more, you'll receive $100 in free digital gifts, no strings attached. That's right. Premium pillows at unbeatable prices and bonus gifts to top it off. Don't wait. Head to mypillow.com today or call 800-9783057. Now. Don't forget to use promo code Eric to grab your standard my pillow for only 1798 only while supplies last. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I think you've been sufficiently warned, and yet who can be really sufficiently warned when the warning concerns the advent of the man we call John Zmirak. John, I don't know how to put this, but welcome to the program.

Thanks, Eric. It was a pleasure to talk to you. look, you look ghoulish in whatever light you have there. But let me, let me ask you, John, yesterday, you know, the whole world is talking about President Trump, the theater, the grand political theater of President Trump inviting all of the leaders of Europe to the White House, where he treated them like a group of school kids. It was really a fascinating, it was fascinating, just for the theater of it, that he brings them all there. Before that, he met with Zelensky. It's still unclear to me what Zelensky was wearing. I guess he was praised for wearing a suit

of some kind, but with a black shirt and a black tie, which, ladies and gentlemen, in case you're wondering what I think of that, I think it is extraordinarily tacky. Black shirts, if you have a black shirt, here's what to do. You burn it. Okay. You blitzky was dressed. Zelensky was dressed like one of Mussolini stugs from the 1920s. Oh, no, he really looked like the drug dealer who shows up with your daughter for a date, and you realize, oh, my God, we have to move to another city and change our names. Because my daughter is dating an Armenian opium smuggler. And, no, anyway, that meeting.

Well, well, I was going to say that the whole thing was, again, the entertainment value with Donald Trump, he's the gift that that keeps on giving. No matter what he does, there's layers of entertainment and meaning. I mean, first of all, to invite all of the world leaders to the White House, you know, it's like inviting Putin to America, to Alaska. It's a huge thing. This is not normal to invite the leaders to the White House. Normally they meet in some, I don't know, octagon,

Plexiglass, octagon at the base of a mountain in Iceland or Belgium or something. The idea that they came, all came to the White House is itself big news. I don't know that that has ever happened in the history of the world. That, you know, it's one thing to have one leader, but to have them all there. So I don't know how Trump pulled that off. And even that is part of the story, is that Trump, in doing this, clearly he thinks about this brilliantly. He has this idea in his mind that by being able to do this, by maneuvering them,

I mean, using Zelensky as bait and saying, okay, we're going to have Zelensky. I mean, he clearly got them all in the pace. So I'm going to invite Zelensky the White House, and I want you there. Will you come? I'm concerned. I'm concerned that they are willing, kind of humiliating themselves. in return for getting what they want. The kind of stuff that I've seen coming out of the meeting

that Trump is talking about seems like kind of a backdoor membership of NATO for Ukraine. Security guarantees of European troops, the warmongers who want us to be in a perpetual nuclear confrontation with Russia, I'm afraid they're going to get part of what they want and it's going to screw up the deal. Putin won't agree to it.

and another million European Christians will be killed or wounded. Well, listen, hold on, John. Hold on, hold on, because there's a lot here. First of all, there should never be any question that NATO could include Ukraine. So that's off the table. So how do you get Zelensky and Europe to agree to this when you're saying that they can't be part of NATO? Right. You say to them, look, what do you really want?

You want protection. okay Europe, not America, okay Europe, you, you guarantee protection. We're going to make this deal with Russia. If Russia says yes, in order for them to keep their promise, you will have to guarantee it. How's that bad? Because they are still our military allies. And I guarantee you, when Trump is no longer president, because I'm assuming he's not going to be president for life, I'm assuming he's going to leave office in three years.

I hope he doesn't. But I think he will. Any future, I'm afraid that most possible future presidents would see an attack on European troops in Ukraine by Russia. That would be portrayed by our media as there's an attack on us. They are our NATO allies. We don't need Zelensky and Europe to sign off on this. We need to throw Ukraine and Europe to the wolves. we need to dissolve NATO.

It is a suicide pact. NATO serves no purpose unless we were to lure Russia in. If Russia could join NATO and it can be an anti-Chinese anti-Islamath alliance, that would be useful. Right now, being allied with Britain and France and Germany that are silencing their citizens. Britain is imprisoning citizens who complain about immigration policy. Why should we be allied with Britain against Russia? I'd rather be allied with Russia against Britain. I don't even know why you're saying we're allied with them against.

We've got a couple of things going on here. Should we get out of NATO? You and I think, yes. We can talk about that in a moment. But what we're talking about now is simply that Trump is effectively doing what you want. He is pushing this onto Europe. He's saying we will not, this has to be, you guys have to stand up. Well, well, if this is the first step, if this is the first step,

If this is the first step of saying, okay, Ukraine is Europe's responsibility. And then we continue to disengage from the corrupt anti-Christian totalitarian forces, governments that are ruling Western Europe. We disengage from them. If this is part of that, if this is part of liquidating NATO, great. I'm not condemning Trump. I'm telling you I'm a little bit. You're leaping way ahead.

I'm thinking more than one chest move. I'm trying to think more than one chest move ahead. Because you have to, because the deep state of the U.S. that works with the intelligence agency in this country, remember, they caused the Ukraine war. They caused it by forcing Trump out, first of all, by casting Russia as the scapegoat for Trump being elected in the first place, then using Russia as the scapegoat to try to remove Trump from office, then stealing the election and giving it to Biden. that's why the war happened in Ukraine. They are desperate to keep that conflict going so they can continue to scapegoat Russia and just smear Trump supporters like Tulsi Gabbard

as Russian assets. The Russia has been used as the demon figure by the American left and the rhinos. It has been used as the devil figure for the last 10 years. They use it the way Hitler talked about the Jews. They talk about the Russians. have to remember that. They want to keep playing the Russia card. They want to keep making

trillions of dollars in defense contracts. They want to keep out Russian oil and gas so they can import more expensive oil and gas and get rich from it. Have you ever had Mike Benz on the show? Mike Benz explains how these European leaders, these NATO leaders, personally get rich through companies like Burisma by cutting off Russian oil and gas so that they can bring in more expensive oil and gas elsewhere. It is an unbelievably corrupt arrangement. Trump is doing his best. He's behaving heroically trying to get out of the tar baby that is the corrupt NATO alliance. Well, I hope so. But I mean, you must realize that there are political realities. And it's just like with Putin coming to Alaska the other day, you have to play a game. You can't say he's evil and

a gun and blow his brains out, which we would all sort of prefer. I would not prefer it. I would prefer that Trump arrested these Western European leaders and put them on trial for their crimes against human rights. I'm being that clear. Kirstarmer is trying. You keep changing the subject. I like everything you're saying, but I want to get to it in turn.

I was making just a larger point that if you're dealing with political realities, when Putin comes, for example, you can't do what you want. You have to play a game. You have to roll out the red carpet. You have to pretend you like him. You have to flatter him. Why? Because you want him to do certain things.

And so you're trying to do whatever you can to get him to do those things. That's the goal. That's the deal you're looking to make. Simultaneously with the folks in the EU, Trump could, I hope, wisely knows everything you just said and I am thinking. But now he has, he's playing a game. where he has to get them to take on the responsibilities. Like, you want to support Ukraine? Okay, I'm going to now maneuver things so that you do it.

In other words, it looks like I'm doing what you want me to do. Okay, we're making peace. We're doing all this. We're conceding this. But now, in return, you need to take the ball. So he is basically washing our hands of the whole thing. I mean, he gets to play peacemaker. He gets, he's the guy that put it together.

But at the same time, he is saying, This is on you. America is not going to put boots on the ground over there. If there's a problem, it is your problem. That is unprecedented. That's an extraordinary thing. That's already him distancing himself from the neocon post-war NATO alliance, right? I mean, it's a positive step. Yeah, it is. We just have to keep. I hope that the Russians see it that way and that they make a deal. Okay, hang on, folks. We got much more coming up with John Smirak. Welcome back, folks, talking to John Zemirak, that's Z followed immediately by an M, Zmirak. John Zemirak. Okay, John, you and I agree wholeheartedly, and we rarely talk about this on the program with you or anyone. The European leaders, those nations, are so politically far from what we the people

in America believe in, free speech, freedom, basic Christian values. Religious freedom. Religious liberty. That something has happened since NATO was formed, since the end of World War II. Over the decades, they've drifted farther and farther and farther and farther away. So they now, they're right, you know, they're in bed with like Obama and Susan Rice and the person,

formerly known as Joe Biden. By European standards, Joe Biden is center-right. And Donald Trump... You can't even talk about Joe Biden because he didn't even exist, the people running him. But I guess the point is,

when you think, when I have gone, for example, to London, I was in London in July, I was in London in February, and I was in London last year. And when you go there, there are,

I can't remember, it's a main street in London. The pride flags, if you saw it, you would gasp. I gasped. There was pride flags. It was like if there was a Nazi rally and Hitler was coming down in his motorcade, the swastika flags, the Nazi flags would be like this. It would be a riot of color to celebrate what we believe in.

And I have to tell you, that's when I realized. how bad things are in Europe. France is the same. Germany is the same. They are all basically addicted to this woke idea. We don't need to get into it. But the point is and the point you're making. And to some extent, J.D. Vance made this point in Munich when he gave his speech.

Our values are no longer the same. And unless you, Europe, change, we no longer have. the alliance that we once had. And so something good is happening because we at least that the first thing you need is an American administration that understands this. And J.D. Vance put this really very, very brilliantly when he said it in Munich. I don't know how many months ago that was. But so I see positive signs from Trump's administration. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm not throwing stones at President Trump. I'm simply, Trump's getting a lot of pressure. from the deep state, from the Lindsay Grahms of this world, to keep the corrupt post-war alliance

going. But we're, we are not, these are not the allies that used to be. The regimes that run these countries are the enemies of their people. They're colonizing the countries with Muslim immigrants and imprisoning anyone who criticizes it. J.D. Vance went to meet with Nigel Farage a few days ago to talk about the end of free speech. in Britain. There are hundreds of British people rotting in prison for going on Facebook and saying, well, it might be a bit too much immigration.

They're in prison now. And they let Muslim rapists and thugs go to make room for the British citizens to imprison. Britain is not a free country. It is not, it is an anti-Christian country. They just arrested a woman for praying

silently outside an abortion clinic, for standing there. She confirmed she was praying. They put her in for the third time. These are not countries that share our values. They share our values less than Putin's Russia. They are no freer than Putin's Russia. They conspired with our deep state to bring down President Trump.

They are not quite enemies, but they are certainly not friends. And the idea of the U.S. Allying with these people to fight the Russians is insane. it is time for us to wind down and get rid of NATO, which Pat Buchanan said and I said back in the early 90s. Well, I mean, again, I don't, I've never understood how we needed NATO when the Soviet Union fell apart. Suddenly, the whole reason for NATO, I mean, even when I hear people talk about the West, what West are you even talking about? How is Russia presented as,

though it's the Soviet Union and we are the West, the Allies, you know, we, we, we, it's like D-Day. It's no longer 1944, folks. I don't know what in the world we're talking about. Anyway, we're getting, we're getting a little far afield, John, forgive me, but I'm, I'm so interested in this subject. And I, listen, I don't get the idea that many people are talking about this. I mean, this is a program. We talk about a lot on this program. We often talk about current events. but this is not like Charlie Kirk's program or what we talk about all kinds of things. And I wonder if all of my MAGA conservative friends are talking about this the way we're talking about it right now. Because this is at the heart of it.

You said that these nations in Europe are anti-Christian. That is correct. They are as anti-Christian as the Obama and Biden administrations. They are viciously anti-Christian. And everything that goes along with that, it's to be anti-Christian. really is to be satanic. It's to be globalist. It's to be every bad thing against liberty. And I just sometimes wonder if all of our conservative friends perceive this and are talking about it in the way that we're talking about it. We're going to go to a break.

Yes. I think it's pretty simply the MAGA movement wants nothing to do with these traitorous governments in Western Europe that are waging war against their own people and replacing them with Muslim colonists. Or better yet, we want, we want MAGA movements in every one of those countries. When we come back, maybe we'll talk about that because there is at least hope along those lines. We'll be right back. Welcome back, folks, talking to John Smirak. John Smirak, before we leave the subject entirely, there are signs of hope.

Maloney in Italy, a sign of hope in Europe. Tommy Robinson in Britain is a sign of hope. Tommy Robinson in Britain, Nigel Farage, to a lesser extent. Marine Le Pen in France. There's a great magazine, the European Conservative, and they ran an article a few days ago. In every Western European country, the parties that used to be dismissed as far right are surging, are leading, are becoming the most. popular parties. What you're going to see is the European Secret Services try to ban those parties, try to arrest the leaders. They already try to imprison Marine Le Pen in France.

The dictatorial governments of Western Europe are going to try to imprison the opposition. That's what's happening. They are going to treat people like Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen the way the Polish government treated lequilenza. That's the lens through which we have to see this, these countries are occupied by hostile tyrannical regimes the way we were under Joe Biden. Yeah, and Obama. I think. But especially Biden because he got in by a stolen election. Obama was at least honestly elected.

And their secret service agencies are as corrupt and as politicized as the FBI was under Merrick Garland. This is a strange turn of events. When I was going to be passing through London in June as part of our cruise, I was genuinely worried about getting off the plane in London in case they read my posts, my columns. Will I be arrested as an extremist? I was genuinely worried whether I should not fly through London. That is crazy. Do you even have to think about that? But I did.

Yeah. So, you know. Well, I heard. heard, I read the other day that a lot of these quote unquote far right parties in Europe are are polling well, that things have gotten so bad over there that Marine Le Pen in France, Tabi Romitzen, Nigel Farage, and others in the UK, that there is hope. It is interesting. We need to pray because Europe is occupied by enemies of Christ the way it was in 1942. It's just that starkly true. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's fascinating. Well, there's,

there's so much I want to talk to you about. You, you want to talk about, uh, election fraud. I mean, the fact that Trump yesterday posted what he posted, I mentioned that in the opening segment about, you know, we need to end election fraud. And again, it's sort of like, it's so crazy. It's like, I remember I was in the room, I don't know, four and a half years ago when Ron DeSantis said, in Florida, you know, we're going to have a man is a man and a woman is a woman. And everybody cheered. And I thought, wow, like we're cheering. It's just so funny to live at a time when the president says we should have fair elections and this is news.

Oh, it's not just. It's not just news. It is a ticking time bomb. Pray for President Trump's safety in the next few months because going after election, fraud. That is the nuclear football of the deep state. The ability to steal elections through mail-in-balloting and corrupt election machines is what our elites use to hold onto power. You've had David Clements on. He's got this wonderful film, Let My People Go. He documents how it isn't just the Democrats that steal elections.

The rhinos, the swamp Republicans, they use the election machines to steal primary elections from conservatives. That's why they are against fixing election fraud. Whenever you see a Republican who supports the voting machines, who talks about we need to do early voting, don't worry about the voting machines, that person is part of the problem. That person is part of the establishment.

They steal the primary elections from conservatives. Trump needs to get, we need to get rid of all elect, all vote counting machines. It has to be done. Paper ballots, same day voting, hand counts. Those are the only things that are going to guarantee fair and free elections in America. And if we do that, the left will never win another national election. And conservatives will start winning primaries. That's why the establishment, Republican establishment, cooperates with the Democrats to keep elections.

That's why Fox News settled with Dominion and fired Lou Dobbs and affirmed that the 2020 election wasn't stolen and demonized that all the January 6 people. What did they go to prison for? Protesting election fraud. Why is Tina Peters, an honest election official, still in prison in Colorado? Because she documented election fraud. This is the nuclear football. This is the most important issue to the last. and to the swamp Republicans, Trump needs to put all his energy into fixing election fraud

and deporting illegal immigrants and, of course, fixing the census and redistricting. We can save America from turning out the way Great Britain is turning out, which is a corrupt autocracy colonized by foreigners. Correct. I'm going to score that one correct. Thank you. Seriously, this is so important, John. So do you have anything to say about the quote unquote gerrymandering that's going on? We are trying to fix some of the gerrymandering that the left has done. And the left does it all across the country under the pretext of minority representation. There's a case going to the Supreme Court, and it's hopeful that we might see an end to the corrupt use of the Voting Rights Act to guarantee far left-wing districts.

Right now in Louisiana, there's an election, there's an election district that looks like a diagonal stripe across the state in order to get as many black voters as possible to guarantee one far left-wing black congressman from Louisiana. The pretense is that unless you can get someone in Congress who looks like you and shares your ethnic background, you're not represented. So that's why we have nut jobs in Congress like Gassimian, Crockett and Al Green from Texas, just radical, crazy leftists because they draw these crazy election districts in order to get the most left-wing Democrat possible because of their ethnicity.

The court- Al Green, Al Green from Texas, who was thrown out of the state of the union address, he looks like the wolf man in transition. See, I think he looks like one of those hideous Aztec gods who you see on the walls of a temple in Mexico City. But no, no, no, I think that would be to flatter him. I think those Aztec gods are far more, they're far less her suit. Okay, we'll be right back talking to John Smirak. Welcome back talking to John Smirak. John Smirak, do you have any thoughts on, I don't know how to put this.

Tucker Carlson had an Orthodox nun on the program, and she seemed to be an apologist for, I don't know, the Palestinians. Let's put it that way. It was a curious thing. Then it came out that she is the sister of George Stephanopoulos, which makes sense because George Stephanopoulos's father. was a Greek Orthodox priest. I knew him or met him. So, and then I unkindly pointed out that this nun had a, was flagrantly appearing on the program with a mustache, which, by the way, mustache is

facial hair. People don't know this. It's not an inborn thing. It's an option. You don't have to. For example, if you look at me, you'll notice I have chosen not to have facial hair. That's a choice. It's not a choice made by my DNA for me. So if you mention somebody's facial hair, you're not criticizing anything inherent about them. But do you have any thoughts on those conversations that Tucker's been having with people? Yeah. There are multiple things can be true.

We do not live in a world of perfect black and white. It is true that Christians are sometimes mistreated in Israel by far-right Israeli nationalists. And it's true that the Israeli government doesn't do enough to protect its local Christians from its far-right nationalist. They're called a settlers' movement. That is true. That is unfortunate. That's something we should put pressure on the Israeli government. Hold on. I agree with you. That's true. The question is, why do you think it's true?

Why do you think Benjamin Anyahu doesn't do more about that? In other words, it seems to me that he ought to be all about, you know, if we're talking about Israel as our, oh, they're our ally, you know, they're the only democracy in the region. You would think that religious liberty would be at the heart of that, that they would understand this. Why is Netanyahu not cracking down on the far right Israeli settlers who hate Christians? Why would he not understand that? Well, first of all, they're a key part of his governing coalition, and he has a fragile government coalition. Secondly, we just said that Britain and France and Germany treat Christians terribly. Israel treats Christians arguably better than Great Britain does.

What we're looking at is an anti-Christian movement all across the West. And in Britain, is officially a Christian country. It's officially has a Church of England, yet it treats Christians as badly as any of these Israeli settlers. So it is true that Israel ought not to allow settlers to attack Christian Arabs on the West Bank, which has happened recently. That is true. What's also true is that Christians are infinitely worse off in virtually every Muslim country on Earth, except maybe a couple of the Gulf Emirates. Christians in Muslim countries are treated so much worse than you could possibly imagine any any Christian being treated in Israel. So I think it's cynical on the part of

apologists for the Palestinian national cause. They cite these genuine incidents of mistreatment of Christians in an attempt to dismantle our support for Israel. Israel is in a very difficult and dangerous political situation. I hope they make wise choices. We ought to be giving Israel wise advice. We can't back everything the Israeli far right wants because it's not good for the world and it's not good for Israel. We should not, like if you were Napoleon's friend, you would tell him don't invade Russia. Being Israel's friend, I would tell them, don't annex Gaza, don't annex the West Bank. It's going to end up hurting you. They need to be. Okay. Sorry, John. We're going to a break Much more with John Smirak and others in Hour 2.

Stick around.