The Eric Metaxas Show - Yeonmi Park (continued)

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Yeonmi Park continues sharing stories about her life surviving in North Korea and China and how she, her sister, and her mother all escaped, settling into an America undergoing transformation. ...

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. They say it's a thin line between love and hate, but we're working every day to thicken that line, or at least to make it a double or triple line. Now here's your line jumping host, Eric Mattaxas. Folks, welcome back talking to Yomi Park about her story, as told in the book, In Order to Live. Her new book, which we'll get to eventually is while time remains, very important.
Starting point is 00:00:52 But first, we have to get the story. So the story is, you're 13, you and your sister are somehow vaguely having this idea that if we go to China, if we escape somehow we can get food. Yeah. It's that simple. but before this you have the you're stricken ill and your father who by now is a different man, a broken man, but he's home and your mother, they carry you to a hospital. I don't remember I kind of fainted almost. So I remember being in the hospital bed and they said, I need a surgery that day.
Starting point is 00:01:29 So that's how I remember from that day. And then doctors would refuse to operate on me. And my mom had to bribe the doctor and she didn't have the money. Okay, so this is basic that if you can't pay, they will let you die. And so your mother finds a way to bribe them to operate on you, but they misdiagnose you. Yeah. So that's the thing. It's like universal free health care.
Starting point is 00:01:57 It's not, after all, very free because doctors charge you for bribery. And they demand you to bring all the medicine and, you. needs everything from the patient. So they expect the patients to bring those things? Of course. To pay for those things. Yeah, the cause everything is patient responsibility. And she begged one of the neighbors to lend their money.
Starting point is 00:02:22 With that money, she bought things from the black market. And the anesthesia, of course, is a fake. The black market sells. So I don't think you mentioned this. So on the black market, when you buy anesthesia for the operation, they cheat you and they sell you anesthesia, which does not anesthetize. Even penicillin, they sell, a lot of times it's a fake. And there's no way, like, we know it.
Starting point is 00:02:46 It's a black market, and the government doesn't have the medicine. And the only way we can find is from the black market. So I was up during the surgery and screaming and fainting and screaming and fainting. So there's doing surgery on you with no anesthesia? They tied me. That isn't common in North Korea because. they cut the bones without anesthesia. They tied you down so you could not do anything, but they are cutting you with no anesthesia.
Starting point is 00:03:16 And they thought your problem was appendicitis. Yeah. And so they took out your appendix with no anesthesia. Yeah. And you remember this. Of course, I remember my intestines were ripped apart. And my mom said she heard this sound that she never heard, like it's like slaughterhouse. And I lost so much blood, but most of people in North Korea don't die from cancer.
Starting point is 00:03:45 Before cancer, it killed, there's something else that's like kids, usually infection and malnutrition. So I got out of surgery and what shocked to me is like the nurse go around the hospital, inject everybody with one needle. With the same needle. Same needle. So people are getting infected from the same needle. over and over and over. And in this incision side, they're like this, like the yellow things that's coming up. People are so infected.
Starting point is 00:04:08 And so it's better off you just not do anything in North Korea. That's how horrible the medical system is. So it's almost miraculous. It sounds miraculous. You survived this somehow. Yeah, we assume that I wasn't getting infected. It was like 100% chance of getting infection. And they like literally cook things.
Starting point is 00:04:26 And they don't like disinfect. They don't have even gods. They get the like cotton from some, like, like plants. And the, you know, bedding we rip apart and then as a use of gauze. So best they can do is cooking it at home. So boiling it. Yeah, boiling it. But then they use it to another patient who has a lot of infections. So it spreads to everybody. So you get out of there with your life, but it was misdiagnosed. You didn't have appendicitis. You had another problem. I just had infection and malnutrition.
Starting point is 00:04:59 So now you are deciding with your sister who's two years older than you? Three years. So she escaped first while I was in hospital and then as soon as we got out of the hospital that's when we had to, I asked my mom to escape with me. And you were very forceful in this idea. That's the thing. I mean at 13 in North Korea
Starting point is 00:05:27 children are all about being obedient to their parents. I never spoke back to my parents. Like, I was terrified by my parents. You know, it's like Asian culture is very respectful to elders. But something came to me that day. I heard my mom's hand. Like, I'm not going to let it go. And you have to come with me to China.
Starting point is 00:05:46 And somehow she listened to 13-year-old, like her daughter's idea, and she came with me that day. So you escape, how did you escape? We found a broker. and she helped introduce us to some men who knew the route to cross the frozen river. Okay, now you find a broker. You're talking about corruption. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:13 This is basically a trick. It is. Because without the broker, there's no way we can cross the river because the guards every 10 meters with a machine. Okay, so they are bribing the guards. So everybody's in on this. Everybody's taking money. and the people who are taking you to escape are actually selling you into sexual slavery.
Starting point is 00:06:38 Yeah. That's what's really happening, but you and your mother did not know this. Yeah. And your sister did not know this, of course. No, none of us knew. So when you get into China, what happens? Yeah, it's the Chinese side broker.
Starting point is 00:06:56 telling me that he wants to have sex with me. You're 13. Yeah. And I did not know that even more the sex. Because in North school, we don't have sex education, and we don't see those things on TV. So I didn't even know what I was talking about. My mother knew what he was talking about and begged him,
Starting point is 00:07:17 take her instead. She's like, she just got out of the hospital. She has just incision inside. She can't even walk properly. So as soon as you get across, One broker gives you to the other broker, and the broker on the Chinese side wants to rape you, and your mother bargains take me instead. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:07:41 That's a pretty dramatic story, but that's only the beginning of your story. So what happens from this moment? We go to a house, so apartment that he has, and then we go in there. is now, like, brighter. And they were negotiating our price and selling us to a different broker. And, you know, checks our teeth, checks our bones, and see our condition, and how much they can get from us. So we became a livestock. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:16 So you go from enslavement in North Korea to enslavement in China. The Chinese government is fully aware and complicit. in this sexual slavery. Exactly. I mean, the police guards, they are the ones buying these skirts in the back door for their sex slaves. They are the customers. I wonder if Nike and Apple are aware of this. They are aware of it. They just don't care. Yeah, I know. It's just hard for us to process that, so you're going through this.
Starting point is 00:08:55 and the Chinese government is aware of this, and they're complicit in this. This is part of the system. They're not doing anything to stop it. So you are, I mean, again, you tell the story in the book in detail, but you're being sold down the line like animals, and you are expected to have sex. your mother somehow prevents this from happening to you? So first trafficker in China, she did.
Starting point is 00:09:31 And then they sold us to second trafficker. And then second trafficker sold my mom first and let me alone. So they separated you? Yeah. So I got separated from my mom. That's your 13. And I don't know where my sister is. My dad is in North Korea.
Starting point is 00:09:47 And I was alone. And of course, this guy was trying to rape me. Thankfully, he had his mistress with him. So whenever he would give her lots of alcohol and when she sleeps, he would come to my room and try to rape me. And I felt like, I felt like hell. I felt so hard. We're going to be right back talking to Yomi Park.
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Starting point is 00:12:02 Again, just go to patriotmobile.com slash Eric. We need to stand together and support companies that share our values. Get free activation today with the offer code, Eric. You're describing some tough stuff, you know me, but it's important we hear these stories. So this broker sneaks into your room to rape you while he basically drugs his girlfriend so that she can't object. But every time for some reason you fight like crazy to prevent it and you are successful in preventing it. I did fight so hard and then he thought he cannot use me anymore because he cannot rape me. And I think he also realized if I were a virgin, he would charge more money for me.
Starting point is 00:13:01 So after trying several times, he decided to send me to a different trafficker. But this time, he charged more money for me because I was virgin. And that Han Chinese bought me for over $20. Say that again? He bought me for over $200, around $265. Because you're a 13-year-old virgin. Yeah. So this is so similar when you hear stories of slavery in America.
Starting point is 00:13:30 In some ways, it's very similar. It's so horrifying that human beings treat other human beings this way. But I think we have to be very clear that we ended slavery in this country, in the Civil War. But right now, this kind of thing is going on in China today. In case anybody is pro-China, I would like you to know that this is happening in China today. But they're not talking about it publicly because somehow they know we might disapprove. So at this point, you're sold to someone? I don't remember this piece of the story.
Starting point is 00:14:12 This time is they sold me to Han Chinese. What's that? The Han ethnic group, the Han Chinese. Yeah, the main China, the main group. and he bought me. And then he was, of course, trying to rape me again. And at this point, I was right to kill myself. I was not going to get raped, and I was going to kill myself instead.
Starting point is 00:14:34 And when I was trying to kill myself, he said, if I do become his mistress, he was going to save my family for me. Okay, so just to be clear, you were literally going to kill yourself. You said I will not. I have a knife, and I was going to jump out of that, like, you know, the floor, it was an apartment complex. So because you threatened to kill yourself rather than sleep with him, he now says to you, listen, if you go along with my plan, if you become my mistress, I will find your family
Starting point is 00:15:09 and save your family. So this is a guy who sold my mom. Because previously, right before me, he bought my mom from the same broker and sold her to a Chinese farmer. So he knew where my mom was. So that's how he made a deal with me. So he figured instead of you killing yourself and he loses everything, he's going to do this. He's going to make a deal with you. So he makes this deal with you. And amazingly, he does this. Yeah, he does this. He does this. So you become like, what's the word we can use? Like a concubine? How do you? How do you? What do you say?
Starting point is 00:15:51 They called it like Shalshief, who is like a small mistress. Because he had a wife. He had children. His daughter was almost the same age as me. And, I mean, he was raping every girl that comes to his hand. So it was not like, but he wouldn't just keep me. That's a thing. Even all those girls are raping, they still have their favorites.
Starting point is 00:16:13 So he just wanted to kill me. So he's, I mean, I guess the word really, he's a, pimp. Yeah. That's the word. He's a pimp. And so this pimp decides that he can get you not to kill yourself, to go along with things. He promises to bring your mother back to you. And have my father to go to him. And also to find a way so that your father can come from North Korea to China. Yeah. So this is kind of an amazing thing. thing, that that's what it took to get you not to kill yourself and that he was willing to go through with this. And he actually does. He does. So your father eventually makes his way to China.
Starting point is 00:17:04 And I was turning 14 in October of 2007. He crossed the frozen yellow river and came to China and I saw him again. How long after that did he die? He came in October on my birthday. And he was he passed away in February. So very soon from cancer. Yeah, he didn't last more than three months, like January 19th around that time. That story you tell in the book in order to live, it's extremely moving. I don't want you to tell it now because I want people to buy the book and read the details. So for a little while, your mother's there, your father's there, your father.
Starting point is 00:17:49 father's there. You still don't know where your sister is. You are still in this sexual slavery with this pimp. Yeah. And what happens next? He loses all his money from gambling. Okay. So we keep forgetting. I forgetting. We're dealing with big criminals. So he's big into gambling and he loses everything. Yeah. So he couldn't even give us a few cents of money to buy food in China. So I couldn't buy my mother some water. Like we would have to like, you know, the meters on the water. And if you don't pay the beer, the water doesn't come in. So we like open the water
Starting point is 00:18:33 tiny little bit so the meter would not run. And then when that, that comes out, so entire night we can't able to get a little bit of water. So I could even get my mom water. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're not talking about North Korea. We're talking about China. This is China. Yeah. Wow. So I had to sell my mother because I couldn't feed her in China.
Starting point is 00:18:56 So you had to sell your mother. This is in the book. To whom? A farmer in the countryside, a Han Chinese, a other Chinese. Okay. This brings us to the forced abortion policy. Tell us. It's a one-child policy that Communist Party,
Starting point is 00:19:19 Clement in the country, that resulted a lot of people choosing boys over girls. Okay. So killing the baby girl in the womb because they want to have... In out of the room, they flipped the baby. If the girl was born, a lot of them were poor. They could not get the sonogram. So when you give birth, a girl comes out. What do you do?
Starting point is 00:19:38 You just flip them, baby cannot breathe. That's how they kill the baby, their own baby. The parents will kill their own baby if it was a girl. Because they are going to get punished. They're going to go into prison. because they had more than one child. Yeah. So they flip the baby like that.
Starting point is 00:19:54 Or they sell their babies for their own babies to slavery in China. Chinese babies also sold a lot of them as a sex slaves, too. So it's amazing that North Korea and the head of China, they have a voice at the United Nations. In case anybody's wondering, the value of the United Nations, I think you understand it's less than zero. But this happens, and because of this evil policy, there is a very dramatic shortage of women to marry in China.
Starting point is 00:20:35 So we have something... More than 33 million men. ...mong the adults. ...who there is no woman for them to marry. Yeah. So. Yeah. It's like marriage, able, like that age group.
Starting point is 00:20:50 Now the young people, the gap's even bigger. So that is gap is keep going on. So they solve the problem caused by abortion and infanticide. They solved the problem by allowing these men to purchase wives from North Korea. Yeah. And of course, the Chinese government knows this is happening, that this is sexual slavery and they're going along with it. So your mother is sold to someone.
Starting point is 00:21:26 Second time she was sold to another guy in China. Your father has died, and what happens to you? And then he lets me go too, because he couldn't feed me. And then I was getting kidnapped by another gangster. And this gangster was a lot more scary. He was killing people. How old were you? It was 14.
Starting point is 00:21:52 And I escaped that somehow. And then I found my mother. And then I run with her. I ran with her from that Chinese fake husband. And then we found a North Korean lady who told us that there was a way we could survive in China. And by then we were begging to get a job to wash dishes. or like being a waitress and even that job Chinese people would not give to us
Starting point is 00:22:17 so the only place we are turning into is becoming a cam girl a camera girl yeah so this is basically like internet chat rooms this is like it's a sexual thing men pay to
Starting point is 00:22:36 to talk to women on camera and ask them to take off clothes yeah right and so you and your mother found yourselves forced to do this so you could eat. Yeah, so they will give us place to sleep and eat. We'll be right back.
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Starting point is 00:25:09 I'm talking to Yomi Park. Her book is In Order to Live. We're talking about that. The new book is Wild Time Remains, but you need to read In Order to Live First, because it tells this story much more than we're able to cover here. So you and your mother are so desperate. You are 14 years old, and you're forced into basically the sex trade on cameras.
Starting point is 00:25:45 You're given a place to live. You're given food, but you have to perform this work. How long does this go on for you and for your mother? So a lot is in the book, because. when I was writing the book, I relied my memory on my mother's because a lot of times my memory blocked up, but it prolonged for many months. And in that chat room, we met another defective woman that she somehow knew of contact information to missionaries from South Korea, Christian missionaries. I mean, this is amazing. This is like the story you say, you can't make it up. You are in this
Starting point is 00:26:27 chat room doing this terrible, terrible work. You're 14. And somehow you get a connection to Christian missionaries from South Korea who, I guess, make it possible for you to find a way out. Right. So she had a contact for this Christian missionaries, but path to going to South Korea from China is like making it is 1%. So then just our just journey, most of them don't make it. Okay, you're not you're not exaggerating here. No. You're saying that this is like a one and a hundred chance.
Starting point is 00:27:12 There's a possibility, but this is by no means a good possibility. Yeah. But you're willing to take any chance. Because the path that we chose is like we don't even have a guide. It's literally walking across the frozen Gobi Desert. across the Gobi Desert from China into Mongolia. So this is the path that these South Korean missionaries, and this is a complicated thing with these missionaries,
Starting point is 00:27:38 because on the one hand, obviously, they're doing something good, but it was a little complicated, as you say in the book, you talk about it. But even they knew that we don't know if we can succeed. Yes, that's where they can come with us. Like other journey, other people go through Thailand, the brokers go with them. And they get money from the de facto. They charge money. But we didn't pay anybody.
Starting point is 00:28:09 So the missioners could not come with us. Once you're lost in the gobi desert, you don't know how to get out of it. It's a very, very risky thing. And that's why we had to pray. We needed God's mercy to make it. Well, that's what the missionaries told you, because they believe in God. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:28:27 But you, I guess on some level you, you believe this at this point that you're, you're praying to God. Of course. I mean, every second when you're about to get discovered, and every single time they say, don't, when you're so frozen, you cannot even think. You don't even know of prayer. It's that kind of terrifying situation. They say, just don't even pray.
Starting point is 00:28:51 Just think about, you know, Jesus blood is my blood. Like, Jesus blood is my blood. to think about that. And they said that will help us. And that's all we did is, you know, Jesus blood is my blood. Just blood is my blood. And thinking that, that's how we survived. And you did survive. Yeah. How long is the journey across the frozen Gobi Desert? So we chose the coldest time of the year, 2009 in February. It's like minus 40 degrees. Minus 40 degrees. Yeah, this is Mongolian desert. So we walked one day. So we started from Chinese side and then crossing that border to Mongolia and we caught it next day in the
Starting point is 00:29:32 morning. And some people wander around there for seven days and die and some people never make it and they get shot by the guards from Chinese side because it's a shoot to kill order. If you see somebody crossing the border, they require to shoot them right there. So I know somebody who she made it but her brother got shot in front of her and she had to run to survive. So now that nobody escaping through Mongolia anymore, because it's so dangerous. I think I told you that my mother escaped East Germany when it was under Stalin and the Soviets in 1951. She was 17. And it was not quite yet at that point like you're describing, but very soon after it became that way. Shoot to kill, you'll die. And in 1971, when I was
Starting point is 00:30:25 seven, we traveled to East Germany to visit our relatives. And I remember when I was seven years old, looking out the train to see the dogs and the barbed wire and the guns and my mother explaining to me that, yeah, if you try to escape East Germany, they will kill you. We hear about those things, but you live through this and somehow you made it
Starting point is 00:30:49 to Mongolia. So now for the first time, you're actually free? In South Korea. After many months of in Mongolia, interrogation, we are sent to South Korea, so that took some time.
Starting point is 00:31:05 So it took a while. It took a while. And you get to South Korea. That's a whole other story, of course. You get to South Korea, you're with your mother, your mother, and eventually your sister, you do discover your sister. Yeah, seven years
Starting point is 00:31:21 later. I found her when I was adult. An adult. So you make your way to South Korea and long story short, because we talked about this at Socrates and City and it's in your book, but
Starting point is 00:31:36 you eventually visit the United States. Yeah. I mean, initially I would say, I mean, I just land on a different planet. You know, people are telling me like I didn't even know what my
Starting point is 00:31:51 favorite color was. Yeah, that's. That's one thing I remember. Yeah, talk about that. Yeah, it's like for nursing people, we don't even know what critical thinking is. We don't even have the word I. And we go to the country. Oh, I'm sorry, we're at a time.
Starting point is 00:32:08 We'll be right back. I'm talking to Yomi Park. Yomi, you were just saying, so here you come to South Korea, and they're trying to integrate you in a way into this new life. And they're giving you, ideas and things that are so foreign to you, like the thought of thinking for yourself, like when you said, when somebody says,
Starting point is 00:32:35 what's your favorite color? It never even occurred to you that it was possible to have a favorite color. Yeah. Because, like, in North Korea, just teachers say, we love red color because it's a revolutionary color. We love red because it's revolutionary color,
Starting point is 00:32:51 so you really have to, everybody has to love red. Yeah, the answer was already determined by the party. It wasn't something we were able to choose. So when people say, What do you think? And I was like, why does that matter? Just tell me what you think. And I go, what I can do.
Starting point is 00:33:05 That was extremely hard thinking for myself for the first time. So it took a while for you to develop the muscles to think freely. It's an amazing concept. Well, look, you hear about this, people who have been enslaved, that it takes a long time to be free. It's not just being physically free, but mentally and emotionally. So, but you do visit, at some point you visit the United States to Tyler, Texas. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:36 Do my mission work, missionary work, yeah. Yeah. And you, when do you decide, that was just a short trip, but when did you decide to come to United States? I don't remember how this worked. So, yeah, it was like beginning of 2015 to write that first book in New York. So I moved to America. in 2015. Okay.
Starting point is 00:34:00 To write this book, which is titled In Order to Live a North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom. This is the book that I'm insisting, everyone buy and read, please, and pay your kids to read it. So now you're in America, and what do you think
Starting point is 00:34:22 you're going to do? When did it occur to you, maybe I will try to go to college? So I was already studying criminal justice in South Korean University. I forgot about that, yes. So I was like left one year to graduate for BA. So it was always my father's dream for me to having a college degree. So I always knew that I had to, you know, continue to studying. And then I learned that there was a university called Columbia in uptown in New York City.
Starting point is 00:34:53 Right, right up the street over here. Yeah. So you say, let's see, maybe I can go to Columbia University. Okay. And what did you want to study there? I was open because I was studying criminal justice in South Korea. So this time I wanted to do something else. And so I explored several measures.
Starting point is 00:35:15 I studied economics sometime. And then human rights and political science. So I ended up getting a human rights and political science degree. So this brings up to the same. subject of your new book, your brand new book, which is called Wild Time Remains, a North Korean defectors search for freedom in America. So when did you realize that something was wrong? Here you come to America, the land of the free, the first place in the world, in the history of the world,
Starting point is 00:35:57 where people govern themselves and understand this idea of liberty. But in 2016, in Columbia University, you experienced something else. Yeah, so, I mean, the very first day at the orientation, before the classes began, I was very shocked what was happening in college in rooms in America. Because it really reminded me of my North Korean classroom. You know, at some point I was like thinking, did I go back to North Korea? How is this like America? How are we learning this in American classrooms?
Starting point is 00:36:33 Because they were telling you how to think. Not just like, not even what to think, right? Like it's a narrative of understanding the word is exactly the same narrative. The world is horrible because of greedy capitalism and because of like white men. All the problems that we have. Okay, so the problem because we skipped over that. in the, you talk about it a little bit when we were at the Socrates and the city conversation. But so the propaganda that is fed to people in North Korea over and over and over and over is,
Starting point is 00:37:04 all of our problems are caused by the Americans, by capitalism, this is the enemy. Socialism is paradise. So now you go to Columbia University in New York City and you're experiencing the same ideas being pushed at you, even in orientation, before you even start classes, you're getting these ideas pushed. What did you think? It's an amazing thing to try to... I mean, the difference was in North Korea, if we don't believe it, though there's a gun next to us and going to shoot us. In America, I just think it's people voluntarily believing it without a gun pointing at them. And in some way, they are like believing
Starting point is 00:37:49 it a lot more deeper way, because I think it's the first generation of the... the revolutionaries, they are the true believers. By the time when I was in North Korea, we were just forced to believe it. So the passion was way harshered at Columbia. And I was shocked the same ideology of the equality of outcomes, the equity. That destroyed North Korea, where people are so incompetent, nothing works. It's played in America where the solution to every problem is equity, that we need to fix the equality of outcomes.
Starting point is 00:38:22 Equity, yeah. Well, listen, I mean, many people understand this. Many people don't understand this. It's an amazing thing that we now live in a country. Most people in America used to understand this. But since the 1960s, and I know you know this, but the ideas of the greatness of America, the greatness of the free market,
Starting point is 00:38:43 the greatness of liberty and free speech, these ideas have been undermined slowly through the decades until now we come to a place where, obviously, we have a few generations that have no concept of what actual communism looks like, no concept of the blessings of liberty and any of that kind of stuff. But it's amazing to me just to hear you talk about, here you are, you go. to Columbia University to get an education, and you are shocked to hear these things. And now I know because, you know, when I read the book,
Starting point is 00:39:32 you're not exaggerating. I mean, it seems like you're exaggerating, but no, it was very, very forceful. That ends things for us today, but we will pick up tomorrow or the next day with a conversation. Folks, mandatory reading in order to live by Yon Mi,
Starting point is 00:39:50 Park and we'll discuss the next book While Time Remains the next time. Oh man, look at my life. I'm a lot like you were. Oh man, look at my life. Well, I hope
Starting point is 00:40:21 you have been enjoying enjoying. Enjoying is not really the word, is it? I hope you've been blessed, edified, moved, inspired by Yomi Park's story. We're not done.
Starting point is 00:40:35 Tomorrow in hour one, we have the conclusion of my conversation with her, which takes us more into the present. Unbelievable stuff. We recorded it yesterday right here in the studio. Unbelievable, vitally important information. That's tomorrow in hour one, we finish the conversation. Tomorrow we have Ask Metaxus. I'm going to answer some, some kooky questions. I don't know if I, do I have a preview?
Starting point is 00:41:07 I'm going to talk about Roger Stone and his criticism of Ron DeSantis versus Trump. I'm going to talk about Trump's guilt in the vaccine thing. We're going to talk about crazy stuff. Good questions for tomorrow. Scary questions. I'm scared, but it's not going tomorrow. And then John Smirak follows up. And then, just to bring things down a notch.
Starting point is 00:41:29 Yeah, exactly. You know, it's kind of like bringing the potpourri into the room. Just lighting a vanilla candle. Freshing it up on. John Smirak is coming on. Okay. Yes. I also wanted to say that I, this past weekend, which is to say Easter weekend, I was in San Diego.
Starting point is 00:41:53 People know this because I ran into a raved about the San Diego Zoo and the lack of animals. Which really, it must be an oversight, because isn't the point of zoo a zoo to have animals? so that people can see the animals. I always thought. I was under that impression. But somehow, I guess it's just an oversight. It's just probably a glitch they were experiencing, even though there were millions of people looking for the animals on that very day.
Starting point is 00:42:16 Who paid good money? But let me say this. I just wanted to see a couple of gorillas, and that didn't happen. Is that asking too much? A couple of gorillas swinging around? Too much. No, no. I just got to see some, like, pornographic bonobot chimp.
Starting point is 00:42:30 I'm not interested in that. Okay, now listen. The reason I brought up San Diego, I spoke twice. I did a good Friday service with our dear friend Greg Denham at his church, Rise Church in San Marcos. I want to warmly recommend that to you. We posted the video yesterday. I posted it on social media.
Starting point is 00:42:53 If you get my newsletter, you got it on there. But there were some things that I said and that Greg said, wow, in the course of that conversation that I think were important, if I can say that. And you know what? Now's a good time. Well, and then on Sunday, I spoke on Easter Sunday in Rancho Santa Fe at Horizon Church. And I said things about the resurrection and about the faith that I just have not said, I think, before. So I want to recommend those videos to you. because normally I'm just speaking about my book, and if you've heard it once, maybe you don't want to hear it again and again. But I mean, I always say different things. But these two in particular, so what I said on Good Friday at Greg Denham's Church, what I said on Easter Sunday outside at Horizon Church, I want to recommend those videos to you. I also want to say that Greg Denham is an absolute expert on Israel, and he makes trips to Israel. I don't know if we're going to get to do it. it, but I would love to go to Israel with Greg
Starting point is 00:44:04 Denham. I keep saying on this program, one of our sponsors is Israel Ministry of Tourism. Their, okay, their video, sorry, their website is holyland.israel. com travel. Holyland.israel. Dot travel.
Starting point is 00:44:20 But I cannot wait to go to the Holy Land. It might be this year, probably not until next year. Not sure. I know I'm going at the end of next year, but I want to go before that. But Greg Denham, when he starts talking about some specifics I've never heard before. I think, I got to see this. I got to see this. So holyland.israel.com. Travel. And tomorrow, man, it's jam-packed. You get to hear the rest of my
Starting point is 00:44:45 conversation with Yomi Park. You don't want to miss it. I promise you. Thanks for listening.

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