DEBATE: Are Podcasters Destroying MAGA? - Batya Ungar-Sargon

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22:59Konstantin Kisin:That site again is monetary-metals.com slash trigonometry. To me, it is so clear that this war is about energy, dominance, making America the global superpower again that it once was. It's about China. It's not really even about the Middle East. It's so clear that Saudi Arabia was an equal force pushing this, that the Qataris now are on board. Sure. We're starting to think about the Abraham Accords expanding immeasurably. It's so obvious. And the fact that Iran made the dumb decision to actually attack the UAE more than Israel, the whole concept of what the Arab street is, it's just over. I mean, when you think about what Trump has managed to accomplish with these strikes, isolating China from 20 % of its oil.

24:01I mean, they simply cannot afford to take Taiwan anymore. Literally can't afford it.

24:07Konstantin Kisin:I was with you until then. Sorry to interrupt about you because I agree with you that, yes, of course it's true. But the thing is, that's not what people talk about, right? People don't know any of the stuff that you're saying, that it was actually as much the Gulf Arabs that wanted President Trump to do this as Israel. So if you get your news from Twitter and you live in a foreign country, this is not a prevalent narrative. But if you sit in a bar in, you know, the middle of America, you're going to hear regular people like plumbers and electricians and truck drivers be like, Iran, you mean the people who took our hostages, who, like, want to wipe us off the face of the planet?

24:47Iran, which gives all its oil to China? Like, you will hear this stuff from people who just have a much more intuitive sense of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are and don't have their brains scrambled by the online digital incentives of producing content for platforms that are available to 2 billion Muslims who are desperate for high quality content delivered by bombshells that are like, you know, anti-Israel, right?

25:18Konstantin Kisin:Hold on. So are you saying, I mean, if you look at the biggest new media outlets in America, they, as you said yourself, they would all, I think, be anti-Israel and have these narratives, you know, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, etc. Are you saying their audience is Muslims? I'm saying that a lot of the audience is Muslims. We know that a lot of the audience is, like Nick Fuentes, there was a study that found that 50 % of his engagement is foreign bots. So we have data backing this up. But also we know, even more importantly, that 80 % of Americans who voted for Donald Trump, who get their news from podcasts, support the war in Iran and support the U.S.-Israel alliance.

26:05So meaning it's kind of going in one ear and out the other. Even the people who get their news from Tucker Carlson totally disagree with him on this issue, no matter how many times he says it's Israel's war. Does that make sense to you? Of course.

26:18Konstantin Kisin:How much content do you watch that you vehemently disagree with? Oh, I watch a lot of content that I vehemently disagree with. Yeah, fair, because you are in this game. No, I'll tell you why. Because I think, you know, with the mainstream media, you know, if you're sort of a college-educated person who's watching MSNBC and it makes you feel superior to your neighbor, the Republican dork who watches Fox News, right? You take everything they say as fact. Okay. When you're getting your news from a podcaster, I think, you know, your instinct when you hear something is, huh, that's interesting. I wonder if it's true.

26:51I just think that people are not like, people on the left have this fantasy that people on the right consume content in the way that people on the left want their content to be consumed. Like as, you know, like Torah, LaMotion, MeSinai, like, is it just this like, you know, the Bible handed to Moses is truth. It just doesn't work that way. People are much more skeptical because they're getting their news from new media. But yeah, I mean, that's what the polling is. I was very delighted to see that. The majority of Candace Owens listeners, podcaster, audience, pro-Israel, study from Ruffini. He's a good guy.

27:29Echelon Insights. They're no joke, you know? So I feel like pretty sanguine about all of this.

27:35Konstantin Kisin:I don't get how. Because it's entertaining. It's just entertainment. Okay, but the thing is, like, anecdotally, obviously anecdotally is not statistics. Statistics isn't always necessarily that reliable either, in my experience. But we know, we have met, we don't know them personally necessarily. Lots of people, I mean, Francis keeps going on dates with girls who watch Candace Owens. That sounded like an accusation. It keeps going on dates. Wait, I want to hear, sorry, the whole show put on pause. Let's hear more about that. Over to you, mate. Over to me. This is so interesting. Alright, this is taking on a sinister turn.

28:09Konstantin Kisin:Anyway, but yeah, I go on dates and then they go, oh, I'm really into politics. I'm like, great. Like Candace Owens. I'm like, yeah, I like comedy too. And then invariably what happens is, but they don't see it as entertainment per se. They see her, and this is very interesting, as being a kind of investigator who goes down these kind of rabbit holes and leaves in order to get to the truth and a lot of them when you talk to them about palestine is palestine then genocide and that's where the day ends because i go well what do you mean by genocide it gets cold and i go check please but in all seriousness francis that's so sweet is it to me what the fact that i cock block myself over palestine It's getting old.

29:02Konstantin Kisin:Good in the sack, you know? But would you call them, are they on the right or on the other left? Some of them are on the right. I would say center right in terms of things like economics, in terms of things like the way that the country should be run, in terms of culture. If you talk to them about, for example, the trans issue, there's no way are they progressive or liberal. But when it comes to Israel, and maybe it's a UK thing, I don't know, but I've actually found it quite shocking. Oh, this is in the UK? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You guys are screwed. I mean, I'm not going to defend them. No, no, no, no.

29:33Konstantin Kisin:But the challenge to your argument that I'm making and using Francis' example is the idea that people watch this shit for entertainment. Oh. And they don't buy into it. Oh, sorry. I only meant here. I am not defending any other country. But why would here be any different to the UK? That's my whole point of my book and my whole point of my... Like, that's... It just is. It just is. The first Jew to step foot on American soil, the first thing he did was sue an official for insulting him and he won. Forget about Jews. I'm talking about Erica Kirk killed Charlie Kirk. These women believe it. Yes.

30:05The thing that makes Francis refuse to go to bed with a woman who says free Palestine.

30:10Konstantin Kisin:I don't think he refuses. I think it's them that refuse. They refuse me. I see it as, I see it as like, you know. That's the difference between men and women. Yeah, yeah. I see it as like, you know, we agree to disagree. They don't. They do. And I don't learn my lesson. Do you not think it's a little, I'm just asking the question, and I respect your view a lot, but do you not think you're being a little bit wishful thinking here in this idea that people don't take this stuff serious? Give me some data. Every day, I'm like, that is my biggest fear. Am I just a Pollyanna? I am. Am I just like atrociously, like unbelievably committed to this country, jingoistic to the nth degree about like American supremacism and that this is the greatest country on earth unsurpassed?

30:56I am. But that doesn't mean that every day I'm not reading the polls and waiting to see. Give me data. Like the fact that you're saying, is it not just wishful thinking? That's not data. Give me the evidence. You're bringing me the evidence. I'm saying, well, it's not that. That evidence isn't this. All the evidence backs up my insane jingoism that this country is absolutely exceptional in the history of humanity.

31:16Konstantin Kisin:I'm not questioning this country. This country is wonderful. And I'm saying what it does is when Candace Owens holds up a book that says the Talmudic Jew, people are like, I'm out. But they still watch. And they don't take anybody in. I watch a lot of stuff for fun. I'm sorry, I will admit it. There are things that I hate watch that are too extreme for me. but I chuckle. Patia comes out as a fan of Nick Fuentes. I mean, we can all admit he's funny, right? He is a funny guy. I know a lot of Jews who watch it and think he's funny. They're like, ha ha, ha. They're not agreeing with him. I know a lot of young Jews, guys, who are like, he's a funny guy.

31:59You know? Enjoy the content. And it doesn't mean that they agree with it. We don't agree with him about the Jews, obviously. I don't watch him, by the way. He's not the one I was thinking about because, you know, the jokes are not for my age group.

32:14Konstantin Kisin:That's a very politically correct way of putting it. But what's interesting is I think what you're going to see because of this war is there's going to be a refocus on Israel. And already you're starting to see people talking about it as Israel's war. and the longer it carries on, I think the more negative people are going to view the war. Maybe. I think the opposite is going to happen. I think Trump's going to get out soon. He understands that this was a huge political risk. He does not want to lose the House in the midterms. He knows he's got like a week left. He's got, you know, maybe 10, 12 days left.

32:51Konstantin Kisin:So by the time this episode comes out, this should have already happened then. Because this episode will go out in a couple of weeks. So hopefully as you're watching this or listening to this from your perspective, he's already ended it, right? I think probably. Look, has Trump ever been wrong about his base? He's not. I mean, the Epstein files. Wrong. Because he was talking about not releasing them, and then he called the people in the MAGA base stupid. There was that fallout. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about Jeffrey Epstein. This is another thing that the podcast world was obsessed with because, again, two billion Muslims would love to hear about Jews being pedophiles, you know?

33:33But it was nothing. There's nothing in the files to implicate anybody else of any criminal wrongdoing except Jeffrey Epstein, which Trump knew.

33:40Konstantin Kisin:What about our nonce? Prince Andrew. Alleged nonce. What about Prince Andrew? Oh, selling secrets. You see how the media tried to make it sound like the crime there was like a sex crime, but it wasn't, right? He's accused of giving secrets to him, right? But he's also in a photo with like 17-year-old girls. But that's not why he was arrested. No, I'm not talking about arrested. I think there is the things you can criminally prosecute someone for. And then there's like, why are all these people on that island? Because rich people like to hang out with rich people. And hookers. But if they weren't underage, there's no crime.

34:18Do we know they weren't underage? We know that the... I mean, show me again. There's 3 million documents have been released.

34:25Konstantin Kisin:That's only half of the ones that are there. Okay. So why haven't the other 3 million been released? See, this to me is like, okay, like... I'm just asking questions. I know. All of the crimes are in the... Again, I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I'm very open to being wrong, but I think Michael Tracy really nailed it on this. He was a skeptic from the beginning and was like... You know, like, it's always like, oh, the next tranche will have all the crimes we promised you that he was, you know, that Israel was using him to blackmail heads of state into being pro-Israel by having them have sex with underage girls when just like, you know, no evidence of a list, of a blackmail, of a nothing.

35:03Konstantin Kisin:I mean, the counter-argument to your point is the Queen did pay, I think,£12 million to Virginia Guffrey to essentially make the case go away. But Virginia Guffrey admitted to lying on multiple occasions. She had to settle with Alan Dershowitz out of court because she accused him of lying. I mean, she accused him of lying, and he forced her to admit that she was lying. Not to speak ill of the dead, but she may have... Yeah, I don't know how qualified we are to debate the Epstein thing. Yeah, no, and I don't find it interesting. Because I actually, for that very reason, I've never found it super interesting.

35:40Konstantin Kisin:You're right. We all know some wealthy people and they do like to hang out together. And some of them do like to do it with young women there and whatever. I don't mean underage women, but, you know, some of them... I try and stay away from those people personally, but... I will just tell you, like, an anecdote that I think really sums this up. But I was sitting in my local bar, you know, a lot of, like, it's a cop bar, a lot of cops, like, you know, firefighters, just working class dudes. And one guy came over to me, you know, he follows the news pretty closely. And he said to me, this was over the summer, and he was like, all right, who is Jeffrey Epstein again?

36:13And why do all the podcasters want me to care about this guy? Like, this is a very far right guy, Trump three times, like, maga, maga, maga. could care less about this. And suddenly all the podcasts he listens to are like obsessively talking about it. It didn't make him obsessed with it. It made him go to Batia, the journalist, you know, and be like, why won't they shut up about this?

36:33Konstantin Kisin:Okay, fair. So let's come back to the war. So you say that there's a week left, essentially, before Trump exits. Sorry to be a pain. I'm just reminding everyone when this episode won't go out for a couple of weeks. Yeah. Before he starts to lose a lot more, a lot of the support he has right now. Yes. But, I mean, that's going to be a real challenge, isn't it? Because if you're looking at what's going on with the Strait of Hormuz, you know, the blockades, the fact that petroleum's not being allowed, the oil's not being allowed to get through, other important resources aren't being allowed to get through.

37:08Konstantin Kisin:I mean, we are approaching crisis point, aren't we? I don't see it that way. I think it's going really well for America and Israel. Okay, tell us how. Um, they've basically taken out Iran's entire ballistic missile program. Um, they've taken out their ability to do what the goal here was to, it's been Marco Rubio's view for at least five years now, that what they were trying to do was to build a nuclear program and then surround that with a kind of protective mechanism of ballistic missiles so that anybody trying to get them off the nuclear path, it would be too costly to do that. So they were doing that.

37:46And then, of course, they always had the straight of Hormuz in their back pocket. They knew that they could just shut that down. That for them is like the last resort. And we see now that's the only card they have left in their pocket. So they're playing it. But I just read this morning that the U.K. is offering now to help. Trump is trying to cobble together an international force in order to basically take that last remaining card away from them. The leadership of the Iranian guard is decimated. The new Ayatollah is in a coma. The ballistic missiles are gone. It seems to me like it's going really well.

38:22And the question is just how do they get that 60 % enriched uranium out of Iran? And the fact that Putin offered to do it and Trump said no suggests to me that he feels very confident about their chances of, you know, striking a deal with a new moderate leadership in the near future. I could be very wrong about that.

38:41Konstantin Kisin:Where do you get new moderate leadership when you're bombing a country? Where do you get it? What do you mean? If someone bombed America to get rid of Donald Trump because there was anti-ice protests, would the people who are anti-Trump rise up and overthrow his regime? Or would they go, America's been attacked, we need to fight back? You think that the Iranian people are going to side with Ayatollah because Trump took it out? I don't think they're going to side with Ayatollah. What I think is the 30 ,000 people who were willing to challenge the regime got killed. And what you're left with now is a country that is A, being attacked and B, lacks that passionate counter-regime force.

39:25Konstantin Kisin:And on top of that, when a country is attacked, people tend to rally around. I mean, that's what they do. It's what America did on 9-11. It's what countries do all the time. It's what the Ukrainians did when they were attacked by Russia. So I don't I I am totally open and actually very hopeful because I'm where I am as we sit here today. By the time this episode goes out, probably a different place is I your your your point about, you know, when is President Trump made mistakes? I think up to this point, I've actually agreed with like 95 percent of his foreign policy. You know how at the beginning of every year, people say this is a year things change.

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41:25Konstantin Kisin:Marketing is built in too. You can create email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they scroll. As you grow, Shopify grows with you. Handle more orders, expand into new markets, and manage everything from one simple dashboard. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your£1 a month trial and start selling today at shopify.co.uk slash trigger. Go to shopify.co.uk slash trigger. That's shopify.co.uk slash trigger. That's not what I said. I didn't say, do you agree with it? But I said, when has he been wrong about the base? The base, right. But the base may turn very quickly if it turns out that this is not a quick get in, get out, successful operation, but rather a protracted engagement that does in the end mean actually if you want to get that nuclear material, you have to put boots on the ground.

42:21I totally agree, but I don't think he will do that.

42:23Konstantin Kisin:No, I don't think he will do that. I think what you're pointing to is the difference between the Israeli position and the American position. The Israelis want a full-on regime change. Yeah. And Trump wants a Dulce Rodriguez. He wants somebody who's of the regime, but going to be nice to us. And where are you going to get one of them in an Islamic regime? Oh, I mean, first of all, look at the whole Gulf. Like, it's full of people like that. Did you think MBS 15, 20 years ago was going to be that person? No, but he is that person. Sure. So when they real, you know, you're saying, well, you have to give them honey to make them do this.

42:53And I'm not saying sort of the Dave Smith argument, right? If you bomb somebody, you're going to just increase the resistance to you.

42:58Konstantin Kisin:I think you are, yeah. So I don't agree with that. But did we bomb MBS into position? Did we bomb MBZ into position? We didn't, but they were not... I mean, well, first of all, in a way we did, right? We had the war in Iraq, right? We had the war in... We went after the people who did 9-11, right? And then we stayed too long, and then the whole thing went up in smoke, and it was a huge loss of life and treasure and total waste. You mean Afghanistan, because Iraq had nothing to do with... I'm sorry, Afghanistan. Yeah, Iraq had nothing to do with... But I think, you know, you have to understand, Trump in the...

43:30back during the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, he would call in, like in 2008, 2009. Like, my boss remembers Trump calling him up and being like, what are we doing there? He truly does hate war. He truly does understand his base, and he truly does understand the political and the foreign policy calculus. Those are not separable to Donald Trump. So everything he does in terms of foreign policy is meant to increase the safety, security, and prosperity of the United States. And you see that whether it's the tariffs, and you see it whether it's the immigration, and you see it whether it's the way that he negotiated the ceasefire in Gaza, the way that he went to his partners in the Middle East, not just Israel, but he went to the Arabs, and he said, look, I'm on your side too, and convinced them that he's on their side too.

44:19So he's really got a very good handle on this. I could be totally wrong. He could be planning to put boots on the ground. But that just seems to me like unthinkable, given what I know about him.

44:29Konstantin Kisin:I don't think, I think it would be insane to put boots on the ground. And for that reason, I doubt he would do it. But I think his, even if we accept your framing, which is he is someone who's incredibly well intentioned, that doesn't mean that the war in Iran will produce the results it's intended to produce or that it will be successful. I think he would not have gone in if he didn't have intelligence from the Israelis, that there was something there along the lines of a Dulce Rodriguez that he could reasonably be assured would be ready to take the helm. Now, I could be wrong. It's quite an assumption.

45:00Konstantin Kisin:I mean, what a different version of that might be, he was given intelligence as he, we understand, was given intelligence, that there was an opportunity to take out the entire leadership of the IRGC and the IRTOLA. We know that three weeks before this started, he told his internal circle of advisors, I don't want to do this unless I know it will be successful. We know that he had enormous resistance to doing this at the wrong time. But the success objectives, as we understand them, is to deal with the nuclear program, to deal with the ballistic program, and at this point regime change because you've killed the current regime leaders, right?

45:44Konstantin Kisin:So you're going to... Well, it depends how you define regime change. Regime adjustment. Yeah. I keep calling what happened in Venezuela regime adjustment. So on the nuclear stuff, it's becoming very clear that in the 12-day war they didn't get the nuclear material, right? Otherwise, why would we have this war? If we got the nuclear material back then, clearly we didn't... Well, what they would say, I don't know, you're probably right, but what they would say is that, no, we got it then. So there's satellite images of a shit ton of trucks leaving those facilities the day before the bombing, right?

46:12Konstantin Kisin:Right. So the uranium still exists. The enriched uranium still exists. I also think it's fair to say, as we sit here today, who knows what will be the case by the time the separator goes out, that they still haven't got the nuclear material, otherwise why are they still bombing, right? So on the nuclear stuff, we don't know what the hell is going to happen. On the regime change stuff, I don't think we know what... I mean, yes, we had Richard Mineta on our show break the news that the Americans had given the Israelis a no-kill list, which means that they have a bunch of people in mind to be the potential new Ayatollah.

46:45Konstantin Kisin:But maneuvering those people into position and them having the ability to shut down Iran's defense is a highly questionable thing, particularly because we know that the people who are holding the Stray of Hormuz lockdown, and by the way, it's not actually lockdown, we'll get to that, the ones that are doing that, they have complete autonomy of control. They have standing orders from the dead Ayatollah telling them, you must continue this irrespective of what else happens. And then on top of that, your point about this is about China, China's still getting the oil because the Iranians are letting it through.

47:15Konstantin Kisin:They're not letting Western ships and allies ships through, but they are letting Chinese and Indian vessels through. Right. So they are now, but that's actually good for us as well, because that means that the cost of gas is going to go down, right? So Trump doesn't actually... He wants China to succeed. He just wants them to stop thinking that this is going to be the Chinese century. So he wants leverage when he goes in to meet with Xi Jinping. So he wants to have control over the Strait of Hormuz before that meeting, which is why they're pushing that meeting off. I don't disagree with anything you said.

47:47I think, you know, it's all a question of whether he can pull it off. If he can't pull it off, he will start to lose support in eight, 10 days, two weeks, whatever. So I think we're seeing the same thing and analyzing it in the same way. I just think that he would not have done this if he didn't think that he could do it successfully. And it could still go to, you know, like I said, I could go off it.

48:06Konstantin Kisin:I don't disagree with that either, Batya, but what I'm saying is just because someone thought they'd be successful doesn't mean that they will be successful. Right. Totally. He does have a pretty good track record, though. I completely agree with that, which is one of the reasons I've said about this, the coin is in the air. We don't know which way it's going to land. However, the more time we spend in the U.S. and the more people we talk to who know, I won't go into more details than that. I mean, the phrase, he was on a bit of a sugar rush from Venezuela has been used. There is a narrative building that actually this wasn't a deeply strategically planned operation.

48:41Konstantin Kisin:This was someone who kind of got a little bit overexcited here. Is that impossible? Nothing's impossible with Donald Trump, but that's not what I'm seeing from the way that he's talking about it, the way that he's been handling himself, he seems to feel very sure that this is going the way that they expected it to go. They have these backup plans. I think that he saw Venezuela taking that oil, releasing it onto the free market when it had been going to China for $15 less a barrel because it was a repayment for Chinese loans, that that was sort of a protective mechanism with which to ensure that gas didn't get too much more expensive.

49:20So I think this is all part of a sort of larger global game that he has. But I could be wrong, you know, it's, I don't know Trump, I've never spoken to him. I mean, this is just my analysis from what I'm seeing, the way that he's talking about it, the way he's handling it. I do think that at the State of the Union, I think that, this is just like my personal analysis, but I think he looked at the Democrats refusing to stand up for all of these heroes. And he just was filled with disgust. And I think he thinks that it's beneath him to fight people like that anymore. Like, I think his... How can you fight with people...

50:00How can you think it is a noble goal to fight people who will not stand for a seven-year-old girl whose brain was bashed in by an illegal? And I think that there was, you know, you could see it in his face, like, just this... Like, this is our opposition, really? And I think maybe that's why he's so focused on the foreign policy piece. But I think, again, you know, he's got a lot of grandchildren. And I think he knew this was a political risk. And he took it anyway. And he took it even though he knew that this might hurt him. He said this. He said, of course I knew it might hurt me politically.

50:33I had to do the right thing. Again and again, he proves the people who say, oh, he's only helping his rich friends wrong. Like, oh, everything he does is to help the billionaires. You know, billionaires really don't like tariffs. You know, they like profits. You know, like here again, he did something that he thought was the right thing to do, despite the fact that it was a political risk. And I think that that is something worthy of admiration.

50:55Konstantin Kisin:So let's take a step back and let's look at both America and Israel, because this is very fascinating from a military and geopolitical point of view, because they kind of have, although they're allies, they want different outcomes for this war. So let's talk about, we've spoken about what you think the Americans want, but what do the Israelis want? It's funny, I really have been surprised because Trump does seem to have brought Bibi Netanyahu to heel. Like, Netanyahu has really had his way with a lot of other presidents who found it very hard to, of course Obama was able to overcome his opposition with the Iran deal, but Netanyahu does seem to be very much taking his orders from Trump.

51:36But they, of course, want a deep-seated regime change. They want the protesters to win. They want their representatives in government. They want to see a completely different Iran. And I don't think Trump has the stomach for that, and I don't think he has the political bandwidth for that. So they would be, I think, willing... Their people are much more in support of this, obviously, because they face a much more immediate threat from Iran. When you're sitting in a bunker and they're bombing your children, like, you're willing to put up with that for much longer than we are, you know, safe in America.

52:08So I think they have a much higher appetite for this going on for longer than we do, and they want a much deeper thing than we would be happy to settle for. Trump doesn't see foreign policy through a kind of moral lens, I don't think. He sees it through interests, you know. He wants to create value. He doesn't want to export our values, you know. He's very interested in positioning us in a way that will bear fruit for our children and grandchildren. But I don't think he's interested in seeing, you know, taking a country that's, you know, under a theocracy and then saying, oh, no, you're not going to be a theocracy, you're not going to be a monarchy, you're going to be a democracy or what have you.

52:46He's not very, he has no interest in that whatsoever.

52:49Konstantin Kisin:So the name that keeps getting banded around is Reza Pavlavi. How, and apparently the Israelis, their dream scenario is to install him as the de facto leader of Iran. Transitional. Yeah. Do you think that's likely to happen? No. Why not? Because the Americans don't want it. Exactly. The same reason they didn't put Maria Machado in charge of Venezuela. Because they don't want to see a coup of the generals. They don't want to see massive bloodshed in the streets. We don't want a massive... That's just not what Trump is interested in. And honestly, I feel... I want the protesters to win. But I don't know that I'm willing to sacrifice our boys for that.

53:30I just don't know that I... I don't think you can give people freedom. I think they have to take it and win it for themselves. And I feel the same way about the Taliban and the women. My heart breaks for them. It's horrible. But you can't give people civil rights. Their men have to be willing to fight for it. It's a horrible, horrible thing. But I think that's true and I hope that doesn't sound too heartless.

53:51Konstantin Kisin:No, I don't think it does. And I agree with it. You know, someone who's Venezuelan, origin, everyone can now drink. That's what we do But yeah, I agree You have to be able to overthrow the government Otherwise it doesn't work We've seen it time and time and time again This utopian way of thinking Particularly when you apply it to the Middle East Unfortunately In the case of Afghanistan and Iraq It leads to disastrous consequences Exactly, and I think I would go even further and say If the Israelis feel so strongly about this Let them put boots on the ground Why should we do it? I mean, we're not the ones who are going to suffer from it one way or the other the way that they would.

54:31So I kind of resent a little bit the implication that it's our job to free the world.

54:38Konstantin Kisin:And also as well, then we're looking at Israel with Lebanon, and there's talks of boots on the ground in Lebanon, and you think, well, this is an escalation. What do you think is going to happen there? And do you just see this as Israel thinking to themselves, this is our chance. This is our one chance to cleanse as much as we can of the region of Islamism and these fanatical people. I don't think so. I think that, like I said, I think Netanyahu is very much taking his cues from Trump, which I've been very heartened to see. I don't know what the end game in Lebanon is. I really don't quite understand the relationship between chizbol and the government.

55:18I never know. I find it very hard to read that, who has the power and who is in charge. And when the government says we're in talks with the Israelis or we're against chizbol, then they don't do much. So I don't really understand it very much to say what the outcome is. I think the Israelis really are just trying to protect their civilians.

55:37Konstantin Kisin:And do you think there will come a point where, as happened with the war in Gaza, where the rest of the world steps in and goes, right, enough is enough now? See, this is something that I really have noticed, which is that there does not seem to be the same kind of hysteria online as during the Gaza War. Well, because you're not seeing civilians killed in those numbers, I would imagine. But civilians are being killed. Not in those numbers. But many are being killed in Lebanon and in Iran. So you seem to have a point with all this. What are you saying? Well, I think that we've reached a turning point.

56:13I think that somehow when it was Gaza versus Israel, people got so consumed by the narrative. But now that it's the U.S. and Israel versus Iran, there is a sort of almost a bashedness in the liberal media when they seem to be sort of cheering on what is in effect the Ayatollah, even though Hamas is worse than the Ayatollah. but um yeah it's interesting i have noticed that i do you know what i think it is i think there's

56:47Konstantin Kisin:certain issues in in the media that just dements people yeah and i think palestine is one of them i i i don't know what it is about the palestinian cause i have family in lebanon and you they seem to be far more objective about it than people in the west who seem to lose their minds and i i don't know what it is about that particular issue but it seems people are incapable of being objective about it well allow me to suggest a new book on the on this exact subject so why is palestine so dementing um i do think that it it it brings a lot of the issues together in relief that really animate the left which is of course this worship of weakness They worship abjection because they cannot admit that they are affluent and privileged.

57:44So they have what is basically oppression envy. And when you say, because I am a white person, I have no moral authority, I can only have the authority to cede my power to the oppressed, doing so gives you that hit of moral authority that we all crave, which is to be seen as good. And I think that that is addictive.

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1:00:27Konstantin Kisin:Go through 2026 with better digestion and more energy with Mass Zymes by BioOptimizers. Yeah. No, you go ahead. It's also as well, you look at the, I mean, this is going to get me in trouble. You look at the Irish. The Irish have been nuts on this. I think as well, if you see yourself as being oppressed And the Irish have some reason for it Yeah, they do, they do To be fair to them, yeah, then they won't stop banging on about it But yeah, they do have it, you know You start to see yourself as being quasi-Palestinian in a weird way Yeah, totally Or talking to Irish people Actually, it's funny because we're supposed to be like these controversial people I have never had anyone come up to me ever in the street and say anything critical ever except one time, and that was an Irish person who said, oh, I used to love you and you've changed.

1:01:18Konstantin Kisin:And I was like, well, for the better? He was like, no. And what he was saying is basically you haven't gone along with the sort of, you know, Palestinians or poor oppressed people. And I think for Irish people, it really, for a lot of Irish people, it seems like it just triggers the trauma that they have from the troubles and before that. Do you know, in the same bar that I go to, there's this guy, shout out to Eamon, an Irish guy who he's in his 50s, late 50s. When I first met him at the bar, oh, you're Irish. Oh, you must have been around during the Troubles. That must have been so difficult.

1:01:53And he looked at me and he went, it's the best time of my life. I was 15. There were no rules. You would get into fights whenever you wanted. You could do whatever you wanted. You'd be, you know, you'd get into fights with the cops. Then you'd run and, you know, one of your friends would die. And then the next day you'd go and fight again. There were no rules. He was like the high of being a teenage terrorist, basically. He was like, I will never feel that again. And I think about it all the time. And it was such a... I was so... It just hit me really hard. There's something about that. You're a teenage boy.

1:02:30You're full of that teenage boy energy. There's a fight of good guys versus bad guys. Everything is permitted. You're always on the right side. The whole community is with you, hiding you against people who are legitimately, you know, it was very...

1:02:45Konstantin Kisin:It was a great time.

1:02:50Konstantin Kisin:Never heard anyone say that personally, but there you go. But it's interesting because I think you make... It's something I've thought about as well because the Palestine cause really speaks to a lot of and one of them and i think unfortunately this is increasingly true is really what this radical leftist worldview is about is also about justification of violence oh yeah and so here are these poor oppressed brown people that is smart who are fighting back and look yeah october see yeah maybe yeah yeah no rapes happen none of this happened and it's happened, but really, we are allowed to be violent to our oppressors.

1:03:33Konstantin Kisin:We're allowed, it's justified. And I think, I mean, you see it now all the time. The left, I don't hesitate to say this. Francis and I really, really strive to give each side due respect and try and have a balanced perspective on things. And people will, some people on the right think we're on the left, people on the left think we're on the right, whatever. But I think it's very, very clear that there is now a rhetorical structure of justification for violence on the left. That's very deep. And you see it. And I think the Palestine issue is where it really fundamentally takes its force, because that is why the whole, you know, Piers Morgan, will you condemn Hamas thing became such a big deal, because they won.

1:04:13Konstantin Kisin:Right. Because they believe that that level of violence and horrific attacks against civilians, violence against Charlie Kirk, who's a civilian, who just speaks his mind about an issue, is justified. And you're hitting on something very important, which is it's not really about the Jews. And this is something I try to tell Jewish people a lot in America. It's not about, you're getting the white treatment. They don't treat white Christians any better than they treat you. So stop acting like we're some oppressed minority. We're not. We should stand proudly with the majority in this country of working class people who have our backs, who get the same treatment.

1:04:53And I'll just tell you personally, so I used to be woke. This is one of my value adds is I can remember what it feels like to think those things. And I remember when I would write an article and I'd get like a massive pushback from the right. You know, if you just say, look, they hate my opinion and so they're attacking me because they hate my opinion, you know, like that doesn't feel good. But if you say, they're coming for me because I am a Jewish woman. You get a hit and you get so much support from all the other Jewish women and all the other people who want to defend you for being a leftist Jewish woman and what have you.

1:05:31It creates this enormous jouissance almost of being oppressed. And it takes so long to be like, no, that's freaking lame. You put your opinion out there because you're privileged enough to have that as your job and they don't like your opinion. And so they're calling you fat and that's fine. That is okay. It's not about some, like you're not oppressed. And it's so hard to unlearn that because if you're like me and you spent 12 years in the academy imbibing this, that that is virtue. You don't get to be virtuous for saying I will be good and not bad. You can only be virtuous by saying I defend people whose skin color is darker than mine, right?

1:06:20You learn that, you unlearn that. And coming back to that photo of the protester who the ISIS guy used to leap over and throw that IED, somebody had a long, I wish I remember who it was, a long tweet thread about it where she was saying, you know, psychologically, so much of leftism is unlearning natural instincts. You know, like when you see a threatening person on the street, you're not allowed to, as a woman, you're supposed to, if that person has dark skin color, You have to unlearn the instinct to sort of try to get away from a threatening looking person.

1:06:51Konstantin Kisin:You have to walk straight towards them and lift your miniscope. Exactly. Right. For diversity. Exactly. But I think this thing about justifying violence is really deep. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, the entire structure is designed to create the permission to do that. And you see the worst people online now actively encouraging. Yeah. And I think it's inevitable. Well, look. I've been saying this for many years, if you teach people to hate their own country, eventually the consequences of that will come through. So if you teach people to hate the other side, the consequences of that will come through.

1:07:27Konstantin Kisin:And I think there are people on the right, certainly, who teach people to hate the other side as well. And we've had some of them on the show and talked to them about it. There are people who say, my motivation in life is I hate the left, right? Is that constructive? Probably not. Even if you disagree very strongly with the left. Once you create a justification structure, violence is inevitable. It's inevitable. And this is why Palestine is a great cause for them. But what's very funny in America, I'll just say this very briefly, is like one side of the political aisle is very heavily armed and the other side has started to justify immense violence.

1:08:05When they do that, they are tacitly admitting that the other side is not going to fight back because they know that they're not going to pick up their AR-15s and turn them on their leftist neighbors. And there's something about that that is just unbearable in the irony of it, that one side is violent and is using the other side's nonviolence and Christian virtue in order to attack them and kill them, basically, because they know that they will not use their arms against them.

1:08:37Konstantin Kisin:But Bacchia, coming back to... I must have missed the part of your life journey when you were woke. How did that happen? Well, I got a PhD in English literature. Uh-huh. So you kind of... It comes with the woke stamp. It comes with the... Yeah, somebody recently asked me, why did you become a leftist? And it's because you imbibe this... If you get one of these, you know, you spend a lot of time in the academy, that's how you show that you're a good person. Is you're a leftist. And of course, a lot of the left is built around like compassion. The problem is that the way that they implement that compassion incentivizes immense amounts of suffering.

1:09:10So open borders where you have 30 % of the women making the passage through the Darien Gap admitting that they were raped. So you can imagine what the number actually is probably above 90%. Because they incentivize this kind of cruelty. And in the name of compassion, oh, we should welcome in the global indigent. You know, stealing from working class Americans to give limitless, you know, A plus health care to illegals when their neighbor, when their cleaning lady cannot afford to get her child braces. You know, this kind of thing where it's like. But yeah, I was I was totally woke until like 2018, 2019.

1:09:45Konstantin Kisin:And then what happened? I feel like I told this story on the last time I was here. No, we talked about it briefly, but tell us more. Well, my breaking point was this 2018 study I found from Yale. And the study found that there was a difference between how white liberals and white conservatives talk to blacks. And I remember I looked at the headline, and I was like, ha, ha, ha, we got them, you know? Yeah. So then you read down, and it's, um, actually, when white liberals talk to black people, they dumb down their vocabulary. Like, it's called presenting lower competence. They use words with fewer syllables than when they talk to other whites.

1:10:20And white conservatives don't do this. And I remember looking at that and being like, my whole worldview is racist. And I took the... I had printed it up. I took the study. I put it in a drawer in my office. I closed the drawer and I said, I am not ready to deal with what this means. I'll come back in three months. Because it just hit me like... I immediately recognized everybody I knew. The whole left, the whole worldview that, you know, people of color are somehow need our beneficence in order to thrive. Like, it's despicable. And it was just... I was... And I called up a friend of mine, a black friend of mine, and she was like, oh, yeah, we know.

1:10:57Like, we know that they do that. Like, everybody knows that. That was, like, the first moment I remember thinking, like, I might be wrong about everything.

1:11:05Konstantin Kisin:Yeah. It's so... I mean, we've talked about this ad nauseum, but when you talk about open borders, like, the old left never... I know. You know, the left... It's the opposite. You know, I know these are figures from the UK, but, like, Tony Benn. Yeah, but Bernie Sanders. Yeah. Nobody wanted open borders because it's... Bill Clinton and Obama. It's completely antithetical to the rights of workers. It's completely in opposition. Obviously so. Obviously wage theft of working class Americans. And it's because these elites would rather die than clean a toilet. So they imagine that any white person would rather die than clean a toilet.

1:11:42So let's bring in people from the third world, from failed socialist states to clean our toilets, who will be so grateful for the opportunity to clean our toilets. When the truth is, millions and millions of working class Americans get a lot of dignity from cleaning toilets because that used to be a dignified job. And the thing that makes it undignified is that it doesn't pay a living wage. Like I always say this, like, you know, most of us would probably rather die than be a proctologist. I know I would, you know, like, but we don't consider that to be an undignified job because they make a lot of money.

1:12:10And it's insane that we've just decided that, you know, that job is disgusting, but dignified, you know, and we're going to pay them a lot of money. Why don't we have open borders for doctors? I would totally get behind that. Let's get their wages down to$20 an hour. Our health care would be much better. No, you would never see that because the elites protect their own.

1:12:30Konstantin Kisin:And it seems to me as well, and it goes back to the Palestine issue, it's that the left seems to be in love with these kind of romantic myths, which actually, when the rubber hits the road, they don't work. Yeah. And what's so funny is now you're going to see an actual over-credentialed proletariat because AI is wiping out entry-level white-collar jobs. This would be the perfect moment for those people with these degrees that are worthless, who are in debt, to come together, to band together with the working class around reasonable reforms, strong borders, you know, no more immigration, let's fund vocational training.

1:13:10But they won't because they would rather die than be an electrician because they still think they are so much better and deserve so much more than their working-class neighbors.

1:13:18Konstantin Kisin:And it's getting to the point now where you look at the wages of an electrician or a plumber and they're far superior to white collar workers. But that's because of Trump. I mean, a lot of what he did created, even in the first administration, in his first term, he created a big boom for people in the bottom 25 % of wage earners whose wages went up by double the percentage of what people in the top 25 % went up by because tariffs and a closed border, a labor shortage for working class people, for illegals, that's really good for working class wages. But it's not great for the elites, which is why they hate him.

1:13:59Konstantin Kisin:And do you think the Dems are actually going to get on board with this? I mean, they've gone through the woke insanity and hopefully maybe they've learned their lesson. I don't know. Do you think they're actually going to start to go back to what the left used to be? So the answer is no, but it's not going to matter if the right elects J.D. Vance because we will still end up with President Gavin Newsom. So they won't. Because you think Newsom will be. Yes, but the right is not going to. They always, the Republicans always manage to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. So, you know, it's not going to matter.

1:14:32The Democrats are going to keep getting worse and the Republicans are not going to realize. They still don't understand why Trump is so great. Like, they do not understand what he has given the American people. And I, yeah, I think the answer is no, but.

1:14:46Konstantin Kisin:One of the concerns somebody expressed to us who is a skeptic of the war in Iran is that if it goes badly, it lets the left off the hook. Because if it goes well, it's a win. Americans love winning. It's wonderful. That gives the Republicans a really good shot at the next election, at the midterms, etc. But if it goes badly, the left gets let off the hook and they don't have to re-examine all the ways that they got to where they got to, which was defeat. And they can just carry on as they were before and double down on the trans and the open borders and all of that. Yeah, it'll be very bad if it goes badly.

1:15:24Konstantin Kisin:That's a fair point. Well, on that happy note, Bhatia, we're going to head over to Substack with questions from our supporters. But before we do, what is the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? That's such a great question. I guess I would say, I think that in many ways, the Trump agenda from this second administration is attempting to restore the thing that so many people thought was great about America, but in a way that is very different from the American exceptionalism of the Obama era. And of course, very different from the American decline. I'm sorry, the American exceptionalism of the Bush era, and then very different from the, you know, American decline of the Obama and Biden eras.

1:16:18And he may not succeed, but the effort that he's making to make Americans feel like they and hold their head high again, is succeeding internally in a way that I think is lost, especially on our European allies. And I think that's really the big story of the year. Everything that he is trying to do is landing with the people who most needed to hear it, the forgotten men and women of this country who felt that everyone was being put ahead of them. There is a sort of resurgence of patriotism and pride and pride in masculinity and pride in being able to make things and build things and this feeling like we're trying new things and we're going to get back.

1:17:02And it's a very cool time to be an American. Always a good time to be an American, but especially now. And I think that's very much lost on people who don't live here and who truly hate him so much that they can't get this external perspective of what people feel like when they're walking down the streets. And with that, I will say God bless and protect you both. And thank you so much for having me.

1:17:24Konstantin Kisin:That's very kind of you. Thank you. Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where Batya is going to answer your questions. Why do leftist liberals now push neo-racism, radical gender ideology, and regressive antisemitism? What is it that they really want?

1:18:02We'll see you next time.