Transcription
You and I are both supporters of Israel and have defended Israel since the beginning of this conflict and spoken out about the anti-semitism that has erupted on these college campuses many, many, many, many times. And something's happening though with this whole debate that is really bothering me, and I wonder if you're feeling it too.
So, I, I mean, I genuinely believe you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody in the public eye who's been as outspoken a defender of not every move Israel's taken in the war, but of Israel's right to defend itself and of the, the just backward awfulness that we've been seeing on college campuses and the backlash against American Jews, then yours truly. I mean, I have been at the pointy end of this spear on this, and I, I completely agree with that, and I, it was all heartfelt, and it remains heartfelt. Yes.
However, however, my contention here is that some in the pro-Israel camp are so knee-jerk about calling you anti-Semitic or getting deeply offended if you say anything that doesn't align with their narrative, that it undermines their own cause. And I have to tell you, I find it very irritating. Um, because I do feel like some of us have earned the right to have some credibility on the subject of Israel and don't want to be called those names when we have some mild pushback on some of the overreaches, whether it's, you know, whether they're winning or losing the propaganda war right now. And my contention is they've begun to lose it. And I realize it's propaganda coming at us from Hamas, but they, their, their numbers have turned here in America. They've turned, not so much with Republicans, a little bit with Republicans, but but completely with the Democrat party and with independents. They, they have shifted mightily from at least double-digit highs to single-digit lows now with it, with when it comes to approval. And also with respect to you. And I speculated about this at the Turning Point event, whether the possibility of Jeffrey Epstein possibly being an M.S.A.D. agent or asset or affiliated with that's been turned around on me too. "You must be anti-Semitic." What the hell? That's such a. The same people who say you can criticize Israel, that's fine. We won't call you anti-Semitic if you criticize Israel, now turn around immediately and say you're anti-Semitic for even raising that. I completely reject that. And I raised this to as a pushback against my friends on that particular strain of the aisle to watch it, because you don't want to alienate people who are openly your friends by going nuts in your crackdowns on mild pushback on anything related to Israel.
Now, you take it. I'm so, I'm, I'm so glad you brought this up, and I would second that, Megan. I think I have a bulletproof resume showing my defense of Israel both on campus, on social media, to to great, you know, let's just say mockery and scorn at times where I, because I believe it, right? I, I believe in the scriptural land rights given to Israel. I believe in fulfillment of prophecy. And again, I'm not a theologian, but I'm a Christian. My life was changed in Israel. The spiritual energy is so amazing there. I, I want them to win. I've said that repeatedly. And however, Megan, you're hitting on something very potent and important. Now, let me first say, I don't want to judge an entire group because there's been many people in the pro-Israel world that have been very sweet, very kind, very nuanced, very, "Charlie, you know, you're with us. You don't have to agree all the time." However, and I, and I will say this, the behavior by a lot, both privately and publicly, are pushing people like you and me away. Not like we're gonna be pro-Hamas. Not like we're gonna. But we're like, honestly, the way you are treating me is so repulsive. I have text messages, Megan, calling me an anti-Semite. I am learning biblical Hebrew and writing a book on the Shabbat. I honor the Shabbat, literally the Jewish Sabbath. I visit Israel and fight for it. And there's another article out in the Times of Israel today. I could read it on air. I was just reading before I got on. Charlie, what are you doing? Like, why are you? What am I doing? I'm sorry. Like, let's just take a step back here. Like, I'm an American citizen. Yes, I want Israel to win. Yes, I'm a Christian. But like, the, some of the, you and I saw, you've seen how I've been treated, Megan, by some, not all, by some. No, it's very irritating. It's been so unfair. They were coming after you after a Turning Point for among other things that you had Dave Smith there. Dave Smith is allowed to criticize Israel. You had both sides. The Israeli side was only though. No, you're not allowed to. It's even worse than that. Again, I just want to repeat for the fifth time. I love Israel. I want Israel to win. But my moral character is now being put into question, Megan. Not my decisions, not like, "Hey, are you doing this? Is it smart or is it dumb?" But no, I am a bad person if I do this. And it's, I, I could go, I mean, you saw it, Megan. It was trending on Twitter, thousands of tweets and text messages. And if I were to be charitable and generous, I will say the people that are attacking me are in a hyper-paranoid state because they're at war, and war tends to make things black and white, and you're a hammer looking for a nail. So I'm trying to be charitable, Megan. Literally, I'm trying to cut as much slack as I can, right? Like, okay, what would it be like if all of a sudden I'm starting to see a pattern of behavior similar to what my grandparents saw in 1930s Germany online? How would I behave? So that's like my charitable kind of overcompensation spirit. At the same time, I'm like, but you're, it's, it's not defensible to be dumb, right? So, and it's offensive. It's offensive to those of us who have been out there defending them in many instances against critics on our own side. And now you have a couple of comments like, "Well, what about this?" "Well, has it gone on too long?" "Like, is it time to wrap it up?" And the thing about Epstein is just so bizarre. I don't know who he was an agent for. It might have been Israel or an asset, or it might have been nobody. But we're allowed to speculate about that. It's like there's some, you can't go there when it comes to Israel.
Well, you and I believe that we're Americans and Americans first. Period. End of story. We are citizens of this nation. Okay. And Israel, we have funded, we have supported, and they're up against a sea of Islamic totalitarianism. And we should be cheering for them, right? Because they're up against barbarians and monsters, and we want them to win. However, here is Megan Kelly and Charlie Kirk, combined probably 30 million social media followers, like pretty right. And you and I have been holding this down, and you, you probably get the negative, "Oh, you're just shilling for Israel," whatever. I'm like, okay, I'm going to do what's right regardless of the feedback, right? But then all of a sudden, like I host a person that I, I moderate the debate of, mind you, right? And I give equal time to Josh Hammer, equal time to a pro-Israel advocate, and my moral character is being put into question. And so I, I just, I think it's a hyper-paranoid, like we're just going to try to, we're going to just stamp out everything type, type of practice. But it goes to the point where if, for example, if I, I have less ability sometimes online to criticize the Israeli government without backlash than actual Israelis do. And that's really, really weird, isn't it, Megan? Wrongheaded. I, I'll tell you this for me. So I got some blowback after saying M.S.A.D. possibilities with Epstein, a comment behind which I stand. I mean, I really. And I have, of course, reported what Alan Dershowitz has said as his lawyer. He says, "I think he would have told me." He didn't say he had any of those connections. I hear all that. That doesn't mean it's not true. I think all these things should be explored. It's one of the many things that should be explored around Epstein. But saying that and also saying he might be a U.S. asset, etc., doesn't make you anti-Semitic. That's crazy.
And then we get to last week. I go on Piers, Piers Morgan, right? So I go on Piers Morgan last week, and I don't talk about Israel a lot on this show. I just, like, covering the day-to-day of a conflict like this is not my thing. It's not what we do here at the Megan Kelly Show. Um, we haven't done it for Ukraine. We haven't done it for Israel. We haven't done it for a lot of conflicts, but we'll talk about it when big things happen. So Piers talks about it a lot. Piers asked me, it was a very interesting kind of culture study. So he asked me about the, the photos of the starving children out of Gaza, and I said a couple of things, both of which got a fair amount of pickup. All right. So, first, this is what I said about the photos. Listen to S-10. "Well, I'm always reluctant to put too much stock in the images coming out of Gaza, that that phrase, because they're manipulated and they're masters of propaganda, and they're fine having their own children starve just as long as they can put them on camera and show them off to the world. That that's Hamas. And frankly, it's a lot of Palestinians. So I'm very skeptical of taking those images at face value and saying it's Israel's fault." Okay. So that clip gets circulated on that a million times by my Israeli friends and my Jewish friends online like, "Go, Megan. Yeah. Okay. Great. Cool. Cool. Cool. Yeah. She's right on. Look at her. You know, speak truth to Piers." And then Piers released it as a separate clip, my follow-up to that comment. Okay. And and here's that. Not a lot of nuance, Megan. It's only tribalism. That's right. So here's S-11. "Israel, whether it realizes it or not, has made itself the villain of the world in in letting this thing go on so long. They have lost support amongst their dearest friends. And even the entire Democrat party here in the United States has turned against them, and they're losing Republicans by the day here in America, which is their most important ally. So whether the fight continues to be just or not is almost irrelevant. As Trump said when he was running this time last year, not yet elected, 'Time to wrap it up.' And that's how I feel too. And I've given Israel a long birth. I fully understand as an American who was attacked on 9/11, my country was, that, you know, when you attack the United States and you kill thousands of our citizens, and Israel was in this position on 10/7, it's fine to respond. And it doesn't have to be proportionate. Whoever said it has to be proportionate. But what Israel is doing now is losing its standing with the rest of the world. It's starting to lose, too, even with its closest friends, its moral reputation, its moral um high ground, and as Trump said a year ago, 'Time to wrap it up.'" Q. Well said. The 25 text messages from people I know, like friends who are pro-Israel, like, "I'm so sad that you've left us." "I'm so sad." "Let's debate it." You know, many Jewish uh advocates saying, "Let me come on your show and we'll debate." There's nothing to debate. I'm on Israel's side. Just stop me observing. Totally agree that you're losing the propaganda war and that this has gone on for about two years now. And look, I mean, I pulled the stats. Support for Israel's military action in Gaza by party ID. Uh, G.O.P. in June of 2024, 76%, now 71%, so they lost 5%. Dems in October of 2023, 36%, now it's at 8%. Independents, October of 2023, it was 47%. Now it's 25%. You go under 35, you have almost zero support across the United States, your closest ally. I, I see what's happening, and it's my job to comment honestly on it. But I am sick of being lectured on like, you, you have to see it exactly as we see it and support everything, or you're, you're against us.
So, so this is so important, Megan. And again, I don't want, not every, you cannot say every one of the pro-Israel, and I don't say acts that way, but I, I got texts about you, Megan, saying, "Why is Megan like doing the bidding of Hamas?" I was like, "What are you talking about? Megan's the best." Like, what? She's amazing. And I said, "Why are you texting me about Megan?" And at that point, And so this is what they don't understand. You and I, Megan, and Tucker is in the same category, and they've tried to go after Tucker. Yeah. Is that the, and and the more you attack our moral character, the actually the more we're going to double down into direction because, screw you. I don't do it that way. Okay? Right? Like when, tell me I'm wrong. Cool. Tell me if I've got my facts wrong. By the way, on the Epstein thing, Naftali Bennett says he was an Epstein agent. We have to be pursuers of truth. They've denied it. Fine. Let's keep digging. Okay. Fine. But the, the, the thing that I don't think, I think is being lost is like on some part of the population, you can scold them into silence, right? But if I have any deviation of a purity test, any deviation whatsoever, such as hosting a focus group, right, Megan, with a bunch of our students that went viral, having Dave Smith or Tucker at my event, it is all of a sudden, "Oh, Charlie is a, uh, he's he's no longer with us," and all that. I said, "Wait a second. What do you mean? What does 'with us' mean exactly?" Right. I'm an American. Okay. Like, I, I represent this country, and I, I don't even understand that paradigm. But Megan, I think you would agree with this. I want to make sure we fast, like, really zero in on this personality types like you, myself, and Tucker. The more that you guys privately and publicly call our character into question, which is not isolated, right, Megan? It would be one thing if it was one text or two texts. It is dozens of texts. Yes. Then we start to say, "Hold the boat here." And and to be fair, some of my really good Jewish friends are like, "That's not all of us. It's all." But these are leaders, too, though, right? These are these are stakeholders, right? And so, look, I, I'm afraid because, again, I want civilization to win. I want the West to win. I don't want the Islamo-fascist barbarians to storm the gates of Jerusalem. I want the holy sites protected. I believe in the Holy Land. I love that Jesus walked on water there and rose from the dead and preached in the uh, Mount of Beatitudes. Like, I, I feel the connection to Israel. And I, but at the same time, simultaneously, when the hostile reaction is that now Megan and Charlie are enemies, right? Boy, I'll tell you, like, you're, you're, you're going to, you're not going to, I won't say lose, but you will weaken and just basically deflate two of your strongest advocates if that continues. Right. And it, to me, I laugh because it's like I've been bullied by the best of them. The best, and it didn't work, and it's not going to work with them. And the more you try to tell me I can't criticize Israel, the more likely I am to do it. To focus on exactly what you're doing, right? Like, what, what are you doing that you're so defensive? You don't own me. I don't, I don't take $1 of money from any Jewish affiliated group. That's not, that's never been what, what my show's model. I take, you know, Cozy Earth is my sponsor. Uh, people like Genuisell, those are the people I take. And I, and I probably would feel reluctant to criticize Genuisell, which is a great product, so I probably wouldn't do it anyway. My point is simply, I have my honest opinions, which is why I had credibility for the two years I've been defending them, right? And I still have that credibility. And I don't need lectures from my friends who are more pro-Israel than I am or who are just American Jewish people who are concerned about what's happening. I don't need lectures on my coverage. Okay? I'll call it like I see it. And you have no right to come on this show and demand a debate with me because I've said something you disagree with. It's my show, and I'll decide the coverage we do here.
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