FULL Josh Hammer VS Dave Smith Debate on Israel

All right, everybody. How are we all doing?

So, first, where were you a year ago today? I bet you remember exactly where you were. A year ago today, Donald Trump was in Butler, Pennsylvania. A year ago today, our republic was probably saved by just a couple of centimeters. A year ago today, by the grace of God, in a turn of the head tilt, a bullet whizzed by Donald Trump's face and barely scraped his ear. And as we're closing out this conference, I think we just need to just remember how far our nation has come in the span of one year of how much has changed and thanks to the goodness and glory of God that Donald Trump turned his head at that very moment. I'll never forget where I was with my daughter. All of a sudden, I saw the we were in some workout area and all of a sudden on screen, Donald Trump shot. You all remember where you were when you first heard the news. And then what a sigh of relief when we saw him rise up and he said, "Fight, fight, fight."

One year ago to this day, but the reason I wanted to start with this is that we also lost one of our own patriots that day, Corey Compatory. And we should just do a moment of silence for 10 seconds to remember Corey Compatory that lost his life a year ago today. Thank you. And I know that so many of you have been to MAGA rallies. He died a hero's death. He put his body in the way and saved his daughter's lives that they may live. For the men out there, that is the best of MAGA masculinity. And Corey, we remember you today here in Tampa, Florida.

Our last bit of programming here is going to be a debate. As many of you guys know, I speak a lot about this on college campuses. I get so many questions about this topic on college campuses. Some of my best memories ever have been going to Israel, traveling to Israel, seeing where Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus walked on water, spoke in the garden of Gethsemane, gave the sermon uh mount biatitudes, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Hebron. And some of my greatest experiences have been in holy the Holy Land and defending Israel. But as you know, this is a very hot topic on campus and increasingly a hot topic in conservative circles. And I thought, hey, let's lean in to that disagreement. Let's lean into that debate. Let's have two people that don't agree on this topic that are some of the best defenders of the position when it comes to Israel, when it comes to the 12-day war, when it comes to um whether or not we should be supporting or sending aid to Israel. Because we as conservatives, we want to have this debate. We don't want to just all of a sudden say, "Oh, you're not allowed to say that." No, we want to foster an environment where we get to the truth. We want to find the best ideas and have the best ideas win. And so we are thrilled to have uh two men and they know what they're talking about. I'm going to be moderating this. We're going to make sure that this remains mostly peaceful. So give it up for Josh Hammer and Dave Smith, everybody.

So, uh, Josh and Dave, welcome to Turning Point USA. Welcome to Tampa. And give it up for both these men. Again, it's so we have a clock here. We can blow through that if this is going well and respectful and spirited. I first wanted to start by introducing both these men. Um Josh Hammer, uh Newsweek Josh Hammer Show. Uh Josh is a very passionate and eloquent defender of Israel and also is a great friend and someone that we talk about a lot of other issues as well. So Josh, welcome. Great to have you. Great to be here. Also Dave Smith. Um Dave is comedian, a lot of fans of yours here in the audience, Dave. And also a libertarian. And we're not going to talk much about that, but we were talking about how much we agreed backstage on certain things. And uh Dave means a lot that you made uh work here. You took a awful flight to get here from halfway across the country. And so Dave, you could plug your stuff as well. Um because I don't know the name of your show and stuff, but I want to start with this. I want to start with opening statements if you will. There are three big things that I want to cover. And we just did a focus group with some of our students here um earlier. The three big things we want to cover. We want to cover the 12-day war between Israel and Iran. What do we think of that? Good, bad, how did Trump handle it? Number two, we want to talk about the appeared uh the fake or the real amount of Israeli influence in American politics. Um from Apac to how congressmen are involved and kind of have our discussion debate. And then finally, it's one thing to be against stuff everybody. You can always, you know, I don't like this, I don't like that. I want both of these men to present what they their solution is, their proposition of how what they are proposing. So with that though, Dave, I thought it would be helpful. This is your first Turning Point event. Some people aren't familiar with your work. Introduce yourself, make an introductory statement, and the floor is yours, my friend.

Oh, well, thank you very much, and thank you guys for for having me. Uh, yeah, as uh as as Charlie mentioned, I took a flight here. Oh, so I'm going on no sleep, so if if Josh wins, it doesn't count. Um, but I I'm I'm a stand-up comedian, and I'm also a libertarian. I'm I'm really a follower of uh the greatest congressman who's ever lived, who is Dr. Ron Paul, who is uh turning 90 years old. Uh happy birthday to him. Um and it as far as look, I would say I think that American foreign policy for my entire life has been insane and like criminally insane. We've launched war after war. We've talked about peace through strength the whole time, but all we've gotten is permanent militarism. and forever wars against countries that pose no threat to us. And a huge part of the reason why we've embarked on this is because the neoconservatives hijacked our foreign policy and they were in power after 9/11. And the neoconservatives, as everybody who's followed it knows, were joined at the hip with the LUD party. That's just a fact. They all admitted in their own words. And you can go back and you can read the clean break memo. You can read the uh companion piece, coping with crumbling states. This was written by David Wormser uh and Richard Pearl and they laid out their plan. Now their plan was that in to help Israel the clean break is a break from the peace process, a break from Oslo which was designed to give the Palestinians their own state. And these neoconservative geniuses decided that instead of the Israelis making peace with the Palestinians, they could just have the US overthrow all of the surrounding governments that were giving Israel a hard time. And this is where fourstar general Wesley Clark says that he saw the plans right after 9/11 to overthrow seven countries in the next 5 years. And what was the last country on that list? It was Iran. Okay, this is a big part of what the whole conflict is about. Now the neoconservatives, neoonservative has kind of become like a peorative for war hawks these days. And don't get me wrong, I support that. Keep calling them neocons. But the actual neoonservatives, the self-identified neoonservatives aren't really in power anymore. But Benjamin Netanyahu is still in power in Israel. And the Lakood party is still pushing for this. I want very quickly, I'll try to not go too long here about Okay, they actually did focus group testing back in the '9s before the first uh Gulf War in Iraq. And you know, Americans weren't really moved by we have to reinstall the king of Kuwait, but they were moved by the nuclear threat. Now, if you go read Coping with Crumbling States or the clean break memo in the '9s when the neocons admitted they wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein, they never said it was cuz he had nuclear weapons. They said he was a problem for Israel in the region. They only made up that lie after 9/11 cuz they knew that's what would sell you. Maybe not you, you're too young, but sell your moms and dads on going and fighting this war. And by the way, when they talked about wanting to overthrow Iran, it was the same thing. Never had nothing to do with a nuclear threat. That's just the thing they use now as the excuse. So yes, there is tremendous influence by Israel in our government. That doesn't mean I'm subscribing to some crazy conspiracy or telling you to hate Jewish people. I'm Jewish. I'm just saying they have influence. They've used it in a very negative way and we should reject this insane foreign policy and embrace the foreign policy that Dr. Ron Paul advocated which is the foreign policy of the founding fathers. Stay out of entangling alliances. Stay out of unnecessary wars. Be friends with the world and trade with the world. That's the key to prosperity. Thank you Dave. Josh opening statement. Feel free to respond and then we'll we'll proceed as we go. So about that was about three and a half four minutes. So same amount of time.

All right. So, it's really great to be here. Thank you, Charlie, for having me. Thank you, Turnpoint, for having me back. It's really wonderful to be at this amazing conference. You know, Dave joked that he that he didn't get any sleep last night. Today's actually also a fast day on the Jewish calendar. I'm not eating or even drinking water. So, we're all we're all on the same page here. We're all just totally screwed. So, you can kind of get get off the same start starting place there. Um, look, there's a lot of substance to respond to. I'll just really briefly do that and then talk about what I actually want to talk about in my opening remarks. Um, Dave mentioned this alleged coordination between the neoconservatives, which I presume he means Bush era foreign policy and the LUD party. I presume half of you probably don't even know what the LUD party is. It's referring to the Israeli right. It's it's very instructive and Dave always conveniently neglects to inform the audience of this that the actual leader of the Israeli right back in 2002, a man by the name of Ariel Chiron vehemently opposed the Bush administration going into Iraq. So this whole notion that that Israel is talking America into foreign wars is total nonsense. Actually in 20 in 2011 when the when the Obama administration toppled Mar Gaddafi in Libya, it's actually well known that Libya actually sent secret diplomatic envoys to Israel trying to tell them to then talk to the United States and France to talk NATO off of that attack there. So this whole narrative is totally backwards there. But I want to kind of dumb things down a little bit here. I see a lot of people wearing 47 hats. I vote for President Trump multiple times. I love our president. You guys love our president, right? You you love President Trump. Okay, this is this this is this is turning point freaking USA. Charlie, God bless you. You have built the largest MAGA grassroots army in the country. Seriously, my friend, you you deserve this. You all are carry members of it. We hear a part of that. The good news is that while no one should be afraid of debate and this debate is a nice thing here, the MAGA movement is actually quite unified. Believe it or not, all the talk to the contrary when it comes to these issues. An overwhelming majority of self-identified MAGA Republicans support close US relations. According to a CBS news poll, moreover, after the recent Operation Midnight Hammer B2 bombers in Iran, 94% 94% of selfidentified MAGA Republicans supported President Trump's dropping those B2 bombs on Ford Donatans and the other Iranian facilities there. This is a wildly wildly popular policy there. What did what did Dave Smith say about this? He re-uped his now yearslong crusade to call for Donald Trump's impeachment. Y'all probably don't know that about Dave Smith do. He's now called for Dave Smith for Donald Trump to be impeached multiple times. But Dave, you know, look, I mean, I don't like when people misquote me either. You probably don't like when people misquote you. So, I actually have a little bit of a highlight reel here of Dave Smith's tweets over the years. Dave Smith, March 19th, 2024. Donald Trump is responsible for around 500,000 deaths in Yemen. And between the weapons to Ukraine and the Abraham Accords Jerusalem embassy, he is at least partially responsible for the two worst humanitarian crises in the world. He's a war criminal who should spend his life in prison. He is calling Donald Trump a war criminal who should spend his life in prison. You should be living at that. I am living that as a Trump supporter. Donald Trump, Dave Smith, June 16, 2025. Trump allegedly had full prior knowledge of Israel's attacks and gave it his blessing while pretending to be negotiating with the Iranians as a cover. If this is true, Trump is the most impotent of a leader imaginable. He's calling our president the greatest president in my lifetime. An impotent Are you kidding me? June 21st, 2025. Donald Trump is now someone who an illegal war of aggression against Iran. The risk of an absolute catastrophe is very high and the benefits are non-existent. Dave Smith, June 21st, dead wrong. This notion that World War II would start, not a single American casualty. We should be celebrating that. Donald Trump fulfilled multiple He fulfilled multiple campaign promises. The escalator speech in 2015 at Trump Tower, he literally said, "I'm not going to let Iran get a nuclear weapon." And guess what? I also he said, "I oppose a neoonservative foreign policy." He did both of those things with Iran. He deprived the Iranian regime of nuclear weapon while not losing a single American sailor, soldier, marine while depriving them of nuclear weapons. And finally, trial end on this. Dave Smith, July 8th, 2025. In the last month, Donald Trump has launched a war of aggression on behalf of a foreign government, exploded the debt, announced that he's continuing the Biden policy of army Ukraine, and covered up a giant child rape operation. So according to my interlocutor, Donald Trump is not just engaging in wars on behalf of foreign government. He is also covering up the world's giants pedophilic child sex trafficking ring. Allegedly, I presume on behalf of foreign government as well. So I'm disgusted, frankly, that this man is on stage, but I'll end it at that.

Okay. Well, got it. So you can see peace is hard. I'm trying to keep the peace. Now Dave, I want to give you an opportunity about four minutes to respond to that, but also I do want to now that we had the opening salvos and the tomahawk missiles launched. Let's let's respond as you see fit. No. And then bring us to the 12-day war. Is that Let's stay focused on that. Yeah, we can. Well Well, the thing, Charlie, but defend yourself, right? Sure. Well, the thing is, Charlie, as you may have noticed, and may some of you may have seen some of my other debates, every single time I come up here to debate issues, and they come up here to debate me and my character. It's all they have every single time cuz they can't cuz they can't actually take on any of the arguments. And so the most pathetic lowhanging fruit of you guys like Trump, this guy said bad things about Trump. Listen guys, I'm a I'm a free American. I supported Donald Trump in this last election. Yes, he did just actively cover up a giant child rapist ring. And I'm going to criticize him for that. Okay? And I'm sorry after all these years of us right-wingers saying protect the children. Come on, that's bad for your soul if you don't you speak up about that. It's horrible what he's doing. And you know, as far as the actual substance of what Josh said here, which there really wasn't much, but I already pointed this out the last time we debated his topic about how Chiron was against the war in Iraq is total nonsense. Chiron's envoy initially opposed it when he found out that Bush was going to invade Iraq, not because he didn't want uh Saddam Hussein to be overthrown, but because he wanted regime change in Iran first. And then when the George W. Bush administration assured him that Iran would come next, they got on board with it and they started pumping out all types of propaganda about how Saddam Hussein's nuclear secret sites that didn't exist. and Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history that year in 2002, came to Congress and testified under, you know, a congressional testimony that anybody can go watch and advocated not that the US let Israel do it, but that the US overthrow Saddam Hussein. I believe his words were, I guarantee that peace will spread through the region. And he also advocated that we overthrow Mar Gaddafi and the Mullis in Iran. So that's just you're just wrong about it. That's not true. And yes, it uh have I been critical of Donald Trump when I think he gets things wrong? Yeah. I mean I think that's what we should do. This is America. You criticize the government when they get things wrong. And so I call him a war criminal. Josh, one sec, Josh. I got to keep the piece here. Dave, about a minuteish minute and a half. No, I'm taking my time. I'm just Look, as far as far as about a minute and a half and try to do the 12- day war thing. Yeah, sure. As far as the 12-day war goes, I mean, look, I I'll be honest. It Donald Trump, it might be the greatest thing he's ever done in his life that at the end of the 12-day war, he he after the Iranian response was as weak as it was, and they gave us advanced warning, so there were no American casualties, he started pushing for a ceasefire, and and that was great that he did that. But the point is that the war never needed to be launched to begin with. Iran did not have nuclear weapons. Iran, according to all of the according to all of the intelligence, including our director of national intelligence, until a day after Israel bombed them and she changed her mind. Go read the annual threat assessment from earlier this year. Iran had not made the political decision to acquire a nuclear weapon and they were in negotiations with Donald Trump at the time to bring their enrichment down. There was just no need other than the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu wants that regime overthrown.

Josh, feel free to respond. Thank you. Yeah, I I'd be curious if Dave Smith also believes in the tooth fairy and pink unicorns. Um I I mean, what lie does Dave Smith not believe, frankly? Um look, the the the the recent 12-day war is literally the encapsulation of the Trump doctrine of foreign policy. Donald Trump ran against neoonservatism. He is not a neoconservative. That's good because neoonservatism is actually really, really bad. I actually have a whole chapter in my book, Israel and Civilization, talking about how bad neoconservatism is. It's chapter 7. If you haven't read, you should go ahead and pick up a copy. So, it's really good that Donald Trump opposes moralistic nation building boondoggles. Guess what? Donald Trump is also not and never has been since day one. He's never been a hardcore isolationist. He he is a foreign policy nationalist and realist. We would say that he is a jonian. He is in the mold of Andrew Jackson, one of his favorite presidents of all time, because he believes in generally following the very wise advice of George Washington in his in his farewell address that you should beware of foreign entanglements. But when you are attacked, you are going to punch back three times as hard. How many times has Trump said that in in a debate there? When he's punched, he's going to punch back really, really, really hard. What happened in the 12-day war was you had a close ally Israel that through their wonderful control of the skies and they're taking out the missile launchers and and the IRGC command there essentially paved a very clean runway through that and their neutralizing Hezbollah last year in 2024 that then allowed the United States to come in with the B2 bombers and the death blow. It was a perfect alley for you basketball fans. It was kind of like Kobe Bryant tossing it to Shaquille O'Neal back in the way. was a perfect tag team operation to neutralize and set back by many years the threat of a regime that whether or not we care to admit it has actually been at war with the United States at least since the 1983 Beirut Lebanon Hezbollah barracks bombings that slaughtered 241 Marines arguably since the 1979 hostage crisis as well. Again, Donald Trump fulfilled multiple campaign promises. He set back the nuclear program. Not a single American soldier, sailor or marine died. It was a brilliant, brilliant move of statesmanship. A fantastical move. Frankly, it's a borderline Mount Rushmore worthy accomplishment, I would say.

Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to insert myself cuz I don't want us to talk past each other because these conversations have a tendency to do that. So, I'm going to ask both of you a critical question that both of you guys already launched. Josh, to you first. Dave's contention, and Dave, you can correct me if I'm wrong, is that the nuclear program was not a threat. Correct. That it was a intel push. Would you even say that? What? Make I'm strongmanning your argument, steel manning it, Josh. What do you have to say to that? To the veracity of the claim that there was an imminent threat of Iran getting a nuclear bomb. That that is a a core point of Dave's argument. Then Dave, I'm going to throw back uh an equally difficult question for you, Jo. Josh.

Okay. So, I profess agnosticism as to the imminent nature, Charlie, because I have not seen the reports. Neither have you. Neither has Dave. Literally, no one in this room has actually seen the reports. So, I do not know literally what the exactly imminent nature of the threat was. It would be impossible for me to say I'm not going to you and pretend like I know because I simply don't know. What I can say is the following. Iran has transparently and obviously been trying to acquire a nuclear weapon for two and a half three decades. We know this for approximately 1 to2 million different reasons. Among them that we can point to is that the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Administration, which is essentially the nuclear watchdog for the United Nations, they have been sounding the alarm about this and and they have said very loudly and clearly that Iran has blocked their inspectors from going to inspect their enriched uranium and that they have concluded over over recent years especially, including recent months, that Iran is enriching uranium at a much quicker rate and to a much higher percentage and and rate of enrichment than any civilian program would ever justify. By the way, the notion that Iran even needs a civilian program in the first place, I think is kind of bonkers. Is one of the most petroleum, oil, and gas-rich countries in the world. So, that's kind of a bit of a red herring in and of itself. But we know from a million different international organizations that they have been doing this. And Charlie, more to the point again, you know, Dave likes to say, "Oh, they just chant death to America." Which they do. They literally chant it every single day in their pmpkin parliament. But they actually do act on it. They killed hundreds and hundreds of American soldiers on the roadside of Fallujah Albar province during Iraq with Kasim Sulamani supplied IEDs. They have killed Americans going back to the 241 Marines in Beirut, Lebanon. By the way, the Hezbollah jihadist who organized that operation to slaughter those Marines in Beirut, Lebanon in in 1983 was a man by the name of Fouad Shakur. The US State Department had a $5 million bounty on his head following the 1983 slaughter of the Marines there in Beirut. He went alive for 41 years. You know who killed him last year? The IDF. Israel took out this guy that the State Department had a $5 million bounty on for 41 years for killing 241 of our boys back in 1983 in Beirut. So I I'm going to now ask I'm going to a really tough followup for you. You do not want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. Bad. Would you if it ever took if the if it if it required US troops on the ground, would that be worth Iran not getting a nuclear weapon?

I I Charlie, with with respect, I reject the premise. I I simply do not think it does actually. I know it's a hypothetical, but it's worth thinking about. Okay, Dave, I got to ask you tough questions now. Okay, I got I want to respond to some of this stuff cuz all of that's wrong. You will hold on. I I I I don't want us to talk past each other or else we're going to spend all this time on prime ministers in 2002 that the audience doesn't know about. No, but if he's if he's making claims about like something that's just not true, I want you to get I want to just ask a very simple question from your perspective because I just asked the tough one to Josh. Is are you okay or do you think we should do anything to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb? Uh I I anything. Sure. Yeah, there's lots of things I think we should do. In fact, is military action ever justified? mil. Well, again, this is a yes, there are times when military action is justified, but if you're saying what we could do to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, what we were doing, Donald Trump was in negotiations with them, and I think he should have continued those. And the truth is that the the big problem with the JCPOA uh that that Obama got us into was that there were sunset provisions. Um there they opened up a whole new inspections regime. It is not true that the IAEA is saying that Iran was about to get a nuclear weapon. Anybody you want, it's all it's published online. You can go read the conclusion of their last report where they explicitly said Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is not trying to develop them. They are enriching at 60%. And they were in negotiations to maybe bring that down. But you know when you bring up when you bring up the fact of the Marines getting killed in 1983, it's actually an interesting if uh Ronald Reagan who was president at the time he wrote about this in his memoir. Now if you don't if you know what Ronald Reagan did was he pulled out after that. He turned tail and run. And he said in his memoir, he said, "I I underestimated the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics and we never should have gotten involved in that." Now, if you want to say that Iran backed them, okay, couple years after that, Charlie, there was a scandal in the Reagan administration. It was the something Contra Iran contra. That's right. Ronald Reagan was selling weapons to the Iranians a couple years after this happened. So to come back now 40 plus years later and use that as the excuse why we got to go to war with Iran. I mean just think about how crazy this is. And the stuff you said about the roadside bombs in Iraq is just not true. It's been debunked. It's more war propaganda that's been debunked. I highly recommend anyone can read the book enough already. Spoken to a Josh. I highly recommend people read the book Enough Already. It is the best book that's been written about the terror wars by Scott Horton. He has all the footnotes in there. You can go through it yourself. It's completely debunked. Those roadside bombs were built by Shiites in Iraq. Now, I'm not Now, some of them did have relationships with Iran, but the majority of Iraq is Shiite. So, yes, we invaded the next door country and we got into some fights with the Shiite groups there, but does say that's a reason why we now have to invade Iran or we have to bomb them or something. It just doesn't make any sense. I just So, one or two really quick Chris follows and then and then we'll do this. Both both sides need to get under good cross-examination. Do you think it would be bad if Iran got a nuclear bomb? Yes, I think it's bad. I think it's bad. I think we can all agree on that. That is a moral. I don't think anybody should be allowed to have nuclear weapons secretly, right? And so, how about that? I will ask Josh about that because that's a not so subtle dig at Israel. However, hold on. Are you suggesting that Israel has nuclear weapons? I don't know. Actually, they probably do. Yeah, you do. I don't know the intelligence. I'm not that of DNI, but I mean, they probably do. But let me ask you, Dave, now another question. What what is your now let's just say criticism? No US troops were killed. It required no US troops on the ground. There was no war. It lasted 12 days. Fordo was pretty eliminated. I even the Iranians say it. So looking at it now 12 days later, what is your problem with what seems to be a master class in 12 days in, out, no problem, no US troops, and we've kind of moved on. What What would your problem with that be?

You know, I think and I do think there's something really sick and poisoning about this is that our country has become so addicted to war that if we launch a war and you go, well, hey, it wasn't a complete catastrophe. I mean, a million people didn't die in this one like in in Iraq or hundreds of thousands didn't die in this one like in Afghanistan or Libya or Syria. It's like, okay, look, people died in this war. Okay, there were both Iranian civilians and Israeli civilians who died in this war. It was a terrible thing for them and their families. This was a catastrophe. And my point is that the war never needed to be launched to begin with. But there's no reason why we even have to be enemies with Iran. They oppose. No, this is a third world country in the Middle East that does not have nuclear weapons, does not have intercontinental ballistic missiles, does not have an air force capable of hitting us with anything. This is Israel's problem. We don't need to be involved in that. Sorry, we got our own issues here. And and look, again, I'll give Donald Trump credit that, okay, it didn't turn into a catastrophe. He took the off-ramp when he had the the chance. But look, a lot of that was out of Donald Trump's control. The risk of this war, like a lot of people love to like Josh likes to read my tweets when I was saying this could turn into a catastrophe because you were dead wrong. You look stupid. Josh. Josh. Guys, don't say no. No, let's deescalate the No, actually what Josh is saying is the lowest IQ argument that anyone can make. I'm warning I was warning that there's a risk of a catastrophe and he's saying you're stupid because there wasn't a catastrophe. This is on the level of playing Russian roulette and if the bullet doesn't go off, you go see dummy, you were warning that could go bad. That doesn't prove anything. Listen, for all you guys, you talking about how big and bad the Iranians are and what a scary threat they are. What if they hadn't given us advanced notice? What if what if Iran was actually as suicidal as people like Josh pretend they are? And what if their response had killed a few hundred Americans in the region, which by all military assessments they are capable of doing? What would Donald Trump have had to do then, Charlie? Was he what would I'm ask I'm not I'm the moderator. I'm No, no, no. Okay, sorry. Like, come on, Dave. It was a rhetorical question. I know, but I both sides are getting tough questions. The point is, Donald Trump would have had to respond even harder. How many would have to happen? Let's Let's give Josh a chance to respond. But first, it didn't happen. It's a counterfactual. You hadn't have had this. When when people talk over each other, they don't like listening to that. So, that's why I'm here. Josh, I want you to respond to that. But to Dave's point, do you think Israel has a secret nuclear program? And is that a problem?

Yeah, I think it's not particularly disputed that Israel has a nuclear program. We we know exactly where it is based. This is this is not a particularly hidden thing there. I mean, it's so well known, in fact, Charlie, that I don't know exactly why it's officially a secret. Unofficially, it's not much of a secret. I'm non-Israeli. I have no idea why the exact policy is the way it is. I don't particularly have a program with it. As I said, it's one of the world's worstkept secrets. It kind of just ju just is what it is. But more generally speaking, I I I don't understand why why we're going so far down this rabbit hole of would have, could have, should have. The people, look, let's say something very simple here. the people who said that Donald Trump's involvement in the 37-hour operation of the B2 bombers flying from Missouri to Iran and back with not a single shot fired at our boys. By the way, as I said, that was partially due to the fact that the IDF had so neutralized the Iranian air force and and their defenses there. So, the fact that he was able to accomplish that so amazingly there, we should have seen that coming because it was actually pretty easily foreseeable. And the people who did not see that coming are the people who have lost credibility to comment frankly on these affairs. People who warned about thousands and thousands and thousands of dead American lives who said that China and Russia would swoop in and that this would be World War II. Well, you know what? God bless you all because you apparently survived World War II. It was the shortest World War II of all of our lifetimes. And I didn't say any of that. Dave, I restrain Josh. Josh, keep going. Again, this is the Donald Trump foreign policy doctrine in action. It is quick surgical strikes. Roger Stone was talking about earlier. It's exactly right. He is not a neocon. Neoconservatism bad. Isolationism also naive and stupid. Donald Trump agrees with both those things. The nationalist realist MAGA America first approach to foreign policy is to have strong nationalist allies that are generally capable of securing and patrolling their own regions in a way that reounds not merely to the allies national interest but also to the American national interest. That is exactly what Israel has been doing for 40, 50 years as they have taken out Islamists and Sharia supremacist thugs in Gaza, in Yemen, Hezbollah. I mentioned Fouad Shakur, the Hezbollah jihadi who killed 241 marines in in Beirut, Lebanon 1983. There's a million examples there. That is the definition of an America first ally. And what has happened in the 12-day war is an encapsulation of the America first Trump doctrine that in this case this tag team between the US and Israel against the mutual threat of Iran in action.

Okay. So, I want to now move because it's important, but it's connected. So, I think we have on full display a difference of opinion on the 12-day war. Now, let's go to the next one. It's inferred in both of these points, but you only get to answer as yes or no one at a time. Is Israel an ally of the United States? Yes, of course. No. Okay. So, now we have disagreement. We're going to now figure that out and then I want to then indicated in that is is Israel influencing American politics? So, I'm going to start with Josh and then we'll go back to Dave. You say Israel is an ally. spend a minute on that and then address how some people have concerns that Israel is is influenced in the US government and then I'll allow Dave to have some time.

All right. There there's multiple reasons why why Israel is an ally. F first and foremost, you know, I think most people in this room are are believers of of some stripe, right? I am Jewish. Most of you most of you are are probably Christians and God bless you for that. If you have any attachment whatsoever to the holy sites, if you have any attachment whatsoever to this narrow strip of land between the river and the sea, as the Hamas propagandists call it, then you're going to have some reason to care about this particular sliver of land. That that that's point number one. Let's just kind of get it out there. Especially if you understand that we in Western civilization are fundamentally at war with barbarism. Barbarism being best represented by the Islamists and Sharia supremacists. when you when you understand that Western civilization really just is the Bible. There is a special calling to have an ally with a certain part of of the Middle East. That's point one. Point two is just the Islamist deterrent point, Charlie, which is that America has faced jihadism time and time again going back for 40, 50 years. 9/11 obviously the most tragic example. We just saw it again on the streets of Bourbon Street in New Orleans on January 1st just a few months ago there. If you care about deterring Islamism from conquering Western civilization, a point that you have very astutely been talking about a lot recently on your TV hits on social media, a very very important point. If you care about defending Western civilization from the barbarians, you absolutely have to place a special premium on this particular relationship. And then third is that if you actually care as I do, you know, you know, paradoxically, I actually care a lot about China. In fact, I think that America's by far number one biggest threat this century is China. If you care about effectuating this broader pivot to the Indoacific as American foreign policy people have been talking about for 20, 30 years now, you have to have some way of stabilizing the Middle East. The way to do that is not to just adopt the stupid and asinine Barack Obama foreign policy of appeasing America's enemies. And the way to do that is to embolden your allies. Again, that is the Trump doctrine. So, we didn't get to the second part of the question. So, do you want to just start on the ally and then we'll do you can incorporate both. He had two answers in a row, so take 3 to four minutes.

Well, look, this this idea that the great battle of our time is us versus the Islamists. Us versus these barbarians, you know, that's really the problem here in the United States of America. Lebanon, that's what you got to worry about. Listen, I think everyone here, all you guys should know this at this point, our problem in America is the deep state of the United States of America. Okay? They're the ones They're the ones who framed Donald Trump for treason. His own intelligence agencies framed the sitting US president. And you know what that deep state wants, by the way? Permanent war. That's what they always want. That's how they and their friends make their money. And so all of this talk is just so ridiculous, man. I mean, this talk about how like if you care about the holy sites in Israel, like, okay, sure, obviously Christians and Jews and and Muslims have a connection to that land, but that doesn't mean we have to bomb Iran for Israel. That doesn't Well, we just bombed Iran. That was the first topic. Okay. Okay. Anyway, um it doesn't mean that we have to support Israel slaughtering people in Gaza. None of that has anything to do with the holy sites. And in fact, a lot of sites get destroyed uh when there's bombs flying. But listen, the real the real problem for America, if you want to even talk about like the Islam Islam taking over America or taking over Europe, well, how did that happen? That happened because we completely destabilized the region, fighting war after war after war that did nothing but slaughter hundreds of thousands of people. And then our western governments had the most insane open immigration policy that was basically suicidal. We're doing this to ourselves. We're $37 trillion in debt and we're looking for another enemy to go fight. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we've spent 20 trillion on empire and wars and m and you know what? We can't tax enough money to to pay for it. We can't borrow enough money to pay for it. So, what do we do? We print the money. And now you guys are coming out into the world and you're wondering why you're six figures in debt from college and the you're getting a job at Door Dash and the average house goes for 800 grand. Cuz we've destroyed the currency chasing these monsters that were never any threat to our country. So, listen, one one quick point. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis couldn't bring down America. Joseph Stalin and the commies couldn't bring down America. The British Empire couldn't bring down America. But you think the Hezbollah in Lebanon are a threat to us? They're a problem for Israel to deal with. We are to the families of the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983. Seriously, say that to them. Have you spoken to the families of the people who have been killed in 1983 in Beirut, Lebanon? The people who have been killed by those IEDs in Iraq that you're just casually dismissing. Have you actually spoken to any of these families? First of all, yes, I have. The 911 families, any of them? Yes, I have. Uh, with Are you aware of involved in 911? Yeah. Okay. So, you're just asking me questions over my attempt to answer them. Stupid. This is why I'm here. So, why don't we both just take a deep breath cuz they want to see a debate where they can make their mind up. They don't want to see interruptive stuff. Okay? It's why this is going to be a different type of discussion. So, let me both steal man your both arguments. You have to answer to me. Okay. So, Josh, well, actually to Dave first and then to Josh. Josh is saying, "What about all of the Islamist um death that they're responsible for?" Beayroot bombings. You mentioned the Shiite. That's basically the essence of your argument, right Josh? By saying, "Did you talk to he's saying why are you minimizing this?" That would be Josh's contention. Is that fair, Josh? And 911, there's there's so many examples, right? Dave, respond to that and then I will throw it back to Josh.

Well, I I certainly don't think I in any way minimized any of those deaths. I I made the point that Iran that Ronald Reagan still sold weapons to Iran a couple years after that. And I made the point that those roadside weapons were built in Iraq by Shiites there. That's not minimizing it. This is a huge part of the reason why we never should have invaded Iraq to begin with, cuz we get our bravest young boys killed. it's t you know tens of thousands of them have have committed suicide in the last few years and that doesn't seem to stop anyone from wanting to pursue the next attack. The point is right that I think if we want to really understand this stuff it's it's wise to look at what some of the motivating factors for these for the hatred against us is all you got to do is listen yes I have talked actually to families of people who have died uh in Iraq you know what overwhelmingly they're non-interventionist anti-war people now in fact did you know that in 2008 and in 2012 Dr. Ron Paul got more money from active duty military than all the other candidates combined, including Barack Obama, because the the active duty military are actually the ones who are the most hardcore. Now, so don't don't invoke them to try to sell another. But but Dave, I'm going to follow up with a tough I want I want you to make the case because I don't I I don't want to have you be able to to get past this. You say Israel is not an ally. that that that is not an opinion that people hear a lot. Why is that?

Look, all I'm saying is Israel has at every turn and and look again when I say Israel, I'm talking about the government of Israel. I'm not talking about the people there. And I'm specifically talking about Benjamin Netanyahu and the Lood Party who have been in control for most of this time uh for most of my lifetime. Yeah. And right most of the 21st century. And so when I say they have been constantly pushing America toward more aggressive policies, toward getting in more fights. And just like I always say, if you went out to the bar every single night with your friend and every night your friend's trying to convince you to get into a fight and while you're beating a lot of people up, you're also taking a lot of wounds and you're going to jail and you're getting

In trouble. You got to stop hanging out with that friend. And so I think that I, my position, I don't, I don't, I don't believe in wars of aggression and wars of choice. I don't believe in sanctions. I don't believe that we should be friends with Israel. We should trade with Israel and have a good relationship with them. But you know what? I also don't believe in welfare, and they shouldn't get another dime of US taxpayer money, and they should not. So I hold on their lobby, their lobby should register as a foreign. That's a good segue. Finish. And they should stop blackmailing our politics. Got it.

So, back to Josh. Back to Josh. Dave had some uninterrupted time there. Let's now address that because, you know, again, there's a text chain. I have all the text to prove it. Everyone knew where this debate was going, right, Dave? There's been no surprises. Josh, you knew that there are some concerns, and Dave mentioned it, such as you, I think you're saying APAC. Is that correct?

Well, the broader Israel lobby, that's certainly part of it. Can you address this, Josh? Because this is a question people are confused about. Take, take two to three minutes on this, and then build out the ally Israel at the end of it. But Josh, Dave is making a point I'd like you to respond to.

Okay. So, first of all, I'm not a fan of APAC. Um, I, I, I have, I donated once to APAC, $54, like a decade ago, and I basically got swindled into doing it. So, I, I'm, I'm not a fan of APAC. Uh, but APAC is not this nefarious boogeyman that Dave Smith makes it out to be. It stands for America Israel Political Action Committee. It is a group of Americans who place a premium on the US-Israel relationship. The same way that the NRA is a group of Americans who place a premium on the Second Amendment. I do too. I'm a concealed carry kind of guy myself. Same way that there are any number of other lobby groups that support any number of other things. By the way, there's also similar groups, similar to APAC, for American citizens who support US relations with other foreign countries. Funny how these other groups never get brought up in this debate. For instance, anyone who's been to Glendale, California, probably heard folks in ANCA, that's the Armenian National Committee of America. Very loud, active group in Washington D.C. Perhaps more nefariously, there is the NIAC, the National Iranian-American Council. It's funny how in these debates, when you talk about various American citizens who get involved to lobby or to express their political opinion as the First Amendment gives you the right to do, because they think that the US national interest is served by allying with a certain country. It's funny, and perhaps a little worse than funny, how the whole "register as a foreign agent" talking point comes up only in one context and one context only, which is APAC.

Look, the notion, Charlie, that APAC, which again, I'm not a fan of. I, I have, I, I have, I have literally, I'm not a fan of. I, I'm not a fan of APAC.

Why are you not a fan of it?

Yeah, I'm not a fan of APAC for the reason that I'm just about to give, actually, which is that APAC exists, their raison d'être, their entire purpose for existing is to secure large-scale annual appropriations, currently about $3.8 billion annually in US aid to Israel. I'm not a big, I'm not a particularly big fan of foreign aid in general, and I've been arguing for literally a decade that the US should wind down foreign aid to Israel in particular. I think it actually is a bad idea for both countries.

Do we have agreement on that?

Yeah. If you want to wind it down to zero tomorrow, we have agreement on that. I'd support.

So, we have agreement on an endpoint. Yes. Sure. Okay. Keep going, Josh.

Yeah. So, you obviously can't do it tomorrow because that would be to betray an ally in the middle of a hot war. That would send a terrible signal to other allies, Saudis, Emiratis, you name it. So, you can't do it tomorrow. But, I do agree that you should have a game plan, five, 10, 20 years, whatever it is, I don't really care, honestly. Get a game plan in place to phase out this aid. It's not good for for the United States. It's crony capitalism, Eisenhower, defense industrial complex, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, all of that is totally true. And then from Israel's perspective, it's also bad for them too, because it makes them overly reliant. It actually ends up undermining the entire notion of Zionism. The notion that the Jews should control their own right to their own existence in their own homeland undermines Zionism in the long run. So, it's actually bad for for both countries.

But Charlie, this notion that APAC is this big powerful lobby can be dispelled with literally one anecdote. And I, I only need one anecdote to dispel this, this oft-repeated notion, which is the entire 2014 to 2015 Barack Obama Iran nuclear debate. The fact that the JCPOA, Barack Obama's Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, passed is literally the singular data point that disproves the entire alleged existence of the nefarious Israel lobby that controls all, all politicians there. They failed epically to to get that passed.

But D, I, I do have a question, Charlie, for Dave there, which is I will translate it. Okay. Well, Charlie, I would be very, very curious, based on Dave's recent tweets about Donald Trump doing XYZ things, whether it's covering up for a pedophile ring or engaging in foreign wars, all on behalf. Does Dave actually think that Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the entire Trump administration are literally bought off by the Jews? Is that actually your, your honest answer?

Okay, so what Josh is asking. Well, first, um, yeah, well, first, well, it's always, uh, look, all of this. I mean, I do have a tough follow-up for you. No, but I'm sorry. But just like everything you just said, like all of it, I just find to be like the cheapest debate tactics. First off, I never said anyone's bought off by the Jews. We're both Jewish. And that's a dirty little trick you play when I'm talking about, I'm the only non-Jewish guy. Well, I'm talking about a foreign. Yeah, I'm, I'm talking about a foreign government. And then you kind of imply. And no, I, again, this is all just straw man. It's this whole thing of like, Dave, Dave saying APAC is this big bad monster that controls everything. Hold on. Therefore, if I have one data point of where a policy that APAC didn't want gets through, that disproves the whole narrative. And then this distraction with talking about the Armenian lobby or the this. It's like, yeah, well, if we were having a discussion about that, maybe that would come up, but we're talking about this. And to compare APAC to, uh, the NRA, um, who, by the way, are kind of sellouts and don't go nearly far enough. But, uh, like I'm a hardcore gun rights, uh, guy. We got more agreement. We love our guns, don't we, everybody? Yeah. No, you know the NRA guys who always go, "The key is to enforce existing gun laws." No, the key is to repeal every last one of the existing gun. There should be one law, one law, the Second Amendment. That's the law. Um, okay. But all that, no, it is totally different to have a group of Americans advocating on behalf of a constitutionally protected natural right for American citizens than to have a group of Americans advocating for a foreign government in conjunction with that foreign government. That's a different thing. And to even, let me finish, Josh. And to even compare them is ridiculous. And listen, by the way, I'll just say this. Every single person in this room, you have to hate APAC. You don't even have a choice. You're here at Turning Point USA. APAC contributes millions of dollars to woke progressive Democrats if they support Israel. In other words, it's okay to destroy our country as long as that helps Israel. So, I'm, I'm sorry. I don't know. Turning Point USA, real. This is my first time here. Quick question. Are we allowed to support groups that contribute millions of dollars to woke progressive Democrats? Cuz I thought the answer was no.

So, so Josh, and then Dave, I'm going to have a tough follow-up for you. So, take a drink of water. Josh, what would you say to that? Because look, I, I wouldn't. Some people would would ask the question, okay, does APAC have more power than like your traditional like Armenian lobby? And but more broadly, let's just take it more broadly. Like, is there any concern that, or how would you address the concern? Let me put it this way. How would you address the concern that some people have that a foreign government tends to have an outsized amount of platform in the US government?

Charlie, I, I think that there are tens, if not hundreds of millions of Americans who care a lot about US relations with the state of Israel for for understandable reasons. This literally goes back, by the way, those of you who are familiar with your American history, this literally goes back to the American founding. The, the American founders were extremely, extremely eloquent and outspoken about this. From George Washington to John Adams to Hamilton to Abraham Lincoln's famous February 1861 speech referring to Americans as an almost chosen people. They quoted the Hebrew Bible over and over and over again. They understood that the Christianity upon which America is predicated is not exclusively, but has a lot of Old Testament Hebrew Bible emphasis therein. And that has been part of our constitution, part of our legal code, part of our moral code since day one. So it is completely reasonable for people in the year 2025 to look at that, to look at all the other things we've talked about when it comes to deterring Islamism and Sharia supremacism, when it comes to trying to achieve this Abraham Accord-style nationalist realist foreign policy, when it comes to deterring the Iranian regime and their various proxies. It's very, very understandable for American citizens, again, Americans, to look at that and to conclude that we have important reasons for allying with Israel. They are not doing so on behalf of a foreign government. This framing is absurd. It's utterly absurd. They are doing so because they are patriotic Americans, and they feel it is, it is their subjective sense that as patriotic Americans, that this alliance is furthered. And and they are US passport holders. Some people think that they're strictly foreign nationals. Is that correct? Yes. And that's, that's just simply just not true. Now, again, I say that by way of someone who's been very critical of APAC, but it's just simply not true. We're using that as a filler term.

So now Dave, for you, two, two quick ones. Do you think that the Council for American Islamic Relations should register as a foreign agent?

Yeah, I don't think there should be any, like, any groups advocating on behalf of foreign governments.

You're being consistent. Great. That's right. Secondly, though, and and Josh did not say this, but he laced it in through one of the salvos that was he said, you know, Dave, you're accusing them of being bought by the Jews. Now, Dave, there is a rise of, I just think some disgusting stuff online. I'm not blaming you for this. I'm not one of those people, right? But what do you have to say that there's this like dark Jew hate out there, and you see it, and I see it. I hate it. It's, it's not good. And everyone in this audience, guys, don't get yourself involved in that. I'm telling you, it will rot your brain. It's bad for your soul. It's bad. It's evil. I think it's demonic. And so, Dave, though, what, how do you navigate being critical of a foreign government while also, like, some people say, "Well, your fans hate you." You're not responsible for your fans. That is dumb. That is terrible. I don't believe that. At the same time, though, Dave, you have a big responsibility on your shoulders, right? Because you're saying something that is heterodox, not in popular opinion, that some people are trying to use to push a much more sinister agenda.

Yeah. Well, I, I think there's a lot of truth to that. And I think that the, the fact is that the policies that America, the US government is pursuing are almost guaranteed to create this. And, and look, I think there's a lot of factors here. I don't have nearly enough time to kind of give all of my thoughts on this. But I think as you, as you young people know, right, even though kind of over the last year with Trump's victory, we, like wokeism has been receding, um, at least to some degree, it really can't be overstated how much every institution in American life bought into racialism over the last 15 years. And it's like these young kids came up in an environment where that was just considered normal. Like, you judge people by their race and make racialist arguments. And yes, now that has also been embraced by some people on the right. Um, I will say that I think what I think the best thing to always do in these situations is tell the truth, try to be a good person, try to be, uh, deliver your message in the most compelling way, and let the chips fall where they may. But I do think that the level of Israeli control over our politics is frankly pretty undeniable, as much as people try to look. Just think one example, right, of this. So, Donald Trump, you remember at the end of the 12-day war, when Donald Trump starts pushing for a ceasefire, and then what does Israel do? They come in and start bombing regime targets, not nuclear sites. They come in and start bombing. And then Donald Trump was furious with, with Netanyahu. Obviously, he had his most angry moment toward Netanyahu when he said they both don't know what the f they're doing. I kind of love that moment, for the record. I love that moment, too. But then the next day, he's right back to just advocating that they drop the charges against Netanyahu. He's still going to continue funding Netanyahu unconditionally. You know, anyone else, Donald Trump would have come up with a nickname for him already and just been smashing him all over the place. He was trying to lure America into a war that Donald Trump didn't want to get into. But then we still did because he literally chose to get involved. Like that was Donald Trump's decision. But it was also had a backup plan, right? It was also his decision to push for a ceasefire and to try to end the thing, and Israel agreed immediately. No, no, they bombed the crap out of him immediately. That's why Trump was so upset.

Simple question. I, I want to phase out US aid to Israel. Okay. I established that. Allegedly, Prime Minister Netanyahu is now getting on board with that as well. Certainly a lot of people in his coalition too. I'll believe that when I say that. Well, he's basically said that. So, you should believe it. But what a politician saying. Let Josh finish his question. You should let Josh finish his question. If the, if the Israeli government were to agree that that is the best policy, and if the United States were to do that, then what in God's name is your actual problem?

Well, I'm sorry. So, if America was not propping up Israel, and America was not, we wind down the foreign aid, then what is your issue? Uh, well, there's other military intervention, obviously. So, I'm not sure I follow. I'd be very happy to wind down the foreign aid. But other than that, what is my? Listen, I'm a non-interventionist, so I'm not saying America should get involved. But no, I mean, I do think objectively what Israel is doing to Gaza is horrible. I think they couldn't do it without us. If they were, I would still be against that.

We have to go fast because people have flights and stuff, but I want to get to this, right? And we still haven't gotten to the final conclusion. So, let's talk Gaza because first, I want to go, Josh, on October 7th, because I want you to remind people what happened on October 7th. And Dave, I'll be honest. I think your portion of the debate, your portion, your your community could do a better job of remembering the horror on October 7th. I'm just going to be honest. That's my. I'm not putting that on you. I'm saying just your community. I want. But I'm going to have that's just me. I want you just to think because I think we kind of forget because there was something unique and terrible. Josh, I want you to talk about that, and then I want you to make the best case you can because every human being's made in the image of God. I don't like seeing dead kids anywhere. I don't like seeing dead kids in Gaza. I don't like it. So, we, we, we're Christians here. So, Josh, I want you to kind of walk us through the series of events because it can't be lost on us. Talk about Gaza. Talk about the horror of October 7th. Then, Dave, I want you to talk about your criticism about Gaza. And then I'm going to ask you a follow-up, Dave, about something that happened from the Joe Rogan Show. Josh, you first.

I'm just curious. Has anyone just put your hand up and make some noise? Have you been any of you to the parts of Israel that were slaughtered by Hamas? Anyone? All right. A few people. Okay. Um, so I, I was also there a few months after it happened. If you haven't been there, it's very difficult to describe what, what you see. You, you see these kibbutzim, these small villages. By the way, these were typically left-wingers. These were peaceniks that were establishing their their villages on the border to try to engage in pen pal diplomacy, if you will, with the Arabs of Gaza. These are very kind of left-wing peacenik people. And you see just kitchenware throughout the streets, teddy bears everywhere, blood-stained walls, bullet holes as far as the eye can see. It, it's very difficult to describe. The only time that I had that similar feeling walking around places like Kafar Aza was when I was in Treblinka, the Nazi concentration camp itself. So look, in total, and there's a brand new report talking about the extent of the mass raping and sexual violence that Hamas committed on October 7th, combined, you're, you're looking at roughly 1,200 people slaughtered. By the way, not all Israeli nationals. Dozens of Americans were either murdered or taken hostage in Gaza as well. In total, something like 40 to 50 different nationalities were represented of those who, who were slaughtered on October 7th. In fact, just looking at it from a very strictly narrowly American perspective, October 7th amounted on its own terms to the largest American-only hostage crisis since Tehran in 1979 because of all the American citizens who were then taken hostage into Gaza. So, it was an unspeakable atrocity. We don't really have all the answers to the, to this day as to how it happened. Perhaps we never will. Uh, I, I certainly hope to get some clarity at, at some point there. But it was the single deadliest day for, for the Jewish people since World War II. And, and, and given Israel's small size, it's roughly the equivalent of 45 to 50 9/11s, if, if you can possibly contextualize that. So that, that was what precipitated this war, and it was a war that Israel, Charlie, did not want. As you know, Hamas took over in 2007. Israel repeatedly, time and time again, decided not to try to topple Hamas under the idea that you could potentially have an even worse alternative, better to deal with the devil that you know and so forth there. October 7th, I think extremely reasonably, given the sheer level of carnage and terror and just, just outright satanic demonic evil that happened, they quite reasonably concluded that that policy simply had to end. And what's happened in Gaza for the past year and a half, almost two years now, has been a protracted war in one of the most condensed urban environments in the world. It is very, very, very, very difficult warfighting conditions. I would like to remind you just of at least one or two very simple facts. One is that let's not forget that Hamas, who Israel is at war against in Gaza, is a US recognized foreign terrorist organization. They are indistinguishable in that respect from al-Qaeda or ISIS or any of these other foreign terrorist organizations. They are a rabid jihadist network that like all these other jihadis and Sharia supremacists also wants to kill not merely Jews, but Christians and all infidels. They say that very clearly in the 1987 founding charter. That is point number one. Point number two, Charlie, you mentioned that this is a very Christian audience. I, I am Jewish. We happen to share most of the Bible. And I am a firm believer in Genesis 1:27 that we are all made in God's image. That is one of my foundational beliefs in everything. I write about this. I write about this at great length in my book, Israel and Civilization. To me, that's the single foundational ethical imperative of all of Western civilization. It informs my pro-life views and so much else. So I, like you and like so many others, also weep whenever innocent people are dead. There are two points to make, and I'll make them very briefly because I know I'm sensitive to time. One is that we know because we actually have people like John Spencer, the head of urban warfare studies at West Point, who have actually been able to crunch numbers. We know that when you actually look at the civilian to combatant death ratios in Gaza, it is the most humane civilian to to to combatant death ratio in the entire history of urban warfare. John Spencer was there, by the way, in 2016, 2017 in Fallujah, Iraq, during the Trump-led ISIS counterinsurgency. The United States Army, God bless them, did not even do quite as well as the IDF in terms of civilian to combatant death ratio, according to John Spencer of West Point. Point number two, which is a very simple point that Dave Smith and his friends always like to look over, is that when you're just trying to ascribe moral culpability to every single tragic death in Gaza, Charlie, you made this point so, so well in your recent debates over in England against these high-flown and British foe intellectuals at Cambridge and Oxford when you said that the moral culpability comes to people who are using human shields. That is just how it works. That is the law of war. That is the law of combat. That is just basic morality and logic 101. So that is essentially how I see Gaza. I know Dave has plenty to say in response to that.

So Dave, take two minutes and then I have a crisp follow-up.

Yeah. Um, I mean, geez, there's a lot there. Um, first of all, look, if you support what Israel is doing in Gaza right now, I would just like my advice to you guys is just know that you never have a leg to stand on claiming to be pro-life for the rest of your life. Just saying that. If you Oh, it's so. It's okay to support. Let's not boo our speaker. It's okay to support a policy that is killing babies. All of a sudden, killing babies is negotiable. All right, fine. Just I'm just reading the room. So, Dave, why don't you. No, no, I'm not talking about. Hold on. Back up, Dave. Why don't I just let you go on this whole long thing? I'm going to actually help you out here, Dave. Okay. What I'm doing is I want you to tell the audience what's going on in Gaza because some people in the audience don't know what's going on. So, don't assume they know. And don't let's not get back. Oh, okay. Well, I did I did assume that most people know that lots of babies are being killed in Gaza, but I maybe I shouldn't. I've assumed that. I. Well, don't be sarcastic about it, Dave. Instead, I, I mean this because. No, I meant that literally. I did loop where they're on social media all the time. Okay. So, walk through numbers. Walk through what animates you to say something like that.

Well, okay. Well, let me respond to a few of the things that that Josh claimed. I mean, if you want to go, there was just a major report a couple weeks ago in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, where they had a bunch of IDF soldiers. They actually had one who went on record, uh, who was saying that they were ordered to shoot at crowds of people who were going into liable left-wing filth. By the way, Josh, I let you talk. Let's please let Dave make his case. Well, is the IDF soldier who went on the record also filth? Probably. Okay. All right. There you go. So there. See, you're whatever. That's when you'll criticize the IDF. Look, Josh is just lying when he says that Israel supported Hamas for all those years because they feared there might be a worse alternative. It's just not true. And this has been so widely reported. You don't have to rely on Haaretz. You can rely on all types of reporting or you can just look at all of the leaders in their own words, what they said. They chose Netanyahu, and this was very controversial in Israel. There were lots of critics of this. Netanyahu thought he had this brilliant idea, which is that he would prop up Hamas and keep them in power. His exact quote was, "We can control the height of the flame." So he was like, "We'll keep these terrorists in power, and that way we can tell the entire international community that look, we have no partner for peace. We have no one to deal with here, and that way we never have to negotiate with the Palestinians." This was the game that he played, and it blew up in his face, and really blew up in the Israeli people's face on October 7th. And I've never downplayed October 7th. I know, but I'm just making the point that I never have. What happened there is it doesn't. You don't have to downplay any of that. And in fact, I've criticized many other critics of Israel who have downplayed that. It was a horrible day. Uh, awful, atrocious acts were committed by Hamas terrorists. But at the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu was propping those guys up. In fact, according to the Israeli former defense secretary, he sent the head of the Mossad to, um, to Qatar to quote beg them to continue shipping the money. All the meanwhile, they had a blockade around Gaza. They wouldn't let sugar, they wouldn't let potatoes in because they claim that's dual-use that could be used to build, uh, rockets. So the kids can't get, you know, food. Yet hundreds of millions of dollars in cash directly to Hamas. I guess money doesn't have a dual use. So, you know, the whole mission of this, of this, what you can't even really call a war because it's not a war, it's the destruction of a captive people. Gaza has been occupied since 1967 by the Israelis, and they're now just slaughtering the people there under. That's a fact. And it's under the, the supposed goal that they want to eliminate Hamas and they want to retrieve the hostages. And yet they've, Hamas is not being eliminated. They claim the Israeli government is claiming that they've killed 20,000 of their fighters, and yet there's still as many as there were at the beginning.

Let me ask you the follow-up that I wish that I had an answer to when you were on the Joe Rogan Show, but that thing descended into a mess, right? It was madness. So I'm going to try to do it here. This was the best point that I think that you, that for whatever reason, it wasn't answered. How then should Israel have responded to October 7th? Be specific. I, I, I know you might say, "Well, don't kill kids." But hold on. How would you say you would be okay for Israel to respond? Because it would be a defensive war at that time. 1,300 of their own kids and women were killed and raped. So, please just answer, how then would you be okay with Israel responding to October 7th?

Yeah. Well, I, I certainly, look, I'm not saying that Israel was going to respond with zero violence from, uh, after October 7th. But I think the important thing to remember here is that first of all, for the entire history of Israel's existence, they've been dealing with this terrorism problem. I would argue that the Palestinians have been dealing with the terrorism problem from Israel as well. But this is, and they've never, until Netanyahu, they never treated it as a problem for the regular old military. It was always targeted assassinations and special ops and, and look, the truth is this, this is the fact, right? When you have been occupying a group of people since 1967, you, Israel has completely controlled Gaza. They withdrew 20 years ago. Yes, okay. And if you want to go back and look at this, you can read Sharon's top advisor in his own words said the disengagement was to put.

We're running out of time. I know, but I won't be able to go through all of this. But it's not true. Israel continued to to occupy the whole time. And when people broke out, dug out their own section.

No, keep going, Dave.

Okay, so when people break out of Gaza and just start ran, just slaughtering civilians in Israel, there, yes, it was a horrible day, and the world feels for those civilians. But at the same time, you have to know if you're Israel that the way that you respond to this is going to be how you're characterized in the international community. And so you would at least make some effort to not kill so many civilians. You can't, dude. Uh, Smotrich, the finance minister, was bragging for three months that not one ounce of grain would get into Gaza. Well, Hamas has all the firing rockets from Hamas has all the. Dude, you interrupt every two seconds, dude. Hamas has all the food they need. This is a war on the civilian population. And then, as is reported, admitted by IDF, by the way, this is admitted by the Israeli government. You can say whatever you want about Haaretz. They admit. They denied that they gave the orders, but they admitted that it was the IDF who was shooting at those people. Then after you deny the civilians food for three months, then you start shooting at the people who are desperately trying to get some food for them and their kids. So, no, listen. I'm sorry. And, and I guess I am partly rejecting the premise of your question. But.

Well, let me just say it like this, Charlie. If you're pro-life and you say, I, a stupid argument. You should not buy this for. Let Dave finish his sentence. Shut up, bro. It's not pro-life here. It's a stupid argument. You haven't heard the argument. What's the argument that's stupid and pro-life? No. What's the argument? It's Hamas that is not prognosable to watch. What's the argument that you called? Why don't you finish it, Josh? He doesn't even know what it is. He interrupted me before I even said it. What?

Okay, here's the argument. If you're pro-life, it's not incumbent on you to have a plan for what the mother ought to do with the baby. Like, you don't have to have a plan for daycare and college funds and all that. You just say, "Hey, I think this option should be off the table. I don't think you have the right to murder the baby while it's inside of you." Likewise, I'm not saying I have to have the perfect plan. If we had more time, I could expound on what I think they should have done. But how about don't deny one ounce of grain for three months and then shoot at the poor people who are trying to get food. How about you take that option off the table? Is that argument stupid?

Josh. Dave. Okay. The party in Gaza that is not pro-life is Hamas. Agreed. Hamas is the jihadist US recognized foreign terrorist organization that in their founding charter, by the way, they were founded simply as the Palestinian Arab offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. We all agree Hamas is bad. Well, no, I'm not going to sit here while he interrupts me every time I speak and never interrupt him. Dave, respectfully, you are criticizing him for interrupting. So, don't do that. So, just let's let's have an uninterrupted nar. Just. Thank you. Okay. Hamas calls in their founding charter for the death not merely of every Israeli, not merely every Jew, but of every infidel, which they identify as not merely all Christians, but also all Muslims who don't subscribe to their idiosyncratic form of Sunni Sharia supremacism. So the, the, the group in Hamas, excuse me, the group in Gaza that is not pro-life is Hamas. And Hamas has the unequivocal and I would argue sole moral culpability for the human shield induced deaths of all the women, civilians, and babies when they are indiscriminately firing rockets, mortars, and missiles from mosques, from United Nations schools, and on. That is where the blame goes. The blame goes to Hamas. Once upon a time, anyone with any decent functioning moral compass or any knowledge of international law 101 would would have been able to tell you that. So that, that, that is where this goes. But again, it's just you pivot to blaming Hamas and they're the ones who aren't pro-life as if I was making the claim that Hamas is pro-life. I'm criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu for funding and propping up this horrific terrorist organization. So, how are you in one breath going to talk about how terrible they are and then completely remove culpability from the guy who kept it in? I'm curious.

Got it. I'm curious. I got to interrupt. What is your response to the human shield argument? It has been proven. It is legit. What is your response to a fact? We don't know how widespread it's done, but I think it's rather that Hamas uses human shields.

Yeah, they certainly have. Like, I'm, I'm not denying that. But at the same time, like it's kind of, you know, if, if, uh, let's say, like in a domestic criminal situation, if there was somebody who killed a bunch of people and then they ran into a school and they're like using the kids as human shields, they're hiding behind the kids, and then your local police department came over and said, "Blow up the school and kill all the kids." You wouldn't go, "Well, they have no moral responsibility because they were using them as human shields." Yeah. As Bill Burr said in his special, you got to work around that, bro. And like, it, Hamas is terrible. Nobody's arguing with that, but that doesn't mean there's no responsibility for the people dropping the bomb. And by the way, again, as you don't want to talk about, how about when they're shooting at people trying to get aid? There were no human shields there. Go look at a picture of Gaza. The human shields does not describe most of what's happened to Gaza. Yes, there are certain instances. And by the way, Israel also has a bunch of military targets in civilian areas. Like, I'm just saying that doesn't actually mean it's okay to just now you have a moral get out of jail free card to do whatever you want to the poor innocent people who, as you pointed out, are also victims of Hamas, and that's what people are objecting to.

Josh, what is your response to? I know there was some pushback online to the shooting at the aid site with food. Is that as Dave is telling it?

Charlie, honestly, I have not spent too much time on the details, but what I can tell you is this. We, we know for a fact that at least until the recent Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is this US-organized NGO distributing aid, we know that prior to the establishment of this, Hamas was pilfering and confiscating a shockingly high percentage of the aid that entered Gaza, sometimes well more than than 50%. Because that's what they do. They have a monopoly of use of force in Gaza, and they were essentially just artificially inflating the prices of, of the actual Gazan's goods and then, and then stealing it all for themselves. That's what Hamas does. It is a deeply corrupt kleptocracy in addition to being a, a, a jihadist hellhole. Now, the, the new aid group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is a, is a noble and righteous effort. That, guess who opposes it? Hamas. Hamas are the ones who actually have started indiscriminately shooting, even much more so than whatever anecdote Dave Smith is talking about. Hamas is the one that has actually started indiscriminately shooting at this US perpetuated, this, this US orchestrated new aid distribution organization because Hamas doesn't like the fact that the United States, under Donald Trump, God bless him, has found a way to get around the Hamas, Hamas monopoly on aid distribution in Gaza.

We are way over time. And so now I want to end with what do we want? Okay, we both are challenging, we're defending, so we got to go fast. Um, Josh, I'm going to start with you. What are you pushing for? What is success? What is, what is the, what is the end destination? What are you prescribing? What are you offering? And then Dave, I'll let you do it. And then please don't interrupt.

Charlie, great, great debate. Thank you for moderating this. So, I support the Trump doctrine of foreign policy. I have been a staunch proponent of the Trump doctrine since the Trump doctrine first came into instantiation during the first Trump presidency. The Trump doctrine, again, is neither neoconservative nor isolationist. It is a nationalist realist America First approach to foreign policy that, that understands three things. One, America's number one focus this century must be on combating our actual civilizational foe, the Chinese Communist Party. Two, America has declining resources. Three, the way to deal with both those two is to prioritize in non-Indo-Pacific regions of the world, allies who are capable of securing and patrolling their neck of the woods in a way that redounds not just to their national interest, but to the American national interest. That in the Middle East is Israel. We've seen that time and time again throughout the Middle East. And again, Charlie, just to drive home this point, there, the guy who understands this better than everyone, despite this whole kind of very online debate about what MAGA or America First should think about foreign policy and US relations, the guy who understands this the best, as he recently reminded us, is the guy who literally defined the terms MAGA and America First. To Donald Trump, it is completely common sense. It is utterly logical. It flows from first principles that to be America First is to necessarily support tight-knit, close-knit US relations. We saw this in the US-Iran war. We saw the B2 bombers do what they did, and God bless them for dropping those bombs in that 37-hour interval. That would not have been possible were it not for the, for the Israelis laying the groundwork with the Iranian air defenses and Hezbollah the year prior in 2024. It was the Trump doctrine and US-Israel relations at work. So Charlie, my, my vision is for an independent Israel where we ultimately wind down aid, and for Israel to be the beacon of protecting and securing American interests in the Middle East, just like other countries can then take responsibility in different regions of the world so that America can then focus on China.

Um, look, I, I think if you guys are being honest with yourselves, and I do think we should really think about the threats that we really do face here at home, and I'm talking about the Democrats coming back into power. Forget all these made-up threats about other countries that really can't mess with us at all. I don't know if you guys have noticed, and you could say it's a very online debate all you want to. This hasn't been a good month for Donald Trump. His base is really, um, is really kind of turning on each other, and these are major issues that are dividing, um, his coalition, and this is JD Vance winning in a few years is not a given. You know, like the Democrats are going to come back and offer someone. And if we want to have a chance to keep progress going and to get our country in a better place, what we have to do is reject empire and return to being a republic that we were supposed to be. The United States of America was never supposed to be an empire. We were supposed to be a republic, a constitutional republic, a city on a hill that the, the world could learn from our example because we do liberty so much better than anybody else does. And we've gotten so far away from that over the years. And like I mentioned at the beginning, look, this is the big point. We're going broke. We can't afford to do this anymore. It shouldn't even be a question of whether we should be giving Israel money or whether we should be giving Ukraine money, as Donald Trump's also decided to do this year. We don't have it. This is like me taking out money on a credit card to lend to my friends so I can act like I'm the big shot who's lending them money. We are destroying our own young people. You, not me. I'm not a young. I'm fine. I'm in my 40s and I make good money. Your whole generation is getting screwed over by this because we have to devalue our currency in order to keep up with the demands for this spending that we cannot afford. And so the answer is that we need to pull back. We need to focus on America. That's what America First is supposed to be about. Sound money, fiscal sanity, and true liberty, true free market capitalism. Not a government that spends $7 trillion a year, and a crazy casino system on Wall Street with these incredibly low interest rates where people are making tens of millions of dollars off just, you know, speculating on nonsense. And this is what it's the warfare state that drives it. Look, guys, we, we have spent $20 trillion since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan are over, and we're looking at our biggest defense budget ever. This is madness. And it will be the death of our country. No Islamist is going to take down our country, but drowning in debt and empire will. That's how great nations fall. And the young Republicans need to reject that. A republic, not an empire. Like the great Pat Buchanan said.

I want to just summarize. This was time well spent. Both Dave and Josh agree on some plan to wind down US-Israel aid. That was an agreement. Correct. My, the timeline you could debate about. Number two, they both say every human's made in the image of God, and we should not trivialize when, you know, people are killed. Also, I think we all agreed October 7th was awful. It was terrible and should be talked about more, and it needs to be emphasized. We also agree this Jew hate stuff has no place in public discourse. Period. End of story. And I don't like it. It's disgusting, and we need to call it out when we see it. And finally, I think the fifth is that I hope we demonstrated, and both our participants got a little lively at times, that this is a debate worth having. That it's better to have this out in the open than silence people and censor them and call them names instead. This is how we solve our problems. Give it up for Josh and Dave one last time, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Charlie. Did we enjoy that, everybody? Was that great? Okay, I just want to thank you guys for a phenomenal event. On your way out, not too late to start a Turning Point USA chapter. Also, take the exit survey. You guys had a survey emailed to you. Take the survey on the way out. And everybody, get involved. Get involved. Get involved. We are now honored to announce also AmFest coming up in December. Tickets are available. Get your tickets right now. Enjoy this trailer for AmFest. God bless you guys. God bless America. And keep fighting for our country.