Princeton Professor Sounds the Alarm on Antisemitism

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:03]Hey guys, welcome back to [clears throat] Blue Collar and a scholar. Today, back by popular demand is Princeton Professor Dr. Robert P.

[00:00:12]George, world-renowned Catholic philosopher and world-renowned legal scholar. He holds a doctorate in civil law from Oxford University, a doctorate in literature from Harvard University, and a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. He also holds a law degree from Harvard. Uh but what's more impressive to me is not is what he actually did with his education. He was selected as a United States as the United States member of the World Commission on the ethics of scientific knowledge of technology for the UN.

[00:00:53]And he was a presidential appoint appointed he was presidentially appointed to the US Commission on Civil Rights.

[00:01:00]And being a political nerd, I'm really impressed that he had the top-tier Republican candidates uh actually go to him for advice and he actually had President Bush go to him for advice on bioethics. So today, Blue Collar and his fan and his uh subscribers are going to go to Dr. Robert P. George about advice. So, welcome back, Dr. George. It's my pleasure, Rob. Thanks for inviting me back on.

[00:01:27]And uh the funny thing the last uh the last uh interview we had, you left an impact on me with a lot of things you said, but one thing that really stuck to me and I use this line a lot now. When I asked you about your friendship with Dr. Cornell West, I'm like, you're so conservative, he's so liberal, but you guys are like really good friends. I said, "How do you do that?" And you said, "Well, because I know I could be wrong."

[00:01:53]And I'm like, "Wow." I gave a fraction of his education and his accomplishments. So, if this guy could be wrong, I could be wrong.

[00:02:01]>> [laughter] >> So, I use that a lot. I actually by the grace of God, don't ask me how I managed, but I got a hold of uh Anahita Madhavi. Is that his wife's name? Anahita?

[00:02:14]Anahita Madhavi.

[00:02:15]>> Dr. Anahita Madhavi West. Yep. So, I got a hold of her on the phone. Sweetest lady I've ever spoke to. Uh she said Dr. West would enjoy coming on Blue Collar and a Scholar. I told her I said, you know, I'm I'm a conservative, but I I I know he's a believer and we're brothers in Christ and it won't be a debate, it'll just be a dialogue. And she said, "That sounds great." But it was during his presidential campaign and we never we never got it done. But uh but I was going to ask him and I'll ask you whatever happened with your petition you guys had circulating about free speech. That was cuz I thought of like, what do I agree with this guy on? I don't agree with most of what Dr. West, but I agree with free speech.

[00:02:53]I agree that Jesus Christ is Lord.

[00:02:56]And we both love Bonhoeffer. Being [laughter] a former Protestant, I had a little had a little Bonhoeffer knowledge I was going to quiz him on. But uh how how how's it going with free speech on the uh Ivy League campuses?

[00:03:07]Well, uh Cornell, of course, is my dear brother. We uh now have been 20 years teaching together, uh traveling together, writing together, including the petition that you mentioned that I'll talk about in a minute. Singing together, praying together.

[00:03:22]>> I forgot about that. Yeah.

[00:03:23]>> Yeah, we we we just have a wonderful wonderful time. We were just up in Portland, Oregon at George Fox University uh talking about what it means today to be Christian witness.

[00:03:35]Um we um have a number of um venues um asking us to come again. So, we're we're we're basically on a tour. I guess since you and I last spoke, uh Cornell and I put out a book called Truth Matters. Okay. Uh sub-titled um Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division.

[00:03:56]Uh and in that book, we talk about the deep sharing we have of some points and principles, the commitment to the life of the mind, uh the commitment, of course, to Christ, uh the commitment to uh free speech, the idea that uh we all really are deeply fallible, not just a little bit fallible. We frail, fallen creatures are deeply fallible.

[00:04:22]Um which means we probably should not be too confident that we're right about everything.

[00:04:27]>> [laughter] >> Have some intellectual humility. And that means being open to criticism, to challenge. That means going out of your way to find people who disagree with you, intelligent people, people of goodwill, but who disagree with you, not just about the minor, trivial, superficial things of life, but even about the big, important questions, questions of meaning and value, questions of human nature, the human good, human dignity, human destiny.

[00:04:52]And listen to what the other guy has to say.

[00:04:55]And maybe maybe you're completely wrong.

[00:05:00]Maybe you're only partially wrong.

[00:05:02]Maybe you're completely right and he's completely wrong. But even if you're completely right and he's completely wrong, you will still deepen your understanding of the truth, even the truth you know, if you engage a thoughtful, reasonable critic, a person of goodwill who really does see it differently, perhaps mistakenly, but who sees it differently.

[00:05:22]And Cornell and I our friendship is really rooted in a shared commitment to getting at the truth of things. That's why we entitled our book Truth Matters. It really does matter.

[00:05:33]It's important to be struggling yet at the truth, and at the same time it's important to recognize that we're never going to get it perfectly. We're never going to get it completely.

[00:05:41]And we'll always have some error mixed in with whatever truth we grasp because we're not God.

[00:05:48]Only God is perfect. Only God knows the whole picture.

[00:05:52]So, we should do our best to make whatever progress we can to deepen our understanding of the truths we know, to correct ourselves on matters on which we're in error. And to do that, I think it's very important to be in dialogue and discussion uh with people who see things differently. Well, because one of the things Cornell and I deeply agree about, and one of the things that's necessary to the truth-seeking enterprise, is the freedom to inquire, to discuss, uh to explore, to think, to argue. Freedom of speech and word.

[00:06:24]Amen. And that has been under attack in colleges and universities from within >> [clears throat] >> for many years now.

[00:06:33]There was a time when it was under attack from the right.

[00:06:37]Mhm.

[00:06:38]But there aren't that many people on the right in universities these days.

[00:06:40]>> [laughter] >> But it's under attack from the left.

[00:06:44]Wow. Um and you saw this all through that peak woke period with professors who visit to give lectures who are out of step with the dominant progressive orthodoxy shouted down, even in some cases physically attacked. You remember the famous episode of Charles Murray and his debating partner, the liberal professor who was debating him.

[00:07:06]Her name was Allison Stanger. She's a lovely person and I gotten to know her since that happened.

[00:07:11]They were physically attacked by a mob.

[00:07:14]She was thrown to the ground by her hair, concussed. She suffered a concussion. Oh my God.

[00:07:19]>> 2 years to recover uh from that concussion. Uh and all she wanted to do was debate Charles Murray.

[00:07:28]The mob was on her side of the substantive issues.

[00:07:31]>> [laughter] >> But the mere fact that she would debate the man, give him a platform, caused their outrage and anger to the point where she was severely injured. Well, Cornell and I are not going to put up with that. Good.

[00:07:45]So, we tried to organize people within academia, professors, students, administrators, to state your position. State it out loud. Stand up. Be heard. And we put together a manifesto. It was called Truth-Seeking Democracy and Freedom of Thought and Expression.

[00:08:04]And we made the argument that these two values that are so critical to all of us, that is, self-government, democracy, republicanism, and number two, truth-seeking, getting at the truth of things, depend on a robust culture of freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, freedom of discussion.

[00:08:24]And we made our case. It was not lengthy, but I think it was decisive.

[00:08:30]Uh we made it in maybe 700 words or so.

[00:08:33]And then we decided we'd put the manifesto online to invite other academic people from across the country to add their names, to come out of the closet, speak up, stand up, put your name on it, no anonymous. Stand up and say we're for free speech, whether we agree with the speaker or not, because we believe in democracy and that requires free speech, and we believe in truth-seeking, which is the whole point of a college or a university.

[00:09:03]And we were very gratified uh when more than 5,000 people, including some of the most distinguished academics in the country, many students from universities around the country, added their names. But the name that I valued most came from the signature that uh I valued most came from a man at Ohio State University.

[00:09:26]He was not a professor.

[00:09:28]He was not um a student. He was not an administrator.

[00:09:34]You'll appreciate this at Blue Collar Catholic.

[00:09:37]He was a custodian. Wow. Custodian [laughter] at the university, a janitor.

[00:09:41]That's awesome.

[00:09:42]>> And he said, "I've heard about your petition, and I'm not a professor or a student, but I do work at this university, Ohio State University, and I and I believe in what you're saying here."

[00:09:55]And I I'm I'm I'm hap- I'm proud to be out of university because even in my role as a custodian, I feel I'm contributing to this important project.

[00:10:05]>> Wow, you're bringing tears to my eyes.

[00:10:06]That's what universities do.

[00:10:08]And we said, "Sir, we would be honored if you would sign our petition." And that And that's the That's the signature I I value I value the most. Because this is a man who believes in truth seeking, who believes in democracy. It doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to have three doctorates. It doesn't have to be at Yale or Princeton.

[00:10:29]He was a man who's dedicated to truth seeking and his way in his way he's contributing to it by working at the institution at which he's he's working. And we need people like that. We need people like that all over the country, not just professors, not just administrators. I want moms, dads, teachers, pastors, coaches, scout leaders, you know, I want people in the community to stand up and be heard and be counted.

[00:10:54]And that was the founding of >> on the side of freedom of speech. And not just because you believe in freedom of speech as some abstract thing, but because you know that freedom of speech is essential to the project of Republican democracy, number one, and truth seeking, number two.

[00:11:09]Wow, that's You almost made me cry, Professor. That was powerful.

[00:11:14]>> you, when that when that man asked to sign, I I had a tear or two.

[00:11:18]That is awesome. That is awesome.

[00:11:19]>> know, it's all too easy for us and that you may you read my biography there. The truth is I'm just a hillbilly kid from West Virginia. I was born and brought up in the mountains. I played the banjo.

[00:11:28]Both my grandfathers were coal miners.

[00:11:30]You know, nobody in my family had gone to college before. So, I'm not a fancy person. But I got all these fancy degrees and things like that. But that doesn't make me special. That doesn't make me more more virtuous uh or or even more more wise. You know, you can have a lot of knowledge and very little wisdom. Mhm. You know, I I want people who are wise. And you can be you can be very deeply wise. My grandparents were very deeply wise. They weren't college or even high school educated people.

[00:11:58]They were coal miners, right? Your grandparent Yeah, my granddads were both coal miners. My My dad's dad was in the mines his entire life. Wow.

[00:12:06]>> My mom's dad on the mines and on the railroads.

[00:12:09]My dad My mom's dad he worked in mines about 25 years, saved up his money and was able to open a little grocery store and had a had a had a small business. So, so that's that's where I come from and these are the these are the people I grew up with and and and and I appreciate them and I I appreciate their wisdom. And you know, sometimes I wish they ran our universities, not [laughter] the people with three doctorates from Yale and Harvard.

[00:12:37]That would be great. That would be great. Hey, you know what's ironic that you're on the show. I I wouldn't say ironic. I think it's God's timing.

[00:12:45]God's timing is always perfect. Uh I always think about bringing on and and we I get busy and I know you're busy.

[00:12:52]And a few months back I lose track I read in a national newspaper that you had resigned from the Heritage Foundation as a board member over a video that they promoted with Nick Fuentes in it. And this was a guy that I've been He came on my radar by a friend who liked him and I was like, "What are you talking about? We're Catholic. We can't put up with this garbage."

[00:13:14]And then yesterday came out uh that the SPLC's was indicted for paying extremist groups to do extremist things. So, they lied to their donors. They said, "We're going to stop racism." And then they would pay people to do racist stuff. And a lot of people believe that Nick Fuentes, including myself, is one of them. They don't say his name, but they describe a person that he fits the description 100%. So, I'm curious your thoughts on all of that. The Heritage Foundation, the the thing that came out with the FBI yesterday.

[00:13:52]Well, the whole thing is a very sad very sad painful story, but I'll I'll share it with you.

[00:13:58]Um I'm a conservative.

[00:14:02]I'm a I'm a conservative Catholic. Amen.

[00:14:04]Thank you. My My kind of conservatism is old-fashioned American conservatism.

[00:14:09]>> Me, too. Amen.

[00:14:09]>> We We American conservatives were we're a bit different from our European cousins. They Yes. The European conservatives are the conservatives of the ancien régime, you know, of monarchy throne and altar and blood and soil. Uh not to say that they're all a bunch of fascists. Yeah. But you know, in in in the European conservative tradition, you know, what bonds any people together as a people, their sources of strength and unity are to be found in common ties of ancestry, you know, ethnic identity, a common religion, common cultural history, that that kind of thing.

[00:14:46]There's a strong sense in the importance of hierarchical authority, what what we as Catholics recognize and honor in the church, but they want it in the state um as well. Well, we American conservatives not like that.

[00:14:59]What we are trying to conserve historically are the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator, not by government, by their creator, with certain unalienable rights and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And of course, that principle of the profound inherent and equal dignity of each and every member of the human family, we trace back to the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, where in the very first chapter, we're just getting the plane off the ground here in scripture, the very first chapter we're taught that the human being, man, though fashioned from the mere dust of the earth, mere material stuff that will someday die and and dissolve, is nevertheless made in the very image and likeness of the divine creator and ruler of all that is. The very image and likeness of God.

[00:15:56]We call that the imago Dei.

[00:15:59]And that principle of the imago Dei, of the profound inherent and equal dignity of each and every member of the human family, that principle that all men are created equal, that's what we American conservatives traditionally have tried to conserve. And then the principles of the Constitution, the hardware that runs the software of the Declaration. I like that. I like that.

[00:16:20]>> the structures, the separation of powers, federalism, our Bill of uh our Bill of Rights and and so forth. Um we want to conserve those.

[00:16:30]Um Justice Clarence Thomas very recently gave a speech uh down in Texas just in the last couple of days, actually, three, four days, uh in which he talked about the way in which progressivism over the last 120 or so or 125 years has really represented a challenge to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

[00:16:55]Uh and we conservatives are on the other side of that. That They're progressives, we're we're conservatives because we're wanting to conserve the principles of the Declaration uh and of the uh the Constitution. Now, we believe in things like the rule of law, share that with our European conservative cousins.

[00:17:13]Um we believe in the basic market economy, not a kind of radical libertarianism, anything goes, anybody can sell anybody anything. No, no, but the morally regulated, the properly regulated. And we believe, again, along with our European cousins, uh in having vibrant healthy institutions of civil society, that government should not undermine the authority or the integrity or the autonomy of the family, of the church or other religious community, of the local community, the civic association, of the Knights of Columbus and the Campfire Girls and the you know, the Little League and the ballet and you know, all the the institutions, non-governmental institutions, that play the primary role and must play the primary role that government cannot play of providing health, education, and welfare, and of forming the members of each new generation to be successful people, lead successful lives, independent virtuous lives, and to be good responsible citizens, especially if you're going to run a democracy. You need Some men power in a democracy is in the hands of people.

[00:18:26]You need virtuous people. You don't have virtuous people, you're not going to have that democracy for very long. Our founding fathers made that very clear.

[00:18:31]And they were right.

[00:18:33]So, this is what we conservatives believe in conserving. And that's what the Heritage Foundation stood for, which is why I joined the Heritage Foundation.

[00:18:42]I went on to the board of the Heritage Heritage Foundation, served there a number of years, was proud to serve.

[00:18:50]But then one day um I was shocked. Uh the president of our foundation, good man, good man, made a mistake, in my opinion.

[00:19:02]He sees it differently. We got that.

[00:19:05]But in my opinion, it was a mistake. And that was to defend a video in which the um uh online personality or tele former television personality, um Tucker Carlson, interviewed this neo-Nazi. There's no other word for it. This neo-Nazi named Nick Fuentes.

[00:19:27]A terrible terrible person.

[00:19:30]Uh racist.

[00:19:32]We American conservatives don't put up with racism when we're at our best. I mean, what what what else does it mean to say all men are created equal?

[00:19:39]That means it doesn't matter whether you're black, white, Asian, Latino, American Indian. Doesn't matter. Amen.

[00:19:44]>> Your dignity isn't in your race or your ethnicity. Your dignity is in your humanity, right? Yep. Right. So, um you know, Fuentes out and out racist anti-semite despises Jewish people defames Jewish people anybody who doesn't fit his model of of of you know [snorts] being one of us from his perspective.

[00:20:15]Well, I was shocked when the president of Heritage Foundation defended this video which had been criticized of course not by me. I hadn't said anything about it.

[00:20:25]I mean I I don't pay attention to that kind of stuff and if Tucker Carlson wants to turn into Jerry Springer it's a free country you know get quotes and you know, I wasn't paying attention but I did pay attention when the president of Foundation on whose board I'm serving defends the the video and he says Tucker Carlson will always be a friend and all that.

[00:20:45]A friend of the Heritage Foundation.

[00:20:47]He's speaking for the Heritage Foundation not just for himself. He's just speaking for himself that's fine but you know speaking for the Heritage Foundation.

[00:20:53]And he he called and again he's a good man. He just made a mistake. Shouldn't have said this. He he said that the people who are criticizing the interview were globalists and members of the venomous coalition.

[00:21:07]Globalist you know and that has those those over those undertones I should say you know the Jews the globalists the you know the globalists cosmopolitans and If you can give him a message from me an Italian blue collar Catholic criticized it the minute he seen it.

[00:21:23]Yeah so you know now now >> [clears throat] >> our president the president of the Heritage Foundation is not I know him well. He's not a racist. He is not an anti-semite but he he made a mistake and said these things.

[00:21:37]Now to his credit he did apologize for using the language of um um globalist and venomous coalition.

[00:21:47]But it seemed to me that the entire video needed to be retracted.

[00:21:53]And so I and some other members of the board asked him to retract the video. He was not really speaking for the Heritage we we we are the the board of the Heritage Foundation. He's president but we're the board and and we determine at the end of the day what the stance and the policy is and this is incompatible with with what we believe in and you got to retract the statement or we wouldn't do that. And when he wouldn't do that I wanted the board to do it.

[00:22:17]I can't go into the private details of the board deliberations because I'm bound even today though I've resigned from the board to respect the confidentiality requirements of the board but I can tell you that many of us on the board believe the board should retract if the president wouldn't himself retract just to make clear the Heritage Foundation doesn't go along with any of this stuff.

[00:22:41]But despite my 3 weeks worth of efforts to persuade the board to act we didn't act.

[00:22:49]And finally I just said that I cannot be associated with this.

[00:22:53]You know if if if unless we retract what was said in that video about this interview with this neo-Nazi and about critics of the interview with this neo-Nazi I just can't stay on the board and so I went off the board very reluctantly and you know and and and without I mean I didn't didn't attack my fellow board members. I didn't attack the president of the of the foundation and I would say for the third time he's a good man.

[00:23:20]But I couldn't stay.

[00:23:22]You know because then my my name is on it cuz I'm you know I'm the member of the board. So I had to make clear since the board itself wasn't making clear that I I I just can't accept this.

[00:23:36]So off we went and and it does turn out it's become clearer and clearer since then that there has emerged on the conservative side on the right a very aggressive ferocious anti-semitic element.

[00:23:56]And where do you think seeing it you're now seeing it with people like Candace Owens and um other online influencers I guess they call them. I'm I'm a little out of touch with the the lingo but influencers and they're influencing young people and they're especially influencing young men and a lot of not a majority by any means but still a not insignificant minority enough to really worry me of Catholic young men.

[00:24:24]So we need to make clear to our Catholic young men and to and to everybody really but to our Catholic young men in particular the Catholic Church has a teaching a moral teaching on anti-semitism and on the Jewish people and Judaism.

[00:24:42]And that teaching is the Jewish people are our brothers.

[00:24:49]They have an unbroken and unbreakable covenant with God and that any anti-semitism of any kind anywhere is sinful.

[00:24:59]sinful and must be rejected.

[00:25:04]And so that's what I'm trying to do now.

[00:25:06]I'm just trying to remind people of what the church teaches. Now this is not to deny something that's very shameful in our history Rob.

[00:25:16]And that is too many times people speaking on behalf with the authority or holding offices of authority in the church and going all the way up to Popes have said things against the Jewish people that are just not true.

[00:25:30]But all of that was repudiated at the Second Vatican Council in the great document Nostra Aetate on the church's relationship with the non-Christian faiths and it was firmly firmly repudiated then by [clears throat] the post-conciliar Popes all of them but of course especially you know the great John Paul the the second who took the step of going across the city of Rome first Pope ever to do it to visit the great seminar the great synagogue in Rome to be greeted by the chief rabbi to embrace him and to say to the Jewish community we have a deep spiritual bond with you not not just friendly relations we have a deep spiritual bond with you.

[00:26:20]You are our brothers and indeed in a sense our elder brothers in the faith.

[00:26:26]That the covenant God has with the people of the old covenant is unbroken.

[00:26:34]Unbreakable. We don't replace you.

[00:26:38]God has brought us into the covenant with through Jesus Christ Jewish guy by the way >> [laughter] >> with a Jewish mother and a gang of Jewish disciples.

[00:26:49]>> [laughter] >> He brings us in for which we should be grateful but we are the wild shoots we Gentile Christians are the wild shoots grafted onto the good olive tree of Israel. Church's teaching on this today Rob since the Second Vatican Council and with the post-conciliar pontificates is crystal clear. No ambiguity no no need for wondering what does the church mean no anti-semitism zero impermissible deeply sinful.

[00:27:19]I got a couple questions. I'm really curious how you would answer this cuz I hear this constantly. When I say that on my videos I lose a ton of subscribers and this is what I hear.

[00:27:31]Number one they just like the left and it sounds like I'm listening to left wingers but these are so conservative Catholics they tell me.

[00:27:40]They just like the left changes definitions of words they change the word anti-semitism to anti-zionism. Oh I'm not an anti-semite I'm an anti-zionist and you're from Oxford. I looked in the Oxford dictionary and all it says is Zionism.

[00:27:59]The definition the belief that Israel has a right to exist. What has like you said JP2 he said it officially in 93 I think that the church believes Israel has a right to exist.

[00:28:13]And they're like no no that's that's not the definition and they give me all these crazy different definitions and they say I'm not anti-semite but the Jews run everything.

[00:28:22]It's like there see.

[00:28:24]>> [laughter] >> This is what I'm hearing. So when so how do you how do you how do you combat this and where does this come from like it just seems like it exploded the last year or so? Well that's true. I mean anti-semitism had been something that had had um migrated over to the left and I would in the academic world was fighting it in the academy you know against the against the left but now it's reawakened on the right.

[00:28:55]And now you've got both the right and the left having heavy not not everybody on the left now. I don't want to sweep with too broad a brush and and certainly not everybody on the conservative side I mean I understand what you're saying for example. Yeah so so there are good people right or left who utterly reject anti-semitism. Let's not paint as I say with too broad a brush but there's a powerful element of it on the left and now there has emerged or re-emerged a powerful element of it on the right. All right. Now what are they what are they telling what are they talking? They're talking and telling lies.

[00:29:27]How do you deal with lies? You speak the truth.

[00:29:31]You speak it plainly.

[00:29:34]You speak it unambiguously.

[00:29:36]You speak it boldly.

[00:29:39]If it takes a little courage muster the courage. If it makes you unpopular too bad. If they if they if they drop your broadcast, if they cancel their subscription, you just take that.

[00:29:52]Because it's your job, it's my job, it's the job of every Catholic to speak the truth as God gives us the help of the church's magisterial teachings to know the truth.

[00:30:05]And a key truth is the Jewish people are our brothers. All human beings are our brothers, actually. But there's a special, again, what the Pope says, Pope John Paul the second spiritual bond between us and our Jewish brothers.

[00:30:19]And we must have nothing but respect and esteem uh for Now, does that mean you can never criticize somebody who's Jewish? No.

[00:30:27]Jewish people criticize each other all the time. Catholics can criticize each other all the time. That's fine. Does that mean you can't criticize the Israeli government? Absolutely not. Of course you can criticize the Israeli government. Jewish people, including Israeli Jews, criticize their government all the time. They do it more than we do it over here criticizing our government. No, it's not about who you can criticize or disagree. That's not it.

[00:30:50]It's whether you honor people as equal in worth and dignity. Again, it goes back to that er principle, as I sometimes call it, the most fundamental principle of all sound morality, the principle of profound inherent and equal dignity of each and every member of the human family, which traces all the way back to the imago dei, to man being made in the image and likeness of God. So, that that's all I'm trying to do, I'm just trying to speak the truth as the church teaches the truth about this issue of anti-Semitism.

[00:31:23]Like all forms of bigotry, all forms of racism, it is absolutely forbidden, absolutely prohibited. There's no ambiguity in Catholic doctrine about this. Amen. Now, I had read you had received a an award from President Bush. I think it was the Citizens Medal, very high honor that I was Yeah, I was very honored to receive that. That was the Presidential Citizens Medal. Okay. Now, I had heard a speaker years ago saying after World War II, the state of Israel actually gave, once it was formed in in '48, actually gave the highest civilian medal they had to Pope Pius the 12th. Now, this is pre-Vatican II.

[00:32:02]And I can't find that anywhere, so I don't know if that is if you know if that's true or >> I don't I don't believe that. I don't believe that is true. I can't find it anywhere.

[00:32:11]>> There's a controversy, of course, about Pope Pius the 12th's role in World War II.

[00:32:19]Uh And and I'm on one side of that controversy.

[00:32:23]Uh I'm a defender of Pope Pius the 12th, who I think in very difficult circumstances did a very good job of protecting as many innocent victims, including as many innocent Jewish victims, as possible.

[00:32:37]And many Jewish lives were saved. Many other lives were saved, too, because of Pope Pius the 12th's work uh hiding people in convents and monasteries, in the Vatican itself, taking great great risks. I mean, he At any moment he could have been taken uh by the Germans. They They They had them. They were They were there. Right? It's It's in Italy, right?

[00:32:58]So, you know, it was the German German-Italian occupied.

[00:33:02]But But a lot of people survived and of course gave testimony that they survived because of Pius the 12th. There were some people who claim, and and you know, it just seems wrong to me from the evidence. And I've looked at the evidence very carefully.

[00:33:16]Um but some people claim he was silent.

[00:33:19]He didn't do enough. He didn't speak. He should have spoken out. Now, he was careful to maintain his neutrality, official neutrality. The Vatican always is. The Vatican is always neutral in in wars.

[00:33:30]Um he was careful to retain his official neutrality.

[00:33:35]But even the New York Times, yes, you're hearing me correctly, the New York Times, twice during the war in Christmas editorials praised him as a lonely voice speaking out against the Nazis.

[00:33:51]Okay?

[00:33:52]We knew it then. People seem to have forgotten it. And largely as the result, I think, of a calculated campaign uh by those on the left, especially communist elements in Europe, to defame Pius the 12th, beginning with a play called The Deputy, which was uh uh performed initially in the early 1960s.

[00:34:16]Um uh a play uh by a very left-wing playwright who just tried to destroy the reputation of Pius the 12th, to depict him as somebody who really didn't care about what was happening to the Jews, who didn't do anything about it, didn't say anything um about it. And unfortunately, that black myth, that black legend uh has taken hold with a lot of people.

[00:34:42]I think it's completely false. I actually read a scholar and I I wish I would have wrote his name down, it escapes me, but I read a scholar who he said in his estimation the church saved 800,000 Jews. Do you think that's it cuz other people disputed and said it was >> Yeah, that was not a scholar. That was That was an Israeli diplomat named Pinchas Lapide. Okay. And his best estimate was that about 800,000 Jewish people were saved directly or very closely indirectly by the by the by the efforts of Pius the 12th. And again, you have to understand that Pius the 12th is there in the Vatican, the Germans are everywhere. They They got the country.

[00:35:21]They've got Italy. Um and he could have been murdered. He could have been assassinated. He could have been kidnapped. He could have been taken uh at any moment. He's dealing with a terrible situation here.

[00:35:33]My understanding is that although 80% of the Jews of Europe perished in World War II, uh and in the Holocaust and and, you know, and outside of it, um 80% of Italy's Jews survived. Wow.

[00:35:52]>> Now, how do you account for 80% of European Jews as a whole being lost and 80% of Italian Jews surviving? There had to be a lot of cooperation by Italian people.

[00:36:05]And my sus- I strongly suspicion is that had an awful lot to do with the with what the Pope was And was doing. I mean, there was just all kinds of They mean just hiding people away and giving people escapes and places to hide and again, convents, monasteries, in the Vatican itself.

[00:36:26]And there was many priests, I've I've heard 2,000, 3,000 priests were killed by the Nazis for protecting >> Oh Oh my good- goodness, yes. I mean, the the I mean, we Trying to think um Trying to think who the historian was who who did this [clears throat] work. But the the I mean, the Obviously, Hitler hated the Jews.

[00:36:49]And it wasn't just that he hated the Jews as people. He hated the whole Jewish idea. And central to the Jewish idea is the Jewish idea of God.

[00:36:59]The God of mono- the God we Christians worship. We didn't invent that God. Or we didn't find him for the first time.

[00:37:05]It's the God that first spoke to the Jewish people.

[00:37:09]Who made his covenant with the Jewish people. Now, this God, when he is brought to Europe, displaces the pagan gods, those war-like power-thirsty gods.

[00:37:26]Hitler wanted them back. Wow.

[00:37:29]>> He wanted the old pagan gods back. Wow.

[00:37:32]>> So, he hated the Jewish God who was imported into Europe by who?

[00:37:37]Christianity. So, he hated Christianity, especially hated the Catholic Church. He killed lots of priests. He killed lots of Catholics, mostly Poles, but not exclusively Poles.

[00:37:48]But the largest single group of victims, of course, were Jews. No question about that.

[00:37:54]Wow. Now, I felt like in the Catholic like I was blown away when I when I started hearing from like regular subscribers that always compliment me when I'm doing apologetics and debating, you know, Protestants, so to speak, you know, you know, cuz I was a former Protestant I said, this is what we got wrong. Same people that would cheer me on started getting angry with me when I would just, again, just give basic Catholic teaching. And a little research I did, I found it was coming from the same people that were constantly saying they were Catholic, attacking Pope Francis and now Pope Leo. It's a It's a group called the SSPX. And I found out that one of their leaders, the late Richard Branson, who is Branson Richard Williamson, who was excommunicated twice, uh >> Yeah. was a Holocaust denier. And these SSPX hid a a a Nazi war criminal for years in one of their monasteries. They had a funeral for one of the Nazis who the Vatican said you can't have a public funeral, but of course they don't care what the Vatican said. They So, they had a funeral anyway.

[00:38:58]So, I felt it was just like this little group of SSPX guys that were the Holocaust deniers and the anti-Semites in the church.

[00:39:06]But they have such a presence online with very popular speakers that it seems like it infected just normal mainstream Catholics. the only source or do you think there's other origins, other genesis of this like in Catholicism?

[00:39:21]>> No, that's not the only No, it's not the only source. And And again, you know, I think we really have to be careful not paint with too broad a brush here.

[00:39:27]There's some people think who think um anybody who likes the Latin Mass must be an anti-Semite. Yeah, I don't say that. I know >> is a trad or a traditionalist must be an anti-Semite.

[00:39:39]Unfortunately, there are anti-Semites within the traditionalist community, but not all of them are. The majority are not. They believe what the church teaches. They but they love the the the old right of the mass or what we now call the extraordinary form. And that's and that's fine. And you know, if if we're going to have a debate about about the extraordinary form, I'd I'd be in there advocating you know, that I I I if the Pope asked me for advice, which he hasn't, I'd say, you know, be be [clears throat] very um generous about allowing that beautiful old liturgy for the people who prefer that liturgy so long as they you know, don't deny that the ordinary form, the Novus Ordo is a legitimate mass. I mean, if they're if they're if they're if they're tipped over into thinking only the Tridentine right is is valid, then you know, they're out of line with the church. But you know, you can be a Novus Ordo preferring Catholic. You can be a traditionalist Latin mass preferring old right extraordinary form preferring Catholic and be perfectly good Catholic, but you can't be an anti-semite no matter what no matter what your liturgical preferences are. You cannot be a good It's as simple. You cannot be a good Catholic. You can't be a faithful Catholic if you're an anti-semite because you're committing a mortal sin. It's that simple. It's that straightforward.

[00:41:05]So, what what do you say about people that constantly every day you see on their channel, they're not talking about theology anymore. They're not talking about the church. Talking about Israel and how evil Israel every day.

[00:41:18]They committed a genocide. I heard Pope Leo asked, "Do you believe it's a genocide?" And I heard him say, "Some people call it a genocide. I have not." So, the church hasn't made that statement either way.

[00:41:30]Like you said, neutral. It's neutral.

[00:41:33]So, number one, how do you being a scholar, how would a scholar like how would you identify genocide?

[00:41:41]How would you describe a genocide so if we know like how cuz I don't think it's a genocide. I think it's war and I don't think it's war with Gaza or Palestine. I think it's war with terrorist Hamas. And I believe Hamas has no regard for human life and they use humans as human shields. When I say that they tell me my head's in the sand. Israel's evil.

[00:42:02]They're targeting Now they're saying Americans are targeting innocent people.

[00:42:06]They're flipping the script and saying Americans are terrorists. I had a former Green Beret a few weeks ago and he said people call me terrorist because my whole career I've been killing terrorists. And these are Americans calling them that. So, it's like the whole and and it to me it seems like guys like Nick Fuentes it almost seems like it was like you said, calculated to get people to hate Israel.

[00:42:26]And then, well, if America supports Israel, America must be bad, too. And now these same people sound like anti-American far-leftists.

[00:42:37]So, how would like someone says, "Oh, well, look at it's a genocide. Look at the what What would your argument What would a scholar's argument for that be?"

[00:42:46]Well, I mean, first we have to be clear on what genocide is and what it is is an effort systematically to eliminate uh by murdering an entire people. By people, I mean a national or ethnic or racial group or some similar category.

[00:43:08]So, if it were the case, which it is not that Israel or the government of Israel was trying to eliminate the Arabs, let's say, or the Palestinian Arabs as a group, that that was the goal systematically to just kill them, eliminate them, wipe them from the face of the earth, what Hitler did try to do to the Jewish people, then that would be a genocide.

[00:43:34]But if Israel were interested in committing genocide it could have done it.

[00:43:41]It could have done it.

[00:43:42]It didn't.

[00:43:44]Now, have war crimes been committed?

[00:43:46]Yeah.

[00:43:49]The Israeli government has acknowledged that and has pledged to take action against anyone committing war crimes.

[00:43:57]Does that happen in all wars? Yeah.

[00:44:00]Remember the My Lai massacre in Vietnam?

[00:44:04]You know, our people did that. We didn't believe in it.

[00:44:07]But there were we as the American people and you know, we took steps.

[00:44:12]We didn't we didn't try to rationalize it or justify it somehow.

[00:44:16]But in wars even just wars wars fought for just causes people on the side soldiers on the side of justice in the circumstances they're in sometimes do bad things, commit war crimes like targeting non-combatants or killing combatants who have been rendered harmless or taken as prisoners.

[00:44:41]Things like that. Um Sometimes soldiers even in just wars fighting for just causes do things like commit rape or even make rape a um a weapon of war.

[00:44:53]Utterly unjustified.

[00:44:55]Cannot be condoned. Must be condemned prosecuted punished.

[00:45:03]Um >> [snorts] >> so, that's I think what the situation is. Now, there's a there's a legitimate debate about the proper quantum of force that can be used in the circumstances of the particular war. To make a judgment on that, you need to know the facts and you need to be um um have your judgment guided by the specifics of the situation. We're we're now outside We're applying a very general principle, but you can't speak categorically until you actually know the specific facts in the specific case.

[00:45:40]Is it possible that Israel has used excessive force? Yes, there's a debate about that.

[00:45:45]Could the targeting have been more precise? There's legitimate debate about that.

[00:45:52]Is Israeli public officials and defenders of Israel argue on one side of that. They say, "Well, if you know the circumstances, if you know what we're actually facing here, you know, with Hamas placing its fighters or its equipment in hospitals, in schools and so forth then you realize, you know, even doing our best to minimize civilian casualties we're going to have a lot of civilian casualties.

[00:46:18]But that's ultimately on Hamas. That's not on on us. We're doing our best to minimize We don't want to kill non-combatants. We don't want to kill civilians. We don't want to kill innocent Palestinians. By innocent, they they mean people who are not actually involved in combat. That's not a question of whether they support the the Hamas cause or not. You can support the Hamas cause and still be a non-combatant and therefore immune from legitimate attack. And Israel and spokesmen for Israel say that they're respecting that.

[00:46:48]We need to know the the facts. The people on the other side say, "No, if you know the facts, our sources tell us that Israel is using more force than is necessary or is not targeting as precisely as it could to minimize the number of civilian deaths." Perfectly legitimate debate. We need to know the facts and you have different news outlets with different what shall we say, priors, different background beliefs who tell very different stories.

[00:47:17]So, it's hard for us over here in the United States to say with any kind of certitude what the truth of the matter is when it comes to proportionality.

[00:47:29]But seems to me very clear, if you know what genocide actually is that there's not a genocide.

[00:47:36]If Israel wanted to commit genocide, this war would have been over a long time ago and we'd have no Palestinians.

[00:47:41]They'd be all dead cuz Israel easily could have just completely wiped them out. Israel, by the way, is a nuclear power.

[00:47:48]But it wouldn't even have had to use nuclear power in order to commit a genocide if it wanted to commit a need to kind of be precise.

[00:47:56]It doesn't mean you can't criticize Israel. It doesn't mean that Israel has done everything right. It hasn't.

[00:48:01]Nor have we historically, nor are we today because we're we're human beings like everybody else.

[00:48:10]And we're going to make mistakes and there's going to be wrongdoing done and there's going to be wrongdoing done in our name. I've already talked about the the church's historical wrongdoing with respect to anti-semitism, respect to anti-Jewish rhetoric or crimes against Jewish people, people acting on behalf of the church itself. That didn't stop John Paul II from saying, "You know what? We Those who acted in the name of the church and did those things were wrong.

[00:48:34]They were not actually being faithful Christians, faithful Catholics. We repudiate that.

[00:48:40]We apologize for that.

[00:48:42]We pledge to do better.

[00:48:44]And and all of us with respect to some things are in the same position because all of us are imperfect. It's that thing that Christians call original sin.

[00:48:57]I love it. You know, we are fallible, fallen creatures as St. Paul says.

[00:49:03]Sometimes even when we know the right thing to do we don't do it. We let wayward desire, emotion, passion cause us to do bad things. That happens in war, too.

[00:49:15]Now, would this be a good analogy as you're saying this? I'm thinking about this.

[00:49:19]I believe and I I'm sure you believe America is an exceptional nation.

[00:49:24]Yet we have the sin of slavery, but we repudiated that.

[00:49:29]Could you equate that with the church repudiating the past anti-semitism?

[00:49:36]100% that is absolutely correct.

[00:49:41]And how do we know we were wrong?

[00:49:45]How do we figure out when we're wrong?

[00:49:48]By going back, whether we're church or state, going back to first principles.

[00:49:54]By comparing our conduct now, institution of slavery, uh mistreatment of Jewish people, mistreatment of Native American Indians, mistreatment of uh freed slaves, segregation, Jim Crow, and so forth. We compare that with Genesis 1.

[00:50:13]>> [laughter] >> Amen.

[00:50:14]>> treating people? Are we treating these American Indians? Are we treating these Jewish people? Are we treating these black people as if they are made in the very image and likeness of God?

[00:50:23]If the answer is no, then what follows from that is we're wrong, we're sorry, we repent of this, we ask your forgiveness, we do better.

[00:50:37]And and you know, that's that's just the human condition. We're never going to be free of that, by the way.

[00:50:42]Cuz human nature is not going to improve. No. Human nature is fixed. I was just telling my wife, we've been married 40 years, and I still do some of the stupid things I know that I shouldn't do as a husband.

[00:50:55]>> [laughter] >> And we've been married 40 years. I was doing it in my 20s, and I turned 60 this year, and I'm still doing the dumb these dumb things.

[00:51:03]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, St. Paul says the good that I would do, I do not, and the evil that I would not do, I do.

[00:51:10]You know, we just we we struggle along to do the best we can, but there's no excuse for not doing our best. There's even though we're not going to be perfect, there's no excuse for for not doing our doing our best.

[00:51:23]Um you know, when Martin Luther King when Martin Luther King waged his part of the you know, the battle against segregation and racial injustice, the Jim Crow system, he didn't say what some people said.

[00:51:40]Malcolm X, for example.

[00:51:42]Now, Malcolm X came to a came around to a different view eventually, but you know, when he was still under the influence of Elijah Muhammad and you know, with the with the um uh uh Nation of Islam, Malcolm X basically said, "Whole system's corrupt. US is corrupt, corrupt from the start, bad, evil, wicked.

[00:52:00]Don't know anything to do with them. You know, we need to build our own nation within the nation, Nation of Islam. We need our own nation. We're not Americans." Right?

[00:52:08]That wasn't Martin Luther King.

[00:52:10]What did Martin Luther King do?

[00:52:12]Went back to first principles.

[00:52:14]He said, "I read somewhere that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator."

[00:52:23]That's in that Declaration of Independence.

[00:52:26]Our founding fathers wrote a check.

[00:52:29]It's a promissory note.

[00:52:32]Time to deliver on the promise. Time to make good on the on the check. He was calling us to be our best selves.

[00:52:40]And I think that's the proper attitude.

[00:52:42]It's not burn it all down.

[00:52:45]It's reform.

[00:52:47]Do better.

[00:52:49]Get ourselves into line with those first principles. Now, you mentioned the concept of American exceptionalism.

[00:52:55]That's a wonderful concept, but it's so badly misunderstood, Rob.

[00:53:01]People hear American exceptionalism, and they think, "Oh, that means we think as a we're beating our chests saying, 'We as Americans, we're more virtuous than everybody. We're better. We're smarter.

[00:53:11]You know, we're we're we're more handsome. We're prettier. We're stronger. We're >> [laughter] >> It has nothing to do with any of that stuff.

[00:53:19]What is American exceptionalism? In what way is America an exceptional nation?

[00:53:23]Goes back to something I said before.

[00:53:25]Most nations in the world, all nations in the world prior to the establishment of the United States, were founded on common bonds of blood and soil, throne and altar.

[00:53:38]A shared ethnic background or racial background or cultural history or religion or something like that.

[00:53:44]And the sources of a people's strength and unity were in those bonds of blood and soil or throne and altar.

[00:53:51]We couldn't do that in America because we came from different places, different cultures, different ethnicities. We were different religions. At the beginning, it was mostly different sects of Protestantism, but we were still different religions.

[00:54:03]Of course, we're even more different today.

[00:54:05]So, if you can't found a nation on blood and soil or throne and altar because of all the diversity, all the differences between people, race, ethnicity, religion, cultural history, cultural background, and so forth, what do you put as the foundation? What what will be the source of your unity as a people and of your strength as you go through life and you get the bumps and bruises, the depressions, the wars, the disasters, and you need to pull together, and you need to find sources of strength?

[00:54:33]It's not blood, it's not soil, it's not throne, it's not altar. What will it be?

[00:54:37]It's a shared commitment to certain principles of justice.

[00:54:42]It's a shared commitment, whether we're Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, to the principle that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

[00:54:54]And then the principles of the Constitution by which we try to effectuate the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. That's why I call the the Constitution the hardware that runs the software of the Declaration, you know? We find our unity in a shared commitment. You your ancestors might have come from Japan.

[00:55:12]They might have come from Croatia.

[00:55:15]They might be Catholic.

[00:55:17]They might be Buddhist.

[00:55:19]They might be Jewish. They might be German. They might be Pakistani. They might be It could be from anywhere.

[00:55:27]And you can still be 100% fully an American. [clears throat] How?

[00:55:36]By doing what you need to do to become a citizen?

[00:55:41]By taking the pledge you pledge to be a patriot, an effectual supporter of the country who the country can rely on when needed, and where you share the commitment to American ideals and institutions, the ideals of the Declaration, the institutions of the of the Constitution.

[00:56:01]Um I'll tell you something.

[00:56:03]You can become a French citizen. It's hard to become a Frenchman if you're not one.

[00:56:08]You can be you you can become a Chinese citizen. You can get you can get somebody in Beijing, you know, the proper official to issue you a passport, but you don't become Chinese.

[00:56:17]No, because those are not creedal nations.

[00:56:21]You know, that doesn't mean they're bad.

[00:56:22]That doesn't mean they're wicked.

[00:56:23]Doesn't mean they're evil, you know?

[00:56:27]But they're different.

[00:56:28]And they are the norm in the world.

[00:56:30]We're the exception because our common bonds, our strength and unity are not in shared bonds of blood and soil, throne and altar.

[00:56:40]They're in a shared creed, a shared commitment to the principles of the Declaration and of the Constitution.

[00:56:45]Now, does that mean culture doesn't matter? No, it doesn't. Of course, you need a culture, a shared culture. No question about it.

[00:56:52]But the culture that we share is one that has itself been shaped by the creedal commitments to American ideals and institutions, which again is why whether or not you can become a Frenchman or become Chinese, you can become an American. It doesn't matter where you came from. You can have left on a little tiny boat desperate, you know, from in Vietnam, from the rice paddies of Vietnam.

[00:57:17]You you could have come with the pilgrims. You could have come on the Mayflower.

[00:57:23]You're equal citizens either way. You were brought over in slavery. You were brought in chains from Africa.

[00:57:29]We undid, finally, great effort, great cost, 750,000 dead in the Civil War, lots of suffering even after the war, lots of prejudice and discrimination even after the war, lynching, terrible things, but with great effort, we overcame that.

[00:57:44]And our fellow citizens of African heritage are every bit as much true Americans, good American citizens, as people whose ancestors came on the Mayflower. My ancestors came from on the mom's side from Italy, southern Italy, Calabria. On my dad's side from Syria, little tiny Christian minority in Syria.

[00:58:05]Just two generations back. My grand Both my granddads were both were coal miners, as I mentioned, but you know, both were also immigrants.

[00:58:12]But here I am.

[00:58:15]Am I Italian?

[00:58:17]Am I Syrian?

[00:58:18]That's my ethnic heritage.

[00:58:20]But if you ask me, like, "What are you?"

[00:58:23]I'm American. Amen.

[00:58:25]Right? And I'm as American as, you know, Thurston Howell the Third.

[00:58:30]>> [laughter] >> Amen. I have a good thing I got most of my subscribers are our age.

[00:58:37]>> [laughter] >> That's funny. So, before we close, I want to know what your solution is. How do we tell these young people that, number one, America is an exceptional nation, and anti-Semitism is opposed to exception American exceptionalism, and number two, more importantly, anti-Semitism is opposed to the church's teaching. What's the solution?

[00:59:07]Well, in some cases, we're fighting ignorance, and we have to just inform people.

[00:59:13]If they say, "Look, I I'm a Catholic. I I I believe that the church has the authority to teach me the truth on matters of religious doctrine."

[00:59:24]Well, it's important then for you to know that it is a conciliar teaching, a teaching of the Catholic Church, a solemn teaching embodied in the document Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council that anti-Semitism is impermissible.

[00:59:40]Impermissible.

[00:59:42]Number two, let's be clear.

[00:59:45]You could even if you call it something else, if you call it anti-Zionism or whatever you call it, it doesn't change it.

[00:59:52]>> [laughter] >> If you have hatred or contempt or prejudice against Jewish people, that is what the church condemns.

[01:00:02]In the same way that she condemns all the other evil things that she condemns.

[01:00:06]And if you believe that you should be guided by the church on all the other evil things that she condemns, then you've got to believe that you need to be guided by the church when she condemns this animosity to the Jewish people or anybody else.

[01:00:19]Anybody It's nothing here. I mean, although we have as Pope John Paul II a special spiritual bond with the Jewish people. They are our brothers and indeed our elder brothers in the in the faith. Um this basic principle applies to absolutely everybody. You can't be prejudiced against people from Ghana >> [clears throat] >> or people from India or people from Ecuador.

[01:00:39]We believe all men are created equal. Amen.

[01:00:44]We believe that as a religious matter and of course it's it's at the foundation of our civic creed. So that's if you're dealing with ignorance.

[01:00:51]Sometimes though you're not dealing with ignorance.

[01:00:54]You're dealing with willfulness.

[01:00:57]This character Fuentes, he claims to be a Catholic.

[01:01:02]He knows perfectly well that what he is preaching is contrary to Catholic teaching.

[01:01:09]He doesn't need to be informed. He already knows. He needs to be opposed.

[01:01:15]Which is why I just could not tolerate the defense of that the content of that interview with Tucker Carlson or with the condemnation even more fundamentally with the condemnation of critics of the interview.

[01:01:34]Possum.

[01:01:36]Possum. You're not you're you can't just like correct them because they're not under any they're not the problem is not ignorance.

[01:01:46]They know. The problem is willfulness.

[01:01:48]So provide information, provide knowledge where the problem is just innocent ignorance.

[01:01:55]I mean I mean there's some people who just I mean they're not people of bad will. They just or misinformed.

[01:02:01]They think for example that well the the the once Jesus came and the Jewish people most of the Jewish people, not all of course, did not accept him, then God broke his covenant with them. He took it away and he gave it to us. That's sometimes called replacement theology or supersessionism. And there have been people teaching in the church up until really the 1960s who would say that.

[01:02:29]But now we have the issue settled and it's settled very clearly that the God's covenant with the Jewish people is unbroken and un breakable. So sometimes we're just needing to inform people who happen to be ignorant of the truth matter.

[01:02:45]We're all ignorant of some things. Ask me about quantum physics. I'll show you very quickly how ignorant I am.

[01:02:50]>> [laughter] >> But you know, if someone's ignorant about something like this and and you know, it's being led astray because of that ignorance, then you have to inform them.

[01:02:59]But then there are people who are not ignorant.

[01:03:02]And they're just out there you know, to to to advance an evil cause like anti-Semitism and we just have to stand up and oppose them. Yeah, and I know >> by the way, it'll be interesting to see, you know, Rob when when the facts actually come out about the Southern Poverty Law Center's funding of hate groups.

[01:03:20]It'll be very interesting to see if in fact Fuentes um has an agenda of his own I'm betting it.

[01:03:32]I'm betting >> other than the one that he is ostensibly pushing. I mean this this is starting to get really interesting. I don't want to prejudge it, you know, I but it's really weird that somebody who seems to be whose description fits he who fits the description seems like it's Nick Fuentes is getting what, a million dollars? Is that what they said? You know, a lot of money. I heard one I heard for one instance he got 270,000 for the Charlottesville thing, Unite the Right where they the Nazis came out shouting. But I heard overall this person who Nick fits the description got a million dollars. Yeah, okay. Well, So [laughter] and and St. Peter tells us in first Timothy 6:10 the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

[01:04:19]>> Root of the love of money. Yeah, that's right. Not money. Not money. Not money.

[01:04:23]You want to send the paycheck, I'll take it.

[01:04:25]>> [laughter] >> So Well, I mean who knows what's really going on here?

[01:04:31]A psyop, right? Yeah, I think you know, I I usually blow conspiracy theories off, but when someone's when when a conspiracy that I thought in my head when I seen this guy and and a Catholic sent him to me and I was like this guy's not right. He's he's saying like he's a conservative Republican, but he's repeating left-wing talking points that I've been debating my whole life as a conservative.

[01:04:55]And I said >> The other the thing that that where I got my first kind of glimmer of thought that this guy might not be what he is presenting himself as being is when he endorsed Kamala Harris. Remember that? He endorsed Kamala Harris. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And he's telling his he's telling his viewers like he literally said it's more important to vote with the anti-Zionist than it is with the Republicans. Vote Democrat because it's more important to vote with people that hate the Jews than to vote with people that love unborn children and that oppose transgenderism for children. Like how >> Amazing.

[01:05:34]How How does people get so deceived like like how do you not to me it was like boom like red lights going off.

[01:05:41]Yeah. Yeah, really wild. Yeah, so it'll be interesting. I'm going to I'm going to stay on this. And I mean, I went as far as saying it was him because to me, you know, and I I wish I could be more tempered like you. I know you're very precise. I had a theologian on a Father Joseph Iannuzzi and he is so precise. He misspoke, but it was cuz we were kind of joking and he asked me to delete. It was like 30 seconds and I said, but no nobody got that wrong. I understood what you meant. He said, "No, I'm a theologian. I got to be precise." I'm like, man, I can never be a theologian.

[01:06:15][laughter] Good man. He's my kind of guy. I like that.

[01:06:18]>> Yeah, yeah, that's who you remind me of.

[01:06:20]So but anyway, well, thank you so much. Is I always love talking to you. You're welcome anytime if there's something you want to talk about.

[01:06:28]And I want my viewers to know more about you if if you could if there's anything that you could lead them to to look and if you if you could have your assistant send me some links, I'll put them in.

[01:06:40]But you have anything they can read about or that you that you would suggest that you that you have?

[01:06:47]Well, I mean my new book with Cornell West, Truth Matters. Okay, definitely.

[01:06:51]>> Which is available on online and all online booksellers and so forth. Also, I have a solo book out and more recently just the last few months called Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth. Okay, that sounds good.

[01:07:03]>> that one I particularly recommend for parents and grandparents of kids who are in high school or college.

[01:07:10]That that book is written not just for my fellow academics, but for a broader audience.

[01:07:17]Especially for young people. It kind of distills my in-class teaching here at Princeton All right. into book form to try to make it available to a much wider wider audience. That sounds good.

[01:07:30]>> And while I'm at it, let me congratulate you on on your boys you got a couple of boys there who are in doctoral programs. That's that's that's serious academic achievement there and you should be you should be very proud although you're you're going to lose them to the to the blue-collar class.

[01:07:46]Yeah, yeah, I it's funny because they have three semesters left and they'll both be doctors and I have a son also I have a son who's a lawyer with a doctorate of law degree.

[01:07:57]>> Wow. And it's by the grace of God because you know, I don't know if you've heard my testimony, but I grew up on the streets as a drug dealer since age 12 and never finished high school and and just had a conversion with Jesus Christ in Navy boot camp and uh so I know it's nothing I've done. I can't boast in myself. I boast in Christ and he's given me an amazing family and my youngest son I said, "Oh, we're going to have to do a show, Blue Collar and His Scholars." And he said, >> [laughter] >> The funny thing is he says to me, "Dad, but you know way more than us." And I said, you you know, you just being nice.

[01:08:33]He's like, "No, I always come to you for advice especially with politics and religion. You're my go-to guy, so so God bless you know, >> Well, that's just it's just a wonderful and and is this a great country or what?

[01:08:43]It's the best.

[01:08:43]>> Where you know, your dad didn't finish high school, but you've got a lawyer and two people about to get two sons about to get doctorates.

[01:08:52]>> no less. I mean, we should be so grateful to live in this blessed country where we have that kind of social mobility. Believe me, historically very few places in the world and even to this day very few cultures on the face of the earth make that something you can actually aspire to.

[01:09:11]You know, where where it's not not just an exception, it's the norm.

[01:09:16]Yes.

[01:09:16]>> I mean, you know, one generation is barely scraping by, the next generation maybe gets to college, the next generation are professionals and you know, leaders in their fields and It's it's a real blessing. Amen. And and we have to preserve that in this country, by the way. I I have a I have a good argument with my friend Cornell West because one of the things we disagree about is whether economic equality is an ideal.

[01:09:44]Now, he believes as a socialist that economic equality is an ideal. Now, because he's he's a sane person and you know, and he realizes if you tried to actually enforce economic equality, you would destroy liberty. So, he thinks unfortunately, for the sake of other important values like liberty we can't actually have policies that would create the ideal would reach the ideal of equality. So, he says, "Look at places like Cuba and the Soviet Union. They tried to do it and they destroyed liberty." So, that's sane and sensible.

[01:10:20]Um but my position is different. My position is equality is economic equality is not even an ideal.

[01:10:28]I I I don't think it like in the perfect world you'd you'd have economic equality.

[01:10:33]That's not what we should be striving for. What we should be striving for is social mobility.

[01:10:40]Mhm.

[01:10:41]So, economic and cultural circumstances in which a young man or young woman whose dad had been a drug dealer, dropped out of school at age 13, had a conversion, got his life together, you know, made a life for his family, made a living for his family, taught his kids well, that that next generation could become lawyers and and doctors and >> Amen.

[01:11:07]>> and academics and so forth. That to me is the ideal. So, I want I don't I'm I'm not I'm not concerned about economic I'm really concerned about that other kind of equality. Equal dignity, equality of dignity. Everybody counts the same as far as fundamental worth and value, but not economic equality, but I do believe in social mobility.

[01:11:25]And that's if I'm designing policies, I would want policies that would facilitate that social mobility. And you know, we've lost that.

[01:11:32]I mean, not completely, but but it's diminished. It's It's harder today for people to rise up than it was. And I think we need to work hard in our politics to get back if if if when people are designing economic programs for the political parties, I really wish they'd put the focus on, "All right, how do we get social mobility in place?"

[01:11:52]I'm sorry to be lecturing, but one thing we can't do is continue to allow the cost of college education to be so prohibitive.

[01:12:02]What's causing that?

[01:12:02]>> Today, college education has become so expensive.

[01:12:06]You know, >> What's causing that? That Princeton's 94th Well, I mean, there are a couple of things. One is a very misguided government loan program, government student loan program, which did nothing but incentivize universities to raise costs.

[01:12:19]>> [snorts] >> Number two, the ridiculous bloating of universities with administrative bureaucracy.

[01:12:26]All of which increased the cost of universities, which gets handed on to the to the students. So, there's some things we can do and we really should do them because social mobility is such an important value. It's what made Do you want to know what made America great?

[01:12:40]One is the principles of the declaration all men are created equal. One is our valuable, wonderful constitution. For It is not perfect, but man is it good by comparison to any other anything else that I know.

[01:12:50]But number three is that that magnificent social mobility that your children have benefited from and that I benefited from.

[01:12:59]That's awesome. That's That's great.

[01:13:01]Well, I really appreciate that and and I had a thought. I know we both opposed Bill Clinton back in the day, but Bill Clinton came from a single mom that was broke and he became president of the United States. This is an exceptional nation. It's a great country. Thank you, Rob. Good to be with you. Thank you.

[01:13:17]Great to be with you. Anytime you want to come back, you are more than welcome.

[01:13:21]You bet. Bye-bye now.