In this captivating episode, Mark and Mike take listeners on a journey to the holy sites of Jerusalem. From the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the Garden of Gethsemane, they describe the rich history and cultural significance of these sacred locations. Along the way, they discuss the complex political landscape in Israel, offering insights into the current tensions and ceasefire negotiations. Mike shares encounters with local individuals who hold diverse perspectives on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s leadership, providing a nuanced view of Israeli politics.
00:12:19 Discussion on Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes
SPEAKER 02 :
A little behind the curtain, ordinarily when we start our Mark and Mike segments, I have the Salem News Channel feed because Mike’s network show is all over the TV box and all over the Salem News Channel platform. And that means I’m looking at him in Florida when he’s at home base, or I’m looking at him in New York when he’s in New York, or I’m looking at him in Phoenix whenever he’s doing something in Phoenix. And right now I’m looking at Mike. And the city of Jerusalem is behind you, and you are in the Middle East. I’m like Phil Hartman’s unfrozen caveman lawyer. I’m bewildered by your ability to be in another country and another continent, and yet I can still see you. I’m amazed by stuff. And there you are, and you look great. And good afternoon, Israeli time.
SPEAKER 01 :
Shalom. Well, get ready for the day we had today. How about starting out at the Church of the Holy Skepleker, which is considered the whole – the church is built on the site that scholars and historians believe is the site where Jesus was crucified. And Constantine, Emperor Constantine, built a church in the 4th century. This church has been rebuilt over and over because it’s been damaged. But the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is, and I always say that name wrong, Sepulchre. I always want to say Sepulchre.
SPEAKER 02 :
Don’t be skeptical about the Sepulchre.
SPEAKER 01 :
The sepulcher. And so we started there. We went over to the Mount of Olives, which is a very holy place, which is, of course, where it is believed that, and the Bible says, that Jesus ascended into heaven. We went to all over. The garden tomb, which is the way the Bible describes it, a tomb, a rock, along with a peaceful garden. We just get to go to all of these holy sites in one day, in one morning, and then to my favorite spot of all, the Garden of Gethsemane. Those ancient olive trees are said to have descendants – they are descendants of – the olive trees that were there when Jesus was in the garden the night before he was crucified. And it’s all within—oh, let me modernize this—all within a 10-minute taxi ride. Get is the big Uber over here. They don’t have Uber in Israel, apparently. It was explained to me a lot of politics behind that and a lot of drama and paperwork. But get is the same thing, same kind of idea. And it’s just been magnificent.
SPEAKER 02 :
They’re not doing the robots in Israel yet, are they?
SPEAKER 01 :
Nope. I don’t think they will ever do the robots here. I don’t think Waymo cars… They know that it’s the devil’s work.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m teasing, teasing, I’m teasing.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, look, and there are armed guards everywhere. The tensions here are a little high. After yesterday, of course, Netanyahu announced that he had ordered powerful strikes in the Gaza Strip. Immediately, Marco Rubio is calling these offensive strikes… A defense, you know, it’s self-defense.
SPEAKER 02 :
What happened was in the portion of Gaza where there are still Israeli troops, the Palestinian warriors took a pot shot and killed an Israeli soldier. And at that point, F.A.F.O., buddy, whatever Hebrew is for that, because the Israeli response was definitive and meant to teach a lesson. Don’t screw with us during the ceasefire and message delivered.
SPEAKER 01 :
Can we wait until I get out of here before you start launching into your FAFO about the enemy? No, I kid. I kid. But look, it’s a very fragile ceasefire. It’s a very fragile peace. And Israelis know that. They’re very mindful of that, and they recognize that this is far from over. And how do you negotiate with Hamas? I mean, this is what just completely befuddles me. And so today I had, you know, I shared with you yesterday when I phoned in and told you about the guy that I visited with who hated Benjamin Netanyahu. Today I visited with a young man who’s on our team here in Jerusalem, and he is Team Bibi. He’s also, of course, Team Trump. And he actually said to me the same reasons that I love Donald Trump is why I respect and love Benjamin Netanyahu. He said you can’t put all of October 7th at his doorstep. One man can’t stop that massive terror attack, which is basically what the other guy was saying yesterday. And he said there’s a lot of controversy here, a lot of people. And as he said to me in his somewhat broken English, there’s a lot of woke people here in Israel. Mm-hmm. And he went through the same dynamic that we face every day in America about the woke left. And he said there’s a lot of people who shockingly seem to have sympathy for Hamas even and, you know, don’t like seeing what has happened in Gaza. And he said we go through that. In fact, he’s in school here. And he said the only thing I don’t like about it are all the woke leftists who I’ve got to go to school with.
SPEAKER 02 :
so it’s the same kind of kind of interesting he said that you know hey you can’t lay october 7th you can’t lay that at the feet of bb how can you lay any of it at the feet of netanyahu isn’t that kind of like it’s maybe a clumsy comparison but i think it works isn’t that kind of like blaming george w bush for not seeing 9-11 coming are there signals where maybe in retrospect 2020 hindsight wow you know of course we in hindsight is always 2020 we would have if If we’d been more vigilant, if only, if only, if only. But ultimately, nobody was sitting around September 8th, 9th, 10th going, you know, I think we’re about to see buildings hit. Nobody was sitting around on October 4th, 5th, 6th saying, you know, I think we’re about to see a music festival run over by Hamas terrorists. It’s weird.
SPEAKER 01 :
But on the other hand, you’ve got really smart folks like Steve Bannon. Bannon is calling for Netanyahu to be toppled immediately. He said we need regime change in Jerusalem. We need it tonight. He says everything that comes out of Netanyahu’s government is a stone-cold lie. He believes that Netanyahu and the Israeli regime have lied to President Trump and the American people and attempted to drag the U.S. into a conflict with Iran. In fact, in August, after Netanyahu claimed you can’t be MAGA if you’re anti-Israel, Bannon responded in a social media post, American citizens do not give two blanks about your thoughts on MAGA or what our citizens need to believe. They care about exposing your pathological lies in order to keep us out of your next war.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, this is not a – What’s your thought about that? Because I’ll give you 60 seconds on it. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it’s a very real concern that many people have about the whole – is sort of the polar opposite of an America first agenda. America firsters just are not quite on board with the way we are. And that’s inevitable, Mark. I think we have to accept that and realize that the Matt Gaetz’s and the Marjorie Taylor Greene’s perhaps, although I haven’t fleshed out her entire position on this, but definitely Steve Bannon and others, they don’t trust the Israeli government, they don’t trust Netanyahu, and they don’t believe that the intentions here are pure as the driven snow.
SPEAKER 02 :
For them to be hesitant, reticent, concerned, and vigilant about America being dragged into a huge, broad, violent Middle Eastern conflict is fine. For them to project sinister intent on Netanyahu in an attempt to drag President Trump as it… What kind of Trump supporters are they, the Steve Bannons and this ilk, if they think Trump is so gullible that he could be thus dragged into such a thing unwittingly? I trust President Trump way more than Steve Bannon does, and I really love him on a lot of issues. But there’s an almost Tucker-style weirdness going on with Bannon sometimes where – Everything has to be couched in whether every syllable must be something I can weaponize against American involvement in any way in the Middle East.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, here’s the argument that was on a recent War Room podcast that sort of started this conversation, that you never hear, or so the accusation goes, you never hear people talk about the threat of Islam. You never see people talk about the threat of Islam. We’re just obsessed with Israel. were obsessed. In fact, Laura Loomer was with Bannon and said, they got to stop being so obsessed with Israel and so obsessed with the Jews. It’s not the Israelis that are going to have another 9-11 here in our country. So that’s the counter-narrative. Now, again, I don’t necessarily agree with that either. I trust Trump. And I think President Trump has been a little bit frustrated by Benjamin Netanyahu. I think the bombing of Qatar, according to, you know, as we talked about yesterday, even Jared Kushner said, It kind of demonstrated to Trump that the Israelis were a little bit out of control.
SPEAKER 02 :
And he told him so. He went to Bibi and said, dude, that’s out of bounds or words to that effect. And Netanyahu, to his credit, said, all right, and then came to the peace table. Anyway, we got the peace agreement after Trump gave him a small spanking about going after people within the borders of another country. So I think the system’s working. I totally trust Trump. And I do like Steve Bannon. And I maintain some level of residual respect for Tucker, even though his conversation with Nick Fuentes is attracting attention. I watched the whole thing. Oh, then give me two seconds on that in a minute. So I like Bannon. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. But it’s what do you do with your concern? And I think Bannon is way more interested in virtue signaling. His reticence about global conflict and et cetera, et cetera. Okay, Nick Fuentes is an actual straight-up white nationalist. He is. We talk about they’re trying to call us all white nationalists. He actually is one. I’m a big believer in talk to anybody about anything. I’m not going to scold Tucker for talking to this guy. I do believe there’s wisdom in knowing whom to ignore. I spend each day ignoring Nick Fuentes. If other people want to talk to him, that’s fine. Free country. But how did that conversation go?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, and I was kind of surprised at my own actions for watching the whole thing. It was almost two hours long. Well, when you’re on a 12-hour plane ride, you’ll watch anything. You’ll watch anything. I mean, and I did. I watched, by the way, quick crime. Here we go. Here we go, crime scene Mike. The Perfect Neighbor on Netflix. Mark, it’s so riveting. I’ve seen the ad. Huh? Have you seen the ad? I’ve seen the ad, and it is tempting. So it’s a woman who is in a neighborhood of largely black kids, black families, and she’s a white woman. Now, race doesn’t really play a big role in this, although I guess some would say it kind of does. Anyway, the whole documentary is made of the police body cam videos. The actual body cam videos because she kept calling the police every time the kids would play in her yard. And that’s all it was about was her complaining about the children making too much noise and that they were leaving there. And the kids all seemed like great kids. They were out playing football and hide and seek. And she lived in this apartment. It was a rental that was like a big field, like a shared space. And that’s where the kids like to play. So what would something clearly go wrong? What happens? She she killed one of the kids mothers. The mother came to the door, knocked on the door, and banging on the door, and she fired a gun through the locked, closed door. Well, you don’t get to do that, do you?
SPEAKER 02 :
I mean, I understand her fears. I understand everybody’s fears and castle doctrine and don’t try to break it. That’s right.
SPEAKER 01 :
And I don’t want to overanalyze, but… Well, that was the debate was that her defense was the Castle Doctrine. And it happened in Florida, which is very big with the Castle Doctrine. Now, they nailed her. They convicted her, sent her to 20 to 25 years manslaughter. But it’s a fact. What’s neat about it is really almost the whole documentary is just police body cam videos. And you would think that would be hard. It wasn’t. It was like watching a documentary film crew. And then the police.
SPEAKER 02 :
The perfect neighbor. The perfect neighbor. 60 seconds on Tucker and Fuentes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, because she’s quoted incidentally in one of these changes as saying, I don’t know what all these kids are saying to me because I’m the perfect neighbor. Hence the title. You know, Fuentes comes off, when you see this interview with Tucker, as perfectly reasonable. And Tucker’s asking questions. Just asking questions. This kid’s a skilled communicator, Mark. Well, sure. They all are. They all are. But don’t bury the lead. That’s real important because that’s why they win so many hearts and minds. That’s why they win over so many because they’re really charming and charismatic and effective in what they communicate. An America First agenda. We shouldn’t be afraid of being America First.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s fine. But speaking of burying the lead, Nick Fuentes, I believe, is a white supremacist. Is he not? You wouldn’t see that interview and say that. I don’t know enough about him to tell you the truth. Maybe it’s because Tucker conveniently guided him away from the various stone-cold racist things this guy has said.
SPEAKER 01 :
You don’t like Tucker. You’re just letting your auntie Tucker Carlson… I like Tucker when he’s likable. You know… Well, is he ever likable to you? Sure, of course.
SPEAKER 02 :
When he’s spending 80% of his time talking about the 80% of the things that he’s right about. He’s just asking questions. We are just enjoying you in Israel. Can’t wait, 10 o’clock, ready for you to just hold court and hold forth about your amazing experiences. And I’m always glad for this time together, especially when you’re doing something as important as this.
SPEAKER 01 :
It means a lot. Great seeing you, Mark. God bless. You too, Mark.
