What Is Zionism, Anyway? | Guest: Josh Hammer | 2/13/26

And greetings, happy Friday. Welcome to the Steve Dace Show here live and on demand on Blaze TV, radio, and podcast with Todd Erz and Aaron McIntyre. I'm Steve Dace. We're going to be joined by our old friend, editor over there at Newsweek, Josh Hammer here. In just a moment, good to have him back on the Dace Group. We'll say hi to him in a second after we tell you about our friends over at Chirp. Chirp, I should say. Church is good, too. But Chirp. Church won't help you with the trigger points, but Chirp will. All right. If you are wanting to get active, stay active. This has been one of my life hacks for the last several years. And the kinds of technologies and devices you get from our friends over at Chirp, those trigger point rollers. You ever wondered why you start going to the gym? Here's a good rule of thumb, by the way. Start doing this stuff that you can do that people who are in better shape than you are doing. because that's probably, don't you think, Todd, from a family of athletes, that's probably a pretty good, you know, hint that people that have already demonstrated by the physical evidence you can look at, they know how to take care of their body, that they know how to take care of their body. And if you can do those things, that's a good place to start, right? So you're going to see the people that have been doing this for a while. You're going to see them, the veterans, rolling out before they work out right on the trigger point roller, okay? You can get those with our friends over at Chirp. You can get the Chirp Contour, the decompression and massage table that gives you the same kind of professional-grade therapy but right there in your own home. You can get the Rolling Power Mini Massager, the big one and the mini one. I take the mini with me now wherever I go on the road. These are all customizable treatments, and they are all huge in helping us to maintain an active lifestyle. So you want to check out the full catalog, go to gochirp.com slash Steve. C-H-I-R-P, C-H-I-R-P for gochirp.com slash Steve. That's GoChirp.com slash Steve. Coming up on today's show, next hour. Of course, it'll be a Feedback Friday, but first, it is time for the Dace Group. And there he is, our good friend Josh Hammer. It is good to see you. Brother, how you been? Steve, I'm doing just fine. I'm moving a million miles a minute, but it's always great to make time to join you guys. And indeed, how's the show going? I think I just saw some news. You just added another platform, right, to your arsenal, correct? Yeah, so the show is now distributed by Salem. It's on Salem News Channel. We have some radio affiliates. So the show is getting momentum. I'm starting to get started on my next book proposal, actually, so that's exciting as well. I'm also now with the David Horowitz Freedom Center. So there's always titles, always editions in the works, but it's never too busy, Steve, to join you and the fellows here for the Dace Group, as long as that Lindsey Graham question remains, as you know. Most importantly, let's not bury the lead, because, by the way, we are visiting Israel for the first time, all three of us. We're taking a tour over there in two weeks, and to film is a mini-series of content that we're going to do here for the show later in the year. But let's not bury the lead here. What's life like as a husband and father? How's that going? so the baby turned 14 months today and it's kind of just like oh my god i mean like where where the hatchet this happened i mean like like she's she's she's taking baby steps now she's walking five six steps at a time there uh i was telling aaron actually before we went live here that we're now looking to put our first uh down payment on a home probably asap there so adulthood has happened uh really fast but you know what i just turned 37 on thursday actually just yesterday so it's probably it's probably better late than never time to grow up now obviously yes exactly all right well Let's get to it. It's your weekly look at the week that was. It begins as it always does with issue one. Bleep. Lord Nefarious says. Get the f*** out of my city, you f***ing a*****. Get the f*** out of here. Are you taking a picture of your license plate? No. No. We don't want to know. We don't want to know. We don't care. Get the f*** out of my city. So you just said a bunch of stuff and then you don't want to hear anything about it? We don't want to hear it. Yeah, you're a f***ing loser. You have no right to talk about it, you f***ing piece of s***. Bye. Come on, Evan. Go kill yourself, you son of a b***h. All right. Woo, you feel good? Bye. Shut my ass. Yeah, that's very kind, very kind. Get out of here, you . You should turn to Christ. You can still turn to Christ. Jesus Christ, I'll you, you . So yeah, anyways, the coffee here was decent. I always tell people the day the Latino, African American, Asian and other communities realize that they are, that they share the same oppressor is the day we start winning. Because we are the majority in this country now. We are, we have the ability to take over this country and to do what is needed for everyone and to make things fair. We really need some fumigation, right? We need an exorcism, for lack of a better term. We need a more aggressive approach to go in and surgically remove the cancer that is the Donald Trump and MAGA movement. You've lost. You have lost. You lost. The mistake that you made is you let us in in the first place. That's the thing with brown people. I'm going to say this as a brown person. There's a lot of us. Like a lot. There's like 1.2 billion in India. There's more than 200 million in Pakistan. There's like 170 million in Bangladesh. Those are just the people there. I'm even talking about the folks who are expats or immigrants. there's a bunch of us and we breed we're a breeding people and the problem is is you let us in in 1965 there was a few there were a few of us beforehand but once you let one of us in you know what happens with brown folks our grandmother comes our grandfather comes our uncle comes our aunt comes our cousin comes our second cousin comes our third cousin comes then we have kids a bunch of kids and i consider my own faith islam a religion built upon a narrative of migration. The story of the hijra reminds us that Prophet Muhammad was a stranger too, who fled Mecca and was welcomed in Medina. Surah Nahl 1642 tells us, I have the distinct honor to be able to come before you and say, I actually lost white population in my community. I lost them. They left. They left. I didn't ask them why, They left. So if you see one or two or three or four or five whites in my neighborhood, they're passing through. People want to know what drives us, especially in a world with social media where everyone's looking for the next authentic thing. For me, that's my faith. Most of the decisions I make are based on that golden rule that says we love our neighbor as ourself. And that parable of the Good Samaritan that says everyone is our neighbor. And so when I've taken actions like vetoing the nastiest piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation that ever came through my state, I described it in those terms. I said my faith teaches me that all children are children of God. And I didn't want people picking on those kids. So we have nine total people deceased. We found eight in Tumblr Ridge in two locations. And then another was deceased during ambulatory transport to the clinic. Okay, and none of those people are the gun person? That includes the deceased gun person. That was a very comforting montage. I think we're going to be able to share a country and a culture with pretty much all of that. Right? Right? By the way, I know I've gotten on the abolitionist recently for some of their, shall we say, messaging. but that guy in the video there at the beginning and how he, uh, the way he handled that, that abolitionist there in the beginning. And then the way he handled that. Okay. And then he turns around. Anywho, the coffee here. Okay. That, that was perfection. All right. That is absolutely how you pull the devil's pants down. That was perfectly done there. So they need to take more messaging advice from you, fella, whatever your name is. Anywho, let's get to it. Josh is the guest. You get the first crack at it. What was the worst of the worst and why? You know, Steve, I'm inclined to talk about Gene Wu, the lunatic in Texas, essentially calling for an all-out race war. But let's talk about Zoram Amdani. Look, I am from the New York area originally. I grew up 25 miles north of New York City. Islam, the religion of innocent migration, apparently. Yes. Yes. Who knew? All this time. Right. Right. I mean, anyone familiar with the story of Muhammad in the 7th century, a pure story of peace when it comes to trying to immigrate and go to other civilizations? But look, Steve, I grew up 25 miles north of New York City. I grew up actually on the Hudson River. And really, my foray into adulthood happened when I was 12 and a half years old on 9-11 because I literally saw the smoke from the Twin Towers. And you see that, and you probably can't formulate it as such at the age of 12. I'm sure I didn't. but you realize that evil exists in this world. And when you see that evil exists in this world, you know that good exists in this world because it defies common sense and logic to think that the creator of all things would create a world in which there's only evil and suffering and there is no good. And once you arrive at this eternal struggle between good and evil, this moral dichotomy, you've essentially already rejected John Lennon imagined utopianism and leftism and you're on the right track. So I very much came of age in that milieu, in that mentality. I remember the ground zero mosque debates, frankly, like they were yesterday. It, frankly, was not that long ago. I mean, it was happening towards the end of the Bush administration, really into the Obama administration. That was an Obama administration debate in New York City was the ground zero mosque, which thankfully, due to the work of many activists, was soundly defeated. If you would have told me at either of those junctures on 9-11 or in that milieu back then, 2001, 2002, or around the time of the ground zero mosque debate circa 2009, 2010, give or take there, If you were to tell me that the mayor of New York City in the year 2026 would be a Muslim who is quoting the Koran from the New York City mayoral podium, let alone doing so to make an utterly incoherent and lawless point, this notion of so-called sanctuary cities, which are basically these neo-confedera bastions. It's a John C. Calhoun argument, states' rights, supremacism over the federal government. But if you were to tell me back then, I would have said, I mean, not only what are you smoking, I mean, are you from a different universe? I mean, are you of this realm? It's insane. It's absolutely pathological insane. I was actually just reading this new essay over at Tablo Magazine. It's a deep-dive investigative essay about the extent to which the European continent has been completely Islamicized, focusing on France, Belgium, various other countries there. don't think that it cannot happen here. It actually literally is happening here. And thankfully we have some leaders like Greg Abbott in Texas, who's actually been better than usual on this one, Ron DeSantis right here in Florida, some leaders who actually get it, who see the threats of creeping Sharia law, of this insidious creeping in of this Quranic mentality into the day-to-day lives of the American people there. When you have the mayor of the nation's largest city invoking the Quran for a public policy stance, right there where Islam committed the worst mass atrocity in American history. I mean, what is it even say, honestly? You've been conquered. Wake up, Claude, I know what it is. You've been conquered. That's what happens. I'd be curious then since not just to play the Jew card on you, but you grew up in the area, so you know some of the specifics, okay? So Mamdani ended up getting way less of the Jewish vote than the public polling was saying leading into the mayoral election. The exits poll showed he still got a little bit more than one out of three, About 33% of Jews in New York City voted for him in the mayoral election. But when you look at it, precinct by precinct, there were some areas where he got a huge amount of it. What can you tell us about Park Slope and Clinton Hill? What do you know about those areas? Because the precinct data, according to Grok, is saying he might have gotten 80% of the Jewish vote in some of those precincts. Do those sound familiar to you at all out of curiosity? So Park Slope is like a quintessential hipster district. It's like the home of Brooklyn hipster life, essentially. I mean, on the flip side, you can look at some of the famously religious, Orthodox Jewish parts of Brooklyn. He got like nothing in those places, yes. Yeah, I mean, he got essentially pennies there, right? You know, it's interesting. He got roughly a third, give or take, of the Jewish vote. I'm trying to remember, if you look at the other religious crosstabs, I think he actually got – he definitely got a slightly higher percentage of the Catholic vote. I think a higher percentage of the Protestant vote, too. I mean, really, Mamdani shined among the no affiliation, among the nuns right there. but he was below 50 with all religious groups there, but the Jewish vote was not necessarily out of line with the Protestant and Catholic vote. I don't know that we even need to look at the Protestant vote in New York City. I'm not even sure how many of those are there. They're obviously, I'm looking at the Catholic vote, and you're right. It's pretty much the same as the Catholic vote. 33% is what the exit polling showed, so you were correct about that. All right, Todd, what was the worst to you? Aaron, I think this may be one of the most important montages you've ever done. Wow. If people have eyes to see and ears to hear, which they don't, but it crystallizes something so important. I am stuck watching that. And here's the worst part. You have Wu, as Josh pointed out, and then you have Mamdami, and then you have the guy talking about the brown people and who we are. And those three together, and then you have Andy Beshear. And the worst for me is the feeling that I have pangs of respect for those three men. Because you're watching them introducing their religious convictions. They fight for something. They plan on winning. They plan on conquering. And we, yes, he's a Democrat. He's a Democrat in Kentucky. But we've got all kinds of Republicans. For all intents and purposes, in terms of the existential fight on our hands, they may as well be the same. they plan on just going down happily with the sinking ship apparently i i'm so tired of increasing these those three men want to absolutely kill my way of life but i'm found respecting them because they actually have plans they plan on following through on them um that's a pit on my stomach that i absolutely hate but i've got to say it out loud you're not alone in that. And you recognize it's the religion of the upside down, the dominion of the enemy. But you recognize the materialization or manifestation of conviction that only comes from that level of religious devotion. And that's what all the individuals that you're talking about, this is the final phase of the operation now. All right? The first phase is, can't we all just get along? The second phase is secularization, the myth of secularization. The third phase now is infestation and invasion, and that's where we are now. Now we're going to introduce the new religious matrix into the system to replace yours. And so you can just see with the level of devotion and conviction there, just substitute out what the devotion and conviction is to, and it looks a lot like our worldview in terms of the way it's supposed to look when we have actual conviction and devotion. Aaron, what about you? I just want to, since nobody's really brought this up in depth yet, that Gene Wu, that Texas state representative, if because of an immutable characteristic about your being, you are automatically an oppressor, in his warped and twisted view of justice, what does that mean about what ought to be done to the oppressor based on an immutable characteristic? And what does that mean? I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that's just some casual genocide talk on a Friday morning. That's what he's implying there. The same could be said for Wajat Ali, which I'm kind of inclined to stop taking clips from him anymore because he just pops on and says kind of the same thing every couple of months, I think. But basically saying, if you're not brown, we will dominate you and we will defeat you. Again, based on immutable characteristics. But how about the dichotomy this week of Andy Beshear going on The View to say, trans all the kids. Cut to, yep, there's nine dead, including the gun person. There are some weeks where I go into preparing this montage, and I think I'm not really sure what we've got this week. And then at the end of editing on Thursday afternoon, I think, my God, what have I done? Yes. This was one of those weeks. Yes. Indeed. All right, let's get to the exit question, which I am going to amend on the spot in honor of Josh. All right. Okay. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the odds that Lindsey Graham would sexually harass Pam Bondi, and 10 being the odds he'd be willing to sexually harass Josh. Looking dapper there, brother. Watch out. Watch out. Rank this week's level of total depravity, Todd. 10. Aaron. 11. Josh. I don't know how I'm going to answer this one, honestly, but I guess it's a 10. Yeah, I think it's at least an 11. Agreed. All right, before we get to issue two, folks, or actually, gentlemen, Valentine's Day is just around the corner. You might be thinking, uh-oh, I missed it. No, you didn't, because you can register the love of your life a little bit earlier than normal for Allie Stuckey's next Share the Arrows event coming up on Saturday, October the 12th, later this year, at the Credit Union of Texas Events Center. Early bird tickets are on sale right now. My two daughters went to this event last year and enjoyed it and raved about it. So if you want an easy Valentine's Day win that has some eternal ROI, this is it. You can lock in those early bird prices today, all right, and send this along with a valentine right now. It's sharethearrows.com. Again, that's sharethearrows.com. All right, let's get to issue two. What is Zionism? What was supposed to be a meeting of the White House's Religious Freedom Commission turned into a debate over, you guessed it, Israel and the Jews, thanks to member of the commission and former Miss California Carrie Prejean Bowler. I would really appreciate it if you would stop calling Candace Owens an anti-Semite. She's not an anti-Semite. She just doesn't support Zionism. And that really has to stop. Okay. Yeah. I don't know why you keep bringing her up and Tucker. Well, because they're the two most famous anti-Semites. There you go again. Everyone's an anti-Semite. Everyone's an anti-Semite, I guess. To be clear, is anti-Zionism anti-Semitism? Yes. It is? Under IHRA? Rabbi, you're up there. You're not sure? So what is the definition? I would love to speak to that. Undoubtedly, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. and undoubtedly and one does not have to support the specific policies of the government of Israel but to not support the right of Israel to exist which is what anti-Zionists do while not taking that same stand to the 28 Muslim countries and 13 Christian countries in this world is a double standard, is hypocrisy and is absolutely anti-Semitism. I think it's also important that we not make Islamophobic remarks while we're here today. I would appreciate that. Well, as you know, I'm a Catholic. I'm a Catholic, and Catholics do not embrace Zionism, just so you know. That exchange prompted this from pro-lifer and Catholic Lila Rose. Quote, if Zionist means I think Israel has a right to exist, then I'm a Zionist, and so is the Catholic Church. If Zionist means I condone everything the Israeli government does, then no, I'm not a Zionist. I also don't condone everything America does. for those who hate Zionism, what exactly are you hating? So we have a Jew, we have a Catholic, and we have two evangelicals here today. So a pretty good cross-section of thought on this. So let's just start with a very basic question, all right? And since Carrie Prejean or Jean, whatever the last name is, I can't remember from when she had the gay marriage fight a while, you know, back in the day. Since she invoked Catholicism into this, Lila Rose, of course, one of the most public Catholics and the American discussion at the moment. Todd, I'm going to start with you, okay? Let's just see if we can define what this even is. What is it? What is Zionism? If the four of us will each reach anything close to the level of total retardation that all of that was, we must go do other things because, dear God. First of all, Carrie, she's been Catholic for less than a year. All right? She doesn't represent any particular organization. it doesn't mean she doesn't have a right to speak as a Catholic. But throwing out things like just that last thing, I appreciate that you're not Islamophobic while she's simultaneously burning down the Zionist house. I mean, it's just so stupid on its face. It's clear she doesn't have an equal standard for religious egalitarianism. That's just dumb. Listen, it's true. As Catholics, we are not Christian Zionists. We do not believe in dispensationalism. And saying that in no way should be viewed as anti-Syman. I don't know what that rabbi would say in the face of that, but that's not even Todd's opinion. That's just Catholic teaching. We are not Christian Zionists in terms of the current nation of Israel having a prophetic place. But in terms of does Israel have a right to exist, the current state of Israel, just like any other Zayt? Now, that's a problem there. We have too many versions of Zionism right there. That's why I just said this is blanket Zionism, no qualifier. What is it? But if that's the definition, listen, it's one thing arguing about it back in 1903. The Holocaust happened. The nation exists now. What is your alternative to what's happening right now? We're arguing as if it hasn't already happened. See, that's what Lila's asking. What are you against? It's been around for a very long time. What do you suggest happened? And it was just attacked with another attempt at genocide on October 7th. So we have all kinds of arguments thinking we're smart, but they all amount to the whole thing, how many angels dance on the head of a pin. Of course this nation has the right to exist just like any other nation has the right to exist. The double standard isn't about Israel. People have for Israel. It's the double standard people have against Israel. All right. Before any follow questions I just want everybody to answer the question Josh what is Zionism So Todd is on the right track here very much so when he kind of invokes 1948 and the founding of Israel because the term Zionism to an extent is actually somewhat historically anachronistic frankly I mean, after Theodor Herzl publishes his first book, Calling for the Establishment of the Jewish State in the 1890s, that was the peak of the Zionist versus non-Zionist debate, was between then and then World War II in the 1948. these days when we talk about zionism because back then it was should the jews be entitled to re-establish their ancestral state in their homeland now the state's been around for for almost 78 years i guess it will be this this spring i i it just refers to the ability of the jews to maintain that state that's been maintained for 78 years now so that's that's pretty much how i see it there uh look i mean as far as the what is christian zionism that's a more interesting conversation right i actually have jay richards of the heritage nation a catholic as well on my showed today to discuss that. You guys are the Christians, I'm the Jew here, but when I hear Christian Zionism, I take it at face value that you are one, a Christian, and two, a Zionist, and the latter, as far as I interpret it most plainly, just means that you believe in the existence of a Jewish state. So any kind of specific theological or eschatological beliefs there, dispensationalism or anything to me, I think that is how a lot of people interpret Christian Zionism. That's certainly what this absolute dimwit Christine Prejean Boulder is getting at there. But to me, when I hear that, as a lawyer, I think words mean plenty of what they say. And I hear Christian Zionism. To me, that means you're one a Christian, two a Zionist. Aaron, what is Zionism? I've always traditionally understood it as the belief that the Jewish people have a historical and ongoing claim to the area that we now know as Israel. And I think the flap that's becoming more and more apparent is that they are some with dubious motivations trying to redefine that into some sort of boogeyman term, as if some sort of Jewish supremacy or something like that, all part of the traditional Jew hate that we have been cataloging now for years. I would have, not surprisingly, because we're both evangelicals, I'd have the exact same definition that Aaron does. Now, what is Christian Zionism can be an entirely separate discussion. It can be what Josh indicated. It could be what Todd indicated, meaning you believe in the prophetic significance of this iteration of Israel, or you don't. But to me, we haven't even progressed to that debate because we have to define what the original term means to begin with. What is Zionism? And I would have the exact same definition as Aaron. So if that is the definition, then, or something along those lines, because all three, all four of us indicated that the term in and of itself has to some degree significance about believing in the historical right of the Jews to have a homeland, right? We all agree to that? Yes. Okay. Then explain to me how it is possible to be anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic, then. What's that look like? I don't see how it's even possible. hey, you know what? I'm not anti-Urzen. I just don't think you guys should have a home. Nothing personal. Nothing personal. Just don't think you should have a safe place to live. Don't take it personally. I'm not against the Urzen family. I just don't think you guys ought to have a safe place to live. Don't think you ought to have your own home. I think you should be taken away from me and it belongs to somebody else. I mean, how would you take that? Hey, I appreciate that distinction. I get it, yeah. The salient point, as Jeff said, it's existed for 78 years. I mean, Pope Pius, back again, wrote a letter to Herzl in 1903, not supportive of the Jewish state. But you know who also, and Josh can educate us, I don't know the critical mass of it, or I don't recall it. I've read about it. It's just been a while. But there were Jews who believed that we should have a Jewish state, but maybe in the Holy Land wasn't a good idea. They thought of places in Africa and things like that. But that was back then. It is now 78 years after the establishment of the state, where much blood and treasure has been put in place by the Jews to live a free and prosperous way that America claims to want to live. What exactly are we standing against? This is not theoretical. It's been there for a long time. That is such a great point. I can't say it any better than what you just said. The very people who think that they can draw this distinction, notice, though, they don't say they're anti-Israeli. They say they're anti-Zionist. If you want to say you're all kinds of anti-Israeli government, I don't like their policies. their policies. I thought they were too brutal in Gaza. I do think the Palestinians should be given more agency and autonomy. They could make the same argument that you just made. Hey, whether you think the Palestinians belong in that land or not, how they've been there since they got kicked out of Jordan for how many, or your whole life, we got to deal with the problem. They could turn and flip that around on you, right? Okay. They would do things like that if it was a real, honest, significant, fundamental, substantive, existential debate. It's not. And that's why they don't. That's why they go right to the heart of the term Zion. They claim that we're the ones that say, you can't criticize the Israeli. You don't get that distinction. They're the ones not drawing that distinction. They're the ones that go to the original term and take the Israeli political edifice completely out of the equation in their own branding. They go to the original term. They're the ones not actually drawing the nuance and the qualifier here. More in a moment. The Steve Day Show. So as we continue with international disputes, inflation, rising debt, digital currency, the never-ending list of reasons that gold has risen over 700% in just the last 20 years. If you want to be one of the smart Americans diversifying with gold, check out, or other precious metals, check out our friends at Birch Gold Group. Birch Gold Group can help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold. Just text my name, Steve, to get started. To the number 989898, get your free info kit on gold. There's no obligation there, just useful information. With an A-plus rating from the Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers, let Birch Gold Group help you diversify with gold so you too can have peace of mind while the nations rage. Text Steve to 989898. Do it today. Text Steve to 989898. We ran out of time there, but I'd be remiss, Josh Hammer, giving you a chance to respond to what we just had to say on the what is Zionism issue. I think we should just, one of the things we're seeing is we're not making these people all define their terms. What do you think it means? All right. I think a lot of people think Zionism means the tail wags the dog, the Israelis get to drag the Americans into any Middle Eastern endless war they want. And we do whatever the neocons, who are largely Jewish, tell us to do. Okay. I think that's what maybe a lot of people on the right who are getting dragged into this think that's what it means. And that's not what it means. And I think we have to separate those justifiable arguments, not saying I agree with them all, but they're justifiable arguments. We need to separate them from the actual definition because what we're watching is knuckle-draggers are hijacking this term to make it look like it is, I just want to have a political separation from Israel. No, you don't. Otherwise, you'd label it Israel and not Zionism. yeah so let's make just two final quick points so the one thing that i think oftentimes gets clouded out in this conversation is that jews have their own theological debates actually over these theological significance or lack thereof of the present state of israel so on the one hand you have religious zionists who believe that there is theological significance on the other hand you have a lot of of heredeemer so-called ultra-orthodox jews like my brother-in-law for instance who don't think so. And my brother-in-law is actually a very interesting example because he lives five miles from Gaza. He's theologically not a quote-unquote Zionist insofar as he thinks that the Jewish Messiah should come before the state is reconstituted. However, his actual policies when it comes to the Palestinians or the Iranians, I mean, he's very, very right-wing, and he's de facto effectively a Zionist, whether he would call himself that or not. So that's just one thing that I think is worth clarifying. I think the more relevant thing for our conversation is this, though, which is, if you're going to call yourself anti-Zionism, there is one small way, Steve, from being very charitable, that I will grant you that that is not anti-Semitic, and it's the following. If you are a genuine, a genuine George Soros Open Society Foundation, true globalist, if you actually believe in all the lyrics to John Lennon's horrific dystopian song, Imagine, if you think there should be no borders, no peoples, no this, and you think that Israel shouldn't exist the same way that America, Italy, Japan, et cetera, they're fine, I'm not going to call you an anti-Semite. But none of them do that, do they? They're always disproportionately focused on this one tiny state between the river and the sea there. And if that is taking up the vast majority of your globalist tear-down-board agenda there, at that point, I'm going to call you an anti-Semite. It's amazing. We never go back and say, hey, I'm anti-Lebanese, because those civilizations were Christian hundreds of years before they became Islamic. No one ever says, I'm anti-Turkish, because that was a Christian civilization there hundreds of years before it became Islamic. Those seven churches of Asia Minor that Jesus writes the letters to are all in the nation of Turkey. All right. No one goes to Iraq, you know, and says, this is stolen land, even though Assyria, the Christians were one of the earliest enclaves of Christianity in the history of the church. We could do this with the Coptics in Egypt. We do them with all these Middle Eastern. The double standard isn't for Israel, it's against it. Correct. Correct. All right. Let's continue on and get back to our weekly look at the week that was. Let's get to issue three. Is Maha the secret weapon here? A new February 2026 Signal national poll shows Make America Healthy Again reforms have massive support. 77% of Americans back them overall. That's up three points since October. And a striking 90% want tougher food standards, even if prices rise. The issue crosses party lines hard. 88% of Republicans and 65% of Democrats approve with big gains among independents and college-educated voters. Signal says when Republicans run on pro-Maha messaging against Democrats who don't run on that messaging, the GOP generic ballot swings 10 points in their direction from D plus 3 to R plus 7, fueled by huge shifts among independents, Hispanics, and men under 55, could be a major 2026 midterm driver. All right, Todd, I got it. You did it, man. Okay. You and your kooky, you know, kooky-boom-booky cult over there, okay? You guys lived long enough that you guys now are the key political— you're no longer the, you know, the anti-science deniers and the flat-earthers. You're now, like, the key voting constituency in the midterm elections. You did it. How'd you guys—so are you buying that polling? What do you think? uh i'm buying it but this is like not a this is not a great offensive game plan from a position of strength i mean adding them to the fold the first go around but again in terms of a midterm this is just kind of like well we got we got to play the game i guess we're gonna go all in on this one i mean it's not it's important that this was one part of a p a multi-front attack now this seems like this is um all those other pieces of that attack uh got a hammy or just decided they yeah they're sitting out because they don't think their nil is big enough uh and all we got is this like i listen i'm i'm proud it is amazing i told you this is you know you guys are starting to catch up, bravo. It's not enough. What do you think, Josh? I think it's a winning issue for the administration and Republicans, for sure, very much so. I mean, look, I'm a young father. I don't know any other young parents who were happy with the vaccine schedule prior to RFK amending the back schedules, just to give just one example. I don't know. I don't think anyone was particularly happy with that outdated food pyramid from like literally 50, 60 years ago, whatever, right? So, I mean, I think it's very popular. I think there's a lot of potential for this there. I'm not going to lie, Steve. I wouldn't say that this is like the top one or two issue that I am personally most focused on day in and day out. But based on my conversation, especially in kind of the young parenting community here, a lot of what's coming from the administration in this is really, really, really popular, that's for sure. Aaron, you are just like Josh. You're a young parent. What do you think? Yeah, I think, I mean, I like Brent Buchanan's stuff and I like Signal. And I do think if you're going to look for maybe some secret weapons, it's not going to be a silver bullet, but a secret weapon to maybe shore up some support that maybe is looking a little bit iffy right now. I think this would be a way to go. And I think the reason why is because it speaks to people very personally. It speaks to people very personally. Those who are aware that our food supply, by and large, our medicine, by and large, again, I'm making big sweeping conclusions or statements. You know, there are always specifics and always variables. But by and large, our medicine, our food are not exactly the healthiest. and people who are awake to that, who realize that, who are trying to live a clean lifestyle, when you tell them that they're putting policies in place to make their lives easier, to help other people come to the same conclusions, to help them live longer, that speaks very personally. And I think that's a wonderful contrast that Republicans, if they have the stones and if they have the actual belief system in place, they can paint that contrast with their Democrat opponents. So I say, why not? So I'm looking at the races that are up in 26. All right? So Ashley Henson in Iowa. Think she can make a credible Maha case in her race to succeed Joni Ernst for Senate. I'm asking. Think her donors would be okay with that? I'm asking. No. No? You don't think so? Okay. looking at a couple a lot of these are Bill Cassidy I don't think is going to survive his primary in Tennessee and some of it is because of these kinds of issues Louisiana yeah that yes Louisiana thank you Aaron Lindsey Graham's going to win it's in South Carolina this is man this is such a favorable Senate map I'm not even sure the Republicans can screw this one up so let's go why would you say that you know what stab me stab me all right looking at the house right because let's face it just like the social conservative issues the donor base tended to be for many years more to the left on the social conservative issues than the base was right well a lot of these donors are going to be people that work for the kinds of companies that the maha people are the most concerned about or own them right yeah that's any so that's why i'm kind of skeptical like there's the just too much money thing didn't has not gone away um there's the the maha does not it has influence in terms of the popular uh psychology it's making in runs in terms of legislation but it does not have the financial backing yet that the enemy's against it has and third furthermore those those those financial backers might actually be putting more into it to hold their ground. Let's get to the exit question. What's your biggest worry about the midterms now nine months out this week, Josh? Losing the Senate. It is a very favorable map, Steve, but I would never underestimate the ability of Republicans to screw things up. And frankly, I'm not saying it's going to happen. There's actually been some great economic data this week there, but I could see a world. I mean, It's only February. The election is a long way away. I think it is within the realm of possibility, at least, that Republicans could lose the Senate. And given the map and given their current 560 majority, that would be nothing less than catastrophic, frankly. All right. Todd, what about you? Well, not just losing because of stupidity. Yeah, losing the Senate because they want to lose, because they want to grind the gears. And for reasons that include they don't want J.D. Vance to be a fait accompli. There's a lot of people on the right that I absolutely believe are that craven and that they would shoot for that stalemate. Aaron, what do you think? That we're saying Governor Rob Sand here in Iowa. Let's get to our kicker topic. True or false? Because there's been a lot of discussion. You know, the term grifter now, we used to use it amongst ourselves, those of us that work in this racket. And now our audiences are throwing it around all the time, right? So since we defined the term Zionism earlier, I'd like us to define the term grifter because grifter has now become anyone who gives an opinion opposite of mine that I don't agree with is a grifter. And in any given week, I am a Zionist cuck. I am a woke right. In any given week, straight up, those are just these buzzwords. It's literally like Tucker Carlson and James Lindsay control my replies. Every reply I get nearly to an opinion I espouse will either be a Tucker bot or a Lindsey bot. So let's define grifter. I'm going to give it my shot. Tell me if you guys think it's true or false. Grifter. Getting paid well for what you truly think, to quote the scriptures, the worker's worth is higher. Getting paid whatsoever for what you truly don't think and probably aren't even capable of thinking on your own, that would be a grifter. True or false? Aaron? True. You okay with that definition? Yeah. Yes. Okay. Josh, what about you? It's a very good definition, Steve, but to me, it doesn't necessarily require some monetary element. I think that's how folks like you and I who've been in this space for a little while have used Grifter for a while. Yep. But when I see folks who are just trafficking in blatant, blatant disinformation, blatant attempts at just ultra fanatical clickbait, just trying to make your blood pressure boil, trying to essentially induce you to have a free panic meltdown without any sense of grounding reality there, without any sense of the facts or logic or this, that there. At that point, I'm okay sometimes using the term grifter, whether or not the person is literally getting paid by some source foreign or domestic. That's important. Money isn't the only currency. Social media clout, emotional hijacking. Yes, there's a currency involved, though, that's not germane to the truth of the actual matter at hand. I think that's fair. Right. Okay. All right, let's get to predictions. Aaron, go. I believe, contrary to my fear about the midterm elections, we will not be saying Governor Rob Sand here in Iowa. I hope you are correct about that. I, man, I do. Talk. Pam Bondi will buy a dog and name it Dow. Those memes. My favorite, though, I love the Kurt Signetti meme from the national championship game where he's stalking the sideline and he's watching the yard marker. Somebody did that last night with Pam Bondi looking to see if the stock market is below $50,000 or not. I like that one quite a bit. All right, Josh, what's yours? With the caveat that I have no inside information, literally none whatsoever, I am going to predict that we will see a Supreme Court vacancy this summer. I do predict that either Sam Alito or Clarence Thomas, probably not both, but I think that one of them probably is more likely than not to resign prior to the November midterms for the very simple reason that we're even having the conversation, frankly, as to whether or not Republicans might actually lose the Senate. If I were a betting man, which I'm really not, I would think that the smarter money of the two would probably be on Justice Alito, more so than Justice Thomas. That's been the more popular rumor for some years now. I could be wrong. These are amazing jurors. They probably think they can go for another 10, 15, 20 years, whatever the case may be. So I definitely could be wrong. But I think it is likelier than not that we could have a sizzling, fiery, hot, censatory committee Supreme Court confirmation showdown sometime, probably around September, give or take. And that's not just smart politics to get in before you lose the Senate. But isn't that smart politics to run on for the midterms? Yes. Well, recall, this was one of my top 10 predictions for 26, is that one or both of those guys would step aside before the midterms so they could get replaced. We cannot run into a Ruth Bader Ginsburg situation. We just can't. I mean, that just can't be allowed to happen. So I'm concerned about how much of a downgrade the replacement for either one of those two would be. but I know even with our people in charge, I know what the downgrade will be with their people in charge. Let's get to my prediction and this just speaks to how I think the entire Epstein thing has been completely mismanaged on our side politically. Just completely. You go look at Wexner and Black are two billionaires who are all over the Epstein files. Would you guys like to know how many times either one of them has donated to either Trump or Vance. Wexner's from Ohio, just like Vance. Would you like to know how many times Wexner or Black, either one has ever donated to Trump or Vance? What do you think it is? Just guess. The lowest number. The lowest number of them all. Zero. Zero times. And yet we just have sat here and not held anybody else accountable. We've let the other side, what about us, over Howard Lutnick for reasons. And so I think one of the first tangible sign of how this has been mismanaged will be in May in Thomas Massey's primary. I think he's going to survive it, and maybe even easily. I do. They made the mistake of letting him get to their right. They gave him an issue where he could get to their right, and I think he'll survive his primary. In fact, I think it's more likely he'll win it easily then he will be defeated is what I think. That's my prediction. I have just watched this and I just have this phone, the amount of text messages from names many of you would know, the amount of frustration exhibited over the last few weeks on my phone over this issue and how it's just been totally mismanaged politically. Palpable. And I agree with almost all of it. Josh, good to see you again, my friend. Take care. The best, you guys. Thank you. You bet. We'll come back. It'll be your turn on a Feedback Friday next. and we're back here with our two live and on demand here on blaze tv radio and podcast alongside Inside Aaron McIntyre and Totters, and I'm Steve Dace. Let us know what you think about what we think. Via the SteveDace.com inbox by emailing us, Steve at SteveDace.com, D-E-A-C-E. Like us on Facebook, MeWe and Gab. You can follow me at SteveDaceShow on X, Instagram, and TikTok. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel. We're going to have some news on that here soon, by the way. At DaceShow on YouTube. That's at DaceShow on YouTube. and then finally make sure if you're a podcast listener that you're a subscriber to that just hit the subscribe button or if you're on apple itunes you hit follow instead and that's how you're going to know for sure that you don't ever miss an episode it plops right down there in your feed every time we drop one of those and then you can also leave us a five-star review so everyone else around you knows that you love us too we would appreciate those tens of thousands of you have given given us one of those and we appreciate each and every one so thank you uh todd my understanding is that the ladies there in the Erzin household, they're a big fan of Van Man, I recall. Oh, my goodness. I mean, sign them up. They're like, tell me more. They put them on the table when I got home. You gave me that stuff. It was like, yeah, I got girls at home. They love this stuff. I had no idea. That was like a moth to a flame when you brought that stuff home. I'm a guy living with a bunch of women. There's a lot I don't know these days, but they said, Dad, you're cool. So there you go. All right, so Van Man is a leader in natural personal care, and they're actually still making it natural, right? They're one of the companies that helped kick off the tallow movement. They've stayed committed to it using real traditional ingredients instead of corporate filler out there. Their tallow balm is made from grass-fed tallow. There's a reason why that matters, because the fatty acids in that tallow, they're nearly identical to the oils in your own skin that it naturally produces, so your body recognizes it instead of fighting it. You're going to notice the difference immediately. it absorbs better. It lasts longer. It doesn't leave you feeling coated in chemicals. And because there's no junk padding in it, a little goes just a long way. So give your eyes the care they deserve. Go to vanman.shop slash dace and use the code dace for 15% off your first order. That's vanman.shop code or slash dace using the code dace, vanman.shop slash dace using the promo code dace to get 15% off real ingredients, no exceptions at vanman.shop slash DACE promo code DACE. Okay. Are we ready for some feedback Friday? You bet. Yes. All right. Let us rock and roll. All right. Danny Whitehouse says Pam Bondi is the Shador Sanders of the Justice Department. What do you think? For people that don't know, that's Deion Sanders' son. had a very good college career, but last year at this time flunked every single test during the NFL scouting process because he was the stereotype of everything you don't want your quarterback to be. Ended up falling more than any other player in last year's NFL draft. He's with the Browns now. They were tanking at the end of the year. They let him play to see what they had. He was okay, not terrible, not great. But this is a guy that's just... Remember those ads? Aaron might be too young. Aaron, are you old enough to remember Leon can't do everything? You remember those ads? No. Okay. You remember those ads? Is that not Shadur Sanders, those ads from the late 90s? All right. Leon, those Budweiser ads, Leon can't do everything. The self-absorbed athlete who cares nothing about nothing other than his social media engagement, that is Shadur Sanders to the core. But I feel like he's kind of being unfairly – I don't have any appreciation for him, but he's like a dime a dollar. He is the NFL. I think he's getting more because his name is Sanders. And that's probably true. I'm reminded of Dennis Miller's old adage, vis-a-vis comparing to Pam Bundy. I'd call them a scumbag, but that would give a bad name to bags of scum. But I see the analogy here. Listen, Pam Bundy was auditioning to do the Sunday night show on Fox News after Trey Gowdy. That's what that testimony was. That's my point. Yeah. That's a Shadur Sanders move. There's nothing of substance there. I'm auditioning to grow a brand. But, yeah, Shadur Sanders, you know, there's zero. And whether your name is Shadur Sanders or Tom Brady, there is zero existential importance to your job whatsoever. Pam Bondi? A little bit more? A tad. A skosh. A little bit more? Okay. Aaron, you get to cast the deciding vote here. What do you think? Is the analogy hold? Who is Pam Bondi's Travis Hunter in this analogy? Because I took this to mean Colorado Shadur Sanders because I forgot he even played in the NFL this year. Oh, you mean as in that Travis won the Heisman and carried her? Yeah. I'm sorry. Carried him? Yeah. Well, in that case, it's probably Trump, right? Isn't he the Travis Hunter here? Yeah, probably. You know what? I'm glad you brought that up because I want to make this point. Do I strike you guys as someone that is hesitant about criticizing people? No. I mean, Todd, you've sat in the seat next to me for how many years now? Well, there's one person you will not criticize. Who's that? Connor Stallions. Well, that's very true because he is a living legend. That is very true. But the rest of them, no. And his greatest crime is just— Thank you, Aaron. His only crime is that he wanted Michigan to win too bad. Did you see he's still—he just got recognized that he's still a cheater? He's willing to suffer for what he believes. That's redemptive suffering right there, and I respect it. Anyway, back to the question at hand. Okay. Other than Conner Stallions, how many years have you sat next to me here, Todd? It's more than a decade. And so we've done a minimum 200 shows every one of those years. Yeah. All right. So now we're doing like, what, 240? But let's just say on average we did 200 shows every year for a decade. Right? And so you have sat here for 2,000, at least 2,000 shows, at least. Yep. Give or take, yeah. All right. At any point in time, as you've said here over the last 2,000 plus shows, has the thought ever occurred to you, I really think Steve pulls his punches and is just too hesitant to criticize people by name. I'm always saying to myself, I just wish he would go there. Yes. There is a cachet of people. Do you guys see this in your feeds? Oh, yeah. I know where this is going. You know where I'm going? I know where this is going. There is a... Say it! They're like saying it. Say it! Say it! It's the orange man from the Rice Paddy Delta. Say it! I'm going to throw my voice out doing Kenison. Hold on a second. Oh, my gosh. God rest his soul. All right. And as if I'm like, do you think if we put the Wonder Woman lasso of truth around Donald Trump, hey, what you know of Steve Dace, or maybe your team or staff has heard, Mr. President, did you strike you as someone in the past that has been shown a hesitancy to be critical of any of your behavior in the public sphere for the last decade? Oh, yeah, Steve, well, yeah, if you really meant what you say along those lines, maybe you would have supported somebody else the last two times Trump has, oh, yeah, he did support somebody else. There's a group of you. There is a group of you. Well, who hired her? Who hired him? Who let's him get away with it? Who did that? Who did that? Who did that? Who did that? Who did that? Oh, who did that? There's an entire cadre of people who are convinced it's still February of 2024. Correct. Correct. And they all put their name on these accounts, too, in these laments. Yes. Yes. Sure. Of course. Some do. Some do. But let me address this. Okay. I don't believe we get anywhere with Trump by flipping turds in his face. And I think that there's, frankly, a lot of evidence to indicate that I'm probably right about that. I mean, I think Kristi Noem got the job of Department of Homeland Security predominantly on the excellence of her qualifications, do you think? no no I just I don't think that that's how God knows Pam Bonney didn't correct I don't I don't think that's how things work in King Trump's economy I don't now I'm wired differently right often if Todd wants to get my attention on something trying to insult me directly is usually the first way to get my attention right because again I'm the kind of guy that responds to negative reinforcement I don't need you to tell me I'm pretty all the time. In fact, I get uneasy when you do. It's not better. It's not worse. It's just different. Some of us are the guy that if the coach tells you, I don't think he can do that, you're like, well, screw you, man. I'm doing it. That's me. I'm that guy. And there can be advantages to that. There can be disadvantages, too. Like, I'm sure you have thought over the years, Steve could really use some help achieving contentment. I'm sure you have probably thought that over the years. All right? Okay. All right. Probably in the last 10 minutes, I would imagine. Okay? So if you respond to negative reinforcement, you tend to be highly driven. You tend to struggle with contentment and praise. All right? Then there's the other kind of player that if the coach says, I don't think he can do that, he'll, I don't think I can do it. You told me I can't do it. And instead, you need to say to that young man or that player, you need to say, you know, I know you can do that. I know you're better than that. All right? I think I can. You gave me the confidence I can do it. Again, it's just a wiring thing. And we all have reasons why we're wired certain ways, okay? And I don't have time to psychoanalyze. Why? I just don't believe. I don't. I don't believe there's any shot. And for further evidence, pretty much all the people that do what you are suggesting, they all have like no, including some who are friends of mine that I dearly love, have like no influence whatsoever in what the administration thinks or does or the people around them. They just don't have any. They're doing what you want. They're making sure they itemize every time Trump as an individual falls short in criticizing him by name, but they simply just don't, they're not being listened to. And they've largely been cast out. And then in response to that, they get angrier and do it more because they know they've been cast out. And then the cycle just continues. All right. I just don't think that's an effective use of my platform. I don't. I'm trying to influence situations. I'm trying to get people I know that work in this White House to listen to what we say on the show. And I think it has been clearly demonstrated. You know, some of you ever raised children? Todd, you've got four. They all responded to the exact same stimuli in all the exact same situations, correct? They definitely do not. Aaron, I'm sure you've noticed no differences really between Abby and Ben whatsoever, and you can talk to each of them the exact same way, have the exact same talking points and same postures. You have the same standards, of course. You have to do that, right? Okay, but the way that those standards get applied and communicated, Abby responds. She's just a carbon copy of Ben, correct? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no difference whatsoever. Are any of you human? How many of you are human beings? You talk to everybody the same way? You don't have any relational accommodation at all? You don't recognize some people respond in situations differently than others and a different stimuli different than others? Goodness, I wonder how many of you are still freaking human. And you guys sit online all day criticizing Cat Turd. Not exactly my cup of tea. But you're just like him. Cat Turt's just, at least he's getting paid He's just online looking for ways To weigh palm branches at Trump You're just online looking for ways to show You're the principled people that can Still independently criticize him You have no influence whatsoever None Neither does Cat Turt either, he's just getting bought off to say stuff He doesn't have any influence either He's the one being influenced You have none You have none and I'm it's amazing I don't recall a lot of you I I'm trying to remember I see there's a group of you I don't remember any of your names when I was helping with the free the delegates movement against Trump in the 2016 convention I just huh I didn't see what's your nuts in my you know uh on my phone texting me and here's how we can I'm here to help Steve you ever notice that too oh yes yeah that was weird how that worked out don't remember seeing you all doing that either when I'm the one with my name on it, putting my career on the line, like in this last primary, and I lost 30% of my audience. It took me a year and a half to get it back. Weird. I mean, I don't remember anybody saying, good job, Steve. Way to take the principled road. Funny how that works. The fact that I've noticed all this is why I coined the term narcissism is not the same thing as principled. Now, exactly. Now, you all are at my standard. He is. So as best as I can, regardless of what you think, I'm going to do what I think he wants me to do or that if this was the last day, I'm comfortable answering to him for. Now, as best as I can, I'm going to use that decision and the talent he gave me to make it as palatable and entertaining to you and compelling to you because that is my job too, all right, as best I can. But you guys aren't going to determine what decisions I make. I can promise you that. How many times over the 2,000 plus year shows have we been here? I'm not saying it's never happened, but what do you think it is? Less than 2% of the time we've sat around and thought, can our audience really handle that? Is that really what we should do? Every break you're saying, Erzin, show me the Nielsen rating. Correct. I need to know. I need the instant clicks, instant clicks out of that last segment. Go, show me right away where the click's like. No, no. I'm trying to save America as best as I can with the resources I've been given. And I just don't think you gain any... And in Trump's difference, sure, some of it, I'm sure Trump displays the traits of narcissism, pretty obviously. But I also kind of understand why a guy who got shot in the face might be less inclined to listen to people who haven't suffered as much for what they believe as he has been willing to on their behalf. Fair? Fair. Yeah. So, yeah. I just, again, there's a cadre of you that will be very pleased that some ultimate principled high ground was asserted by making sure that the captain is criticized for literally everything that happens on his ship. I'm not interested in that. I'm trying to stop the ship from sinking. He is the captain of the ship. and I just don't this captain does not respond with very well to everything is your fault and you suck I think it's been demonstrated he responds way better to the people around you are failing you and you can do better than that maybe I'm wrong but since the show is named mine that's what I'm going to do And it really doesn't matter how many of you, in your anonymous screen names, need to correct me every time as if I don't know who the President of the United States is. I'm not trying to get invited to speak at whatever events you do, nor, frankly, am I trying to get invited to CPAC. I'm trying to save America. And I just think it's casting pearls unto swine to not try to be strategic in how I apply whatever limited amount of influence I've been granted. But that's what I hire these guys to do. We do have conversations about accountability all the time. We do have conversations, are we doing this right all the time? Is this the right way to do this? Is this a credible way to do this? Are we contradicting ourselves? Those conversations, how many times have we had those conversations? More. Yeah, quite a bit. But yeah, I know who Pam Bondi's boss is. Thanks. I do. I do know. Yeah. Into the White House. I know whose picture was there in the corner office. I know. I also just don't think, you know, sitting here every day, ripping the guy, gets his attention or his team's attention. And the way that their ecosystem is wired, they have a tendency just to shut people out like that and cast them out and say, hey, you guys aren't with us. You're not in the muck and the mire with us. So we're tuning you out. Thoughts on that before I move on? Yeah, it's why, you know, the overlap with these people and, you know, get angry about sports pro stuff. But that's the I'm trying to make a point to get at the point Steve is making. You will excuse any kind of ridiculous behavior. If they're wearing your laundry that you root for on the weekend and it doesn't matter what they do or say, just give them the damn ball. Yet here, again, your nation. Real lives. I don't know. Behind those anonymous accounts, just what? A lot of incels with no family? You're making me think that and say that because if you really have things at stake and you will say whatever it takes to win in the game, he's the quarterback of this team on a sinking ship. We had this conversation today off air about a different topic, but that's the thing. A lot of you pretend that you can just keep your powder dry, live another day, have a utopian fantasy later on. The ship is sinking right now. Do you have a quarterback that can produce at least some wins? Objectively, the answer is yes. Help them when you can. Correct. He's the quarterback. Am I empowered to take the quarterback out of the game? No. All right. In the primary, was this even the quarterback that I picked? No, that's the point I've already made. But is this the quarterback that we have? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And quite frankly, right now, because of what you just are getting shot in the face, he's, you know, time, talent, treasure. He earned it. It is his. I don't know what you—we don't have an election coming. This election is done. He managed to survive the insurvivable. Like, what? But guys, your narcissism is killing us. Yeah, so if you're stabbed in the back multiple times from multiple directions, proceeded to get cheated out of a monumental, both for you personally and for the civilization that you were governing, if you were cheated out of doing that once, you took a bullet to the head, you survived law fair on multiple fronts, you're just going to surround yourself with people who say you suck all the time. Yeah. What when you put it like that? You're just going to do that? Yeah. That's what you people want. The people who are in our mentions all the time, why don't you call Trump out for the who hired him? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what you're saying you want. That doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't. Not saying it's right. Not saying it's wrong. I'm not saying that Trump put the most capable people around him. I'm just saying that's the reality of the situation. Yeah, it is. And because that's the reality of the situation, don't get this confused right here. It's just not. Like what Steve's doing. Yeah, there's going to be the same people are going to come out. That means Steve and the crew just spent 20 minutes talking about how we can never criticize Trump. Just. No, no, no. This is an intervention. Like, you guys are wasting your lives. That's the point I want to make out of all this. You are absolutely wasting your lives by thinking you've got the golden ticket when you're just a guy behind the gas and sip with no women in sight. You know, this is say anything. Conscious choice, man. Nice riff. You're ridiculous. Whatever. that is you are ridiculous the irony of all this is this is count me doing this is counter to my normal behavior yeah which should indicate to you yeah this is not my default setting to behave like this he's ever followed me during as i'm watching on twitter one of my favorite teams play a game i'm calling players coaches out by name i've got them all fired the first time the other team gets a first down guy misses a shot take his scholarship away by name i'll tag him that's not how i'm not wired to just do indirect communication. This goes against every aspect of what my personality is like. Let's focus on pitying them, not pitying you right now. So this should tell you that I've thought about this and I thought, you know, I don't think they're going to listen to that. I don't. I think they listen to people they think are genuinely, I'm probably not capable of exerting the level of ever exerting the level of loyalty that Trump defines that term by. That's probably also fair, right? So then how about we are mutually adjacent in our stated goals? I'm willing to do that. I'm never going to be a groveler, not my thing, but I'm willing to, you know, hey, we're mutually adjacent in our stated goals of saving America, and I just don't think I'm going to be listened to by, you know, doing what you guys want, and that's the reason I don't do it. So you guys, it just begs the question, you saving America, it begs the question of the people who write these letters or these emails to you. They clearly have a higher priority than saving America. I don't know if it's all the same priority or a bunch of different priorities. Maybe they think that Trump's not an instrument to doing that, to be fair. I get that. But as Aaron, you pointed out, that decision was made in February of 2024. So here is where we are. Yes. Okay. It's like the Israel conversation. I mean, you might not like the quarterback your favorite team drafted, but you're just going to sit there and root again. He's wearing your jersey. You want him to suck? That doesn't make any sense. What cause are you helping? For anybody who has ears to hear, and all three of us, especially Todd. No, I'm just kidding. All three of us, you can go and filter through all of our public posts, and you can ask questions. Hey, was it really helpful to post this or post that? But generally speaking, the way that we filter what we say and post publicly is, is this helpful? And I think a lot of people who are just ready and rearing and just salivating for the opportunity to, why aren't you going to say his name? Who hired that? What cause are you helping Be honest with yourself about that All right Next note Next week we read all the letters about reading I think we know what next week feedback is going to be All right. Sally writes, I just met with my sister and she believes Trump has withdrawn from NATO. She still believes in hands up, don't shoot. They believe they have the truth. Her church has armed guards to counter ICE. I'm afraid we're going to lose the midterms if we don't break through these leftist lies. Well, your sister is lost to the spirit of the age. And at this point, probably the only thing that could bring her back, sadly, would be one of their demonic deceptions would have to hurt her individually. Like you've seen some formerly liberal women that have been turned off, like J.K. Rowling, for example, turned off by tranny madness, and they got red-pilled to some degree because that hurt them individually. They felt that one, right? Or the Holy Spirit. Without some existential level of suffering or offense on a personal level, or the intervention of God in someone's life, they can't overcome this level of programming on their own. It just can't be done. I mean, listen, you know who doesn't believe in the hands-up-don't-shoot narrative? Eric Holder because he debunked it when he was the Attorney General for Obama so it never happened. Michael Brown never said that. You know? Here's the thing. We've been winning despite these kind of entrenched lies most of my time in politics. We're not going to lose the midterms because of their lies. We're going to lose the midterms because of our lies. I was just going to say that. Correct. Correct. Like right now we're in a situation and this dynamic exists in almost every issue. were in a situation where we promised the base we were going to release and detoxify the swamp over the Epstein stuff. Well, there's going to be a few of our own donors and some of those people that don't want that to happen because they were caught up in some of that global ring of whatever that was, or at least on the periphery of it at the very least, like a Lutnik, all right? So then you don't do it, But you're released enough then that some of these people still get implicated, but not enough that anybody's getting punished, right? You see what I'm saying? And so who have you satisfied? Nobody. Nobody. Absolutely nobody. Nobody, whether you're a Republican establishment figure or in the activist class like us, who is satisfied by our side's handling of the Epstein fiasco? Who is it? give me the composite of the republican voter who's like i really think we've just we nailed that one whether they regardless if whether they voted for nikki haley in the last caucus or the last primary ronda santos or donald trump find me the voter for any of those three candidates who's like we have really exercised prudent moral authority and judiciously politically taken advantage of the situation tell me who it is does this person exist you're all laughing because no Let's pick an issue. Let's do it on immigration. So we told all the Nikki Haley voters we're kicking all their Consuelas out. Now we're not going to do it. All right? So we pissed them all off with our radicalized messaging, right? Got them all pissed off, okay? Now our base is pissed off that they see us pulling out of Minnesota. See what I'm saying? Let's do this. Let's do tariffs. Do them all. Let's just do them all. I mean, we're in this dynamic where we took the more moderate, squishy wing of our base. I see Scott Rasmussen's out with another poll today showing that that's the group of the Republican voter that doesn't want to show up. Okay? Well, they're all freaked out by all the radicalized messaging, and our base is like, I was really hoping we were going to deliver on that radicalized message. You know? That's a way bigger problem than anything these fools say. Way bigger problem. Like, I look at the Wexner guy. I mentioned him before. he's donated to Republicans. They're all, I mean, all the Republicans we all hate, McConnell, Portman, those are all his donations on the right. I looked it all up this morning. Those are all his donations on the right. So apparently we're going to cover for Mitch McConnell's donor base, so we piss off our MAGA base? And the reasons for that would be what exactly? Yeah, this poor letter writer. I know it's her sister, so it's personal, but she's actually got, if the right doesn't have these fools to run against, what would they have? The truth of the matter is, yes, I know it's your sister and that's terrible, but frankly, without their crazies, I mean, we need to. If they start sobering up, we might really be screwed. What was my first antidote to the current thing on Monday? We need to remind people how crazy these people are. Yes. Okay? Otherwise, all the other historical trends go against us. I'm going to get rid of the, just pick an issue. I'm going to get rid of Powell. I'm going to get rid of Powell. Powell's got to go. Powell's got to go. Is Powell going to go? No, we're not. He's not going anywhere. Can't get rid of him. Okay. I'll nominate a new Fed chairman a year in advance. So everybody's got time to pick out his record and point out what they don't like about him. So by the time the time comes, his approval rating is underwater probably, right? I mean, what is this? The reason last year went so well for the first seven months is there was a plan. there's no sign of a plan right now and there just appears to be we're just kind of doing stuff I didn't get to cut it The Steve Day Show All right, let's get right back to it here on a Feedback Friday. Let's go to Chris. Sorry for the little digression there. That was cathartic for me, so thank you. Chris says, I have a good friend that was a conservative. He then started dating this girl. There it goes. He's a huge lefty. She's 48, lives at home with her parents, and does not have a job. Go figure. Anyway, she has convinced him now to be a lefty. He tells me the typical lefty talking points now. I don't even know how to approach this. I mean, he went to the extent to say MSU's hockey tickets, when we were going to go to the game, increased price because of the tariffs. Anyway, I don't know how to approach him. I told him he's a good friend, and I'm not going to stop being friends with him because he's now a lib. I told him it's the libs that stop being friends with conservatives, not the other way around. this one I got a little bit of experience with yeah got some experience with this one he'll stop being friends with you that's how it'll go he'll turn on you unless you accommodate everything he believes He will not grant you the same accommodation. He'll turn on you. I've had this happen to me a few times. One in particular. Where either over a girl, well, it was always over a girl. Whether it's your daughter or your wife or girlfriend. And, yeah, Chris, he's going to turn on you. So what I would say to you right now is to make no accommodations whatsoever. Don't make any. You keep being you, keep being the best friend of him you can be, because any accommodations you make are never going to be returned. And that'll just make when it eventually happens. It'll make it feel even worse. Because then you'll feel like you got taken advantage of. And that's, it's not when we have falling outs with people a lot that bitterness becomes a problem. but if we feel like we got taken advantage of is often when bitterness can become a problem. So don't grant him any accommodations at all. He wants to bring up politics, bring it right back up to him. He brought it up. Whatever the rules were before this, like if you guys never talked about it, no need to bring it up again. Whatever the rules were before this though, you continue to honor those. Whatever were the social compact stipulations of your relationship, you continue to abide by them. Grant no accommodation beyond whatever those stipulations are. None will be returned. And then inevitably, when the dog returns to its own vomit, you can just, you know, move on a lot easier and struggle a lot less with bitterness than if you really, really tried to accommodate this guy and then find out at the end, no accommodation was ever going to be granted. Because I'm here to tell you, no accommodation will ever be granted. Is that too harsh? Oh, no, I had two examples immediately after the election, this time around, of Trump. So for four years with Biden as president, the conversations, the give and take that two people in particular had on Facebook that I had known for years, the exact same tenor of the conversations happened after it was just flipped. Now, Trump was in. They both defriended me after a month of Trump being. And they both admitted in their own way, like, I just can't take this. Well, that's right. You can't take this, which is a lesson to us all. When you call yourself a conservative, and especially if you call yourself a Christian conservative, but these are supposed to be a set of principles that serve you despite your emotional fragility and the tides of circumstance, which all of us have highs and lows. Some of us don't have our best days. Your principles are supposed to be the thing, the rock, that guide you through that. So lest we become like this guy, whether it's a woman or we lost our job or something like that, how close are we, if we're really honest with ourselves, to we selling out on our so-called conservative principles, which dovetails perfectly to the conversation Steve just lamented in the last session. Who are we really? How deep do our roots go on what we claim to believe? I want to give you some good news. As soon as the next non-Trump Republican is elected president, this dynamic is probably all going away. Not. We've broken a seal here. We've broken a seal. This is a real spiritual battle. What Todd just described there, it might have been different words, but what Todd just described there, going back and forth for years, you know these individuals for years, always had exchanges, probably disagreed, right? Oh, yeah, always disagreed. Always disagreed. But for whatever reason, maybe that's the fullness of time in some grand spiritual battle that we've been noting for decades and generations. But a seal was broken. People's brains didn't get broken. their spirits revealed themselves. They revealed themselves at a spiritual level. But Todd just described is less unfriending on Facebook and more, have you come to torment me before the appointed time, O son of man? That's the spiritual battle that we're in. And I'm not being overly dramatic there. I'm not saying that you're possessed by a demon because you're unfriending people on Facebook, but understand what that impulse is telling you. they cannot abide anything that has to do with good, true, and beautiful. Now, you may not think that Donald Trump is the face of good, true, and beautiful. And in recent days, President Trump has basically said the same thing about himself in some moments of self-awareness. But the forces of darkness certainly think people who have voted for him, certainly think MAGA, certainly think Trump himself is an icon, a shortcut on your desktop to the good, true, and beautiful, and they cannot abide that. So it manifests in different ways. Sometimes it's unfriending. Sometimes it's the guy who told me last week he was going to come to my hometown and bleep me up, and when I told him, hey, I'll be at this place at this time on Saturday and showed up there, guess where he was? Nowhere. But it's the same type of thing. The worst thing you could do, the worst thing you could do, is try to just let things slide as much as you want because you're trying to preserve a friendship or preserve something like that. Correct. So that's what I did last week. I said, okay, let's just call bluffs. Call bluffs constantly because on a spiritual level, that is what's needed. Amen. Maybe it would last longer if you had a preexisting relationship where he was a lib from the beginning. Okay. But again, Todd can testify that eventually you just reached the existential breaking point. but the fact that he is flipped on you in the middle of this, that's been my experience. Okay. Yeah, I don't. You love your neighbors. You love yourself. We're commanded to do that. Okay. But just guard your heart. We're commanded to do that too. You know, so offer no accommodations for none will be granted to you. Whatever the previous rules of engagement in your friendship were, you continue with those. Don't give in any, don't give, and this goes to anybody else within the sound of my voice. Don't give any further accommodations. None. because none will be granted. And that's how you'll find out whether they're still interested in you as an individual because you'll put it on them. Either they still care about you as an individual and they'll maintain the relationship and say, you know, we're just going to have to just draw a moat around this, you know? I've got a friend right now. We're on opposite sides of a political race. We're in the same party. We're just with different candidates. We talk constantly, just not about the race. All right? Put a moat around it. Put a moat around it. Okay? You know? So, but don't let him take advantage of you because that's where the anger and bitterness when inevitably worldview comes into play because you'll get mad at yourself that you let yourself get taken advantage of and get mad at him that he did it. Don't. Don't get mad at a scorpion for stinging you. Don't do that. Okay? Let's go next to... Let's go to Daniel Bradshaw. Not sure if you and the team are following the story, but the Virginia Democrats are pursuing a constitutional amendment which will allow them to gerrymander the 11 congressional districts so all except one will be Democrat controlled. Currently, the districts are split five Republican to six Democrat. The most interesting part in all of this is that a court handed down a ruling saying the special session Virginia Democrats held last year to push this amendment through did not follow Virginia law, essentially telling them they had to start the process all over again. The court ruling has been appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court and should be heard very soon. However, Democrats are moving forward nonetheless, having a referendum vote by the public in a special election scheduled for April the 21st. All this to say, the Democrats have made it very clear that they will not abide by the court's ruling, and I suspect they will also ignore the Virginia Supreme Court if they rule against them. Of course, Republicans have no idea what to do and are completely baffled about why their friends across the aisle are behaving like it's 1861. Because... to quote you, we are not a nation of laws and we never have been. We are a nation of political will and we always will be. Listen, Glenn Youngkin seems like he was a fine governor of Virginia. But knowing he was term limited going in, Virginia can only serve one term at a time. He did absolutely nothing. He installed absolutely nothing that would outlive him to provide any kind of a reinforcement structure for people like Daniel and others in Virginia. after he was gone knowing that he would be. He did nothing. And most of these Republicans don't. I'm not saying we're in a great position. I'm not saying I enjoy being in this position. But we are. And I have to live in the world as it is. I mean, let's say we can't beat Randy Feenster in this gubernatorial primary here. My man, Adam Steen, can't get it done. I mean, I'm going to say publicly the next day after the primary. I hope Randy wins. I'm here to help if you want me. Everybody knows where I'm at. If you think I can help you, call me. We got some serious differences, but nowhere near the level of differences I've got with Rob Sand. has that always been my posture throughout the course of my career no but is this the same democratic party we had when i started my career that's the real tragedy of this all in virginia i you you had the uh loudon county uh arresting uh dads of rape victims for daring to show up and complaint to school board meetings you had the uh ag running there and his uh what he was uh caught on tape what was it what did he say exactly on tape that caught him in trouble at the uh the fever dream i was fever dreams about murdering republicans and their kids yeah yes the spanborough just like ignoring uh her opponent on the debate stage spanberger spanberger a black woman uh who is uh calling her correct to just not having giving her the dignity of a reply just riding it out because folks in virginia whether you're a squishy person that's kind of right adjacent that doesn't isn't really paying attention that's going on and just because politics is just icky or you're the people we just lamented before about on the right who just are are purer than everybody and i'm gonna yeah fine this is what you get then all of your reasons for not knowing what's going on or knowing what's going on and just making the perfect the enemy of the good. You get Virginia. Well done, everybody. 10, 15 years ago, if I lost a primary to somebody like Randy Finch, I'd be like, screw that guy. Hope he loses. And either I'll run the next time myself or I'm going to start lining up who we're going to run against him. I've done that. I've done it. I've done it. That's exactly what I would have done 10 or 15 years ago. We're not facing what we faced 10 or 15 years ago. We're not. So, got to fire every bullet in hell I have, man. I prefer to fire live rounds, not duds, right? The duds might get him to slow down thinking they'd be hit for at least a half a second. I know. I don't know. I don't know. We are where we are, you know? I've done everything I could do throughout the course of my career to not be in the position we're in right now, but we're in the position we're in right now. And so my generation's job, if you're Gen X or you're our job, we will eat the excrement sandwich. We must hold the line for our kids and grandkids. That is our job. So the reason why we did grunge and blow up the outside world and black hole sun and even flow and wore flannel shirts in the summer, okay, and we can't even, all right, reason we did all that became such the cynical, hardened, latchkey kid generation, you know why we went through all that? To prepare us for what we are now called to be. Exactly what we thought we were when we were younger. We're going to be the hardened generation that sits there and says, this sucks. that someone's got to do it. That's our job. And if we don't do our job, then I hope your kids and grandkids know Arabic and Chinese. Those are your options on the table. I'm sorry those are our options, but they are. And we're not empowered to make different options. Those are the only options we have, and we have to live in the world as we have it. And Virginia didn't even try to do the job. It's not like they did the job badly. They just don't want to do it. This was the most obvious result that was going to happen. And they just, you know, I got stuff. I still got Netflix. I hope there's some magic in that hat of yours when you keep saying what our generation has to do, Steve, because that's the tallest ask you've ever made on this show, quite frankly, brother. How tall is that ask? Charlie Kirk murdered Donald Trump almost murdered and after all of that Virginia voted for Attorney General a guy who fantasized about murder of political opponents that's how tall the task is listen my ego my pride half of my conscience has no interest in seeing somebody like Randy Feenstra being sworn in as governor of my state. None of those things are standards that matter whatsoever to the future of my kids or grandkids, though. They're not. Again, I don't like where we are, but tell me this is not where we are. Talk me out of it. I'd love it. Talk me out of it. Yeah. And as you pointed out, Aaron, they're shooting our people. They're shooting them. And then turning around and fantasizing about voting for people. Fever dreaming about shooting our people. I kind of think I've accurately forecasted the current predicament we're in here. Final thoughts. We've got about a minute left. What do you guys think? Oh, let me do this real quick. Brad in Texas. This is a quick one. Brad said he had a huge amount of success telling Grock to take on Steve Dace's persona and judge the candidates on my sample primary ballot. And it quickly narrowed in on the America First pro-life Christian candidates. Tell others this would help making their discernment process if you don't know who the candidates are much easier. I thought that was interesting. There you go. At least give you a reference point. At least give you a reference point. I'm not sure how well Grok takes on my persona. I probably need to test that before recommending it to people. But I thought that was an interesting approach. All right, minute left. Thoughts? testing things before recommending it to people in the conversation of AI. Who needs to do that? Yeah, on second thought, I should have done that before I read your note, Brad. No, it's on brand for AI. It's going to change the world. Here it is. What? Can we talk about this? Let's see if Daniel wants to get on really quick. Talk about data centers. And we're back on Monday. You guys have a great weekend. We're going to stick around and do overtime for subscribers. You can subscribe at blazedv.com slash days code days so that you don't miss anything we do exclusively. Get code days for $20 off blazedv.com slash days code days. For the rest of you, we'll see you on Monday. Until then, go hard, Romans 820.