Are Conspiracies Destroying Gen Z? | Shabbos Kestenbaum | DSH #1855

If Israel's controlling the US, they're doing a very shitty job at it. So you can hate you is all you want. I mean, Myron Gaines can say whatever dumb conspiracies he thinks of is in the shower every morning. I really don't care. The problem is when you like take a rock and throw it through a synagogue, that's when it becomes incredibly problematic. When you have a guy like Clavicular who says, if you don't look a certain way, no one's going to want to you. When you have Nick Fuentes saying that you can't get a good paying job, you can't move out of your mom's basement because the Jews, then those young men who listen to those people, they will stop participating in society And they will actually believe in those conspiracies. Hate Israel as much as you want. Hate Jews as much as you want. Hate me as much as you want. But I promise you, blaming other people for your personal shortcomings will be the death of you. Okay, guys. World War Debate with Shabos. He's debating here in about an hour or so. Are you ready for this debate, man? I hope so. Interesting opponent choice. Did you pick the opponent or were you out? I did not pick the opponent. I was told that this is your opponent. had not heard of him, had not heard of his political action committee. And he very much does not like Zionists. That is the vibe I'm getting from him. Did you approve him before or after you saw his Twitter? Well, the Twitter does not help. For someone who very much believes that we are being controlled by a foreign lobby, he's given exclusive interviews with the Quds News Network, which is an Iranian-backed news fund. He's talking about the Jewish mafia controlling the U.S. government. He's constantly retweeted, you know, pro-Turkish and pro-Hamas bots on Twitter. So getting conflicting messages from this dude. Yeah, yeah. He really thinks basically Israel controls America, right? And that's like not even an abnormal take these days, I feel like. It's, I mean, it's not an abnormal take in the sense of so much of society has really deluded themselves into believing in this fantasy. The reason I say it's a fantasy is because just look at the last 10 years, for example, whether it's AIPAC, whether it's the Bibi government, whether it's the American Jewish community so much of their political leverage and their financial resources went into opposing the JCPOA, right, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was the Iranian nuclear deal. I mean, they hated it. This would unfreeze hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen assets in Iranian banks. This would give the Iranians the ability in 10, 15 years to build their own nuclear weapons. I mean, Bibi went to Congress twice to talk about the detrimental impacts of the Iranian nuclear deal, and it still got passed. So if you're trying to concoct this narrative If Israel controls the U.S., Bibi has all the politicians in his pocket, then how come the most comprehensive and consequential foreign policy piece of legislation targeting Israel was still passed? If Israel's controlling the U.S., they're doing a very shitty job at it. Yeah, I think control is a strong word. But what do you think about influence? What do you think about Israel influencing the U.S.? Again, you have to substantiate the claim. And this is where I find the anti-Israel side really doesn't do a very good job. They'll say, well, so many policymakers support Israel. OK, well, so many policymakers also support Taiwan and Ukraine. Maybe it's not because there's this PSYOP operation. Maybe it's because we actually believe that the, I don't know, preservation of Western hegemony and American military dominance across the world or anywhere it's threatened is actually an objectively good thing. You know, the founding fathers knew this, which is why if you read the Federalist Papers, it talks about common defense like 50 different times. It says you need to have regional allies because without that, you don't have a country, which is why the very first war we even fought as a country was the Barbary Wars, which was off the fucking coast of the Mediterranean because all these Islamist pirates kept abducting merchants. And President Thomas Jefferson realized that attacks against American interests abroad is an attack against Americans at home. And I don't understand why we suddenly have to create these conspiratorial theories that, oh, it's really because the Jews and Miriam Adelson. I mean, it's just silly. It's stupid. I feel like I hear Adelson's name like five times a day at this point. Miriam Adelson is a fucking American citizen. I mean, again, if you want to make the point that there's too much money in politics, I agree with you. Then, like, let's create policy and let's enact legislation that would limit the amount of money in our politics. The problem is the anti-Israel side literally never do that. They just only fixate on one country and one policy. And again, if Israel is controlling the United States, if AIPAC is the boogeyman, AIPAC isn't even the biggest pro-Israel lobbying group in the country, let alone the world. It's the Christians. The Jews, we can't even get our shit together. The conservative Jews hate AIPAC because they think they're a bunch of leftists. AIPAC has been really unsuccessful in blocking a lot of the anti-Israel legislation of the last 10 years. So if you really think that Jews are controlling the United States or Israel, I mean, the data just doesn't support it. AIPAC spent roughly $100 million last year. China alone spent half a billion dollars on lobbying. Japan spent $500 million. Qatar alone spent $250 or $300 million. But no one talks about that. No one talks about the fact that Qatar alone has spent $6 billion giving American institutions of higher learning monies and gifts. Why is there no outrage? Why is it that this is a well-documented fact? The Wall Street Journal reported this, that there are so many Chinese communist students at the Harvard Kennedy School, which is a school of government, the Chinese Communist Party literally calls the Harvard Kennedy School their, quote, party school. Like a third of Harvard are Chinese communist students. And like, no one seems to care. It's only when Israel is involved, which really makes me suspect the true motives here. Yeah, Harvard wants that out-of-state tuition. They want that Chinese money. Oh, yeah. It's actually a good point. That's why they love foreign students, because foreign students will pay the full amount, because especially if they're coming from China or Qatar or Saudi Arabia, their governments will pay it. Oh, their governments pay? Oh, yeah. Again, it's this massive problem that is well-known, but no one ever talks about it. The only time people talk about foreign influence is when it's a particular country, Israel. They never talk about foreign influence when it's literally any other country on planet Earth. Yeah, I wonder why that is. It's because the Jews. The Jews did it. The Jews. Now, you're obviously Jewish. Have you seen this prevalence in the last three years, you'd say? Or was this happening before when it comes to the hatred on Jews? Oh, that's an interesting question. I mean, I'm an Orthodox Jew. I don't know what gave that away, the fact that I'm wearing a nail. My name is freaking Shabbos Kestenbaum. But as an Orthodox Jew, we believe in the divinity of both the biblical Hebrew Bible and also the oral law. And both of those books are very clear that so long as Jews live in exile, which we are currently living in, we don't have the third temple, we don't have the Messiah. Three things will always happen, says the Hebrew Bible. You will be scattered, which is true. Jews live in essentially every country on planet Earth. You will be small in number, which is true. Jews have been around longer than Christians, longer than Muslims, longer than Mormons. Yet there's only roughly 15 million Jews. there are more Mormons, which only started in the 1830s than there are Jews. Holy crap. So the Bible says you'll be scattered, check. It says you'll be small in numbers, check. And it says you'll always be hated. So where does the anti-Semitism or hatred come from? I think it's biblically ordained. In fact, the Zohar, which is the book of Jewish mysticism, it talks about that anti-Semitism is actually a reminder for the Jews when they try to assimilate that actually you are not like all the other nations. Not that you're better. You're not better, but you're different. You have different options. I don't really chase trends anymore. I just want clothes that work, feel good, and last. I've stopped buying a lot of clothes and started buying better ones. Stuff that fits right, holds up, and I actually wear. That's why I've been going with Quince. They've got basics I actually use, organic cotton sweaters, clean polos, lightweight jackets, stuff that holds up to daily wear and still looks good. The quality's solid and everything's built to last. What makes Quince different is how they do it. They work directly with top factories, cut out the middleman, and you're not paying for brand markup, just quality clothing. and they only partner with factories that meet high standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash dsh for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince.com slash dsh. Now available in Canada too. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash dsh. So a Jew has to keep 613 commandments. A non-Jew only has to keep seven commandments. It's called the seven Noahide laws. And like the best news is just keep seven and you'll still get into heaven. You know, we're not really interested in converting. We're not really interested in preaching. So where does the hatred come from? It's biblically ordained and it doesn't actually bother me that much. What bothers me is when the anti-Semitism becomes manifested. So you can hate Jews all you want. I mean, Myron Gaines can say whatever dumb conspiracies he thinks of is in the shower every morning. I really don't care. The problem is when you like take a rock and throw it through a synagogue, that's when it becomes incredibly problematic. Right. And I'll just say one last thing. Sorry if I give long answers, but really shame on the Jewish community, because every time like there's an anti-Semitic assault, you know, someone's physically assaulted on Columbia's campus or a rock is thrown through a synagogue. The Jewish community takes the approach of like, let's take the assailant and like, let's send him to a Holocaust museum, which is a terrible idea because, A, it gives them really bad ideas of like, whoa, the Nazis did what? Like, let's go. So one bad idea. And two, you can go to every single Holocaust museum in the world. I went to Harvard to actually study the Holocaust. It's my academic specialty. It's why I'm depressed all the time. And you go to every single Holocaust museum in the world, you will literally not walk away with any understanding of Jewish culture, Jewish history, what the Jewish people are. You'll just see like these grainy black and white photos of these emaciated Jews on their way to Auschwitz. I don't care if people think we control the banks or have horns. Let them think what they want. What the Jewish communal response should be anytime there is an illegal act of anti-Semitism is you prosecute crime. That's literally it. Don't treat Jews as qualitatively different. In the same way, you'll never defeat racism because racism is an ideology. It's a bad ideology, but you can't dictate or legislate your way out of how people think. What you do say is if you're a bus driver and you tell an African-American, go to the back of the bus, we don't send you to like the Smithsonian Museum of Slavery. We send your ass to jail that night because if you violate the law, there are consequences. But for whatever reason, when it comes to the Jewish community or anti instead of prosecuting crime oh just send them to like a Holocaust museum or send them on a trip to Israel Who the hell cares Who that helping So when you see people like Anna Kasparian say the anti-Semitism laws are an attack on free speech, what do you think about that? Yeah, well, Anna Kasparian has called me a bitch on national TV, so I'm not her biggest fan. But what I will say is, again, you have to substantiate the claim. What anti-Semitic laws are you referring to? Point me to any person in the United States of America who has been prosecuted by the federal government exclusively and specifically because of anti-Semitic speech. I don't mean death threats. I don't mean harassment. I don't mean physical acts of violence. But just saying I don't support Israel. It is this bizarre conspiracy that the far right and the far left have concocted, that there is this attack on free speech. And by the way, Anna Kasparin, I call bullshit because Harvard was ranked 238th out of 238 American universities by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions when it came to free speech. They were ranked dead last. This is an institution that micromanages and regulates and rescinds free speech and free expressions the whole time. And no one gave a shit until Jews like me said, hey, if you're going to regulate what people say, then you can't make an exception for, let's say, globalize the intifada. If you as Harvard University want to say, actually, all speech is permissible. You can call a black person the N-word. You can call for an intifada. You can call, you know, a gay man a f*****er. I would actually be in support of that because as Charlie Kirk taught me, as he taught millions of Americans, the only way to combat bad ideas is with better ideas. The problem is Harvard and all these institutions of higher learning have literally never taken that approach before. So all I'm pointing out is the double standard. And again, this bizarre conspiracy that Jews of U.S. government are curtailing people's free speech. Show me the evidence where literally any of that is true or applicable. I don't really chase trends anymore. I just want clothes at work, feel good and last. I stopped buying a lot of clothes. I started buying better ones. Stuff that fits right, holds up, and I actually wear. That's why I've been going with Quints. They've got basics I actually use, organic cotton sweaters, clean polos, lightweight jackets, stuff that holds up to daily wear and still looks good. Quality's solid and everything's built to last. What makes Quints different is how they do it. They work directly with top factories, cut out the middleman, and you're not paying for brand mark off just quality clothing. And they only partner with factories that meet high standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash dsh for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince.com slash dsh. Now available in Canada too. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash dsh. Yeah, it's such a shame because there used to be a lot of prestige around Harvard and the Ivy Leagues. Like if your kid went there, it was a huge deal. Yeah, I mean, I got into trouble because I said on a podcast a few months ago that any Columbia University student from the class of 2027 onward should not be hired by anyone for any reason. Just blacklist the institution. You know, if you have a cancer, you don't try to negotiate with the cancer. You obliterate the cancer. You excise it from your body. Columbia University is the greatest example of just a cancer in our society. And if they truly wanted to be productive to Western civilization and to the American economy, they would turn themselves into a parking lot because there's not a lot of spaces to park on the Upper West Side. But yes, President Trump, I think, gave one of the best speeches of his second term, which got very little press. He spoke at the University of Alabama graduation, and he told the students that the future will not be dictated by the Harvard Crimson, which is the Harvard student newspaper. Instead, it'll be written by the Crimson Tide, right? The University of Alabama. And what he means by that is the values or lack thereof coming from these institutions of higher learning, the elite ones, Harvard, Columbia, Penn, UCLA, are not worth the words they're printed on. And it matters far more that you have a sense of dignity than a degree. Accolades do not matter over personal accomplishments. It is your values and the things you are willing to fight for and the things you believe and the things you know that is far more important than any piece of paper. Well, and speaking of college students and Gen Z, there's a lot of interesting influencers on social media these days. Have you seen this clavicular kid yet? Okay. Okay. Clavicular is like one of my favorite things to talk about, but in a very negative way. First of all, I am not gay. Let me put that out there. I am not. Having said that, I'm trying to put my, I don't know, my mind in like the body of a 19-year-old woman. I don't get the appeal of a guy who has one of the worst personalities you have ever seen, who cannot carry a sentence, who admitted on a stream that he only showers once a week, who takes crystal meth, who is infertile by his own admission. I don't get the appeal. But leaving that aside, I think people like Clavicular are part of one of the greatest problems facing Western civilization today, which is the demoralization of young Americans, and particularly Gen Z American men. Because when you have a guy like Clavicular who says, if you don't look a certain way, no one's going to want to, no one's going to, you know, you. When you have Nick Fuentes saying that you can't get a good paying job, you can't move out of your mom's basement because the Jews, because Bill Ackman, then those young men who listen to those people, they will simply drop out of the system. They will stop participating in society and they will actually believe in those conspiracies. And that to me is this, this danger that not a lot of certainly adults and policymakers are talking about, that Gen Z have some of the worst role models of any society at any time in human history. And Charlie Kirk knew that, which is why he would constantly tell young people, get married, have kids, go to church. So I, as an Orthodox Jew, you know, Jewy Jewstein, I always tell young people, I mean, I'm also a young person, that America would be a much better country if more Christians went to church, if more Christians learned and lived by the New Testament, if they lived a life in accordance with Jesus Christ, that would be one of the best things to happen to the United States. But instead, they're being fed a diet of social and cultural indoctrination by people like Nick Fuentes and Clavicular, who tell you that if you don't look a certain way, if you don't act a certain way, if you don't buy a certain product, no one will want to associate with you. That is a really dangerous message to be telling young people. Yeah. Yeah. Look at the influences of Gen Z. It's all these streamers now. It's people like Clavicular, Aiden Ross, Nico, Myron Gaines. That's like who's inspiring the next generation. Yeah. I mean, it's entirely a self-feeding culture of stupidity. So like Myron Gaines is not an intellectual individual. This is not someone who has any degree of sophistication. he generates content by simply saying dumb. You know, women shouldn't have the right. We talk a lot on this show about taking risks and trying to get ahead. Let's be real. The world feels shaky right now. AI is changing jobs. Markets are all over the place. Nothing feels guaranteed. And at some point you realize no one's coming to save you. You've got to protect yourself. And one thing people forget about is life insurance. If you're new to it, you're not alone. That's why I checked out Select Quote. They've been around for over 40 years and helped more than 2 million Americans find coverage that actually fits their life and budget. They compare policies from top rated insurance companies and do the work for you for free. You can even get same day coverage up to $2 million with no medical exam. Life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50% at selectquote.com slash dsh. Save more than 50% on term life insurance at selectquote.com slash dsh today To get started, that's selectquote.com slash dsh. To vote. I mean, he's a third world Sudanese Muslim. Of course he believes that. These are not hot takes. These are the thinking of a third worlder. And Myron Gaines and people like him just propagate this fiction. But the problem is they're now propagating it on a Western American audience, which is why, again, one of the things we have to be particularly careful about are who are the people we're letting into our country. So I think one of the great things about President Trump's second administration is there's been a cultural shift whereby the Overton window has moved so drastically that when it comes to illegal immigration, the overwhelming majority of the American people now agree, yeah, you can't have illegal immigrants. You have to deport people, especially violent criminals. But the cultural shift has been, you know what, forget about illegal immigration. What about legal immigration? Who are the types of people that are coming into our country legally? People like Myron Gaines, people like Mehdi Hassan, people like Mahmoud Khalil. How the hell did they get into our country? And that cultural shift has been a direct result of President Trump and his populism, which I think has been a net positive for the American people. Immigration wise, I would agree. I think he's crushed it there. I know there's a lot of drama with the ICE stuff right now, but I don't know if it's too soon to comment on it. But, you know, when I got my driver's license, my parents told me two things. They said, Shabbos, anytime you interact with federal law enforcement, there are only ever two answers. Yes, sir. And no, sir. The idea that a person would park their car in front of an ICE ongoing operation in order to obstruct a federal law enforcement is just so beyond the pale of conceivable behavior in a working, functioning society. And then when that federal law enforcement tells you to do something like get out of the car, your reaction is to try to run them over. I mean, as the saying goes, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. So my heart goes out to her kid because it's not nice that her kid is going to grow up without a mother. But it's very difficult to have sympathy with an individual who voluntarily, deliberately and willingly went out of their way to obstruct lawful federal enforcement. And liberals are still defending her, even with the new video evidence. Yeah. Well, as someone who once used to be a leftist, these people are – I'll put it this way. Ben Shapiro has this great line that facts don't care about your feelings, right? Like in the face of overwhelming data, it's irrelevant what your emotions are. But the inverse is also true, right? Feelings don't care about your facts. And when your political identity is cemented around feelings, you know, it feels nice to welcoming the immigrant, to welcoming the stranger. Then no amount of facts or data or surveillance camera is actually going to move you in any political direction because your political identity is not based around facts or data or logic. It's based around emotions. So to your point yeah of course surveillance footage even of a woman literally trying to run over an ICE officer it not going to move them in any measurable way That not enough And by the way can I just make one last point on that At Harvard, we were the first university, I think in the world, actually, but certainly in America, to display the 47-minute Hamas propaganda footage where they videotaped, they GoProed their horrendous atrocities committed on October 7th. Really horrific images, horrific videos. I couldn't sleep for a couple of nights. They were actually trauma specialists at Harvard to coach students who had watched it. And of the, I don't know, roughly 300 to 400 people who came to the university to watch it, almost all of them were Jews, right? Were people like me who really didn't need to see the graphic horrendous footage. And that created a paradigm shift in my mind where I suddenly realized you can show my classmates, my professors, my former friends, the most horrific images of Jews being assaulted and women with their pants off and babies being burnt. It will not move them in any measurable way. Because as I said, feelings don't care about your facts. And as my classmates at Harvard will tell you, as they told me, resistance is justified when people are occupied. You know, there was a friend of mine. Her name was Hannah. And I spoke to her shortly after October 7th. We took a class together at the Divinity School. And I remember she literally said after I spoke about October 7th, well, what did you expect was going to happen? I mean, that to me was just a shocking realization that there is no rationalizing with this political ideology anymore, that people are immune from accountability and responsibility. That is also a really dangerous thing for a society. That is nuts. How long were you on the left for? Most of my life, up until October 7th. Oh, so that's what changed. Yeah, I was nine years old when I knocked on doors for Barack Obama. I voted, supported Bernie Sanders twice. I volunteered for the Jamal Bowman campaign. I marched with Black Lives Matter. I marched to the Supreme Court when Roe v. Wade was overturned. And I did this as like an Orthodox Jew. So I have some degree of credibility and legitimacy to say that the far left are fucking nuts. And if they get one iota of power in the next four to eight years, we as a country are screwed. These are people who fundamentally do not believe in like American superiority. They fundamentally don't believe in borders. They fundamentally don't believe in moral or human agency. Those are massive, massive problems that even while I still believe in progressive taxation or federal action to combat climate change, we can't talk about any of those important issues if we're dead, if we've surrendered our civilization. And that's what the left actually wants us to do. And now they're merging with the Islam community. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Red Green Alliance. Again, another scary thing happening to our civilization. There's no other explanation. other than just an irrational hatred towards Israel as to how you can get fundamentalist Islamic jihadis to ally themselves with, you know, queers for Palestine. It just shows that their hatred of the West, their hatred of the Jew, and their hatred of Israel is stronger than their actual political preconceived notions around literally anything else. Yeah, Mamdani is going to be the first step and they'll soon have other people in power, I'd imagine. Yeah. Oh my God, Mamdani. That guy is a clown and a half. My God. No, if I die 10 years early of heart failure, I blame Zoram Amdani. This guy has taken 10 years off my life. You know, people, I'll put it this way. The Jewish community in New York, of which I'm a part of, made a massive mistake by focusing on his anti-Semitism, which was obvious and blamed. But that's not going to sway people because his policies, if even a tenth of them were administered on the people of New York, would be so wildly disruptive and destructive to our city. That's what we should have focused on. You know, for example, if you have rent control, which he has no authority to do because there's a rent commission. But even if he did that, you would kill any incentive that landowners and property developers have to, I don't know, build property and develop land. If you tax all the billionaires, which he himself has admitted he doesn't believe that billionaires should exist, then you don't have the funds to pay for all of these expansionist social programs that you want to build. I mean, he's just a walking contradiction. He's someone whose own mother said that he doesn't even identify as an American. But unfortunately, New York City is a city of transplants, which means that, as all public polling found, if you were living in New York City for 10 years or less, or you didn't come We talk a lot on this show about taking risks and trying to get ahead. But let's be real, the world feels shaky right now. AI is changing jobs. Markets are all over the place. Nothing feels guaranteed. And at some point, you realize no one's coming to save you. You've got to protect yourself. and one thing people forget about is life insurance. If you're new to it, you're not alone. That's why I checked out SelectQuote. They've been around for over 40 years and helped more than 2 million Americans find coverage that actually fits their life and budget. They compare policies from top-rated insurance companies and do the work for you for free. You can even get same-day coverage up to $2 million with no medical exam. Life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50% at selectquote.com. slash DSH. Save more than 50% on term life insurance at selectquote.com slash DSH today to get started at selectquote.com slash DSH. From New York City, overwhelmingly, you supported Zoram Omdani. But if you were born and bred New Yorker, overwhelmingly, you supported Andrew Cuomo. Yeah, billionaires shouldn't exist. That's a wild ideology to me. Even when I was broke, I would never work out. You know what I mean? Right. The best thing for the American capitalist system to do is not to diminish people's wealth, but to elevate people out of poverty. And the reason that people may be struggling in their job or maybe in a minimum wage job is not because of the billionaires. The reason overwhelmingly that people have means, and I mean significant means, people like Bill Ackman or Elon Musk or whomever, is because they put in most of the capital and most of the risk at the beginning of their professional career. So if Tesla failed, for example, or SpaceX failed, if you were a worker of SpaceX or a worker of Tesla, you would lose a job, but you would find another job. That's kind of how the market works. Whereas if you are the owner or the investor, you've lost all of your income. You've lost all of your investments. So the risk that you've put into that business from the get-go is much larger, which is why the rewards, should it work, is also much more significant. So for every one billionaire, there are 99 other aspiring billionaires who failed, but we don't hear about them. Yeah. I hate that thing. They always say it's like, oh, if Elon Musk gave away his money, he could solve homelessness. It's insanity. You can tax every single billionaire in the United States at 100 percent, and it wouldn't even cover one year's worth of universal health care. It's an insane proposition that we need to. And again, I don't like using the term job creator. Let's call it as it is wealthy people. Yes, I believe in progressive taxation, but there's a limit. This is what the Laffer curve suggested all the way back in the 80s. If you tax people out of existence, they will lose the incentives they have to participate in a market economy. I feel like we're getting close. We're getting very close, especially, again, with the advent of the left and people like Zohar Mamdani, the new mayor of Seattle. I mean, these are people, again, who are fundamentally opposed to the idea of capitalism. And don't listen to me, Shabuz Kesemam was the right wing MAGA Prager U guy. Listen to their own words. Listen to the things coming out of their mouths. Where Zohar Mamdani has literally said he's not a capitalist. He has many critiques of capitalism. He doesn't believe billionaires should exist. He wants to tax whiter neighborhoods. these are things that he has said himself. Yeah. I mean, there's people that moved to Puerto Rico, sacrificed quality of life because of taxes. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I don't blame them. I totally get where that's coming from. And on an aggregate level, the United States is not taxed at citizenry as much as countries like, ironically, Israel or Scandinavian countries. So we still are on the lower end, but that comes with exceptions like big blue cities, New York City being the most prominent. Cali too. Yeah. Yeah. You guys are paying over 50%, right? It's insanity. So I just moved to Los Angeles. And literally the first day I moved to LA, half the city was on a mandatory curfew because all of the Antifa guys kept throwing rocks at the ICE officer and police on the highway. So literally that was my first day. So I'm like, oh my, what have I done? But I live in a very Jewish area called Pico Robertson and a block away from my apartment is the nearest gas station and gas there is $6.50. And this is just normalized. It's $2.80 in Vegas. It's insanity. One stayed over. Exactly. And this is why, again, the left cannot gain any power, especially a guy like Avin Newsom, because this is a choice. We don't have to live like this. As you just said, the next state over does not have gas $6.50. But the people of California and our policymakers like Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom have willingly and deliberately created destructive policies that have hampered not just the quality of life, but the ability to make ends meet. So as someone who's moved to LA, I can't wait to get the hell out of there. And I do not encourage a single one of your viewers to be moving to California. I lasted four months there. I just had the California Department of Taxation email me weekly, like, asking for money. I wasn't even there for five months. Yeah, they will find any way that they can get another dollar from you. Yeah, they're worse than the IRS, I heard. I remember, actually, the first week or two, I went to Venice Beach, which only after the fact, I was told that was a bad idea. Because that was the first time I ever saw actual naked homeless men. But anyway, so I go to Venice Beach and totally parked in a legal spot. I will take that to my grave, but my car was towed anyway. And so were all the other cars on the road. And I swear to God, it was a legal spot. They just wanted to tow us because that's like $600 in their account. Wow. Welcome to Cali. Gavin Newsom, you're doing a great job. Now you're running for president. Oh, my God. You know, I actually posted on my Twitter, again, like only two, three weeks living in California. I said, you know, I'm still technically a registered Democrat, but I will crawl through glass to vote against Gavin Newsom for president. This man is a sociopath. And we just had the one year anniversary of the Palisades fire. how this man has been able to avoid prosecution, investigations, accountability is beyond me. Because everyone knows that California, especially Los Angeles, is prone to wildfires. And the city had dry reservoirs. What? These things are nonsensical. They're almost sociopathic. And again, the city knew in advance that these fires were going to start. As President Trump said I mean he has a funny way of expressing it but it true California does not have any wildlife management wildfire management I should say And we see the consequences on that Yeah I got a list of five names here to end things off of people, and I'd love to get your opinion on them and if you debate them or not. First one is Tucker Carlson. Well, Tucker Carlson might be difficult to debate now that he has a home in Qatar. I'm not sure if he'll be able to make the trek over. Tucker Carlson, first of all, as one of your previous guests have stated, and she's right, is not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, he'll talk about global homo and he's against gay marriage, but great. This is someone who believed that should the United States attack the Iranian nuclear sites, we would be engaging in World War III. In his own words, you would have thousands of American troops dying almost immediately. So as people who are experiencing World War III right now, it's a pretty easy war, I would say. He has been demonstrably wrong on almost all of his predictions. And I find it really remarkable that this guy, who has been heavily implying for the last six months that President Trump, without saying President Trump's name because he doesn't have the balls to do it, is overseeing a child sex trafficking ring, is still invited to the White House. We talk a lot on this show about taking risks and trying to get ahead. But let's be real. The world feels shaky right now. AI is changing jobs. Markets are all over the place. Nothing feels guaranteed. And at some point, you realize no one's coming to save you. you've got to protect yourself. And one thing people forget about is life insurance. If you're new to it, you're not alone. That's why I checked out SelectQuote. They've been around for over 40 years and helped more than 2 million Americans find coverage that actually fits their life and budget. They compare policies from top rated insurance companies and do the work for you for free. You can even get same day coverage up to $2 million with no medical exam. Life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50% at selectquote.com slash dsh. Save more than 50% on term life insurance at selectquote.com slash dsh today to get started at selectquote.com slash dsh. He spent the last week talking about the virtues of Nicolas Maduro and how the United States should not extradite him back to the U.S. And now, just two, three days after they did just that, he's at the White House? I mean, why? That's weird. Yeah, he was close to Maduro, right? he interviewed them? Yeah. Weird. There's not a single anti-Western dictator that Tucker Carlson will not interview in Fanoa, I should say. In fact, it was even Vladimir Putin when he was interviewing who made fun of Tucker Carlson for saying not even the Kremlin gives me these easy questions. That was a tough interview to watch. I mean, it's just embarrassing. So why is he doing it? I don't think it's the money because he has it. Is it power? Is it control? What deeply concerns me as well is he does have influence in the Trump administration, and that's a major problem. So I'd be happy to debate him, but he's not interested in debate. He's interested in propagating preconceived notions. I watch his podcast. He picks and chooses how hard to go on certain guests. Exactly. So the classic example is when he pressed Ted Cruz on the population of Iran and its ethnic makeup. Yet when it comes to Nick Fuentes talking about, oh, I know the date's December 18th because that's Joseph Stalin's birthday. And Tucker says, oh, interesting. Let's circle back. And then he literally never does. So the issue isn't really platforming reprehensible individuals. The issue is giving a free pass to reprehensible individuals, which is what Tucker Carlson has been doing for like years now. Yeah. Speaking of Fuentes, that was my next one. So Fuentes, Nick Fuentes has attacked me numerous times and he's a funny, charismatic guy. He says that my name, Shabbos Kestenbaum, sounds like a walking hate crime, which is like a very funny joke. So every time he's attacked me, I've always said, and I've DMed him repeatedly, like let's debate anytime, anywhere. And I think I've told you, you know, you should moderate. So if Nick is watching, either he's too much of a coward or he doesn't actually believe in the fictions that he's propagating. I would debate Nick Fuentes anytime, anywhere. We can even use it as an opportunity to raise funds for a charity of his choice. But absolutely, I would debate him. And that is because, unfortunately, Nick Fuentes has more weekly listeners than there are Jews on planet Earth. So we have to confront bad ideas with better ideas. Speaking of weekly listeners, is number one on the charts. Candace Owens, what about her? I'd be, I mean, Candace is an interest. Also, she's not interested in debate. She's just like Tucker Carlson. They're interested in preconceived notions and then creating conspiratorial thinking around those preconceived notions. This is someone who believes that Charlie Kirk appeared to her in a vision saying only you, Candace, can uncover my true assassin, who, by the way, is Tyler Robinson. This is a woman who has put Erica Kirk, Charlie's beautiful wife, through hell the last three months, who has propagated every type of fiction that Erica knew about the assassination, that Turning Point USA knew about the assassination. So with Candace, I wouldn't be opposed, but I wouldn't go out of my way. This is someone who has really lost almost all of her legitimacy and credibility, not just in the conservative movement, but within American political culture as a whole, which is why she has to rely so much on foreign bots to propagate her tweets, for example. Hey, I believe in dead internet theory, bro. Yeah? Yeah. I think bots are taken over. I think a lot of Twitter are bots. You're going to have to fact check me in PostScript. I think the number is what, like two thirds or something. That's all I can say on Twitter. 51%. But either way, it's a major problem. Yeah, it's high. And the CEO of Rumble, I forget his name, but he made a tweet yesterday. He was basically saying like, people will get a thousand likes on their tweets, but if they go live on a platform, they'll get like 10 viewers. Exactly. Exactly. And by the way, like Nick Fuentes, every time he comments on my posts, he's ratioed me, but that ratio is gotten in like three minutes with like 30,000 likes. It's completely inorganic. So yeah, the foreign bots thing is a major problem. And as much as we like Elon Musk for saving Twitter and restoring free speech and decrying censorship, he also has to take into consideration just the level of foreign influence and bots that are just destroying the site itself. He said he would get rid of them, but... He said it, but that was months ago. He said it for years, honestly. But yeah, it's gotten worse. Yeah, way worse. Okay, last two names are Vegas-based. Any guesses? I don't know. Jake Shields. Jake Shields. I think Jake Shields should spend less time debating and more time in the hospital getting CTE scans. I mean, this guy has the intellectual capabilities of like a piece of toast. He's so demonstrably retarded. But sure, I'd be happy to debate him. But again, there's no substance there. I debate him, but only with the recognition of this is a damning indictment on our culture, that someone with like actual brain damage, who spouts nonsense, just made up lies day in and day out has such a major following. So again, I would debate him, not because I respect him, but I would debate him simply because, unfortunately, he has impressionable young people who are listening to him. And I did not realize he was Vegas-based. He's Vegas-based. Same studio as me, actually. Oh, yeah. Same studio as me. Wow. I've had Xavier in the room right next door while he's filming with Dan Blazerian, who is my next one feed. Dan Blazerian. Oh, my God. It's like Tweedledum and Tweedledum-er. Again, same answer with Jake Shields. I would debate them, but only because of the recognition that they hold, unfortunately, incredible power and influence amongst young people. But again, this is someone who says, I read the Talmud, which it's not called the Talmud, it's called the Gemara. But A, if you were to read one page a day of Gemara, which is double-sided exclusively in Aramaic with the rabbinic commentators, which is what one page a day is, it would take you seven and a half years to read just doing one page a day. And again, one page is very difficult. It's all in Aramaic, and it's double-sided with commentators. I don't believe Dan Bolzerian when he says he's read the entire Talmud. And I'd love to have a discussion with Dan on said Talmud. Last one that I just thought of, but he's in the news right now, so I got to bring it up. Dave Smith. He's going at it with Bongino right now. Yeah, I was actually meant to do a debate. I don't know if Dave knows this because they canceled it pretty quickly, but I was actually meant to do a debate against Dave Smith on Piers Morgan's show. And there was some type of cancellation. I ended up debating someone else. But Dave, I would debate. He's interesting. I mean, he's certainly not funny. That goes without saying. I was shocked to learn he's actually a comedian. That was news to me. But he has a bizarre reading of world history, especially as it pertains to the American-Israel relationship, especially when he was debating Coleman Hughes, and he talks about four-star general Wesley Clark. Exactly. It's hearsay of hearsay. So I'm really not sure where he's getting most of his information from, if not Twitter. So I'd be happy to debate him again anytime, anywhere. But my Number one is for sure Nick Fuentes because he goes out of his way to attack me. He has the most listeners out of any of these low IQ individuals. And unfortunately, he is quite dangerous and also quite powerful. Open invite, Nick. Well, good luck shortly here, man. Anything else you want to close off with? I would just say this, that as a newly minted conservative, one of the most powerful arguments of conservatism is that you are responsible for your own life. And the argument that so many on both the far right and the far left have made that, as I was saying earlier, you can't get a good paying job. You can't have sexual relations with a woman. You can't move out of your mom's basement because something, something, the Jews or something, something, Israel or something, something, Bill Ackman is the most anti-conservative, demoralizing argument you could possibly make in front of young Americans. Young Americans who are responsible for your own lives. Is it difficult? Absolutely. It's not simple. The odds are certainly stacked against us. It's a tough job market. It's a tough economy. It's a tough culture. but blaming other people for your lack of personal success I promise you hate Israel as much as you want hate Jews as much as you want hate me as much as you want but I promise you blaming other people for your personal shortcomings will be the death of you please don't do it yeah it's not productive absolutely not yeah well said man thanks for coming on okay yeah appreciate it see you guys thanks for staying all the way to the end guys means a lot to me if you could please leave a review on Apple that helps us climb the charts it helps us get way more guests and it helps us continue growing the podcast and the team So it would mean a lot to me if you left a review on Apple or wherever else you're listening. Thanks so much.