As the Israel-Hamas War nears its 50th day, President John Pudner joined host J.T. in Birmingham, Alabama to not only assess the impact the conflict has had on faith in institutions, but also how the cultural response from Americans has further showcased the shifts and divides across our Republic. In particular, Pudner highlights recent protests and demonstrations on not only college campuses, but also on Capitol Hill, as students and young adults continue their vocal calls for a ceasefire and end to hostilities in the region.
This also comes off the heels of polling from Axios further showcasing the generational divide on the war, with support for Israel dropping nearly by half between those in the Silent/Greatest generations (1901-1945) and those in the Millenial/Gen Z generations (1981-2012). Both John and J.T. discuss how this could possibly stem from not only the changing landscape of the media, with outlets such as The New York Times reporting information from Hamas-propaganda sources as vetted information, but also the changing tides of opinion and orthodoxy in academia, with curriculums continuing to be influenced and bent based on the political views of faculty.
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The following transcript from this interview is presented in its entirety with minor edits:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Hamas, Israel, liberal, ceasefire, headlines, false, faith in institutions.
SPEAKERS
J.T. and TBOR Action President John Pudner
J.T. 00:00
Joining us is John Pudner, who has been with us before, he is the president of Take Back Our Republic Action, also a Bush aide back in 2000. John, welcome, and thanks for being here this morning.
John Pudner 00:12
Thanks! Enjoying another white Halloween snow, which I never had in my 16 years in Alabama.
J.T. 00:18
I mean, this is why I left Pittsburgh. I can't...I'm just done with snow, and you're in Milwaukee now, so you literally have snow on the ground right now?
John Pudner 00:28
It was snowing yesterday so we got it in October once again.
J.T. 00:32
I remember one year, I think it was '93, we had a doozy of a storm here in Alabama as well, but I lived in Pittsburgh in 1993, and from Halloween, and I'm not kidding, all the way until Easter, we had snow, I didn't see any grass ever during that entire time, snow cover for that many months, and I'm like, "Enough of this madness. Judy, want to go home to where you live?" But anyway, let's talk about the madness of everybody seeming to be buying into fake news these days, and a big example is when the garage by the hospital, or the hospital itself, got bombed in mid-October, and all of a sudden, everybody's saying how dare Israel attack poor innocent babies and sick people in a hospital, this is just atrocious, not even really knowing the reality of that. All of a sudden, we find out that it was Hamas, they launched a rocket, and it was a dud, it fell, and exploded. I mean, we had people screaming in the halls of Congress! Rashida Talib, she doubled down on this story for so long, even The New York Times retracted and apologized for reporting this. What is going out with the insanity and the madness of just being ready to jump on anything to support anything good or right in this world anymore?
John Pudner 01:57
And the fact that the source for that New York Times story was a Hamas source. I mean, even an 8th grader's journalism instruction would have gotten this. I think it's always the difference between if you a doctor or are you a lawyer - no offense to lawyer friends - but are you trying to build evidence for a preconceived belief, which is what they're doing on pro-Hamas, versus the doctor who's actually trying to diagnose and figure out what's right, and once you're doing the former, you're gonna get stories like this, unfortunately.
J.T. 02:37
Well, we have more of the madness going on in this country now with the ignorant, uninformed people who have never picked up a history book, all across this country on campuses, even in the Senate hearings, you have people screaming for the wrong thing here. Listen to this yesterday, as we had a big get-together with the Senate, and the protesting was just outrageous, right in the middle of everything going on...
Various Protestors 03:06
Save the children of Gaza! Save the children of Gaza! Ceasefire now! Where is your pride, America? Stop the war! Ceasefire now! Stop funding this brutal massacre! Ceasefire now!
J.T. 03:30
Ceasefire now? Yeah, I agree, ceasefire Hamas, stop doing what you're doing, but they're screaming about Israel, and how bad Israel is. What does that even mean? You don't even understand what you're saying. It's just insane what's going on here, and how much people jump on this bandwagon, and especially kids that have never even understood, obviously, the history of what's been going on for thousands of years in this region of the world. It's just crazy that the support for terrorism here is what it is in this country and around the globe.
John Pudner 04:06
It goes back to the education. I mean, the left got a hold of education, they didn't want to teach history, we know what they've been teaching in schools, and then the older Democrats seem stunned that the younger ones are so anti-Israel. With no sense of history, what do you expect to happen in the end? How do you expect people to have any kind of frame of reference to figure out that Israel was not the bad guy the day that Hamas ran over the border, and started killing people, including babies?
J.T. 04:38
So, with this type of, I guess, propaganda out there, it seems to be catching fire everywhere, how do we grasp the truth and present this to people in this country that you're not getting this?
John Pudner 04:55
Luckily, you are still sitting around just 25% who, for example, side with the bad guys on the initial run at Israel, and several other things, so we still have a majority now. Have to just hope that some of these people are mugged by reality, the evidence is overwhelming, but again, we have social media feeding people what they want to hear, as opposed to any kind of objective, balanced read on the situation, so it's gonna be a fight.
J.T. 05:25
It would really help if we had a patriot in the White House instead of this crazy nut that doesn't even come out front, and talk to the people of the United States, and reassure them we're the big bad United States of America, and we've got this under control. Where's Joe Biden? Can't even see him anywhere these days. It's ridiculous what's going on with this White House right now. All right, thank you, John Pudner, I appreciate you.