Israel faces humanity questions.

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning, four days till Christmas with us this morning is Ambassador to be Huckabee to the Israel, and so many things are happening this week, So many things are happening in Washington, Ambassador to be. Well, I’m gonna call you, Governor Huckabee. Tell us about your trip to Israel. Tell us about you’ve been to Israel. I heard over thirty times,

0:29 and you love Israel and you want to help as much as you can. And are you gonna miss helping in the United States, helping in Washington. I mean, there’s so many problems there.

0:43 Speaker 2 Well, I’m certainly gonna miss the things that I’ve been engaged in for the past several years, hosting two television shows and serving on boards and a lot of activities that I’ve been involved with. But I’ve actually been to Israel over one hundred times. And my first trip was in nineteen seventy three July of that year, when I

1:03 was just seventeen years old, And so for almost fifty two years I’ve been going to Israel. Fell in love with the place from the first time I was there. And when President Trump called and asked me what I serve in this capacity? Which I did not ask him for.

1:18 I didn’t talk to him about it beforehand. But when he called, it was for me what I would call an Isaiah moment, where you lift your hand and say, here, am I Lord send me, Because it was the one thing that he could have asked me to do that I really would have said happily yes to. I wasn’t

1:35 interested in babysitting some bloated government bureaucracy, or going to Washington holding a title of something and boiling the machinery of some bureaucracy there. But to serve in this capacity for my country, for my president, and really for my Jewish friends here in the United States is a joy that I can’t even begin to describe. Hopeful that the

2:00 US Senate will confirm me, they will decide that President Trump’s nomination is a good one, and off I will go to Jerusalem.

2:09 Speaker 1 Well, you have a lot of friends in the Senate, so I have confidence. And the fact that you’ve been there over a hundred times that is mind boggling, and something in your your your soul must be drawing you there.

2:28 I’ve only been to Israel once. Jerusalem. I went there a few years ago, about eight years ago when there was a joint ceremony in the Church of the Holy Sepulch up between the Pope and the patriarch, and I was and I was really privileged to do that. Now you’re a Baptist minister. Tell me how you connect so

2:52 closely with the Jewish people.

2:56 Speaker 2 John, I told some of my Jewish friends in fact from New York, and I’ve been to Israel within many, many times. And I said to them, because they asked me, why are evangelical Christians so supportive of Israel and the Jewish people, I said, well, it’s really simple. You can be Jewish and have nothing to do with Christians. You

3:13 don’t need Christianity in order to fully embrace the Jewish faith. But I cannot be a Christian without one hundred percent embracing the Jewish heritage upon which the entire Christian faith is based. So I’m a person of the book, and most evangelicals are. We believe the Scripture to be inspired.

3:32 So when it says in Genesis that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed, you know we read that. We take it seriously and we believe that it’s our duty spiritually as well as just from a common sense standpoint to stand with our Jewish friends and to be supportive of Israel.

3:50 So there’s a lot more there. But even if I didn’t have the spiritual foundation, just from a practical and pragmatic stand point, I would be supportive of the role that Israel plays not only as an important strategic ally but as the only real democracy in the entirety of the Middle East. People still elect their officials, they can

4:14 criticize their officials. It is not a tyranny or a totalitarian government. It is an oasis of democracy and representative government and freedom, the likes of which you don’t see anywhere else in that region.

4:30 Speaker 1 Well, you are blessed because when I was in Jerusalem, I felt a special had a special feeling, and we have It is such a mess to be straightened out there, And I’m sure President Trump has a lot of confidence in you, because ever since the previous administration was there, it created a mess. Irane went from four hundred thousand

5:00 bounds a day that President Trump was allowing you to like three miny outs a day, and we made him so rich that they funded all the terrorists and the fact that President Biden has allowed the Red Sea to be closed for eight months. Seven months. I don’t know.

5:19 I must track already. It’s a real mess. How do you see things? How did the British say it sorting themselves out?

5:31 Speaker 2 Well, people forget that when President Trump was in office, he put maximum pressure on the Iranian regime. He didn’t have to bomb them to try to change their behavior because he bankrupted them, which was more effective and it was also less harmful to civilians. It was working, and it was working beautifully. And hes thee lah Hamas, the hoodies,

5:53 they had no money because they get their money from the Iranians. When Biden came in, for reasons that will never make sense to me, he took has put off the brake and put it on the gas and started making it possible for the Iranians to once again prosper.

6:06 What did they do with that money, Well, they funded terrorism through their proxies and twelve hundred innocent Jewish civilians were slaughtered on October the seventh with money that was made possible by letting Iran have their riches again. It was disastrous. And then from there there were times when the Biden administration has been very clear and its support

6:27 for Israel, but John, the frustration is it’s been a schizophrenic kind of support. One day they’re with them, stand right with you, shoulder to shoulder, no daylight between us, and the next day the Bide administration is putting more pressure on Israel to have a cease fire than they are too Hamas to let those hostages go. Those hostages

6:48 have been there for four hundred and fifty days. They should have long been gone. Seven of them are Americans. We’ve not heard a lot of pressure until Donald Trump stood after the election and said, if those hostages aren’t released by the time I’m not swearing in, they’re going to have hell to pay. That’s the first time we’ve

7:07 seen some movement toward the hostages in this entire ordeal of any consequence. So that’s why I’m optimistic when President Trump takes office. If the hostages are not already out my prayers, they soon will be.

7:21 Speaker 1 I agree with you one hundred percent. I believe that the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese respect President Trump and know that he means action in situations like that. Going back to Washington, why is there disarray in the Republican Congress.

7:46 I mean, in the Democratic Congress, nobody ever ever disobeys their speaker or leader. It seems like nothing ever goes wrong in the Democratic portion of the Congress and the Republican portion of the Congress. Kevin McCarthy had a very hot time and he got you know, and now Mike Conson is having a hot time. Now you’ve been a Republican,

8:13 and you know, I’ve been a Democrat, I’ve been a Republican. Tell me what the heck is going on.

8:20 Speaker 2 Part of the problem is the good side. Republicans are pretty bold about saying, look, we’re elected by the people of our district or our states, so we’re going to represent them more than just the party. That’s a good part.

8:33 The bad part is leadership means you have to be able to count to fifty plus one. That wins anything less loses. Sometimes Republicans are so individualistic that they don’t understand that if they don’t have the majority, all they can do is come up the works. Now, maybe there’s a time for that, but there’s also a time to

8:52 take those battles inside and don’t take them outside and air every bit of dirty launder you have for the public to pick on, especially when the public, most notably the news media, is not your friend and will never interpret it right. So I think Republicans have made some major mistakes by not recognizing that you don’t have all

9:15 the votes, so look at the majority and accept that you’re going to have to go with maybe something that is not that palatable to you. But that’s how politics works. I saw when there were eight Republicans that completely shut down the entire House of Representatives a year or so ago, and I said, you know, there was an old African

9:38 American pastor in Los Angeles, SM. Lockridge, and he used to have a statement he said, a lot of people think they’re leaders. But if you think you’re a leader and you turn around and nobody’s following you, you’re not a leader. You’re just out for a walk. And I think sometimes people feel like that they’re leading something, but

9:57 if you don’t have a majority following you, you’re not leading anything. And unfortunately, we have a lot of folks in our caucus who they don’t like what’s being done. I understand that there’s a time to speak up, but then when there’s a time to vote, if you don’t have the votes to defeat it. It might be smarter

10:14 to get your side as far as you can go and live to fight another day.

10:19 Speaker 1 Understood, Mike Huckabee, Governor Mike huckerbyy Ambassador to Be Mike Cuckerbee, Thank you so much. Merry Christmas for you and your family, and a great new year for all the American people and the Israeli people. God bless you and God bless America.

10:39 Speaker 2 Thank you, John. Merry Christmas to you. Thank you.