Well, folks, obviously, I'm not live today because it's a Jewish holiday, but earlier this week, I stopped by my alma mater over at UCLA, which had turned into a bit of a trash heap over the last 20 years since I went to school there, including a giant tent encampment that ended with violence over the Gaza War.

I wanted you to have a listen to some of the Q&A I did with the students. It was really a lot of fun, and there were some spicy moments.

As always, by the way, I do have one rule. This is for every lecture. If you disagree with me on any

topic, whatever you want to do, then raise your hand. You go to the front of the line. That's how that

works. Hi, Ben. My name is Colin. I'm a center left, typically, and I joined YAAF recently because I've gotten really sick of the divisiveness in politics.

And frankly, what I'd like to know from you is as a commentator on some of the most contentious issues today, and what can we do as students to bridge this divide. What do you think the answer is?

So first of all, thank you so much for coming. Seriously. I mean, I think that the first way to

bridge the divide is actually to have conversations like the one that we're having. So I appreciate

the fact that your center left and you joined a group that tends toward the right in order to

facilitate those conversations. I think that on campus there are a few different types of folks. There are the folks who are militant leftists. I think that having conversations with many of those people tends to be worse than useless. They've sort of decided what they've decided and you're wasting your time and wasting your breath. You have to decide that based on each individual conversation. Then there are a bunch of people in the middle who just want to have an open conversation. And those are the people that I would focus on. When I was on campus, you know, those are the people I'd like to talk to because their views have not yet been set. And you can have some really good interesting back and forth about all of this. In terms of, you know, generating change on the campus more generally, obviously there are sort of

strategic things you can do by going after donors and telling them to pull their money if they're going to engage and go-aheads for tentifadas and such. But I think the other thing that really can be done is establishing the ground rules. Now on campus, I think the ground rules have fallen apart. And some of those ground rules include things like freedom of speech rather than silencing of dissent. Or you don't get to push people around on the quad would be a good,

a good way to characterize that rule. And I think there ought to be 70, 80 percent unity on

questions like that. If you can't get the other 20 percent, well, you know, tough. That's kind of life.

Thank you, Ben. Appreciate it.

Good evening, Ben. My name is Alex. Very nice to meet you, Sarah. So I'm a Roman Catholic,

and I know that you've had many conversations with Catholics, such as Bishop Robert Barron and Matt Frad. And so my question is, how have those conversations impacted your understanding of who Jesus Christ is and the church that he started?

Okay. So, I mean, the hat means I'm a Jew. Right. So I always preface any conversation by saying that if you're a Catholic, you should absolutely go to church more often.

And also, by the way, if you're a Protestant, you should go to church more often. What the country needs is more people going to church and going to synagogue. It's what the country desperately needs. As far as my own personal understanding, if we're talking about the divinity of Jesus, my opinion on that hasn't changed, because again, that is sort of one of the foundational tenets of Judaism is that God has never taken human form. But if the question is, you know, what have I learned about Catholicism for many of the people that I'm talking to? I mean, I think that one of the things that Robert Barron and Bishop Barron does really, really well, is he points out the continuity between an enormous number of ideas in the Old Testament and the stuff that Jesus is saying in the New Testament, which is obviously quite true. Much of the stuff that Jesus is saying in the New Testament is almost quoted word for word either from the Old Testament or from places like the Book of Jeremiah. And so the continuity there is why, when I say Judeo-Christian, that's not meant as some sort of denigration or watering down of Christianity. That's meant to point to the continuity of Christian ideas with Judaism.

Sure. Thank you. I really appreciate your response. And please know that I'm praying for you. God bless you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Good evening, Ben. It's a pleasure of finding me in person. I know you're not fun of the far right, and you mentioned the past that you were a target of the foreright in 2016. The latest polls show that Trump is polling better among black voters than any previous Republican candidate. However, some black voters have spoken to are still hesitant to support him partly because far-right groups such as white nationalists like Nick Fuentes seem to rally behind Trump. Why do you think these groups, those small and number, are more drawn to Trump than any past candidate? So, I mean, I will point out that at this point, my understanding is Nick Fuentes has unendorsed Donald Trump. He actually unendorsed Donald Trump. And he suggested to his followers that they campaign against Donald Trump. So that is worth pointing out and And the reason is because Donald Trump happens to be too phyosemitic.

He's explicitly said this.

So, you know, I think that there is a reactionary strain that does exist on the right.

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