Rick Green
Welcome to The WallBuilders Show. You can check us out at wallbuilders.show or at wallbuilders.com. Wallbuilders.show if you want to get some of the archives of the program. Wallbuilders.com if you want to get some of those tools that will equip and inspire your family to be a part of the solution. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. All right, David and Tim, we got Phil King back with us. Today we're actually going to be a part of the solution. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. All right, David and Tim, we got Phil King back with us today we're actually going to be talking about some things that he did several years ago on the anti-BDS movement and then how some of that is playing out with some new legislation from just a couple of years ago, with all of the stuff that's happening on the campus. Probably a good idea, guys, for us to just define anti-BDS. What does that mean and why economic warfare on the situation with Israel is so important.
David Barton
Yeah, you know, several years ago we started seeing these really weird attacks on Israel that came out of the progressive left not that that's new, but they were using different ways of doing it. They've been working on the campuses for a long time. We've mentioned before that about 1,100 campuses a year have an anti-Israel event on campus and that's been going for a number of years. They call Israel an apartheid nation. They take this apartheid wall around campus to campus, showing how Israel is an apartheid nation and they have second-class citizens, the Palestinians and all the stuff. That's not true.
So at that point in time there was a movement that got started within them. This has probably been seven or eight years ago now. They said you know what? What we can do is we can do what conservatives do and we can boycott groups that don't agree with us. So we're going to get businesses to boycott Israel, and so they went to ice cream things like Ben and Jerry's these groups that they're liberal anyway and yeah, we're not going to offer our ice cream in Israel and we won't buy any stock that invest Israel and we wont help with Israel finances. It was called BDS Boycott Divestiture and Sanction what they wanted to do is they wanted companies to voluntarily boycott Israel and Israel's products, anything made in Israel, which a lot of healthcare stuff, good healthcare stuff comes out of Israel.
A lot of agricultural stuff comes out of Israel, a lot of science stuff comes out, but they wanted to boycott. And then they wanted these companies to divest from any kind of investment they had. So in your stock portfolio, if you've got a stock that invests in Israel, get out of that divest and then sanction is pass, some kind of a policy that will punish Israel for what they do. So that's BDS. That was seven or eight years ago. About 35 states reacted negatively to that and said we're not going to do that. But that's kind of the background
Tim Barton
and I would say too, guys, one of the things kind of worth noting about this is that this was an economic decision from people trying to figure out a little bit like what's happened to President Trump obviously very different, but where kind of you get the idea that the motives from some of these extreme liberals that have been coming after Trump right, whether they be governors or DAs or whoever is, we want to either imprison or bankrupt them, and because ultimately, they feel like they probably can't beat him in an honest election, right, we got to figure out ways that we can kind of cheat to favor ourselves. And this is a little bit what it felt like with Israel is, because Israel is so strong militarily, they have this support kind of in lots of significant areas with some of their allies. How can we damage them? Well, let's try to cripple their economy, and that's part of what the BDS movement was, was a way to try to cripple Israel economically, and there were a lot of states in the nation that recognize this is kind of a ridiculous position. If you're looking at the nations of the Middle East and you're walking away thinking Israel is the bad nation of the Middle East, you are not paying attention to the Middle East and really it's far more of an anti-Semitic position and as we have seen so much that's happening around the nation.
It's interesting, at the universities, with all these protests going on, Texas has looked a little bit different in how some of this has happened or not happened. And then actually, in fairness, some of the Southern states, after some of these protests happened, some of the fraternities started showing up and saying you know, we're not going to just watch our campus be destroyed by some of these groups. But again, in Texas it was a little bit different, partly because of something that happened many years ago, back to what Senator Phil King did. At that time he was in the House side in Texas, so he was a state rep. But what he did has made a difference and it really is a model that at this point so many other states can utilize, can follow and probably in the upcoming year or two will be done in many more states to try to resolve this problem going forward. But we thought we should get Phil on and talk a little through what he did, why he did it and what difference it's made in Texas.
Rick Green
Senator Phil King with us when we come back We'll find out about that legislation. Stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show.
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Our good friend Phil King, state senator from Texas uh man, I'm still demanding a recount, brother, you know, tied for freshman of the year with you. What three decades ago? No, it wasn't that long ago it was getting
Phil King
I knew I thought I wanted to yeah
Rick Green
yeah, yeah, hey, man, great to have you on, brother, thanks for all your work.
You've been passing great legislation for years. Sometimes you see ahead to things that are coming and sometimes you don't even know it's going to get as bad as it does. But thankfully God had you pass a bill a couple years ago against all the anti-Semitic efforts the BDS movement trying to defund and hurt Israel in that way. Before we get into the protest, what's happening on campuses today? How long ago was that and what was it that motivated that?
Phil King
Well, back in 20, I guess it was it started 2016. I was at a WallBuilders conference, a legislative conference, and Alan Clemens, a state rep from South Carolina said, was given a presentation on this growing movement to boycott Israel economically. You know, Israel's enemies had not been able to defeat them militarily, so they well, let's defeat them economically. And so he had put together what was the first bill that prohibited the state from doing business or from investing in with their pension funds or anything like that, doing any business with any company or fund that was economically boycotting Israel, which were a lot of the big ones at that time,
Rick Green
and that's billions and billions of dollars right, because these pension funds are huge, these permanent school funds, I'm telling you.
Phil King
Netanyahu was speaking a lot about it, you were hearing it in the Israeli leadership community and in the leading Jewish community all across the country. It was really a growing concern. It was a major, major movement, and so Texas. Then the next year we took that bill. I think we made it a lot better and we, like we do in Texas, and we passed what was at the time, and may still be today, the strongest bill prohibiting any economic boycott. So the way it works in Texas, we on any day invest, I don't know, $500 billion to $750 billion of funds that's tax money collected, that's pension funds, that's university funds. Prohibit those from being invested in any fund that invested in companies that boycotted Israel. We also prohibited any government, city, county, state, college, anyone from doing business with a company that's boycotting. So if you're ABC printer company and you boycott Israel, then the University of Texas could not have a contract with you to do printing services for them.
Rick Green
And to be clear, Phil, this is not a bill that says that printing company cannot boycott Israel. That's a private company you cannot infringe on that.
You just said, hey, we're not going to invest in you if you do that.
We're not going to take taxpayer money.
People in Texas that are Christians and Jews that support Israel and you've been a great supporter of Israel, been over there several times, met Netanyahu. I mean we are not going to take our taxpayer money and let you try to destroy Israel.
That you know we are not going to take our taxpayer money and let you try to destroy israel. That's really what.
Phil King
And it's not just. It's not just that that we have such a long, uh, religious and cultural heritage with Israel and with the Jewish people, but Israel is one of Texas's largest trading partners. I mean, this was a public policy, since, from an economic standpoint and from a cultural and cultural standpoint, so, uh, so we did that. And then, what was really fascinating, in 2021, we put together, because of concerns of anti-Semitism, we put together a commission called the Holocaust, anti-semitism and Genocide Commission. We asked them to keep an eye on all this stuff and create education programs on the Holocaust, stuff like this, for our kids. Then, in 2023, they came back and said hey, we're really seeing a growing uh push, uh, to academically boycott, uh, Jewish students and studies of Israel and things of this nature in our universities. So in 2023, we passed we'd already passed the prohibition on economic boycotts. We passed a prohibition on academic boycotts, which, at the time, I thought is this really going to amount to anything? Does this really need to be done? Is this really something coming? But, frankly, it was kind of a God thing, I think, done?
because what are these protesters asking for?
They're asking that these universities economically divest from Israel and from companies that support Israel or do business with Israel, and they're asking for academic boycotts, that the colleges have no academic relationship, don't allow Jewish studies, don't allow Jewish students to travel to Israel for studies and don't allow exchange programs and things of that. So I just think it was a God thing that Texas got out in front with preventing economic boycott and preventing academic boycott. Another cool thing we did in 2021, we adopted the international definition of anti-semitism, which is very broad and very, very descriptive. A lot of countries actually have adopted it. Well, when all these protests started, Governor Abbott was able to issue an executive order to the colleges and universities that says you will follow the, the definition of anti-Semitism that is in the Texas law books. You will follow that in dealing with these protests. So we just had this really good, broad stack of legislation that is now protecting these Jewish students and protecting Texas against this anti-Jewish anti-Semitism, this Jew hatred, and also against attacks from our country to push back against Israel.
Rick Green
And Phil. To be very blunt, I mean, these things that are happening on campus, this isn't just anti-Israel, it's literally pro-terrorist, pro-Hamas. I mean, they are unapologetic,
Phil King
yeah absolutely.
We had a hearing yesterday on the protests and the education committee. We went from nine in the morning to eight at night. We had uh, dozens and dozens of uh people who participated in the protests come in and speak, and Texas has been arresting people and not allowing things to get out of hand the way you're supposed to, but we had laws in place that allowed and caused, and our universities wanted to do this. They wanted to. They did not want these protests, but it gave them the, the backup and the and the law to be able to enforce, and we had people come in and every other word was uh, free Palestine, and and uh, uh, you. Just it was.
It was really sad in the sense that I think every young person that was there and most of them were in their 20s and 30s that every young person there. They are so incredibly misinformed. Yeah, yeah, they don't really understand, for completely really happened the brutality and the horror on October 7th. But what little they do understand. They justify in that they're taught that Israel is persecuting and mistreating the people in Gaza, which is the absolute opposite of what true history shows.
Rick Green
Yeah, yeah, they have definitely, you know, and we've said for years, in fact, we've encouraged, you know, high school, college, young people, young leaders especially, to take trips to Israel, see what's actually happening. I mean, for really over a decade, because of the lies that are being told on campus, and you have to have to counter that. I've got to ask you, man. So you know, obviously we're, we're free speech proponents and constitutional defenders and all of those things. So where is the line and I don't know enough about what y'all passed in terms of the definition of anti-Semitism so where is the line where a protest or a or a chant or whatever becomes no longer free speech and is an actual physical threat? Like, how do you, where do you draw that line?
Phil King
Well, I think it's a pretty bright line. You know, we want free speech on our college campuses, we want free speech everywhere, but it cannot be threatening. I mean, I can't walk up to you and say I'm about to to, I'm going to come to your house tonight and kill you. That is a threat, right. That's been against the law for a long time. Assault by threat in the Texas Penal Code that's right, terroristic threat in the Texas Penal Code.
So you, so we've never allowed people to cross from debate to threatening and to put placing where it places people in fear and under intimidation. And so when, when they're yelling from the river to the sea or much worse things, as as was testified against yesterday regarding to you know, I mean, go back to Germany, go back to the ovens, go back to these things, those kind of things are clearly not protected speech. Those things are clearly terroristic threats that place people under an intimidation, prevent them from exercising, you know, their ability to go where they want and go without fear. Yeah, and so I think it's a pretty bright line. The other thing happens on the universities, when they're interrupting with the normal operations of the university, when you go plant a bunch of tents where people are supposed to be, and block off things and put up barriers. Obviously that's interfering with the operations of the university, it's trespass. And people are arrested. They're told hey, this is trespass, you've got to leave, you've got to notice. And they arrest them for criminal trespass.
Rick Green
Have you seen in Texas? I know on some of these other campuses professors were participating in this nonsense.
Phil King
UT fired one. Oh,
Rick Green
that's what I was going to ask. Can you find you know?
because they get tenure and all that nonsense. So is this a way to get rid of a bad professor? If they participate in this nonsense, do you have a trigger there? You can fire them.
Phil King
Oh yeah, ut fired one for one of the protests a couple of weeks ago for his actions there with regard to how he dealt with the police, and then there's a lot of videos out on it. If you watch all the videos you see he really did assault and fight against the police. Uh, the one the protesters were showing doesn't show that, but the true story is, yes, he was involved in in uh in uh assault and resisting arrest and things of that nature, and it was very confrontational. Yesterday in the hearing, a student got up a Jewish student and testified about what had happened to him with one of the professors and he was uncomfortable giving the name and so I told him. I said, when this is over, come to me and give me that professor's name. And he did. And there's an investigation going on at the University of Texas. I found out they already had him under investigation over this and so, like the first professor was fired, this one needs to be fired and so we can take action.
Rick Green
That's great man. Love hearing that. Love hearing that. Oh man, Okay, Well, before I let you go, anything else I mean we're, you know, not back in session until January. What do you think big items for you next January, Things people can be thinking ahead towards for protecting freedom and restoring liberty across Texas?
Phil King
Well, the election is going to determine a lot of what our future is. I mean, if Biden wins re-election, then we're in for some very, very difficult times, and if Trump wins, I think it's a brave new world. I think we've got a great opportunity to put back, to begin to build toward. I mean, we're going to look back at what things were like under Trump, economically and socially and culturally, and with education and everything else. We're going to be able to really make some great progress In Texas. Our economy is the eighth largest in the world, by the way. It's much larger. Our GDP is much larger than Russia's GDP uh, it's. But at the eighth largest economy in the world, uh, we're going to be
Rick Green
Texas alone is larger than Russia's
Phil King
Texas GDP alone is larger than Russia's
I mean, that's why Reagan was able to bankrupt the soviet union and that's why Russia should not be the threat to the United States that it is, when even Texas alone has a larger economic power than it has. But that said, one of the big things that Texas still has to deal with is electricity. We're growing so fast and the and the renewable energy has come in so fast, the wind and solar. It has come in so fast into Texas only because of federal subsidies, not because the market, not because it's good technology, not because the market supports it, but just because of federal subsidies and the green new deal. It's coming in so heavy that our electric grid is in, is in in serious jeopardy, and the lights aren't going to go out tomorrow.
But I'm telling you it's not a very exciting subject to work on. But I'm telling you Texas has got a lot of work to do in building gas power plants and doing other things. So we're going to be doing a lot on that, a lot of infrastructure. When you're growing at 1,300 people a day and that's the people that are here, that legal, that doesn't count all the illegals coming in. When you're growing at 1,300 people a day, you've got a state that's got a lot of things to be excited about but also a lot of work to do from schools to highways, to electricity, to being the most inviting place to do business in the world
Rick Green
All right. Last question before I let you go Trump question Did you know you met with him before the 2016 election? You told me back then, off the record, you said, hey, this guy's got good instincts. He may not know about a lot of subjects, but his instincts are good. Do you still think that's true? And again, I thought that when he came in, I thought he proved what you said whenever he, you know, immediately defunded the Palestinian authorities, and why are we giving $150 million for them to go kill Jews? This is stupid. And he did a lot of things like that. Do you think that's still true? And with the mess we're in in the world today, do we need those good instincts?
Phil King
Look, Donald Trump is not a perfect person. Neither am I and neither are you. Right is not a perfect person. Neither am I and neither are you. But the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and I look at the things that he did when he was in the White House and the advances that the United States made in so many areas, and I also think about, if COVID had not come up, that he would have had two more years, frankly, to continue to implement those policies, and so I'm just excited. I think he's the right guy for the job. I think he's the only one that has the courage to take on the things that need to be taken on, both with foreign powers and with the problems in Washington, and I think he's going to do a great job for his next term.
Rick Green
All right man, appreciate your time. That's Senator Phil King from Texas. Let's get you back soon, brother. See you later. Thank you, rick. All right guys, that was Phil King, actually your state senator. He's not my state senator, but he is actually your state senator. David and Tim.
David Barton
Yeah, and Phil, he is so wise in this stuff, he was so far ahead on this whole concept of academic boycott, because two or three years ago that was not happening the way it is now. And now you're getting all these college professors and all these universities et cetera that are standing against Israel and that is not legal in Texas. So all the protests that tried to happen on campuses in Texas, they got shut down instantly because they were illegal. It was not a matter of the students Hamas students going and sitting up and sitting there for days on the campus. That's just not allowed in Texas.
Now I love what Phil said too is this is not limiting free speech, because there's two things that don't come under free speech. You can't threaten and cause fear and call that free speech, and you can't shut down someone else's operations and call that free speech. And this is a case I go back to back in the 70s when the Supreme Court, I think absolutely wrongly ruled that burning the flag was free speech. No, if you want to say burn the flag, that's free speech. But when you stick a match to the flag, that's no longer speech, that's behavior and I think Phil made that distinction really really clear. You protect free speech, but that doesn't mean you protect all the behavior that goes with those who are using the speech.
Tim Barton
And dad again going back, kind of what you were alluding to at just a moment ago when you said we're not letting this pro-Hamas stuff happen on campus. It's not again reiterating it's not that they can't say they're pro-Hamas on campus, it's that they can't shut the campus down. They cannot take over buildings and issue demands, like has happened at other universities. It's not even they can't have a rally and say we support Hamas. They can do that. They just can't disrupt the operation of the campus. And then they cannot use intimidation tactics to try to shut down the other side. That might show up and say we think you're totally crazy. There has to be the opportunity for the exchange of ideas, the free flow of information, without again the idea of a bullying, someone threatening with their words, intimidation on closing down the campus and data jurisdiction. It's what Phil highlighted and this is where it's different and what they're not allowing on the campuses in Texas.
David Barton
Yeah, it is different and I love, as Phil pointed out, they're holding their professors accountable. They're literally firing the professors that are breaking the law, and I think that is a massive, massive, massive piece of good news. And, by the way, I'm just going to throw out maybe an idea here. We're going to use the free market for a minute. Okay, so you go to university to learn job skills that equip you for a lifetime of work, to be able to support yourself and your family, if you have a family. So you're going there to get skills that will give you a job, that gives you a career that will support you for the rest of your life.
Right now, college campuses only 26.3% of graduating students can get a job in their career field.
So right now, campuses are not doing a good job of preparing kids for a future at all.
They're doing a great job of indoctrinating them, like on Hamas or whatever else. But so what's happening is these kids are coming out with a student debt of about $60,000, unable to get a job where they have spent the last four years learning in that area. So I just throw out a free market proposal what if we pass a law that says, okay if a student goes through school and has good grades and works well and they’ve done well in their classes and after two years, they are unable to get a job, how about the University cancels their debt? Because it was a complete waste of money anyway. The University made $60,000 or whatever it was off of them and they have got nothing usable at all. That'd be a great way of shutting down some of Hamas stuff is get rid of those professors that are not doing anything but indoctrinating, because that's where so much of this has gone is indoctrination. What's going on with Hamas has nothing to do with academic debates. It doesn't have anything to do with engineering or nursing or business or anything else. This is indoctrination. That's not what our universities are for, and we're paying for that out of tax money, which is a really bad deal as well.
Rick Green
Yeah, that even goes into the issue of, you know, president Biden, shifting the burden of those loans to taxpayers. You know, shifted to those universities. They're the ones that should have to have to deal with the failed system that they've, that they've created. What a what a what a great example with what Phil has done here Thinking ahead, being on offense right we talk about that a lot on the program, not just playing defense, thinking ahead on offense. Just a great example. And now we're getting to enjoy the benefit of it.
David Barton
And, by the way, let me jump in on that, Rick, if your state does not have this law, we can help you get the language for that law and get it to you. Pro Family Legislative Network. This is one of the things that we're really all over helping do, and Phil's got that language and you need to get it to your legislators and ask them to do that in your state and shut down this academic boycott of Israel that's going on
Rick Green
And get more of those professors fired.
It's like these cockroaches have come out and now we know who these people are that have been pouring the poison into the minds of our children. Let's get them off those campuses. Thanks for listening today, folks. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.