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Text of our full discussion below this:
by Rod D. Martin and Eric Metaxas
October 7, 2026
My latest interview on The Eric Metaxas Show. Sign up NOW for the Eric’s YouTube channel and don’t miss a single episode!
We discuss:
My new book, Trump’s New World Re-Order: pre-order NOW!
How Iran used Hamas to torpedo Israeli–Saudi peace
How Israel’s enemies turn victims into villains.
How Palestinian leaders chose war over statehood and prosperity.
Passenger heroes — and why El Al’s airline security works.
It’s 14 minutes you won’t want to miss. Watch and share!
Here’s our full discussion:
Eric Metaxas: I also want to say — in a moment, I should have said this up front — in just a moment, we’re going to have our friend Rod Martin on the program. And after that, we’re going to be talking to our friend Ryan Helfenbein of Liberty University.
I will be there tomorrow at Liberty University, speaking at the convocation. Ten thousand students — unbelievable — signing books afterward. I’ll be at the CEO Forum in the evening, signing books after that.
But I want to say that my first guest, Rod Martin — I told you this — he has a new book out. And I’m begging you to get a copy of this book. If you want to know what President Trump is really doing, because President Trump will not tell you, he’s playing the game where he does this stuff. He confuses his enemies, but he confuses his friends sometimes, too.
If you want to know what he is doing, he’s reordering the whole global order. It’s magnificent. He’s dismantling the Deep State. It’s big. But Rod Martin writes about it and talks about it in wonderfully clear ways. And that’s what his book is about.
We’re trying to get copies to the president. We will get copies to the president, actually. That’ll happen in the next day or so. But the book is called Trump’s New World Re-Order. Trump’s New World Re-Order. It is an important book.
I ask you to buy a copy. And when you’re done ordering Trump’s Trump’s New World Re-Order, please reorder Trump’s New World Re-Order, because you’re going to want to give a copy to a friend. It’s just a great book. I should also say that we, Odysseus Books, are the publisher under Skyhorse. So not only did I write the foreword, but we published the book, Trump’s New World Re-Order.
But right now, I want to go to our friend Rod D. Martin. Hang on.
Show Intro Airs
Eric Metaxas: Hey there, folks. Here we are with Rod Martin, as promised. Rod, I’ve been talking about your book a lot. Yesterday, I emailed President Trump’s office. We’re getting him copies, and I need you to get him signed copies. We’ll be talking about that off the air. But I would like to think that anybody wondering whether I should vote in this election, if they have your book, they’re going to be like, oh, my goodness, how did I miss this? And how you missed it is nobody else is writing what you’re writing in your book, which is kind of a problem.
So, folks, I’ll say for the thousandth time already, Trump’s New World Re-Order, get a copy on Amazon immediately. Please pre-order a copy.
Three Years After October 7th
OK, Rod, what is going on? I wanted to talk to you in the news, like, you know, but I can’t help but think—tomorrow, you know, I mentioned I’ll be at Liberty University tomorrow — but tomorrow is October 7. And it is almost inconceivable that what happened in this country — or, I’m sorry, around the world after October 7 — the fact that we have people condemning Israel, condemning the IDF, saying “Free Palestine,” calling this war that was started by these terrorist monsters, butchers, a genocide. They’re calling it a genocide.
I mean, it reminds me of what’s happened, generally speaking, with voices like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson. And it’s like the world has gone mad and we can’t process that what was done on October 7th was evil. And I guess I really just wanted your thoughts on this very grim anniversary three years ago.
Rod D. Martin: Well, it really is a marvel. I mean, Jews seem to be the only people on Earth who can be the victim and be blamed for it, except Christian white men in America.
So I mean, it’s really quite extraordinary and very consistent on the left. They have groups they demonize. They define them to be the enemy and therefore not just hateable, but in need of destruction. And we have seen that throughout the explosion of wokeness here.
We saw it in China in the 60s and 70s with the Cultural Revolution. It’s the exact same playbook. It calls itself by different names. It calls itself here by critical theory and the various subsets thereof. But it’s really just Maoist. And that’s what we’re seeing.
So in the Israeli context, you know, let’s just have a little bit of history here. Originally, the Palestine mandate, as granted to the British under the Treaty of Sèvres, was all of what is now Israel in the West Bank and Gaza and Jordan. And so when the British carved off Jordan, they already gave the Palestinians 80 percent of the land.
And then in 1947, when the UN said, hey, we need to have a Jewish and an Arab state in the remnant of the Palestine mandate, the Jews agreed to that. They’re like, that’s fine. OK. Of the 20 percent remaining, we’ll give half of that. So 10 percent of the whole to the Arabs. That’s fine. We just want a place we can call our own.
And everybody in the world agreed to this, except the Arab nations, who all invaded Israel and didn’t establish a Palestinian state. I think that’s the most salient fact.
When the Arab armies invaded the land and they took the West Bank and they took Gaza, they didn’t create a Palestinian state. And nobody in those territories thought there should be a Palestinian state. They were made Jordanian and Egyptian nationals. And that continued that way until Israel captured that territory in a defensive war in 1967.
Then all of a sudden, we have to have a Palestinian state. Well, first, you already have one. Second, it’s been offered to you three separate times.
Bill Clinton is especially bitter about this. He staked his legacy on a deal with the Palestinians, got them 97 percent of everything they said they wanted, including sovereignty over the Temple Mount, including a capital in Jerusalem. And they launched a war instead of taking it.
So when that’s what you’re dealing with, there’s no question who the aggressor is here. The Israelis have every right to defend themselves. Proportionately, October 7 — I think I saw the math — for that to be equivalent to 9/11, we’d have had to have lost about 50,000 Americans on 9/11.
It’s not equivalent to 9/11. It’s equivalent to Nagasaki. And somehow Israel is the bad guy. I’m sorry. I just don’t see it.
Facing the Atrocity
Eric Metaxas: Well, the bloodthirstiness of Arab Muslims — you know, we have to be clear, folks — they’re not like, you know, defending their backyard and their kids. No, they are butchering innocents. We have to be honest about this. If you can’t be honest about this, you cannot have a conversation. They’re butchering innocents. They went in on October 7, three years ago, and they butchered innocents. Young couples, children. This is what they did. Now, if you’re so messed up that you can’t face that or you have to call that Jewish propaganda, that’s what the Nazis did.
OK, the Nazis said, you know, all the stories of, you know, killing Jews, it’s Jewish propaganda. It’s international Jewish Bolshevik propaganda. OK, if that’s where your brain is, good luck to you, because I have nothing to say to you. There is nothing that can be said. There are people that are so out of touch with reality.
But if you really want to understand what happened, it was an act of terrorism that is just almost unbelievable, almost unbelievable. But unfortunately, it is believable when you understand the bloodthirstiness of these folks.
They want to start a world war. They want a bloodbath. This is their theology. Well, here we are. It’s been three years tomorrow to the day. Very grim, very, very, very difficult to process. I guess any other thoughts on that before we move on to other subjects, Rod?
The Iran Angle
Rod D. Martin: I would just point out that October 7th was an Iranian op. The Iranians pushed Hamas to do this, knowing that they would get annihilated in the process for the purpose of torpedoing a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
And that succeeded for a while. It’s not going to succeed in the long term, but it did delay it. And that was essential to the Iranian program. That’s also true of Hezbollah, of the Houthis, of the Shia militias in Iraq, of the Assad regime in Syria. There is not an armed conflict in the Middle East that isn’t directed from Tehran.
And so the president is perfectly, perfectly correct in trying to chop the head off that snake. That has to end. And when it does, we see the results everywhere in the Middle East, you’re seeing peace agreements and commerce rather than chaos. And these last boxes have to be checked.
But if the Palestinians want a prosperous future, all they have to do is stop all of these attacks. They can turn Gaza — and we will help them turn Gaza — into a new Riviera, into a new Singapore. All they have to do is want it instead of just martyring Jewish schoolchildren forever until they draw a response.
Eric Metaxas: Well, look, this is like saying to the blue state mayors and governors, we can turn Chicago and San Francisco and Portland and Seattle into glorious cities such as they once were. Let us help you. Their answer will be and has been to the president: No, thank you. We prefer the crime and drug abuse and homelessness. We prefer that. Somehow that reflects our values. Having people sleeping in their own feces and squalor. We prefer that because we don’t want your help, federal government. We don’t want your fascist help, President Trump, in improving our situation.
We’re in love with the misery. This is what we’re dealing with on the left. It’s madness, ladies and gentlemen. You have to just understand it’s madness and it’s evil. And that’s what we’re dealing with.
The Aircraft Attack and Airline Security
We just got a couple of minutes before we go to Ryan Helfenbein. But I want to ask you, Rod, what happened on that plane the other day? Again, more terrorism, more Muslim lunacy. We have a radicalized terrorist Islamist Muslim trying to stab a pilot to take down a plane of Jews, ideally to crash it into Tel Aviv Airport. We now know that this was his beautiful goal. What a beautiful thing for a beautiful religion to want to butcher Jews in Tel Aviv. It’s just — this is the religion of peace.
But you have any thoughts on this almost hard to believe, again, a terrorist plot and the glorious, glorious ability of people to save those hundreds of lives?
Rod D. Martin: Well, they are heroes, much as the Flight 93 passengers and crew were heroes. And we just can’t possibly say enough good about them. I’m so glad that these guys survived.
But I think what it tells us is that after a long hiatus, the age of plane hijackings has returned. It was started by Palestinian terrorists in the 1960s. And here we are again.
So I think it’s about time we notice that this happened on a Fly Dubai flight. It did not happen on an El Al flight. El Al being the Israeli airline. El Al hasn't had hijacking since 1977, when Bibi Netanyahu's brother was the only person who died at Entebbe, other than the terrorists, in rescuing the passengers on the plane. An extraordinary operation.
And they have instituted airline security that actually works, consistently works. And it’s about time that we noticed and took a page out of it and quit doing the airline security theater that we've been doing since 2001.
Eric Metaxas: Oh, don’t get me started. OK, Rod, I’m sorry you have to go, but we love you. Folks, if you have not yet, listen, I’m demanding this. This is like a federal law. Trump’s New World Re-Order is the book. Go to Amazon. Preorder a copy. Trump’s New World Re-Order. Rod, we’ll talk to you very soon. Thank you, my friend.
Rod D. Martin: Thank you.
