Herod, the Idumeans and John Hyrcanus

The speaker in the transcript

The speaker says King Herod was an Edomite and that Jesus spoke of a group "who say they are Jews and are not." He identifies that group as the Idumeans, forcibly converted by John Hyrcanus in about 125 BC under the Hasmonean dynasty after the Maccabean revolt.

He says Rome called them Jews but "actual Israelites" called them half-Jews, and that King Antigonus, when dethroned in favour of Herod, called Herod a half-Jew and unworthy of the throne, "written in Josephus and other records."

• Josephus, the speaker's own source, says the Idumeans became Jews (chapter 4).
• Herod's father's family was Idumean (glossary); one king's background does not change the ancestry of millions (guide).
• The phrase "say they are Jews and are not" is from Revelation, in letters to two churches, not a statement by Jesus about Herod (chapter 6).

Points citing a chapter or the guide come from the source materials. Others are general reasoning; check them yourself.