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On today’s program: Chris Gacek, FRC’s Senior Fellow for Regulatory Affairs, comments on the Left’s threats to battle President-elect Trump’s executive orders on the border and predicts what he needs to do to restore law and order at the Department
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from the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and soundbites into conversations with our nation’s leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Sitting in for Tony is today’s host, Jody Heiss.
SPEAKER 03 : 0:20
Well, good afternoon and welcome. Welcome to this Friday edition of Washington Watch. I am your Friday host, Jody Heiss. I’m the Senior Vice President here at the Family Research Council and President of FRC Action. What a week. What a week. So coming up on today’s program, let’s begin with this one. Obviously, the post-election day reality is setting in for Americans, and many on the left are either still licking their wounds or they’re beginning to make it clear that they intend to put up a fight for the next four years.
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We did not expect this result, but we are prepared to respond to this result. And my office has been preparing for several months. because we’ve been here before we face this challenge before and we use the rule of law to fight back
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Well, that was New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is certainly one of those who is switching to defense after engaging in lawfare against now President-elect Donald Trump during the course of his campaign. And already some are saying that Trump is going to be involved in retribution against those who took him to court. But the real question is, is this retribution or is it justice? We’ll stick around, we’ll be discussing that as the program unfolds. And the results of this presidential election wasn’t the only thing that was different about this one, this election, this time around. In many ways, Republicans, I think, learned from issues that plagued the 2020 election. They did a lot of work on the election integrity front, including a nationwide deployment of some 230,000 poll observers. And they dealt with literally hundreds of issues across the country on Election Day.
SPEAKER 17 : 2:19
We had, you know, just a myriad of things in Arizona and Nevada, you know, and other states. What you want to do is be there and demonstrate to these guys you’re going to be there and then they’ll back off and they won’t cheat. And we saw just literally hundreds of examples all across.
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That was Michael Whatley. He, of course, is the chairman of the Republican National Committee. That was during a Breitbart News Daily podcast yesterday. Well, while the left often accuses conservatives of voter suppression, it’s really the conservatives who are working on voter protection. And we’ll be unpacking more of this when I’m joined later in the program by Mike Berry from America First Policy Institute. Also on today’s program, we’ll give you a sneak preview at the latest installment of our Profiles in Leadership series. This time, Tony is going to be sitting down with an interview with Oklahoma Congressman Josh Perkin.
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So I met Tom Coburn running for the United States Senate. And it wasn’t long before I was working for Tom Coburn. I helped him get elected, along with many others that were part of his staff, and then became full-time staff with him, and really cut my teeth on a good man who was biblically accurate, constitutionally sound. And then a few years later, I found myself making law.
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Well, if you want to hear more from that interview, and I know you do, stick around for the preview. It’ll be coming up a little later in the program. And then to close out the program, not only for today, but for this week, I’ll be joined by FRC’s David Claussen for our Biblical Worldview segment. We, of course, will be discussing this week’s headlines, and you can imagine what that will include, and how we as Christians should be thinking about them. So we’ve got a lot coming your way, a packed program as always. And don’t forget our website, TonyPerkins.com. Of course, tons of information there available for you. And we encourage you to check that out. And by the way, Before we jump into the program today, we’ve had tons of people talk about the special Tuesday night election coverage. It was FRC’s PrayVote Stand Decision 2024. It was absolutely spectacular. If you missed it, you can still go watch some of it or all of it on the StandFirm app. And I encourage you to do that, certainly. Get the app if you haven’t already. You can get it by simply texting the word app, A-P-P. to 677-42. All right, let’s jump into our first item for the evening. Earlier today, Special Counsel Jack Smith asked a federal judge to put the pause button on his case against now President-elect Donald Trump. He wants his office to assess how to move forward. Well, his request was granted earlier this afternoon, and now Smith has until December 2nd to report back to the court. Meanwhile, some on the left are running with the narrative that was pushed, quite frankly, by Vice President Kamala Harris, that she had a to-do list and Trump has an enemies list. Well, the left will view… any action that the president has gauged in lawfare against him as retribution. That’s where all this is going. But is it retribution or is it justice? Well, joining me now to discuss this is Dr. Chris Gasek. He’s a senior fellow for regulatory affairs here at the Family Research Council. Chris, thanks for joining me. Always great to have you. Good to be with you, Jody. Okay, so let’s start off with a quick recap. I think that’s the most appropriate place for us to begin. Tell us about the cases that have been leveled against Trump over the past four years.
SPEAKER 16 : 6:14
Right, so you have two federal cases and you have two state cases. Let’s start with the federal cases. The first one is the documents case down in Florida. The judge down there, probably a month or two ago, said that Jack Smith was inappropriately appointed to be a special counsel. So that actually is an important issue because it would apply to his appointment up here in the January, up here meaning the District Court of the District of Columbia. and would apply to this case as well, but this court hasn’t ruled on it or hasn’t accepted it. But anyway, you have the dismissal down there for Smith’s appointment being basically illegal, all right? So I guess the Justice Department is appealing that when Trump gets in, that case will be dead because they’re not – they’ll just pull the plug on that because they agree with the judge in the case. The January 6th case up here, they’re trying – I’m not sure what’s going on here. It looks like they’re – like he’s trying to ask for time and then figure out a way to dismiss the case or bail out of it. We’ll see what happens. I don’t trust any of these people until the ink is dry on the documents. Then you have the two state cases. Let’s go to the Georgia case. The Georgia case is such a mess. You have this prosecutor, Fannie Willis. She’s under all kinds of ethics investigations. It’s just a real… just a disaster. I can’t imagine that that’s going to proceed very long. Also because the case, you know, everything that was brought against Trump was essentially protected First Amendment speech because he was essentially protesting the, you know, the outcome of the election in the sense that he thought the process was bad. And I don’t understand how people aren’t allowed to do these sorts of things. And there were all sorts of other federal officials brought into the process as well unjustly. So we’ll see what happens there, but I don’t think that’s going to proceed. And also a lot of the issues in that case also fall within this immunity ruling that came about from the Supreme Court. So this is another kind of a problem they’ve got. And that immunity ruling also would apply to the federal cases as well. So that has to be sorted out. I mean, that applies to all of them. So then it leaves us with this crazy New York case. It was kind of like a Seinfeld case, a case about nothing. because they supposedly falsified documents, although I was never convinced that anyone in the Trump organization falsified any documents, but let’s say they falsified documents, then they kind of were always a little bit weird about what the actual crime was, the felony that had to be tied into this crime so that it wasn’t just a misdemeanor of falsifying documents. And then what ended up happening there was that they got this kangaroo court and you had this conviction on it. And the sentencing is apparently gonna take place on the 26th of this month. But there’s also a hearing on the 12th where they’re gonna respond or something, the judge is gonna have some kind of a response related to the immunity filings coming out of the Supreme Court decision. So we’ll see what happens there. All of these cases seem to me to be just on infirm ground and are likely to be at some point tossed out. I think the one in New York, because you have this, you know, the whole justice system is so intensely corrupt up there. And there are multiple cases of lawfare being waged against Trump. And, you know, this attorney general who’s just sort of out of her mind that they might try to pursue this thing and keep it going just to interfere with, you know, with the administration. And so go ahead, Jody.
SPEAKER 03 : 10:31
Yeah. So, I mean, you brought up the word lawfare. I mean, we hear that all the time, that this was lawfare, that it was all politically based and all that sort of stuff. Many think that’s absolutely a fair assessment. So that comes down to the question I’ve posed a couple of times as I intro the program today. What are we talking about here, Chris? Is it retribution or is it justice? Has this been a politically based case of lawfare? What are we dealing with as Trump comes back in? And certainly there’s going to be some discussion. Is this lawfare or recognition?
SPEAKER 16 : 11:07
One of the things I would do – I mean honestly, given the attitude of the Trump officials, I think they’re very serious about this. And one of the things that’s going to happen is if they don’t bail out of these things. I still think it’s going to happen anyway. But there is a federal statute. It’s 18 U.S.C.
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241.
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It’s called a conspiracy to deny civil rights. And – I could easily imagine the new Justice Department starting to look at this sort of coordinated effort to attack him legally on all these different sorts of issues and coordinating with it. I mean, we know that Fannie Willis’ you know, boyfriend went up to the White House and charged, you know, he billed time to go and talk to the White House counsel. So, I mean, and we haven’t, you know, we don’t have the inside records. You know, they’re going to be inside the Justice Department. They’re going to have access to everything. And they’re going to have access to all sorts of people, right? So… If we want to go down this route, and that’s federal crime, that’s justice, that’s not retribution. This should not have been happening. In fact, the one that really has always rankled me the worst is the documents case down in Florida, because any president is going to have probably a million documents, and there’s a lot to do to sort this out. You get these things, you bring them down to some location, and… You know, there may be classified documents there. I think that that whole thing was set up from the beginning and it was just a pretty detestable thing. And it also is one of these things that is a scorched earth policy. So now what are we going to every president’s going to be afraid of, you know, taking documents? You know, for their presidential libraries, for fear of being subject to some whimsical prosecution by the next administration that doesn’t like you. So so this is a very serious thing. And let me just say it’s not about Trump. Right. It’s about systemic injustice. And this is where this whole conspiracy, what I just mentioned, conspiracy to design civil rights comes in. Remember, there are odd things going on all the time over there, you know, like swatting, you know, a person protesting outside an abortion facility. Nobody had ever done that kind of stuff before. You just sort of send them, you tell them, show up at the courthouse and we’re going to, you know, arraign you, right? Or, you know, come down to, I mean, there’s all these sorts of things that happen that are just. Well, it ultimately all comes down to the rule of law.
SPEAKER 03 : 13:28
And that’s what has to be protected. And it’s not just what happened to Trump. I mean, we have issues on the border taking place, the DOJ, the FBI, all sorts of things that are going to have to be dealt with.
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Is the law being equally applied between parties? That’s the main thing. And it wasn’t.
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Chris Gasek, FRC Senior Fellow for Regulatory Affairs, thank you so much for joining us. All right, friends, coming up after the break, it was a major victory, but what about election integrity? We’ll talk about that after the break. Stay tuned.
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Let’s not be discouraged. Don’t lose heart. Don’t lose the faith. Stand now strong because the Lord has given us the great privilege of living in a time when our choices matter, when our lives matter, when our courage matters. So let’s stand together and save this great country. God bless the United States of America.
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The American Republic has a freedom like no other. It has roots in the scriptures far more than any other heritage. And if we as followers of Jesus and conservatives don’t defend it, who will?
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Neutrality is not an option. There are many Christians who believe that if we just keep our heads down, if we just don’t say the wrong thing, that somehow we will come out of this unscathed. You’re naive if you think that, because what they want from us is not our silence. What they want from us is our submission.
SPEAKER 11 : 14:57
Part of the dilemma of Christianity in our generation is that we’ve relied a little too much on human wisdom and human reasoning, human strength, human resource, and we’ve relied too little on the power of God and God’s ability to open doors that we can’t open and do things that we couldn’t even hope to begin to do.
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This may not be an easy task, But we are living in a moment of challenge, but also a great opportunity. And we know always that we are not alone, that His Spirit empowers us and protects us, and that He can do the unimaginable. Dobbs, after all, was never supposed to happen.
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Father, we thank you. You have entrusted us with this moment in history, and I pray that we would be found faithful, and that as a result of our faithfulness to you, that thousands, millions would come into the kingdom as they would experience the forgiveness of sin and the new life that is found only in Jesus Christ. Amen.
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Download the new Stand Firm app for Apple and Android phones today and join a wonderful community of fellow believers. We’ve created a special place for you to access news from a biblical perspective, read and listen to daily devotionals, pray for current events and more. Share the Stand Firm app with your friends, family and church members and stand firm everywhere you go.
SPEAKER 08 : 16:30
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SPEAKER 03 : 17:03
welcome back to washington watch i am your friday host jody heiss and so glad to have you joining us today all right given what happened in the 2020 election the republican national committee this year was keenly and i believe rightly focused on efforts to maintain election integrity So on Tuesday, the RNC deployed around 230,000 poll watchers to sites all across the nation. And also, in addition to that, among the frontline election integrity defenders were the Trump campaign’s team of lawyers. who quickly worked to tackle any problems as they arose. Well, as a result of these efforts, hundreds of election night issues were successfully resolved. And I’m saying that again, literally hundreds of issues. And here now to share more about all this is Mike Berry. He’s the executive director for the Center for Litigation at America First Policy Institute. Mike, welcome back to the program. Always great to have you.
SPEAKER 05 : 18:10
It’s great to be back with you. Thanks for having me.
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All right. So listen, it was amazing what was accomplished. Give us an overall evaluation from your perspective on how things went Tuesday, specifically as it relates to election integrity.
SPEAKER 05 : 18:26
Well, I’ll sort of give people an inside view of what was happening at AFPI’s Center for Litigation. In the weeks leading up to November 5th, one of the things that we did was looked at all the cases that we currently had and essentially wanted to put them into a holding pattern. because we wanted to clear the decks and ensure we had sufficient bandwidth and capacity to handle whatever the issues that might arise on November 5th and possibly even one week, two weeks, even three or four weeks after November 5th, because we just weren’t sure whether this was going to end up in a contested election, whether there were going to be flare-ups in some of the usual hotspots around the country. And so as the results began to come in on the evening of November 5th, I mean, First of all, the victory in itself is nothing short of remarkable. But second, the fact that we knew relatively early on that this was going to be a win and that it wasn’t going to be contested, that President Trump was going to essentially win both the popular vote and the Electoral College in a landslide is just nothing short of remarkable and amazing news. And to your point, Jody, hats off to his campaign, hats off to the RNC and the RNLA, the Republican National Lawyers Association. They were ready. We vowed that we cannot let what happened in 2020 happen again. And I would dare say that… We are by no means where we want to be or aspire to be, but we are light years ahead of where we were four years ago. And that was reflected in the results on Tuesday night and the fact that this was a relatively quiet and clean and it was a runaway landslide election.
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It was relatively quiet, I think, at least from the perspective of those of us who were just watching the results come in. But there were literally hundreds of stories that were taking place behind the scenes. What were some of the issues that you heard about that came up?
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Well, you know, you go through the usual suspects of states that have some issues that arise. And I’ll point out, a lot of times this is really simply due to the way that each state has its election codes written. Pennsylvania is somewhat notorious for having an election code that… has some gaps that leave some room for interpretation. So both sides can sort of say, well, we interpret it this way and we interpret it this way. Georgia is another state that’s susceptible to that. And that’s why you kind of hear the usual suspects come up. But looking at Pennsylvania, for example, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, early voting was a really big deal this year. There was a massive effort to get the early vote out. to avoid long lines on Tuesday, but then also just to really take advantage of the early voting season. And one of the issues that happened in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was that it became viral on social media and even in the mainstream media. You had election workers begin closing the early voting stations at like, you know, one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock in the afternoon when they were supposed to stay open until five. And when asked, why are you closing the election places, they said, well, we’re worried that we won’t be able to handle all of the ballots that we’ll have to process through early voting. And the way Pennsylvania does it, again, it’s kind of weird. You stand in line and then you get essentially what’s called an on-demand mail-in ballot. Then you fill it out and then you mail it in. And that’s how they do early voting in Pennsylvania. It’s different in other places. Here in Texas, we do early voting. It looks and feels a lot like your regular voting where you stand in line and you go and you go into the little polling place and you fill out your ballot and then you submit it and then you’re done. You’ve early voted. In Pennsylvania, they do it via what’s called an on-demand mail-in ballot. Well, when they closed this down, the RNC immediately sued Bucks County and said, you can’t do that. You’ve got to let people have the opportunity to get to engage in the early voting process from start to finish. The court agreed, issued an order saying you if they are in line by 5 p.m., then they that they get to go through the whole early voting process. Well, lo and behold, on the last day of early voting, which would have been, I think, Friday before. So was that November 1st or 2nd? I think it was. You had these election officials again closing down the polling stations early. This time we were ready. Right. Unlike in years past, this time we were ready. We made sure that the right people there on the ground were. had a copy of that court order in hand. They showed it to the election officials and said, you have to let them vote. There’s a court order that says if they’re in line by 5 p.m., you have to let them get access and do the full early voting process. And that’s exactly what happened. So that’s just one example. quick example of how we were very quickly able to you know hear about an issue respond to the issue make sure that the right information to write a good court ruling was already in place and we were able to put out some of these you know little little brush fires before they turned into wildfires and y’all were prepared i mean and prepared to do it quickly and that happened time and again
SPEAKER 03 : 23:40
Mike, we’ve got less than a minute left, but just a scale of one to 10, have we made significant improvements from 2020 to 2024? And what are two or three highlight issues that still need to be resolved going forward?
SPEAKER 05 : 23:54
We are light years ahead of where we were in 2020. I would say on a scale of one to 10 compared to 2020, we’re probably at a seven or an eight. We wanna be at a 10, so we’ve got work to do. And then in terms of the areas for improvement, just like I said, the state legislatures And the AGs and the secretaries of state in some of these usual hotspots, I think there’s some work to be done there in filling in some of these gaps in the election codes that need to be filled in. So I think that’s probably the first step.
SPEAKER 03 : 24:29
Mike Berry, thank you so much. Executive Director of the Center for Litigation at AFPI. Always great to talk with you. Thanks for a job well done. And thank you for joining us on Washington Watch today.
SPEAKER 05 : 24:40
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER 03 : 24:42
All right, friends, after the break, I’ll give you a sneak preview at Tony’s interview with Oklahoma Congressman Josh Burkine. This is going to be part of our Profiles in Leadership series. You don’t want to miss it coming your way right after this. Stay tuned.
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Everything we do begins as an idea. Before there can be acts of courage, there must be the belief that some things are worth sacrificing for. Before there can be marriage, there is the idea that man should not be alone. Before there was freedom, there was the idea that individuals are created equal. It’s true that all ideas have consequences, but we’re less aware that all consequences are the fruit of ideas. Before there was murder, there was hate. Before there was a Holocaust, there was the belief by some people that other people are undesirable. Our beliefs determine our behavior, and our beliefs about life’s biggest questions determine our worldview. Where did I come from? Who decides what is right and wrong? What happens when I die? Our answers to these questions explain why people see the world so differently. Debates about abortion are really disagreements about where life gets its value. Debates over sexuality and gender and marriage are really disagreements about whether the rules are made by us or for us. What we think of as political debates are often much more than that. They’re disagreements about the purpose of our lives and the source of truth. As Christians, our goal must be to think biblically about everything. Our goal is to help you see beyond red and blue, left and right, to see the battle of ideas at the root of it all. Our goal is to equip Christians with a biblical worldview and help them advance and defend the faith in their families, communities, and the public square. Cultural renewal doesn’t begin with campaigns and elections. It begins with individuals turning from lies to truth. But that won’t happen if people can’t recognize a lie and don’t believe truth exists. We want to help you see the spiritual war behind the political war, the truth claims behind the press release, and the forest from the trees.
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Welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to have you. I’m your Friday host, Jody Heiss. Welcome aboard. All right. Over the last few Fridays, those of you who have been joining us on Fridays here the last few weeks, you’ve noticed that we’ve been sharing some excerpts from a limited time series that is offered on FRC’s Stand Firm app. We’re calling it Defending the Faith, Profiles in Leadership. The series features exclusive sit-down interviews that Tony has had with some of our nation’s leaders, and these interviews go far beyond mere policies and politics. By the way, if you’d like to see it, you can do so by downloading the StandFirm app. You can do that by going to the App Store or Google Play, wherever you get your apps, or you can simply text the word app. to 67742. Well, in the latest installment of our Profiles in Leadership series, it features Tony’s interview with Oklahoma Congressman, Josh Perkin. He’s a member of the Homeland Security Committee as well as the Budget Committee. But in this preview, Congressman Burkine talked about why Christians should have a role in the government. He also talked about how he went in his own journey from pathway to be a lawyer to becoming a lawmaker. And it all started with a chance conversation that he had while working on his family’s ranch while waiting to get into law school. And here’s what the congressman had to share with Tony.
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I WAS IN PRAYER IN COLLEGE, OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY, AND REALLY TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THOSE NEXT STEPS, TYPICAL OF MOST, YOU KNOW, FRESHMAN, SOPHOMORE, WHO’VE GOT MOST OF THOSE BASICS KNOCKED OUT, BUT YOU’VE GOT TO START FIGURING OUT WHAT THE MAJOR’S GOING TO BE. AND, MAN, THE WORD LAW WOULD JUST ILLUMINATE OFF THE PAGES WHEN I READ MY BIBLE. And so much so that I just was really convinced that I was supposed to be a lawyer. And so I applied at the height of when 9-11 occurred. I had the LSAT score, the GPA, et cetera, to get me into OU. I had a scholarship that I was gonna transfer, but they put me on a waiting list because it was a historic year for OU. And so then, I was put on this waiting list. It never occurred. My family had started a faith-based ranching program. My father trained cutting horses professionally. My mother and father were very active in ministry, and they had started kind of converting the ranch into a ministry for young men who had alcohol, drug addictions. And so I prayerfully felt led to, in this limbo season, stay there until I got a reply, basically, from what was going to happen on law school. Long story short, I remained doing that for a couple of years. My flesh was screaming, but I knew I wasn’t supposed to be doing anything else. And I was, in addition to the cutting horse program, started a heavy equipment business with my father. I was unloading a dozer. A guy jumps on the dozer. I had had a member of Congress reach out to me. And I was telling him about this. It just happened to be a Democrat member of Congress. And he said, man, there’s a guy by the name of Tom Coburn that’s going to come to this particular meeting in a few weeks. I want you to come with me. And so I met Tom Coburn running for the United States Senate. And it wasn’t long before I was working for Tom Coburn. I helped him get elected along with many others that were part of his staff and then became full-time staff with him. And really cut my teeth on a good man who was biblically accurate, constitutionally sound. And then a few years later I found myself making law. So it’s amazing what we know in part and in part.
SPEAKER 18 : 30:38
In a small world, because Tom Coburn, when I came to the Family Research Council 20 years, 21 years ago, he was on the board. And of course, we also share in common. I grew up in Oklahoma, of course, the other side of the stem up in the northern part of the state. You’re in the southern part of the state. Let’s go back a little bit to that encounter, your first encounter with the Lord that brought you into a relationship. Tell us about that.
SPEAKER 04 : 31:06
Look, I was young. I grew up in Baptist-Methodist combo churching, mother and father of one of each. depending on what year we were in, what type of church. But I grew up with good parents who taught me to get in the Bible, picture Bibles. If any parents watching and not doing a good job of getting your kids early in life in a picture Bible and then not leave Bible studies, man, our culture’s losing out because that’s a lost practice. But I remember just having an encounter at a young age And I had my share of sin, but I’ve walked with the Lord. There was a hunger for the word that developed early in my life.
SPEAKER 18 : 31:47
So Josh, a lot of people would say, as a Christian, you talk about politics, that’s a dirty business. I mean, things are said about you. You have to get involved in issues that just are not consistent with what they would say would be our faith. How do you respond to that?
SPEAKER 04 : 32:08
Well, our founders, you know, there’s a great quote that’s used a lot. I think Charlie Kirk has probably made it famous, John Adams’ quote that says that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, totally inadequate to the government of any other. I encourage people to go look further. That writing was to the Massachusetts militia by the second president, and he actually starts it off by saying, we have no government armed with power capable of continuing with human passions unbridled by religion and morality. And being somebody who grew up in the cutting horse industry, I like any time the words our founders used, bridle. And then he goes on to say that avarice, which means extreme greed, ambition, and revenge, will break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Then he finishes with that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. So, you know, it clicks with me that if you want to maintain liberty, then you have to have self-governance. And self-governance is the only way our founders saw true liberty being maintained, a limited government. What we see now is that what was started by limited 18 enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8, the vacuum of government is starting to fill, and we’re becoming a lawless society because we’re not self-governing like we used to.
SPEAKER 03 : 33:19
Well, that was Oklahoma Congressman Josh Burkine during an exclusive sit-down interview with Tony in our Profiles in Leadership series on the StandFirm app, which you can have if you don’t already have it. Simply go to the App Store or Google Play, download it, or text the word APP to 67742. You’ll definitely want to hear the rest of that. Incredible man, Congressman Burkine, and great, great interview. All right, after the break, I’ll wrap up the week with our Biblical Worldview segment with David Claussen. So stick around. Much more headed your way here on Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 10 : 34:02
Jesus said in John 15, these things I’ve spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. In 2024, in these divided and uncertain times, how can this be possible? By abiding in him through his word. At Family Research Council, we wanna help you do that, which is the reason for the Stand on the Word Bible reading plan. In just 10 to 15 minutes each day, you will have read the entire Bible in just two years. But more importantly, you will be abiding in Him daily. Find our Bible reading plan at frc.org slash Bible. And join Tony Perkins each weekday for a 10-minute devotional inspired by the daily reading and designed to encourage you on this journey through the Bible. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. And remember, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever.
SPEAKER 07 : 35:01
The world is hurting, streets are filled with crime, families are broken, sin is celebrated, and God is mocked. Everywhere we look, the wages of our sin are on full display. As Christians, we know that surrender to God’s will is the solution to our biggest problems, but not everyone agrees. Even in church, we hear people say the most important thing is to be tolerant, that we shouldn’t impose a morality on other people, and that loving our neighbor means celebrating what they do. But you can’t do that. It’s not that you don’t love your neighbor. You do. But you care about God’s opinion more than your neighbor’s opinion, and this makes you different. In fact, sometimes it makes you feel alone, like you’re the only one. But there is good news. You are not alone, not even close. Research has found that there are 59 million American adults who are a lot like you. There are millions of people around the country who are born again, deeply committed to practicing their faith, and believe the Bible is the reliable Word of God. But that’s not all. They’re also engaged in our government. They’re voters. They’re more likely to be involved in their community, and they’re making a difference in elections. The problem is that a lot of them feel alone, too. We want to change that. FRC wants to connect these 59 million Americans to speak the truth together no matter the cost. If you want to learn more about this group and what it means to be a spiritually active, governance-engaged conservative, or if you want to find out if you are one of these sage cons yourself, go to frc.org slash sagecon and take the quiz to find out. The world is hurting, and we have the solution. We can’t do it alone, but we can do it if we work together. That’s what we’re working toward every day. Join us. Go to FRC.org slash S-A-G-E-C-O-N, SageCon, to learn more. That’s S-A-G-E-C-O-N, SageCon, to learn more.
SPEAKER 03 : 37:02
Thank you so much for joining us today on Washington Watch. Welcome back. Again, I want to remind you, if you missed Tuesday night’s special election coverage, the PrayVote Stand Decision 2024, even today, I had people still talking about it, saying it was the best coverage available on all the networks. You may want to get a touch of it, see what it was all about, and follow up on it yourself. You need to have the Stand Firm app to do that. If you don’t already have it, go to the Apple Store or Google Play or simply text the word APP to 67742. All right. It’s now been a few days since Donald Trump’s historic victory on Tuesday night. And since Election Day, as you can well imagine, we’ve had a little bit of time now to digest some exit polling information and learn more about the winning coalition that all came together that put now President-elect Donald Trump on his way to the White House. Well, how did evangelical Christians vote? What were the issues that motivated them? And what do we think about the results of all those abortion enshrining referendums that were on the ballot in 10 different states across the nation? Well, joining me now to discuss this is our weekly Biblical Worldview segment host, David Claussen. He’s the director of the Center for Biblical Worldview here at FRC. David, thanks for joining me. Always great to have you.
SPEAKER 06 : 38:32
Hey, great to be with you again, Jody.
SPEAKER 03 : 38:34
What a week. Where do we start? Let’s start with the big news. How about election day results? In terms of Christian voting behavior in particular, what do we know at this point in terms of how evangelical Christians voted?
SPEAKER 06 : 38:49
Yeah, we have a lot of exit polls, Jody, that have come out. Ones that I’ve seen that have seemed to be pretty extensive would be CNN, as well as the Washington Post. And I actually pooled the statistics. And again, I find all this really interesting, but it’s understandable, given the way the campaigns kind of unfolded given the issues that were stressed. So let me just give you the numbers and then we can talk about it, Jody. But as far as the exit polling when it comes to white evangelicals or those who are born again, 82% cast their ballots for President-elect Trump compared to 17% for Kamala Harris. Those numbers are exactly the same numbers appear in the Washington Post exit polls, which again, tens of thousands of people were polled. What’s interesting is those who had no religious affiliation, it’s almost the complete mere opposite of that, 71% with no religious affiliation back the vice president. And then when it comes just to Protestants at large, Jody, in the CNN exit polls, 63% of Protestants backed the former president, 58% of Roman Catholics. And then when you look at what Harris polled, it was 36% of Protestants kind of writ large and 40% Catholic, which was a major decrease. Joe Biden actually four years ago won the Catholic vote. So just to summarize that, Jody, evangelicals in particular, but Protestants at large, as well as Catholics, really overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in his quest to return to the White House.
SPEAKER 03 : 40:36
Wow. Anything in there that surprises you at all? You mentioned the Catholics. What stands out the most to you?
SPEAKER 06 : 40:43
I think that stood out to me, specifically looking at the religious demographics. What I think was really revealing, actually, was married women versus unmarried women. So this isn’t religious demographics, but just looking at it for sex. With married women, Donald Trump received 51 percent of the vote. Harris received 48%. There was a lot of talk in the lead up to the election on the huge gaps with women supporting Harris and men supporting Trump. But when you actually break it down, Jody, with married women, they supported Donald Trump by a small margin, whereas with unmarried women, it was actually 59% of them supported Harris, only 38% Trump. And Jodi, I think that speaks to issues related to transgenderism. If you’ll remember, a few weeks ago, the former president, now president-elect, did a town hall with Fox News where this issue of biological boys playing sports against biological women, this was brought up by Harris Faulkner. And she asked the crowd, you know, how many of you are concerned about this issue? And so every hand went up. So married women, many of whom have children, not overwhelmingly, but by… by a majority of them, did support Donald Trump. And I think, again, Jody, that speaks to the issues, specifically issues related to family and issues related to this whole transgender moral revolution.
SPEAKER 03 : 42:10
And these are really interesting numbers. You know, you can start digging into all this and just never come up for air. There’s so much interesting information to glean from it all. But what do you think, I guess maybe a 30,000 foot view, what do you think contributed to some of these results, specifically the evangelicals who voted for Donald Trump? What was it that led them to go to him, or was it something that led them away from Vice President Harris?
SPEAKER 06 : 42:42
Yeah, Jody, you know, eight years ago in 2016, everyone talked about how 81% of white evangelicals supported Donald Trump, and really a lot of the elites kind of used that number to kind of talk about, you know, the concessions and, you know, the really use it to talk about how white evangelicals weren’t standing up for Christian values and that they shouldn’t have done this. Well, you know, eight years later it shows that those attacks on white evangelical Christians, they didn’t resonate. They were ignored. The so-called elite were ignored. And I think it’s easy to see why. Over the last four years with the Biden-Harris administration, we have never seen a presidential administration become so energetic in their support for abortion. And, Jody, here at FRC, we’ve talked lamentably about how the Republican Party over the summer walked back some of their historic mistakes. support for the life issue. Nonetheless, there was still a clear contrast on this issue. Kamala Harris just weeks ago was asked, is there any concessions that you would make when it comes to abortion, even with religious exemptions? And she said, I can’t think of anything. I don’t make concessions on a fundamental right. And then even on this issue of transgenderism, I think there was such a clear contrast, Jody, that evangelicals said, you know, we’re going to vote our values. And of course, the issues of the economy, immigration, that’s not just a concern of evangelicals. All Americans care about those issues. But on the social conservative issues, I don’t think there’s an election in my lifetime, Jody, where the contrast was so clear. And evangelicals said, we’re going to go with Donald Trump because, in large part, I think, because of how extreme Kamala Harris was on issues that we as Christians believe are issues the Bible informs how we should think about them.
SPEAKER 03 : 44:36
Yeah, absolutely. And obviously for Christians, they were probably the most important issues were the ones that we’re discussing right now. But there were other issues of grave concern from the border to the economy, to the military, to crime, all these things added to the abortion issue and the trans issue and all the parental rights and all these kinds of things. It just… they the it really was a storm that was not going to be overcome by by the democrats if i can shift gears with you david on this abortion issue all right let’s come back to this this issue there was a really a mixed result on the various state referendums 10 different states i can kind of give us a quick rundown on how the states voted and what this means from your perspective
SPEAKER 06 : 45:26
Yeah, like you said, Jody, it was a mixed result of the 10 states that had these abortion referendums. Again, these referendums, Jody, were just extreme. They basically allow an abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. But life won in three states, in the state of Florida, the state of South Dakota, and in Nebraska. And in the other states, Arizona, Missouri, Colorado, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, and New York, they lost. And unfortunately, Jodi, a lot of them lost by really wide margins. In Arizona, 61% of voters voted for allowing abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. And what’s interesting, Jodi, these are the same voters, many of whom who voted for Donald Trump, But then they voted to legalize abortion through all nine months. Even in the state of Florida, that, thank goodness, that really aggressive pro-abortion amendment failed. But the only reason it failed is because Florida, unlike these other states, has a 60 percent threshold, which, by the way, Jody, I think that’s abundantly wise. You shouldn’t be able to amend your constitution easily. But 57 percent of Floridians voted for this, what was known as Amendment 4. And so it failed, thank goodness. But again, I think this shows us long term, Jody, let’s celebrate the victories in Nebraska and Florida and South Dakota. Folks in those states worked very, very hard. And this is a wonderful blessing from the Lord. But let’s not be naive. The challenge facing those of us who are pro-life is immense, and it’s going to continue to be so. even in the years to come.
SPEAKER 03 : 47:05
Yeah. All right. So give me your sense on why. Why did these amendments? I mean, the majority of Americans do not believe in abortion all the way through nine months. I mean, what is it that moved these people to support these radical things?
SPEAKER 06 : 47:24
Yeah, there’s a lot of factors, I think, Jody. Messaging would be one of them, but money was the big one. I pulled this right before we came on air, but in just the presidential election, Jody, in the general election, Democrats spent $150 million on pro-abortion advertising. That was the second issue. Only taxes received more dollars in advertising. In comparison, Jody, so again, Democrats, $150 million. Republicans at the presidential level spent $20,000, so just heavily outspent. When it came to the Senate, Democrats spent $202 million on pro-abortion advertising compared to $24 million for Republican Senate candidates. And in the House, it’s almost laughable how these numbers, Jody, it’s horrifying, but Democrats spent $219 million running pro-abortion advertising, $219 million compared to Republicans who ran… $8.6 million worth of advertising. Realize, Jody, 47% of advertising for House races for the Democrats were on pro-abortion advertising. You add all those numbers up, it’s a half a billion dollars from the presidential House and Senate races on pro-abortion advertising. And almost all of that advertising was deceptive. It was not honest. It was fear mongering. And so you can do a lot with half a billion dollars. And again, we were outgunned. We were outmanned. And yet we still got wins in those three states, which let’s be grateful for. But realize, Jody, like I said a moment ago, this issue is not going away and we’re going to have to get better with our messaging, being more strategic and helping our fellow Americans see the unborn child as someone who’s made in God’s image, who has value and dignity.
SPEAKER 03 : 49:21
Yeah, and it’s amazing to me how still I’m trying to wrap my brain around. These are the very same people who voted so strongly for Trump. and then they voted for abortion. But as you just described, I guess it was just outspent with deceptive ads that people really, am I accurate here, really didn’t fully understand what they were voting for?
SPEAKER 06 : 49:44
I think that probably explains some of it, Jody. But I think just, again, you and I and folks like us are committed pro-life Christians because God’s Word informs our worldview. We also need to realize that there are more Americans that are pro-abortion than I think we would have ever imagined. But since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a lot of people are kind of showing their true colors. And I think this speaks to the fact that in the weeks, months and years to come, we have our work cut out for us. We need to do the hard work of convincing our friends and neighbors to see the humanity of the unborn. So I do think with that being vastly outspent, there’s some who probably didn’t know what they were voting on. But in the same breath, Jody, I do think there’s more Americans that are lean in a pro-abortion direction than maybe we would have cared to admit just a couple years ago.
SPEAKER 03 : 50:38
Yeah, and not just leaning. I mean, leaning in the direction of abortion for any reason, all the way up to the moment of birth, it’s stunning. All right, our time’s slipping away here, David. Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked a good bit about just how radical Kamala Harris is on abortion. Well, you recently wrote a piece that is actually out today on the Washington stand, and you called it Undeserved Mercy. I love that. Undeserved mercy that she was not elected. And you said that in the context of our discussion right here in the context of abortion. Elaborate a little bit on what you meant there.
SPEAKER 06 : 51:18
Yeah, Jody, I think, you know, what I’ve noticed over the last couple of days since the election results, that there’s, you know, a lot of pastors, a lot of Christians who are, you know, they voted for Trump. They were excited to see him win. But they’re, you know, making all these qualifiers. I just want to say to those Christians, it’s OK to be grateful. It’s OK to acknowledge God’s good gift. You know, again, Family Research Council doesn’t endorse candidates. As an individual American citizen, though, I can say that I’m really excited, Jody, that Donald Trump won the election and Kamala Harris lost the election. And why is that? Kamala Harris ran on the most pro-abortion platform we’ve ever seen. Had she been in the White House, Planned Parenthood would have had their strongest ally in the Oval Office ever. And again, I think the Lord in his kindness and his providence has granted us a reprieve. You’re not going to have HHS or the DOJ or the Department of Defense cramming down these radical pro-abortion policies on all Americans. And I think this is a time. for us to be grateful. Again, as Christians, we have a perspective, Jody. We realize none of our wins are permanent, and also none of our losses are ever permanent. Part of a biblical worldview is it gives us perspective. But I think it’s okay for Christians to realize this is an undeserved mercy. We don’t deserve godly leaders, and we’re not going to endorse everything Donald Trump says and does, but we can recognize as pro-lifers, we will likely get a reprieve from what we’ve experienced over the last four years And we should be grateful for that, Jody.
SPEAKER 03 : 52:52
Absolutely. And this is, you know, I look at it as really even more than a reprieve. It’s like a window of mercy and grace that God has given us and one that we must humbly respond to appropriately and steward it properly. This is the time for the church and believers to step up and get engaged and not just sit back and say, oh, it’s going to be good for four years. Let’s just go about our business. No, we’re still in a very serious battle. David Claussen, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview. Thank you so much, as always, for joining me for this Biblical Worldview segment on Friday afternoons. We appreciate it.
SPEAKER 06 : 53:31
Thank you, Jody. God bless.
SPEAKER 03 : 53:34
God bless you as well. All right, friends, hope you have a fantastic weekend. Thank you for joining us this week and today on Washington Watch. We’ll see you next week. God bless.
SPEAKER 13 : 53:45
Washington Watch with Tony Perkins is brought to you by Family Research Council and is entirely listener supported. Portions of the show discussing candidates are brought to you by Family Research Council Action. For more information on anything you heard today or to find out how you can partner with us in our ongoing efforts to promote faith, family and freedom, visit TonyPerkins.com.
