Trump pleads not guilty to 37 counts, calls himself a victim of political persecution, and says this day will go down in history as one of the most shocking moments in American history. Meanwhile, the former president celebrates his birthday by singing to his supporters at Cafe Versailles in South Florida. Ben Shapiro breaks it all down and explains why this is such a bad idea and why the Biden DOJ should have been the one to bring the case against Trump, and why it's bad for the country, not good for the DOJ, to prosecute a former president. Plus, the latest on Trump's trip to Miami to plead not guilty and what it means for the future of his political future. And, of course, there's still time to sing Happy Birthday to Trump! Happy Birthday, Donald J. Trump! -- The Weekly Standard -- Subscribe, Like, and Share to stay up to date with the latest breaking news and discuss the happenings in world of politics, entertainment, sports, and social media. Subscribe to our new bi-weekly sports show, The Ringer, wherever you get your favorite sports and news outlets Subscribe today! Learn more about your ad choices. Use the promo code POWER10 for 10% off your first pack of the month and receive 20% off the entire month, plus free shipping on all future orders! Want to sponsor the show? Use promo codes POWER10 and save $10 off the first month? Subscribe for a chance to win a VIP membership offer? and receive $50 off the second month only, and a FREE VIP membership? Get exclusive VIP membership when you sign up to VIP access to the Ritz Carlton & VIP discount? Can't get more than $100 in VIP access and get VIP access? and get an ad-only VIP discount when you shop at Ritz Rewards? ? Subscribe and get 5 VIP membership only offer starts starting at $99 and get a VIP discount to Ritz & VINED WORLD? CLICK HERE to get 10% OFF THE Ritz and VOTED PRODCASTING AND VIP PROMOTIONAL PRODUCRETS? FREE INTERVIEW AND VIP SUPPORT THE RIVAL PROMETOR? VOTING TO VIP SUPPORT AND VIP MODE? VOTES ARE PRICED TO BUY TALKING ABOUT VIP SUPPORTING THE RING AND PROGRAM AND VIP DISCUSSION AND VIP TRAINING?
00:00:11.000For now, let's get into the latest on Trump.
00:00:13.000And one of the most shocking moments in American history, President Trump showed up in Miami yesterday to plead not guilty in his arraignment.
00:00:23.000The 37-count indictment surrounding the mishandling of classified material, obstruction of justice, and other behavior surrounding his handling of classified documents.
00:00:31.000According to the Wall Street Journal, he lashed out at federal prosecutors and portrayed himself as a victim of political persecution hours after pleading not guilty in a Miami court to charges that he illegally retained and shared classified national security documents after leaving the White House.
00:00:44.000He said this day will go down in infamy.
00:00:46.000Of course, we went through the details of the indictment just the other day.
00:00:49.000The indictment does have some descriptions of activities that Very likely transgress on the law if he actually is proved to have done those things.
00:00:58.000That leaves aside the question as to whether it is correct for the Biden DOJ to prosecute its chief political opposition.
00:01:06.000There's the legal question as to what Trump did and did it violate the law.
00:01:09.000Because under that standard, Hillary Clinton also violated the law.
00:01:11.000And then there's the question of, is it good for the Biden DOJ?
00:01:14.000And it is the Biden DOJ, as I mentioned yesterday on the show.
00:01:17.000The simple fact of the matter is that Jack Smith, the special counsel, it's not his fault that he's moving forward with a case that seems pretty clear-cut to him.
00:01:24.000The real question here is why the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, who's a political appointee who works for the President of the United States, Joe Biden, is moving forward with this case, given all of the political baggage that is arranged around this case.
00:01:37.000This is the first time in American history that you have a former president and current presidential frontrunner who's being actively politically prosecuted by the people in the opposing party.
00:01:49.000He's actually implying that he could receive a maximum sentence of 400 years in prison.
00:01:53.000He's just saying that in his fundraising letter.
00:01:54.000So there's the absolute possibility That he could die in prison if he were convicted of these charges, which is, again, an amazing thing to talk about.
00:02:03.000Trump put out a letter saying, I honestly cannot believe I just typed those words to you.
00:02:06.000It sounds like something Stalin or Mao did to eliminate their opposition.
00:02:09.000Instead, it's happening here in America.
00:02:10.000Communism has finally come to our shores.
00:02:12.000And as always, two things can be true at once.
00:02:14.000One is that Trump may very well have committed the offenses for which he is indicted.
00:02:19.000And two is that we have never before in American history had a situation in which the current administration is Prosecuting the former president who is the current political opposition.
00:02:28.000This has never before happened in American history.
00:02:30.000It's an extraordinarily ugly precedent.
00:02:32.000And to do so on the basis of mishandling of classified information, even if it's egregious, is insane.
00:02:38.000And violates a precedent that is not going to be put back in the bottle.
00:02:42.000Again, James Comey went out of his way in 2016 to say we're not going to prosecute Hillary Clinton because she's an active presidential candidate.
00:02:48.000And we're not going to involve ourselves in this election.
00:02:50.000And here you have the DOJ under the current President of the United States who just defeated Donald Trump in an election and presumably might have to run against him again.
00:03:15.000And then he sort of did a political tour.
00:03:17.000So after he left, he went over to Cafe Versailles, which is a very hot political spot here in South Florida, sort of the center of Cuban life down here.
00:03:30.000Trump goes there, and he's hanging out, and his supporters are singing happy birthday to him.
00:03:35.000So again, there's the legal issue, and then there's the political issue, and the fact that Trump is milking this for political gain, or that people are resonating to his call, that's not a particular shock.
00:03:44.000Here are his supporters singing happy birthday at Cafe Versailles yesterday to him.
00:04:29.000You totally understand that there are two things, as always, true at once.
00:04:33.000He is being politically prosecuted here.
00:04:36.000If Hillary Clinton were in a similar position, she would not be because she wasn't.
00:04:38.000If Joe Biden were in a similar position, he would not be prosecuted.
00:04:41.000Donald Trump is being prosecuted for that.
00:04:43.000Also, Trump knowing that they were coming after him and then specifically engaging in behaviors that made him more vulnerable to political prosecution.
00:04:55.000You can see the partisan lines being drawn here.
00:04:58.000While these supporters are singing happy birthday to Trump and the cameras were on him all day yesterday, from the time that he left Trump Doral, which is his resort down here, one of them, he has Mar-a-Lago and then he also has Trump Doral, that's the one that's closer to Miami.
00:05:08.000From the time he left Trump Doral yesterday, the cameras were on his motorcade all the way to the courthouse and they were on the courthouse until he left and he went to Cafe Versailles.
00:05:15.000And you can see the media are just going to essentially convict him before the actual evidence is heard.
00:05:21.000Jake Tapper, Was watching this happen.
00:05:32.000If you're a news organization, it is news.
00:05:34.000You don't have to love Trump to recognize that the former president of the United States, what he does the day that he is arraigned in federal court makes a big difference.
00:05:41.000You wonder why the right resonates to Trump.
00:05:43.000Part of the reason is in reaction to a media that seems firmly convinced that the best thing they can do is shut down anything that Trump says and does.
00:05:50.000And here's Jake Tapper saying, no, no, no, we're not going to have any of this footage of him being, of people singing happy birthday to him.
00:05:57.000Let's remember what this case is about.
00:05:59.000Let's remember what this indictment charges.
00:06:01.000Again, Donald Trump is charged with a series of federal felonies for mishandling the most sensitive government documents that we have and for obstruction of justice, along with Walt Nauda, who is charged with intentionally setting up lies to the grand jury, to the FBI.
00:06:18.000Any way you look at this, and again, despite whatever may be going on in that restaurant, this case isn't going to be settled legally in a cafe.
00:06:25.000It's going to be settled in the court based on the facts and law.
00:06:27.000The folks in the control room, I don't need to see any more of that.
00:06:30.000He's trying to turn it into a spectacle, into a campaign ad.
00:06:37.000Okay, I don't understand even why that's necessary.
00:06:39.000I mean, like, but again, for the media, that's the whole point, is that if this were a Democrat, obviously they could campaign on that basis.
00:06:47.000It is that sort of oppositionality that is leading to the reactivity of the right saying, well, hold up a second, we can all see what you guys are doing.
00:06:53.000Trump responded directly to Tapper, as you would imagine.
00:06:59.000He said, Fake Tapper just demanded that his broadcast be closed down for Miami because there was far too much enthusiasm on the streets for Trump.
00:07:04.000The good news is he was the only one to do so.
00:07:06.000Perhaps a good explanation as to why CNN's ratings are so low.
00:07:09.000Again, this is the battle that Trump actually wants.
00:07:11.000The battle, the political battle, I think Trump has the upper hand with regard to sort of the narrative that he is, that he is being hit unfairly and that he has been targeted unfairly since he came down the golden escalator.
00:07:28.000First, Congress has now been spending more money than any time in American history.
00:07:33.000There is a debt ceiling again, which means they'll spend even more money at a certain point when all the bills come due.
00:07:38.000There are only a few things that can happen.
00:07:40.000One is that the American government can raise taxes dramatically, stagnating the economy.
00:07:45.000The other thing they can do is they can inflate the currency.
00:07:47.000The second is significantly more likely than the first because no administration wants to take credit for actually sinking the economy, which is just one reason you should be diversified into precious metals.
00:07:55.000Times like these are a great reminder to diversify a portion of your savings into gold.
00:07:58.000You can do that with the help of Birch Gold.
00:08:00.000They're who I buy my gold from, so do thousands of other concern savers.
00:08:03.000As Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa band together the BRICS nations to move away from American currency, the way they are doing that is by reinvesting in precious metals.
00:08:32.000Okay, so yesterday when Trump actually went into the courthouse, he came face to face with the special counsel, Jack Smith, Apparently they were both rather grumpy with one another.
00:08:48.000Smith is not the one who's actually trying the case.
00:08:50.000It's a guy named Jay Bratt who leads the DOJ's counterintelligence division.
00:08:53.000He's the person who's the sole lead attorney in this case.
00:08:57.000Smith showing up face-to-face is something that Robert Mueller never did when he was going after Donald Trump.
00:09:03.000So, there was this sort of dramatic moment where they faced off in court.
00:09:29.000Again, these are not, this is not the winner for Trump.
00:09:34.000The winner for Trump is, why is Joe Biden bringing this prosecution?
00:09:37.000That is the political winner for Trump here.
00:09:39.000As far as the speed with which this trial takes place, Jack Smith has been saying that he wants this thing to happen fast, but all of these cases drag.
00:10:12.000The first thing he did is he declared that he was being politically prosecuted.
00:10:15.000Again, this is going to be his political case.
00:10:17.000It's not going to bear any weight inside the actual courtroom.
00:10:19.000But as we've pointed out, even if he's convicted in a courtroom, even if he goes to jail, that does not bar him from being on the ballot.
00:10:25.000So the political case matters an awful lot.
00:10:28.000There's every possibility that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination and then be in jail at the time that the actual election takes place.
00:10:36.000I should point out here, there's nothing illegal about you voting for Donald Trump at that point.
00:10:41.000The only qualifications to be president of the United States is you must be 35 years of age and you have to be a natural-born American citizen.
00:10:57.000And I have to admit that the spectacle of voting for Trump and then Trump winning and then being sworn in from his jail cell and then pardoning himself, I, Donald J. Trump, pardon Donald J. Trump, I mean, just on a pure humor level, that is some pretty amazing stuff.
00:11:10.000And since we live in God's alternative timeline, I wouldn't put my money against something like that happening.
00:11:45.000We have a country that is in decline like never before, and we can't let it happen.
00:11:50.000I'm going to make a little speech tonight in Bedminster, and I hope you're going to be there.
00:11:59.000OK, so Corrine Jean-Pierre, for her part over at the White House, she's denying that Biden had anything to do with the investigation, suggesting the DOJ is independent.
00:12:39.000In this country, we don't arrest our chief political opposition, even if we think that there's a high possibility that he violated the law.
00:12:45.000Because the American people have to have their say.
00:12:54.000So instead, he's going to create and allow the narrative that he himself has signed off on the arrest of his chief political opposition hearest, Karine Jean-Pierre, yesterday, pretending that he had clean hands in this, which, again, he does not.
00:13:06.000The president's opponents have accused him of weaponizing the DOJ.
00:13:10.000So just to be clear, can you say categorically that President Biden was not involved or influenced at all any of the decisions into indictment President Biden?
00:13:22.000The president has been very, very clear.
00:13:24.000The Department of Justice is independent.
00:13:26.000He wants to restore the independence of the Department of Justice, and that's what you have seen.
00:13:33.000Yeah, they look like a real independent Department of Justice, which is presumably why Merrick Garland has been going after every police force in the nation and cramming down on parents a bunch of garbage about how they may be part of some sort of group worth investigating.
00:13:45.000And Merrick Garland, the fully independent, nonpartisan hack over at the DOJ, I truly believe that.
00:13:51.000Okay, one second, we'll get to the media response to all this again.
00:13:54.000From a political level, the media response to Trump is going to drive him up in the polls.
00:13:57.000Because the media are just so terrible at this.
00:14:16.000Especially because if you have to move jobs, That probably goes away.
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00:15:02.000Okay, so all this is going down and just like Jake Tapper, the rest of the media are also You know, obviously in the tank on this, but Rachel Maddow over on MSNBC, she refused to cover the Trump rally last night.
00:15:14.000So Trump had a big rally last night at which he talked about all this.
00:15:17.000Again, is this just baseline newsworthy?
00:15:20.000Whether you love Trump or whether you hate Trump, it is newsworthy when the former president, who is currently under indictment and was just arraigned, holds a rally where he talks about the newsworthy thing.
00:15:28.000But Rachel Maddow's like, no, we're not even going to expose you to the evil vitriol of President Trump.
00:15:33.000MSNBC is just too far above all of it.
00:15:36.000We knew heading into this that he was planning to make these remarks.
00:15:39.000We are prepared for his pre-fundraiser remarks tonight to again be essentially a Trump campaign speech.
00:15:46.000Because of that, we do not intend to carry these remarks live.
00:15:50.000As we have said before in these circumstances, There is a cost to us as a news organization to knowingly broadcast untrue things.
00:16:00.000It hurts our ability to do that if we live broadcast what we fully expect in advance to be a litany of lies and false accusations, no matter who says them.
00:16:35.000And this is the reason why, again, when Trump says my political opponents are after me, he is not wrong about that.
00:16:42.000When it comes to the actual charges, he could have done all the things alleged, and still he can be right, that his political opposition is out to get him.
00:16:47.000So yesterday, at his rally, Trump rolled out a couple of forms of defense, and then he talked about what he intends to do next, and that part's interesting.
00:16:55.000So, he started off with his sort of quasi-defense.
00:16:58.000Quasi-defense, number one, is that he didn't know what was in the boxes when he took them.
00:17:01.000He said, under the Presidential Records Act, I had the ability to declassify everything, and I took the boxes, and I didn't know what was in the boxes.
00:17:07.000So, number one, He himself says on tape that, I mean, they have him on tape apparently, and we'll find out if this is true in court or it's been selectively edited, but presumably, if the indictment is correct, he actively said that he had the power to declassify certain documents and he did not declassify them.
00:17:22.000So the Presidential Records Act, which is a civil act and not a criminal act, doesn't actually apply in this particular case.
00:17:28.000And then he says he didn't know what was in the boxes, which may well have been true when he took the boxes.
00:17:31.000Obviously, this happens with politicians all the time.
00:17:33.000They take boxes home, there's a bunch of stuff in them, they don't know what's in the boxes.
00:17:36.000But again, the indictment says that he went through the boxes personally, many of them, and then he tried to hide particular box of documents from his own lawyers.
00:17:43.000So him saying it now is, you know, not particularly helpful.
00:18:36.000Again, I would have assumed that, except for the details in the indictment where it specifically says that he had, I mean, we have text from Walt Mata, his aide, to other Trump employees, including Trump lawyers, talking about bringing boxes directly to Trump so Trump could personally go through the boxes.
00:18:51.000And then you have text between Walt Mata and other people saying that certain boxes should be put aside and others handed to the lawyers.
00:18:57.000That's why this case is a problem for Trump.
00:18:59.000Then he suggested that whatever Trump documents the President takes, he actually has a right to take.
00:19:34.000The president has the right to declassify anything he wants to do while he is president.
00:19:38.000He does not have the right to take whatever documents, including classified documents he wants, from the White House and then later declassify them.
00:19:45.000He's not the president anymore, right?
00:19:47.000So again, these are not going to be good legal arguments, but the argument that like this is too complicated for people and Joe Biden just wants me not to run, that argument I think is going to be pretty telling.
00:21:03.000Okay, so when President Trump went on in this rally yesterday
00:21:07.000to rip on Jack Smith, who's the special counsel, here's what he had to say.
00:21:11.000It's no wonder this raging lunatic was shipped off to The Hague to prosecute war criminals using globalist tribunals, not beholden to the Constitution or the rule of law.
00:21:23.000Two things Jack Smith clearly disdains.
00:22:11.000And they have two separate ramifications.
00:22:12.000One is that he may very well get convicted on these charges.
00:22:15.000And the second is that he may very well be fully...
00:22:19.000Durable nominee for the presidency of the United States, despite all of that, or maybe because of all of that, because there are a lot of Republicans who are responding to this by saying, if they're after him, that means that we should support him.
00:22:29.000Now, again, I don't think that's good logic.
00:22:30.000And I'll explain why I don't think that's good logic in a second.
00:22:32.000But Trump also is vowing now that he's going to prosecute Biden.
00:22:35.000And this is the can of worms that the Democrats have opened.
00:22:53.000I assume the reason he didn't do it is because he went to his attorney general, at that point it was Jeff Sessions, and he said to him, should we do it or should we not?
00:22:59.000And Jeff Sessions probably said to him, you know it's a really, really bad idea in America to prosecute your chief political opposition.
00:23:05.000I assume that's a conversation that happened.
00:23:07.000Because Trump talked throughout the campaign about the possibility of locking up Hillary.
00:23:35.000In addition to closing the border and removing all of the criminal elements that have illegally invaded our country, Making America energy independent and even dominant again and immediately ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.
00:24:34.000Once you break that seal, it cannot be unbroken anymore.
00:24:36.000Now, does this mean that Republicans should nominate Donald Trump for the presidency?
00:24:40.000Again, I understand the emotional appeal of they're going after him.
00:24:43.000The best way to protect him is to nominate him, which may or may not be true because, again, if he loses, it doesn't really help very much.
00:24:50.000And the question is whether this is going to have a salutary impact on his candidacy.
00:24:54.000The reason I say that the logic here is not particularly good is twofold.
00:24:57.000One, Donald Trump is a person who steps into bear traps.
00:25:01.000To be smart about how you do politics is a quality that you look for in a successful politician.
00:25:07.000When you know, again, this is the thing about what Trump did with the classified documents, I can't wrap my head around really.
00:25:12.000When you know that they are gunning for you, when you know, as is true, Donald Trump is right, that they were gunning for him full time.
00:25:18.000They literally spent tens of millions of dollars and years on end gunning for him over Trump-Russia stuff that was garbage.
00:25:24.000When you know that's the case, wouldn't you be like 10 times more careful?
00:25:28.000Wouldn't you try to avoid that so that you could be the best possible weapon against their ideology?
00:25:33.000Or would you go to a bunch of silly nonsense with regard to documents that you don't need?
00:25:58.000And then there's question number two, which is, do you think that he is likely to be elected on the basis of this?
00:26:03.000Because I promise you, now that he has been indicted and arraigned, and now that this case is probably going to drag on through the election, by the way, this won't be the only case.
00:26:10.000I assume that there will be indictment forthcoming in Georgia also with regard to alleged election interference and all the rest of it.
00:26:16.000I assume this is not the end of the charges.
00:26:18.000I assume there will be more coming for Trump on a variety of fronts.
00:26:20.000Most of it trumped up, I would assume.
00:26:23.000If that's the topic of the election, do you think Trump wins the election or do you think Trump loses the election?
00:26:49.000The topic of the day, the thing I should be talking about at the top of the show today should not be Donald Trump in front of a court.
00:26:54.000The thing I should be talking about to lead the show today should be the predations of the Biden administration, which get worse and worse day by day.
00:28:05.000First, let's talk about something you can do for your family.
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00:28:47.000And again, it's incredible to be able to unlock all of those old memories that were hidden on versions of film that you literally could not watch.
00:28:54.000If you're like me and want to keep your memories alive, I highly recommend Legacy Box makes an amazing Father's Day gift.
00:28:58.000Legacy Box is offering my listeners an incredible $9 tape offer that's over 60% off.
00:29:03.000It's an exclusive offer for my listeners.
00:29:14.000Also, if you're looking for something interesting to watch this weekend, check out our series, What We Saw, hosted by storyteller Bill Whittle.
00:29:21.000Season two of What We Saw is about the origins and key events of the Cold War.
00:29:25.000Look into the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War, the death of Joseph Stalin, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War, Watergate, and the ultimate resolution of the Cold War under Ronald Reagan.
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00:29:43.000So yesterday, the new inflation stats came out.
00:29:46.000And the new inflation stats, again, this is year over year, clocked in about 4%.
00:29:51.000So the White House immediately put out a tweet, quote, great news.
00:29:54.000Today's inflation report shows the annual inflation is now at the lowest level since March 2021 and less than half of what it was last June.
00:30:00.000This is giving families real breathing room.
00:30:55.000This administration, again, they have a lot of vulnerabilities, a lot of vulnerabilities.
00:30:59.000This is an administration that is still pushing COVID nonsense.
00:31:02.000Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC, she was asked about the science on masking children, and she was like, I run a science-based agency, no one believes you.
00:31:11.000Did political pressure ever impact your CDC guidance on your public statements about COVID-19?
00:31:16.000Did you ever feel like you were making statements based on political pressure rather than the science that was available?
00:32:00.000So can you point to any benefit, any public health benefit from that policy, whether it was recommended or enforced or forced, of requiring young children to wear masks?
00:32:11.000Did families benefit from the policy of using all protection, all precautions to avoid- No, I'm not asking you to rephrase my question as some abstract question that you'd rather answer.
00:32:20.000I'm asking that you, as the person who's the Secretary of Health and Human Services, right now, can you point to any evidence that there was a public health benefit to forcing young children to wear masks?
00:32:30.000Well, the fact that today we are not losing lives the way we lost them when we first got into this pandemic- And you think that's because we forced two-year-olds to wear masks?
00:32:50.000So the thing that I like today is there are going to have to be some gatekeepers in the church community.
00:32:55.000One of the great stories of the last 50 years is the decline of church in the United States and abroad.
00:33:00.000One of the reasons for that is because churches decided to make their peace with social leftism.
00:33:03.000They decided that it was really important to give ground to the social left Because that way they could keep the pews full.
00:33:08.000What they failed to understand is the entire draw of churches saying, here's an eternal value and we are going to continue promoting this eternal value even in the face of the vicissitudes of social and political movements who hate our guts.
00:33:18.000We're going to stick with our guns because what we have to say is true.
00:33:21.000A bunch of churches, synagogues, even some mosques.
00:33:24.000Many of these places decided, no, no, no.
00:33:25.000What we have to do is we have to make some sort of concessions.
00:33:28.000to the social liberal movement, and then people will keep coming to church.
00:33:32.000What they neglected is that the closer they came to social liberalism, the more people were like, why am I even going to church?
00:33:36.000You know what I could do on a Sunday morning is stay home and watch football and not go to church.
00:33:47.000And so all these churches who have gone back to traditionalism are doing really well.
00:33:50.000Traditionalist Catholic churches are filling the pews.
00:33:53.000Orthodox Jewish synagogues are filling the seats.
00:33:56.000So, more religions going back to, you know, traditional ways of life and rejecting the conciliation with left-wing social movements, that's a good thing.
00:34:04.000So, according to the New York Times, a bad thing, of course.
00:34:08.000Because Southern Baptists are moving to purge churches with female pastors.
00:34:12.000Now, it's been a long-standing thing in a lot of mainstream religions that positions of religious authority in communities, like rabbis, for example, or priests, or pastors, these are supposed to be male positions.
00:34:25.000And the reason for that is because males are generally more extroverted.
00:34:28.000Males are generally people who are Capable of taking an enormous amount of flack, right?
00:34:33.000There are differences between males and females, and those are reflected in biblical views of the roles of males and females.
00:34:38.000Doesn't mean that women don't have the capacity for leadership.
00:34:41.000I mean, if you go back to the biblical story of Deborah, right?
00:34:43.000Deborah actually leads the Jews in battle.
00:34:45.000If you go back to the ancient Bible, Miriam is a leader in the Old Testament.
00:34:51.000And so there are certainly female leaders who have leadership capacity, but the general rule of religion has been that the pastor or priest or rabbi of a community will be male.
00:35:00.000And there are reasons for that that are deeply ingrained, not only in quote-unquote the patriarchy, but in the differences on a general level between men and women.
00:35:08.000But this is unacceptable in the modern era.
00:35:10.000And so churches who have decided to conciliate, those are the ones that are emptying out.
00:35:13.000Well, the Southern Baptists are like, we're not going to do this anymore.
00:35:15.000According to the New York Times, convention officials decided to expel a church that had appointed a female pastor Along with four other congregations that have female pastors, including one of the most prominent in the country, Saddleback Church, based in Southern California.
00:35:31.000The right wing of the Southern Baptist, the largest Protestant denomination in America, is now cracking down on what it sees as dangerous liberal drift.
00:35:38.000Most people in the denomination have long believed the office of head pastor should be reserved for men.
00:35:41.000But an ultra-conservative faction with a loud online presence is going further, pressing for ideological purity and arguing that female pastors are a precursor to acceptance of homosexuality and sexual immorality.
00:35:50.000Now, that would seem like a far-fetched argument except for the fact that it is not.
00:35:56.000Typically, religious denominations that move significantly to the left on small things tend to move significantly to the left on the big things as well.
00:36:04.000If religions want to have any sort of lasting durability, they're going to have to stick with the one that brought them.
00:36:10.000All right, you guys, the rest of the show continues right now.