Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 16, 2024


Ep 1034 ｜ Trump, Vance, and the New GOP ｜ Guest： Ron Simmons


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 5 minutes

Words per Minute

179.40773

Word Count

11,735

Sentence Count

870

Misogynist Sentences

8

Hate Speech Sentences

22


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.760 President Trump has picked J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate. What do I make of this? Do I
00:00:08.560 think it's going to help or hurt? Also, what in the world is going on at the Republican National
00:00:14.000 Convention? Twitter is aflame with all kinds of takes. And what is also going on with the changes
00:00:22.360 in the party platform? Why were pro-lifers and some Christians pushed out of the process?
00:00:28.500 Oh, my goodness. I've got my dad here to help us break it all down today and give us his calm
00:00:34.200 insight on all of this and so much more. This episode of Relatable is brought to you by our
00:00:38.180 friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com,
00:00:43.600 code Allie. All right. Before we get into the conversation with my dad, I did just want to
00:00:58.040 make a really fun, exciting announcement, is that my book, Toxic Empathy, How Progressives
00:01:04.940 Exploit Christian Compassion, is now available for pre-order. There it is. Rosaria Butterfield,
00:01:12.800 whom we've had on this podcast, was kind enough to give her endorsement. This quote is one of my
00:01:18.640 favorites. Every page of this book is a lifeline to sanity, as she very graciously says. And that's
00:01:25.000 what I hope. This book has been three years in the making, and it is combating the progressive lie
00:01:33.480 that in order to be kind and compassionate, especially as a Christian woman, you have to be
00:01:39.120 progressive. So we go through these five lies that we hear from the left, these catchy mantras.
00:01:45.960 Abortion is health care. Trans women are women. Love is love. No human being is illegal. Social justice
00:01:53.700 is justice. And we look at the anecdotes that we are constantly fed by fear mongers, but also empathy
00:02:02.520 mongers that make us believe in order to be loving, we have to take the progressive affirming position.
00:02:11.560 But it's just not true. Empathy and compassion are not synonymous. Empathy and love are not
00:02:18.880 synonymous. For Christians, we are called to speak the truth in love, but we are also called to this
00:02:26.960 inextricably intertwined relationship between truth and love. True love always rejoices in the truth,
00:02:36.840 as 1 Corinthians 13 says. And so this book is about true Christian compassion, about how we inform
00:02:45.540 our political views based on factual truth, and more importantly, based on biblical truth. This book
00:02:54.080 is really my answer to the question, what do I say when blank? If you read this book, you will never have
00:03:00.720 to ask me that again. What do I say to X? All of that is thoroughly answered in this book. This is
00:03:07.660 going to equip you to have these very contentious conversations this election season with friends,
00:03:13.740 with family. You can get it on Amazon. That's probably the easiest place to get it. But you can
00:03:18.340 go to ToxicEmpathy.com, ToxicEmpathy.com. You can see all of the different places to pre-order.
00:03:24.100 It will be available. It will ship to you starting on October 15th. But if you pre-order,
00:03:29.700 it really helps me a lot. So ToxicEmpathy.com. Thank you guys so much. And by the way, I announced
00:03:36.300 this yesterday and I looked on Amazon. If you go to like the movers and shakers tab, it's number three
00:03:42.200 on the movers and shakers tab. But then someone by the name of, I think it's JD Vance. I don't know
00:03:48.520 if you've heard of him before. He's got the number one and two slot. I can't figure out why. Maybe you
00:03:55.260 guys could give me some insight. All right. That's it on that. Without further ado, here's my dad.
00:04:04.740 Okay, dad, welcome back to the Relatable Program.
00:04:09.720 Well, thank you.
00:04:11.360 Yes, we got a lot to talk about. We got to talk about the RNC, the Republican National Convention,
00:04:17.680 what it is, how it works, how it's significant. But first, let us start out by just watching this
00:04:25.360 epic entrance by Donald Trump last night in Milwaukee. Here's top one.
00:04:30.640 I mean, just unbelievable. What a historic moment. I know that y'all were out of the country when the
00:04:57.680 shooting happened. What was your reaction when you found that out?
00:05:02.620 Yeah, well, it's funny. I'm glad you asked that because we've been abroad for almost two weeks and
00:05:07.740 just got back late last night. But, you know, it was where we were was almost opposite time of
00:05:14.520 Milwaukee. So we were asleep when everything was going on. And I didn't wake up through the night.
00:05:22.700 Mom happened to wake up through the night, looked at her phone and and saw it. But luckily didn't
00:05:27.980 wake me up. I'm glad she didn't. But when I woke up, I couldn't believe it. I mean, it was like
00:05:32.680 and the first part that I read was kind of like what you said yesterday on your podcast on
00:05:38.740 I read he had been shot. I automatically thought he probably been killed. Right. Yeah.
00:05:44.900 And so and then I was just after that, I just was just, you know, hogging the news as much as I could.
00:05:51.780 I wanted to find out as much as I could, you know, texted some of my friends that are a little bit more
00:05:56.920 intricate in the situation than I was at the time. And pretty, pretty remarkable. I mean, it was a
00:06:03.300 it was a shocking day. Let me put it that way. It was very, very shocking. I can remember when Ronald Reagan
00:06:08.920 was shot. I was you know, I he was the first president I'd ever voted in the vote that election.
00:06:16.040 And it wasn't long after he got into office that he got shot. And it was pretty detailing at that time,
00:06:23.520 too. And, you know, that's a good that's a good point about Ronald Reagan, that this has
00:06:29.040 happened before. This is certainly not the first time a president has been almost assassinated. Of
00:06:34.840 course, we've had actual assassinations in the past. But a lot of people have been saying,
00:06:40.400 and this is what I feel, too, that it does feel like a uniquely dark moment that we are lurching
00:06:45.540 toward something. I don't even know what that something is, some towards some sort of precipice.
00:06:51.620 And I don't want to think that way, but it feels that way. I mean, what do you think? Is this
00:06:55.900 different than what happened in 1981? Is this just another dark moment or is it unique?
00:07:01.040 Well, I think it's different mainly because remember, while he's a former president,
00:07:06.600 he's a candidate. Yeah. And I just look back and research how many top candidates have been
00:07:12.460 had an assassination attempt against them. They may have been. I just I have not had the opportunity
00:07:18.180 to look that up, but it's totally different. And the Secret Service team for a former president
00:07:28.080 is not the same as the Secret Service team for the president. And I actually understand that.
00:07:32.460 However, once the candidates are basically vying for the same office, then I believe that the Secret
00:07:42.200 Service team, if it hasn't been, should be, you know, beefed up. Just like RFK should have a Secret
00:07:49.900 Service team. That is ridiculous. I didn't even know that until it came out yesterday.
00:07:53.320 Oh, you did not. Yeah. President Biden has to approve that. Right. And he has not approved that.
00:07:59.300 So crazy. So crazy because they also they don't lie about RFK in the same way, but they do lie about
00:08:06.720 RFK and his vaccine stance and treating him as if he is this existential threat. I mean, what is your
00:08:14.420 take on the security situation with President Trump? There's so many different theories, so many
00:08:19.580 different perspectives. It was a dereliction of duty. Some people say it was DEI policies to blame.
00:08:25.420 And then others saying, look, unless you're in the situation, it's really hard to assess who did what
00:08:32.140 and what failures were there. I mean, speaking just as an amateur, it's hard for me to understand
00:08:36.760 how a shooter was even able to get on a roof that close to the president. But what's your take on it?
00:08:41.540 Well, I will remember when I was in public office, I had dinner one night with a friend of mine and he
00:08:49.320 had brought a couple of guys in that were former Secret Service people. And I'll never forget what
00:08:56.240 he told me at the time. He said on the far left and the far right, the people that are way out there
00:09:03.040 on the bleeding edge, them going from talking or social media to shooting is not a big leap for them.
00:09:10.380 Where the most of the rest of us, we could talk, we could have very, very vehement disagreements and we
00:09:17.920 would never even consider going to the, you know, those steps. Right. And so that's what I think people have
00:09:24.800 to guard against. And as far as how the security worked, absolutely. It was someone, uh, fell on the
00:09:33.540 job. And it, to me, it ultimately goes back to the head of the Secret Service. The lady that's
00:09:37.460 the head of that now, she should probably lose her job because 150 yards, I promise you, Ali, even
00:09:43.560 though when you and I hunted, you know, 20 something years ago, we didn't have the opportunity to shoot at
00:09:48.860 something that you could kill, uh, something that size. You could hit something that size relatively
00:09:55.080 easily with a high powered rifle. Like, uh, like he had, I mean, I've killed deer much further than
00:10:01.340 that. And, uh, and the only reason he did, the only reason he didn't, it wasn't because the guy was a
00:10:07.780 bad shot, you know, at this particular time. It's just because he turned his head because the guy was
00:10:13.360 perpendicular to him. Right. So he was right over here. Yeah. He happened to turn his head. So it
00:10:18.080 just happened to do that. I mean, it was now happening to do that. And yes, you know, say
00:10:24.160 his life was saved, but just as tragically, those other people, the gentleman who passed away and the
00:10:29.900 other two who were not sure what's going to totally happen to yet. Uh, but Secret Service, I don't care
00:10:35.840 if the, if the local police should have been monitoring that building because there wasn't enough
00:10:40.700 Secret Service at the end of the day, it's the Secret Service's fault that they didn't make sure that
00:10:47.260 was done. And when people are pointing up there, all right, pointing up and Secret Service is looking
00:10:54.160 at them pointing up there before the guy shoots and they didn't take, they didn't at least come
00:10:59.860 get Trump and take him down until they could figure out the situation. Right. Big mistake. Right. And
00:11:05.180 listen, that's a good point. Got the president six foot four. You can't have a five foot five person
00:11:09.140 trying to protect, physically protect them. Can't do it. I'm sorry. That's what, that's what I said.
00:11:14.260 That's what I said yesterday to a lot of debate about whether women should be Secret Service. My personal
00:11:19.640 opinion is that they shouldn't, even if it's just for the sheer size and, and the strength of them.
00:11:24.540 Like you got to be able to drag a six foot four, 240 pound man off stage if you have to. And you just
00:11:33.040 can't, I could not do that. I would not be able to do that. That's another thing. They left him on stage
00:11:38.060 too long. If you want, if you go back and watch the Ronald Reagan shooting, they were in that car
00:11:42.820 within two seconds. They were in the car. Now he was headed to the car. Okay. So a little bit
00:11:48.480 closer, but there wasn't any, nobody was saying, what do we do now? Yes. And that's what happened
00:11:54.020 yesterday. You heard the female agent in that. What are we doing? Where are we going? What are we
00:11:57.720 doing? Where are you going? What are you talking about? That is, that is very, you know, we've
00:12:03.100 worked with, with different events that I've done. I've worked with various security people
00:12:07.740 and security details, and they always have a plan. They say, this is where I'm going to be. This is
00:12:14.720 where I'm looking. This is how we're going to exit. If anything looks right, you just give me the look
00:12:19.820 and you're out. So, and that's just, that's me. And that's just, you know, one security guy. We're
00:12:25.340 talking about a former president and not just any former president, but one who is, I think,
00:12:29.540 uniquely hated by a lot of people, uniquely lied about by a lot of people and the secret service
00:12:35.300 and secret service snipers. And even they just seemed completely discombobulated. And, you know,
00:12:42.180 I, I don't want to be in a position of trying to condemn them since I, I don't know the situation,
00:12:48.480 but you're right. It just seems like at least they should have said, I don't know what that person
00:12:54.840 is doing, but let's get Trump to safety and figure it out. And they did it. And now someone
00:13:00.900 is dead. Yeah. You have to be cautious. You have to be cautious. The, the, uh, you know, we'll see.
00:13:06.140 We, I hope we get a fully transparent, although it's not likely that we get a fully transparent
00:13:12.300 investigation results and that they'll be reported to us pretty quickly because whatever happened,
00:13:18.120 it happened. The American people have a right to know. We don't need to know their secret, uh,
00:13:23.240 way that they, you know, set up security and all that type of stuff. We just need to know, okay,
00:13:28.820 where was the failure? Why did it happen? What have we done to make sure it won't happen in the
00:13:33.540 future? Yeah. And there was that story of the police officer, the local police officer climbed up,
00:13:39.700 saw the kid with the gun and retreated. And I just wonder why not after that was that kid not
00:13:46.720 surrounded in a second and taken it out. Yeah. I don't know how, how long was it? I haven't heard
00:13:52.100 how long it was between when he saw him and when the boy shot. I don't know. Well, he should have
00:13:58.640 been on the horn quickly. And once he got out of his way, he should have been yelling up there just
00:14:03.580 to cause confusion. Right. Yes. And I don't, I don't know if it was, um, that interaction between
00:14:12.200 that and their interaction with the shooting, I know that it's been reported according to the
00:14:15.980 Associated Press that from the first time law enforcement saw this guy to when he actually
00:14:22.660 shot was 26 minutes. That in and of itself is damning to me. Anything more than one or two minutes.
00:14:29.580 Yeah. You know, I mean, that should happen. That should, they should have been on that,
00:14:33.240 you know, it's disturbing, disturbing. Well, we weren't going to go that direction, but when you see the
00:14:39.260 president walking in and he's got the bandage on his ear and you know what he has just gone through,
00:14:45.100 we kind of needed that context. And I don't know if you noticed this, we would just watched for a
00:14:50.880 little bit last night before we went to bed, but, um, Trump at the convention, you probably didn't get
00:14:58.220 to watch since you were on a plane, but he seemed very subdued. He seemed, I'm sure he's exhausted,
00:15:05.040 but I think he's probably a little traumatized. And I just wonder if he is a little humbled. I mean,
00:15:11.460 you get that close to death. It's almost a spiritual experience. He seemed very different
00:15:17.400 in his countenance last night. I assume I've never had an experience like that, but that's what I
00:15:22.840 assume as well. And hopefully as a leader, you know, you lead as much by what you don't say as to
00:15:30.280 what you say. Right. And so hopefully as a leader, he is trying to pass on, Hey, this is my demeanor.
00:15:37.580 And I'm sure he'll be, give a very powerful speech, but this is my demeanor. This is demeanor. We need
00:15:43.700 to take on. I will say one thing that I thought was kind of funny though. And again, sometimes you
00:15:48.120 just have to laugh at different things. It's okay. Uh, surely you could do a better job of banding that
00:15:53.580 ear than what put just like a square pad on there. I mean, I think you could, I think you could make
00:15:59.700 it just a little bit better. Did you notice that? It was like, the question is if he's got a hole in
00:16:06.620 his ear, will he wear some type of earring? I mean, that's the real question. I don't think so. I don't
00:16:12.220 think so. You never know with Trump. Um, I love this quote by Ronald Reagan after he got shot and
00:16:32.640 I just pray this for Trump that this would be his perspective. He said, this is part of his diary
00:16:38.240 entry. Actually, it says getting shot hurt. Still, my fear was growing because no matter how hard I
00:16:43.280 tried to breathe, it seemed like I was getting less and less air because his lung was punctured.
00:16:47.640 I focused on that tiled ceiling and prayed, but I realized I couldn't ask for God's help. While at
00:16:52.700 the same time, I felt hatred for the mixed up young man who had shot me. Isn't that the meaning of the
00:16:57.900 lost sheep that we are all God's children and therefore equally beloved by him. I began to pray for his
00:17:02.720 soul and that he would find his way back to the fold. Of course, the young man that shot at
00:17:07.480 President Trump is dead, but just that kind of release and that grace. And he also said,
00:17:14.280 I owe my life to God and will try to serve him in every way I can. Of course, that's what we want
00:17:18.860 for all of our leaders to owe their lives and their position to God and to try to serve him
00:17:23.480 in every way. So maybe this was a spiritual experience for Trump and this can be used in that regard.
00:17:29.260 Well, I mean, nothing, nothing, nothing's new under the sun, which you talk about a lot.
00:17:34.220 And Daniel 2, 21 and 22 tells us about who's going to be our leaders. It's who God sets them up and
00:17:41.180 takes them down. Now, we participate in all of that because we're a people of free will. And sometimes
00:17:46.420 we get what we ask for, as you read through the Old Testament for sure. And it's the same way here.
00:17:54.060 Hmm. Okay. Back to the RNC, shifting back to Milwaukee. What is going on there this week? What
00:18:02.620 does it all mean? Well, in some ways, it's pretty perfunctory when you have a situation where Donald
00:18:09.700 Trump going through all the primaries, you know, even though you and I may have voted for him or
00:18:16.900 whomever we voted for the, um, we were not voting for him per se. We were really voting for delegates
00:18:24.340 that go to the convention and each state has so many delegates. I think there's 2,300, 2,400 total
00:18:31.940 Republican delegates. And based on the population of your state and how many congressional people you
00:18:38.620 have that come out of your state, I mean, House of Representatives and senators you have,
00:18:42.120 that determines how many delegates to the convention. Okay. And, uh, and then, so those delegates go
00:18:49.920 there. All right. And the delegates then will, uh, mostly they're going to a bunch of meetings and
00:18:57.360 they're hearing policy people. I noticed one thing they have on there. There's a new Dennis Quaid and
00:19:02.320 John Voight movie out coming out about Ronald Reagan. You know, they'll have pre-screens of that. They'll talk
00:19:08.120 about different, you know, maybe there'll be experts on immigration. They'll have a lot of parties. It's kind of
00:19:12.580 a fun time for everybody to be there. And then they'll have, uh, speeches, you know, every night by
00:19:18.160 generally, they're mostly going to be from politicians. And I will talk about those later if you want to. And then
00:19:24.300 also some celebrities as well, or some special, sometimes I remember maybe last time they had one of the
00:19:30.900 gold star families, uh, that was there in 2020 and that's what they do. And then they'll, but they do
00:19:37.080 go through some, uh, uh, a, uh, nomination process because the, the, the party has to nominate
00:19:44.500 its presidential choice. And then the delegates are bound. We talked about this before to vote for that
00:19:52.900 person that their state has said they vote for. And for most states, it's winner take all some
00:20:00.440 states, they still divide them up. So you might see somebody say that they give, you know, 30 votes
00:20:05.640 to Donald Trump and 20 votes or 10 votes to Nikki Haley. Okay. That doesn't mean somebody's broken
00:20:11.200 the mold from the mold. All right. That doesn't mean that at all. And then of course, it's the big
00:20:15.580 deal when the president announces his VP candidate as he did. Yes. And tell me what you think about that.
00:20:21.440 What do you think about J.D. Vance as a pick? Oh, I don't know if you even remember this Allie,
00:20:25.960 but, but I knew J.D. Vance who he was. I didn't know him, but I knew him because I heard about this
00:20:31.980 book called Hillbilly Elegy. And this would have been, oh me, this would have been several years,
00:20:38.160 whenever it came out, it came out in 2015, I think. Yeah. And so, and so, uh, you were just out of
00:20:45.480 college over in, uh, you know, still living, not in Texas, living out of state. And so I read that book
00:20:52.020 and after I read the book, you know, I thought it was great and all that stuff. But after the 16th
00:21:01.280 election, I knew exactly why Donald Trump got elected. Cause if you read that book that tells
00:21:06.500 Donald Trump got elected and it's because that he figured out how to speak into the J.D. Vance's of
00:21:14.880 the world. And when I say that, how J.D. grew up, he truly did grow up poor. You know, a lot of people
00:21:20.700 talk about that, right? Like even I will say, well, my mom and dad were public school teachers and we
00:21:25.860 didn't have a bunch of money and we didn't, but we weren't near where J.D. Vance and his mom,
00:21:30.760 his mom were and his grandparents and what have you. And thank goodness for strong grandparents.
00:21:37.700 Cause his mom at the time was a total wreck. She was, you know, on drugs and all this stuff.
00:21:43.680 And his dad was in and out of the picture and his grandmother, if you read the book or watch the
00:21:48.660 movie, she was one tough cookie. I mean, I mean, she, she raised him now to his credit. He was
00:21:55.320 obviously whip smart. Yeah. He was whip smart coming out of the hills of West Virginia and
00:22:02.560 southeastern Ohio. Cause they kind of moved back and forth. I think, or maybe it was Kentucky,
00:22:06.380 but ended up, yeah, ended up in Ohio. And if, if, if, if you want to talk about poor, but yet proud
00:22:14.580 people, those people that are in Appalachia are like that. And then he goes on somehow, I forget how
00:22:20.920 it's when he gets, I think into Harvard, to the Harvard or Yale. He went to Yale. Oh, he would
00:22:26.060 really not be happy with that. Would he? He went to Yale and that's where he met his wife and, you
00:22:31.680 know, going through all that. And then after nine 11, uh, joined, uh, the, uh, you know, joined the,
00:22:37.620 uh, Marines. And I didn't see him when I, when I watched the movie, read the book, I still didn't see
00:22:44.200 him as a politician, you know, getting into public service. I didn't see that. But I, but I think what
00:22:49.820 happens is when you get, when you, when you have the opportunity to have a format and have a stage
00:22:56.300 like that, and you see what was in your life playing out all around the country, you feel
00:23:04.060 like, Oh, I need to step in and do something about it. Not just take the benefits of telling
00:23:08.360 my story. Yeah. You know, he is, he's changed in, in a lot of ways. I read that book too. Timothy
00:23:14.940 read it before I did. And then I read it, loved it, cried through it. Um, cried when I watched,
00:23:22.060 uh, watched the movie too, just an incredible story. But what's amazing about it is that he
00:23:26.600 told that story 2015, 2016. It was a number one New York times bestseller. It was an Oprah book of
00:23:31.960 the month. It got all of these rave reviews from the Washington post and the New York times.
00:23:36.580 I don't think if that same book was written today, that it would have as much, um, positive,
00:23:43.600 as much of a positive reception by the mainstream media, simply because it's telling the story of
00:23:49.400 poor white people. And especially post 2020, we've heard that you're not really allowed to
00:23:54.720 talk about that. There's only one kind of oppressed person and speaking about people who might be more
00:23:59.540 conservative. They might be Christian. They might be white and the hard times that they have fallen on,
00:24:05.480 um, much because of government policies. That's almost like a taboo subject, but he waded into that was
00:24:11.580 one of the first people to tell those stories. And that was just meaningful to me. Uh, he was an
00:24:16.140 ever Trump guy. I don't think he's trying to hide that, but he was very public because he was very
00:24:20.420 successful as an entrepreneur. After he went to Yale, um, he was never Trump, never Trump said a lot
00:24:27.160 of things about Trump. Um, but then, you know, he ran for Senate as a Republican in Ohio and he
00:24:34.380 definitely dropped the like anti-Trump perspective and maybe his mind just, you know, it just,
00:24:38.900 it just really changed. And now here he is. So it's, it's a pretty remarkable, not just his life,
00:24:44.920 but over the past few years, who he has become and how he has kind of risen to this place.
00:25:01.700 Now I have a question for you before I, cause, because I want to play the video of him accepting
00:25:05.800 this nomination and all of that, but he's a different kind of conservative dad. Like he is
00:25:11.320 not your typical, I don't know, like, um, George Bush, Karl Rove kind of conservative. He's almost
00:25:19.020 this new generation of what some people call more of a, like a populist pro labor conservative. And I
00:25:25.780 just wonder what you think about that. Do you agree with that characterization? Do you think this
00:25:29.800 is a shift? Well, I think you can be, I think you can be pro labor without being, uh, pro union boss.
00:25:38.860 And we'll talk about that because one of those bosses spoke, spoke last night. Um, but I do think
00:25:44.960 that it's a different, you know, I think every generation has their, has their view, every
00:25:50.880 Republican generation, every Democrat generation, and I'm talking mainstream. Okay. Cause I consider
00:25:56.080 J.D. Vance mainstream, but there may be a new mainstream. And I think that's okay. I think
00:26:01.460 you have to realize that we have to, we had, our party had to figure out how we were going to get
00:26:08.200 the worker with us. You know, the Republican party always had the country club people and we always
00:26:13.120 had the evangelicals for the most part, a couple of actions they didn't do as well, but we didn't
00:26:18.340 really ever have the everyday worker, the waitress, the truck driver, the person that worked in the
00:26:24.180 factory, things like that. And those really are what built America. Right. I mean, a lot of the
00:26:29.200 people, a lot of the greatest generation that came out of world war II, some of them went to college,
00:26:34.400 but some of them went right into those jobs. And we, as a party jumped on this, everybody needs to go
00:26:40.280 to college. Right. And we, in a sense, by doing that, we downplayed those other things. And I see us
00:26:46.220 going back to that and I'll credit Donald Trump for a lot of that. So a man who's probably never worked
00:26:52.060 in a labor job, although he has had a lot of those people working for him and he's been on site and
00:26:58.040 all that. It's so funny that he is the one who kind of makes the rest of us think about that again.
00:27:04.000 And I think that's one of the reasons he picked JD. The other reason he picked JD Vance, I believe,
00:27:09.080 is because he wanted the people to see that if something did happen to him, that we have a strong
00:27:16.420 person there backing him up. And there won't be any doubt about what he believes. He's got a military
00:27:23.240 history. He is well known. He's well liked. He, he has the look of a leader. He does. I think all of
00:27:30.860 that's important. And I cannot wait for the Kamala Harris, JD Vance debate. That's going to be great
00:27:37.160 TV. Gosh, that is not, that's going to be maybe as painful to watch as Trump and Biden. That is like,
00:27:45.200 oh, that, that contrast there. I actually saw this delusional left-wing journalist. I don't know if
00:27:50.880 she still writes for the Washington Post. Her name is Jennifer Rubin. And she said, oh, you know that
00:27:56.320 after Kamala hears this announcement that she cannot wait for that first debate. It's like a kid in a
00:28:01.840 candy store. I'm like, yeah, if the kid is allergic to candy, that's what it's like. If a kid has a phobia
00:28:08.180 of candy, that is what that is like. It's good. He is going to intellectually demolish Kamala Harris.
00:28:14.380 It's not even going to be fun to watch. Maybe a little, but it'd be fun. It'd be a lot of word
00:28:19.700 salads in there. A lot of word salads from her side, for sure. And you know what? He's young.
00:28:24.340 That's another, that's another part of this is that when you've got two tickets and you've got,
00:28:29.280 now you've got this contrast even more so. I mean, we saw it Biden and Trump after the debate and we
00:28:37.560 thought, oh my gosh, that contrast is insane. But now you've got these iconic photos of a bloody
00:28:42.500 Trump lifting up his fist in front of a blue sky in the American flag saying fight to his supporters
00:28:49.280 as the supporters in the background are saying USA, USA, USA. And then you've got this guy over here
00:28:56.020 who's, who is basically has flies flying in and out of his mouth because he's just looking around
00:29:03.660 mouth agape confused all the time. You have him and you have Kamala Harris and now you have Trump and
00:29:09.200 you have this young fighter in JD Vance. And that's a good point that you made that look,
00:29:15.480 if something happens to Trump, God forbid, like we, I think most of us would be pretty excited about a
00:29:21.460 JD, a JD Vance presidency. Um, and so, yeah, that's, that's a really good point. Uh, we do have a video
00:29:28.700 of him, um, uh, not accepting the nomination because that speech is today, but the nomination
00:29:35.700 announcement at the RNC. So here's top four. The question is on the motion that Senator JD Vance
00:29:42.140 be nominated by acclamation. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed signify by
00:29:51.800 saying no. In the opinion of the chair, the eyes have it and the motion is adopted without objection.
00:29:58.080 The motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. I thought that was just really sweet. Um, okay.
00:30:04.980 We've also got JD Vance explaining the call in which Trump tells him or asks him to be his VP running
00:30:10.800 mate. Here's top five. When the president called me today to actually formally offer me to become,
00:30:15.920 you know, the vice presidential nominee, which just sounds crazy. Um, my son, my seven-year-old son
00:30:20.880 was sort of making noise in the background. You know, I'm getting so embarrassed. It's like,
00:30:24.020 oh my God, Donald Trump's asking me to be vice president. So the phone rings, he calls you and
00:30:27.980 you're like, okay, this is the call or maybe not the call, or maybe it's a bad call, right? It's
00:30:32.520 the call who knows whether it's good or bad, but then he actually has me put my seven-year-old son
00:30:37.560 on the phone. You think about this, everything that's happened, the guy just got shot at a couple
00:30:42.280 of days ago and he takes the time to talk to my seven-year-old. It's a moment I'll never forget.
00:30:46.300 Dad, your take on that? Oh my gosh. I actually watched that last night. I was watching it on
00:30:52.580 our, mom and I were watching it on our phone in the Admiral's Club where we're waiting for our next
00:30:56.440 flight to come home. It was, it was incredible. And it doesn't, of the other stories I've heard
00:31:01.820 individually about President Trump, it doesn't surprise me at all that he asked to have the
00:31:07.600 little boy get on the phone. And, um, yeah, I watched that whole interview. It's something you
00:31:12.580 said a few minutes ago about how, uh, Vance had been anti-Trump. Sean asked him that question.
00:31:19.720 Hannity asked him about that. And he handled that really, really well. What he, what he basically
00:31:25.480 said was that, Hey, you know what? I didn't know him as well. Uh, you know, I had also been sucked
00:31:32.780 into what the media was saying about him. And once, once I learned who he was and got to know him
00:31:39.580 over the last few years, I admit I was wrong and I changed my mind on him. And I thought that was
00:31:45.720 pretty, most people don't do that. You know, people are forgiving people. Americans are
00:31:50.460 forgiving people. If you'll just admit it when you're wrong and then, you know, move in the
00:31:55.440 correct direction, people understand that nobody expects someone to be perfect.
00:31:59.720 Yeah. And yeah, I, I agree with that. And I think as long as he's honest about that and he just said,
00:32:04.460 look, I changed my mind and he doesn't try to deny it or lie about it. Like I'm, I'm cool with that.
00:32:09.480 I'm fine with that. And I also think it's fine to have criticisms of president Trump,
00:32:14.400 but I'm telling you, this is another sign of a different Donald Trump. This is another sign.
00:32:19.140 In addition to his countenance at the debate. And even, even last night, in some ways,
00:32:24.440 I think the Donald Trump that prizes, which there's nothing wrong with pricing loyalty,
00:32:29.520 but the unforgiving grudge holding Donald Trump that we've seen come through a few times over the
00:32:35.600 years. Like, I think that he has laid a lot of pride down because to select, I know he just wants
00:32:40.780 to win, but to select a VP that at one point called himself publicly and never Trumper,
00:32:46.340 I think Trump has a different perspective. And I think that's good that he's seen that this is
00:32:50.560 bigger than him. And that's what, that's what I hope for. That's what we need. Don't you think?
00:32:54.780 Oh yeah. And, and, and I forget whether who, who, I think it may have been handy in the same
00:32:59.820 interview said, well, you know, I asked Donald Trump about this. I said, you know, uh, this is
00:33:05.500 Hannity talking. I think it was Hannity, uh, that said, well, you know, he was a never Trumper and he
00:33:10.480 said these things about you. And evidently president Trump response was, well, he doesn't think that
00:33:17.500 anymore. Does he? I mean, that's the perfect response. Yeah. You know, he could have, and
00:33:22.740 I think the old Donald Trump would have gone off for three minutes about that. Right. Yeah. But
00:33:27.340 that's what he said. So, you know what, that's praise God. I just hope that God is working in
00:33:32.620 Donald Trump's heart because we need that. We do, we are at the turning point as a country. We do need
00:33:37.900 that strong leadership. I am interested to hear what you think about. We talked about this yesterday,
00:33:42.560 how Axios is reporting that top house Democrats are saying we've resigned ourselves to
00:33:47.400 a Trump presidency. I know that we've got a long way to go until November, but as things stand right
00:33:52.660 now with this momentum that president Trump has, like, what are, what are you thinking about this
00:33:58.440 election? What do you think that the Democrats are thinking? What's going on? I think pretty soon
00:34:05.000 once the whole assassination thing goes over and we get back to a quote unquote normal news cycle
00:34:10.580 that obviously the attacks will heat back up. Okay. But I also think that the down ticket
00:34:17.340 Democrats are going to be the ones and maybe not publicly, but they're going to be the strongest
00:34:23.300 voices about having someone else on their ticket. Now, ultimately, honestly, Ali, I'm not sure that's
00:34:30.160 going to happen. I used to think that, yeah, it's probably going to happen. They're going to force him
00:34:34.140 out and what have you, but I don't know that that's going to happen. I, you know, I think he and his
00:34:39.700 family are so committed to this and it's very hard to give up power, right? Power gained is rarely
00:34:45.940 freely given up. And so I worry about that a little bit from a selfish standpoint. I hope he does stay
00:34:54.720 in because I think that's the best contrast that you can have because he's running on, he has to run
00:34:59.780 on his record and we can point his record and anybody else they put in is going to say, hey, that
00:35:04.520 wasn't me. I would do things somewhat differently, even though I love President Biden. And, but I don't,
00:35:11.020 again, again, as I've said, every time we've talked, no matter what happens so far in, in, in across the
00:35:19.080 country polling, it still stays kind of within the margin of error. Yeah. Now the good part is,
00:35:25.260 is in the, in the, in the, in the state, the battleground states that, that it looks like those
00:35:32.520 leads continue to be more and more for Donald Trump. And that's the main thing, honestly,
00:35:36.800 making sure that, that he wins the Wisconsin to making sure he, you know, continue and he wins
00:35:43.040 Georgia back, keeps North Carolina. Maybe he can win Virginia, Arizona, for sure. Nevada. We need
00:35:50.060 those states might even need Pennsylvania. Although as a stretch, what we have to worry about for the
00:35:57.020 next four months and what I want your viewers and listeners and their local areas to pay attention
00:36:02.220 to please is what's going on with your local election officials. I didn't say elected officials,
00:36:09.180 the people in your County or in your city, however they do it that run the elections. Okay. What,
00:36:15.340 what are the things, what are the little things that they may, may be doing that you need to be
00:36:19.460 paying attention to? How do they find that out? How do people find that out? Well, what they need to do
00:36:24.600 is they need, they need to get on their website for their local election official and kind of see how
00:36:29.220 they're talking about what are their, they need to know what are your get out the vote efforts.
00:36:33.220 Cause you know, basically Biden has added to his campaign, in my opinion, all of the federal
00:36:39.060 agencies to work with local officials on getting the vote out. And that seems okay. Yeah. Everybody
00:36:45.280 should vote. But from what I've heard so far is that like the small business administration,
00:36:52.180 they're not reaching out to red counties to help them. They're only reaching out to blue counties.
00:36:57.420 So if you, if you live in a red County or a purple County, I want to know what the election
00:37:03.700 administrator in your area, what their get out the vote efforts are and where are they getting help
00:37:09.020 from the, through the different federal agencies. That's what I would want to know. Because if there's
00:37:13.680 any way that Donald Trump, in my opinion, unless something large again happens on the negative side,
00:37:18.240 will lose this race is if they can figure out how to once again, skirt the law. I didn't say
00:37:24.280 they're breaking the law, skirting the law to get out more of, uh, more blue voters than red voters.
00:37:31.940 That's how that they could still win. Do not think this race is over because it is not over. They
00:37:36.540 will not go gently into the night. No, of course not. And of course they're going to try to use,
00:37:42.580 which they would have done this for anyone, but J.D. Vance as new fodder. He's a traditional
00:37:47.560 Catholic guy. His wife is actually, uh, his wife is actually Hindu, but I assume that they have,
00:37:53.640 uh, the same values and, and the same beliefs, but they're going to try to cast his entire family
00:37:59.640 as radical, far right Catholics. Um, and so it'll be, it'll be interesting to see how they use J.D.
00:38:08.740 Vance and his past comments about things like abortion against him.
00:38:17.560 Last night, CNN's Van Jones, who sometimes is reasonable and sometimes is completely irrational.
00:38:31.180 Here's how he describes the threat of J.D. Vance at Sot9.
00:38:35.200 Trump, to your point, I agree with you. He, he's an instinctive, impulsive, intuitive nationalist.
00:38:42.280 J.D. Vance is an ideological nationalist. That's a much more dangerous virus because he can make
00:38:49.260 this, he can polish this stuff and make it seem palatable to people. He can sell this stuff to
00:38:54.640 Silicon Valley. He can sell this stuff other places. And what it does is it locks the Republican
00:38:59.180 Party on a pathway that I think is dangerous for the world. This pick is a horror on the world stage.
00:39:06.140 So J.D. Vance matters because he, uh, Donald Trump is pointing the Republican Party in a very scary
00:39:11.120 direction for the longterm. Okay, dad. So right after the Republican nominee gets almost assassinated,
00:39:17.620 we have Van Jones on CNN saying that Vance, or if I just want to be as generous as possible,
00:39:23.740 his ideology is a dangerous virus, a threat to the country, a horror on the world stage,
00:39:29.740 because apparently he has scary nationalistic beliefs of virus, dad.
00:39:35.760 Well, when they say virus, when they say nationalist, they're saying Nazi. That's their term for Nazi.
00:39:42.880 I'm telling you. That's their signal.
00:39:44.260 That's what they're, that's what they're telling their people and trying to tell independence and
00:39:48.640 what have you. And you know, when they say virus, they're saying something that can control other
00:39:55.600 people without other people helping it. Right. That's what they're saying. Right. That where they
00:40:00.620 say in like, he's going to take advantage of all these people because he's so, you know, he can,
00:40:05.640 he can speak out there. He, you know, he, he, he ideologically, they know that he, when, when you look
00:40:12.520 at him, he looks like a leader. I mean, he just looks like a leader. Now, obviously he's got to follow
00:40:17.660 through on it, but a lot of people, a lot of voters are surface voters, right? How he sounds,
00:40:22.520 how he looks, that'll do it. Yeah. Yeah. They are trying to moderate. It seems like the Republican
00:40:29.860 party right now is trying to capture some of those independent voters and those blue collar voters who
00:40:36.520 might be more moderate than, you know, you and I are on things like abortion. And we've already heard,
00:40:44.440 and we've talked about what Donald Trump said at the debate. He said several times he wants a
00:40:49.280 compromise on abortion. He said before 16 weeks, he says, you know, you just kind of have to follow
00:40:54.760 your heart. We believe in these exceptions. Now, J.D. Vance in the past as a Catholic, I believe has
00:41:01.240 made statements that are very completely pro-life anti-abortion. But he recently said in an interview
00:41:09.920 on MSNBC that he actually believes in the legal availability of mifepristone, which is one of the
00:41:15.720 abortion pills, which I think is horrible. And then last night when he was talking to Hannity,
00:41:21.520 I did actually see this kind of misconstrued by some conservatives. He repeated what Donald Trump
00:41:27.100 said about following your heart when it comes to abortion. But actually, J.D. Vance was not saying
00:41:31.720 that himself. He was saying that that's what Trump said, and Trump is the nominee. And, you know,
00:41:38.180 this is where I have to fall in line now, kind of, is what I heard him say.
00:41:44.540 I know that's disappointing for pro-lifers. I would love a more pro-life ticket. I want
00:41:49.780 us to be completely anti-abortion. I also understand that this is the only ticket that we have
00:41:56.540 that represents people that can be pushed and prayed toward life, toward protecting babies,
00:42:03.180 towards wins in that direction. What's your take on that?
00:42:07.420 Well, here's my take. My take is this ticket's not going to do anything to make abortion easier,
00:42:12.680 100%. And I also believe that what the party is doing, and yeah, I'd like to wave my magic wand as
00:42:20.780 well, but I learned when I was in office that doesn't work like that, is that they're doing what
00:42:25.340 we asked them to do as pro-lifers, okay? We asked them to overturn Roe v. Wade. That has been done.
00:42:32.220 When you overturn Roe v. Wade, it comes back to the states. We had never prior to that in a
00:42:38.560 organized movement said we want a national band, okay? Although we probably did. That's never been
00:42:44.400 a huge policy thing. I think it's very good to discuss that going forward. No question about it.
00:42:50.320 That would be my preference. However, it is back in the states where the laboratory exists,
00:42:56.540 and hopefully what will come out of that is a potential policy either that Congress adopts or
00:43:04.160 there's another court case that solidifies it nationwide pertaining to that, and all the way
00:43:10.700 down to an embryo, right, that you and I would call an embryo. We believe that's a life. There are a lot
00:43:17.200 of people that don't believe that, but I think they're going to stick with the fact that that's back in the
00:43:23.000 state's hand. JD might end up saying if he comes back on your show, which I hope he will, saying
00:43:27.520 that, hey, Allie, I am a pro-lifer. I believe in life at conception, all right? And if I have the
00:43:33.480 opportunity to help promote that, I will do that. However, at this current time, it is in the hands of
00:43:40.200 the states to do that, and I will promise to you that I won't support anything within our executive
00:43:46.320 authority that will enhance the ability for someone to get an abortion. Yeah. Well, we'll see about
00:43:54.840 that. Obviously, we want as many wins as possible toward life so we can save as many wins. Yeah, and I
00:44:00.180 was, you know, I'm sorry, Alex, for interrupting, but one of the things I wanted to visit on for just
00:44:04.880 a minute is this RNC platform committee. I think people need to understand that. Every state puts two
00:44:11.580 people on that platform committee, and they're elected by their own national committee people
00:44:17.240 and the other delegates. So it's a huge committee. They've been working for a while. They don't just
00:44:21.560 come together and do it, you know, on Monday, right? And what I would like to see is, and I
00:44:27.500 haven't talked to him yet, and I know you've probably talked to him in the past, is David Barton
00:44:31.700 is one of our people from Texas on that committee. I would love to know how that conversation went.
00:44:38.500 I think that would be really interesting, and maybe it's an opportunity sometime to reach out to him
00:44:45.880 and have him come on your show and talk about it. But I, because David, you and I both know, is a
00:44:50.300 very strong pro-lifer and a very strong Christian man, and I believe that he believes the way you and
00:44:57.080 I do. But I was, I was interested to see that he was one of our, one of the Texas two platform
00:45:03.420 committee members. Yeah, we actually haven't talked about the change yet. We just haven't,
00:45:09.000 haven't been able to, and why so many people are frustrated by this. So I'll give a little bit of
00:45:15.080 a summary. Delegates at the Republican National Convention approved a new party platform that
00:45:20.820 softens the party's language on both abortion and marriage. Last week, the platform was quickly
00:45:26.120 pushed through the RNC platform committee on July 8th, marking a shift in the party's stance to
00:45:32.400 more closely align with the views of former President Trump and leaving staunch pro-life
00:45:38.060 Christians excluded from the process. Some people are mentioning that the 2016 RNC platform mentions
00:45:46.060 God 15 times. The 2024 RNC platform draft mentions God just two times. Most notable to Christian
00:45:53.640 conservatives, the new platform dropped language from the 2020 platform that defined marriage as
00:45:59.380 the union between one man and one woman and called for strong protections for the unborn.
00:46:04.260 The new platform still includes language that links abortion to the 14th amendment, but it emphasizes
00:46:09.480 leaving the issues to the states. And now I will just say, because I just heard, heard this explained
00:46:15.120 when I was with our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom last week, that that's actually very
00:46:19.960 nonsensical. This is coming from attorneys who understand this much better than I do. But you
00:46:25.140 can't say that this is a 14th amendment issue and that it goes to the states. The 14th amendment
00:46:30.640 issue was created post-slavery to recognize the dignity and the need for protection of all people,
00:46:39.500 that they can't be subjugated through slavery. So you can't say that abortion is a 14th amendment
00:46:44.360 issue and that it goes to the states because those things are actually incongruent. But again,
00:46:50.400 talking to my friends, hang on, talking to my friends at ADF, they were, a lot of them were not
00:46:56.900 included in this process. Now you would think some of the most prominent pro-life attorneys who have
00:47:04.500 argued before the Supreme Court on the issue of religious liberty and free speech, that they would
00:47:10.000 have been included in this to make sure that legally it makes sense. But this new RNC platform, when it
00:47:15.540 comes to life, it literally doesn't make any sense. And I want to know why the best and smartest pro-lifers
00:47:24.200 were excluded from this process. Well, I don't know that. That's a good question. What we need to do,
00:47:31.320 though, is find out who was included in the process, right? But I do think, Allie, I'll push back a little
00:47:38.500 bit. The 14th Amendment, right now it is in the state's hands. I think one of the reasons, if I
00:47:45.540 want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt that they use the 14th Amendment, because that sets up
00:47:51.040 another court case, right? That the 14th Amendment allows you, okay, assuming that we follow that line,
00:47:58.200 allows that to be brought up in the federal court and allows that to get to the Supreme Court, right?
00:48:03.180 Right. There will be a question, is a whatever, whether it's an embryo or whether it's a six
00:48:10.580 heartbeat, whatever, is that a human? And therefore, are they granted the same protections as we granted
00:48:17.720 everyone in the 14th Amendment? That is going to happen. I don't know if it will happen in my lifetime,
00:48:23.600 certainly going to happen in your lifetime, that the Supreme Court will be forced to deal with that,
00:48:28.640 because you're right. That is a human right in itself. They're going to have to decide,
00:48:34.200 is it a human right to life versus a state right to regulate? Exactly. Exactly. I think that may be
00:48:42.800 why that some of our friends may have got that inserted. I don't know. ADF should have been
00:48:48.380 involved in that. I don't know the other groups that you talk to a lot. I mean, you talk to as many
00:48:53.720 pro-life groups as anybody. That's a great question, and I think we need to find that out.
00:48:59.420 Lila Rose, she's also one of the most prominent pro-life activists.
00:49:02.820 Why can't they call you? They should have called you.
00:49:04.420 They should have called me. I can guarantee you it wouldn't have looked as goofy as this. But
00:49:09.360 yeah, obviously, I don't agree with that. I don't agree with—it's one thing to not want to
00:49:17.120 campaign on the issue of restoring the natural definition of marriage between a man and a woman.
00:49:24.660 I understand that's not even really where Donald Trump is. But to drop it from the platform, I saw,
00:49:30.960 for example, Log Cabin Republicans. They are an LGBTQ Republican group. They celebrated this change in
00:49:38.620 the party platform that was approved of yesterday. And now this is a group that says that marriage
00:49:44.300 between one man and one woman that that's antiquated language, that that's an old concept that doesn't
00:49:49.840 need to be championed. It basically doesn't have a place in our political language. But look,
00:49:54.580 whether someone agrees with me on this or not, the family—husband, wife, mom, dad, child—is the
00:50:02.500 building block of any free and stable society. It is the most—outside of the church—is the most
00:50:08.480 stabilizing force in all of human existence. And for us, as the faith and family party,
00:50:16.720 to completely abandon that out of our platform, I don't like that. That shift worries me a lot.
00:50:23.860 Yeah, well, there's a lot of things that are legal that aren't best, right? The traditional family,
00:50:28.640 the study—all the studies show, and they'll continue to show that that's where the children
00:50:34.060 have the best opportunity to succeed. That doesn't mean that a gay marriage isn't civilly—is not
00:50:43.720 legal from a civil law standpoint. That doesn't mean that we as a party should say that that's equal,
00:50:51.980 right? Because it's not equal. We know that traditional family units or the nuclear family,
00:50:57.680 whatever people want to call it, are absolutely the most successful families out there.
00:51:02.840 Yeah. I like to say natural family because someone pointed out to me that traditional family means
00:51:09.540 that it's rooted in tradition, and it's not even rooted in tradition. It's rooted in nature. But
00:51:15.540 anyway, so that was disappointing to me. You know, I think there are all kinds of speakers that they
00:51:22.340 allow to speak. There were a couple of speakers that caused a controversy last night. There was
00:51:28.320 an adult performer named Amber Rose. Oh, my goodness. Who is that, by the way?
00:51:33.660 She is an adult performer, and she's not someone who used to be one and then, you know, reformed. She
00:51:40.300 still is currently. And she is pro-abortion. Just recently, she was on a podcast where she said that
00:51:47.400 she actually really relates to and respects Satanism as a religion because Satanism helps women
00:51:54.180 get abortions. She became famous because of her very public relationships with multiple rappers.
00:52:01.180 But she recently said that she's voting for Donald Trump. Look, I'm happy to have her vote. I'm happy
00:52:06.500 to have the votes of other people like her. I'm not saying that we should gatekeep and say you can only
00:52:10.980 be one way to vote Republican. But do we need a person like that speaking at the RNC?
00:52:15.920 Oh, gosh. I think there are a lot of other ways that the Trump campaign could have utilized her
00:52:21.600 to speak to what certain segments that she most appeals to. But the people that were watching
00:52:28.060 that last night, the RNC convention were, well, most of them would be like me, just from a knowledge
00:52:34.680 standpoint, did not know who she was. Yeah. Okay. And I think a lot of your audience probably didn't
00:52:39.140 know who she was unless you've talked about it before. And so what value was that bringing? I mean,
00:52:45.080 she was a woman of color. So, you know, talk about that. Well, I think she, well, she looked like it.
00:52:50.160 I don't know. I watched this. I watched part of the speech, but I could be wrong on that.
00:52:53.280 She was a woman of spray tan, I think. Okay. Well, that may be true. Okay. Well,
00:52:57.640 spray tan could be a woman of color. Yeah. A color. Yeah, for sure. Nothing against spray tans.
00:53:02.300 And look, I, like I, anyone can be redeemed, of course. And I would be happy to befriend this person
00:53:09.420 and talk with her. And I hope that Christ saves her. It's not about that, but it's about, okay,
00:53:14.300 what is, what is our platform? Who are our best representatives? And I'm curious because you
00:53:20.560 mentioned this earlier. So I wanted to bring it back to that. What did you think about the head
00:53:23.980 of Teamsters, who is the biggest labor union, I think, in the country? He gave a long speech,
00:53:28.860 which I personally found very boring. What do you think about that, hoisting him up as a big part of
00:53:36.060 the Republican party now? John O'Brien is his name. So he's, he is a good Irish person. It sounds like to me.
00:53:42.860 Yeah. And he did that with great risk, by the way, because those positions are elected. He's elected
00:53:48.840 to be head of the Teamsters union. And so that's a pretty big risk. But I think what he has seen
00:53:54.080 is just the same thing that we kind of talked about in Hillbilly Elegy on a little bit more
00:53:59.820 formalized basis in that the people that are Teamsters feel like they are getting the short end
00:54:06.240 of the stick as well with all of the new, you know, unnecessary regulations on, on oil and gas
00:54:12.100 drilling that might, that might, you know, run the ships of where they work on the docks or, or either
00:54:17.020 the trucks that they drive or whatever particular profession that they're in, the environmental
00:54:22.040 regulations. So I, I think he sees his organization being totally counted on by the Democrats, but not
00:54:29.980 necessarily served well by their policies. And I think that, that probably, uh, just from a bigger
00:54:38.620 standpoint, that might be the most important person that got, gets on the stage at the RNC
00:54:43.580 convention. Yeah, that's interesting. So you think it was an important pick for him, for them to pick
00:54:49.920 him to speak? Oh, there's no question about that. That's never happened. Well, at least in a long time
00:54:55.640 that I remember where they've had a head of a major union. Yeah. All right. Speak. Now the auto
00:55:00.160 workers haven't come along yet. Right. Yeah. But to have somebody like that, it's, that's pretty
00:55:05.420 impressive. And again, he got a standing ovation too. So it might've not been for me. I might not
00:55:10.820 have been the target audience, but he got a standing o'clock at the convention. Yeah, that's correct.
00:55:15.340 Well, you'd get a standing o'clock if you were there too. Yeah. Well, I don't, I don't know. It depends on,
00:55:19.980 depends on what I, what I said. This was a very contentious moment. The second benediction of the
00:55:37.460 night at the RNC was Republican leader Harmeet Dhillon. She is Sikh. She is an immigrant from
00:55:42.860 India. And let me just say like Harmeet is awesome. She is awesome. She is an attorney. She
00:55:49.740 represents a lot of people fighting for their right to free speech, their right to religious
00:55:55.120 liberty. She has represented a lot of people and she is a stalwart conservative. And I think
00:56:01.980 she would have been a really good pick for an RNC chair. A lot of people took issue with her
00:56:08.580 benediction last night and the prayer that she prayed. And here it is. It's sat three.
00:56:19.740 Sadakur Bani. Dear Waheguru, our one true God, we thank you for creating America as a unique
00:56:28.260 haven on this earth where all people are free to worship according to their faith. We seek
00:56:34.000 your blessings and guidance for our beloved country. Okay. So what people took issue with
00:56:40.060 was when she said Waheguru, our one true God, and then went into talking about how this one true
00:56:47.320 God is the creator. And I saw her going back and forth with people on Twitter saying, you
00:56:51.620 know, I love you, but I just wasn't on board with that. What she might not realize is that
00:56:58.440 because she kept on going back and forth saying, well, we do just have one God, but that's of
00:57:02.260 course not how Christians see things. We believe in the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
00:57:07.380 which is not the same thing as the Muslim God. It's not the same thing as the Sikh God.
00:57:10.960 So some people took issue with this, but I'm curious in the past at these conventions,
00:57:17.340 do they typically have representations of people of lots of different faiths, or is this kind of new?
00:57:23.120 What would have people said if the second guy would have been a Jewish rabbi?
00:57:27.820 Nothing.
00:57:28.840 Most people, probably nothing.
00:57:30.820 Nothing. Okay. And listen, I don't agree with her either. And I didn't like that. I had to look
00:57:35.500 what that word was. I didn't know what that word was. But, you know, the Jewish people would say
00:57:41.420 the same thing. We serve one God, you know, just like you Christians do. So, you know,
00:57:48.480 it's a secular. The RNC Republican National Committee is a secular committee, right? And they
00:57:54.800 have to be able to say that we include people of all faiths, right? We may disagree with them on that
00:58:01.900 particular issue, but we have to be like Ronald Reagan. What our goal is, it's not the RNC's
00:58:06.820 goal to convert somebody to Christianity. That's not their goal. And a lot of our fellow Christians
00:58:14.280 believe that is their goal. At least that's the way they act. That's mine and your goal.
00:58:19.140 That's who we are. That's what we're supposed to do individually with people, right? And our churches
00:58:24.260 are supposed to do. That's not the RNC's job. Now, if we don't like the way they're doing it,
00:58:28.720 yeah, we can vote differently and try to get that changed. But I wouldn't be overly critical. Now,
00:58:34.420 if that would have been the only prayer prayed all night, maybe differently. But I wouldn't get
00:58:40.260 too out of whack on that one. Yeah. And Christians, just remember, like,
00:58:44.760 we get to bring our full worldview into the voting booth, into the RNC, into every sphere that we occupy.
00:58:53.260 We get to represent the gospel. We get to represent the true, only true God, the triune God in everything
00:59:00.680 we do. Like, we get to bring that to the table, even though there are people who say that we're
00:59:06.120 not. And so, like, if we want to infuse light and truth into all these spheres, like, we are also free
00:59:13.080 to do that. Thank the Lord. Now, you could say that some of those people got cut out when it comes to
00:59:17.480 changing the party platform. But, you know, like, we do what we can. For example, there was a petition
00:59:23.320 going around and there were a lot of prominent pro-life leaders, including Al Mohler, Lila Rose,
00:59:29.480 me, Tony Perkins. And we signed a petition basically asking the RNC, like, please re-evaluate this life
00:59:36.920 language that you have included. Now, we were not heated. We were not listened to. But we all have to do
00:59:42.100 what we can to raise our voices and to leverage our influence on behalf of the values and the beliefs
00:59:48.400 that we have. And here's what I would say to that, Allie. I see this happened a lot, is that
00:59:54.260 if we want that to change in 28, we need to start working on that today. We can't start working on that
01:00:03.500 in May of 28. We have to start working on that today. And it can be a slow and gradual change. But we
01:00:10.880 need a game plan. And maybe Perkins is the guy to help us put that together. He's just put together,
01:00:16.140 you know, a group of people like Lila, like yourself, like others. And let's see, how can we
01:00:20.040 do this? And we do that by, you know, meeting with the Republican leaders individually over time. No
01:00:26.180 threats. We meet with them over time. Why is this important? We have to convince them. We don't
01:00:30.100 threaten them. We have to convince them. Okay. And so I think that's what we need to do for sure.
01:00:38.540 Okay. Let's end on this question that I heard posed last week by someone very, very intellectual
01:00:46.460 and very good question. Okay. On the one hand, because, and you might, I don't know if you're
01:00:53.620 thinking this way, but there are a lot of Christians out there thinking this way when
01:00:56.560 they're looking at these two tickets. And on the one hand, they're looking at the changes to the
01:01:02.100 party platform and they don't feel as represented as they would like to, which I completely understand
01:01:08.640 that. But they're better than Biden, right? They're better than Biden. They're thinking that.
01:01:14.560 But how do you decide between, okay, I always have to vote for the person that's better than the
01:01:20.340 pro-abortion candidate over here. Or when do you start thinking, hang on, are Christians just like
01:01:27.920 the cheap date of the Republican party. All you have to do is buy us a couple of drinks and we're
01:01:33.540 still going to go with you. As long as you're not as bad as the left, we'll still vote for you
01:01:39.920 faithfully. You can abandon God in your platform. You can abandon marriage. You can abandon life in
01:01:47.040 your platform. You can not run on these issues. As long as you are just an inch to the right of where
01:01:54.620 the far left is, we're still going to vote for you. At what point do Christians say,
01:01:59.760 I am going to stop rewarding compromise with my vote and I'm no longer going to support this party?
01:02:06.500 Because if you keep on supporting a party that inches towards the left, they're going to keep
01:02:10.300 inching toward the left. So I honestly, I don't have the answer. I'm just wondering,
01:02:14.800 how do you think we think through that? Well, to me, it's really not even that complicated.
01:02:20.540 The way you solve that is you solve that locally and in your primary process. If you want to change
01:02:27.120 the Republican party, you're not going to change it in the general election. You change it by having
01:02:32.800 your local elected officials that are in line with you. Because local elected officials become
01:02:39.260 state elected officials, become federal elected officials. That's the way you change it. You make
01:02:44.080 sure that the people that are your delegates to the RNC convention are people that believe in you.
01:02:49.140 You have to get involved and participate in that. You have to make sure that they know. Even when I
01:02:55.540 say participate, that might be just making sure you're sending emails to the people that let them
01:03:00.460 know that, you know, that, hey, I'm a voter that votes every time. I want to know what you think about
01:03:04.720 these issues. That's where you have to do that. All right. Now, you have to remember when we get to a
01:03:09.680 general election that essentially in the United States, it's a binary choice. So you're always going
01:03:15.580 to either be super excited about, I am voting for this person. Okay. Like a lot of us were that way
01:03:23.540 with Ronald Reagan. I was that way with the Bushes as well. All right. Not so much with McCain, although
01:03:29.800 he certainly was much better than Obama, but McCain was a little bit left of where I wanted to be.
01:03:35.140 And Donald Trump in a lot of ways, it doesn't believe the same things I believe on some social
01:03:40.640 issues, but it's a binary choice. I have to now vote for Donald Trump or I want to vote for Donald
01:03:48.280 Trump, obviously, even though if he was even a little different than he is now, I couldn't vote
01:03:53.600 for Joe Biden. So that's where it comes down to. The worst thing you can do is stay home. Everyone that
01:03:59.660 stays home, that would consider themselves conservative is giving one half of a vote to
01:04:04.360 Joe Biden. That's the way it works in a binary system. Yes. Yep. Well, thank you so much, dad,
01:04:10.640 as always, for your calm insight. I really appreciate it. These are crazy times, crazy times.
01:04:17.440 It's going to be really good. And remember, we all need to share the arrows.
01:04:21.580 Yes. That is not, I don't want false advertising. That's not my merchandise.
01:04:25.620 No, I happened to find this shirt somewhere and I thought this is so typical.
01:04:29.120 You happen to. You know, you talk about that for your conference and the folks you talk
01:04:35.320 to sharing the arrows and really sharing the arrows as Christians. Yeah. But like you said
01:04:40.020 yesterday, Allie, there's been a lot of people out there that have been quietly supporting Trump
01:04:45.440 are going to vote for him. We can't be quiet anymore. We can't, we got to stand up and we got
01:04:50.600 to share that arrow with him as well. Yeah. Because he's, look at the risk he's taken. When
01:04:55.160 you read Melania's statement. Yeah. That tells, that's the same statement that, you know, similar
01:05:01.060 statement that Lisa, my wife would have written that, you know, Timothy would have written if
01:05:05.580 you were in that situation. I mean, that's, that's the way families feel. Yeah. And so there
01:05:10.360 is a huge sacrifice to put yourself out like that. And we need to be there to support whomever
01:05:16.780 that is that we support. Yes. And amen. Well, thanks so much, dad. I really appreciate
01:05:20.980 it. Until next time. Okay. Take care. Bye.