In this episode of Relatable, I talk about how I got into the conservative media industry, why I left corporate media, and why I don t want to be a part of it anymore. I also talk about the new rules allowing podcasters, social media influencers, and independent journalists into the White House press briefing room.
00:00:57.940But one of the things that she said that was maybe most exciting, at least for me, was her announcement that they will be allowing podcasters and social media influencers and independent journalists into the press room, into these press conferences.
00:01:19.580Now, I'm not excited because I am going to be there.
00:01:24.180I am just excited for this shift in authority in the media that we no longer, and this has been this way for a while, but I think it really accelerated during the election.
00:01:37.200We no longer have to rely on the mainstream media, the corporate media for our information.
00:01:44.320For a while, it was like, yeah, a lot of people are getting commentary from podcasts and blogs and different sources, but we have to get our official news and our political news from the mainstream.
00:01:56.500But now it's not even like that anymore.
00:01:59.080X has really changed the game, but also the landscape has just changed so much.
00:02:03.520People always ask me, did you always know that you wanted to do what you're doing?
00:02:07.780And in a way, the answer is yes, in that I've always loved communicating.
00:02:13.900I talk about that moment when I gave the commencement address at my college graduation, and I had this what felt like this out-of-body experience where I was saying my speech, and I was looking at the crowd, and I just felt a resounding yes.
00:02:27.060This is professionally what I want to do with my life, but I had no idea what conservative media would look like.
00:02:35.460I knew I cared about politics and culture.
00:02:37.320I knew I cared about theology and somehow wetting those things, but at the time, I had no picture of what that could look like.
00:02:45.200The only idea I had of going into conservative media was maybe talk radio, but mostly, like, the precipice would be Fox News.
00:02:54.440And I didn't study broadcast, and I had no connections in that world, and I had no idea how on earth I would make my way into that realm knowing how competitive it was and that you really did need to get your foot in the door, like, right away.
00:03:12.180I mean, from an early age, I would say early high school is probably when I started watching her regularly on Fox News, and I just thought and still think that she's amazing.
00:03:23.360And I knew I wanted to do something like that, but gosh, the world just opened up so much around the time that I started doing what I do in a different way.
00:03:33.460I first, most of you know my story, but I started talking to sororities when I was working full-time in PR, but I just thought, I just want to public speak so much.
00:03:47.060I started reaching out to sorority chapters because I lived in a college town, and I gave them this presentation about why they need to vote in the election.
00:03:54.960I started a blog called The Conservative Millennial talking about culture and politics from a conservative Christian perspective, and then I posted on Facebook, and that kind of grew.
00:04:06.080I got connected with The Blaze in 2017 through a series of really cool and providential connections, and then I started this in 2018, and I no longer have any aspirations to be a part of corporate media because you don't have to be in order to have influence.
00:04:24.140Honestly, I have way more freedom and way more flexibility and autonomy to talk about whatever I want to talk about from whatever perspective I have than I would if I were a part of corporate media.
00:04:37.600I'm just so thankful for how this landscape has changed.
00:04:42.340We bemoan a lot of the changes in media, but really, the democratization of the media has been, in general, a really good thing.
00:04:52.700I remember learning in college, actually, in one of my communications classes, a professor who I really loved, and I think he was right at the time, but he said, you know, if you put a sign on the window of, like, your apartment, more people would probably see that sign than if you started a blog and started posting.
00:05:15.060Because there are so many people, not just so many people on the internet, but so much content on the internet, and it's so oversaturated.
00:05:22.340And that was one of the challenges, he said, with people trying to become the media themselves and then the lack of, you know, uniform accountability and fact checkers and things like that.
00:05:34.000But, of course, that's exactly what's happened, is the democratization of the media.
00:05:38.940And like I said, I think it has been a huge net positive, and I'm just grateful that I've gotten to play a small part of that and that the White House now recognizes that, that is going to change the game.
00:05:49.700Now, do I want Relatable to be represented in the press room one day?
00:05:54.680But honestly, I would be just really happy if any of my independent colleagues or colleagues at Blaze TV get to be in that room.
00:06:03.020Like, I would feel like I am represented if I have someone who is socially conservative, conservative in other ways, a Christian in that room asking the questions that concern us.
00:06:14.500But, of course, I would love to be in there and represent the Related Bros and the Related Gals.
00:06:19.060I mean, the conservative suburban mom, we're a huge demographic, and we're a very powerful demographic.
00:06:26.700And the conservative suburban mom girlies are all watching Relatable.
00:08:37.420I feel like I just had a large cold brew and I am ready to go and win and win and win and win.
00:08:44.840And one of the wins that we just saw yesterday was from none other than President Trump.
00:08:51.000He signed an executive order protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation occurring under the guise of so-called transgender care.
00:09:02.380In his executive order, President Trump called the practice a, quote, dangerous trend that will be a stain on our nation's history.
00:09:10.540So chemical, that includes cross-sex hormones and the puberty blockers that are rendering young people infertile across the country because they are deceived about their gender.
00:09:24.080So here's what he posted on Truth Social.
00:09:27.880Today, it was my great honor to sign an executive order banning the chemical castration and medical mutilation of innocent children in the United States of America.
00:09:37.380Our nation will no longer fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support so-called gender affirming care, which was already ruined, which has already ruined far too many precious lives.
00:09:53.080My order directs agencies to use every available means to cut off federal financial participation in institutions which seek to provide these barbaric medical procedures that should have never been allowed to take place.
00:10:07.720Here's what the executive order says, quote,
00:10:11.000Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false, most importantly, false claim that adults can change a child's sex or adults can change anyone's sex.
00:10:27.580But this as child specifically, through a series of irreversible medical interventions, countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding.
00:10:45.460Moreover, these vulnerable youth's medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and tragically sterilization.
00:10:58.500Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called transition of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.
00:11:14.560I just want to tear up. I just want to cry. I mean, praise God. This is such a mercy to our nation.
00:11:23.020Now, we need Congress to get to legislating these executive orders because we don't want to have to rule by executive order because it is very easy for the next president then to just implement his own executive orders when he takes office, and then we're just back and forth, back and forth on that.
00:11:39.720But I just appreciate so much that he's giving us guidance and that he is acting quickly and that we, at the very least, even if Congress won't get their act together, which it's Republican-controlled, like, come on, that we have a reprieve from the wickedness of the last administration, which I will contrast the policies of the last administration to this one and reiterate yet again that the choice for Christians was always really clear.
00:12:03.680Like, you were told it was nuanced and complicated, and oh my gosh, both sides are bad, and even evangelical conservative pastors were telling you that during the election, and so many of us were saying, it's really not that hard.
00:12:15.660Like, it's really not that hard. You've got one lady who believes in the taxpayer-funded transition of men into looking like women, I can't say actually into women, and transferring them into women's prisons.
00:12:30.200Like, she was a part of the administration that, as we will talk about in a minute, actually helped give the guidance for the so-called transitioning of children.
00:12:37.560I mean, you've got an administration, the past administration, who believed in the taxpayer-funded abortion of image-bearers of God through all nine months.
00:12:44.880You had an administration who undermined every effort by border states to protect their own border, who enabled and exacerbated the policies that led to the senseless, preventable murder of Lake and Riley, and then you have Donald Trump, who promises to do the opposite of those things.
00:13:00.400It really was never as complicated and nuanced and difficult as you were told by your pastor.
00:13:09.420It was always really clear. We never said that either side is perfect.
00:13:13.560We never said that Donald Trump is this man of God, this perfect guy that you should emulate.
00:13:19.080We never said that. We just said, look at the policies that are actually going to affect people's lives, and one side is clearly better.
00:13:26.720One side is clearly more in alignment with Scripture.
00:13:30.400With the nature of a God of order who cares about nations and cares about our protection and cares about the most vulnerable and hates the mutilation of children's bodies,
00:13:40.960either through abortion or through so-called gender transition, it really was never that hard.
00:13:47.360And I am just so thankful that Donald Trump, through these executive orders, as we've talked about this week, as we talked about last week,
00:13:55.120that he is proving that he is proving that he is, I think, going above and beyond delivering on the promises that he made on the campaign trail.
00:14:06.000And, you know, I hope that this doesn't sound like I'm taking credit for anything that I shouldn't take credit for because I'm totally not at all.
00:14:19.920But I would like to think that the conversations had on this show, that the bravery of some of the guests that we've had on this show,
00:14:29.480the way that not just I, but all of you in this audience have been willing to share the arrows and to raise a respectful and relentless ruckus about the things that matter on this issue,
00:14:44.900in partnership with so many other people in the media, so many other advocates and activists,
00:14:50.900many who have been doing this for years longer than any of us have, that we also played a role in something like this happening.
00:14:59.380Because when I think about the line in this executive order specifically that talks about children who go through these mutilating procedures
00:15:11.140and then are unable to have children or breastfeed, I think about at least two of the guests that we have had on the show.
00:15:18.820But specifically, I think of Daisy Strongin, who, of course, she has shared her story far beyond this show.
00:15:26.100But I just think about the conversation that I had with her and she transitioned as a young person.
00:15:32.120And she ended up getting the double mastectomy thinking that she would finally, truly be a man through the grace of God.
00:15:41.060And she says through also listening to this podcast, she realized that, no, she is not a man.
00:15:47.200She'll never be a man, that she is a woman, that God created her to be a girl.
00:15:53.360And so she detransitioned and now she has two beautiful children.
00:15:57.920But she shared so transparently on X after she had her daughter, her second child, just the pain and the heartbreak of having to feed her child's formula in the hospital,
00:16:11.160even though she wanted to breastfeed, but she couldn't.
00:16:14.680Because when she was very young and mentally unstable, she was given the option, I believe it was the age of 19.
00:16:22.460So she had already transitioned in other ways, but was able to surgically transition when she was just 19, cut her breasts off, and now she will never be able to breastfeed.
00:16:31.120And we have talked to so many detransitioners on this couch who have made choices, whether as young adults or even as teenagers,
00:16:39.580that have caused irrevocable, irreparable harm to their bodies.
00:16:45.760And I would just like to think that God has used even the conversations here, even the bravery that has been shown by so many of my guests,
00:16:55.420in conjunction with all of the steps of obedience, the words of obedience of other people, both in the public and the private sphere,
00:17:05.660that God has used all of this courage to create a contagion that then built up to an executive order like this.
00:17:15.600And I just want to remind you that God never wastes your boldness in the way of truth,
00:17:23.420that God never wastes your obedience, that God never wastes your courage,
00:17:28.120that time that you spoke up, that time that you pushed back on the preferred pronoun,
00:17:33.160that time that you told the truth to someone who either believed in gender deception or was deceived about their gender themselves,
00:17:40.420that time that you shared the gospel, that time that you refused to bow down or compromise and you stood strong.
00:17:48.420I believe that all of those moments, big and small, private and public, have worked together to help create a moment where there was a demand for an executive order like this.
00:17:59.560And I just want us to recognize how big that is and how God is using an imperfect person.
00:18:06.700We're all imperfect, but like, you know, it's Donald Trump.
00:19:53.400Trump's order also directs agencies to use every available means to cut off federal financial participation in institutions which provide chemical and surgical mutilation of children.
00:20:06.800The DOJ is ordered to prioritize investigations of those who would subject young women from these barbaric acts and to investigate consumer deception and fraud.
00:20:21.320The order sets in motion congressional action to empower detransitioners to receive justice against those who so callously led them down this path.
00:20:31.820And praise God, like that is going to be the thing that ends this is lawfare, just lawfare from these detransitioners who hire lawyers that sue the doctors.
00:20:43.440It needs to be more financially costly for a doctor to perform these surgeries than it is.
00:20:52.880Or, yeah, costly for them to perform these surgeries than it is for them to not support these surgeries.
00:20:59.360Because a lot of this, the doctors that are a part of this, they're not really ideologically supportive of it, but they're not against it either.
00:21:06.760They're just thinking about money, which is evil.
00:21:09.000The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
00:21:14.440It's not money itself, but the love of money, the worship of money, the idolatry of money and power, and also just fear of political blowback.
00:21:26.720Fear that you might get some kind of criticism or pushback.
00:21:32.560It's really all an idolatry of self when you think about it.
00:21:35.820We've got to fear God more than we fear our fellow man.
00:21:39.940And when those things get out of whack, you make really, really bad decisions on a big and a small scale.
00:21:45.820And on a big scale, that's what we're looking at when we're looking at these doctors who consent to making, to doing these awful gender mutilation, genital mutilation surgeries.
00:21:57.120There was this, I just thought of this, so we don't have the video and I don't even think we would play it if we did.
00:22:02.720But I saw this awful video going around.
00:22:04.760And this was literally one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen.
00:22:12.360And there's a lot of troubling, scary, graphic content on X of killing and violence and all kinds of terrible things.
00:22:23.300But this was one of the most disturbing.