Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 05, 2020


Ep 284 | Burning Bibles & the Hypocrisy of the NBA


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour

Words per Minute

171.81393

Word Count

10,331

Sentence Count

635

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

22


Summary

In this episode, we talk about burning books, standing up to the mob, and President Trump's recent interview with Votie Bauckham. I also talk about my book, "You're Not Enough and That's Okay, Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love" and how you can purchase it.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. I hope everyone has had a wonderful week so
00:00:16.060 far. If you have not listened to Monday's episode with Jeff Durbin, I encourage you
00:00:22.680 to do that. We talked about the end times and on Friday, we're going to have part two
00:00:27.560 and I specifically ask him if he thinks that we are in the end times and I think that you'll
00:00:32.660 probably be surprised by his answer. As you guys know, I have a pre-millennialist perspective. He
00:00:38.760 is a post-millennialist perspective. This is not a gospel issue. It is a disagreement that two Bible
00:00:45.240 believing and Jesus loving Christians can have. And so I think that it is very beneficial for you
00:00:51.220 to kind of hear his perspective on that. And the guy just knows so much about scripture and I just
00:00:57.400 always learn a lot from him. So if you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to Monday's
00:01:01.740 episode. Also have gotten so much good feedback on my conversation with Votie Bauckham from Friday.
00:01:10.700 You guys love Votie Bauckham. I've got a lot of Votie Bauckham fangirls in my audience because
00:01:16.900 the feedback, the messages that I received from that conversation were just so encouraging.
00:01:21.940 I know that he has been helpful to so many of you, not just on the issues of race and social
00:01:27.900 justice and things like that, but just giving you the tools to understand why you believe what you
00:01:34.740 believe and defending the inerrancy and the sufficiency of scripture. And of course, the
00:01:41.140 exclusivity and the holiness of the Christian God. So thankful for him and the conversation that we had.
00:01:50.720 Go back and listen to that or watch on YouTube if you haven't already. Today, we're going to talk
00:01:55.100 about burning Bibles and standing up to the mob. But if I have time, I'm also going to talk about a
00:02:00.960 recent interview that President Trump gave and give a little bit of my humble, amateur advice from just
00:02:08.720 a regular old conservative voter for President Trump and Trump's campaign. If we have time, if we don't,
00:02:15.900 then I will get into that next week. Before we actually get into talking about that, I do want
00:02:21.620 to remind you guys that in less than a week from today, so next Tuesday, my book comes out,
00:02:30.220 You're Not Enough and That's Okay, Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love. If you're watching this
00:02:34.560 on YouTube, I just realized that I forgot to put it on my table next to me. You typically see it right
00:02:39.980 here. It's a little pink book. But if you guys have not pre-ordered that, make sure that you do so if
00:02:46.420 you want to. It's alibethstucky.com book. And there are lots of different places that you can buy it. If
00:02:52.820 you're not an Amazon person, you don't have to buy it from Amazon. But if you go to my website and you
00:02:58.320 click pre-order or you click buy this book, whatever button it is, then you can go to Penguin Random
00:03:05.300 House's website and it'll show you all the places where you can click to buy the book. There are a
00:03:09.800 variety of outlets that are selling it. Of course, you can go to your local Barnes & Noble and hopefully
00:03:14.480 your other local bookstores and they will carry it. And if they do not carry it, then you can always
00:03:19.180 request for them to carry the book. And remember, if you are a woman, join Women's Book Club with
00:03:26.380 Ali Stuckey on Facebook. We've gone through a lot of great books this year. We just finished 1984.
00:03:31.700 We read Nothing to Envy, which is an account of ordinary life in North Korea that was extremely
00:03:38.860 chilling. We read The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Tim Keller. We read Screwtape Letters by C.S.
00:03:45.380 Lewis. We'll be reading my book and we'll be reading several other awesome books. And it's
00:03:49.460 just a very edifying community. If you are looking for like-minded women to not just analyze books with,
00:03:56.260 but talk about faith with, talk about motherhood with, and feel like you're not alone,
00:04:01.240 then this is a really great group for you. We don't just talk about books, although that is the
00:04:05.640 purpose and the focus of the group. There are people who, you know, share different things that
00:04:10.520 they're going through, even prayer requests, helpful links, resources that have been helpful
00:04:17.500 to them. They ask for advice. And so I have been very edified by this group and I know that you will
00:04:23.340 too. So join Women's Book Club with Ali Stuckey. We'll be going through the book together. If you would
00:04:27.520 like a study guide for this book, even if you are not in the book club, then I will make sure to
00:04:32.500 provide that to all of you on social media to ensure that you have that. Or it might actually
00:04:37.720 be, I'll have to ask my publisher. It might actually be via email that you guys can receive
00:04:43.580 that study guide and you can get a group of women and you can go through the book together. So anyway,
00:04:50.360 I'm just so excited. I'm so excited for the book to come out and for you guys to read it and to let me
00:04:55.300 know what you think and to work through it with you guys. So that's next Tuesday, August 11th,
00:04:59.820 alibethstuckey.com slash book to be able to purchase it wherever you would like to purchase it.
00:05:07.340 Okay. So today, first, we are going to talk about burning Bibles and the American flag. That is what
00:05:14.120 is happening in a protest at Portland, in Portland. I don't know if you could necessarily call it a
00:05:20.820 Portland. So right now we are at over two and a half months of rioting, of burning, looting,
00:05:27.340 vandalizing, terrorizing Portland, absolutely wrecking part of the city. This is happening
00:05:33.700 in Seattle as well. There are other kinds of demonstrations that are happening across the
00:05:38.380 country. Remember, the feds came in a couple of weeks ago to protect federal property that is
00:05:44.420 absolutely within their rights and within their responsibility. And you had this false
00:05:48.820 narrative being perpetuated by the leftist media saying that the feds are the cause of the violence,
00:05:54.800 that they're actually agitating peaceful protesters, talking about them like they're just brainless fire
00:06:00.940 ants or something. Like if you bother them or step on them, then they just go crazy and start throwing
00:06:06.400 Molotov cocktails. That's absolutely not what happened. The violence, the vandalism has been going on
00:06:13.520 for the past two months. It was happening for two months before the feds actually showed up in Chicago,
00:06:19.680 not where this is not where the demonstrations are happening, but where violent crime has just
00:06:24.380 skyrocketed in the past couple of months. Thanks to Lori Lightfoot, the world's worst mayor right next
00:06:30.880 to Bill de Blasio, neutering the police and basically telling the police in a lot of cases to stand down.
00:06:37.440 She just hasn't been able to get a handle at all on the crime in her city. She actually did accept help
00:06:43.520 from the feds, but there is this false narrative that Trump is sending in these paramilitary forces
00:06:50.820 to terrorize the cities. And that's why there's violence and unrest that is absolutely untrue.
00:06:57.200 We've seen the videos with our own eyes. And one of the latest videos that we saw in Portland
00:07:02.640 were these Antifa protesters, rioters, vandals, whatever you want to call them,
00:07:08.920 burning the Bible and the American flag in the streets. Now, are you going to tell me that that's
00:07:14.140 the feds? Are you going to tell me that the federal officers agitated them, compelled them to do this?
00:07:21.520 No, of course not. I just want you to remember that all of this started, they said that all of this
00:07:28.280 was because of George Floyd. You probably remember the videos in Minneapolis, Minneapolis and other
00:07:33.800 places where people were wrecking targets, where they were looting and stealing flat screen TVs
00:07:41.200 and clothes. And we were all told, well, riots are the voice of the unheard and we just need to be
00:07:47.340 compassionate and we need to be sympathetic that these people, they're just very angry, basically
00:07:52.380 patronizing them, acting like these people are children, like they have no moral agency whatsoever,
00:07:58.580 that they are just products of perpetual oppression and they have no ability whatsoever to actually
00:08:04.520 choose things for themselves. And just out of sheer grief, they are going out and they are stealing
00:08:11.540 flat screen TVs. It was all a lie. That's not to say that there were no peaceful protesters who really
00:08:18.500 were protesting because of what happened to George Floyd and because of police brutality. There
00:08:23.560 absolutely were. There absolutely were. And I don't want to conflate those two groups of people. I
00:08:28.300 absolutely believe that peacefully protesting is, well, I don't just believe this, it is a fundamental
00:08:35.820 right in the United States of America. It should continue to be so. And there should be no fear of
00:08:41.720 punishment from the government whatsoever when people are peacefully protesting. That group,
00:08:47.500 the group that was peacefully protesting against police brutality, against what happened to George
00:08:52.500 Floyd are not the same people as those that were rioting and looting. And yet the leftist media
00:08:58.660 basically conflated those two groups by saying, well, the people who are looting and rioting are doing
00:09:04.720 it for the same reasons as the people who are peacefully protesting. I just don't, there's no
00:09:11.520 correlation. I'm sorry. There's no correlation between the people who are looting a target,
00:09:16.400 who are looting an Amazon store in Seattle, and the peaceful protesters who are saying, hey,
00:09:22.400 I think we can do a better job of executing justice. No correlation between those two groups.
00:09:27.920 No correlation between the people who are looting and rioting and burning and vandalizing
00:09:33.300 and the death of George Floyd. There's no correlation between those two things. And let's not be silly.
00:09:39.560 Let's not be silly in pretending that there is some kind of correlation, especially the things that are
00:09:45.040 happening right now in places like Portland and Seattle, the absolute madness and chaos and
00:09:50.980 violence, chop and chas, whatever that was that was happening in Seattle, where basically a bunch
00:09:57.680 of far left radicals, they occupied a certain part of the city. And we were told by Jenny Durkin,
00:10:04.920 the mayor of Seattle, that it was just, it was totally peaceful. This is freedom of expression.
00:10:09.440 Yeah. Until a 16 year old black kid got shot and killed by a member of Chas. And until the people
00:10:16.200 who were in Chas, some of those rioters and vandals showed up at Jenny Durkin's house, that's when she
00:10:22.320 said, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not have Chas and chop. So when it actually affected her, not when the
00:10:28.140 young man was shot and killed, but when it actually affected her and her safety, that's when the mayor of
00:10:33.680 Seattle said, okay, well, maybe this is an unlawful gathering. And yet the violence, the unrest,
00:10:38.680 the chaos is still happening in Seattle and still happening in protest. This has in Portland,
00:10:44.760 and this has nothing to do with police brutality. And this has nothing to do with injustice. This
00:10:50.360 has nothing to do with George Floyd, has nothing to do with racism and everything to do with these
00:10:55.740 people wanting a revolution. They want a revolution. And they believe that the socialist revolution,
00:11:01.320 the communist revolution for some of these people, it starts with anarchy. It starts with the
00:11:06.400 destruction of the systems. We played a video for you last week where one of the leaders
00:11:11.260 at these riots was saying, you know, we're not just looking for reform. We're not just looking
00:11:16.380 for change. We're looking for the abolition of the United States as we know it. So they are looking for
00:11:22.380 absolute destruction. That is why they are burning Bibles and the United States, because they don't
00:11:28.620 like what these two things represent to them. And according to their ideology, these things represent
00:11:34.680 oppression. They represent the foundation of America. And they believe that America,
00:11:39.100 the freest and the most prosperous and the most equitable country in the world,
00:11:43.180 is oppressive and is inherently bad. It can't be redeemed. It can't be fixed. It can't be reformed.
00:11:48.200 It can't be saved. It must absolutely be abolished. And so that's why they're burning the flag. That's
00:11:53.880 why they're burning these Bibles. They hate everything Christianity represents. They hate everything
00:11:59.400 that America represents. And so this is a symbol of the destruction that they hope to see happen on a
00:12:06.980 larger scale. And yes, Black Lives Matter, not all of them, but some of them are a part of these
00:12:12.740 demonstrations. Absolutely. I mean, we know that the leaders of Black Lives Matter, they are supporters
00:12:18.280 of Chavez. They were supporters. They are supporters of Maduro in Venezuela. They have admitted that they are
00:12:24.740 trained Marxists. I mean, they have supported violent regimes in South America in the name of a
00:12:30.920 communist revolution. That is who started, who founded Black Lives Matter. Again, I'm not conflating
00:12:37.220 everyone who supports Black Lives Matter with these crazy anarchists in Portland and Seattle and in other
00:12:43.020 cities across the country, because I think that's unfair. But is there crossover in ideologies? Is there
00:12:50.980 crossover in goals? The abolition? The rewriting of the United States? The redoing? The undoing? Then
00:12:58.240 the redoing of the United States? There's absolutely crossover there. There absolutely is. And so I also
00:13:04.820 think it's unfair to completely separate those movements as if they don't have any shared aims and
00:13:10.300 goals, because they do. Eric Metaxas is a radio host. He is an author who wrote Bonhoeffer and Martin
00:13:18.100 Luther and a lot of other great books. He tweeted this. A century before the Third Reich, German poet
00:13:24.460 Heinrich Hein prophesied that where books are burned, humans will soon be burned also. Antifa BLM has chosen
00:13:31.840 the brazenly atheist path of Joseph Goebbels. Let the reader understand. Obviously, Heinrich Hein was
00:13:38.460 correct about that. And I think that Eric Metaxas is correct too. Wherever books are burned, wherever there
00:13:45.960 is an attempt to destroy old culture and old ideas by way of this kind of physical destruction,
00:13:55.400 there is going to be loss of life as well. History is replete with examples like this. If you look at
00:14:01.040 any communist revolution, any communist revolution, if you look at Pol Pot's Cambodia, if you look at
00:14:06.180 Mao's China, the Maoist revolution, the bringing on of communism, murdered all dissenters and undesirables,
00:14:12.400 rid itself of old cultures, old ways, old traditions, the old ways of thought. And of course, we know that
00:14:20.760 tens of millions of people died that way. The same thing in Soviet Russia, everywhere, that communism,
00:14:27.320 that there has been a left-wing revolution, millions of people have died, have been arbitrarily detained for
00:14:34.640 dissenting in Cuba, in Venezuela. You can look anywhere. There has been a left-wing revolution, widespread suffering,
00:14:43.500 mass death, injustice, oppression to a scale that we can't even imagine in 2020 in the United States. And yet, that is
00:14:53.320 what, unfortunately, a lot of these revolutionaries that are allowed to destroy their cities are fighting for. This is just
00:15:01.260 true wherever you see communists. They do not know. Their ideology does not know how to build. It only knows
00:15:08.340 how to destroy. That is the nature of a left-wing revolution. Part of the destruction that comes with
00:15:15.820 these left-wing revolutions is old value systems that get in their way. They must be taken down. So in this
00:15:24.920 case, Christianity, loyalty to the United States, represented by the Bible and the American flag,
00:15:31.300 the flag represents individualism. It represents opportunity, freedom, free markets, all the things
00:15:37.920 that these left-wing radicals don't like and actually consider systems of oppression. So rather than
00:15:45.300 engaging with these things, engaging with these ideas, which they don't have, unfortunately, the
00:15:50.460 intellectual capacity to do, they try to destroy them. It's all they know how to do. These people
00:15:58.740 and their ideology, they're coming for your churches and they're coming for your schools, not necessarily
00:16:05.380 always through riots and arson, but through the destruction of your mind, the controlling of what
00:16:11.960 pastors can and cannot say, ensuring conformity within the education system. There's already conversation
00:16:17.680 about how the idea of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion are all oppressive
00:16:24.240 ideas that allow intolerance. And so there is this idea of tolerant intolerance where you suppress certain
00:16:34.820 ideas, you suppress certain speech, you suppress certain ideologies and forms of education that the left-wing
00:16:42.800 would consider to be intolerant and oppressive. And in that way, they believe and they assert that they
00:16:50.040 are actually creating a freer society, a society that is free of what they deem bigotry. So that kind
00:16:57.360 of idea is already happening and it's coming for your churches. It's coming for your schools. We've already
00:17:02.360 talked about several times how there is a force that is trying very hard to decimate, to separate
00:17:08.800 the parent-child relationship. They want to ban homeschools. They want to ban homeschooling. We
00:17:15.960 talked about how Harvard professor Elizabeth Bartholet has been pushing hard for that for a
00:17:20.960 long time. There are certainly people on the Democratic left who believe that they want to
00:17:25.740 stop the creation of charter schools. A lot of that has to do with left-wing teachers unions, but it's
00:17:32.120 also more of a left-wing philosophical idea that says that the parent-child relationship really gets
00:17:40.920 in the way of the state being able to control the way we think and the way we learn and the ideologies
00:17:49.520 that we have. And so there is a sinister force trying to do that. And so these revolutionary ideas
00:17:55.680 that are being manifested in violent ways in some of the cities across the country are going to spread
00:18:02.280 themselves in more subtle ways, in more palatable ways, in all of the institutions that we are
00:18:09.140 currently a part of. And we have to be aware of that. Like Votie Bauckham said, we have to expose
00:18:15.740 and oppose critical theory. If you don't know what critical theory is, go back and listen to that episode
00:18:21.680 or my interview with Neil Shinvi. It will just blow your mind. We have to expose and oppose these
00:18:28.020 things. We have to keep saying no to them. What they want, what these people want is destruction and
00:18:35.060 revolution. Also, as Votie Bauckham said, that is the end of critical theory. That is the end of social
00:18:41.260 justice is destruction and revolution, even though they don't necessarily admit that. It's not reform.
00:18:48.200 It's not change. If you believe that something like the police is a system of oppression, that you
00:18:53.380 can't reform something that is inherently oppressive, you have to get rid of it, which is why you are
00:18:58.680 hearing that we need to defund the police, even though in all the major cities, 98, probably percent
00:19:05.720 of which are run by Democrats, you are seeing a huge surge in violent crime at the same time that
00:19:12.860 people are saying we don't need the police. It's impossible to imagine all of this stuff happening
00:19:19.760 at this level, even five years ago. But the left has moved very far to the left. They move very far
00:19:24.620 to the left under Obama. We have cited all the research that proves that that's true on every
00:19:29.540 policy position, on every cultural issue. They have moved far to the left, to the point to where
00:19:35.100 they cannot even tolerate living in a free country anymore. Okay, we are going to talk about NBA,
00:19:43.160 the NBA, and their kneeling for the anthem and their support of China in just a second.
00:19:48.760 Let's talk about the NBA and China. So NBA, they've started playing their games and Black Lives Matter
00:19:57.780 shirts are being worn. And during the national anthem at the beginning of the games or before the games,
00:20:04.080 they are kneeling and they aren't singing the national anthem. They are kneeling for the national
00:20:10.840 anthem in their Black Lives Matter shirts and on their jerseys. They have now been permitted to wear
00:20:16.360 social justice sayings like how many more or say her name or something about police brutality and systemic
00:20:25.380 racism. They absolutely have the right to do these things, 100 percent. If their employer allows them
00:20:33.980 to do so, I do believe that the employer also has the right to say, hey, on company time, this is how I
00:20:41.180 want you to behave. That was my beef with the whole Kaepernick thing. Not that he doesn't have the right
00:20:45.600 to peacefully protest, but if the manager of the team, if the coach, whomever, if they say
00:20:53.780 that you cannot kneel on our time or we want you to stand for the national anthem, I do believe
00:21:03.060 that the boss gets to say how their employees behave. But he did, of course, have the right
00:21:11.380 under the First Amendment to kneel. And these players in the NBA absolutely have a right to kneel
00:21:18.060 according to the First Amendment. I also have the right to call them out for their hypocrisy. I also
00:21:26.820 have the right to criticize them, not because of the action of peacefully protesting, which I think
00:21:32.520 is very patriotic and very American, but because the premise of their protest is incorrect and because
00:21:40.840 of the hypocrisy that they are displaying while kneeling for the flag of our nation while supporting
00:21:47.580 a hostile regime. And that's what we are about to get into. So here is my critique. Like I said,
00:21:56.220 the premise of their protest that Black Americans are disproportionately killed by the police and that
00:22:02.260 there are right now, that there exists actively today systemic discrimination against particular
00:22:10.000 ethnicities is simply not backed up by the data. We have talked through the data points before
00:22:16.100 several times on this podcast. When you look at the number of police interactions of white versus
00:22:21.700 Black Americans and the number of those interactions that end in an unarmed person getting killed by the
00:22:27.560 police, Black people are not more likely than white people to be killed by a cop. That doesn't mean
00:22:33.700 that racism doesn't exist. That doesn't mean that discrimination ever happens. That doesn't mean that there
00:22:38.580 aren't problems with our justice system that disproportionately negatively affects the most vulnerable in our
00:22:46.180 society. There are. That doesn't mean that officers don't ever kill people unjustly. They do, Black and
00:22:52.520 white. So I'm not arguing that no one has a reason to protest things that are happening in our country. But when
00:23:02.640 these players are kneeling for Black Lives Matter, they're not kneeling for the thousands of Black
00:23:09.120 men, women and children killed within their own communities every year, they're not kneeling for
00:23:13.700 the millions and millions of Black babies who have been murdered in the womb. They are not kneeling for
00:23:19.340 the Black children who are put at a disadvantage because of a lack of school choice. How do I know? Because
00:23:26.560 they're wearing a BLM t-shirt, which as a movement and as an organization is concerned with only one
00:23:32.620 kind of Black life. And that is the one that is taken by a white police officer. I don't think that they
00:23:38.080 care about the Black Trump supporter who had Trump signs outside of his business and he would stand
00:23:47.580 outside of his business and he would say, you know, Trump 2020 and have a Trump 2020 sign. He was an
00:23:53.820 elderly man. He was murdered. You don't hear anyone from Black Lives Matter talking about that. You don't
00:23:59.080 hear anyone in the liberal media talking about that. That a Black man who obviously went against
00:24:04.760 the grain of his own community because of his political beliefs, he got murdered because of his
00:24:10.220 political beliefs. And that was not picked up by the mainstream media except for Fox News and
00:24:15.440 conservative outlets. You certainly didn't hear Black Lives Matter talking about that. You certainly
00:24:19.340 didn't hear any of these players like LeBron James talking about that. The only social messages that are
00:24:25.920 approved for the jerseys of these NBA players are ones that have to do with left-wing causes,
00:24:31.660 specific left-wing causes. So their jersey can't say baby lives matter. Their jerseys can't say school
00:24:38.680 choice now. They can't say free Hong Kong. And that is really the big hypocrisy here. It is not
00:24:46.100 that the NBA has to care about all injustices in order to care about one injustice. It's that the
00:24:52.400 premise of their argument against injustice is based on something that is not true. And it's
00:24:57.640 hypocritical, the things that they're silent about, especially when they're silent about China. Now,
00:25:03.200 if you just think that's random, that I'm just picking a random country with human rights abuses
00:25:07.420 happening that the NBA needs to stand up against, I'm not. I'm not just saying, hey, you can't care
00:25:12.540 about what's happening here unless you care about what's happening in Saudi Arabia. I'm not saying that.
00:25:17.040 The NBA and China are very closely connected. They make billions and billions from China every year.
00:25:23.680 This is an active partnership that the NBA is actively and voluntarily engaging in because it
00:25:30.000 makes them a ton of money. There are big fans of the NBA in China. They love American basketball.
00:25:35.900 And the NBA knows that. And they make a lot of money off of playing their games there, selling their
00:25:40.840 merchandise there. But China, China is representing all of the things today that these NBA players say
00:25:49.340 that they are protesting in the United States that don't actually exist on a scale that is even
00:25:55.000 comparable to what's happening in China. So as you guys know, as we've talked about the Uyghur Muslims
00:26:00.280 in China, there are millions of Uyghur Muslims in China. They are being sent to re-education camps.
00:26:04.840 We've actually seen drone footage of that. They're being enslaved, organ harvesting of these Uyghur
00:26:10.500 Muslims in these concentration camps, forced sterilization of Uyghur Muslim women, forced
00:26:15.740 abortions, no matter what the gestation, no matter when in the pregnancy it is. A lot of these women,
00:26:21.680 if they go past having one child or two children, they are forced to abort their child. There is an
00:26:28.140 article in the National Review that details how babies are ripped from their mothers at birth,
00:26:33.280 and the family never knows what happens to that child. Sold into slavery, we don't know. Killed,
00:26:39.060 abused. We have no idea. This is happening right now in China among ethnic minorities. You guys might
00:26:46.360 have seen it was reported for a short period of time when it was happening that when the coronavirus
00:26:52.180 had just started to abate in China, they were evicting African immigrants from their apartments.
00:26:59.180 They were refusing to allow Africans to come into their restaurants saying that Africans were actually
00:27:05.840 the ones spreading the virus when, of course, that wasn't true. Talk about a racist regime.
00:27:11.540 Like, there's probably no more racist regime on Earth than China. And yet, the NBA stands up for
00:27:18.480 them. And yet, the NBA is not allowed to criticize them. As you guys know, as we have talked about,
00:27:24.820 they forced the conversion of Christians throughout China, or they try to. They spy on their own citizens.
00:27:30.760 They arbitrarily detained dissenters. We've also talked about how doctors and scientists who spoke
00:27:36.380 out about the coronavirus and some of the cures of coronavirus and some of the mishandling of the
00:27:41.580 coronavirus in China, how they just disappeared there, that they were murdered or they were detained.
00:27:47.880 No one knows what happened to them. Talk about Orwellian. Like, that's happening right now. But anyway,
00:27:53.740 the NBA has nothing to say about that. On top of all of that, China is colonizing Africa and South
00:28:00.920 America. So they're saying, hey, poor country, Ethiopia, for example, poor country in Africa,
00:28:08.140 we are going to build this railway for you, or we're going to invest in your infrastructure,
00:28:12.240 and you'll make so much money from this railway that you'll be able to pay us back. We're just
00:28:16.360 trying to help you out because we, China, we're so compassionate to you, poor African countries,
00:28:21.160 knowing that the railway or whatever it is, is never going to generate the money
00:28:26.120 that China is promising that it is. And then poor countries like Ethiopia are caught in what is
00:28:31.960 called a debt trap, and they are indebted to China. And that is how China is trying to take over poor
00:28:37.040 countries in Africa and poor countries in South America, by indebting them to China and then being
00:28:43.800 able to hold it over their head and control them like that. So we're talking slavery in China. We're
00:28:49.300 talking about systemic racism. That's what's happening in China. And we're talking about
00:28:54.900 colonization in China that is all happening right now, not to mention how they mishandled the
00:29:00.360 coronavirus. All of these things that are happening, not just to ethnic minorities, but to
00:29:05.520 all Chinese people. They're under the iron rule of the Chinese Communist Party. All of this is happening
00:29:13.240 right now. All of these things that the left says that they care about that are happening in America,
00:29:19.340 colonization, imperialism, racism, slavery, these things that haven't happened in America
00:29:24.940 in hundreds of years are happening right now in China. Not only does the left in general
00:29:29.720 not really have anything to say about what's going on in China, it's almost always conservatives that have
00:29:36.160 something to say about that. The NBA, who is making billions of dollars off of China, has nothing to
00:29:43.040 say about it. An interesting ESPN investigation found that at the NBA training camps in China, so
00:29:49.120 NBA has training camps for young people there to be, you know, trained in basketball. There are teenagers
00:29:56.380 that go there to be trained. There was rampant abuse of the young teenage players by the Chinese
00:30:02.300 coaches. So listen to this. Listen to how the NBA is making money from China at the expense of the
00:30:12.060 well-being of these young teenage boys. And they're kneeling with Black Lives Matter t-shirts on to
00:30:18.780 disrespect. I mean, well, I won't say to disrespect, but to refuse to give honor to the American flag while
00:30:25.660 they're actively participating in this. Just listen. American coaches at three NBA training academies in
00:30:32.240 China told league officials their Chinese partners were physically abusing young players and failing
00:30:37.700 to provide schooling, even though Commissioner Adam Silver had said that education would be central to
00:30:43.760 the program, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the complaints. This is according
00:30:48.480 to ESPN.com. The NBA ran into myriad symptoms by myriad problems by opening one of the academies in
00:30:58.080 Xinjiang, a police state in Western China, where more than a million Uyghur Muslims are now held in
00:31:05.480 barbed wire camps. American coaches were frequently harassed and surveilled in Xinjiang. The sources said
00:31:13.000 one American coach was detained three times without cause. He and others were unable to obtain housing
00:31:20.080 because of their status as foreigners. A former league employee compared the atmosphere when he worked
00:31:26.200 in Xinjiang to World War II Germany. The ESPN investigation, which began after Daryl Morey's
00:31:34.660 tweet, which I will explain in just a second, sheds new light on the lucrative NBA-China relationship
00:31:41.240 and the cost of doing business with a government that suppresses free expression and is accused of
00:31:46.280 cultural genocide. One former coach described watching a Chinese coach fire a ball into a young
00:31:52.580 player's face at point-blank range and then kick him in the gut. Imagine you have a kid who's 13,
00:32:00.020 14 years old, and you've got a grown coach who is 40 years old hitting your kid, the coach said.
00:32:05.320 We're part of that. The NBA is part of that. So Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted a few
00:32:12.400 months ago in support of Hong Kong, and the NBA apologized for it. Apologized for his offensive comments.
00:32:20.420 apologize to a hostile communist enslaving regime while they're kneeling for the flag of the country
00:32:28.500 that has afforded them more freedom, more opportunity, more equity, more money than 99.9%
00:32:38.740 of the world will ever know. It's amazing. It's mind-boggling. Hong Kong protesters, like I said,
00:32:47.140 they understand what America represents. That's why they're waving the United States flag even while
00:32:55.260 they are being oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party. They are still desiring the freedom and the
00:33:03.680 democracy that America represents. And yet you have people here who have more freedom and more money
00:33:11.060 and more opportunity and more fairness and more justice than the vast majority of the world will
00:33:16.600 ever know. And they refuse to even sing the national anthem. I mean, it's insane. It's insane. Now,
00:33:22.800 here's some good news. 73% of Americans, according to Pew Research, have an unfavorable view of China
00:33:29.700 right now. That's good. That means that the majority of the United States, at least in this realm,
00:33:35.620 is not an idiot. So that's good. Unfortunately, the NBA doesn't represent the majority of America,
00:33:42.020 which means that I think that a lot of these leagues that are deciding to take a knee for
00:33:49.160 these organizations that don't represent actual justice while turning a blind eye to the nation
00:33:54.460 that they are making a lot of money off of, who is doing all the things that they say that they hate,
00:33:58.900 I think that they are out of step with the rest of the country. I mean, it is just a bummer. It's just
00:34:03.360 a bummer that you can't even watch MLB. Like, you can't even watch baseball without it being
00:34:09.960 politicized. You just, you can't escape from it anymore. I mean, America, I think of the most
00:34:17.080 American institution or the most American sport out there, definitely baseball. And you can't even
00:34:23.860 turn that on without getting some kind of left-wing demonstration. And it's just, it's just sad. I
00:34:29.940 think a lot of people have decided that they're just going to watch golf because golf had, for the
00:34:34.780 most part, has refused to be politicized. And I think that's good, but it's just sad that we can't
00:34:40.920 even unify over a love of sports anymore because it's been politicized. And I just don't think it
00:34:46.000 represents the majority of the country. America is not perfect. You don't have to tell me that.
00:34:52.500 The person who believes that abortion is the greatest moral atrocity that has ever existed
00:34:58.960 in this country, right in line with slavery, that's happening on a daily basis. Hundreds of babies
00:35:06.740 across the country are being brutally murdered every day inside the womb. You don't have to tell me
00:35:13.020 that America doesn't necessarily represent a freedom and justice for all. I know that. America is the
00:35:19.460 number one consumer of child pornography, which props up global sex trafficking. You don't have
00:35:25.460 to tell me that America is not a perfect place. You also don't have to tell me that America has a
00:35:32.020 warped justice system sometimes that has a different justice system for the rich and the elite than they
00:35:36.580 do for the poor. I agree with that. So I am not someone who is saying that America is perfect,
00:35:42.460 that you have nothing to protest for. You have nothing to be mad at. By the way, I also believe that the
00:35:47.100 police unfortunately kills too many people, white and black every year, and I am for reform. So you
00:35:52.440 don't have to tell me that America is in a perfect place. You don't have to tell me that it's not ideal
00:35:56.460 here. I believe that it's not ideal. I know that it's not ideal for a lot of people, and there is a
00:36:01.320 lot of injustice that goes on here. But because of the ideals and the ideas upon which we were founded,
00:36:07.620 at least we have a North Star to look to. At least we can look to our Constitution and the values
00:36:13.000 articulated in the Declaration of Independence that, yes, at first were imperfectly implemented,
00:36:20.200 but at least we can look to those and say, let's get closer to that. Let's get closer to recognizing
00:36:26.160 that we are all created by the same creator with certain inalienable rights, among them being life,
00:36:32.580 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Let's get back to those values, and life will be better for
00:36:39.600 everyone. If we all embodied those fundamental values, then yes, society would be more cohesive.
00:36:47.000 Every group would be more successful. But if we just reject those in favor of what? By the way,
00:36:52.780 the people who say they want to abolish the United States, what? Like, what are they advocating for?
00:36:59.280 What's the replacement? Unfortunately, it's actually more inequality. It is, okay, well, we need to
00:37:04.180 redistribute power from the groups that have historically had more privilege and give that
00:37:10.380 power and capital to the people who don't have as much privilege or who are a part of groups that
00:37:16.400 have been historically oppressed. So it's just inequality that they are going for. It's forced
00:37:21.180 redistribution that they are going for. And that is not freedom and justice for all. Of course,
00:37:28.320 have vulnerable groups in this country? Have Black Americans in this country
00:37:32.200 been historically extremely mistreated? Yes. But we are not going to achieve equality for
00:37:40.700 vulnerable groups or minority groups by treating other people unequally, by giving preferential
00:37:46.780 treatment and showing partiality towards one group at the expense of another group. No, we want to get
00:37:52.880 closer to liberty and justice for all. We want to get closer to fairness. We don't want to switch one
00:37:59.280 form of oppression for another form of oppression. So there's just a lot of hypocrisy. There's a lot
00:38:05.280 of incongruency here. I am for your right to complain about whatever you want to complain about,
00:38:10.020 whether I agree with it or not. I'm for your right to peacefully protest. But there's just a lot of
00:38:16.400 confusion. There's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of hypocrisy that comes with a lot of these
00:38:22.200 protests and these demonstrations, especially when it comes to places like Portland and Seattle,
00:38:26.400 especially when it comes to the NBA. So don't talk to me about social justice if you are not actually
00:38:35.780 concerned with the so-called social justice in the places that are writing your checks. I mean,
00:38:41.720 come on here. So Jonathan Isaac plays for the Orlando Magic. He is a young player and he is a
00:38:48.000 Christian. He decided that he was going to be the only one on his team to not wear a Black Lives Matter
00:38:53.100 t-shirt and to stand up for the National Anthem. And he was asked about it at a press conference
00:39:00.320 after the game. And this is part of the explanation that he gave.
00:39:03.480 I feel like putting a shirt on and kneeling one hand in hand with supporting Black Lives Matter,
00:39:10.620 that it made me support Black Lives Matter. I believe that for myself, my life has been supported
00:39:16.480 through the gospel of Jesus Christ and that everyone is made in the image of God and that
00:39:22.200 we all fall short of God's glory. And that, you know, each and every one of us, each and every day
00:39:27.120 do things that we shouldn't do. We say things that we shouldn't say. We hate and we dislike people
00:39:32.280 that we shouldn't hate and dislike. And sometimes it gets into a point where we point fingers
00:39:37.000 about whose evil is worse.
00:39:38.800 I love it. I love it. You love to see this. So he didn't give some complicated political response.
00:39:47.500 He shared the gospel. He said, look, I don't think that this organization is helping Black Lives. He
00:39:55.880 believes that Black Lives Matter. Of course he believes that Black Lives Matter. I believe that
00:39:59.180 Black Lives Matter. You believe that Black Lives Matter. We as Christians believe that their lives matter
00:40:03.640 eternally, that they are created in the image of God and they have an eternal soul that will end up in
00:40:08.340 one of two places. Therefore, every Black person, every white person, every brown person, every person
00:40:13.980 of every ethnicity and background needs the same gospel. And that is essentially what he's talking
00:40:19.380 about here and pointing people to the gospel. He understands that societal change, that structural
00:40:24.580 injustices cannot be dismantled by revolution, but by regeneration, regeneration of the heart. And so
00:40:31.960 that's why he preached the gospel. And I'm just very proud of him. Of course, he's getting a lot of
00:40:36.580 hate. Yahoo News.com said that, you know, it could have been fine that he did this if his response
00:40:42.940 wasn't nonsense. Well, you know what 1 Corinthians 1 says? It says that the gospel is falling for people
00:40:48.940 who don't believe. It is foolishness to those who don't understand, who have not had, as Ephesians
00:40:55.820 1.18 says, the eyes of their heart enlightened. And so, of course, it's going to be a stumbling block
00:41:00.600 to people who do not know the gospel for someone to preach the gospel in this way. And there are
00:41:05.740 unfortunately some Christians who see kneeling as something that is completely congruent with a
00:41:15.060 biblical worldview. And I'm not saying that if you kneel, that means that you're not a Christian. Of
00:41:19.360 course, I am not saying that. But they don't see Jonathan Isaac as taking a stand of courage,
00:41:26.100 whereas I believe this is what it looks like to be in the world and not of. What is he really doing
00:41:31.960 with his life that is supporting his neighbor, that is loving his neighbor, loving the people
00:41:37.040 around him? That's what he is going to answer for before God. He is not going to, God is not going to
00:41:43.360 ask, well, did you virtue signal at an NBA game? Did you wear the t-shirt? Did you kneel for the flag?
00:41:50.400 No, it's going to be, what did you do with the gifts that I gave you, with the time that I gave
00:41:56.000 you? Did you fulfill the most important command, loving your neighbor, all your neighbors, no
00:42:01.580 matter what they look like, as themselves? And God also tells us not to show partiality in the
00:42:07.740 book of James, the book of Romans, in the Old Testament, that partiality, preferential treatment
00:42:13.260 towards people, no matter what their skin color is, no matter what their station is in life, is
00:42:18.880 actually a sin. And so he's saying, look, the gospel is the answer. It's regeneration, not revolution.
00:42:24.660 That's the answer. It's loving other people. And look, people have to know the news that saves
00:42:30.140 them in order for us to hope for any kind of change. Kneeling's not going to do it. And wearing
00:42:35.180 a t-shirt that supports an organization that is counter to a biblical worldview is also not going
00:42:41.920 to do it. So kudos to him. And for the Christians who are calling him out and saying that he was
00:42:46.620 wrong for this, I mean, you can disagree with him without saying that he is wrong for doing this.
00:42:52.200 You can be a person who thinks that everyone should kneel and not be angry at him or not think
00:43:00.140 that he is stupid or that he should be silenced simply because he went against the grain. I mean,
00:43:07.960 don't we know as Christians that we are going to be in the minority, that if everyone else is doing
00:43:14.260 something, even the atheists that we know, the agnostics that we know, the non-Christians that we
00:43:19.340 know if they're all doing one thing, shouldn't we at least take a second look at what they're doing
00:43:23.640 and ask ourselves if it's biblical? Because, I mean, there's a good chance, not always, but there's
00:43:28.640 a good chance that maybe it deserves some further analysis if the people who, for example, don't
00:43:34.540 believe that everyone is made in the image of God, who don't believe in the Bible, who don't believe
00:43:39.300 that we come from a creator, if they're all doing one thing as a form of activism, wouldn't it be wise
00:43:45.260 of a Christian who believes that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, and that no one comes to the
00:43:50.200 Father except through him? Wouldn't it be wise of us to take a step back and to say, okay, is that what
00:43:55.180 God is calling me to? Is that representing something that is glorifying to God? And so, to me, that's what
00:44:00.980 Jonathan Isaac did. Myers Leonard is an NFL player and—or actually, sorry, he's another NBA player—and he
00:44:09.260 said this. He also stood for the national anthem. He said, I think I can be a beacon of light, not only
00:44:14.800 for my voice or platform in action, but in everything I'm doing. So, Leonard, who is white, told Mark J.
00:44:21.960 Spears of ESPN's The Undefeated After the Game. This is according to ESPN. I certainly support Black
00:44:27.420 Lives Matter. I am very aware of what is going on, but I can be both. My patriotism runs deep. So, there are
00:44:34.300 people who are willing to stand up against the masses, who are willing to stand up against the
00:44:39.240 inevitable social media mobs, who will come after people who decide not to be a part of the mainstream
00:44:47.780 and to be, as I've said before, human salmon, which is what all Christians are called to be, by the way,
00:44:53.680 to swim upstream. Now, he says that—this person says that he supports Black Lives Matter, so that's
00:44:59.240 obviously different than—he seems to be talking about the organization that's different than what
00:45:04.980 I believe and what Jonathan Isaac seems to believe, but he was willing to stand up when he knew it was
00:45:10.680 going to be unpopular and no one else was going to do it, and he was going to be called out for it.
00:45:14.260 And I think that courage is admirable. And yeah, you could argue as well, even though I disagree,
00:45:21.200 completely disagree with why Kaepernick was kneeling. I mean, he wore socks with cops dressed as
00:45:28.020 pigs on them. He doesn't like the United States. Like, he has been very open about that, especially
00:45:33.640 on July 4th. And sure, you could argue that when he was the only one that kneeling, he knelt for
00:45:38.500 something that he believed in, and that did take a certain amount of courage. Now, it's been very
00:45:43.320 lucrative for him now, but at the time, in the beginning, it wasn't. So just to be fair for the
00:45:48.140 people who said that was courageous, who did believe in the reason why he was kneeling, that is true.
00:45:52.740 That's another perspective. But this, from my perspective, is also very brave going against the grain.
00:45:57.120 And this is how quick culture changes. By the way, that just a few years ago, Colin Kaepernick
00:46:02.780 was kneeling, and it was this very divisive thing. Just a couple years ago, this was very divisive,
00:46:10.240 and no one else was kneeling. Now it's divisive, apparently, and controversial for people to stand
00:46:15.800 up for the flag. Again, this is not the same, though. This is not comparable. This is not relative.
00:46:21.740 There's one side that should be, in my opinion, the default, which is to stand for the flag. Again,
00:46:27.660 do they have the right to kneel? Of course they have the right to kneel. Absolutely. And the First
00:46:33.020 Amendment should and will always, I hope, protect that right. However, when you are standing for the
00:46:40.600 flag, you are not saying that you agree to everything that America has ever done or represents.
00:46:45.680 As I have articulated, that's certainly not true when I stand for the flag and sing the national
00:46:50.380 anthem. And you shouldn't be compelled to do that because that goes against the freedom that the
00:46:54.840 flag represents. But standing in honor of the freedom and the opportunity that Americans have
00:47:01.220 been afforded, that millions of people every year leave their homes, risk their lives to come here
00:47:08.080 just for a taste of the opportunity that Americans have. When we stand, we are honoring the men and
00:47:14.840 women who have bled and died for the freedoms that we so take for granted. I mean, America just,
00:47:21.160 we just don't understand. We just don't know how good we have it. Our privilege, our luxuries,
00:47:27.740 our freedom has unfortunately allowed our brains to atrophy. Like, we are so addicted to victimization
00:47:35.520 and the idea of oppression. Some people are that you have to almost create reasons. Sometimes in
00:47:44.260 some cases, some people to be upset rather than being grateful for the extremely unique, extremely
00:47:52.640 rare, not just on earth today, but in all of human history, freedom that we enjoy. Unfortunately, it's
00:47:59.700 rotted people's hearts and brains as they have embraced things like critical theory, which are just
00:48:05.180 stand opposed to any kind of rational thought or consistency whatsoever. So good job to Jonathan
00:48:12.840 Isaac and other people who have decided to go against the grain and to be human salmon. That is
00:48:18.640 not easy. And may that be an example for us, not just in this, but in the power of standing up when
00:48:27.800 it's unpopular, both literally and metaphorically. There was also an example, this is a little bit
00:48:33.400 different, but Trader Joe's, there was a 17 year old. She happens to be white and that's kind of
00:48:39.800 pertinent to the story of 17 year old. She started a petition against Trader Joe's because she claimed
00:48:45.300 that some of their products were racist. They have products like Trader Jose's that sells, that is
00:48:50.340 taco shells and Mexican food items. Trader Ming's, which is Asian food at Trader Joe's. She started a
00:48:58.360 petition and got several thousand signatures saying that Trader Joe's needs to discontinue these products
00:49:04.300 because they are racist. The racist as it's Daryl Harrison from the Just Thinking podcast. He says,
00:49:14.260 he says racists. And so she decided that these were racists and that she needed to start a petition
00:49:23.620 about these products. And at first, at first, Trader Joe's said, you know, we'll definitely take a second
00:49:30.720 look. But then they published an article or they published a letter that said, you know what? We've talked to
00:49:36.380 our customers and these things aren't racist. We are actually appreciating other cultures and these things
00:49:40.880 aren't racist and we're not going to discontinue them. Good job. Good job, Trader Joe's. They just said no. They
00:49:46.160 said no to the mob. Most of the people who signed this petition probably don't even shop at Trader Joe's,
00:49:50.460 by the way. And so they're going to listen to their customers, most of which don't care about
00:49:54.460 this stuff, which doesn't affect anyone's life, doesn't affect anyone's life. And so good for Trader
00:49:59.120 Joe's. May we all gain courage from things like that. We don't have to apologize for or change our
00:50:05.940 behavior for people who set standards that don't make any sense and who demand things from us that
00:50:11.320 don't actually make any sense or have any ground in any kind of objective truth or morality. Okay. I just
00:50:18.000 want to say one thing after all of this. We actually don't talk about Trump very much on this podcast
00:50:24.760 because conservatism in general, like as a philosophy, as a part of a worldview, of course,
00:50:35.000 I believe in a biblical worldview, but you guys know that I am a conservative as part of that. That is
00:50:40.760 more important to me. It's more important to me to talk about bigger stories than just Donald Trump.
00:50:46.440 And you guys know that because I believe that Donald Trump is basically the only wall between
00:50:52.820 us and the lunacy of the destructive left, and that hasn't always been a characterization of the
00:50:58.640 Democratic Party. But unfortunately, it is increasingly an accurate characterization of the Democratic Party.
00:51:05.460 I mean, Joe Biden said that he wants to radically transform America. He has Bernie Sanders as part of his
00:51:13.940 task force to try to create his policies about schooling and health care, for example. And so
00:51:19.440 it's a radical Democratic Party. Radicals in the party like AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib,
00:51:25.420 who are socialists and who do have a problem with America on a fundamental level, they are
00:51:30.700 mainstays now in the party. They are mainstream in the party. And so, of course, I believe that Donald
00:51:36.580 Trump, whether we think he's perfect or not, which we don't, at least I don't, he is right now the only
00:51:45.320 protection that we have between us and the craziness, unfortunately, that is going on in a
00:51:52.720 large portion, unfortunately, of the left. Now, I want to play you a little clip of an interview that
00:52:00.400 he had with an Axios reporter about the coronavirus.
00:52:05.680 We're going to look at some of these charts.
00:52:07.460 I'd love to.
00:52:08.460 We're going to look.
00:52:09.260 Let's look.
00:52:09.800 And if you look at death.
00:52:11.480 Yeah.
00:52:12.480 It started to go up again.
00:52:13.500 Here's one. Well, right here, the United States is lowest in numerous categories. We're lower than
00:52:23.820 the world, lower than Europe. In what? In what? Take a look. Oh, you're doing death as a proportion
00:52:31.320 of cases. I'm talking about death as a proportion of population. That's where the U.S. is really
00:52:35.140 bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc. You can't do that. You have to go by, you have
00:52:42.780 to go by where, look, here is the United States. You have to go by the cases, the cases. Why not
00:52:48.480 as a proportion of population? Well, look at South Korea, for example, 51 million population,
00:52:53.380 300 deaths. It's like, it's crazy. You don't know that. I do. You don't know that. You think
00:52:58.860 they're faking their statistics, South Korea? So if that made you super uncomfortable listening
00:53:05.940 to or watching that, me too. It was very awkward. He was shuffling papers, trying to look at data,
00:53:12.700 trying to prove the reporter wrong. And it was really hard to watch. And there were other parts
00:53:17.820 of the interview that were hard to listen to and watch as well. The reporter asked him about John
00:53:23.680 Lewis. And instead of Trump saying anything positive or at least respectful about John
00:53:29.420 Lewis, I'm not saying he had to agree with him. John Lewis was, you know, pro-abortion. He was
00:53:33.300 definitely a man of the left. So I don't expect Trump or conservatives to agree with him. But when he
00:53:38.680 just died and he did fight for civil rights in the 60s and the 70s, Trump should be deferential,
00:53:46.900 at least in this moment, at the very least, if not just morally, right, it is politically savvy
00:53:53.060 to be as respectful as possible. Instead, the first thing that he mentioned was that he decided to not
00:53:58.500 come to his inauguration and that he didn't know him. This whole interview was extremely difficult.
00:54:07.460 It was extremely difficult. And it just wasn't the best moment for Donald Trump. Look, people are going to
00:54:16.520 vote for you, Donald Trump, because the left scares the heck out of them because they think Joe Biden
00:54:23.640 is weak and incompetent. And they know that the vice president is probably going to take over if he
00:54:28.700 becomes president and that he's probably going to pick a radical person. They know that he is just a
00:54:34.640 vessel for radical leftist policies and the radical transformation of the United States in a very
00:54:41.660 bad way. So people are going to vote for Donald Trump who are conservatives and who are scared of
00:54:46.080 the left. No. And there are people who have not decided, both people who voted for you, Donald Trump,
00:54:54.240 in 2016, and people who did not vote for you. They either voted third party, they wrote someone in,
00:54:59.540 or maybe they even voted for Hillary Clinton. But they've just had it with cancel culture. They've
00:55:03.720 had it with the wokeness of the left. They've had it with the defund the police movement. They've had it
00:55:08.320 with the identity politics. And they're like, well, if Trump is the only other option, I might. But
00:55:13.900 they see things like this. They see particular tweets. And they say, I just can't stomach it. I
00:55:20.300 just can't do it. So what the Biden campaign has done, because he is so incoherent, because Biden
00:55:26.700 cannot complete a full sentence, because honestly and truly, I do not mean this tritely. I do not mean
00:55:31.860 this trivially. I'm not trying to be rude. It is so clear that Biden is in cognitive decline.
00:55:37.320 Um, because they are, uh, because he is unable to, um, to be able to hold himself together in any
00:55:49.800 kind of hard hitting interview whatsoever. They have basically hidden Biden away. They told Chris
00:55:56.080 Wallace, who, as you guys know, interviewed Trump a couple of weeks ago, and that was a difficult
00:56:00.980 interview for Trump, but I thought Trump did a pretty good job. They know that Biden can't handle
00:56:05.660 that. They watched that interview, and they're thinking there's no way that Biden can handle that.
00:56:09.260 And so they've hidden Biden away. And Biden is doing pretty well, not amazing, but doing pretty
00:56:14.760 well in the polls right now. Why? Because the more people see Donald Trump in interviews like Axios,
00:56:20.400 the more people see, uh, some of Donald Trump's tweets. Like, I don't think he needs to be talking
00:56:25.620 about people standing or kneeling for the national anthem. The more they see him as a polarizing figure,
00:56:30.160 the more they see him, uh, talking about, like he did to the Axios reporter, the more they see him
00:56:36.760 talking about the coronavirus numbers in a way that lacks any kind of depth they're feeling or
00:56:41.940 understanding whatsoever. The more they say, okay, well, I think I'm just going to vote for Joe Biden
00:56:48.060 because he doesn't seem all that bad because he hasn't gone out there and been especially polarizing.
00:56:54.340 He hasn't had an opportunity to have a bunch of gaffes. He hasn't had an opportunity to show his
00:56:59.780 lack of understanding or incompetence because his campaign has hidden him away and it's effective.
00:57:05.260 Honestly, I think that would also be a kind of effective strategy for Donald Trump.
00:57:10.360 It might be too late. It might be too late. I think that if he had been quieter on Twitter
00:57:15.080 for the past year or so, if he had shown, I do think, honestly, I do think that he is a compassionate
00:57:23.500 person. There are some people who believe that he is just hardened and calloused. I don't believe
00:57:27.120 that. I think he puts that on. I don't think that is actually who he is. I think that if he would
00:57:32.940 have had a little bit more tact, yes, the media still would have attacked him. It still would
00:57:37.080 have been unfair. There still would have been biased reporting. There still would have been
00:57:40.300 the Russia collusion narrative. There still would have been people calling him a white supremacist
00:57:43.820 and a racist, no matter what he did. Absolutely. But for the people who don't like the left,
00:57:48.760 who don't like the left-wing media, who think that they are crazy and don't want any part of
00:57:54.600 their revolution, they have to be able to look to Trump and to see some kind of stability and to see
00:58:00.740 some kind of grounding and to see some kind of hope and to see some kind of coherence. They have to be
00:58:08.520 able to see a better alternative in Donald Trump. And so I think a good campaign strategy would be for
00:58:14.320 Donald Trump to not do these interviews with Axios. I mean, of course, it's revealing in some ways.
00:58:21.820 And so there are some people who think that more transparency is better, but maybe the Trump
00:58:26.880 campaign needs to do some of the same things that the Biden campaign is doing, who is saying, you know
00:58:31.400 what, they're basically both sides are running against the most radical portions of their, they're
00:58:38.800 running against a representation of the Republican and the Democratic Party rather than running against
00:58:43.380 just one person. Let the sides duke it out and allow the candidates to just kind of be quiet.
00:58:51.860 It's working for Joe Biden. I think that it would work for Trump too, if it's not too late. Maybe there
00:58:57.840 just needs to be a little bit of quietness on the side of that candidate. I know they think by getting
00:59:02.660 out there, by being in front of these reporters, he is showing a sign of strength, but not when the
00:59:07.820 interview doesn't go well. Not when the interview doesn't go well. And I know it's a lost cause at this
00:59:12.940 point to say that Trump needs to be quieter on Twitter. I understand it's a lost cause, but I
00:59:20.680 don't know, maybe just a last ditch effort trying to show some kind of unity, which I do think that
00:59:26.640 he has done several times in his presidency, not taking these kinds of interviews that are just
00:59:35.120 not going to highlight Trump's best side. I do think it would be effective in the same way that
00:59:39.720 Joe Biden being hidden away is effective right now. We're running there. He's running against the
00:59:45.720 craziness of the left. Let the left do its thing and people will vote for Trump by default. If you
00:59:51.900 let Trump do his thing, people are going to vote for Biden by default. That's just the truth. Okay.
00:59:57.200 That's all I have to say today. That's how I wanted to, I just wanted to make sure that I got
01:00:01.160 that. And I know this was a longer episode, but thank you guys so much for listening. We will be back
01:00:05.820 here on Friday with Jeff Durbin.