Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 947 ｜ Bethany Hamilton Fights the Trans Tidal Wave ｜ Guest： Ron Simmons

00:00:00.560 What is in this disastrous border bill? My dad is here today to explain it, but before we get to

00:00:07.860 that conversation, I am going to give you my take on the surfing attire company Rip Curl,

00:00:14.700 dropping Bethany Hamilton in favor of a man who identifies as a woman. Oh my goodness,

00:00:24.400 I'm fired up about this. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to

00:00:28.260 ranchers.com. Use code Allie to check out. That's good ranchers.com, code Allie.

00:00:40.860 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. All right,

00:00:46.440 my dad is coming on the show. In just a few minutes, he is going to give us his take, his analysis of the

00:00:53.620 border bill. Oh my gosh, there's so much there. But he's also going to give us a very thorough

00:00:59.920 explanation of the convention that will happen this summer before the presidential election.

00:01:06.940 And you guys love when I have my dad on because he's so good at explaining things in a very calm

00:01:11.600 manner and he makes us feel like everything's going to be okay when it really feels like it's not.

00:01:17.000 All right, before we get into what I want to talk about before he comes on, let me just remind you,

00:01:23.720 and I'll show you if you're watching on YouTube, what I'm wearing. We've got cute, relatable merch,

00:01:28.120 self-love won't save you. And really the implication, which we should probably like have on the back or

00:01:32.920 something is, but Jesus will. Because remember, the self can't be both the problem and the solution.

00:01:39.300 Just in time for Valentine's Day, go to AllieMerch.com. We've got this cute shirt,

00:01:43.980 Comfort Colors. This is a size large, I believe. And if it's nice and roomy, you guys probably know

00:01:50.540 how Comfort Colors fits. And then we've also got the crew neck sweatshirts and we've got bags and

00:01:56.260 we've got stickers with the same design. So check that out, AllieMerch.com. Okay, one more thing I

00:02:02.480 wanted to say that I did not get to say yesterday, or I just forgot to say, is I just wanted to mention

00:02:08.820 Toby Keith's passing. And this makes me super sad. He's had stomach cancer. He had stomach cancer for

00:02:15.980 a long time. People knew he was sick. And I think he recently performed actually, and he was very

00:02:21.700 obviously sick, but he had done some interviews recently where he talked about his faith. According

00:02:28.140 to CBN, he recently said in an interview with Fox News Digital, I lean on my faith and I just pray and

00:02:35.760 I lean into it. You got to do what you got to do. And I don't know how people do it without faith.

00:02:40.000 That's what I did. It was my rock. And so it's good to see him talk about his faith towards the

00:02:45.560 end of his life. But I love the song Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue. My friends will tell you

00:02:52.220 that that song reminds them of me because I love it so much. It just gets me riled up about America

00:03:00.300 in a good way. And so I just wanted to mention that, that he has passed. And I don't know that

00:03:08.880 much about his faith and about his journey. It sounds like he was a believer in Jesus. And so he

00:03:13.700 is fully healed and he is having a better time than any of us could possibly imagine while we are here

00:03:22.580 on this side of eternity. So prayers for Toby Keith's family and for his friends. He certainly

00:03:29.880 made an impact on country music. And OK, one more thing, one more thing. I know I've got like a lot

00:03:35.800 of things to say before we actually get into our stories, but they're all important. OK, we announced

00:03:41.460 this yesterday on social media, so now I can say it. Candice Cameron Puree is going to be on the show

00:03:48.820 next week and I'm so excited about it. This is a guest that you guys have been asking me to have

00:03:53.480 on for so long and it finally worked out. She's going to be here in studio. So Tuesday, I believe

00:04:00.980 it will be unless something changes, but that's when we plan to air the episode next Tuesday. We're

00:04:06.840 going to be talking about all sorts of things. I'm so excited to have Candice Cameron Puree on

00:04:11.620 Relatable on the White Relatable couch. And so make sure that you tune in for that. All right. OK,

00:04:16.520 we're really going to going to get into today's stories.

00:04:31.620 OK, we really are going to get into it now. OK, and this is a story that I have been wanting to

00:04:37.060 talk about for several weeks, but it just hasn't it hasn't worked out. There's been so many things

00:04:42.600 vying for our attention on Relatable, but I'm finally talking about this story about Rip Curl,

00:04:48.400 who that it's an Australian brand that specializes in swimwear for surfers and Bethany Hamilton. You 0.72

00:04:55.640 probably know the story of Bethany Hamilton. She is a very famous surfer who lost her arm in a shark

00:05:02.180 attack several years ago. They dropped her as a, I guess, like a representative, an ambassador of

00:05:10.680 their brand. And they picked up this, quote unquote, trans identifying male surfer. So this

00:05:17.120 is according to Redux. In November 2023, Rip Curl dropped Bethany Hamilton, a well-known female 0.96

00:05:22.980 surfer and bestselling author of Soul Surfer, who survived a shark attack and returned to professional

00:05:27.980 surfing despite losing an arm in the attack. She's also a Christian, and so she talks a lot about her

00:05:33.680 faith. Hamilton was sponsored by Rip Curl when the shark attack happened at age 13. She signed with

00:05:39.480 a brand at age nine. So while this has been a long time, she's been with them for 24 years. But this

00:05:46.020 past fall, they cut ties with her after a quarter of a century, despite her status as one of the most

00:05:53.300 celebrated female surfers in Australia, reportedly because Hamilton had voiced her opposition to 0.95

00:05:59.660 trans identifying males competing in female sport competitions. Last February, Hamilton shared two

00:06:08.660 videos to her Instagram account questioning the October 2022 guidelines adopted by the World Surf League

00:06:16.040 in accordance with the International Surfing Association, which granted males who claim a

00:06:21.380 transgender status permission to compete against female athletes. So here is part of that video.

00:06:29.080 Who is pushing for this huge change? Does this better the sport of surfing? Is this better for the

00:06:35.760 women in surfing? If so, how? How did whoever decided these hormone rules come to the conclusion that 1.00

00:06:44.980 12 months of testing testosterone make it a fair and legal switch? Okay, so she spoke up about this.

00:06:53.140 She also said in the video, she was very careful to say that, you know, she loves everyone, she supports

00:06:58.700 everyone, but she can't be on board with men competing against women. And of course, of course, this shouldn't

00:07:03.900 even be a debate. Kudos to her for saying something about it, though, for using her platform, using her 0.81

00:07:09.080 clout to speak up on behalf of women. The only reason that she is a prominent surfer is because 0.99

00:07:14.220 she was able to compete against women. Because even if you go through estrogen therapy, even if you 0.88

00:07:19.840 change your name, you grow out your hair, you start wearing a skirt and lipstick, you're still a man.

00:07:24.120 You will always be a man. The fact that you went through male puberty means that you will have a 0.58

00:07:29.040 physical advantage when it comes to athletics. Of course, you will always be bigger and stronger in

00:07:34.380 general than most women. You will have a bigger heart, you have greater lung capacity, you have more 1.00

00:07:39.480 upper body strength, you have greater muscle mass. All of these things really matter when it comes to

00:07:44.580 sports. And in particular, when it comes to surfing, like I don't think that I need to explain

00:07:49.220 everything that's at play here. When we're talking about who is going to probably be superior

00:07:58.100 when it comes to the sport of surfing. Okay, so she spoke out about that. A lot of people applauded

00:08:05.800 her for it. But of course, she got a lot of criticism as well. And apparently, Rip Curl, 0.95

00:08:11.720 this company that she had been with for decades, decided that you know what, this is just too far

00:08:17.800 for us standing up for women's rights in sports, saying that men are men and women are women. We don't

00:08:23.800 think that we can partner with someone who believes such crazy, radical, bigoted things. So we are

00:08:29.120 going to cut ties with her. And then we are going to pick up a representative and ambassador, who is

00:08:37.920 a man who identifies as a woman who goes by the name Sasha Lowerson. And here is he.

00:08:48.860 New celebrity endorsement that they've got. Sasha Lowerson, who is a transgender woman surfer, 0.92

00:08:55.880 in other words, a bloke. That was my, um, my journey of surgery for breast. Okay, so this is

00:09:06.980 Jane Lowerson, this man who goes by this name and Rip Curl Women, the Instagram account posted a picture

00:09:14.220 of him, uh, introducing him to their audience. And so I'm a little confused actually about his name

00:09:21.820 because it says Jane Lowerson, but they also call him Sasha. Meet Sasha, a West Australian water woman

00:09:27.240 who loves the freedom found in surfing, disconnecting from the mainstream, and the feeling of dancing on

00:09:32.380 constantly changing waves. Okay, super weird. This person, you look at this picture, there's no question.

00:09:38.960 There's no question about what this person is. No one is confused. No one looks at this picture and

00:09:44.300 says, wow, that's a really muscular woman. You look at this picture, you see the jaw, you see the 1.00

00:09:48.360 shoulders, you see the biceps, you see the chest, you see the head shape, you see the lips, everything

00:09:53.560 screams man. Everything screams man. Now this person was a surfer. This man was a surfer before his

00:10:01.580 transition. He was a pretty competitive surfer then. And if you see pictures of him, he was actually

00:10:06.740 pretty handsome. Like you see him and you're like, okay, he's a handsome guy, kind of looks a little

00:10:12.240 bit like a beach bum. And now he is, and I know people are gonna say, this is so mean to say. It's not

00:10:19.000 mean to say. Now he is one of the ugliest women that I've ever seen. And obviously he's not really a 1.00

00:10:24.140 woman. And I know people say, why do you have to say that? So mean to talk about someone's looks like

00:10:28.100 that. It is never mean to say that a man makes an ugly woman. That's a compliment. That is a 0.97

00:10:33.280 compliment. No man in his right mind wants to hear, you know what? You would make a gorgeous

00:10:40.400 woman. You would be so pretty and delicate if you decided to grow your hair. No man in his right 0.95

00:10:45.680 mind wants to hear that. Only a man who has, whose brain has been so destroyed by pornography

00:10:52.360 and sexual fetishes and perversion and other kinds of depravity and confusion would ever make this switch 0.99

00:11:02.100 from being a genuinely handsome guy to an atrocious looking woman. Okay? There's something 1.00

00:11:09.320 going on here besides just innocent confusion and innocent dysphoria. Now I do think that there is

00:11:16.640 dysphoria here. I do. Because you read the Reddit posts and the testimonials of some of these guys who

00:11:23.640 so-called transition and they, the, you can tell what they see in the mirror is so far from reality.

00:11:31.780 It's insane. Like they'll post their transformation pictures. Oh, a year on HRT, a year on estrogen.

00:11:39.280 I've changed so much. I look so pretty and feminine today because they're wearing lip gloss. Everyone else

00:11:45.380 sees that and they're like, oh, that is a man in pigtails. But they see themselves as a girl.

00:11:52.140 However, just because I think dysphoria is there, I don't think that dysphoria is the root cause.

00:11:59.540 That's a symptom of what is going on underneath, which again, I think is very often fueled by

00:12:05.920 addiction to pornography, specifically sissy porn, as Genevieve Gluck has argued on this podcast before.

00:12:13.020 There are lots of reasons, but I think dysphoria is actually a symptom, not the cause of someone like

00:12:18.520 this transitioning to, transitioning so-called to a woman. Now, if you look at this person,

00:12:25.440 as again, reported by Redux, if you look at this person's social media, you can see that this is a

00:12:30.620 fetish for him. You can see the kind of sexualized pictures that he is posting of himself, which I,

00:12:35.860 like I told Bree, I was like, I could have gone my whole life without seeing these pictures. And they

00:12:41.980 were placed in this document. It's very disturbing. We will definitely not show them or link to the

00:12:47.020 article that included them. But this person sees womanhood as objectification. And that's what a 1.00

00:12:54.360 lot of these men are getting off on, the idea of being objectified and sexualized. They like that.

00:13:00.940 And so they actually see, they have a humiliation fetish. And so they see women as that, as their 0.92

00:13:08.560 ability to be humiliated and objectified. I don't know if that's the case with this guy, but certainly

00:13:14.760 looks to be the case if you look at his social media. So this is who Rip Curl decided to take on

00:13:23.240 as their ambassador and as their representative. As you can imagine, the internet had a lot to say

00:13:31.000 about this. So Sasha, as he calls himself, won first place. This is according to Libs of TikTok

00:13:49.900 and two of Australia's women's state championships. Sasha is a man who has, this is what Libs of TikTok 0.63

00:13:56.700 says. I haven't even read this until right now. We just agree, which is not surprising. Who has a

00:14:01.280 fetish for dressing up as a woman. And now he's cheating and taking women's places. And she posts 0.99

00:14:07.060 some of the very gross pictures that he has posted of himself. Clearly, again, just sexualizing 0.86

00:14:14.240 himself. It's really, really disturbing. And you can see in the picture of himself where he is taking 0.60

00:14:20.360 first place. He's got a trophy and he's standing next to other women. How much bigger he is than these

00:14:25.580 other women? And again, just looks so masculine because he is, well, a man. Riley Gaines weighed

00:14:32.160 in. We've had her on the podcast. She is, of course, the collegiate swimmer. She was the collegiate

00:14:36.580 swimmer who was forced to compete against a man, Leah Thomas, Will Thomas. And Riley Gaines said,

00:14:42.260 you mean to tell me Rip Curl dropped Bethany Hamilton for opposing men surfing in the women's league

00:14:47.800 then picked up male surfer who surfs in the women's league as a women's ambassador? Crazy. Yes, 0.99

00:14:54.020 that is exactly what happens. And we will make sure to put up some of these pictures. And so you can just

00:15:02.740 get an idea in your mind of what exactly is going on here and the clown world in which we are forced

00:15:10.040 to live. Like we are being forced to suppress our understanding of reality, to suppress our

00:15:17.920 appreciation of beauty and to deny the humor, the humor in a man putting on a dress. That has been a

00:15:29.680 comedic trope forever. And now we can't laugh and we can't even just sit here with a straight face.

00:15:36.400 We all have to smile and clap like seals and say, yes, Sasha, you are a beautiful, dainty surfer and you

00:15:43.600 deserve to be right up there with all of those women. You're gorgeous girl. When we like, we all know,

00:15:49.680 we all see, I don't care how ardent of a trans activist you are. I know, you know, I know, you

00:15:57.460 know, we all see it. We all see it. Okay. And I just refuse to participate in the lie. I refuse to.

00:16:05.840 And that's the thing about this whole push for pronoun politeness and to have these nuanced

00:16:10.980 conversations about respecting someone's identity and the hope that you maybe can build a relationship

00:16:16.320 with them and you can evangelize to them. You do not have to lie in order to build relational equity

00:16:23.740 with someone. And if you do, then that's not a relationship worth pursuing. You will never,

00:16:30.260 God will never ask you to lie or to deceive or to sin about anything, but particularly in this case,

00:16:39.200 about the imago Dei in someone, um, because male, female, and us being made in the image of God,

00:16:46.740 we all see that in one verse in Genesis 1 27, they go together. Like you will never be asked to deny

00:16:53.060 that for the sake of evangelism. Like, don't you think that God's truth is powerful enough? Of course

00:16:59.340 it is. Of course it is. People are not going to be won over by our sin. They will be won over by the

00:17:04.780 Holy spirit and the righteousness that Christ has given us. They are not going to be won over by us

00:17:12.760 denying the truth and calling a man. She, that is what I call toxic empathy or weaponized empathy. 0.74

00:17:20.820 It works on Christian women so well that the fact that a lot of you, which I get it, I get it. A lot

00:17:27.540 of you probably cringed when I said that this person makes an ugly woman shows that all of us have been

00:17:34.640 affected a little bit by this weaponized empathy that we've been told that we have to be so soft 0.95

00:17:42.160 and so quiet and so unassuming and so just, uh, assenting to this nonsense. So as to protect our

00:17:52.120 witness and seem loving, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Love rejoices with the truth. As first

00:18:01.180 Corinthians 13 tells us, it is not going to rejoice in wrongdoing. In fact, it never rejoices in

00:18:07.420 wrongdoing. We have to speak the truth in love to this sort of thing, because this is the effect

00:18:13.900 that it's having. The effect that it's having, and I would say this is one of the most innocuous effects

00:18:19.080 that it's having is robbing women of opportunities in athletics. Again, I would say that's just the tip 1.00

00:18:25.980 of the iceberg. Then when you see men entering women's domestic abuse shelters, men being housed

00:18:33.440 in women's prisons, uh, when you see children being transitioned, their genitals cut off in the name 1.00

00:18:41.300 of gender affirmation, you see parents losing custody of their kids because they won't call their son

00:18:48.360 Jack Sally because all of a sudden he learned on Reddit or Tumblr when he was 13 years old that

00:18:53.780 he's really the opposite sex. Like assenting to this nonsense by using pronoun politeness, 0.98

00:19:01.100 by buying into this deception, you are contributing to all of that evil and wickedness. It is Satan telling

00:19:10.580 you that in order to love someone, you have to use the wrong pronouns. It is Satan telling you

00:19:16.520 that in order to love someone, you have to look at this person and say, yeah, that's a pretty lady. 1.00

00:19:21.940 That is Satan telling you that. That is Satan trying to harm your witness. That is Satan

00:19:27.580 tempting you to sin. Can you have compassion for this person? Understanding that as Ephesians 2 tells us,

00:19:34.400 we were all once dead in our sin apart from Christ. Yes, of course, because we all were. All of us

00:19:41.180 were enemies of God at one point. And it is only by grace through faith have any of us been reconciled

00:19:48.280 to God, made alive in Christ. And so I don't have to look at this person and say, wow, they're way too

00:19:53.560 far off. They're worse than I ever was. It's different sin, certainly. But look, all of us were

00:19:59.340 once dead in sin. There aren't different levels of dead. You're just dead. And Ephesians 2 tells us

00:20:04.340 that without Christ, you were dead in your sin. You're headed for hell. So can we have compassion for

00:20:09.140 this person because of that? Because they are still made in the image of God, no matter how

00:20:13.420 depraved or deceived they are? Yes, absolutely. But that does not mean I have to acquiesce in any way.

00:20:19.060 I do not have to comply with this madness. What did Sultan Heidsen say? He said, let the lie triumph,

00:20:26.060 but do not allow it to triumph through me. Now, I personally think that this gender madness will not 1.00

00:20:33.380 triumph. I really do. If you want a white pill for the day, like I really don't think that

00:20:39.080 this is going to keep going forever. Now, I think it's going to hurt really badly. I think that

00:20:44.280 there's going to be, unfortunately, many bodies, many children placed on the altar of gender ideology 1.00

00:20:51.940 before the altars are overthrown, destroyed. But I do think it's coming. I do. It's just too far.

00:21:02.040 It's too far. This is the thing that I see push people in the other direction. Because we look at a

00:21:08.180 picture of someone like this named Sasha, and we're all supposed to say, wow, that's a beautiful

00:21:12.540 woman. I don't care how radical you are. I don't care what kind of communist you are. There is no one 0.96

00:21:19.400 on planet Earth that would look at that person and say that is a woman. And I refuse to pretend.

00:21:25.380 I refuse to play along even a little bit. Even a little bit. I will not give in a centimeter on that.

00:21:32.940 But reality is too important. The image of God, God's creation is too important. Gender is too 0.95

00:21:39.360 important. The protection of our girls and women and children is too important. And the protection

00:21:44.140 of men too. This harms men too. By the way, we should definitely ban pornography. That's the thing

00:21:51.640 that I'm going to end on there. All right. I just want to talk about that because I've been wanting to

00:21:57.560 talk about that for a while. Oh, let me just say what Bethany Hamilton said. She said male-bodied 1.00

00:22:02.700 athletes should not be competing in female sports, period. Yes and amen, Bethany Hamilton. Now she's 1.00

00:22:11.620 not here yet, but one day she will be to the point to where she just says male or just says men.

00:22:17.440 I understand. We've all been through that. When you're realizing the craziness of this,

00:22:21.560 you say things like biological male, biological female. You'll say things like gender, you know,

00:22:27.160 they suffer from gender dysphoria or you'll give a lot of caveats and nuance. You'll try to kind of

00:22:31.760 police your own language because you are scared to say just men. You don't even have to say male-bodied.

00:22:41.360 There's no other type of, there's no other type of man. They're all male-bodied and all people who are

00:22:48.140 male-bodied are men. All people who are men are male-bodied. They're one in the same. But I'm not 0.95

00:22:55.960 nagging. I'm just saying all of us have been there. So if you have a gripe about how she worded that,

00:23:02.320 it takes time. And I'm proud of her for speaking out. I'm thankful that she spoke out, that she's

00:23:06.640 using her platform to speak up on behalf of reality. So good job. And I would love for her to

00:23:13.260 join the show one day. So hopefully we can make that happen. All right. Just wanted to cover that

00:23:18.120 before we get into it with my dad about the border bill and some other things.

00:23:33.140 Dad, welcome back to the program. It's good to be here. Okay. So lots of things to talk about. But

00:23:38.720 first, I want to get your take on this border bill that a lot of conservatives are saying is

00:23:44.960 atrocious. Do you agree? Well, yes. But let me lead into it. I've got some really kind of

00:23:51.440 interesting information that I looked at last night on polling that NBC, which not your conservative

00:23:57.920 Stallworth did some polling. And I imagine some of their people were very nervous over this. The

00:24:03.920 latest polling, and this is a very fair poll. What they've done is they've gotten a Republican

00:24:09.240 pollster and a Democrat pollster to come up with the questions as well as the sampling. So it's a

00:24:14.820 pretty fair, these are registered voters. Okay. Not just, not likely voters or not just citizens,

00:24:20.160 but registered voters, which generally people would vote. Overall, Trump has his largest lead in a

00:24:26.140 while, 47 to 42 over Biden. So that's the outside the margin of error. Okay. Which is interesting.

00:24:32.780 Uh, but the interesting thing about it is they also asked the question, if Trump is convicted on any of

00:24:40.100 these multitude of cases, it goes from 43 Trump and 45 Biden. So it, and it makes a huge difference for

00:24:48.580 the 18 to 34 year olds for some reason. And for the Latinos, a little bit of difference though,

00:24:54.120 in independence, which is actually should be encouraging to Trump because that's generally who

00:24:58.780 will decide the election. Right. A lot of these others, they're not going to change whether they

00:25:03.240 vote for Biden or Trump, the Trump people, if he gets convicted of something, unless it's something

00:25:07.480 people have never heard about, they're, they're going to stick with him. But a couple of other

00:25:12.060 things were interesting too. And that is Biden's approval rating is at an all time low for any

00:25:17.740 president. Wow. At this close to the reelection. Really?

00:25:21.720 37%. Yes. Trump was at 46%. Well, and I'm just thinking though, at this point before the election

00:25:29.040 in 2020, like we were in COVID land. So it was still at 46% according to this poll because the

00:25:36.760 guy did talk about that when I did the read of the article, talk about it. The other thing is on the

00:25:41.000 economy. This is, this is interesting. The economy, Trump is 55, Biden's 33. Okay. On the border,

00:25:47.900 which we're going to get into 57, 22. Now the interesting thing is Allie, those actually are

00:25:54.400 in conflict with the overall deal. It should, if, if those are true numbers, which they are,

00:26:00.260 but when it gets down to pulling the lever for Trump, there are obviously some people that believe

00:26:05.580 he'd do a better job on the economy and the border that still can't do it. And that is, should be

00:26:10.740 concerning to former president Trump. So we'll see what happens on that. But I thought it was pretty

00:26:15.400 interesting polling, but on the border bill itself. Yeah. I, I, uh, you know, I think the

00:26:21.700 criticism that Senator Langford is getting is a little bit misplaced. It's as I've talked to you

00:26:27.380 and I've talked about before, uh, making public policy in a political environment is very, very

00:26:33.520 messy. And especially when you're in the minority, you can't force things through now you can be against

00:26:39.780 things and you can say no and all that type of stuff. And I've met Senator Langford before. I know

00:26:45.080 him to be a man of honor and a, at a man that, uh, agrees with us on, I would imagine most of the

00:26:52.720 issues. Now he's definitely been one of the most outspoken pro-life advocates. And also the, one of

00:27:00.040 the reasons they pick him to do this is because he's not up for reelection this time. Nobody up for

00:27:06.000 reelection this time would ever be a part of this. There's no, there's no question about it. The other

00:27:11.300 thing I would tell people too, Allie, is that, uh, they're, the Republicans do not want to give

00:27:18.720 president Biden a gift right before an election. And if it appeared that we had some type of border

00:27:25.060 solution, no matter what it was, then they wouldn't like that. But the reason the Democrats are doing

00:27:31.820 it, the reason Schumer's even involved in this at all is because he saw those polling numbers, 57,

00:27:37.360 22, and they're trying to bail this man out. And so what they can say then, if Republicans say,

00:27:44.060 I'm not going to support this, which we'll get into, they are saying it that, you know,

00:27:47.860 this is dead on arrival in the house. Um, then Chuck Schumer and the Democrats can say, look,

00:27:53.300 we tried, we tried to secure the border and Republicans wouldn't even, wouldn't even give

00:27:58.700 us the opportunity to do it. Well, let's talk a little bit about the details of that. You know,

00:28:02.560 one of the funny things they say is that, um, it, it will shut, they will close the border

00:28:08.460 if more than 5,000 a day come in. Yeah. Which Senator Langford's point is, is that, look,

00:28:15.440 that means the border is going to be shut immediately because it's already happening.

00:28:19.400 But why that 5,000 number? Why not just say we're going to shut it down?

00:28:23.500 Well, that's, that would be the argument is that you would shut it down at least for a period of time,

00:28:28.220 totally legal and illegal so that you can kind of, what is the new system going to be? Get the

00:28:34.560 new courts in order, all that type of stuff. So I don't, and when they say shut down,

00:28:40.580 that doesn't mean that it's shut down. It just means that if people slip through and they don't

00:28:46.620 catch them, then, you know, there's nothing that's going to happen to them. It's really shutting down

00:28:50.580 the legal part of it after 5,000 a day. However, interestingly enough too, they also say that

00:28:57.620 they're going to make asylum a little bit quicker to process, right? They're, they're,

00:29:02.340 they're giving you 90 days. Your asylum is going to be processed. Either you'll be let in or either

00:29:07.140 you'll be sent back home. However, the bad part about that is, is somebody that comes through

00:29:12.700 illegally. Okay. Has the same asylum rights as somebody that comes through legally. And my opinion

00:29:19.820 would be no, no illegal people get asylum rights. If you want to come and ask for asylum,

00:29:25.820 just come through it legally. That's open means come through Brownsville, come through someplace in

00:29:30.260 Arizona or California. You can do that and claim asylum. Why come through illegally? We should not 0.98

00:29:35.900 allow, it should be zero for illegally. The other thing that it talks about is there's, there's $650

00:29:42.820 million to add onto the border wall, which is kind of interesting. Probably something the Republicans put

00:29:48.440 in there. However, the money doesn't have to be spent on that. And you know, money, once it's allocated,

00:29:53.960 it ends up being controlled by the executive branch, unless it's specific. And this bill does

00:30:00.200 not specifically say you must spend it on the border wall. They could spend it on more drones or

00:30:05.700 whatever. Now there is some good things in it. Okay. They're, they're going to increase the number of

00:30:11.160 border patrol agents, $20 billion. The whole bill is going to be, I do like the rapid asylum,

00:30:17.520 you know, getting those processed quicker. If we can get those processed quicker,

00:30:20.620 because there is some legitimate. Yeah. And that doesn't mean they'll all be approved.

00:30:24.260 It just means processed more. Yeah. And which, which it should be. And it will be,

00:30:28.800 I don't know what I think about this. It'll be easier for families to claim asylum. Okay. Then it

00:30:34.480 will be for single men. Yeah. Which probably should be, because I think they know, I think that's 0.97

00:30:39.560 probably right. You can see both sides. Yeah. I can see both sides of that, but I don't like chain

00:30:43.660 migration. Right. Yeah. Right. In fact, I don't even like the word migration. It's illegal. 0.60

00:30:50.540 Immigration. Illegal immigration, illegal immigrants. Okay. It just is. That's just the 0.95

00:30:55.920 way it is. So I think the other thing that's in there that most people haven't talked about

00:30:59.420 is there's something called, um, it's DACA, but they're here legally. Okay. So if, if I came over

00:31:09.720 and I was a Mexican citizen, but I had a legal right to be here for a work visa and I brought

00:31:15.440 my children with me. Okay. Or they were, maybe they were even born here. All right. Now, when I

00:31:21.180 brought my children with me legally, okay, that's the way it would work when they're 21, they become

00:31:26.640 automatically illegal. Right. Because the parent was never an actual citizen. Right. And so they're

00:31:35.300 trying to figure out how to take care of that in the bill as well for those, what they call

00:31:39.860 legal dreamers or something like documented dreamers. That's what they call them. Okay. So

00:31:43.860 and one thing about the, the families, um, that I've seen some Republican senators and congressmen

00:31:51.440 say is that giving priority to families, minors that could incentivize, which this has been said

00:32:00.520 a lot about border policy that could incentivize child trafficking. Because if you get to skip to

00:32:06.320 the front of the line or you get priority because you're with a child, well, then you just find a

00:32:12.640 child and you show up there and you say, Oh no, I'm not just a man by myself. Look at all these

00:32:17.100 children. They're not going to do a DNA test right there to be able to verify if those children are

00:32:22.300 really with their parents or not. I think that that does incentivize probably child trafficking and

00:32:27.840 parents are going to be paid. And we already see this problem with human smugglers. That's 0.83

00:32:32.120 part of what's going on here is the coyotes are getting paid to smuggle people over the border.

00:32:37.620 Parents getting paid to send their children across the border to be able to help, you know,

00:32:42.560 these men cross the border. And so this is, I think that that's a big problem. That's incentivizing,

00:32:47.860 I think even more trafficking. I think it absolutely could be. The other thing they do,

00:32:51.740 you know, is they don't verify that you're an actual family member immediately when you get across

00:32:56.140 there. They don't verify that. Now, one thing they could do is they could make people come with

00:33:00.900 documentation that could be easily checked against their home country. Right. I mean,

00:33:05.460 all of that stuff is available these days, even what we might call third world countries. A lot of

00:33:10.520 that information is available through their online systems and what have you, but they don't, you know,

00:33:16.100 they, they don't do that. The other thing they're not going to do in the bill is they're not going to

00:33:19.920 deport any current illegals under this bill, which is a, which is a showstopper for me. So I think 0.96

00:33:26.560 what'll happen, Allie, I don't think it'll ever get to the house. Now I do wish the house would pass

00:33:29.940 their own bill. They need to pass their own bill too, right? Come up with something, pass it,

00:33:34.640 and then see if you can work out the differences. But I don't even think this bill is going to get

00:33:38.680 out of the Senate. It'll be a big test for Mitch O'Connell as the minority leader. Can he get 10 votes

00:33:45.460 to stop cloture, you know, which stops the debate? I'm not sure he'd get 10 votes to be able to do

00:33:50.880 that. It'll be very interesting to see. He'll have to do some pretty big arm twisting for that. And if

00:33:56.120 it is 10 votes, it'll be, the 10 will make up people who are not on the ballot this time or who

00:34:01.100 have decided they're going to retire. Some people are frustrated by the allocation of funds because

00:34:18.380 it also sends $20 billion. So $20 billion in U.S. border funds, $14 billion in assistance for Israel,

00:34:24.940 $60 billion for Ukraine, $4.83 billion to Indo-Pacific nations, $9.2 billion in humanitarian

00:34:32.520 aid for civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine. So people are saying, okay, so you're sending more

00:34:38.460 money to Ukraine and to secure Ukraine's borders than you're willing to add or allocate for our

00:34:44.260 own borders. And I think that's a legitimate criticism. Well, it's different, okay? It's different

00:34:51.600 in that Ukraine is in the middle of a war. And whether or not you agree with the war or not,

00:34:57.300 they're in the middle of a war, okay? And I know some people would say our southern border is a war

00:35:02.460 as well. We're being invaded. We're being invaded by people, but not by tanks and not by missiles and

00:35:07.880 stuff like that. So there is a difference there. You can argue whether or not we should help Ukraine,

00:35:13.460 all right? And I get that. I'm, you know, I am probably much more of a isolationist than I used

00:35:20.140 to be, but I do understand why we want to protect democracy where it is out there because it's a

00:35:26.500 slippery, you know, it's a slippery slope. If Ukraine is a democracy, which is very much up for

00:35:31.700 debate. In theory, okay. In theory, they are, right? They're probably closer than Russia is. 0.58

00:35:36.580 Would we agree with that? Okay. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. I have no, I honestly,

00:35:40.860 I'm not sure. But the number one thing that wasn't included in this bill, in my opinion,

00:35:45.440 that would have the most effect, and President Trump didn't do this either, is naming the Mexican

00:35:51.340 cartels as terrorist organizations. And any of the gangs or cartels that exist in the other

00:35:57.480 Central American countries, you name them terrorist organization, that gives us the right to put our 1.00

00:36:01.860 military in there to protect our citizens. And why wouldn't we do that? I have no idea because

00:36:06.960 there's, I don't know, there's some deals going on. And why do you think that, I mean, I think we all

00:36:12.680 kind of have our theories, but why would the Biden administration pick this fight with Texas,

00:36:20.020 go to the Texas border and cut razor wire, not just say, hey, treat everyone nicely, but actually

00:36:26.280 undermine Governor Abbott's efforts to try to protect the border. I think razor wire is a very

00:36:33.000 nice way to say, please don't come in. But you've got people saying, oh, that's so mean. And the Biden

00:36:38.020 administration coming in, cutting the razor wire. You know, the funny thing is too about that is that

00:36:42.820 it actually works because until they put the razor wire up in Eagle Pass, there were several thousand

00:36:47.880 a day coming across. And then since it's been up, there's like been three. Yeah. So, and the other

00:36:53.780 thing is though, the feds can go in there and cut it down, but we can also put it right back up. It

00:36:59.540 can be a tit for tat for a while. Yeah. What do you think is going to happen there? Because basically

00:37:03.900 Governor Abbott defied the Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court said, okay, while we're figuring

00:37:09.900 this out, yes, the Biden administration has the authority to cut this razor wire. Although they

00:37:14.480 haven't done it by the way. Yeah. And Governor Abbott said, well, no, and nothing happened. I know.

00:37:18.960 I know. Is that interesting? I mean, who knows? Maybe the border patroller

00:37:23.680 is refusing to do it. I don't know, but I do think it's very, you know, I do think it's very

00:37:28.040 interesting and what have you. So, uh, I don't think the border bill is going to make it. I mean,

00:37:32.360 I give people credit for trying to make something happen. We do need a system that allows people to

00:37:37.480 work here legally in a better way. We do need to have a real asylum system. Okay. A lot of our

00:37:44.300 ancestors, not mine and yours, but other people's ancestors came over here under that real scenario.

00:37:49.960 Now, one thing I do like in the bill that we should do a standalone bill on is protecting the people

00:37:55.640 from Afghanistan that helped us. You know, there's a provision in the bill that makes it easier for

00:38:00.160 them to be here legally. And, you know, Biden and them didn't do any of that when they first did the

00:38:04.960 pullout, but then it is a provision in this bill to help the people from the Afghans, you know,

00:38:09.980 the interpreters and all those people to be here legally, which I would be in favor of.

00:38:13.960 And just a reminder, because I do think that some people believe that everyone showing up at the

00:38:18.660 border is a refugee or is an asylum seeker, but a lot of these people are not just from Mexico.

00:38:24.780 They're not just from South America. They're from China. They're from the Middle East. And if you are 0.82

00:38:28.780 truly seeking asylum, you should go to the next closest country where you can reasonably and safely 1.00

00:38:35.800 stay. It doesn't require you to go through Mexico and come through our border.

00:38:40.700 Actually says it's the first country that you can get into that, you know, you can settle in. That's

00:38:46.620 where your asylum should be. And you're not a refugee just because you are looking for a better life.

00:38:52.800 No. We could understand that. Definitely. That does not justify someone being able to walk in and say,

00:38:59.340 okay, now I'm an American. It just doesn't.

00:39:01.260 Just because you want a better job or something. That's not that.

00:39:03.320 Everyone does.

00:39:04.020 Yeah. That's not the reason. That's 100% for sure.

00:39:07.020 Okay. So something that's very discouraging that you said is that the Republicans, of course,

00:39:12.060 they're not really going to want to really fix this problem right before an election. So Biden

00:39:16.560 can't take credit for it. Is it ever going to get solved? This has been a problem for a very long

00:39:21.480 time. They would fix it if it was totally on their terms, but they're not going to give in on anything.

00:39:26.860 Okay. Now, if they could get Biden, I think if they could get Biden to agree to, you know,

00:39:31.120 build the wall, totally shut everything down, maybe you could get some of that because they could

00:39:35.140 actually claim victory. But I do think it's been a, uh, political football for multiple, uh,

00:39:41.580 administrations. And, uh, I think president Trump did as much as anybody, but I also think

00:39:46.560 he could have done more. Remember we had the house and the Senate for a little while when he

00:39:49.720 was president and we should have made a harder push to get law change, not just executive orders

00:39:56.860 implemented.

00:39:57.800 Yeah. I've seen some of the things that he has said and he said, you know, all of these illegal

00:40:02.100 immigrants coming in, they better not get comfortable because they're going to leave 1.00

00:40:06.320 when I'm president. And I'm like, yes. And amen. I want to see it though. I want to see it.

00:40:10.380 I know. I know. I want you to, you know, I want you to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Now,

00:40:14.520 president Trump right now for sure doesn't want anything done for sure. Yeah. Because yeah, he,

00:40:20.540 he steals his thunder and it, yeah, it only hurts him in his reelection or in his election.

00:40:25.880 Gosh, I think that people are so passionate about it. And the, even if there were some,

00:40:32.740 there was some mitigation at the border, like there's still the problem of all of the millions

00:40:37.440 of those who are here. So he can continue to run on that. I mean, all he has to do is show that

00:40:42.720 picture. I don't know if you saw this of the illegal immigrant in New York after he and his

00:40:46.720 buddies beat up a cop and he's flipping off the camera because he's just been let off. Yeah.

00:40:52.560 All Republicans should be running that picture. These are the so-called refugees that we are 1.00

00:41:00.280 told have to come here. You just run that picture with Joe Biden's picture beside it. That's all you

00:41:04.440 do. And it's accurate. So I do think it's a good political move that Abbott and others have been

00:41:09.960 doing to send the immigrants to these blue states. Abbott's been the superstar in all of this. There's 0.62

00:41:15.980 no question about it. And he probably hasn't been given the credit. No, yeah. And you got,

00:41:20.100 now you got 20 something other governors joining. Do you notice that? Like we're going to, like

00:41:23.980 DeSantis said, I will send you razor wire, which I thought was pretty, I thought was pretty good,

00:41:28.780 but it'll be, you know, it'll be interesting and we'll see how it goes. You know, we're coming up

00:41:33.360 on the primary super Tuesdays coming up. There's a crazy Nevada primary this week where the, 0.95

00:41:38.800 there's actually a primary today and then Republicans go to primary and then they go to caucus on Thursday,

00:41:44.780 which is, I don't even know what it means, but it's going to be very interesting. And of course,

00:41:49.020 we have the conventions coming up in the summer. Okay. Tell us about the conventions.

00:41:54.320 Do you really want to know? I really want to know. Okay. So I want everybody to get a pencil and paper.

00:42:00.140 Okay. Although I know they want, if you're driving, don't do that. But I do have some

00:42:03.680 information on the conventions. First of all, there's a Republican convention and a Democrat

00:42:07.280 convention. The Republican convention is going to be held in Milwaukee in mid-July.

00:42:11.100 Okay. And really just- Why Milwaukee? Any reason?

00:42:14.920 Wisconsin's a border state. Is a-

00:42:16.520 Battleground state. Battleground state. And then oddly enough, not very far down the road,

00:42:21.420 a month later, the Democrats are going to be held in Chicago. And so it'll be interesting, but

00:42:26.720 these conventions are somewhat archaic in how our president's elected, because you know,

00:42:34.540 you and I don't vote for a president directly. We don't even do that in the primary. We vote for

00:42:41.240 what amounts to be a delegate to go to the convention and pledge their vote. All right.

00:42:47.200 So what happens in the Republican convention, there's 2,469 delegates. All right. And there's

00:42:55.720 2,365 of those are what they call a bound, meaning they are obligated. There's 104 at large

00:43:04.520 delegates that aren't as, you know, required to vote for the way the people. And so you have to

00:43:09.740 have 1,235 delegates. When you've had 1,235 delegates that have stood up on that floor and said,

00:43:16.820 you know, the great state of Texas does 38 votes for Allie Stuckey, then you've got 38 delegate votes. 1.00

00:43:23.220 Well, you got to get to 1,235. Texas is 162 of those, sir. They're one of the biggest states that

00:43:29.220 have those. But what it means is, is so when we vote for the primary and we vote for, let's say,

00:43:34.900 Donald Trump wins the primary in Texas, then when we have our state Republican convention at the end

00:43:40.640 of May, people will say, well, I want to be a delegate to the national convention. They actually

00:43:45.480 run again. Okay. Like Allie, you could run or I could run. And we'd go to the convention in San Antonio.

00:43:51.920 And then that group only in my congressional district, right? Because each congressional

00:43:58.880 district gets three national delegates. So in congressional district that I live in 26,

00:44:05.720 we get three. So I could run for a national delegate spot. All right. And let's say I win that.

00:44:12.600 Well, if, if, uh, my district has voted for Trump, then I am bound to pledge my delegate to Trump.

00:44:21.140 I can't change my mind. Okay. It would be, uh, uh, they would just replace me and put another

00:44:26.360 person in there. And that's the way it is all over the state. Now, if Trump didn't get a majority,

00:44:31.900 let's say he got a plurality, but not a majority say he got 40%. Well, then it becomes proportioned,

00:44:38.300 meaning that he might get two votes out of my congressional district. And, you know,

00:44:43.100 Nikki Haley got one or something like that. All right. And so then we go to the state,

00:44:47.860 the state lets all theirs and you go to the national convention and the national convention.

00:44:53.580 Once the 1235 are met, it's over. All right. However, however, let's say nobody gets for

00:45:01.720 whatever reason, something happens and people are really concerned about president Trump. Okay.

00:45:05.840 Okay. Well then he doesn't get a majority on the first run. Okay. Well, you're still bound for the

00:45:14.400 second run. Okay. They'll go through it again, the whole thing. And a lot of times people will

00:45:18.880 change. There'll be a little bit of change for, cause some States don't bind you as much as Texas

00:45:22.840 does. So maybe in the second, Nikki picks up a little bit more. Right. And then by the third run, 0.99

00:45:28.420 if they haven't, if somebody hadn't got a majority, all of the, uh, delegates are unbound and that was

00:45:34.840 when it becomes a free fall, which will not happen by the way, in the Republican conventions. And

00:45:38.980 that's not going to happen now in the Democrat convention works a lot, the same way. Now they

00:45:43.900 have a lot more delegates, but it's still kind of works in a similar fashion in that the delegates

00:45:48.780 are bound through the first, you know, the first ballot, you know, they had these super delegates.

00:45:53.480 If you, in your first election, you really got engaged in when, when, uh, Hillary Clinton and,

00:45:57.860 and Bernie Sanders and the big Bernie Sanders thing was, is that, look, I had a lot more delegates

00:46:03.580 than you allocated me. And that's because they gave these super delegates, extra voting power.

00:46:09.060 Now Democrats, super delegates, which are 750 of them, mostly governors, members of Congress,

00:46:15.300 you know, people like that, they can't vote in the first round. So they're kind of, that's how,

00:46:20.180 that's how Hillary won actually. So they're out of that. So let's say there's not a majority. 0.93

00:46:24.960 Okay. And then the super delegates can vote in the second round. But what is the most interesting

00:46:31.220 part about a contested convention in the, on the Democrat side, this time, let's say that Biden

00:46:37.260 appears to be continuing to lose, you know, his, uh, mental stature. Right. And so there's a big

00:46:45.280 uproar. Well, there, they could force him to release his delegates. There could, they can do

00:46:53.120 it now, whether he would ever do it or not, but they could. And that's how somebody like a Michelle 0.84

00:46:57.320 Obama or somebody like that could come in as a candidate on the house floor. They could do that.

00:47:03.560 I mean, on the convention floor, they could do that. She wouldn't have had to go through primaries

00:47:07.500 or anything like that. And there's, you know, there's theorists that believe that that could

00:47:12.560 happen. And, uh, something like that could happen, you know, with president Trump, who knows if

00:47:18.100 there's something big that goes on behind the scenes that just says, Hey, you know, you're can't,

00:47:23.160 you know, you're, you can't represent us. And it changed a lot of people's mind. Now,

00:47:26.320 I don't think either one of those are likely because both of these gentlemen are bound and

00:47:31.200 determined to, you know, to go at it again, but the conventions will be interesting to watch this

00:47:36.820 time. And I would encourage people to watch them. It's a good, uh, I wouldn't watch them all day,

00:47:40.900 but it's, it's a good, it's a good part of our process. Okay. Yeah. I didn't know very much

00:47:46.120 about that. That's interesting. I bet a lot of people don't even know that that goes on.

00:47:49.220 Yeah, probably not, but it'd be interesting. But I do remember that about Hillary and Bernie

00:47:53.380 and how he felt robbed. And he was actually, I mean, he was, I mean, they had rigged that thing

00:47:58.900 for Hillary, no question about it. And they did the same thing really for Biden in 2020. And you're,

00:48:04.600 and you know what, you know what Bernie got out of it. He got the chairmanship of the Senate

00:48:08.100 finance committee, which controls all the money that goes out that, you know, the Senate approves.

00:48:12.780 Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. Well, dad, thank you so much for that breakdown. That was

00:48:17.640 very educational for me and I'm sure my audience too. Okay. Remind everyone where they can get your

00:48:23.140 book. Oh yes. My book, a life lessons from the little red wagon. You can get it on Amazon or

00:48:27.400 Barnes and Noble or ronsimmons.com. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much.

00:48:33.120 You bet.

00:48:33.420 You bet.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 07, 2024

Ep 947 ｜ Bethany Hamilton Fights the Trans Tidal Wave ｜ Guest： Ron Simmons

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript