Verdict with Ted Cruz - September 25, 2026


Communist China Comes to Washington, Democrat Hasan Piker wants to Put Americans in Chinese Jails & Talarico “Pastor” Says She Doesn’t Believe in Jesus

Topics
NFL Pro NFL Pro Jimmy Lai and Human Rights in China
Hosted by
Ted Cruz
Guests
Timmy Tillman
Mentioned
Hassan Piker Donald Trump Jimmy Lai Bobby Bones Abdul El-Sayed Joe Biden James Tallarico Matt Kester Hitler Mark Suedan Faultline Haditha Steve Sharippa Ray Abruzzo Mao Zedong Seahawks Stalin Obama Fernando Mendoza Matthew Stafford Greg Rosen and 31 more
BONUS POD： Trump Heads Into High-Stakes Xi Summit With Everything on the Table Princeton the One-Party Campus, Super Kamala to the Rescue plus James Talarico's so called 'Church' Week In Review

Episode Stats


Length

48 minutes

Words per minute

166.28

Word count

8,125

Sentence count

541

Harmful content

Toxicity

13

sentences flagged

Hate speech

35

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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00:03:47 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:03:50 It's so nice to have you with us, especially if you're listening on the radio around the country.
00:03:54 Senator, it was one heck of a week in Washington, D.C. where you were.
00:03:58 And not only was it a big week there, but it was also a very big week in New York City at the United Nations as well.
00:04:05 and we've got a lot to cover. Well, this week, President Xi Jinping was in Washington, D.C.
00:04:12 to meet with President Trump and to be there for a state dinner. And it was Washington was shut
00:04:18 down for most of the day that Xi was there. Many of the streets were closed. And the guest list
00:04:25 included many of the most prominent CEOs in America. Virtually all of the tech CEOs came
00:04:33 in for it. In many ways, you read through the guest list, and it was an illustration of how
00:04:39 the battle with China and the race for AI is front and center, and every one of those tech CEOs
00:04:46 is engaged right in the middle of that battle. But the president brought Xi in and did what
00:04:57 Donald Trump does frequently, which is negotiate with our adversaries, and I am confident press
00:05:03 the interest of the United States. The contest with China, I think, is the single biggest and 0.53
00:05:11 most significant geopolitical threat facing this country for the next hundred years.
00:05:16 Yeah. And I, for one, am very glad we have a president like Donald Trump who's willing to
00:05:22 stand up to China as compared to during the four years of Joe Biden, a president who would not do
00:05:28 so. Yeah, it was really interesting to see. And we're going to get into that meeting.
00:05:32 and exactly what I always talked about, especially publicly.
00:05:35 There's a lot that the media was covering.
00:05:37 We're going to have all that for you in just a moment.
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00:06:35 All right, Senator, I want to go back to this state dinner.
00:06:38 And there was some criticism by some of the people that I know well in the world of politics
00:06:44 who were saying the president shouldn't be rolling out the red carpet for China,
00:06:48 shouldn't be doing a state dinner, shouldn't be smiling and grinning.
00:06:53 And I laugh because this is a president that's made it clear,
00:06:56 whether it was his first term or second term,
00:06:57 he'll meet with anyone, anywhere to negotiate a deal.
00:07:01 And he also, as you mentioned in the guest list,
00:07:03 this was a who's who to show strength.
00:07:06 You had in the banking industry, for example,
00:07:08 Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase, who's there.
00:07:10 You've got Elon Musk and that team there.
00:07:13 You've got all these AI people in those sectors.
00:07:15 So whether it is launching satellites or AI or the banking world,
00:07:19 the president made it clear at this state dinner,
00:07:22 He wanted China to see what America has on our side and what they're up against.
00:07:28 And by the way, China did not have a bunch of CEOs there on their side at all.
00:07:31 Well, and I will say that the perspective of much of the world has changed on China significantly.
00:07:38 You know, when I was first elected to the Senate 14 years ago,
00:07:41 I was saying then that the contest with China was the most important battle we had for the next century. 0.97
00:07:49 Yeah.
00:07:49 That was a really lonely position at the time. There was virtually nobody in Washington who
00:07:55 agreed with me. The Democrats all disagreed. They all wanted to get in bed with China.
00:08:03 And at the time, most of the Republicans did too. They looked at China and they just saw
00:08:07 dollar signs. They wanted to do business with China. It was all in. And what I've been advocating
00:08:15 is that we need a comprehensive strategy, much like we did under Ronald Reagan dealing with the
00:08:23 Soviet Union. Now, look, to be clear, nobody in their right mind wants a shooting war with China.
00:08:29 China is a nuclear superpower. They have a massive military. It would be very, very bad for America,
00:08:35 very, very bad for China, and very bad for the world if we engaged in a full-on shooting war 0.77
00:08:41 with China, just like it would have been very, very bad for America and the Soviet Union and 0.95
00:08:45 the world if we'd engaged in a shooting war with them. When you have massive superpowers, 0.91
00:08:50 each of whom has enough nuclear weapons to eradicate humanity, you really, really,
00:08:56 really don't want those weapons used. But that doesn't mean that you have no tools. It doesn't
00:09:02 mean you roll over. And that toolkit includes, number one, the bully pulpit. It means calling
00:09:08 out China for their culpability, holding them to account. And it means, number two, 0.97
00:09:14 resisting them, resisting their espionage, resisting their propaganda, resisting their
00:09:19 funding in the United States, resisting their investing in farmland and buying farmland near
00:09:26 military bases, resisting in their expansion across the globe. China is engaged in what they 0.71
00:09:33 call the Belt and Road Initiative, where they invest billions of dollars in Latin America and
00:09:38 Africa throughout Asia. And it's all from China's perspective. They're waging a thousand year war
00:09:46 against the United States. And their objective is global domination. They're not confused about
00:09:51 what they want. They want to dominate America economically, militarily, diplomatically. They
00:09:58 want to dominate America across the globe. And, and, you know, I will say when, when Biden was
00:10:05 president, the administration did not stand up to China. They were loath to stand up to China.
00:10:11 Trump has done far more so on trade. He's imposed tariffs and pressed back on China and trade. And
00:10:18 I think, look, look, I am skeptical of tariffs, particularly tariffs staying in place on a
00:10:24 permanent basis with respect to most countries that we trade with. But I think China is different,
00:10:29 and I think de-linking our supply chain, particularly for critical infrastructure
00:10:36 from China, is hugely, hugely important. And listen, I'm glad that Trump had our tech leaders
00:10:45 there. Now listen, big tech has a host of sins, a host of things they've done that I think were
00:10:51 wrong, that we need to work to hold them accountable to the American people. But
00:10:58 the question of who wins the race for AI, America or China is, I believe, the most important economic
00:11:09 question facing America. The answer to that will dictate trillions of dollars in new investment
00:11:17 and millions of new jobs. 0.65
00:11:19 If we lose to China,
00:11:20 we will see millions of high-paying jobs go to China.
00:11:24 And even more importantly,
00:11:26 whatever country wins the race for AI,
00:11:29 their values are going to dominate AI.
00:11:32 So if you want the values of the Chinese Communist Party,
00:11:35 espionage, surveillance, propaganda, control,
00:11:39 AI used as a tool of the government to control you, 0.60
00:11:44 then you're good with China winning the race for AI.
00:11:48 If you want American values of free speech
00:11:51 and individual freedom and free enterprise to dictate AI,
00:11:55 then you want America to win the race for AI.
00:11:58 So the stakes are high and having those tech CEOs there
00:12:01 was very much a show of strength
00:12:04 because right now America is winning
00:12:06 and that's one of the reasons why China is investing real money
00:12:10 in pushing anti-AI and anti-data center propaganda
00:12:15 because they're trying to get the easiest way for Xi to win this race
00:12:21 is to convince America to unilaterally disarm,
00:12:25 to handcuff ourselves and hand world leadership of AI over to China.
00:12:29 I think that would be a massive mistake.
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00:19:23 Senator, I want to get back into this conversation we were having a moment ago about China.
00:19:28 Obviously, the state dinner was very interesting, and there was a lot of politics playing out there.
00:19:32 But I was talking to one of our good friends, Larry Kudlow, on his show on Fox,
00:19:36 And we were going through the list of all the big topics that the president was probably going to be talking about with the leader of China.
00:19:44 It is a long list. It's an important list. Everything from AI to fentanyl to Taiwan.
00:19:51 I mean, there is a lot that they were going to be hashing out, is my guess.
00:19:55 So there are a lot of topics that I'm certain were on the agenda.
00:19:59 I think front and center, was China's assistance to Iran and China's willingness, number one,
00:20:05 to purchase Iranian oil, number two, to provide military equipment that is restocking Iran.
00:20:11 Obviously, we've had ongoing military conflict with Iran for a number of months, and China has
00:20:17 played an important role resupplying Iran. And so I am quite confident that the president pressed 0.54
00:20:23 hard on Xi to stop bailing out Iran, to enhance the pressure of the economic blockade that
00:20:31 President Trump has in place on Iran.
00:20:34 And by the way, China loved the cheap oil. 0.75
00:20:37 That was one of the things that was propping up Iran.
00:20:40 And people may not realize just how much Iranian oil was going directly to China that they,
00:20:46 by the way, desperately need.
00:20:48 But they were able to get it at a discount.
00:20:49 Now, that was one of the reasons why many believe they were helping Iran.
00:20:54 And there was even this big controversy this last week over those satellite pictures that may have been used in another country to target an American military base.
00:21:02 Yeah, look, at its peak under Joe Biden, Iran was selling and producing and selling 2 million barrels a day of oil, most of which was going to China.
00:21:14 And that flowed over $100 billion to the Ayatollah.
00:21:19 That was as a result of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refusing to enforce Iran sanctions.
00:21:24 And so leaning into China to get them to stop assisting Iran is, I think, very important.
00:21:32 I also hope and believe that President Trump raised prisoners wrongly detained in China.
00:21:39 One of them is Jimmy Lai.
00:21:42 So Jimmy Lai is a democracy dissident.
00:21:45 He is from Hong Kong.
00:21:47 He was a media mogul, a newspaper man who's been incredibly courageous
00:21:52 speaking up for human rights, speaking up against Chinese communist oppression.
00:21:57 And what did the Chinese communist government do?
00:21:59 They locked him in jail.
00:22:01 He has been in jail for six years.
00:22:03 He's been in solitary confinement for much of that time.
00:22:06 Jimmy Lai is 78 years old.
00:22:08 His health is failing.
00:22:10 I met last week with Sebastian Lai, who is Jimmy's son,
00:22:14 and publicly called on the administration to do everything they can to secure Jimmy Lai's release.
00:22:20 But, you know, back in 2019, when I traveled to Hong Kong to stand in support with the dissidents there
00:22:27 who were standing up to Chinese Communist oppression, I met with Jimmy Lai in 2019.
00:22:32 And he had a lot of courage then. He had amassed a lot of wealth.
00:22:36 And he was risking it all by standing up to the Chinese Communist Party.
00:22:41 And I will say, particularly now, there's a powerful humanitarian case. Look, China arrested
00:22:47 him on trumped up charges. They basically invented a law so they could throw Jimmy Lai in jail because
00:22:53 he's been such an effective voice against the Chinese oppression. But Jimmy Lai's daughter
00:22:59 right now has cancer. And so she's publicly called on a humanitarian release of her husband. I hope
00:23:05 President Trump leaned in. He has raised Jimmy Lai with the Chinese before, and I hope he did 0.97
00:23:11 this time as well. You know, you talk about that's one of the things that this administration has
00:23:16 really, really focused on, and that is people that are being held against their will inappropriately
00:23:22 by regimes, also hostages, American hostages. They've had great success. You've been involved
00:23:27 in quite a few of those cases. That's one of the things that I do think is going to be part of
00:23:32 Trump's legacy is how much he made sure that on either standing up on issues like this or getting
00:23:39 Americans back that are being held around the world. And again, that's something that's part
00:23:42 of your legacy as well, Senator. You've really focused on that significantly while you've been
00:23:47 in the Senate, and you guys have that in common very much so. Well, I've spent a lot of time
00:23:51 focusing on dissidents and championing dissidents. If you look at China, Mark Swedan, who was an
00:23:58 American citizen. He was a Texan and he was wrongfully detained for roughly a decade in
00:24:04 China. And I twice authored bipartisan resolutions calling for Mark Swadon's release that passed the
00:24:13 Senate unanimously. And I repeatedly raised it directly with the Chinese government. I repeatedly
00:24:18 raised it with the Biden administration, with the Trump administration, urging them to make it a
00:24:23 priority to release Mark Swadon. I talked with his mother, who lives in Texas, multiple times.
00:24:30 And Joe Biden was not able to get that done, but President Trump leaned in and secured Mark
00:24:37 Swadon's release. And I actually met with Mark when he came back to America after a decade in
00:24:43 horrific conditions in a Chinese jail. And, you know, there is a power to speaking out for
00:24:50 dissidents. It's one of the things, tyrannies fear dissidents. And so I have spoken out for
00:24:58 dissidents all over the world that are unjustly held by tyrannies and tyrants. You know, one
00:25:04 example back in the Obama administration was a woman named Miriam Ibrahim, who was wrongfully
00:25:11 imprisoned in Sudan. She was sentenced to 100 lashes and to hang by the neck until dead for
00:25:19 the crime of being a Christian. That was her offense. She was a Christian, and the government 1.00
00:25:24 of Sudan demanded she either denounce Jesus or they would torture and murder her, and I repeatedly
00:25:31 went to the Senate floor. I spoke out on her behalf. I begged Obama to say her name. He would 0.76
00:25:36 not utter her name, and by the way, Miriam is a young mom. She had a daughter, Maya, and a little
00:25:45 baby boy Martin who was born in prison literally while she was in leg irons in the dirt in prison
00:25:51 and even though Obama would not lean in ultimately there was enough international pressure that Sudan
00:25:58 gave in and they released her and I got to meet her when she came to America her husband's an
00:26:03 American and and I met with her and I asked her look when you were in that dark prison and they
00:26:08 were threatening to murder you and you were there with your babies how did you not give up yeah and
00:26:14 she looked at me with this incredible peace and she just said, Jesus was with me. And it really,
00:26:22 it's powerful. It's one of the reasons I spend so much time highlighting dissidents because it's
00:26:27 powerful as a tool to fight back against tyranny. You know, not everybody is rooting for people to
00:26:35 be released that are being held in China. A great example of that is a guy by the name of Hassan
00:26:40 Piker. Democrats are hoping this guy would just take a really long sabbatical from saying crazy
00:26:46 things, but he's not doing that at all. Well, Hassan Piker is one of the most important
00:26:53 champions and surrogates who's campaigning with Democrats all across the country. And Democrats
00:26:59 are embracing him. They're proud to stand with him. And Hassan Piker is an America-hating
00:27:04 communist. He is an Islamist. This is the same radical who says America deserved 9-11. 0.98
00:27:13 He campaigned repeatedly with Abdul Al-Sayed, the Democrat nominee in Michigan, who, like Piker,
00:27:19 is an Islamist and a Marxist and an America hater. And no matter how extreme Hassan Piker gets,
00:27:30 the democrats are unwilling to distance themselves from him and indeed abdul i'll say it continues to
00:27:35 embrace this guy i want you to listen to what hassan piker is saying right now he wants to do 0.94
00:27:42 if he's in power give a listen like i will throw you in prison okay i want to put you physically
00:27:51 behind a prison i want chinese style communism to happen inside of the democratic party right now 0.85
00:27:59 OK, I want to do cultural revolution when I see that. 0.70
00:28:02 I mean, I'll give him this.
00:28:04 The timing is really nice with China coming to town.
00:28:08 It's almost like you should say today's show brought to you by the Chinese Communist Party.
00:28:13 Look, I will give him credit for one thing.
00:28:16 Honesty.
00:28:18 That is, in fact, what he wants to do.
00:28:20 And he says he wants Chinese style communism.
00:28:23 He wants gulags.
00:28:25 He wants to throw people in prison.
00:28:27 He wants cultural revolution. Look, there are right now more than one million people in
00:28:35 concentration camps in China's Uyghurs, which is a religious minority. In those concentration camps,
00:28:41 they do horrific things. The Fulongong, which is another religious minority, they do organ 1.00
00:28:46 harvesting. The Chinese communist government forcibly takes their organs to transplant 1.00
00:28:52 and other people. It is horrific. They torture people. They murder people. And Hassan Piker
00:28:58 is calling for that. By the way, he's calling for that within the Democrat Party. If you listen to
00:29:03 what he was saying there, he's not even like, look, he clearly wants to do it to us, to Republicans,
00:29:07 but he's saying, if you are not a full-on Marxist, if you are not a full-on Islamist in the Democrat
00:29:13 Party, that's what he wants to do to his fellow Democrats. I mean, when I say there's a hostile
00:29:20 takeover of the Democrat Party. Look, there's a reason that my Democrat colleagues are terrified
00:29:27 of this guy. And I want to listen to this clip also of Mao Zedong. It's actually of Hassan
00:29:35 Piker talking about Mao. Give a listen. Mao Zedong is one of the great leaders of this world,
00:29:43 Okay. A man who changed the entire universe, the entire planet. Okay. For real, for real. Yes.
00:29:52 I mean, there was a lot of excesses. Let's be real. But the People's Republic of China would
00:29:57 not exist without Mao Zedong. Senator, I got to say, I mean, when you go all in for this style
00:30:02 of communism and you're the leading surrogate of the Democratic Party, it should wake up a few
00:30:07 americans uh this is what they really want look mal is one of the most evil human beings to have
00:30:14 ever lived he was a monster by the way can you just explain a little bit behind that because 0.99
00:30:22 when in a lot of people they think monster they're like well okay there's enough hitler and then
00:30:26 there's others a lot of people don't know of monsters honestly in history outside truly of
00:30:31 Hitler? Well, Mao was responsible for over 30 million who died during the Great Leap Forward
00:30:40 famine. He was responsible for at least two and a half million who were beaten or tortured to death.
00:30:48 He was responsible for more than 722,000 people who were executed in the campaign to suppress
00:30:56 counter-revolutionaries. He was responsible for between 1.1 million and 1.6 million who died in
00:31:05 the Cultural Revolution. Hassan Piker's saying, I want a Cultural Revolution. That took between 1.1
00:31:10 and 1.6 million lives, people who were murdered, and he was responsible for tens of millions of 0.77
00:31:17 people who were subject to political persecution with Christians. Mao had a particular hatred for
00:31:24 Christians. He would literally drive two and three inch nails into the eyeballs of Christians. That's 0.99
00:31:29 how he would murder Christians, with a hammer and nails. And what is Hassan Piker says? He's one of 0.99
00:31:37 the great leaders of the world. Look, you mentioned Hitler. Look, Hassan Piker, he's cheering on Mao. 0.96
00:31:44 I assume he cheers on Stalin. I assume he cheers on Hitler. Mass murderers. He is telling you he is
00:31:53 in favor of mass murder. He is in favor of oppression. And Abdul Al-Sayed stands happily
00:32:00 beside him and said, yep, that's my guy. And to be clear, Al-Sayed does not win the Democrat
00:32:06 nomination in Michigan without Hassan Piker. He is directly responsible for Al-Sayed being the 0.64
00:32:12 nominee. And if you, look, this is something I take very seriously. Communism, I believe, 1.00
00:32:19 is the most evil doctrine humanity has ever produced. It is responsible for more death,
00:32:27 more suffering, more poverty, more torture, more misery than any other ideology mankind has ever
00:32:37 produced. And just between Mao and Stalin, they are the two human beings who have lived to have
00:32:43 killed the most people. Hitler was evil and embodied evil, but in terms of death toll, 0.77
00:32:51 both Mao and Stalin killed many more people than Hitler did. And then you throw in Pol 0.93
00:32:57 Pot in Cambodia, who killed millions as well. You do Castro in Cuba. You do Nicaragua. You 0.67
00:33:05 do North Korea. You do Venezuela. Every country that has had communism. The result is murder.
00:33:13 it's imprisonment, it's torture, it's oppression. And that is what Hassan Piker is saying,
00:33:19 not just that he supports it there. I want to play again what he wants here in America. I want
00:33:25 to play just his words once again. This is one of the leading surrogates for Democrats running
00:33:32 for Senate right now today in 2026. Listen to him again what Hassan Piker wants.
00:33:38 I will throw you in prison. OK, I want to put you physically behind a prison. 0.80
00:33:46 I want Chinese style communism to happen inside of the Democratic Party right now. 0.95
00:33:52 OK, I want to do cultural revolution when I see that. 0.90
00:33:56 But by the way, I do think it's interesting as we play that for the second time, Senator.
00:34:00 You know, you look at this past week and the warnings coming from the Democratic Party or the promise to their voters that if you'll just give us back control of the House or the Senate or both, we're going to weaponize our government and we're going to go after Donald Trump.
00:34:15 We're going to go after his cabinet members.
00:34:17 We're going to go after his donors.
00:34:18 We're going to go after his family members.
00:34:19 Like, we want to put people in jail.
00:34:21 It sounds an awful lot like what he's saying he also wants to do, if you think about it.
00:34:25 Yeah, look, under Joe Biden, we saw the Department of Justice.
00:34:28 We saw the FBI.
00:34:29 eye, we saw the federal government weaponized to attack the president's political opponents.
00:34:35 And I believe should these radicals get power again, it will be substantially worse. These
00:34:42 zealots are embracing, he is telling you he wants to oppress you, he wants to strip away your rights,
00:34:48 strip away your civil liberties. Look, when he wants cultural revolution stuff, he is literally
00:34:55 talking about murdering his opponents and abdul al-sayed steadfastly refuses to distance himself 0.84
00:35:05 refuses to denounce the evil that hassan piker this is not a comment he made years and years
00:35:12 ago this is what he's saying right now this is who piker is by the way young people on the left
00:35:19 these DSA communists, cheer Hassan Piker like he's Mick Jagger, like he's a rock star. 0.69
00:35:27 I mean, imagine China. 0.90
00:35:29 I mean, if they're in America, you know, looking at what we're saying here on their visit,
00:35:33 this is not just music to the air.
00:35:35 This is like straight up propaganda from them.
00:35:38 This is what's taking over the Democrat Party.
00:35:40 And by the way, Abdul Al-Sayed, he believes the same things.
00:35:43 Listen to Abdul Al-Sayed's sister talking about what her brother believes.
00:35:49 hey i just want to say thank you for what you said um i also my uh my nephew just started going
00:35:54 to um yeah and i got him i got him actually doing that you got super like sketch about it
00:36:01 because the whole you know like i'm a capitalist like don't worry about that
00:36:07 all we care about is the policies at this point
00:36:12 are you a socialist i'm not i'm a capitalist are you a socialist i'm not i'm a capitalist are you
00:36:17 a socialist i'm not i'm a capitalist it's amazing how much so just lie straight to your face just to
00:36:22 hope they win this election even though it's very clear what they believe well as his sister said
00:36:27 all they care about is the policy so he's going to lie and claim now that he's a capitalist but but
00:36:31 but it's very clear as as she was willing to reassure this uh this this pretend supporter
00:36:37 that that he's not a capitalist uh it's just about the policies and listen he stands with
00:36:43 Hassan Piker, who wants to throw us all in jail, and he wants Chairman Mao's cultural revolution
00:36:48 here in America. Senator, I want to get into another issue, and that is James Tallarico in
00:36:54 this big race in Texas. The money is flowing into this race, especially on the Democratic side from
00:36:59 outside the state. We're going to talk about that in just a moment. But before we get to that,
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00:38:34 All right, Senator, let's get into James Tallarico.
00:38:36 You know, this is a guy that really wants you to believe that he's not a radical, that
00:38:42 he's not extreme, and that those around him are just middle of the road because he's desperate
00:38:46 to try to lie to people, fool them in Texas.
00:38:50 But his past keeps coming out to get him, and the people around him keep saying things,
00:38:56 clearly trying to lie to the American people as well about who he really is.
00:39:00 Well, listen, I think the two most dangerous and the most radical and extreme candidates in the
00:39:05 country are Abdul Al-Sayed and James Tallarico. They are both Democrat nominees in Michigan and
00:39:13 Texas, respectively, and they're both extreme. Now, they're trying to pretend not to be for
00:39:19 the general election voters. Tallarico, in particular, he tries very hard to claim that
00:39:24 he's a moderate. And the big thing he tries to do is by saying that he is a Christian minister.
00:39:31 And that, you know, that particularly for a voter not paying attention, they say, well,
00:39:36 gosh, if he's a minister, I mean, you know, if he's a Christian, that's great. He can't be that
00:39:41 extreme. And I will say every week, more facts about his record, about his saying God is non-binary,
00:39:50 about his saying there's six different genders, about his saying he wants a welcome man on the
00:39:55 southern border to welcome illegal immigrants, about his saying he wants to dismantle capitalism,
00:40:01 about his saying he's a, quote, Christian who hates Christianity. He's on video saying that as
00:40:08 well. But not only that, the church that he has attended for many, many years is a church in
00:40:15 Austin that is more radical than any church I have ever seen. And one of the senior pastors
00:40:22 there is this woman who's a lesbian who was caught on undercover film. Now, look, I am reluctant to
00:40:30 question someone else's faith. That is not for me to do. That is a question for God to judge.
00:40:36 But I will say, if you say you're a Christian, the absolute heart of Christianity, the Gospels,
00:40:44 You actually find it in John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
00:40:49 son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
00:40:55 That is the essence of Christianity, that Jesus came, died on the cross for our sins,
00:41:00 and that if we accept his forgiveness, if we accept his salvations, our sins will be
00:41:07 forgiven.
00:41:07 All of the rest of it, you can have doctrinal disputes, but that's the absolute heart of
00:41:13 what it means to be a Christian.
00:41:15 Now, I want you to listen to James Tallarico's pastor
00:41:20 and what she and the folks at their church believe.
00:41:25 Do we really believe that like a virgin gave birth to a baby?
00:41:29 Yeah, okay. 0.88
00:41:30 I just don't want to offend my own common sense.
00:41:34 Yeah, no, don't.
00:41:35 Yeah.
00:41:36 Absolutely don't.
00:41:38 Part of what we encourage here is for people to think for themselves
00:41:41 and take what makes sense
00:41:44 it's kind of like what they say
00:41:46 in 12 step programs
00:41:47 take what you want and leave the rest
00:41:50 and I know
00:41:52 that that would
00:41:54 greatly offend
00:41:55 your relatives
00:41:57 who want to hang on to
00:42:00 these archaic rules
00:42:02 Mary and the virgin birth
00:42:04 comes out of the
00:42:06 pagan belief that the gods
00:42:08 came down and impregnated people
00:42:10 that people were still
00:42:12 hanging on to during that
00:42:14 time. We have no way of knowing
00:42:17 if Jesus really existed
00:42:18 any more than we have of knowing
00:42:20 that the original Buddha ever
00:42:22 existed. And whether or not
00:42:25 Jesus existed
00:42:26 doesn't really matter
00:42:29 to me. The fact remains
00:42:31 that that message
00:42:33 that was delivered
00:42:35 by someone named Jesus
00:42:36 supposedly, and it could have all been
00:42:38 made up for all I know. And the God in the Old Testament is not a loving God.
00:42:43 It's a vengeful, killing people 0.79
00:42:47 kind of God.
00:42:51 This is a lot of mythology. Jesus was political.
00:42:56 Jesus was put on that cross not to save
00:42:59 us. Jesus was put on that cross because Rome aided him.
00:43:03 And they thought he was a threat to their
00:43:07 domination of that area and so they killed him yeah so he was kind of more to save our sins
00:43:12 so he died more as a kind of a social justice yes warrior in some sense yes so that makes a
00:43:20 whole lot more sense to me yeah than to say that some god would kill his son for us that doesn't
00:43:27 make sense never made sense how does that make up for all the things i can do no it doesn't
00:43:31 so look that is a whole lot of things but that is not christianity yeah when a supposed christian
00:43:43 pastor says whether or not jesus existed doesn't matter to me yeah when she says
00:43:52 that it makes no sense that god would send his son to die for our sins that is what it means
00:44:00 to be a Christian. You could have, look, there are doctrinal disputes. Is baptism dunking or
00:44:07 sprinkling? Okay, fine. People can disagree about that stuff, but if you reject the heart of the
00:44:12 gospel, you don't even care if Jesus existed. You may be a left-wing philosopher. You may be
00:44:21 a left-wing radical activist, but what you are not is a Christian, and that is the world from 0.98
00:44:30 which James Tallarico comes, and we have every reason to believe that that reflects his belief
00:44:38 as well. Yeah, it is shocking, and that video and audio there, I hope everybody listening will
00:44:44 share it wherever you can on social media. It's important to get out there to know who James
00:44:49 Tallarico actually is and what he believes. This is what he believes. This is his pastor. This is
00:44:53 the church he's at. Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Hit that subscribe or
00:44:57 auto-download button wherever you get your podcast.
00:45:00 You can also watch this podcast on YouTube as well.
00:45:04 And the Senator and I will see you back here next week on this radio station.
00:45:08 Hi, I'm Michael Imperioli.
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00:45:53 in front of the media.
00:45:54 Suddenly, everybody online says he should start over you week one.
00:45:57 How do you handle this?
00:45:58 You just go back out to practice the next day
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00:46:04 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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00:46:09 The World Cup is over, but if you caught the soccer bug
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00:46:45 I believe that whoever was in that room and did that was a murderer.
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00:47:12 The new NFL season is here and you should be listening to NFL daily as we march along to
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00:47:42 Listen to NFL Daily on the iHeartRadio app,
00:47:45 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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