Point of View December 19, 2024 – Hour 2 : The Millennial Round Table

[00:00:04] Across America, live, this is Point of View. And now your host for the Millennial Round Table, Chelsea Yolen.

[00:00:22] Well, welcome back to our second hour of the Millennial Round Table. And if you were not with us last hour, you need to go back and listen because we're covering everything from military drones to culture wars with Josh Barnes and Steve, Stephen Mosley. It was a great discussion.

[00:00:37] We're turning now to some pretty big political news. And so for to cover political news, I brought in really the big guns and that's going to be Richard Lim. You know him well. He's no stranger to our show.

[00:00:50] He is a writer, speaker, author, and my favorite title on his long title list is historian. As always, Richard, you bring such a really strong emphasis on history and know so much about it that I can't wait to hear your thoughts on politics.

[00:01:07] Today. Welcome to the show again, Richard. Also joining this hour is Ethan Watson. He's a writer, a student, a tutor, and the voices. Sorry, young voices contributor. Ethan, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:01:26] Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

[00:01:29] Well, I'm glad you're with us, Ethan. We're going to start with some news that we've been waiting to cover for the show because it's a topic that we're all, I don't know if everybody's aware of, but as always on Point of View, we want to highlight news that from a different perspective, a conservative perspective, and from my perspective, an illegal one.

[00:01:51] And that is legal news coming out of the President Trump's camp. He successfully settled with ABC News for defamation. And I think that this is a really important case. Ethan, I'm so glad to have you with us today to talk about it.

[00:02:07] I'm going to give you a little bit of background if you haven't heard because I'm not sure that it's made mainstream yet. And you can, of course, read this article on pointofview.net.

[00:02:15] But essentially, President Trump sued ABC News and their anchor, Stephanopoulos, who we are all familiar with, for making false claims on air about him.

[00:02:29] George Stephanopoulos was quoted as saying that President Trump was liable for rape after a civil case against him.

[00:02:37] And I wanted to just break this down from my First Amendment legal perspective.

[00:02:41] You guys know I worked at First Liberty Institute, where I did constitutional law for several years, litigated free speech cases.

[00:02:48] And I was interested in this one, particularly because ABC settled that defamation lawsuit with President Trump for $15 million this week.

[00:02:58] Ethan, I'd love to just get your initial thoughts on this case when you read about it.

[00:03:02] But, you know, it's a pretty, in my mind, a type of historic case where President Trump is finally hitting back against the media for all of the defamatory and false claims, the misinformation they've been putting out there.

[00:03:16] And in some respects was successful, wasn't he, Ethan?

[00:03:21] Oh, definitely.

[00:03:22] You know, my first reaction to this story when I read it was it's just another nail in the coffin of the legacy media.

[00:03:27] I think ABC settled this because they knew they couldn't win it in court and they couldn't take the shame of losing a big case like this to Donald Trump.

[00:03:35] That's probably why they settled.

[00:03:37] Donald Trump has been getting huge victories against the legacy media, and this is just one more in that string.

[00:03:43] And a lot of people are lamenting this, saying, oh, this is going to limit the free speech of the media.

[00:03:47] They're going to be afraid to break stories and maybe get the details wrong.

[00:03:50] But this wasn't like it was a developing story where they got a stat wrong.

[00:03:53] I mean, this was a clear-cut legal decision, and George Stephanopoulos knows the difference between sexual battery and a civil case and rape as we think of it in the criminal sense.

[00:04:02] But most Americans don't.

[00:04:03] It's a really harmful statement to say.

[00:04:05] I mean, me personally, among young people my age, I've had people come up to me and say, how could you support Donald Trump?

[00:04:09] You know he raped a woman.

[00:04:10] And I'm like, no, it's not the same thing.

[00:04:12] It was, you know, not to mention it was in New York, which is you can get a grand jury there to indict a ham sandwich.

[00:04:17] And, you know, I don't really even care if it does set a precedent where journalists are a little bit more fearful about what they say because the legacy media has been spreading lies for years with impunity.

[00:04:27] Right?

[00:04:27] The good people on both sides thing in Charlottesville, Virginia, to the idea that Trump is a Russian agent.

[00:04:34] These were ridiculous lies.

[00:04:35] A lot of people believe them, and I think they led to Donald Trump being shot in Butler, Pennsylvania.

[00:04:40] And so absolutely I think it's good to make these people afraid to spread their garbage and put them on notice.

[00:04:47] I think that you're bringing up, you're bringing so much aspects that we're going to break down, Ethan, because, you know, the first is we are free speech champions.

[00:04:53] You know, the party of the right, the party of the Constitution, the party of the originalists.

[00:04:57] We want to see our free speech protected, our consciences protected.

[00:05:02] Those are, after all, our first rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

[00:05:07] And so for me to say that this is a success, it should have you asking questions of me, right?

[00:05:13] Well, Chelsea, don't you, aren't you a free speech warrior?

[00:05:15] Well, the truth is we still have standards, and that is the standard for truth.

[00:05:21] So a few things are true.

[00:05:22] I'm going to break it down a little bit, Ethan.

[00:05:24] One, public officials do not have the same protections from things like libel and slander as private citizens do.

[00:05:35] And so I don't know if you knew that, but there are two standards because the entire premise of free media, free media, another constitutional right, freedom of the press, is that the goal of having a free press is to question our governing officials.

[00:05:51] It's for them to do due diligence, to tell the American people as whistleblowers, you need to be aware of what your governing officials are doing.

[00:05:58] With one exception, they cannot lie about public officials.

[00:06:02] And so for me, when I see a defamation case, their single defense, George Stephanopoulos, ABC, who is owned by Disney, their defense to this case was the truth.

[00:06:13] All they had to do was present to this judge in their motion to dismiss that they had provided the truth about a public official.

[00:06:20] And then this case is dismissed.

[00:06:23] But that's not what happened, because as you mentioned, they were peddling lies and they got called out for it.

[00:06:28] I have very rarely seen a successful case against the media in this case, because it has to be that clear cut.

[00:06:34] Did they lie?

[00:06:36] And in this case, they did.

[00:06:37] We know that they've lied in other respects.

[00:06:38] And you are right to mention, Ethan, by the way, that it is going to fuel future lawsuits, which President-elect Trump is already saying he's going to conduct, not out of vindictiveness, not because he wants to come for legacy media, but because they need to be held accountable if they perpetuate falsehoods.

[00:06:57] And if they are perpetuating lies, that'll come out in the court.

[00:07:01] And if what they're saying is true and is not, in fact, misinformation, then they'll win these cases and they shouldn't be settling and they shouldn't be worried.

[00:07:08] But I have a feeling they're worried.

[00:07:10] The other thing about this is he has filed a second suit.

[00:07:13] Did you see, Ethan, he filed against the Des Moines Register.

[00:07:18] This is a different suit than the defamation suit.

[00:07:21] Quickly, in the last minute before break, that's a suit about election interference, which you alluded to.

[00:07:28] Well, I haven't seen that case.

[00:07:30] But I think you're right that it's good for Trump and his legal team to be deploying these lawsuits.

[00:07:35] I've seen him coming out a lot in defense of his cabinet picks.

[00:07:38] He made the ladies on the view read four different legal notes.

[00:07:41] And, you know, it's more about the apology and the retraction than the money in any of these lawsuits.

[00:07:46] I assume the Des Moines Register case would be the same way.

[00:07:49] Any time Republicans can force sort of the leftist oligarchy, the blob that runs our media, to acknowledge that they got something wrong is a chance for us to break into that echo chamber and shine the light of truth.

[00:07:59] And also it's just hilarious to hear sort of these bad actors in the media reading retractions on air or printing retractions.

[00:08:06] So I'm not familiar with that specific Des Moines Register and election interference case.

[00:08:11] However, if it's par for the course for anything in the registry media, I know that it's probably a very untruthful lie that would take in a lot of people, especially people my age, that aren't really tuned into politics as much.

[00:08:21] And it's good that the Trump team is hitting back, not in a vindictive way, but in a righteous way.

[00:08:27] It leads, it lends towards the importance of truth and information.

[00:08:32] And when we have, in some respects, a monopoly on our access to that, it's important to hold it accountable.

[00:08:38] We'll break down that case when we get back after this break.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] During the Christmas week, I like to revisit some of the Christmas carols we sing at this time of the year.

[00:09:07] In this case, I not only want to talk about one of those songs, but also point you to a film that gives you the backstory.

[00:09:13] Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was known as America's poet and is known for the song I Heard the Bells.

[00:09:18] His story is faithfully told by the ministry Sight and Sound, which is best known for their live theater productions.

[00:09:25] I Heard the Bells was their first ever theatrical release shown in theaters in December 2022.

[00:09:30] It is now available to you to purchase or to stream into your home.

[00:09:34] His song came at the end of a tragedy.

[00:09:37] In 1861, two years before writing this poem, his life was shaken when his wife was fatally burned in a fire.

[00:09:44] Her dress caught on fire and he tried to extinguish the flames as best he could.

[00:09:49] She died the next morning and his facial burns were so severe he couldn't even attend her funeral.

[00:09:54] He grew a beard to cover his burns and often feared that he would be committed to an asylum due to his grief.

[00:10:00] His oldest son, Charles, joined the Union Army without his father's blessing.

[00:10:04] After the Battle of Charlottesville, he fell ill with typhoid fever and was set home to recover.

[00:10:10] He was able to rejoin his unit and was severely wounded at the Battle of New Hope Church in Virginia.

[00:10:16] Longfellow, a widowed father of six children, the oldest nearly paralyzed, reflected not only on his grief, but the country fighting a war against itself.

[00:10:25] He wrote a poem to capture the dissonance in his own heart and the world around him as he heard the Christmas bells.

[00:10:31] This Christmas season, we need to reflect on the hope we have in Christ, even in the midst of trials and tragedies that surround us.

[00:10:38] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View.

[00:10:47] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:53] That's pointofview.net.

[00:10:57] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] Well, welcome back to the Millennial Roundtable, where we are really hearing for the first time, he's knocking it out of the park, Ethan Watson, who's joining the Millennial Roundtable as a writer.

[00:11:15] He's also a student at the University of Kansas and is just bringing it today.

[00:11:20] So thank you for joining us today, Ethan.

[00:11:23] I'm having a blast.

[00:11:24] Yes, I'm going to break down this case we were just discussing, which I know we were discussing, first of all, the defamation case that was successfully settled for $15 million against ABC.

[00:11:36] And President-elect Trump was the one who came out victorious in that defamation case.

[00:11:42] We're really talking about this broader concept of why it is important to hold the media, who is protected by our First Amendment, freedom of the press, accountable for what they say and the fact that what they say needs to be true.

[00:11:57] It's the most difficult type of defamation case to actually litigate.

[00:12:02] I have litigated them before, and it's incredibly difficult to win because truth is the only defense.

[00:12:08] And so they have to prove that, you know, you have the burden as a plaintiff or President-elect Trump would have had the burden to prove that what they said was actually false and not true about him.

[00:12:19] But he has a second case against the Des Moines Register.

[00:12:24] And I think you may or may not remember, but within weeks of the election, there was an anomaly of a poll that came out of Iowa that really the legacy media jumped on as an opportunity to say that then-candidate Trump was going to lose this election.

[00:12:41] This was startling, and it was a huge discrepancy in all of the polling data.

[00:12:46] Typically, Emerson is who I'll follow.

[00:12:49] And this poll said that President Trump was going to lose Iowa by, you know, an astronomical margin.

[00:12:56] Well, all of us know that polls are a joke.

[00:12:58] But they are now being held accountable for publishing that for a reason you may not think through.

[00:13:04] But it is for election interference because the media has the major platform of information consumption or at least used to for us as American citizens and as the electorate and as voters.

[00:13:20] And we're really paying attention to what they're saying.

[00:13:22] And when they do something like put out a known – it's now been a debunked poll, a bogus poll – it could have resulted in a depression of turnout for Republican voters.

[00:13:34] Couldn't it have, Ethan?

[00:13:35] And that's the type of danger when we start to see the media acting out of turn to interfere not just in politics but with the truth we receive.

[00:13:45] Well, definitely.

[00:13:46] And I'm a little bit less comfortable with this Trump lawsuit only because, you know, there's a lot of manipulation that can happen with polls anyways, right?

[00:13:54] Like I sort of have been hearing that before the election all the polls were showing Trump and Kamala neck and neck.

[00:14:00] It was a little weird that all of them were showing the same result.

[00:14:03] I think sometimes pollsters are afraid to publish a result they have that maybe is a little bit out there.

[00:14:07] They don't want to look like they're getting it wrong.

[00:14:09] So I don't want to discourage that because that is more of a scientific discipline.

[00:14:12] Though I do agree that the Selser poll in Iowa was ridiculous.

[00:14:15] All over right-wing Twitter, which, you know, I'm kind of active on, everyone was lampooning that poll.

[00:14:22] But I think really the takeaway here, and especially for people my age, is the polls lie.

[00:14:29] There are lies and then there are statistics.

[00:14:31] The statistics lie even more than the truth – or than people do a lot of the time.

[00:14:36] And so definitely this is a good lesson that polls can lie.

[00:14:40] Polls are deceptive.

[00:14:41] And a lot of times these pollsters are motivated, right?

[00:14:45] They're people, too.

[00:14:46] They have their political beliefs.

[00:14:48] And that's why you should absolutely never let a poll determine whether you go out to vote.

[00:14:52] You also shouldn't let politicians telling you that there is election interference stop you from going out to vote.

[00:14:57] I remember that was a thing in Georgia in 2020.

[00:14:59] Trump and a lot of allies were saying that the election was rigged in Georgia,

[00:15:03] and so then Republicans lost some key Senate races there.

[00:15:07] Never let any outside information stop you from going out to vote.

[00:15:11] Just get out to vote and let the chips fall where they may at the end.

[00:15:15] Great, great point.

[00:15:16] And again, you know, the real hope from these types of cases is not to so-called, in the words of probably President Electron, punch the bully in the face.

[00:15:25] The real goal is truth.

[00:15:28] You know, we always say on this show that truth has a way of rising to the surface.

[00:15:33] And I think that we need we are seeking truth in our politics.

[00:15:38] We're seeking honest brokers.

[00:15:40] We're tired of all the narratives and the repeated talking points on every single platform.

[00:15:44] We just want actual information, which is one of the reasons I'm so grateful for Point of View.

[00:15:49] Don't forget to go to pointofview.net to read that article and all of our topics today.

[00:15:54] We are going to turn to another case out of the pro-life realm that is one, you know, as a pro-life advocate, I'm not going to be as I'm going to be a little biased, but I'm going to try my best to be neutral with y'all.

[00:16:08] I'm so excited to see this case coming out of Texas.

[00:16:12] Ethan, you may or may not be aware of, you know, how rampant abortion drugs are.

[00:16:18] And so I like to use this as an opportunity to kind of educate.

[00:16:20] We got to talk about what's really happening.

[00:16:22] I work for an organization called Human Coalition.

[00:16:25] We are the largest pro-life pregnancy center in the country serving pregnant women seeking abortion.

[00:16:31] And because we're serving them, we know what's going on on the ground.

[00:16:35] We know things that, again, Legacy Media would never cover.

[00:16:37] And the first being how rampant the abortion drugs are.

[00:16:41] It's a two-drug regimen.

[00:16:42] The woman takes the first drug.

[00:16:44] It cuts off hormones, progesterone to her baby.

[00:16:47] The baby dies.

[00:16:47] And the second drug induces her abortion.

[00:16:50] And because the entire abortion industry has really gone all in on these drugs, and by that I mean they have women stocking them up.

[00:17:00] They sold a million.

[00:17:02] I think there's a stockpile in Washington for a million.

[00:17:05] Abortion drug now accounts for upwards of 60 percent, but edging closer to 70 percent of all abortions.

[00:17:12] So forget abortion clinics.

[00:17:14] Forget sidewalk counseling.

[00:17:16] Forget women having to make appointments.

[00:17:17] They go online from their house, from their cell phone.

[00:17:20] They order the drugs.

[00:17:21] The drugs are shipped to their doorstep in three days, no matter where they live.

[00:17:25] And so this has created an incredible problem for us, Ethan, to hold drug distributors accountable,

[00:17:32] not just for the deaths of unborn children, but for mothers who are getting a lot of complications arising from these drugs.

[00:17:39] And, you know, we're having women lose fallopian tubes.

[00:17:43] We're having women on two days of blood transfusions.

[00:17:45] These drugs are coming in internationally.

[00:17:47] Most recently, we're seeing an influx of drugs from Russian pharmacies, Indian pharmacies, you name it, Mexican pharmacies.

[00:17:55] There's a rampant, illicit drug trafficking industry.

[00:17:59] I didn't know if you're aware of any of that, Ethan.

[00:18:01] So I wanted to bridge that gap and feel free to speak into any of this that I'm saying.

[00:18:07] Yeah, definitely.

[00:18:08] I mean, so when I read about this case and the shield laws that defend providers of these drugs in states like New York to people in, say, Texas,

[00:18:17] the first thing that sticks out to me is, you know, it reveals to me that the left's sort of perverse sacrament,

[00:18:24] one of the most sacred of all rights, and I'm using religious terminology because I feel like leftism is sort of an anti-religion type thing.

[00:18:33] It needs to continue.

[00:18:34] They're not content to let conservatives have their realms of normalcy and leftists have their realms of degeneracy.

[00:18:40] They need to evangelize it across state lines, across communities.

[00:18:43] And that's because having kids is the antithesis of what leftism is, right?

[00:18:47] It represents – leftism represents the destruction of societal norms, traditional values, and pursuit of radical individualism.

[00:18:55] So they need to evangelize this awful thing.

[00:18:58] They need to make it not just something that's safe, legal, and rare, which was the Democrat line from the 90s.

[00:19:02] They need to make it celebrated.

[00:19:03] They want people to shout their abortion.

[00:19:05] So they need to make sure that everyone can get it as easily as possible.

[00:19:08] And I think Texas is well within its rights to go after people that are providing these abortion drugs across state lines

[00:19:14] because I see it as no difference if I was shipping illegal guns, illegal drugs like fentanyl or heroin into other states.

[00:19:22] They're in violation of Texas state law in the case of Attorney General Paxton's lawsuit,

[00:19:29] and Texas is well within its rights to go after them.

[00:19:31] Yes, we're going to get into what we can be doing about that, both from a legal standpoint, the policy side,

[00:19:38] and then just as neighbors and fellow community to very real problems women are facing.

[00:19:46] We see them day in and day out.

[00:19:48] Why is there such a demand for abortion drugs?

[00:19:52] We're seeing states, as you mentioned, Ethan, who are protecting life,

[00:19:55] but there's complete lawlessness now when it comes to this issue thanks to the pervasive availability of these drugs.

[00:20:02] The FDA really helped with that under the Biden administration,

[00:20:06] who removed every semblance of safety protocol for distribution,

[00:20:09] including in-person distribution requirements, follow-up care, you name it.

[00:20:14] And so what we have is complete lawlessness,

[00:20:16] and you really don't see that very often in any context of the law except for abortion.

[00:20:22] I mean, I can't imagine a doctor illegally prescribing, as you mentioned, opioids or painkillers

[00:20:29] or any other drugs across state lines illegally out of fear for losing their medical license.

[00:20:34] But that is what we're seeing.

[00:20:36] That's what the pro-life movement is up against.

[00:20:38] It's a giant machine.

[00:20:41] And I am so proud of Attorney General Ken Paxton from Texas for saying,

[00:20:48] we're not going to stand for this anymore.

[00:20:51] We're going to hold you liable for breaking our state laws,

[00:20:55] and we're going to protect women in our state from really predatory medical practices from out of state.

[00:21:03] And he's doing that, and he's the first mover on it, which he often is.

[00:21:07] If you haven't followed his career, it's a sordid career.

[00:21:10] There's a lot out there.

[00:21:11] But one thing he always does is protect the vulnerable and the unborn.

[00:21:16] It's something he's very committed to.

[00:21:18] So we're going to get into the weeds on that case and more after our break.

[00:21:23] Don't go anywhere.

[00:21:30] Our nation is experiencing a major realignment right now.

[00:21:35] Political and cultural frameworks are shifting.

[00:21:38] Perhaps for the first time in a long time, some things are starting to shift in a positive direction.

[00:21:44] But as this political and cultural realignment takes place, another realignment is desperately needed.

[00:21:52] A realignment to God's Word.

[00:21:55] Data shows that few Americans' worldview is aligned with biblical truth.

[00:22:00] But you can help change that by partnering with Point of View, where God's truth comes first.

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[00:22:47] Point of View will continue after this.

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[00:23:02] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:09] And now, here again, Chelsea Yeoman.

[00:23:13] Well, welcome back to the Millennial Roundtable, our last Millennial Roundtable of 2024,

[00:23:19] which really has been a crazy year to try to cover the news.

[00:23:23] It's definitely one I wasn't expecting.

[00:23:26] But joining us on our last roundtable is Ethan Watson for the first time.

[00:23:29] He's a great addition.

[00:23:31] Don't forget to go to pointofview.net, where you can read our topics and discussion and more.

[00:23:36] You can also like us on Facebook at Point of View Radio.

[00:23:39] We love to hear from you, so go like us at Point of View Radio on Facebook.

[00:23:43] Go ahead and leave your comments.

[00:23:45] Ethan and I are finishing up our discussion around what to do about chemical abortion drugs

[00:23:50] that are really being rampantly mailed into every state, no matter where they are.

[00:23:54] And the fact that Attorney General Paxton decided to do something about it.

[00:23:59] And the reason he decided to do something about it is not just because he is a very bold,

[00:24:05] unapologetic pro-life warrior in the cause,

[00:24:08] but also because a woman in Texas came forward as being harmed from abortion drugs.

[00:24:14] And so she took these drugs when she was nine months pregnant,

[00:24:16] ended up with major complications in the ER in Collin County, Texas.

[00:24:22] And because of that injury, it really gave this case the ability to move forward.

[00:24:28] So Attorney General Paxton filed a lawsuit against this out-of-state New York abortion provider

[00:24:34] who has been public about bragging about, you know, being really able to sell these drugs

[00:24:41] no matter where she is and wherever she wants.

[00:24:43] And a woman was harmed from that, and she's not the only one,

[00:24:46] but she is brave enough to come forward in this suit,

[00:24:49] and it's time to hold these abortion providers accountable, really,

[00:24:54] for the harms they're causing for women.

[00:24:56] When you see this in the news, though, and Ethan, I'd love to get your comment on this,

[00:25:00] one thing you're probably not going to see them talk about is this woman's story.

[00:25:04] It's one of the reasons I wanted to highlight it on our show here today,

[00:25:08] and that's because I think the voice that's least heard from on the abortion subject

[00:25:14] is these women who were harmed by abortion drugs.

[00:25:17] The abortion industry doesn't want their stories out there,

[00:25:20] or women who regret their abortions.

[00:25:22] And so I'd love for you just to take a minute and comment on that, Ethan.

[00:25:27] Well, absolutely.

[00:25:29] One thing as prolactors we always focus on is the life of the child in questioning, right?

[00:25:33] That's sort of the issue, the talking point that we pivot on.

[00:25:36] But there are two lives involved here, and the mother's life is very important, too,

[00:25:40] and the truth is that these abortion drugs are not as safe as they may be made out to be to these young women.

[00:25:45] They're not a safe, you know, fix it, and then you never have to deal with this in your life again.

[00:25:50] They're harmful.

[00:25:51] You had the woman in Georgia, Amber Thurman, who was killed because of a botched chemical abortion.

[00:25:56] And I really like before the break you used the term predatory to describe these companies

[00:26:00] because that's exactly what they are.

[00:26:01] The left is very against health care or medical companies making a lot of money

[00:26:07] until they're supplying abortion drugs and puberty blockers.

[00:26:09] Then there's no comment, right?

[00:26:11] We're not hearing a peep about these people making money out of actual bona fide human suffering.

[00:26:16] So it's absolutely predatory.

[00:26:18] And beyond that, the takeaway that I get from this in a lot of young people my age are drawn to libertarianism.

[00:26:25] I was drawn to libertarianism as well, right?

[00:26:27] I don't really care if, you know, my neighbor gets an abortion because it doesn't impact me.

[00:26:31] But I've learned over the years that there are externalities to just about everything that we do,

[00:26:36] which is why libertarianism doesn't work.

[00:26:38] That's why even at the state level, sometimes we do have to, on a national scale, set standards.

[00:26:42] Because unfortunately, our opponents on the left, if we don't set a standard, they will come in and set the standard.

[00:26:47] And it's universally something that we don't like.

[00:26:49] So I view this as a beautiful thing for highlighting the mother's side and also a cautionary tale about libertarianism

[00:26:56] and how really what people do in the privacy of their own home, sometimes that does affect us as well.

[00:27:02] I like that you're bringing that up because it's not a way that we are framed or talked about abortion yet on this show.

[00:27:09] So let's go there, Ethan, because I do like the direction you're headed.

[00:27:13] Why should we care, right?

[00:27:15] Women alone in their homes, doing whatever they want, ordering pills from wherever they want.

[00:27:19] Well, one, you're right.

[00:27:20] But the most, I had an attorney who turned to me one time about libertarianism and said,

[00:27:26] the most unloving thing you can do, the opposite of love, he said, is apathy.

[00:27:32] It's not hate.

[00:27:33] And that's because when you're apathetic to harm, people are either undergoing,

[00:27:39] and you say that in the name of freedom, you know, it's kind of a horrific thing when you think about it.

[00:27:45] We care about people, but not enough to protect them, right?

[00:27:49] Or in this case, two people.

[00:27:51] So when we're talking about the woman, she is not told, I think everybody works under the premise that she knows what she's getting herself into.

[00:27:59] And that's not really the case.

[00:28:00] What you have is, and we know this because we're serving the women, they're not told what they're going to see, feel, or experience.

[00:28:06] They're told it's as safe and easy as taking a Tylenol, which has been debunked.

[00:28:10] Even the FDA does not contest that women experience significant adverse events.

[00:28:15] She's not told about hemorrhage.

[00:28:17] She's not told about losing fallopian tubes.

[00:28:18] She's not told she could go septic, which is a major complication.

[00:28:23] She's not told any of that.

[00:28:24] So there's not actually informed medical consent to the procedure she's going to undergo.

[00:28:28] And then there's the psychological harms from seeing her dead, unborn child at the end of the process.

[00:28:33] She's not warned about any of that.

[00:28:35] And all of that is a detriment to her because that's not real choice, is it, Ethan?

[00:28:42] No, no.

[00:28:42] And this is the classic confusion on the left between freedom and licentiousness.

[00:28:47] Freedom is the ability to do what you ought, and licentiousness is the freedom to do whatever you want.

[00:28:53] And those are not always the same thing.

[00:28:55] And especially our society has become so material that a lot of people, and I know that there are certain cases in where there's a tough medical decision to be made,

[00:29:02] but the vast, vast majority of abortions are contraceptive-based.

[00:29:06] They're made out of decisions of convenience or, oh, well, I can't pay for this kid right now, or this is going to hurt my ability and my career.

[00:29:14] And we're taking these material considerations, and we're placing them above what's actually right, which, you know, the most precious thing in the world is a human soul.

[00:29:22] And we live in such a material society that they think, oh, I just have to pay, you know, for this drug, and then it's like an investment in my future.

[00:29:29] And that's such a sick way to view any human's life, even more so when it's, you know, your own child.

[00:29:36] And so absolutely I think these people are being deceived, and I don't even really think it's their fault.

[00:29:40] I think we live in a culture where you're celebrated not for the normal things, which are having a family and being a good mother or a good father,

[00:29:49] but you're really celebrated by the material wealth that you can generate or how many lavish trips you can take

[00:29:54] or how many, you know, nice cars or likes on Instagram you can get.

[00:29:57] And in reality, you know, sacrificing your child so you can, you know, have time or resources for that down the road is really a perverse thing.

[00:30:05] And I hope that people start to wake up to that.

[00:30:08] I do too.

[00:30:09] And then the other side of it, of course, is that an actual life, as you alluded to, is ended by this process.

[00:30:16] It's one of, you know, we often say, you know, it's the only quote-unquote medical practice where you get a dead body at the end of it.

[00:30:24] And so I know this is a hard topic.

[00:30:26] It's a difficult one.

[00:30:27] It's one we wrestle with.

[00:30:29] But I am grateful for the boldness and leadership of this attorney general.

[00:30:34] I hope others follow suit and start to hold these drug traffickers accountable.

[00:30:39] And then, of course, if you're interested in learning more, go to humancoalition.org,

[00:30:43] because I say this a lot, I have a bill for that.

[00:30:46] I partnered personally with an incredible, brilliant legal mind.

[00:30:50] I think it's the most brilliant legal mind in at least a generation, if not more, to draft a bill we're going to be working on in the upcoming legislative cycles.

[00:30:59] I can't say too much about it.

[00:31:00] But to address this issue head on and say we're going to draw the line at human life and suffering here

[00:31:06] and protect the most vulnerable children among us as well as their moms.

[00:31:11] So I will give you updates on that when I can.

[00:31:14] Ethan, we are going to turn now, though, to something that I think it's a little bit funny.

[00:31:20] So we have to end the show with it because we have Vice President Harris talking about running again.

[00:31:28] And I know that if you're like me post-election, we're all exhaling.

[00:31:33] Some have done a victory lap.

[00:31:35] I've got to be nonpartisan right now, but I won't say that with me.

[00:31:38] But we didn't really expect to hear from her after just the absolute defeat that she suffered in November at the ballot box.

[00:31:47] But she's not going away.

[00:31:49] And so we're going to, after our break in just a minute, break down some news coming out of her camp.

[00:31:55] You know, they've, you know, reassessed the situation, licked their wounds and come out deciding that they didn't really lose that bad and that it wasn't their fault they lost.

[00:32:04] And they might take a second bite at the apple.

[00:32:07] So I think it's interesting.

[00:32:09] I want to talk about it.

[00:32:11] But don't forget that you can read up on our topics.

[00:32:14] Last hour, we had an incredible hour with Stephen Mosley and Josh Barnes, where we talked about everything from the drones in New York to cultural Christendom, which is on the rise.

[00:32:24] And it's not maybe what you think.

[00:32:26] So don't forget to go back to our last hour and listen to it.

[00:32:30] Like us on Facebook at Point of View Radio on Facebook.

[00:32:35] And then, of course, we have with us now Ethan on his first show.

[00:32:39] Thanks for joining us today, Ethan.

[00:32:41] I would like before we get into the next topic, just to say that you can look up resources in your community on how to be an active participant in helping not just women in need, but it is the Christmas season.

[00:32:55] And there's so many in our communities.

[00:32:57] Find ways to serve.

[00:32:58] Find ways to donate here at the end of the year.

[00:33:01] I think our news cycle can be daunting and feel chaotic when we know too much about what all is going on in the world around us.

[00:33:08] But we as believers and as Christians can be contributing members to creating order in this day and age of chaos and to saying we want to be a part of the solution.

[00:33:19] And that starts in our neighborhoods.

[00:33:20] It starts in our kids' schools.

[00:33:22] It starts not just at the ballot box when we vote, but at the end of the year is such a great reminder of ways to do that.

[00:33:29] And so support your local charities.

[00:33:32] And we'll get back when we get back after this short break to talk about Vice President Harris.

[00:34:01] Welcome back to the end of our millennial roundtable, our last one for 2024.

[00:34:06] Ethan, we're going to talk about Democrats wanting to run Vice President Kamala Harris again.

[00:34:14] We're going to just end our hour on that note.

[00:34:17] Harris advisors and allies, according to Politico.com, believe that she ran a strong campaign, earning 75 million votes.

[00:34:25] This is this is the article's words, boosting her favorability rating, breaking fundraising records and narrowing the polling gap that, in their view, she inherited from Biden.

[00:34:35] I'm going to stop there.

[00:34:36] Go ahead, Ethan.

[00:34:39] Yeah.

[00:34:39] So if there's any Democrats out there, please, please do this, because I don't think I'll be tired of the winning by 2028, and I want to have another Republican president.

[00:34:48] But in all seriousness, if Democrats do this, it shows that they really haven't learned their lesson, because this election wasn't just about America being too racist and sexist and horrible to elect a black woman to lead it.

[00:34:59] But this election was America saying, no, we reject your Marxist worldview that basically cuts people into categories and creates conflict between those categories in order to bring about the downfall of systems and institutions,

[00:35:11] like traditional families, like this role of religion in public life, like community, like patriotism.

[00:35:17] And Americans were tired of being lectured by their, quote, unquote, liberal betters, by people like Beyonce and Mark Ruffalo,

[00:35:25] about how it's time for a black woman to be a president, because Republicans, while Democrats were blathering on about how demographics are destiny and all that people want is representation,

[00:35:36] Republicans went after the issues that everyone wants, right?

[00:35:39] They want to have pride in their country, a safe country, more money in their pockets and upward social mobility.

[00:35:44] That's what this election was about.

[00:35:45] And by even floating this out there, Democrats are showing that they really didn't learn their lesson.

[00:35:50] And I think we've got to teach it to them again at some point.

[00:35:52] Well, yes.

[00:35:53] And but you're right on the analysis of I think what ended up being just the ultimate ultimate American pushback.

[00:36:04] You can't compare her loss.

[00:36:07] But she had a very nuanced rise is what I'm going to call it, because in her primary, the primary process is, after all, a grueling one for any candidate.

[00:36:18] And I think there's an important role and purpose in a candidate, no matter what party you're on, to go through that process, because it refines them as a candidate.

[00:36:30] It really separates what I would say the weak from the strong.

[00:36:34] And a great a great way to view this would be think of the Iowa caucus.

[00:36:38] It's a really early caucus.

[00:36:40] It's the private their primary events really leaded the charge in in the process.

[00:36:45] And I had the benefit of going to their initial debates where they were interviewing these candidates.

[00:36:50] And it was the entire Republican primary ballot at the time last summer.

[00:36:55] And you could tell such a difference between those who were insider D.C.

[00:37:00] Beltway candidates who are up there just regurgitating talking points like robots and their interaction with the crowd, which was a multi thousand person conservative crowd versus really seasoned politicians.

[00:37:12] There's such a difference in those politicians.

[00:37:15] And you fast forward to the spring when they all dropped like flies off the ballots, which happened in the primary process.

[00:37:21] And I would say Governor DeSantis and Nikki Haley both rise to my mind as leaders on this because the candidates they were in the spring were seasoned.

[00:37:30] They were on their game.

[00:37:32] They knew how to talk.

[00:37:33] They knew how to do retail politics.

[00:37:34] And they had really increased, in my view, their skill set of reaching the American public with their ideals.

[00:37:41] They had honed their policies by then.

[00:37:43] You know, this is a grueling process, but an important one.

[00:37:46] And I hope I'm explaining it well.

[00:37:48] Kamala Harris did not.

[00:37:50] Vice President Harris did not have the benefit of that process.

[00:37:53] So this meteoric rise they're discussing, she had a 70 day window or less to become seasoned.

[00:38:02] And she didn't do that.

[00:38:03] And so I don't want to blame her failure on just the American public and the policy side.

[00:38:08] I also think that the Democrats did not do themselves any favors by short circuiting the process.

[00:38:14] And we have a democracy for a reason.

[00:38:17] And they think that they can just elect someone for their party.

[00:38:21] And that backfired, Ethan.

[00:38:24] Right, exactly.

[00:38:25] And, you know, Kamala, she didn't win a presidential primary.

[00:38:29] She kind of failed upwards, right?

[00:38:31] She ran a really, really bad campaign in 2020.

[00:38:33] She was, like, torpedoed by Tulsi Gaglin in that one debate, which was a hilarious soundbite.

[00:38:38] And then she was basically plucked from the muck by Joe Biden, who said he would make a black woman his VP.

[00:38:43] And so then she just waited in the wings until Joe Biden collapsed on stage, figuratively speaking, in that debate with Donald Trump.

[00:38:51] And all of a sudden she was a candidate.

[00:38:53] She was not really elected to that role in a Democratic way.

[00:38:57] And so exactly right.

[00:38:58] She didn't have to face the crucible of the primary, which didn't do her any services and didn't do the Democratic constituency and the American people at large any favors either.

[00:39:08] Because we didn't get to see Kamala Harris, the person.

[00:39:11] And frankly, I'm not even sure who Kamala Harris, the person, is.

[00:39:13] She still feels to me like an empty vessel of sort of leftist talking points, VEI and celebrity appearances.

[00:39:21] And so I think you're right.

[00:39:22] The primary process is where you flesh a lot of that out.

[00:39:24] People get down and dirty and they fight.

[00:39:26] They sling some mud.

[00:39:27] And that's a good thing because we get to see how these people hold up under pressure.

[00:39:31] And we want them to have that because it is the most pressured position in the entire world that they are running for.

[00:39:38] We need a veteran in the position of President of the United States because if she cannot hold water against, you know, fellow candidates in the U.S., how is she going to go negotiate with President Putin or on the international stage?

[00:39:56] And so this process, it's an important one and it should be difficult.

[00:40:00] And it would require the left.

[00:40:02] And I'm going to go now to the partisan side of it, which you so greatly outlined for us.

[00:40:07] But it would require a dose of them being in touch with the American people.

[00:40:11] And they're not doing that.

[00:40:13] Instead of saying we're going to take a good hard look at ourselves, what resonated with Americans and what did not, where are we out of touch, where do we go wrong?

[00:40:21] But because, you know, identity politics is their God, they do have their own form of virtue signaling and morality.

[00:40:30] They have their own system of morality on the left.

[00:40:33] You know, you've got commitment at all costs to the LGBT movement, commitment at all costs to abortion, commitment at all costs to DEI and everything that comes with that.

[00:40:44] And so for them, I don't believe that they're looking at what works in politics, what are good, healthy policies, what is resonating with the American people.

[00:40:53] I think that they're so rooted.

[00:40:55] Environmentalism is another idol of theirs on this side, that they're so committed to these ideologies.

[00:41:01] I don't know that it matters how much the American public gives them a referendum on them.

[00:41:05] I think they're committed to them from a moral standpoint.

[00:41:09] And that creates a level of extremism where instead of saying, where did we go wrong, where can we move to the middle?

[00:41:16] You know, they're really devouring themselves on that side to say otherwise.

[00:41:21] That's my viewpoint on it, Ethan.

[00:41:25] Definitely.

[00:41:25] And, you know, you're right.

[00:41:27] The DEI is one of their gods.

[00:41:29] They're sort of pagan, you know, awful religion on the left.

[00:41:32] But there is one group that they don't really care about, including in their diverse coalition, and that's young men.

[00:41:38] And I think young men are actually may have been what lost Democrats this election.

[00:41:43] Ecomo in particular doesn't offer young men.

[00:41:45] I'm speaking to this because I'm a 22-year-old man myself.

[00:41:48] She doesn't offer us anything, right?

[00:41:50] She's emblematic of this toxic masculinity narrative that shames us for what we basically are wired to want as men, right, to be strong, to be a provider and a protector, and to marry someone who is nurturing and caring, right?

[00:42:00] That's what we're wired to want as men.

[00:42:02] And we have been told that all of that is wrong.

[00:42:04] That makes us toxic and aggressive and evil.

[00:42:06] And while she does that, she surrounds herself with weak men like Tim Walz who's running, you know, LGBT clubs for high schoolers.

[00:42:12] And so I really don't think that the Democrats have anything they can offer young men in this country.

[00:42:17] And if they run Kamala in 2028, they're not bringing anything to the table, and they're going to get walloped again.

[00:42:22] Well, it's interesting you say that because we were also told at the same token that on the conservative side of things that women were going to defect from, you know, the suburban woman is just the ultimate unicorn for the right.

[00:42:37] But what we did end up having is that Gen Z women voted historic margins for President Trump.

[00:42:43] So it will be interesting where, you know, don't have to relitigate everything that happened.

[00:42:48] But I did want to just flag that, you know, it's important to do a postmortem of sorts with these campaigns.

[00:42:55] Thank you for being with us, Ethan.

[00:42:57] Real quick, tell everybody your Twitter so they can go follow you.

[00:43:01] You can find me on X at ERWatson13.

[00:43:03] Thank you so much for having me on the show today.

[00:43:04] Of course.

[00:43:05] We hope you join us again.

[00:43:06] I hope you guys have a very Merry Christmas.

[00:43:08] Happy New Year.

[00:43:09] Our nation is experiencing a major realignment right now.

[00:43:15] Political and cultural frameworks are shifting.

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[00:43:25] But as this political and cultural realignment takes place, another realignment is desperately needed.

[00:43:32] A realignment to God's Word.

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