Point of View January 17, 2025 – Hour 1 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Thank you for joining me. It is our Friday Weekend Edition and you have certainly tuned in to what is going to be a really packed program.

[00:00:27] I knew about a week ago we are going to have a lot to talk about because you have one administration leaving and we'll spend some time talking about that. And there's some real issues that we're going to be talking about in just a minute. We have another one coming. We have an inauguration on Monday. Program note, Penna Dexter is going to be doing that program along with a number of other people on the inauguration. But we have all sorts of things happening on the periphery, not the least of which, of course, is the confirmation hearings, the Israel Hamas hostage deal.

[00:00:57] I might also mention we still have those wildfires in Southern California and a variety of other issues. I have no idea how we'll get all of that in, but we will do our best in that regard. But, Penna, sometimes it is busy in January, but this one really is just full of so many stories that we're going to be talking about. I think it's partly busy because President Trump, former President, President-elect Trump, has been proactive about getting his nominees out there. Now, none of them are official nominees yet.

[00:01:27] They will be on the 20th, but they're already having hearings. So that's in the news. And then you have Joe Biden trying to make things as bad as he can before he leaves for his predecessor to come in. And, you know, just things that are so antithetical to what President Trump was elected to do to make it harder for him.

[00:01:49] So you have all that news of basically two presidents kind of coming together in one week so we can talk about it. Yes. And again, like I said, we have a hostage deal, which I think will eventually fall apart. But for now, we have that as well. And Kelly, she raised the question. Of course, we were going to talk about the fact that just after you had both the House and the Senate pass a piece of legislation that would actually increase the number of judges.

[00:02:17] We haven't expanded the federal judiciary since 2002. Joe Biden, in his inscrutable wisdom, thought, no, I'm going to veto that. And that looks like an act of revenge. But then you walk in today by saying that Joe Biden just told us a minute ago that the Equal Rights Amendment has been passed. So what in the world is going on? You know, it obviously timed out years ago. But I mean, this is I mean, I would say it's the theme of the Biden presidency.

[00:02:47] But it's there are so many themes. But one of them is the complete dismantling of respect for the law. It's the worst we've ever seen. I mean, we've seen it in so many different ways. And now we're seeing it in myriads of ways right at the end. Let's yeah, we know that the Equal Rights Amendment really hasn't been passed. But, well, I'll just say so.

[00:03:14] OK. Oh, we know the Supreme Court ruled against us on, you know, just giving up, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of student loans. But we just won't follow what the Supreme Court said. We'll just kind of, you know, you know, go over here and create a new program and do that. I mean, it's, you know, oh, use the Justice Department to go after my political opponent. Sure. That's why they're here. Right.

[00:03:40] I mean, I mean, there's like a list of hundreds of these things. And, you know, I just see, I mean, it's such a huge distinction between Biden and Trump as leaders. I'm not talking about their, you know, other things.

[00:03:59] But, I mean, I just take something as simple as we just learned that President Trump said the inauguration, because of the extreme coldness, is going to be moved inside. Executives, when they see things, they make decisions.

[00:04:24] And, you know, Joe Biden makes, you know, doesn't ever move on a dime and make a decision. You know, one of the things Trump said in the debates that is so true that helps, he didn't fire anybody. Never. Not anybody for Afghanistan. I mean, for all the debacles that we saw, none. And so we've got somebody who's completely incompetent.

[00:04:48] And then on the other side, we've got what is like a CEO of a major company who is watching what's going on, is picking up on things, is changing things that needed to be changed. I mean, there's just such a distinction. But I think one of the really sad things about this is, and I talked about this the last time we were on air, that, you know, we've got this lame duck period.

[00:05:15] And it's never really been a problem in the past, because presidents respected the fact that the country had just elected someone new. But this administration is, I mean, this is the first I've ever seen at anything like this level, has decided, well, we don't really care that the people picked somebody else.

[00:05:37] We're going to do everything we can to, like, muck up the works so that the next president can't do anything. And we're going to, like, push all kinds of things through that we can that never would be voted on or approved of or whatever. But we're going to do it because we're just going to do this on the way out to make it more difficult for the next guy. I mean, what I talked about last time is I don't know.

[00:06:05] We have to go change the Constitution, but I think we've got to change this. I think we've got to lock everything down between the election, because if we're going to have people of this poor character, I mean, and that's what this is. This is this is the worst presidential character display, I think, ever. What we're watching at the end here. Let's see if we can keep wars going.

[00:06:29] Let's see if we can, you know, I mean, everything is about doing things before the next president who was elected comes in. It's sad, but I don't think our system, the way we built, was meant for people who didn't have at least a basic enough character to respect the American people's vote. I think George Washington actually said that. He needed some morals.

[00:06:52] Let me just jump in on one issue that you brought up, because Kelly came in and told us the news that now it's the Equal Rights Amendment from the 70s is being deemed passed. Well, it was passed, but it wasn't ratified, because that's what you have to do when you have a constitutional amendment. You ratify it, and enough states didn't ratify it. They opened it up for an extra few years. There's still enough states didn't ratify it.

[00:07:18] Then finally, I don't know, maybe five years ago, two states ratified it, but they were way past the deadline. And the amendment itself, within the amendment, puts an ending time on it. Some amendments don't put an ending time for ratification. ERA did. So, all of that to say, this is very illegitimate, but that does not mean that Joe Biden won't try to do it. Yes.

[00:07:44] Well, again, we didn't even mention the fact that he decided to try to auction off all the materials for the border, or that he decided that no longer was Cuba a terrorist watch nation, and that certainly is going to guarantee the Democrats are not going to win Florida anytime soon. If you've ever been to Miami and seen the number of Cubans living there who still have relatives in the prisons there in Cuba. And the list just goes on and on.

[00:08:10] Of course, yesterday I even mentioned the lack of ability of at least Kamala Harris and her husband to be gracious towards J.D. Vance and Shusha Vance as they are going to be moving in with three children that they wanted to have childproof in what is called the Naval Observatory. So, the list goes on, Kelly, for quite some time. So, we're going to take a break, and we can keep on going. But that first article here, Biden's final attack on the courts, just as an illustration,

[00:08:38] kind of a tip of the iceberg of all the issues that have really concerned us about this so-called transition. We'll take a break. Be back with more right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. When I first started writing this commentary nearly two decades ago,

[00:09:06] the average woman in the United States had 2.1 children in her lifetime. This is what many demographers call the golden number. To sustain a population in any country, women on average need to produce 2.1 children. If that number is higher, the population increases. If that number is lower, the population decreases. Years later, Lou Dobbs devoted an entire chapter in his book, Upheaval, to the subject of demographics and destiny disturbed.

[00:09:31] He was on my radio program back then and talked about the fact that the fertility rate in America has now declined to about 1.7. He also lamented the abortions of over 60 million unborn. But if you think America is facing a problem, consider Japan with a fertility rate of 1.39. It is imploding. By the end of the century, Japan's population will be less than half of its current population. Japanese consumers are buying more adult diapers than baby diapers.

[00:09:59] Other countries also face incredible challenges because of declining fertility rates. Greece has a fertility rate equal to Japan's fertility rate. Spain's fertility rate is 1.12. And the fertility rate of South Korea and China is also 1.12. China's one-child policy meant that as many as 400 million Chinese children were not born. By the end of the century, the country will have about one-third of the population it has now.

[00:10:25] It has moved from a one-child policy in 2015 to a three-child policy in 2021, but the birth rate continues to fall. Declining fertility rates illustrate once again that demography is destiny. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:47] For a free copy of Kirby's booklet, A Biblical View on Critical Race Theory, go to viewpoints.info.com. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Privileged to have in studio with us today Kelly Shackelford and Penna Dexter. Might just mention that oftentimes we feature what is called Decision Magazine, and it opened up to page 12,

[00:11:13] and there is Kelly Shackelford being interviewed on the future of religious liberty along with Kristen Wagoner. So first of all, let me encourage you to get your January issue of Decision, and you'll see a nice picture of Kelly and some of the comments. Also, I know many of you already get the FLI Insider, and you will see, well, there's a lot to talk about. Matter of fact, that could be the rest of the show. But first of all, Kelly, four of your cases pending before the Supreme Court,

[00:11:42] and we are in a situation right now when you said we have and enjoy more religious liberty than, say, the 1920s. But if these cases are considered by the court, there's even more work to do. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of work to do. When you have, you know, gosh, 100 years or at least 80 years of justices on the Supreme Court thinking that,

[00:12:10] hey, this is a living, breathing constitution, so, you know, we'll just read into it what we think it really should mean today. Now, this is exactly, you know, like a pastor doing that with the Bible, okay? We've seen these things before. When you do that over 80 years, you create a lot of bad precedents that are used to squelch religious freedom.

[00:12:34] So there's a lot of work to be done, but these four cases are some issues that really do need to be dealt with. You know, one of them is a case out of California where we represent a Christian university, and the Christian university was deceived by their president into thinking that they had to put people on their board who didn't share their faith.

[00:13:04] And when they found out that they were deceived, they fired the president, and they wanted to remove those two people from the board so that the board reflected their doctrine and their faith. The state of California said, no, no, you can't remove – we're not going to allow you to remove your board members. And they were like, excuse me, but you don't control our doctrinal leaders. And they go, well, yes, we do.

[00:13:28] And so this is a battle, and it's an important battle for really the sanctity of every church, of every Christian school, of every religious organization. This is a basic tenet for religious freedom that the government can't tell you who your leaders can be.

[00:13:53] You know, if they could, then, for instance, the Catholic Church immediately is going to be in trouble because they have to have, you know, women priests. And you can go on and on and on. You know, they're going to determine what doctrine because they're – this is how religious organizations are controlled by their elders, by their board, by their – And when the government has control of that, you really don't have religious freedom at all.

[00:14:21] And so that's one big case that's up there right now, and three others, including – A lot of them out of California. Yeah. The fire chief. Let's take that one. Which is a really important case because it – the simple – let me simple it down because it's obviously a lot of legal things going on there.

[00:14:40] But basically it's saying if you have evidence of religious discrimination, which is a violation of the law, why in the world would you not be able to present that to a jury? It's because of a case years ago that's a bad case that needs to be cleaned out. Bad precedent. That allows judges to not allow juries to see and not allow the case to go forward despite there being evidence.

[00:15:06] The way it's supposed to work, just so people understand, is if you have no evidence of something, the court can throw your case out because there's nothing to go to the jury. But if you have evidence of discrimination, then the idea that we're going to keep the jury from seeing that and making a decision is something that will just affect fire chief Hiddle. It will affect every single person and their ability to bring these issues before a jury.

[00:15:33] So that's a really important case as well. And there's another case that we – we're at the Supreme Court on parental rights. That's a huge, huge issue. And that is about who is the authority over children in this country? Is it the government? Is it the public school? Or is it the parent? Now, we all know the answer to that question because God determined that.

[00:16:00] But we've got to get that nailed down in the court. And this is a great opportunity in the Warner case. It's about a – in disability. When you have a child at a school who has disabilities and that is violated, their rights are violated. Right. Can't the parent – and then parent, they're not even of majority age. So what usually happens is the parents represent the child, but they won't allow that.

[00:16:26] And you're like, you can't say that only a lawyer – only if you can hire a lawyer, but the parent can't represent the child. I mean the parent has every right to represent the child. Just like if you as an adult had something happen to you and you couldn't afford an attorney, can you bring a lawsuit, what's called pro se, on behalf of yourself? Yes, you can.

[00:16:51] And so this is a big parental right issue that could affect all the school cases that involve not telling parents about the transgender teaching they're getting or all those type of things. So that's a really big case as well. And we have a new one today, which is there's this new thing going on around the country where they're telling people that – I say people.

[00:17:15] They're telling Christian ministries you can't have a donation box unless you get it registered with the government. And we're like, excuse me? But this is happening around the country, and we represent a number of Christian ministries who are being denied the ability to have – the ability of people to make donations to what they're doing. The government does way too much, I think, for people.

[00:17:44] And this – I'm noticing a pattern in some of the cases you're getting that – like I'm thinking of the Chris Avell up in Ohio. Just different things that churches do that – government seems to be so threatened by, the fact that churches are doing these good things. And, you know, they did take over a lot of the welfare programs back in the 60s and beyond. And it doesn't work as well.

[00:18:09] It works a lot better when churches supply things for people that are in need. And this is another case like that in my mind that, okay, well, if you can't have Arms of Hope, which is part of National Federation for the Blind – I mean, talk about a needy cause, a good cause. You can't have the bins out anymore unless you register it. That makes no sense. It makes no sense. You have to register all sorts of Salvation Army bins and all those kinds of things.

[00:18:39] I guess all the little buckets, you know. Just start thinking this through. The red bucket. What is saying this is? It's just crazy. It's the government – we have a government that is out of control. It grows, grows and grows and grows. That's why we have the Constitution. And so there's two things that need to happen. Number one, the government needs to be shrunk. And this is part of the – That's coming, I think. I mean, there's going to be a battle over that, right?

[00:19:08] I mean, when something has grown, grown, grown, grown forever and nobody's really ever tried to pull it back and you've got a full-on assault on that in D.C., that'll be interesting. But the other thing you have to do is you have to protect these freedoms or the government will grow into and take over those areas. And these are all involving that to one way or another. Let me just mention that a lot of this is in the FLI Insider.

[00:19:33] And if you go to the website, pointofview.net, and click on the picture of Kelly Shackleford, go to the end. And if you don't already receive it, you just click on that button. And you have a section, as Pena, you mentioned, Stop Criminalizing Compassion. And then we talked about those four cases. Only takes four justices to take a case, five to win. Then you also talk about lawfare. I'm sure we're going to get to Pam Bondi soon enough and all the conversations about that. And then another one on more freedom for parents and children.

[00:20:03] And, Pena, you and I both support First Liberty. And we think that this is another organization, in addition to pointofview, that people should support. And I support it. You support it. And we would encourage people today to think about sending a special gift to First Liberty. What I love about First Liberty is it really doesn't matter who's in power. First Liberty always has jobs to do because there's always being a tax on religious liberty. And there's always more to do. And the wins can come.

[00:20:30] You can win the cases because they're based on the Constitution, which is not political. And so you can win based on the First Amendment or, you know, constitutional rights. It's whether you've got the left in power or the right in power. It's really irrelevant to the success of your work. And so that's one reason it makes it very much worth supporting.

[00:20:55] Well, again, a lot of people say they also appreciate pointofview because we see Kelly when he gets on all those talk shows when the case is coming up. But we actually talk about the victories after the fact. So I hope that you'll consider that as well. But, again, we have a link to First Liberty. If you don't get the FLI Insider, let me encourage you to do so. We come back in his farewell address. The current president, only for a few days now, invents a new bogeyman. We're going to talk about that right after this.

[00:21:30] At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer. And that is why we have relaunched our Pray for America campaign, a series of weekly emails to unite Americans in prayer for our nation. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of Americans started praying intentionally together on a weekly basis.

[00:21:54] You can help make that a reality by subscribing to our Pray for America emails. Just go to pointofview.net and click on the Pray for America banner that's right there on the homepage. Each week you'll receive a brief news update, a specific prayer guide, and a free resource to equip you in further action.

[00:22:18] We encourage you to not only pray with us each week, but to share these prayers and the resources with others in your life. Join the movement today. Visit pointofview.net and click on the banner Pray for America right there at the top. That's pointofview.net. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in our land.

[00:22:47] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, weekend edition.

[00:23:14] By the way, if you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212. I know we don't get many calls on Fridays. As a matter of fact, as I'm traveling around in about a week or two, I'm going to be in Georgia. Later, I'll be in Illinois and California and other places. I've had people say, well, I don't call on Fridays because I love the guests and I don't want to interrupt all the things they're saying. But if you have a comment, 800-351-1212 is certainly the number to call. And we will get to another one of these particular stories.

[00:23:42] This one comes from Noah Rothman, but it really relates to the farewell, and I have to say addresses, because more than one of those has been given by the current president, in which the president, Joe Biden, invented a new boogeyman or nemesis, whatever phrase you want to use. And that is the idea of a tech industrial complex. He was, of course, using President Eisenhower, and I know some of you around here love Peggy Noonan.

[00:24:08] On Saturday, she wrote a very good piece about the humility of Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell address and contrasted it with the, I have to call it addresses, because we've had one where he's talked about this oligarchy and another one where he's talked about the tech industrial complex. And, Pena, it wasn't a tech industrial complex until, I guess, Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X. Is that right?

[00:24:34] I think this series of speeches that he's giving is just, it's him projecting upon the incoming administration a lot of the things that the left did while he was president. I mean, because he's talking about a tech industrial complex, an oligarchy where you have all these powerful businessmen that, you know, support you. Oh, they didn't have that, you know.

[00:25:02] But they did have power over the tech companies and the social media. They had complete power over it, and you've heard that now from the Twitter files, even from Mark Zuckerberg when he made his announcement the week before last that he wasn't going to censor anymore. We'll see. But it's a tech industrial complex now, and it's a big enemy,

[00:25:25] because they're actually going to go back and be free speech platforms maybe, and, you know, Elon Musk's ex already has. So that's one, but there are all kinds of things that he's, and he says no fact-checking. That's just so bad. We don't have any fact-checking, but the fact-checking was so biased. It was only one direction fact-checking. And so they're doing now, well, Twitter or X doesn't really have it. It has this community notes. Right.

[00:25:54] And now Facebook won't and all of their companies. He talks about a crumbling free press. That's another thing that Biden talked about. Well, that's because they don't really act like a press, and so we now have other outlets that can tell people the truth. The media is based on providing, should be based on providing people the truth. It's crumbling because it doesn't do that. So it's the legacy media. Yes, they're crumbling. Good riddance.

[00:26:24] And then misinformation and disinformation is going to be characterizing this next administration, and that is just laughable. Because anything that was put out there that was true but they did not comport with their agenda was misinformation or disinformation in their words. So now they're going to say that we will be doing the same thing they did. So it's really been an exercise in projection.

[00:26:49] I don't even think most of the American people buy these statements by Joe Biden anymore. He's lost so much credibility. He's kind of a sad case now. But he's trying to, I guess, paint some pictures before he leaves. And, of course, also we've talked about taking some actions before he leaves. They're going to do a lot of damage. Yeah, well, I mean, look, all we have to do is look to this week the CNN poll. They did a poll.

[00:27:17] 61% of the country said his presidency was a failure. I mean, we'll see. Wow. I think, I mean, many people would have told if you asked them, who is the worst president in the United States, in the history of the United States? They'd have probably said Jimmy Carter, a lot of people. I mean, not the extreme liberal people, you know, but that wasn't embarrassing. That was a projection of weakness.

[00:27:46] There were so many problems, you know, and it's when you had Ronald Reagan come in. I think it's going to be Joe Biden from now on. I mean, this is the worst presidency in so many ways. And yet he's trying to go out saying things that nobody believes except for, you know, there's like 30,

[00:28:07] there's this 30-something percent of the far, far, you know, left that just, you know, whatever he says is okay. It's just being rejected. So I don't know what this is doing for him. Obviously, it's not convincing anybody. I think one of the biggest things that came down in the last week or so was Zuckerberg going on Joe Rogan and talking about. And telling the story.

[00:28:37] Yeah. What happened under the Biden administration that they were literally calling, cursing out his people. There you go. Telling them to take things down that were totally truthful, you know, about the vaccine mandate, about health, about a number of things.

[00:28:56] And, I mean, gosh, I mean, what is more damaging to America than the government being able to control free speech of major, the major companies and stuff? Now, we've got a problem because in the old days speech was, you know, in a park or on a sidewalk or in print.

[00:29:23] This whole attack area is really dangerous because we've got people who aren't – who are private companies controlling our ability for free speech. I really think they need to go back and change the federal law, the Section 230, that was meant for a platform, not for these companies.

[00:29:46] It was meant to say, look, if Facebook – whoever, let's say if some group has a media platform where they allow you to speak but they don't control what you say, then you shouldn't be able to sue the platform because they provided the platform. You know, that's not what we have right now, right? I mean, when they go in and start censoring some people and not others and all, that is totally different than what was thought of back then.

[00:30:14] And this is really dangerous because they have a lot, a lot of power. I think I heard today the market cap of Meta right now, you know, Facebook, is over $1 trillion. Mm-hmm. I mean, this is pretty major, right? Yep, yep. So thank – I mean, if it wasn't for Elon Musk buying Twitter – We wouldn't have known half of this. We wouldn't have known any of this stuff. That's right.

[00:30:41] And I think one of the greatest travesties that our Supreme Court has committed is when they passed on that Supreme Court case because there was massive evidence because of that that the Missouri Attorney General had brought together in his lawsuit that showed that the government was dramatically threatening and affecting free speech. And that should have been clearly unconstitutional.

[00:31:12] The pass they took on that I think was really damaging to our country. But because Donald Trump won and because Elon Musk bought Twitter, you know, I think Zuckerberg is not doing this out of altruism. He's doing it because he wants to continue to have his platforms and not be regulated by the government.

[00:31:35] He's going to move that direction too and just say basically kind of, look, we're not going to allow illegal, you know, and, you know, like child trafficking and these things. But we're going to allow people to speak and we're going to allow other citizens to police that and provide information that says that that's wrong. That's how free speech was supposed to work. So there's a hope here. But what Biden did was the exact opposite.

[00:32:01] And it's just shameless that he would come out and say these type of thing when he's the perpetrator of this. This was a horrible thing for our country. And I hope we outlaw it in the future because this is how you lose your country if the government controls all of the free speech.

[00:32:20] He I think he wants, you know, those people who still believe in him or who are very far to the left to just be on the lookout for any signs of this oligarchy of this tech industrial complex. And, you know, come come back and make statements about he's trying to leave and just seed the left with issues that they can come back and attack on.

[00:32:45] That's about all he's got left in addition to executive orders that are just egregious and pardoning, you know, four thousand people or whatever. Yeah. I mean, commutations and locking up areas where we would actually want to do oil exploration and selling off the pieces to the border. And the list just goes on and on and on. But we need to take a break. We come back.

[00:33:12] I do want to get a little bit into the confirmation hearings because there's a target rich environment there for sure. So let's take a break. And if you find yourself saying there's a lot of great material here, but where can I read it? We've got these articles, everything from National Review, Town Hall, Public Discourse, Wall Street Journal, as well as Washington Examiner. All sorts of great material that we've posted today. So take the time to go to the website pointofview.net. We'll be back right after this.

[00:33:41] I love living in Texas, but by birth and upbringing, I'm an L.A. girl born in Pasadena, raised in a beach town and educated at a university near downtown. I'm mourning the massive damage and destruction to life, homes, businesses and landmarks in places I've loved.

[00:34:10] I remember dreading the Santa Ana winds, which sweep down from the deserts. They come every year. And because California is dry, they bring fires. The L.A. Fire Department has over 100 years experience fighting these fires. Each year, when the devil winds came, they'd be on it. Lately, the job is taking much longer. What's making things harder? Neglect, leftist environmental policy, and poor leadership. Decaying power lines have been a huge problem, now supposedly being addressed.

[00:34:36] California promised to do better at keeping forest floors clean to burnable fuel. But green pushback prioritizes the ecosystem over humans. Boaters have demanded new reservoirs. None have been built since 1979. Construction on a new one won't begin for seven years. Fire hydrants started running out of water during the first day of this year's firefighting. Years of bad water policy means there's insufficient water to fill the reservoirs they have.

[00:35:02] In 2008, California began diverting 100 billion gallons of water per year away from Southern California and into the Pacific Ocean to save a fish. Governor Gavin Newsom has refused to restore the flow of excess rainwater and snowmelt from the north to Southern California. LA Mayor Karen Bass knew of the huge fire risk. Recently, she cut department funding. And Kristen Crowley, LA's first female and LGBTQ fire chief, has wide experience in firefighting.

[00:35:29] But promoting a culture that values diversity, inclusion, and equity is her stated priority. LA's three top fire officials are lesbian women. Few males are hired as firemen. There's another sad reality. Insurers have been cutting coverage in at-risk areas. California needs a political reckoning and our prayers. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:36:00] Back once again, as you well know, we've all week been talking about the confirmation hearings. And, of course, you can go to the website pointofview.net and contact your two United States senators, which I suspect most of you already have about these confirmation hearings. But I thought Penna mentioned a point about projection. That's where you project something that you do. And there's one part of the confirmation hearings I wanted to go around the roundtable and get some thoughts. And that is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. He is the senator from Rhode Island.

[00:36:29] And when Pam Bondi was actually being questioned, one of the things, and I'm trying to say this with a straight face, but it's really hard. Senator Whitehouse said, you know, one of the things I'm concerned about in the Justice Department is sometimes there's a tendency to select the person and then find the crime. And we want to make – I'm trying real hard not to laugh. But instead, we want to find a crime and then find the person.

[00:36:57] And to summarize, Pam Bondi is kind of like, oh, you mean what you've been doing for the last four years? She said, yes, that is a problem. Yes. And that's the thing. That is a classic illustration, Penna, isn't it, of projection. They are just so afraid that the new attorney general, the new FBI director might actually do actually what they've been doing for the last four years. Yeah. And, you know, they aren't supposed to do that. He's right about that.

[00:37:26] But they have been doing it. So, you know, they want to make sure that that is only gets to be used by their side as a weapon, which they've been doing. And, you know, when she, you know, she answered very calmly all these accusatory questions. She was calm about it.

[00:37:46] And I thought, you know, just looking at him going, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do when you are the law, when you're protecting the rule of law in the country. And she, I think she will. I mean, oh, the other question was, if President Trump asks you to weaponize the Justice Department against his enemies, you know, will you do that? Will you say no?

[00:38:16] Yeah. And she said, no, that's exactly what you've been doing. And then we're going to stop. Yes. You know, I was going to use that one. But I thought the one with Sheldon Whitehouse was so obscure. It's like, are you setting her up? But I guess that's the way it was. There was another one with Josh Hawley went through this whole list. And we read that yesterday of all the things that have been done. This gets to religious liberty. All the attacks on pregnancy resource centers. All the attacks on churches. And how many people have been prosecuted? And she said, I don't know.

[00:38:46] He says, two. You know, and you've been dealing with that at First Liberty, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah, this is, I mean, you know, there was a long list of, the weaponization of the government against religious freedom was very clear. I mean, we had, you know, we had the Catholic Church being infiltrated. There you go. And I didn't know some of that until the other day. Yeah. It's just incredible what was going on.

[00:39:12] And, you know, the end of the weaponization of these departments is great. And it should happen. But there also should be consequences for what happened. I mean, those people who were involved in that, number one, need to be gone if they're not already gone. Yes. But number two, I mean, I think in certain situations there are criminal investigations that need to occur to find out if they violated criminal law. Because I think they did in certain situations.

[00:39:42] It's not constitutional and very well might be criminal in a number of situations to weaponize the federal government in violation of people's civil rights. That is a violation of law. So I hope the new people not only clear that out and make sure it never happens, but there needs to be a price to pay or else somebody comes back in later and says, well, we'll do it. And then when we're done, okay, we'll lose our job or we'll go work somewhere else.

[00:40:11] But there's no consequences. It's not good. I do have a question on the FBI because the FBI, I mean, there are some great people serving in the FBI, but there are a lot of people in the top positions in the FBI that have been part of this weaponization. And some are gone now, but many are there. And so do you think that during this time, I mean, as we said earlier, these cabinet members haven't really officially been nominated yet, but they're having their hearings.

[00:40:38] But do you think also behind the scenes a lot of new names are being identified so that they can immediately fire and get rid of some of these people that have been part of the problem? There's no doubt that that's happening. You know, it reminds me a little bit of there sort of has been always a tradition. There are federal prosecutors. They're called U.S. attorneys.

[00:41:02] There is a head federal prosecutor in every one of those districts that are appointed by the president and then confirmed by the Senate. And it's normal when a new president comes in to wipe out all of those U.S. attorneys. Barack Obama did. And replace them. With yours.

[00:41:23] And I think this is exactly where the situation is, but even more so with, like, the political positions at the top of the Justice Department and of the FBI and all of these people who were involved in this type of weaponization. I expect the new person to come in and anybody who was part of that at all will be gone. My guess is many of those people will know that and they'll be gone beforehand.

[00:41:53] That's what we've seen from some people like Jack Smith and others. But, yeah, they're being lined up. I mean, you know, we're there are statements coming out from, for instance, from Trump have been coming out about not only who the attorney general is going to be, but who is the head of civil rights going to be? Who is the deputy head of civil rights? Who is the White House counsel going to be? Who is all these things have been been coming out one by one? And each of those people will then fill in people underneath themselves.

[00:42:23] Yes. I might just mention this is one of those times we're going to give three cheers for The Washington Post. First of all, they gave us up or down on the various cabinet offices, but there is a dashboard they have right now that you can find, and it shows how many people have been nominated by Donald Trump, how many have been through confirmation hearings, and then eventually who's confirmed. At the moment, I think that number is still zero, but I think if you want to follow along, you can see that we are talking, Kelly, aren't we, about thousands of individuals.

[00:42:53] Ultimately, aren't we? If you remember, I don't remember how long it was, but I think it was well over a year after Trump was elected because they slowed everything down on purpose, and he didn't have his cabinet for a long period of time, which is why he's learned and he's doing everything that's been front-loaded to kind of get moving.

[00:43:15] It looks to me like at this point that all of his nominees are going to get through. The only two I would say to watch that we haven't had the hearings for yet, and I think who knows if something comes up, would be Tulsi Gabbard to me.

[00:43:38] And I mean, I know there's some people about another position because it's a Democrat, maybe the Republicans, but I'm just talking about the ones that – Laurie Chavez. Yeah, Laurie Chavez. But I think the other one outside of Tulsi Gabbard is RFK. Right, yeah.

[00:43:53] But I mean, I think they'll both get through, but those are the only other hearings I think that you're like, okay, let's watch the hearing and see whether – of course all the Democrats, but does any issue come up that would even cause Republicans to have to say, ooh, wait a second. I doubt it. I think they're all going to get through, but those are the ones probably left to watch, which is great because I don't think anybody would have predicted this. Nobody. And again, I've heard John Cornyn's predicted as well. Yeah.

[00:44:21] And Penn, after the break, I want to come back because I see you have in front of you the one that we have, and that is Ben Shapiro, a breath of fresh air, and he's talking about Pete Hegseth because some people said, well, I didn't think he would be a possibility. But since we're coming to a break, I didn't want to cut you off. Let's come back and talk about that as well as any other possible issues. But many people think that of those 15 cabinet-level offices, we're down to maybe just Robert F. Kennedy. That's pretty interesting.

[00:44:49] We'll see what Penn has to say about Pete Hegseth. And, of course, I might just mention her commentary today is about L.A. burning, and I do want to hear her comments about that. And we haven't even talked about what's going on in Israel. We'll try to get it all in. We'll be back right after this. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority. They say men can be women and women men.

[00:45:19] People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics. Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up, but we can't. We shouldn't. We must not. But, as Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never. Never yield to force.

[00:45:48] Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. And that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone, but together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:46:18] Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this.