Point of View January 31, 2025 – Hour 1 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, live, this is Point of View. And now, Dr. Merrill Matthews. And welcome to Point of View. This is our weekend edition where we review things that happened over the past week or two. And oh my goodness, have some things been happening over the past week or two.

[00:00:32] This is sort of the ten days that shook the world, I guess, so far. And joining me in studio, as they often do, Kelly Shackelford. He's the president and CEO of First Liberty Institute. And Jeff Mateer. He is the chief operating officer and chief legal officer at First Liberty Institute. So, gentlemen, thank you for joining us. And let's jump into this. Our first item here is Trump's executive orders. I have a list on the, if you go to pointofview.net, I've got a news article there which goes through a number of them.

[00:01:00] But that was, I think that article came out yesterday or the day before yesterday. So there may be 15 or 20 or 30 more by now. But there you can get something of a list of what he's been highlighting. But my goodness, we have executive orders on transgender issues, DEI, climate, immigration, federal workers, pay freeze. And then while all that's going on, you've got Senate hearings on several of his nominations. Some of them have gone through. Some of them are still in the process.

[00:01:31] And Kelly, it's hard for me to keep up right now. Oh, there's no way for anybody to keep up. I'm keeping up as much as I can. And this list, by the way, is great. I highly suggest people go to pointofview.net and click on the story because I printed it out. And it's like page after page. And there's like little ones all over.

[00:01:55] And you realize this has been so fast that I've forgotten a lot of these things even. And I was looking back and I thought, let's look at some of the ones I've forgotten by now. It's like direct the attorney general to investigate U.S. government dealings with social media platforms during Biden's tenure and make recommendations for appropriate remedial actions. Censorship. Right. I mean, there's obviously, you know, every federal agency now it's male and female.

[00:02:24] We're not going to accept any of these other things. Right. There's we're going to allow oil drilling. And it's important to point that out because the Census Bureau and others were starting to put in non-binary and other things. And I just don't I don't identify with any of these things. It's taking those out. Yes. You know, the the thing of all the oil and gas that opened up all that change. I was looking through some of those, the stopping, pausing all money going over as foreign aid until they could be looked at.

[00:02:54] You know, I wrote about this. The State Department used to keep this figure up at some point. It seemed to have taken it down. I'd like to see if I could find it again. But a few years ago, I wrote about this when I went through and looked at all the money we give to so many countries. And I mean, it was it was something like, if I remember right, 80, 85 percent of the countries out there that are part of the U.N., we gave money to. And China, Russia, we ran the money out to everybody. It's, you know, withdrawing from the World Health Organization.

[00:03:24] Right. Requiring all federal workers to return to work. Imagine that. That's a shocking idea. Yeah. And I mean, it just goes on and on. And, you know, I mean, obviously we're focusing at First Liberty on all the religious freedom. You know, the free speech executive order, the stopping of this crazy, quote, reforming all of our courts by dismantling the Supreme Court because they didn't like the court decision.

[00:03:53] I mean, you know, we've been focusing on all these things, a number of which affect our cases, even cases that are ongoing right now. But there's so many others. The DEI, which is huge in so many ways. I mean, obviously, there's been a lot of talk about it with the airline situation here, but it's so much bigger than that.

[00:04:13] You know, I was we know somebody who's, you know, become a nurse and she's just been given five choices as to where she can go and work. And a number of these involved LGBT stuff. Right. And I thought how sad it is that this whole DEI stuff has been so opposite in its effect as what was supposedly intended that, you know, most Christian nurses.

[00:04:42] Have no problem. You know, they'd love to serve people who are LGBT, even if it's their conduct. Anybody who walks in this, right? You might not even know they're LGBT. That's right. But now you could go and be such a person who has no discrimination, who wants to serve, but they could ask you, well, what are your beliefs on these things? And when they find out you're a Christian who believes in the Bible, because we have cases on this, they can just fire you. I mean, they shouldn't. It's illegal. But we've seen this happen.

[00:05:12] So this whole DEI thing that has been used in a discriminatory way is actually harmed the ability for us to all treat one another the same. So these DEI things throughout all the federal government, I think, are going to have a huge impact, not only on productivity and things like they're talking about there, get the best people no matter what. But even on the purpose of us being one as a nation, I think it makes a big difference.

[00:05:36] And, you know, one of the things I noticed in there, when you talk about the some that are small, some that are big, and I don't know if I would call this small or big, but just releasing all the files we have on Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy's assassination. And I'm sitting here thinking, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 63. Why? Why would we even still have files that are not released on that? It just it's it's it may be a small point, but it's an important point.

[00:06:05] It is important because it shows the commitment to transparency. And that's I mean, you know, at times I've been critical of President Trump. But I can't imagine another Republican who would have won the presidency in 2024 to be this aggressive, this all encompassing. I mean, I just I mean, I don't think there there there couldn't have been.

[00:06:32] I mean, and there may have been other candidates than in my mind early on that I would have preferred. But I can't imagine one doing what Trump has done in 10 days. And there's a political strategy behind this, I suspect. Well, I mean, I've never seen anything like I mean, no, none of us have. This is like, you know, in the in the military theater, we call it shock and awe. You just come so fast, so furious, so quickly that the enemy doesn't even have a chance to respond.

[00:06:59] Right. I mean, we've never seen this in politics, but we're seeing it right now. I mean, because these are not things that he's coming up with in the first 10 days. This means there's been a heavy preparation for this as a strategy. And while all these executive orders and things are coming down to correct a lot of things that have been harmful to our country at the same time, they're doing hearings.

[00:07:23] So if you're Democrats and you're trying to, like, you know, throw some spokes in the in the gears or something, you're having a hard time because you're on your heels and you're not even sure what to go after. It's just to quit, too fast and too many things that have been prepared very well over a long period of time.

[00:07:42] You know, the the four years since he left office, I think Trump has actually it's a problem when you've never held elective office to be become president of the United States. You just sort of know you don't know how this process works. You don't you just don't know. And I'm not sure he thought he was going to get elected the first time around. But this time he clearly knew what he wanted to do. And he had he had placed things and things and people in place.

[00:08:08] Clearly, the people around him, they've got a plan and and they're executing it. And we've got at least a two year window with with with the House and the Senate. So, I mean, it's exciting and it's not over. I mean, this is just the first 10 days. Yeah. I read today he's going to be signing more executive orders this afternoon before he heads to Mario Mar-a-Lago. It's you know, again, I encourage people look at go to point of view dot net. Look at this article on the executive orders and just look through these.

[00:08:36] I mean, even two or three of these would be dramatic. Yes. We'll be back on point of view in just a minute. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:04] Here is a social statistic that should concern all Americans and deserves attention from leaders in government, pastors and churches and parents in the home. Young men are falling further behind. That is the title of a Wall Street Journal article by Rachel Wolf. She says more women ages 25 to 34 have entered the workforce in recent years than ever. The share of young men in the labor force, meanwhile, hasn't grown in a decade. Place her statistics with another one I cited just a few months ago.

[00:09:32] America has seven million young men who are not working and not looking for work. One reason is attitude. Richard Reeves is the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men and explains the sense a lot of young men have is not being sure that they are needed or that they are going to be needed by their families, by their communities and by society. This leads to the phenomenon known as failure to launch. In Spanish, parents call it incriminado, making sure your children are on the path to an independent adulthood.

[00:10:02] Now, one in three young adults live with their parents and young men are more likely to live with their parents than young women. Former Senator Ben Sasse wrote about this in his book, The Vanishing Adult, Our Coming of Age Crisis and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance. Now, Stephen Malingo argues in his essay, Unemployable, that a growing number of Americans aren't simply out of a job. They're no longer fit for work. Many young men do not have a good work ethic and haven't been prepared by the schools for the labor market.

[00:10:30] The crisis of young men in America deserves our attention. Government leaders and church leaders need to take note. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free booklet on a biblical view of anti-Semitism, go to viewpoints.info slash antisemitism. Viewpoints.info slash antisemitism.

[00:10:58] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. And we're back with our weekend edition on Point of View. Joining me in studio, Kelly Shackelford and Jeff Mateer, both with First Liberty Institute. And gentlemen, besides talking about just so many of these executive orders, Trump hasn't been sitting still. He hasn't been in the White House watching late-night television and other things of that nature. My goodness, he went to North Carolina.

[00:11:24] He went to California and sat there with Karen Bass, the mayor of Ann Redder, a riot act in some ways. He met with Gavin Newsom, then went to Florida for the Republican event down there with Republican legislators. Now he's back in Washington. He's going back to Mar-a-Lago. The man, it is such a difference.

[00:11:46] Whether you like Donald Trump or not, it is such a difference in a man who was just a little younger than Joe Biden, who's got so much energy to continue going when it just looked like Joe Biden was just not able to do anything. But you don't think he's going to bed at 7 and going to go to the beach on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware? He famously lives on like four or five hours sleep because, I mean, he's tweeting late at night. He's tweeting early in the morning. And he does this on McDonald's hamburger. That's what I was going to say.

[00:12:14] It's the McDonald's diet is the key to energy. I think that's the answer. It is amazing. When you think of the stories that came out from the Wall Street Journal, even the New York Times and everybody else at the end, that basically they were saying Biden's was like maybe an 11 to 4. kind of work day and they would see if he was up to doing anything or seeing anybody.

[00:12:42] That's like four to five hours that he was even possibly available, whereas Trump, that's how much he sleeps. And it's just unbelievable. I mean, I really when I look at all this stuff, I really almost feel like this is superhuman. You know, like like I mean, maybe God is, you know, lifting him in a certain way so he can get more done because I've never seen so much. Obviously, there was organization beforehand.

[00:13:09] But I mean, you know, he's people were talking about his age even, you know, it's like he's the oldest president to start. Yeah. But, you know, even after he went to California and looked at the disaster there with the fires, sat down, Karen Bass was there, the mayor of Los Angeles and gave her a hard time. But people are asking questions and President Trump is responding.

[00:13:32] And I think he probably got a few things wrong, but generally sort of on top of this and understands what's what's going on. He wants people going back to their and he's given them criticism for saying, no, no, don't set up a process here where people can't go back for weeks and weeks. They want to go back now. They want to start rebuilding now. And so then after that, he went to Las Vegas, I think it was, to hold a rally on Saturday. Yeah, it's just it makes me tired just watching him.

[00:14:01] Just just the the things he's doing that are so they're brilliant and nobody's done them before. Nobody's thought about these things before. And he he's like, normally you would think you have to study this particular area and get a lot of information for a long time and then come forward with what the best answer is. He's like it's like it's happening so quickly for him. You know, I mean, think of first time nobody was talking about China.

[00:14:29] The only reason we talk about China now is because Trump said, hey, you're focusing on on, you know, Russia and all that. He said China is the one that's trying to put us under. He was the first one. And now think about Greenland and let's think about the Panama Canal and all these things. Everybody's like, what? What are you talking about? Right. Right. He is really and you look at in a lot of these areas, the traffic air traffic controllers. Nobody was focusing on this.

[00:14:56] Now, obviously, you had an accident, but it was clear in the press conference that this had been thought about and that they were good. They were they had already put executive orders in place to try to turn some of these things around. So I'm amazed at how quickly he's getting to the solution in so many of these areas that are very complicated. You know, the they used to talk about with FDR and then after him, the first hundred days. And now we're talking about the first hundred hours that things are being done.

[00:15:23] And of course, a lot of these are done by executive order and they can be overturned. Right. I mean, he controls the agency. So you've got this vast federal bureaucracy and you have a president who actually wants to make a change. And I think I mean, you know, one of the you know, what's the I think you asked what of all these executive orders, what's the one that you think makes the the biggest change? And Kelly mentioned the DEI, which which I think is right there.

[00:15:46] I mean, the other one is installing these government efficiencies in each of the agencies, because I mean, that's got to drive those federal bureaucrats crazy, because the last thing that they like is accountability. And to have someone looking at what they're spending, people coming to work. I mean, to me, if we're ever going to get a handle on reducing the government bureaucracy, I mean, Republicans have talked about that since Reagan.

[00:16:15] But we've really never done anything. So let me ask you the question about he fired. I can't remember, 13, 14, 16 inspector generals. And so the inspector generals are generally agencies and they're supposed to be above sort of partisanship. And I've seen things from inspector generals that seemed like perfectly straightforward analysis of things. What do you think about the inspector general firings? Well, the first question was whether he did it in a legal fashion, because I think there's a 30 day process or something that has to be gone through.

[00:16:44] And this sort of goes to a bigger issue, which is one of the things that I had in my whole list of things that we've already forgotten is he immediately put in place a number of things. That would allow them to start, you know, putting these career government of people in the different agencies that they would actually could be fired, that they could be. Because what's been happening through these, you know, these these laws that are put in place.

[00:17:11] They're not like everywhere else where you actually have to perform or, you know, you're out of a job and they're trying to change all that where you are accountable, where you can be out of a job if you're not, you know, performing your duties. That that is a huge thing, too, because you look at the numbers, the huge power of these these different entities.

[00:17:34] And and boy, they'll like Jeff was talking about, you know, with with the federal agencies with Doge, every you know, every agency has a portion of Doge. I think the employees part in getting good employees and we're seeing this with the discussion about air traffic controllers. Number one, we don't have enough. But number two, the idea that we were recruiting for people that had, you know, mental illness issues is when this is this is boy high intensity.

[00:18:05] I mean, that's just crazy. Right. You want the very top people who can think quickly, who can they can't be there depressed or or having a problem like that. You put those people they can. There's plenty of great things they can do. They're not your air traffic controllers. Right. And just thinking through all that and putting good people in these positions, paying them well at the most important things like air traffic controllers. But doing that throughout government, you know, taking people out that shouldn't be there.

[00:18:33] These people who aren't going to work. I mean, that was one of the first things he did. So I think this is revolutionary if he can succeed because there, yes, we can see lawsuits are coming. All times, all types of attempts to stop him from making these reforms.

[00:18:51] We've never seen somebody run for president with this type of a sort of a mandate for really getting hold of the federal government who actually is trying it and not just small. I mean, they are really going after it. What will what will happen? Will the deep state win or will the administration and the people win that want these changes? I don't know. Jeff, you all have a military element that you all work on at First Liberty. And I think one of the executive orders affected something you all had worked on.

[00:19:21] Yeah, it did. And it had to do with reinstating the military members who who, because of religious reasons, objected to getting the vaccine, the covid vaccine. And so we got court. We got relief in court and were able to to negotiate a very favorable settlement on behalf of our clients, Navy SEALs and about 4000 service members in the Navy.

[00:19:48] What Trump did is basically take what we won and now has applied it across for all military members and that they have the opportunity to get reinstated. And and really what was just a travesty in the last administration of forcing very, very good men and women out of the service because they wanted to honor their religious beliefs. And Kelly's been talking about the DEI initiative, but a lot of this is applying to the military as well.

[00:20:14] Yes. And which is a huge change, right? Because we've got this military who seemed to be the number one proponents. They were like on the cutting edge of enforcing just crazy progressive policies. And they were the experiment. And these are our military is supposed to be protecting us. Just like air traffic controllers. We want the best and the finest in our military, not the most woke.

[00:20:37] And it's so I think you could make the case that this is one of the biggest, one of the bigger of the impacts just affecting the military because the military has had so much trouble recruiting people. Because when you look at the ads for them, there are people talking about rainbows and I'm gay and I can be accepted here. It's it's amazing. He's also apparently stopping transgender surgeries under the military.

[00:21:02] Yeah, huge, huge. And I think a signal for lots of things that could be coming. We're looking for warriors. And boy, when you say you're looking for warriors, maybe you'll attract warriors. I think you will. Yeah, it's interesting. Well, we'll be back in a minute. When we come back, I want to talk about some of the nominees that are have been going through their hearings here. The confirmation hearings. We'll be back on point of view.

[00:21:31] The Bible tells us not to worry. And yet there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry. God gives us a next step. He says we need to pray. But sometimes even knowing what to pray can be difficult.

[00:21:52] And that is why point of view has relaunched our Pray for America movement, a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation. Each week, you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans, along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others. We'll also include a short free resource for you in each email so you can learn more about the issue at hand.

[00:22:21] Will you commit to pray for America? Go to pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe. Again, that's pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:57] 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, Dr. Merrill Matthews. And welcome back. Joining me in studio, Kelly Shackelford, Jeff Mateer, both with First Liberty Institute. We've been talking about mostly the executive orders that President Trump has been signing over the past couple of weeks. He's maybe he's going to be doing some more today.

[00:23:27] But besides that, you've had a number of Senate hearings going on with his nominees. And, you know, one of the things that happens when a new president comes in is often they take a little while to determine who they want. And they'll put put that they'll nominate that person. And it takes a while. And sometimes, especially with ambassadors to countries, you're you can be a couple of years in and they still haven't gotten them done. Well, President Trump is a man in a hurry on his cabinet appointments. So we had this week Cash Patel was being was going before the Senate.

[00:23:56] Also, Tulsi Gabbard and our Robert F. Kennedy Jr. My sense is Cash Patel probably did OK. That's my sense from what I read. RFK, I think that's still that's still a jump ball. I'm not sure where that goes. Tulsi probably has got some an uphill climb right now. Yeah, I you know, if I had to guess, I would say I think Cash did very well. And I can't see his nomination being stopped.

[00:24:24] I mean, he's he was a victim of the weaponization of, you know, the the FBI and the DOJ. I mean, you know, death threats and all this because of what they did. And so and that's his promise is the weaponization is going to stop. So I just think he's going to go through easily. And he's very, very bright, has incredible experience across the board. Like, you know, you don't usually see.

[00:24:52] I mean, somebody who was in the FBI who who was in Congress and in charge of investigating and all this. So I see I see very positive for him. I'd be very shocked. I think RFK is also doing well as far as getting through. I think there's something we can talk about there that's going on with younger people and Democrats, I think, is it's well, I'll say it real quickly.

[00:25:16] I if you're watching these young people, I mean, RFK has not always been associated with anything conservative. Not always. Never. Yeah. And there are a lot of people that are watching these hearings and they are leaving the Democratic Party. They're they're really disgusted by what they're seeing. Sarah, if you watch, you're seeing this. So there's something interesting happening there politically. But I feel like he's doing well enough where he'll be OK.

[00:25:42] I think Tulsi Gabbard with the the Edward is is it Snowden or I think it's Snowden is how you pronounce it. So it's not Snowden is Snowden. That whole line of questions. He's got Republicans questioning. I mean, she's got Republicans questioning. So that is, I think, the only one I see so far that is going to is in a battle. I see the other two is getting through. We'll see. But that's what I see so far.

[00:26:08] You know, yesterday I was guest hosting yesterday and we had Tim Chapman, who's the president of Advancing American Freedom, Mike Pence's organization. And they're they're actively working against RFK because of his long history of being pro choice. Right. And it has sort of split a number of people. And I'm not a big fan of RFK for several reasons. He's as you point out, he's he's always basically he's opposed everything conservatives have been for and vice versa.

[00:26:38] For his life. He really doesn't know Medicaid, Medicare, health insurance, Affordable Care Act stuff. He's never run a big organization. And then another concern is if he can you feel like you could always trust him if he comes out and says, well, we just we looked at this and we just can't pull Mifeprestone off the market because of some issues or something like that. If it was Mike Pence saying that, you'd say they can't pull it off.

[00:27:06] But with him, are you saying he is he really affecting that? Does he really want to do that or something? So I just somebody mentioned Bobby Jindal the other day and Bobby Jindal, I think, would be a great person for this. But so he's an odd nominee for head of HHS. Yes. Just given his past on so many things.

[00:27:27] Yeah. And actually, I think some of the Democrats are actually helping for the points Kelly made helped his nomination, because I have the same a similar view that as you do. But watching the hearing, I get so upset at Elizabeth Warren and her so-called gotcha questions, which at times are just so confusing anyways. And he's sitting there and responding.

[00:27:51] So I actually think some of the questions and then any time Whitehouse like opens his mouth, that's always disturbing. Shelton Whitehouse. Shelton Whitehouse from. And I watched a clip of Bernie Sanders on Wednesdays. And I'm trying to figure out what is this about? And finally, RFK just sort of laughs at it because Bernie Sanders, do you support onesies? Yeah. I mean, and what? So that's why I think the onesies is a, how would you describe it? Sort of a one piece piece of clothing or something. It was.

[00:28:20] But what was what it said on the onesie was basically that you shouldn't get COVID vaccines for your baby. And so he was trying to get RFK to commit to whether he would be in favor or against a onesie. So I didn't think that was very effective either. No, I think they were. And again, this gotcha. I mean, the thing of these gotcha questions. And they did it with Patel. And he just turns it around. I mean, he's a skilled order.

[00:28:49] And he was able just to take them on, which was nice to see. RFK, not so much. And I agree with Kelly. I mean, Gabbard is. I mean, I'm uncomfortable with her. However, I, you know, I want to give the president. I mean, the president won the election. He won it resounding. The general rule should be the president gets to pick his people. I mean, I that's if I were a senator, that would be my. But when you have someone. I mean, you know, her comments about FISA and then certainly about Snowden.

[00:29:17] I mean, Snowden, like, I mean, you know, traitor. Maybe you don't say traitor. But certainly what he did was illegal and really not in the best interest of our government. And I and she just won't go there. And so that. Well, you've got, you know, I really think. I mean, we'll see. I bet the Trump people are going behind the scenes to try to say, get her to say something,

[00:29:46] do something to make clear. Because, I mean, the idea that if somebody leaks a bunch of classified information, including on our military, and she won't sort of, you know, say they're a traitor or they're. I think the second question was that it's a damage to national security. Boy, she's got to figure out something to say, because there are a number of senators like, how can we put in charge of intelligence somebody that thinks it's OK to leak

[00:30:15] all of our classified intelligence, including our military intelligence. And so I think that was a real area that in the FISA, you know, hearings and things. I just I think there's going to have to be some repair there. And I'm sure there will be attempts at that. But again, she doesn't have a whole lot of room to lose. I mean, it is 53, 47. But you lose four. And so you really can't lose very many Republicans.

[00:30:45] It's not entirely clear she can even make it through the security commission committee because of Susan Collins on there. And there's only a one Republican vote majority on that committee. So you may not even be able to make it through the committee hearing. So but it does surprise me. So many of Trump's nominees, you think, oh, that makes perfect sense. That would be a good person. That person's going to sail through. There's just a few. You just wonder why. Why would you pick that?

[00:31:11] Given all the people out there who are have are such good skills, they're solid Republicans, long history of being in the conservative movement. Why would you pick that person? And it puzzles me a little bit. One of the things that did Trump did get some pushback on this week was his spending pause. And I think one of you, we have a article highlighted the judge who imposed that pause. But it also seemed to be that Trump, he's made a lot of good steps. This one seemed to be a misstep in the way it was done.

[00:31:41] Yeah, I you know, there was a lot of confusion. Right. At first, they weren't sure if it applied, applied to Medicaid and Medicare and all these different things. And and and they said, oh, no, it doesn't apply to that. It isn't. And I just think, you know, the the OMB, the spending. I mean, it's so huge. Yes. That if you free something, you know, you've got so many things to clarify. I think the country is with him and the polling is showing this in the idea of, yeah, let's freeze.

[00:32:11] Let's look at whether we spend and everything. Right. But I think he realized in the short term, let's let's get on that as quickly as we can. But let's not create all this confusion where it's sort of allowing people to pick out their one thing that they can argue might be frozen and then attach it to him and say, look what he's freezing. He's freezing this this program for puppies and children, you know.

[00:32:35] So I think he he realized that was probably a better a better approach is to do it another way. You know, Jeff, the we were talking about the Democrats having trouble finding out, figuring out what to respond to. But they were able to respond to this and the media helped him by finding people who said, oh, if they do this, then we'll have this problem. These people will die in the streets and other things. I mean, they mentioned the magic word. Social security. This may affect social security payments, which it didn't. But that didn't matter that they mentioned it. And I think the issue is there.

[00:33:05] Could a judge. Enjoying that action. Was it legal versus whether whether it was good politics and wasn't probably good politics. I think he was OK legally. But we won't we won't know about that because he stopped it. And the judge that did this was somebody that we had highlighted First Liberty did and not appointing them because they were so anti religious freedom. We said it was a bad judge to put on the court.

[00:33:31] And they kind of came out on another issue in a way that a lot of people didn't like to stay with us. We'll be back on point of view.

[00:33:54] As evidenced by the crowd at last week's March for Life on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the pro-life movement is alive and well. In a post-Rowe world, it's still needed. Vice President J.D. Vance joined the marchers, thanking them for showing up in such large numbers in this especially frigid January. He made it clear he's one of them and described their cause as our movement.

[00:34:17] In a video message, President Trump pledged that in his second term, he will protect the historic gains made in his previous administration and will block the push for a federal right to unlimited abortion on demand. Both the president and vice president made clear that targeting of Americans of faith and pro-lifers by the U.S. Justice Department will end. President Trump told the marchers,

[00:34:46] Vice President Vance referred to failures by our nation to foster a culture of life, stating, Our country has not stepped up in the way you have. Sadly, his statement aptly describes a recent action by the United States Senate. Every January before the March for Life, Congress considers an important piece of pro-life legislation. This year's bill was the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, introduced by Senators James Lankford and Jim Banks.

[00:35:13] On January 9th, the new Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, held a vote on it. The bill does nothing to limit access to abortion. It simply requires that babies born alive having survived an attempted abortion receive appropriate medical care. It's a simple argument. Leaving this baby to die would be infanticide. The motion for closure failed 52-47, with every Democrat voting against moving the bill forward.

[00:35:39] This extremism helped give us a vice president who marched for life, carrying a sign that reads, I am the pro-life generation. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. And we're back on Point of View. The Federal Reserve Bank met this week, Tuesday and Wednesday.

[00:36:06] Chairman Powell had his conference after their meeting on Wednesday, I think about 1 o'clock Eastern time, where they announced they would not be lowering or raising interest rates. That was generally expected. And gave a sense that the economy looks pretty strong and they're trying to stay on top of it. But President Trump came out and had some things to say about that, as he often does.

[00:36:30] He clashed a bit with Chairman Powell in his first term in office, though he reappointed him to be the chairman. Powell ends – his term ends next year, 2026. But Trump thinks he has a better grasp of what interest rates and business needs than Chairman Powell. Yes, he does. Yeah, I mean, Meryl, you're the expert on the economic sphere.

[00:36:58] So, I mean, obviously Trump wants interest rates down because that's going to spur – It boosts the economy. Yeah, boosts the economy. The problem is, though, the reason they're not doing that is they think that there's still some inflationary danger. And so how do you read it? And the announcement came out today that it did tick up a little bit, the inflation rate, though it has – we had some good numbers in regard to inflation for the last couple of months.

[00:37:24] And hiring is slowing, which sort of implies that the economy is not as strong as it might have been, has a few little soft patches. And from my standpoint, there's an argument to be made that if you – that one of the reasons why inflation is still sticky is because inflation rates are that high. That is, if you lowered inflation rates, then housing rates might come down, business borrowing rates might come down, and that might actually lower inflation.

[00:37:52] So I see both of them, but the Fed feels like if they lower rates right now, they're liable to goose the economy some and keep that inflation rate high, even though – I think we're looking at about 2.6 percent inflation right now, which in other parts of the world is actually pretty darn good. But it's still a little higher than they want it to be. Yeah, I mean, it is interesting. I mean, what did they do last year? They had three – they lowered it three times last year. Right, to pump up the economy. Right, with a 50 basis point. It's not about politics.

[00:38:21] I mean, they're not – Yeah, I'm sorry. It had nothing to do with Biden. The chairman said, he doesn't – no, I'm above politics. It's an interesting point because when they lowered the interest rate by 50 basis points last September, people said, you know, you're doing that just right before the election. It just happened. But it just happened. It had nothing to do with politics if there was an election. I mean, look, the world is politics, and so it clearly is.

[00:38:47] And I think what the president is doing, and other presidents have done in the past, is using his bully pulpit to sort of push them in the right direction. The difference is, you know, Trump often says out loud what others think, right? He'll just say it and then actually try to, like, take actions, you know, like, I'm abolishing the Federal Reserve or something. Well, he talked about the inflation.

[00:39:15] And you can make the case that – I mean, the Federal Reserve pumped a lot of money into the economy when we went into the pandemic. And so it was – you can make the case for that. But also, Biden's spending pumped a lot of money into the economy.

[00:39:29] So with both the Democratic-led Congress and White House spending so much money and the Federal Reserve Bank increasing the money supply significantly during the – in its response to the pandemic, you can make the case that's the – that's where inflation came from. Some of that spending, we'll see if that gets cranked back. But the good news is it looks like – it looks like this White House wants to control federal spending.

[00:39:55] I mean, Trump didn't talk about it much during the election in large part because you don't win votes in most cases by saying we're going to cut government spending. But it looks like they're on track to try to do that now. Well, I think that's doge, right? That's the start.

[00:40:09] And so let's reduce the federal bureaucracy and let's get a handle on – and if you really want to influence inflation rates and drive them down, let's just start – let's start cutting and – I mean, substantial cutting. And I think if anybody can do it, it's Donald J. Trump.

[00:40:31] We know Senator Rand Paul will give him a shout-out now because he produces an annual publication that highlights some of these things that the government spends money on. Tom Coburn, when he was a senator from Oklahoma, used to do that when he passed away and left the Senate. Rand Paul has picked that up.

[00:40:51] And the White House press secretary highlights this when people – the people in the media were saying to her, aren't these cuts going to hurt people? She said, well, if we're cutting – doing a study of sex among titsi flies, maybe that's not a thing we want to do. And I highlighted some of the things that he did. Breakdancing in Ukraine or Kazakhstan. I mean, we spend money on all kinds of things.

[00:41:20] And, yes, this is a small amount of money, but it adds up. And it also adds up accumulatively. If you don't – if you cut a lot of the spending now and you're not doing it next year, that sort of doubled down on the savings. Yeah. And, of course, the – we probably don't have time between now and the break to talk about this. But, of course, the other thing Trump's been talking about that would probably have a massive impact on the economy one way or the other is the idea that, well,

[00:41:46] let's just get rid of the internal revenue service and let's just have an external revenue service. High-tooth tariffs. Yeah, meaning we'll just do tariffs. There will be no income tax because we'll – through Doge, we'll cut any extra we need to raise. And people won't have income tax more and they'll have everybody's, you know, standard of living and everything will just shoot through the roof. You know, if you're a poor person, you'll probably have an extra $20,000 to kind of, you know, move around and do what you want.

[00:42:13] So that would be a big thing, something like we've never seen before, which Trump says that all the time. It would be true for sure in that instance. There has been a long-running debate that we should remove the federal income tax and replace it with a sales tax, a national sales tax. And because the federal government spends so much money, the sales tax would be so high that it would encourage people to sort of look for ways to sort of bypass that.

[00:42:39] So if we could get the federal government spending down to where you could have, oh, maybe a $0.09 or $0.10 on the dollar national sales tax, I'd be all for it. I'd love to get rid of the income tax. Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly – I'm pro get rid of the income tax. I just – the funding is what I worry about because, you know, where do we get the funding to fund the military? I mean, is that enough?

[00:43:02] I mean, we've talked – I think we've talked before about the flat tax idea, which to me has always seemed to be the most simple and most fair. The question is, well, what percentage? I'd love for it to be 10 percent, but I don't think the – the economics don't work at 10 percent. It would need to be, what, somewhere in the 20s, I guess. But if you had it where, you know, you eliminate exemptions.

[00:43:27] I mean, think about the political will that would be needed in order to – we're not going to have any exemptions. That includes charitable contributions. That's right. Done. Done. Mortgage. That's right. Home mortgage. And the real estate people really are effective on that. And then all these write-offs, done, and we're just going to have a flat tax. You don't need an IRS with a flat tax. Yeah.

[00:43:54] A flat tax – the debate has generally been against the flat tax versus the fair tax, which is the sales tax. And Dick Armey used to go around arguing with – debating with Bill Archer, one of the head of the House Ways and Means Committee, and from Texas at one time, over the two of them. And I'd like us to get back into that debate again. Right now, all we're debating is how much more can we spend, and that's a problem. So we don't want to do that.

[00:44:18] When we come back from the break, we're going to look a little bit at one of the other aspects of President Trump's executive orders, birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship, whether or not we should try to limit that. He's going to try to limit it. It may be constitutional, so maybe we can't do that. And a little later, we're going to have Richard Epstein, an attorney on there who says we shouldn't be doing birthright citizenship. It really is unconstitutional.

[00:44:43] And then we have an article posted by Judge James Holt, who we frequently refer to, who thinks birthright citizenship is a good thing. So stay with us on Point of View. We've got many more topics to come. We'll be back in a minute.

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