Point of View June 20, 2025 – Hour 2 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Once again, we're going to get into some other issues, but I thought we'd just for a few more minutes at least talk about, if you will, the animus or the anger and the back and forth that has surfaced. And that certainly fits into the Horseshoe Coalition article.

[00:00:34] Let me just mention also, I think Brian Kennedy does a very good job, Israel, Iran and the Trump Doctrine, which goes on for pages, helps you understand, you know, some of the issues involving Iran all the way back to some of the overthrow that was taking place back in 1953 and then the Shah of Iran being overthrown in 1979 and kind of where we are right now.

[00:00:58] But I thought for just a minute I might just go around the round table and talk about, as Kelly, you mentioned, we really just see a lot of polarization. And my goodness, anybody that's watched, I'll just pick on Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson. I mean, Tucker Carlson first asking how many people live in Iran. Well, that's 93 million, but he didn't know that. And asking what Bible verse and pretty soon I was waiting for him to have him sing all the verses of the Iranian national anthem. I wasn't sure where we're going with this thing.

[00:01:27] And then Ted's coming back and challenging him as well. And on most issues, these two individuals would agree. And yet when you go through this list, you know, you've got Marjorie Taylor Greene and Steve Bannon and a variety of others that are saying something. Kansas Owens, who would be considered conservatives. And then you've got David Hogue and certainly Senator Schumer and Ro Khanna and Chris Murphy.

[00:01:55] And, I mean, goodness, I mean, are we ever going to bring this country back together over something as simple? I mean, I'm not saying it's not important or even complex, but do we support Israel or not? Do we help Israel defeat Iran and to prevent a nuclear weapon or not? And this has surfaced an incredible number of emotions, hasn't it? Well, absolutely.

[00:02:20] I mean, one of the reasons that people voted for Trump was that they thought he was – I mean, he spoke out against what happened with Cheney and Bush and that whole thing. Yes, he did. And he is a – he is a – I mean, this is not a campaign slogan. He really is a peace-type president.

[00:02:48] He will do something very provocative. Like I remember at the beginning of his last term, you had the situation where you had chemical weapons being used. And he – and I think that was as much about sort of sending a signal that this guy is crazy and he's not going to blow you up if you do anything. And it creates kind of peace. And that's kind of his approach. But he is about not getting into foreign wars, not creating – not getting into these long conflicts.

[00:03:18] Right. And a lot of people, Tucker Carlson included, that's a big deal to them. That's why they don't like the Ukraine situation. Right. They feel like we're getting involved in some foreign war that doesn't really involve us. And so that is a part of the MAGA movement. But I don't know that this is outside of that. Right. I mean, it's not like – I don't – I really don't – I can't imagine President Trump – I would be shocked for President Trump to say,

[00:03:45] we're putting boots on the ground in Iran, OK? That's not what we're talking about here. But that whole sort of peace side on the foreign policy is part of what is leveraging into this. And so I think that's where – the other thing that I think, again, very similar to Bush and Cheney saying, trust us. There's these – there's weapons of mass destruction.

[00:04:09] And people are like – and now you've got people – even Tulsi Gabbard saying, well, they really weren't close to a nuclear weapon. Yeah, I know. So you've got that going on. And it's just – it's a weird situation where they're like, hey, wait, this is – we told you not to do this. You said you weren't going to do this kind of thing. And you've got the fact that Israel is the one who initiated this, right?

[00:04:34] Trump was trying to work something out, and then before he could finish, Israel drops a bomb and starts attacking all these things. Now, to be fair, Trump had a 60 days, and Iran wasn't playing ball in the 60 days. And so on 61st day is when Netanyahu did what he did. So it's a different situation that is causing some division in the MAGA camp.

[00:05:02] And the problem with Iran is they don't – it's not just Iran because they fund the proxies, the Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas, and so forth, other places to create problems. And so from my standpoint, I don't think you get a change to Iran unless you get a regime change. There you go. The problem with regime change is what follows. And so even though Trump doesn't want to get into nation building, George W. Bush did not want to get into nation building. Campaigned on we don't want to get into nation building. Ended up having to get into nation building because of Iraq. Iraq.

[00:05:32] And so if you go out and you take out the Ayatollah there, and they've already taken out a number of the military and other leaders. If you take out the Ayatollah, do you get – the son of the Shah is willing to come back. But who do you have? And if you do that, then you sort of own what's happened there. And do you then have to send in troops getting to Kelly's point of trying to maintain order until you get some kind of new regime there? And who knows?

[00:06:00] So I think Kelly's probably right that Trump is using the two weeks as a pressuring point to try to get Iran to stay. And I did hear the head of the Atomic Energy Commission today, I think, saying we could go in and if we have clear access to things, we could make sure they don't have it. We can do that. They never had that clear access to it. So I don't know where they'll come down, but I get the impression Netanyahu would like to have regime change there.

[00:06:30] Well, if I can quote Henry Kissinger, and I don't do this very often, when you look at Iran, is it a cause or a country? You know, the Ayatollah, it's a cause. He's in his 80s, and if you took him out, he'd want to be a martyr for Islam. But you're getting what seems to be some side channels because there were some individuals saying that they're willing to talk, and are those some individuals that aren't necessarily in allegiance to the Ayatollah who are saying,

[00:06:59] yeah, if we don't have the Ayatollah here, we would kind of like to still have a country. Right. And we would like to still be able to manage this country, although they've done such a poor job of managing the economy, even given, of course, all of the various restrictions on them as well. So that could be a different kind of regime change. Regime change like George W. Bush tried to do, you know, bring in the Marines, doesn't work. Regime change like the fall of the Berlin Wall.

[00:07:27] Regime change like the end of the Iron Curtain, you know, and all of that, where all of a sudden Czechoslovakia becomes the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and all of a sudden you have Hungary and Poland and all sorts of countries. Actually wanting to move towards some kind of change. That kind of regime change would be a positive, wouldn't it? My sense is that the people of Iran would like to have regime change. Yes. The majority.

[00:07:54] But if you've had your country bombed, sometimes you start to get sort of patriotic about your country just because it's your country. Yeah. Well, again, that's why he's maybe just got this two – because a lot of people, including my wife, say, why has he got this two weeks? Well, maybe he's still hoping he's out. Yeah. Two weeks because maybe there's something that could bring about internal change. And if you could get the inspectors in there to say that, you know, Tulsa Gabbard was right.

[00:08:23] Of course, remember Donald Trump said, I don't care what she says. We'll see where that plays out. But nevertheless, we've covered Iran and Israel for a while. But I thought when we come back, we do have a few things happening in this country, not the least of which is what about this auto pen? What about these L.A. protests, a variety of other issues? And how about some good news? 139,000 new jobs in May beating expectations three months in a row. Some things are positive. We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:09:00] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. You know, the current debate about the federal budget centers on whether the government is too big and too inefficient. Most Republicans argue the federal government is too big. Many Democrats ask, well, where's your evidence that government has grown too big? John DiIlio is the co-author of a significant book about American government. He explains that government grows larger by using three types of what is called administrative proxies.

[00:09:29] The first are state and local governments. The EPA, for example, has fewer than 20,000 employees. But 90% of EPA programs are completely administered by thousands of state government employees, largely funded by Washington. Second, there are for-profit businesses and contractors that also mask the large size of the government. In the Defense Department, for example, the hundreds of thousands of civilian workers have been supplemented by hundreds of thousands of for-profit contract employees.

[00:09:57] Today, the government spends more on defense contracts than it does on official federal bureaucrats. Third, there are the various tax-exempt or independent sectors, which have more than doubled in the last 30 years. Many of them owe their jobs to federal or intergovernmental grant, contract, or fee funding. These facts will be important to remember when Congress and the public debate the federal budget. Although the number of federal employees look about the same as in previous decades, the federal budget is more than four times larger,

[00:10:25] and the federal workload has been dispersed and makes government look much smaller than it really is. We do have a big government and should not fall for this federal shell game that tries to hide from taxpayers the real size and scope of government. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View. For a free booklet on the Biblical View on Wokeness, go to viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:55] That's viewpoints.info.com. That's viewpoints.info.com. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, we've been talking about what's happening overseas, but let's not forget some things happening here. First of all, we want to talk about the L.A. protest. I've got a piece by Ben Shapiro. By the way, he's got an upcoming book. I know I'm going to buy it, Lions and Scavengers, talking about the scavenger mentality.

[00:11:24] Cal Thomas talks about handicapping the L.A. protest, and one that I thought about posting, but I did not. But Rich Lowry talked about the rioters' white hood, you know, how many of these individuals are wearing masks. You know, it used to be we weren't supposed to wear a mask. Then everybody's supposed to wear a mask. Now they're saying, well, we don't want the ICE to wear a mask, but we see a lot of these protesters wearing masks. A little bit later, I do want to get into a couple things. As we mentioned earlier in the week,

[00:11:51] John Cornyn was actually looking at the question of who was running the government, given the fact that it's pretty obvious now that Joe Biden was not. We've got a very good piece by Merrill Matthews about the president using an auto pen, and so that certainly gets into some other topics that we can address as well. But for just a minute, let's, if we can, talk about the ongoing battle and the protests,

[00:12:19] because it does seem to me that if I can use Cal Thomas' piece, almost all the surveys, Dr. Merrill Matthews, seem to suggest that most people were not encouraged by the demonstrations. They began to be very unpopular. And if nothing else, it just illustrated that most Americans respect law and order, and that's not what they saw on the streets of people protesting ICE. You see, that's the interesting point to me, because as I was listening to the news,

[00:12:47] the news almost always said mostly peaceful protest. And I'm looking at this, and I say, well, I see fires burning over there, and they're ordering Waymo auto taxis coming, robot taxis, and they're setting them on fire, and you've got flags waiting and people standing on cars. I've watched cars that had to push through and run over people because some of the protesters were getting around pounding on cars and stopping just a car moving through the traffic. And I come back and think, this reminds me back of 2020, the George Floyd thing,

[00:13:16] where they said these were peaceful protests, and you look at, well, wait a minute, all these stores were robbed, and people were beaten up over here, and police were having to run in some cases because of the rioters. It just, I'm just, I'm mystified by the media calling this mostly peaceful protest. In some cases, it probably was, but most of what I saw was pretty violent. You know, I mean, I mean, there's a part of me that looked at this, and I thought, you know,

[00:13:46] if Trump was like to do some, hire some, some fake type situation that would be the best for him, he couldn't have set this up any better. I mean, you know, we've seen this before. All Americans have seen it. The George Floyd thing, all the protests, the media kind of trying to, you know, gaslight everybody, and people are kind of past that now, and they realize, that's just ridiculous.

[00:14:15] This is not peaceful. I'm seeing fires. You know, I'm seeing, I'm seeing people with masks on that look violent to me. Waving, waving Mexican flags. That's the other thing. I think if I was the other, if I was Trump, and I said, okay, what can we create this like a fake? It would, let's have a Mexican flag. I mean, I just, I can't think of a worst scenario for the other side. And you think of it, you think how, what, I mean, at first I start thinking, okay,

[00:14:44] there's something I'm not getting. Yeah. And, and, and no, what I'm not getting is that these groups behind this are so radical that they're so out of touch with the American people that they think this is good. And, and, and so it's like the Democratic Party is shrinking. That's your point. Shrinking and shrinking. And they're so radical now that they're just hurting their self beyond reason. They need more breadth so that, you know,

[00:15:13] sane voices can say, no, we're not going to do that. That's stupid. Um, but they can't because they've, they've so pushed people out that they're doing crazy stuff like this. Um, and of course, you know, the only thing they had going for them is they got, uh, uh, justice Breyer's brother for their district court, his younger brother to return to say that we don't have a King here. And, you know, right before the no Kings, right? That's not political or anything as a judge.

[00:15:41] And then of course he goes to the ninth circuit, one of the most liberal federal court of appeals in the country. And late last night, unanimously, unanimously, including, was it a Biden appointee? I think was on there. It was either a Biden or Obama. I think it was a Biden appointee unanimously saying, no, no, the president does have the authority to call out the national guard. So I just can't think of a bigger failure as a political movement than what they were doing.

[00:16:11] And, uh, just one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. And certainly it's not helping them. Uh, it's, it's sort of digging a bigger hole. And one of the things we have, the issue then raised, I don't know that we have any real information yet, but is somebody behind this funding? Some of these things that are going on. And I know in times past, some of the protests, there were people who could go to a various, to some office or some building and they were paid to make signs all day. Uh,

[00:16:40] somebody was putting the money there and bringing food in and other things. So there's been some speculation that George Soros or some of the others may have, don't know if that's the case, but is somebody funding this behind the scenes? Well, some of those groups, it was shown the groups behind these things. I mean, we're given money by USA aid. They were given, they were given taxpayer money to, to help engage in these protests. Uh, so I know I didn't, I didn't get to see it. I don't know if you covered it earlier this week, but what is it?

[00:17:10] 93 billion or $96 billion at the end that this was in a Senate committee, uh, we're pushed out at the very end, at the very end of the Biden administration to nonprofit groups. Yes. Who weren't even known. Uh, I mean, they violated all kinds of things to just throw this money. And this is the type of thing that they were using money for. So again, it's sort of a, uh, a re, I don't know what you would call it, but a legitimization of doge.

[00:17:40] Yeah. because American people don't want this. They don't like it. They're not going to believe the laws and they certainly don't want their tax money going to. And when they passed Obamacare in 2010, they did the same thing. They had a lot of money there that they were handing out to all kinds of nonprofits new. And sometimes, you know, some that have been around for a while, but all you had to do is go create a nonprofit to get a bunch of money to say, we're going to help people, uh, navigate the ability to go on Obamacare, uh, uh,

[00:18:08] the government health insurance site and be able to sign up for this. But that was a way that they buy it, that the, uh, Obama administration helped a lot of their friends by passing federal dollars out to these NGOs and other groups, nonprofit groups so that they could do this. But they also had money then to keep, to keep other things going. Yeah. One other one I wanted to put on the table is, okay, we recognize that some of the activists out there in the streets, uh, don't realize that it's an 80, 20, probably more like a 90, 10. And they're in the 10,

[00:18:37] but you would think members of Congress would understand that. And I'm thinking of, for example, the Senator from Minnesota who has in front of her, Senator, um, first of all, cabinet officer, Pete Hegseth, and is saying, why are you bringing in the military? Because, uh, Tim Walsh, who is the governor at the time, he handled it quite well. At this point, Pete Hegseth was like,

[00:19:05] what world and planet did you live in, in which they burned down the police headquarters and all the rest? Then you had this latest one with the, uh, and since we have so many people in the state of Michigan that listen to this program, Senator Slotkin, who again is one of the rising stars has a real problem again in the armed services committee about Hegseth bringing in the military. And I'm thinking, okay, I can understand why the activists out there in the streets think they're doing, if you will,

[00:19:35] the Lord's work. But what is it about some of these members of the United States Senate actually wanting to seemingly support the radicalism and the chaos in the streets? Well, I mean, I really think it goes back to the, the underlying, um, uh, problem. And this, I heard this on a, uh, uh, uh, a story earlier today on the, uh, D democratic party. Yes. The DNC and how they're falling apart.

[00:20:05] They're all at fighting each other and all this type of thing. And they are, I mean, gosh, they are just really, really hurting themselves and reeling because they are not in tune with the American people. And, uh, and they're, they're really in the part of sort of a circular firing squad right now. Um, when they, they need to go broader and they need to state these things, but they just,

[00:20:30] they see these things and it's all the basis behind every bit of this is I hate Trump. And it's the old Trump derangement syndrome. It does seem to be. Because they're so angry. They hate him so much. Everything that he does, they immediately see as an opportunity. And so as, as long as what he does is like an 80% issue, he's just like setting them up because they just,

[00:21:00] that's all they have. They have no positive message, no positive future. No, it's all we hate Trump. And then they make crazy arguments and they just lose more and more American people in this. And you mentioned senators, but it's also governor Gavin Newsom who brought that lawsuit. And if anybody should understand this better, uh, it's him. And yet he brought the suit. Yeah. You got governors, California, Illinois, New York, I mean, and Minnesota. And they were in front of Congress. We come back though. Let's see if we can.

[00:21:30] Talk about whether or not Biden was fit for office. We'll be right back. It was not that long ago that censorship appeared to be almost inevitable. Free speech was being attacked and strangled in many places. And some of us wondered if this was the end, but now many feel a new sense of hope, a chance for a fresh dawn.

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[00:22:52] Point of view. We'll 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.

[00:23:20] Earlier in the week, I mentioned that there are certain things happening that would have been big news if it weren't for all the things happening with, of course, the protests in the streets and, of course, Iraq, excuse me, around in Israel. But nevertheless, one of those which I did mention was the fact that the U.S. Senator John Cornyn, who, by the way, is running for re-election. We talked about that the other day. I actually co-chaired a hearing which had this title,

[00:23:45] Unfit to Serve, How the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution. You didn't have quite a number of Democratic senators sewing up for that committee meeting. But nevertheless, it brings us to one of the other articles we've posted. And, Dr. Merrill Matthews, this week you wrote a piece, Trump has a point about presidents using an auto pen. And, of course, we wouldn't be talking about the auto pen if we felt that the president of the United States,

[00:24:13] at least the previous president, had his mental faculties intact. But nevertheless, you've sort of dug into this whole issue of the auto pen. I think we've learned a few things we didn't know. It's interesting because on June 4th, Trump signed a presidential memorandum warning the government, asking the government to look into some of Biden's mental acuity decline. And other issues, including his use of the auto pen. And so that has got this sort of whole thing going.

[00:24:44] Representative Comer, who's head of the Government Oversight Committee, is going to hold investigations into the possible use of the auto pen. Biden came up when some of these accusations came out and said, I authorized all these, but he didn't say he signed these various things. And it raises the question because the Constitution says that the president has to sign legislation if he approves of it. So that seems to be fairly clear.

[00:25:09] But in 2005, somebody from the Justice Department, Howard Nielsen, looked at this and released a 30-page document saying, well, at the time of the writing of the Constitution, sign could also mean somebody can sign something for you in your presence. If you had that knowledge, they could sign something for you. So he just sort of out of nowhere said,

[00:25:34] it's all right if a president authorizes somebody else to sign legislation for him. Well, that was during George W. Bush's time. He didn't use that. But then in 2011, Barack Obama was overseas. Legislation was coming up and getting passed. I think it was the Patriarch, if I remember right. He didn't have time. Normally what would happen is these things would be flown to the president wherever he is. He would sign it. But the timeline on the Patriarch was real short.

[00:26:02] So he authorized the signing of that legislation with an auto pen. First time in history, apparently, a bill had been signed with an auto pen. And that got somebody else writing in the Journal of Law and Technology a year or two later saying, it actually has to be signing. Or he goes on to talk about the history of wills and how a will can be signed. But he said you could also have the president could be there and authorize somebody by him to sign it.

[00:26:32] But it has to be signed by the president. So now we don't know exactly where this is because there's no question that pet presidents can use this to sign invitations and pictures and things like ceremonial types of things nobody cares about. But can the president use an auto pen to sign a bill that the Constitution says the president has to sign it? And then could they use executive orders? Could the president use an auto pen for executive orders or other things?

[00:26:57] Or what came up during the inauguration is pardons. And there is a group now, a pro-energy group that is apparently bringing a suit against the administration, the Biden administration, saying they think he used an auto pen to sign certain executive orders relating to energy. And they think this hurts them. And they're pressing this to see if it can't be created or moved to say signing with auto pen on something like that is null and void,

[00:27:27] which would then take those executive orders out of action. So we don't know where we are right now, but it's an interesting case. And we'll have to see what happens. Yeah, I think this is kind of a disturbing thing to allow to happen. I agree. I mean, Article 1, Section 7, right? There it is. And I think, you know, it's different.

[00:27:50] I mean, a lot of us now, when we sign things, you know, we get an email and we can do the electronic type deal. But it's still us. It's not somebody else. Not a machine doing it. So depending upon what you mean by the auto pen, if what you mean is the president can sign digitally from some other place, that's a signature, right?

[00:28:18] But the auto pen is not the president signing at all. Especially when he doesn't seem to know about it. And then it's really dangerous because, I mean, we could have over a thousand pardons that weren't the president. And those are invalid. So, you know, it's the problem is proving any of this, proving that it wasn't Biden who signed these. It's even through the auto pen. You know, it wasn't him.

[00:28:48] It was somebody else. That's the difficulty. Absent somebody kind of coming forward and going, well, yeah, I did about a hundred of these pardons. You know, I think it's going to be very difficult to win anything. But I do think it highlights that it's something that we ought to take care of as a country because this should not – I mean, I think probably – I mean, what should happen is Congress should take care of this. I don't know that they will.

[00:29:15] So as a result of that, I think what's going to have to happen is somebody is going to have to get their ox gored by one of these and say this isn't a valid signature. The thing that happened is that since every president had signed legislation, even flying them halfway around the world to be signed up until 2011, this sort of implies that the presidents thought they had to physically sign the legislation. But now you have the issue of Biden.

[00:29:43] And this was sort of brought present when Speaker Johnson said he was visiting with Biden and Biden – he mentioned something that an executive order that Biden signed. And so I never signed that executive order. And he said, well, yes, you did sign the executive order. And it sounded like Biden didn't know he had signed it. He may not have signed it. We just don't know.

[00:30:05] And that's where the issue of it becomes really, really important on things of law and other important documents that the president physically signed the document. How about when the cameras are rolling and he signs it in front of the camera? Have you noticed that going on lately? Trump makes a big show of having the media in, signs it, turns it around and shows it. There's no question he signed it. People have got to know something because it's just too funny.

[00:30:29] When we were announced for the commission on religious liberty, the president said, come here, into the Oval Office. Okay, here we go. Just last second. And he's got this little box of pens on his right. And what people don't know is you think it's just pens and he's going to give you a ceremonial pen. No, no, no. It's been branded. The pen has his signature on the outside of the pen. It has Donald Trump on the outside.

[00:31:00] It's like merchandise, right? No surprise there. Yeah, so he gave us all one of those and I was just cracking up because who brands their pens that they're signing this with? But Donald Trump's special right there. Well, you've got to bring it next week just so we can show it off. What you often see, and you've seen this in the past, I suppose our audience has, when a president signs a piece of legislation, he'll have several pens that he'll make a little mark and then he'll hand it to somebody. Then he'll make a little more of his signature and hand it to somebody.

[00:31:29] So they all get a copy of the pen that signed the legislation. Donald Trump takes one pen and signs this thing big and bold, turns around and shows it, and then hands pens to people. Yeah, that's right. And puts them in the box so you don't know whether you have the one or not. Yeah. And, you know, if you've ever been to the White House or even the executive office building, they have like one place where it had all the pens that Lyndon Johnson signed to the Great Society program. And so there's a whole, if you will, set of exhibits about pens and all of that.

[00:31:57] But that brings us back to the key point. Does this go to Congress? Hopefully. If it doesn't, does it ever go to the Supreme Court? Because you've got a lawsuit right now, which I think is a good one. And that is you have signed all these executive orders. They have actually harmed executives and various companies that are in energy. And so you could actually say you have standing. And right. And standing would then allow you to go almost immediately to the Supreme Court.

[00:32:26] So if the Congress doesn't deal with it, does the court deal with it? What's about that? I think they do eventually. Again, I think in the best case, you have evidence that it wasn't even the president. Yes. If you had some evidence like that. Then you set up a really good case for the whole auto pin and how you deal with it. But gosh, you know, I don't know how that. I mean, I know the Republicans, after what they just went through, would probably be in favor of this. Right. But it really doesn't matter which party it shouldn't. And I wonder how the Democrats see this.

[00:32:54] Do they think, hey, we might have somebody in the future who doesn't know what they're doing and we might want this. I don't I can't see that. So but they probably just can't support it now because it'll look like they're being anti Biden in the past. But otherwise, I would think this would be the type of thing that most would agree with. They want the president to be responsible for what he does. And just imagine the Supreme Court rules that these are null and void.

[00:33:17] Then you have to go back and look at things, the legislation that Obama signed in 2011 on the Patriot Act, maybe null and void. If I mean, it could have huge ramifications if you're saying these are not effective and actual if they were not signed by the president's hand. Well, if nothing else, since we're coming to a break, let me just mention by Dr. Merrill Matthews. Again, Trump has a point about presidents using an auto pin.

[00:33:42] And I thought you might find it interesting and might have a discussion around the table about that with some of your friends and neighbors. Let's come back and talk about the big, beautiful bill and the rescission package right after this. Historic Christianity celebrates May 31st as the Feast of the Visitation, which has also been described as the first meeting of Jesus and John the Baptist.

[00:34:13] Mary, early in her pregnancy, travels to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who is much further along in her pregnancy with John the Baptist. The verse is Luke 144, where Elizabeth exclaims, Behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Such an important moment revealing John's recognition that Mary carries in her womb the coming Messiah. And though not yet physically formed, the Christ child is also a human baby.

[00:34:40] The Anglican Compass describes this as yet one more reason Anglicans are pro-life. Well, not every Anglican. For me, statements by Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright, New Testament scholar and one of the most influential theologians of our day, take him out of the pro-life category. Recently on a YouTube podcast, Premiere Unbelievable, Bishop Wright was asked about whether Christians should defend life from the moment of conception. He posed exceptions for rape and incest, saying,

[00:35:14] N.T. Wright gave a couple of examples, one being that when there is a possibility or fear of the child's severe deformity, the correctness of a decision to abort the child is, quote, absolutely clear for the mental health of the mother. He also voiced his concern about the optics of unmarried men from the Catholic hierarchy telling a woman what she can and cannot do. He called this male bullying, which we should avoid like the plague.

[00:35:42] Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire features the segment he calls the daily cancellation. One day, a couple of weeks ago, he chose to cancel N.T. Wright. Abortion kills a human being. On abortion, Bishop Wright is wrong. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:36:11] For a few more minutes, let me just mention again that we do have some other legislation moving through Congress, which you hear about every once in a while, so we'll talk about it right now. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill passed the House, went to the Senate. Senate and House looked different. You also, at the same time, let's give credit where credit is due, President Trump did submit a rescission package that would codify all the doge cuts, and at the moment that would claw back about $9.4 billion, which sounds like a lot,

[00:36:41] but when you're $37 trillion in debt, that's not a lot. And when you were saying you were going to be able to cut $2 trillion to start out with, not quite what we wanted. But Dr. Matthews, help us out here, because you've got the Senate parliamentarian ruling. You've got the difference between, of course, John Thune, who is in the Senate, and, of course, Mike Johnson, our good friend in the House. You're trying to herd cats. It's really tough to get all that coming together. Yeah, there's three or four really sticking issues. One is the SALT tax, the state and local tax.

[00:37:09] New York wants to make sure that that number is higher. The Senate wants to make sure that number is lower. You have the issue of Medicaid, and Josh Hawley and some others seem to be very strong on trying to keep Medicaid. There are games that hospitals can play with states in order to maximize federal funds coming to them. The House wants to try to cut that back or eliminate it. The Senate seems to be fine with some of that. So you have that issue.

[00:37:38] And then you have Obamacare subsidies that were increased during the pandemic. The House wants to claw those back. The Senate is not so sure it wants to. And then there's some welfare benefits. So there's a number of things that even Republicans, and especially on green energy subsidies, some Republican states want to make sure that they keep those subsidies coming to the states.

[00:38:01] So it gets back to this issue of Republicans like to claim they want to be fiscal conservatives, but many times are not when it really hits the fan. Yes. This is a big deal. Well, if they don't come to an agreement here, every person's taxes, every person, of every income level,

[00:38:29] everybody's taxes are going to go through the roof. So I can't even imagine what's going to happen to the market. It's not like that. I mean, we're going to have something that looks like the Great Depression. So they're playing politics like usual. You hope that they're gaming, and at the end, people are going to realize they've got to support this. If not, it's going to be a pretty massive shot to the economy and to every American.

[00:38:58] And there's no Democrat to blame. The Republicans have control. They have control in the House. They have control in the Senate as it comes to this, and it will be all on their desk and all their responsibility. I think, John, soon the Senate Majority Leader has implied that they're going to have to make some changes to pass something in the Senate, but then it has to go back to the House because the legislation in the House and Senate have to be identical.

[00:39:22] And then whether or not Speaker Johnson is going to be able to get Republicans to go along with the Senate bill. And if he can't, then they might have to make some changes, then it goes back to the Senate again. And that's where the July 4 deadline looks really iffy right now. I think so. And, again, as Kelly just pointed out, that's what I call the Pottery Barn Maxim. You break it, you own it. The Republicans are in control, and if they break it, they own it. So that is certainly the case.

[00:39:49] Just before we wind down, I always like to have some prayer targets. And one of those I might just mention is, Kelly, you are certainly raising funds for the fiscal year end, and I would encourage people to support First Liberty. I do so. Pentadextra does. We support you. I also on our website here have Anchored to Truth. We're up to now $56,000 in terms of the match challenge. I'm thinking it's going to be even higher.

[00:40:14] But, again, the bottom line is we certainly encourage people to pray about how they might want to respond between now and June 30th. But you also have some other prayer targets because you've got a couple of cases that are pending or could be considered by the Supreme Court. Can you explain it? Yeah. We have two up there right now and one that's on the way, so three total. But the first one will be – I'm really praying they take this case, the Olivier case.

[00:40:40] This ultimately will be the first case we've had about the right to share the gospel in public, in this case in a park, in many decades. And it's a horrible decision. It was a 9-8 split en banc on the Federal Court of Appeals. So it's the type of thing that gets their attention.

[00:40:59] The other one is the Cambridge Christian School case, which we have a state championship football game between two Christian schools that were not allowed to have a prayer before the game. Well, why? Because they said it was over a government microphone. And what they did in the case, the Court of Appeals really, in a shocking opinion, said, well, this was government speech.

[00:41:24] So anytime a private citizen can have their free speech wiped out by them claiming it's government speech, I mean, gosh, so is it government speech if you're on a public sidewalk or in a public park? Or the implications are huge, and so we have literally a record number of outside groups filing amici to say the Supreme Court really needs to take this.

[00:41:46] So I would just pray for those two cases right now as great opportunities for the Supreme Court to take something that I think if they took, we would win. But they have to take them, and they only take – last year I think it was 58 cases out of like 7,000. So we just really need prayer for those two cases. I would think so. One of the cases we're still waiting for, certainly one was one that came down this week out of Tennessee, and that was the issue of transgender.

[00:42:14] The other is the Mahmoud case, which is out of Maryland. And that gets us back to, again, your theme, this whole idea of parental rights. The argument there is that we can actually, even at a very young age, expose kids to LGBTQ kinds of ideas and that the parents don't even have a right to opt out. Right. And that case, in some respects, correlates with some cases you have in California and other places, doesn't it? Absolutely.

[00:42:44] Yeah, we just won a case in California, shockingly, with a liberal judge who said, no, look, the parents do have a right to notice. And these kids, if what you're trying to force them to do in this whole gender area violates their faith, they have a right to exempt themselves. The idea that the government can force them through some sort of indoctrination camp is really extreme. And so this Mahmoud case that we'll probably hear in the next two weeks from the Supreme Court on that. Right.

[00:43:13] And this whole issue of parental rights is a big one. I mean, there are people who believe that they're going to use compulsory attendance to force your kid into a – or your grandkid – into a public school. And when your kid is there, your kid is theirs. It's a child of the state. And you don't have any rights as a parent. And that goes against everything that we've held in this country.

[00:43:40] It goes back to cases that are 100 years old that make very clear that in this country one of the most fundamental rights is the right of a parent to wreck the upbringing, including the religious upbringing, and the education of their own children. And that's what has to be really, unfortunately, has to be explained right now because we have old cases that say you can't pass a law that say you have to go to a public school.

[00:44:07] So if you want to go to the Catholic school or the Christian school or the private school, you can. But we don't have any that says what happens if you're in the public school? Do the parents give all their rights? That's what these cases are going to be laying out. And it will affect millions and millions and millions of families and children. As he said, probably the next time the Religious Liberty Commission meets will be on parental rights.

[00:44:28] And if you go to our website, you know that we've been encouraging you to contact your two United States senators about the Family Rights and Responsibilities Act, introduced in the Senate by Senators Tim Scott from South Carolina and Senator James Langford from Oklahoma, introduced in the House by Virginia Fox. So if you haven't taken the time to do that, that is the case. And let me just mention again that if you want to follow what is happening there at First Liberty, just F-L-I, and we have that link on the website. And, of course, I would encourage you to support them.

[00:44:58] And we, of course, have our banner up, Anchored to Truth, right at the moment, a $56,000 match challenge. So if you would like to give, it's a dollar-for-dollar match already available. We'll be talking about it next week, and I hope you have a great weekend. First of all, I want to thank Doug for stepping in as our engineer. Steve, thank you for producing the program. See you back here on Monday right here on Point of View. 1972. Point of View was one of a kind.

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