Point of View March 14, 2025 – Hour 2 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. We are going to focus some time and attention now on the economy.

[00:00:28] This piece by Cal Thomas is one you might want to read because it's a reminder that in some respects he says we've been here before. For those of you that are younger, let me give you a little history lesson. For those of us who are older, we live through it. That is when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, they were able to pass what was called the Economic and Recovery Tax Act. It was to reduce the tax rate. But what happened is it was painful for a while.

[00:00:57] And I'd forgotten this, but Cal Thomas reminded us in here that by 1983, Ronald Reagan's approval rate was all of 35%. But by the time of November 1984, it had soared to 61%, and he won every single state except the one that Walter Mondale was from.

[00:01:18] So in some respects, there's a need to understand that maybe as Donald Trump has talked about, wait and see, that is the case. Also quotes from an individual that I've used as an illustration sometimes on this commentary that I do. Charles Gasparino saying, think of the U.S. economy as a junkie weaning himself off of heroin, which is never easy.

[00:01:41] It's been addicted to the heroin of government spending, both monetary and fiscal, for so long that we're running $2 trillion deficits when the economy is growing near 3% with low unemployment. And, of course, it goes on to the other aspects of that. In case you don't know, you can go to the U.S. debt clock and see, as we've talked about before, that we bring in $5 trillion, which was the budget just not too many years ago.

[00:02:09] It was about $4 trillion just before the pandemic. $5 trillion would cover it, except for the fact that we are spending $7 trillion. Sometimes people have trouble getting their head around it, but imagine if, let's take some zeros off, you were making $50,000 a year, but you were spending $70,000 a year, and you had a credit card debt of $360,000. You'd say, I'm in some trouble here.

[00:02:36] And so there is an attempt right now by Donald Trump to change some things in terms of tariffs, in terms of the tax rate, in terms of even allowing Elon Musk to go into these various departments. And, Erin, if nothing else, I want to make sure your generation and even the generation after you are able to pay their bills because we are loading more and more debt on the backs of future generations, aren't we?

[00:03:02] Yeah, I mean, I talked to my friends about, you know, we're getting to the point where it would be nice to buy a home or things like that. And so it's not economically feasible. I mean, you can get there if you're really smart and you've saved and done all those things and you are taking care of the debts that you have. You are paying off your credit card.

[00:03:21] But, I mean, it was getting to a point where there needed to be change, and the American people on the whole saw, okay, something needs to give. We need a new president. We need new leadership. We need the economy to be fixed and taken care of. We need someone who knows how to balance a budget. And so that's part of, I think, why they elected Donald Trump, because he knows how to run a business and knows how to do these things. And so, but, yeah.

[00:03:49] Secretary Treasurer Scott Bessett, I think, gives me a lot more confidence than Janet Yellen. And I'll talk about that in just a minute. But some people say, how did we get here? And I did this the other day, but it's worth mentioning one more time. You know, just before Trump left office, Congress passed the $900 billion so-called COVID relief bill. That was $900 billion, almost a trillion dollars. As soon as Joe Biden got into office, he said, well, we have to spend more.

[00:04:16] And so we passed a $1.9 trillion American rescue plan. Then, even at the time, you had the former Secretary of Treasury, Lawrence Summers, used to be the president of Harvard, saying, I think this is going to lead to inflation. Turned out it was right. Later that year, then they passed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill. And then, Biden was not through.

[00:04:40] By the end of that year, wanted to actually spend $2.2 trillion in a Build Back Better Act. Well, even the Democrats started to say, well, that's too much. So they called it instead the Inflation Reduction Act. And you can see what happened. Because in a short amount of time, we spent, you know, billions and trillions of dollars. Even when we first dealt with that, we spent $89 billion.

[00:05:08] And to put that in perspective, I looked this up the other day. If you spent a million dollars every single day since the time in which the Declaration of Independence was signed until now, that's $81 billion. We passed that in one day. And so when people realized that almost 40% of the money circulating around was created under either the last part of Trump or mostly under Biden, no wonder we've had inflation. Yeah. And you hit the point.

[00:05:37] I mean, no wonder we've had inflation. I mean, why do we have what for most of our lives unprecedented except during the Carter years that led into – and I think Cal Thomas' article points out. I mean, and I do remember, of course, I was in high school during the first part of the Reagan administration. And I remember the gasoline lines, as you probably do, Kirby.

[00:06:06] I do remember the double-digit inflation and high unemployment. And obviously we're complaining about mortgage rates today because, you know, we have been the beneficiary of – at least I was. I think my mortgage was something like 2.25 or something incredible. You did well. And now, what, they're at five or six? Is that about where they are? And people complain about that.

[00:06:31] But I do remember there was a time when mortgage rates were 16 percent. And I think my first house that I bought after law school with my wife, I think our first mortgage was in excess of eight. And we thought that was a good deal because coming out of the 80s.

[00:06:52] But let's not – you know, think back also before COVID hit where the economy was and what – you know, President Trump had come in his first term and had focused on, in his phrase, making America great again, right? And had put a lot of time and effort into the economics. And the economy was roaring going into then COVID and COVID shut it down.

[00:07:21] The solution, whether it was Trump at the end of his presidency or certainly during the Biden, is not more government spending. We know that that's not the solution. The solution is not more government spending. The American economy is incredible. I mean, despite all this inflationary, it still continues to be robust and gone.

[00:07:45] But there are good – I mean, if we can get – and that's what – gosh, I'm so – I am – I can't say how excited I am about the stuff that Elon Musk is doing because I think this is the real first step to getting a handle on this. And it's been – you know, the overspending has been the elephant in the room. And to see actual Republicans engaged in this – I know the Democrats don't care.

[00:08:10] But seeing Republicans engaged in this and actually doing things, I mean, I think that's a great, great first step. It is amazing to me some of the people that Donald Trump has brought in this time. Some people have said if he had just had two particular terms, he wouldn't have been as effective as he was by being out by four years and coming back. And simply saying, you know – of course, I just mentioned Scott Bessett, who is the Secretary of Treasury. And think about the Secretary of Commerce and all sorts of other individuals.

[00:08:39] But I want to come back and give some good news on the economy because if you open up your newspapers, you're going to say doom and gloom. And also some very significant challenges ahead that, unfortunately, this president has inherited. We'll talk about that right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. A recent education report illustrates that our public schools are politically skewed.

[00:09:06] It concluded that the Marxist Howard Zinn's book is used in a fourth of all American classrooms. Educator Larry Sand explains that Zinn's best-selling book, A People's History of the United States, approaches history from a Marxist perspective. Zinn maintained that the teaching of history should serve society in some way and that objectivity is impossible and it is also undesirable. Zinn even admitted that he wrote his book to create a revolution.

[00:09:32] If you want to know more about Howard Zinn and his education project, you can follow the link to this commentary. Even better, you might want to obtain the book, Debunking Howard Zinn, written by Mary Graybar. I did an hour interview with her on the book a few years ago. Larry Sand concludes that most students are becoming an expert in Marxist dogma, but they aren't learning U.S. history. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni conducted a national survey of college students.

[00:09:58] It tested them about their basic knowledge of American history and government and found that significant numbers of college students graduate without a basic grasp of the nation's history and political system. He also cites other surveys that come to the same discouraging conclusion. In many cases, foreigners who come to the U.S. to become citizens learn more about our history and government structure than young people who attend our public schools. Why not require high school students to pass the citizenship test?

[00:10:25] Recently, the governor of Iowa announced a bill that would require high school students to pass the citizenship test to graduate. If the bill passes, Iowa will become the 14th state to adopt such a measure. Our schools aren't teaching history, and what they do teach is often politically skewed. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free copy of Kirby's booklet, A Biblical View on Socialism, go to viewpoints.info slash socialism.

[00:10:54] That's viewpoints.info slash socialism. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. Aaron Smith with us, and Jeff Almatier. Let's go out to Georgia first. Mike, thank you for joining us today. Hey, thanks, Kirby. Thanks for taking the call. Just a quick comment of our couple, I guess.

[00:11:23] A lot of us are really applauding what Elon Musk is doing. I'm older than you are, by the way, so we'll remember some other times. But just wanted to give the panel an old saying that some of us have had over the years. When I went to a Braves game or a Falcons game and wanted to get a beer, and it was like $8,

[00:11:52] the comment was always the same. And that's fine, because I need the beer now. I'll eat Hamburger Helper next week, but we can have to do this now. And I think that's kind of what the American people, for the most part, are looking at. Let's put up with this, because there's better things to come. I think so. And I hope they continue.

[00:12:22] I will tell you that from my standpoint, I certainly support President Trump and everything that his staff is doing. My new personal hero is the vice president. Yes. Which turned out pretty good, didn't he? Yeah. Oh. A.D. Vance. It doesn't take any guff. And I think that that's something that we really needed.

[00:12:51] And that's my comment. I won't belabor. But it's, you know, we're going in the right direction. I think so. Well, again, Jeff and I love to go to baseball games. But, boy, anymore when you want to buy a hot dog or anything, I said, I'm not trying to invest in the team. I'm just trying to feed my family. But it is amazing. Yeah. And so a disclosure. So I was at spring training last week. I knew you probably were. And went to three different stadiums.

[00:13:21] And I'll tell you, prices, I mean, it used to be that they had kept kind of the prices down at spring training. But now they're creeping. In Surprise, Arizona. In Surprise. And we went to a game in Goodyear and in Scottsdale. And, you know, the prices are no longer reasonable. Reasonable.

[00:13:45] Although they did have, I did notice they had a deal where you could bring your family of four at Surprise, sit out on the grass. And I think it was for $50 for a family of four, which included Cokes and hot dogs. And I was looking for three other people to go with me because I thought that was a great deal. My wife said she didn't want to sit in the grass. So I had to find three to add to that. But, I mean, yeah, no, yeah, I can't imagine.

[00:14:15] I'm looking forward to opening day for the Rangers. But the prices keep going up. That's right. And, you know, I'm always – and I like eggs. Okay, well, let me give you the egg prices now. Tell me the egg price. Yes. Well, you know, Brigitte Gabriel has been on the program. I usually don't use her for economic news. But she said, first of all, egg prices today are $4.89, and they were $6.55 on January 21st.

[00:14:44] And where she is, I can't remember, but they've dropped about $2 per person. Inflation is now 2.8 percent. Said it was up over 3 percent. So that's actually encouraging. Gas prices are the lowest level in four years. And mortgage rates have fallen for six weeks in a row. So, yes, you hear a lot about the stock market. And we started the week by talking about the stock market dropping almost 900 points on Monday.

[00:15:10] But even when we're talking about maybe having to deal with some of the economic pain to get to the success, there are a lot of very positive stories that aren't being covered by the mainstream media. But off air, Aaron made a comment that your generation, and let's say all of us, are in the microwave generation. And, boy, if we can't see a change that happens, they're already starting to say, Donald Trump, what's wrong here?

[00:15:39] And he's been in office, what was it, 54 days? Is that all we've done so far? And we're expecting him to turn the economy around on day one? That doesn't really happen that way. That's right. We can't seem to decide if we want, you know, they can't decide if they want Donald Trump to succeed or if they don't. Because he can't seem to win either way. I mean, we're seeing lower prices at the grocery store, all sorts of things like that. And suddenly it's still not enough.

[00:16:07] But we also don't want him to be able to do his job, to be able to affect the changes that we're seeing. So I think, I mean, just let's just let it work out. Be patient. I mean, the economy is not a bowl of ramen noodles that's going to be ready in two and a half minutes. So let's just chill out and wait and see what happens. I don't like those ramen noodles things.

[00:16:33] I mean, in defense of Hamburger Helper, I mean, I feel I owe it a duty to defend. I love Hamburger Helper. Well, there you go. That is good. Let me just, before I take another phone call, say that there's another issue on the horizon, and you'll hear it here first. And that is we have all these treasuries rolling out right now. You know, we have $36.5 trillion in debt. How do we fund that? Well, we sell these treasuries.

[00:16:58] And up until now, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, U.K. want to buy those treasuries. Does anybody think China's going to buy them? No, they're not. And they're more rolling off than any time in history due to the previous secretary. Who was that? Oh, that was Janet Yellen at a time when you could have had long-term treasuries, like 10-year treasuries. She just did a lot of two-year ones.

[00:17:23] So we have $7 trillion of treasuries that are now coming out of the market that somebody has to buy. Who's going to buy them? Unless the United States buys them. And when that's the case, then they have to print money to do that. So one of the things that's been proposed is to actually create what are called bit bonds. Use Bitcoin with the bond itself. You get an interest rate that's like 1%, which is below the 4.3%.

[00:17:50] But over time, there is 900. Say you've got a trillion dollars. 900 billion goes to the bond and to paying off the debt. But the other 100 billion goes to buying Bitcoin. At the end, then, as it appreciates, you get the upside price of that up to 4.5%. And then once you get to that, it's a 50-50 split between the bondholder and the government. You might say, why are they doing that?

[00:18:20] Because you have to find some way to sweeten the interest. Because right now, nobody wants to buy those treasuries. China's not going to buy them. Japan can't buy them. I mean, Japan's in its own economic circumstances. So this is a situation that was dumped on Donald Trump by the previous Secretary of Treasury, Janet Yellen. And all through the fall, one of the things I did was talk about all the issues,

[00:18:49] no matter whether you elected Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, that you would have to deal with in 2025. And just think about that. Because it's $7 trillion, but we also have a $2 trillion deficit. So we have to actually sell $9 trillion worth of treasuries within this year. And I don't think anybody's talking about it except a few people on Wall Street. And you hear it first here. And I'm going to probably do a commentary on it because it's another major crisis that the Secretary of Treasury,

[00:19:17] the Secretary of Commerce, and most importantly, President Donald Trump's going to have to deal with. No, and that's – I mean, and I always think it's funny that people are complaining. You know, Trump spent, what would you say, 53, 54 days in office. And now everything – anything is his fault. That's probably his fault too. But don't forget, for four years during the Biden administration, anything that went wrong was Trump's fault. Oh, it was all Trump's fault. Winned and played Trump. Yeah, it didn't matter.

[00:19:45] I mean, like, you know, the last day of the administration, anything wrong – oh, yeah, that was Donald Trump's fault. And so I agree with what Aaron's saying. I mean, let's let this play out. And I, again, fascinated by this whole government shutdown because Trump and Speaker Johnson, I mean, they just – they played Schumer so well on this.

[00:20:08] And you and I have known Mike Johnson, and I didn't know he had it in him, but he has been able to herd cats there in the House of Representatives. I mean, you know, I remember when we – I mean, I was with Kelly Shackelford, and Mike had just been – had just been elected speaker. And he made a comment to us at this time, well, we'll see how long this lasts.

[00:20:30] And I think that – I mean, and realistically, I mean, in this environment where you've got to keep the Republicans together, and there are a lot of strong different personalities in the Republican caucus. And he's done just a phenomenal job at that. I mean, again, it's easy to sit on the outside and criticize because I can look at the deal that they passed, and I can be critical of – I mean, for me, I'd like to see a lot more cuts in spending.

[00:20:59] But he had to get all the Republicans because he's not going to get any Democrats. Yeah, which is a sad commentary. Not one Democrat wanted to stand for the State of the Union address, all those great things to stand for. Not one Democrat was interested in preventing a shutdown of the government. We'll see how many Democrats show up in the Senate, but I think we'll have enough. We'll take a break. We'll take some more phone calls. All that coming up right after this.

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[00:22:52] 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, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212.

[00:23:18] As a program note, let me just mention that next week we'll have Reggie Littlejohn will be in studio. We'll be talking about China, talking about digital surveillance, the World Health Organization, so many different issues. Later in the week, we'll actually be doing a whole focus on China. A lot of that comes from Tom Cotton's book. And our issue this month is on the subject of China, so we'll certainly cover that in a number of different ways. Let me also mention that, as I did just the other day, we have our good friends at WPEO.

[00:23:47] They are going to be holding a banquet for celebrating their 55th anniversary. And I had a chance to talk with the general manager of WPEO, Paul Scott. We're very excited, Kirby, about our 55th anniversary banquet. We were excited about 50 years, but, you know, five years ago we were right in the throes of COVID and couldn't do anything at all. We just couldn't.

[00:24:11] And so we want to take advantage of another, you know, big number, 55, and just celebrate what the Lord has done through WPEO. This is not a banquet to toot our own horn, but to express our gratitude for how God has guided this radio station over the last 50 years. If people want to – people who would like to come, they just head to WPEO.com.

[00:24:35] You'll have to scroll down a wee bit, click on the 55th anniversary banner that is scrolling across the screen, and that will take you to a screen where you can decide what entree you want. We're going to have a very nice meal that night. We're going to have a good music program, and then we're delighted that you've, you know, decided to come speak to us that evening. Again, I'll be speaking there, also be speaking, of course, at our friends in California, KYCC.

[00:25:01] We'll talk about that more in the future, but take the time to find out about that. And, again, WPEO.com for those of you at least in central Illinois. Let's go back to the phones in Georgia. Peggy, I think you have a good question for our roundtable guests. Okay. I'm an 85-year-old widow. I worked 50 years, retired at 65. I paid into Social Security for 50 years, and now I pay monthly for Medicare.

[00:25:31] It's not anything that is being given to me by my government, I feel like. I never received any unemployment or government assistance. But now I struggle to pay increasing property taxes and property insurance on my home of 50 years. My question is, will any of these government employed in courts for their fraud and thievery?

[00:25:56] And I don't understand why the American people aren't angry as hell about all this thievery. Thank you. Yep. And I'm surprised that we don't see sort of counter-protest right now against the people that are against DOGE, because it's our money, and it's being spent inappropriately, and in some cases spent fraudulently, isn't it? Yeah, no, and I agree with the caller, and thank you.

[00:26:23] Thank you for calling in and speaking out, because what you're saying is exactly right. If someone has engaged in fraud, waste, and abuse, that is a criminal offense, and we shouldn't look the other way. And I think, Kirby, you said it. I'll give you the credit, because you said it off the air. Normally, the answer would be, you know, we just have ignored that, and we haven't held people accountable. Maybe that's the reason why we're in the shape that we're in.

[00:26:52] But, Kirby, say what you said off the air, but we've got another sheriff, a new sheriff in town. Well, we do. We have Pam Bondi. It's not Merrick Garland. And it looks like she is going to, and matter of fact, she's taking numbers, and so we'll see where that goes. But you worked in an attorney general's office, and, of course, both of you have a legal background. It does seem to me that there is cause. And as I've said before, one of the people we oftentimes have on this program is Dr. Merrill Matthews,

[00:27:19] who's oftentimes hold up his book, which came out years ago, documenting fraud and abuse and waste in Medicare and Medicaid, which are entitlement programs. And as a result, it does seem to me that Elon Musk is being pilloried and vilified for pointing out what we've known for some time. And you can go back to times when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were working in that, and it used to be a Democratic issue.

[00:27:46] But for some reason, Democrats don't seem to be that interested in it anymore. What about this? Well, I mean, I think that they've benefited from all of the money that's being spent by our government, and a lot of times in really, really wasteful ways. But I think the important thing to remember for those of you that are listening and for the American people writ large, don't stop talking about it. Let's not let this fall by the wayside.

[00:28:16] Let's ask that these people be held accountable so that this doesn't happen again. Because when someone has made an example, other people watch, and they say, well, I don't want that to be me, so I'm going to watch my step. And so, Peggy, you're exactly right. We should be raising alarms and talking and saying, let's hold these people accountable. This isn't right. Well, again, one of the things that we often make available to you is our take action.

[00:28:45] We'll probably switch that out again because we do believe that there are some action items for that. But let's, if we can, just before we run out of time here, talk about the fact that not only do we have DOGE, that's one of the Ds, we have deportation, which is another D. And I would have guessed back a few months ago that the real outrage would be about all the ICE arrests. But so far, most of the protests have been about DOGE. But I want to give you some good news.

[00:29:13] Just as we talked about the fact that gas prices are decreasing, wholesale inflation is down, consumer inflation is down, mortgage rates are down, egg prices are down, there's something else that is up. And that is the number of arrests by ICE because immigration and customs enforcement agents have made 32,809 migrant arrests between January 20th and March 10th.

[00:29:41] So essentially, Donald Trump has doubled the number of arrests of individuals who are here illegally. And as we've talked about before, Tom Holman, who is basically the border czar, and we don't always like to call people a czar, but the border guy, nevertheless, has said, we're going to take the worst first. And when you look down this list, these are individuals that you really don't want in this country.

[00:30:09] And so this is good news for the average American, isn't it? I mean, it's nice to be able to think, oh, I could maybe start walking the streets again in some of these larger cities where we're seeing, you know, migrant crime. And for these families that have tragically lost members of their family because of someone that should have never been here in the first place. I mean, this is great news. It doesn't fix what happened, but it can help those in the future be more protected and feel safe in the country that they call home.

[00:30:38] And it also goes to the point, and I think the vice president, someone, the previous caller praised Vice President Vance. And one thing that he said recently was, well, maybe we didn't need any new laws. Remember that one of the excuses that the Biden administration gave was, oh, we need new laws. That's why. No, we just need to enforce the laws that we have. And it's, you know, in the first 50 days, they've demonstrated that you can enforce the laws

[00:31:04] and you can actually start to make a difference. But still, there's a lot of work to be done and a lot of more efforts need to be done to stop that really is a non-existent border, unfortunately. Let's, if we can, just before we take a break, give you at least one way to look at this. The Trump administration has been very involved in where we are right now in the state of Texas.

[00:31:33] And of the 540 criminal illegal aliens they've captured, let me give you a quick rundown here. 140 criminal aliens charged or convicted with violent offenses, including homicide, aggravated assault, or domestic violence. 34 criminal aliens charged or convicted of sex offenses or child sex offenses. Including rape or possession of child pornography.

[00:31:57] 38 criminal aliens convicted of illegal firearms offenses, including aggravated assault with a firearm. 52 criminal aliens charged or convicted with drug offenses. 51 criminal aliens charged or convicted of property crimes. 93 criminal aliens charged or convicted of drunk driving. I'm kind of glad they're off the road and not going to be walking around there.

[00:32:20] And, Aaron, like you said, having been in Georgia just recently, in Athens, Georgia, you think of Lake and Riley and all sorts of other individuals who are no longer with us, simply because some of these individuals who came here illegally are individuals that are perpetrating crimes in this country. Absolutely. I mean, there is a legal path to being here in this country. And I have a lot of friends that have taken that legal path.

[00:32:47] And I am proud to share America with them. Like, they are great. We are a country full of immigrants. We are made better by people that come here the right way. And if we address illegal immigration, we can have more legal immigration. Exactly. Exactly. Very good point. And so, again, if you are not familiar with that, this one actually comes from Newsweek magazine, so you know it must be true. Again, Donald Trump doubles the ICE arrest rate for the first 50 days.

[00:33:14] Again, pointing out that even if you do follow this out, it leads to at least a million people that might be deported. And it just shows you that when we talk about, first of all, I don't believe there are just 11 million undocumented immigrants or illegal aliens. But whatever it is, it's going to be a long-term process. But as they say, a good first start. Let's take a break. We've got more to cover right after this.

[00:33:55] Thankfully, the predicted long wait to learn the 2024 presidential outcome did not come to fruition last November. But results for many down-ballot races were delayed, some for weeks. Experts warn that we have much more to do to clean up our elections. The Daily Signal's Fred Lucas points to Germany's recent election in which all votes were counted on election night. We should ask ourselves why we often can't do that here in the U.S. Mr. Lucas cites several differences between our elections and those conducted in European democracies.

[00:34:24] In many countries, especially parliamentary systems, the ballots are simpler. Germans voted for the party. The U.S. is a larger country with ballots which are longer and more complex. Plus, our system is decentralized. States run their own elections, creating most of their own rules. But the most consequential cause of delays in vote counting in U.S. elections is the widespread use of mail-in ballots. In his book, The Myth of Voter Suppression,

[00:34:49] Fred Lucas notes that nearly three-fourths of countries in the European Union don't allow mail-in voting without specific reasons. According to J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, These countries have in-person voting at the polling place and have results on election night. What's more, he says, every European country except Britain has voter ID requirements. In the U.S., several states lack this fundamental protection.

[00:35:15] Election law attorney, author, and podcaster Cleta Mitchell founded the Election Integrity Network, a coalition dedicated to the security of every American vote. She recommends several common-sense protections. One that should be a no-brainer is do not let non-citizens participate in our elections. A federal bill requiring voter ID, the SAVE Act, awaits a vote in Congress. Ms. Mitchell also says we should return to Election Day and precinct-based supervised voting and paper ballots.

[00:35:44] For more, see VoteFair2026.com. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Erin Smith and Jeff Mateer in studio with us for just a few more minutes. And last article that we have here before we get to Penna Dexter's commentary by Ann Coulter. Don't quote her too often, but this one was very good because she points out

[00:36:12] that right now when some people are upset about Trump thinking about another pardon reminds us of the blanket pardons that went out to 1,500 criminals and then commuting sentences to another 2,500 individuals. These 4,000 criminals, as she points out, interestingly enough,

[00:36:35] were into prison only after undergoing a lengthy, meticulous, painstakingly fair process in, as she said, the most advanced criminal justice system in the world. So many obstacles are thrown in the way for prosecutors, exclusionary rule, Miranda rights, double jeopardy, jury nullification, on and on and on. She says it's a miracle they got their conviction. And as a result, just pointing out that some of these come from a plea bargain.

[00:37:04] We did spend some time on Tuesday talking with Keisha Russell, one of your other colleagues here, about her book Uncommon Courage, and even got into some of the aspects in one of her chapters on the whole issue of the criminal justice system. We do have a booklet on criminal justice system, but it was more on the criminal justice system that Ann Coulter's talking about. But Keisha brought up a very good set of issues about the prison system, so maybe we'll do something like that in the future. But I thought you might want to see that,

[00:37:34] because just about the time you're hearing all sorts of hue and cry and frustration about the fact that Donald Trump may want to pardon someone else, you have to go back and look at the 4,000 individuals. These are not people that are here illegally. These are people, in many cases, most cases, I would have to say, our American citizens are out on the streets because we either pardoned them or gave them clemency. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it is amazing.

[00:38:02] And, you know, I agreed with her point that these people have gone through the system, the process, the criminal justice system. Is the criminal justice system in America perfect? No. But it is the best one we have. And so to the extent that, you know, people are upset about, you know, Trump deporting people and then pardoning people,

[00:38:26] they're not upset about Biden doing the same thing of releasing these people back into our streets after they've been convicted of a crime. And, Jeff, you brought this up while we were break. I also hadn't thought about the plea bargain aspect of this. Yeah, that whole last section there just talks about how they'll plea bargain down to something that just says, well, maybe the actual crime was assault with a deadly weapon, but their plea bargain will be distribution of narcotics or actual crime is rape,

[00:38:56] but possession of narcotics. And so in some respects, they get out earlier. And that's another thing that I certainly want to address maybe in the future when we get into this issue of criminal justice. No, and I think what's true, so you think about usually pardons are individual situations where someone has gone into, looked at the file and made a decision, you know, this person, you know, they may have committed the crime, they were unfairly prosecuted in some cases,

[00:39:26] or they've done something since then that they merit for being released. That's not what President Biden did. What President Biden did is he, a large swath of people, they didn't look at all 1,500 or 2,500. They're just saying, we don't like this law, that these people were prosecuted and convicted by a jury, or they agreed to it through a plea bargain. We're just going to wipe that out.

[00:39:55] We're either going to grant clemency, or we're going to commute the sentence. And so, I mean, to me, that is, that's just against the rule of law. Yes, a president, a governor has the ability to pardon, but it's supposed to be an individualized process. Here, it's just, we don't like the law. It has nothing to do with the person. And that's, I think, Coulter's point is, look, this guy could be a rapist

[00:40:21] who for some reason pled to something less, you know, in the system, we're just going to let him, we'll get him on that. He'll go to prison, he'll serve some time. But here, and then Biden comes in, not knowing what the situation is, and just, and commutes the sentence. So I think that, to me, this is just, it's against the rule of law. It just, because they don't like a law, then we're going to take away any punishment associated with the law we don't like,

[00:40:50] whether that means it's the death penalty or it's drugs. Well, Congress or a state have passed laws. Those laws should be enforced. I don't think we're safer because of it. And that's why I think she brought that up. And I just thought, again, since we had talked about the number of ICE arrests doubling, I thought the Ann Coulter one was just good to just talk about pardons. And I know the two of you are actually working in constitutional areas, not criminal areas. Although I remember Holly Randall saying,

[00:41:18] I didn't think we'd ever have to deal with a criminal case. And then you have the one in Ohio, right? Or when they start putting pastors in jail because they're serving the people on the streets trying to get out of the cold, then you become a criminal lawyer. I just got such a kick out of that. You guys never thought you could be doing criminal justice, and all of a sudden you have to defend a pastor. Oh, it's just amazing. So, again, if you want to know more about some of those cases at First Liberty, but real quick around the round table here,

[00:41:47] Penna Dexter is not here, but she has talked about this idea of if we can have cleaner elections. And that's another issue that oftentimes, Aaron, we've talked about. And it just says that other countries, if they want to have safer elections, don't send out mail-in ballots. And they require certain kinds of regulations if you're going to get even a provisional ballot.

[00:42:14] And we have thrown so many of those things out the door. And it seems to me that now's the time to see if we can fix some of this. I mean, this is just a, like, let's just return to common sense. If you don't want people to cheat on something, you know, let's watch them and make sure this is not, you know what happens when teachers send them a take-home test? I mean, you can't watch those kids all the time. The same principle applies to voting.

[00:42:38] Let's bring people in and let's vote in person and make sure that's the person that's supposed to be voting with that ballot. Yeah, I mean, I think I've said this before. I think there should be Election Day. Yes. That's the day you vote on. I think there should be paper ballots. They seem to be the easiest to keep track of and to count. And, you know, I think about those pictures that we all saw after Iraq was liberated and the Iraqi elections.

[00:43:07] Remember, you're seeing all the people with their purple thumbs. Well, what a way. What a unique way. Let's actually have people – and look, I'm for purple thumbs. Let's have people go. Let's have people go. And a radical idea, just like I flew back yesterday in DFW and when I, of course, showed up to go to get on, what did I have to have? My ID. When I walked into a federal building, what did I have to have?

[00:43:35] My driver's license. There you go. What a radical concept for voting. Actually establish that you are who you are and that you happen to be a citizen of these United States. And guess what? You get to vote on one day. And I'd even be for it. First, I wasn't. But I think I am now for this. Let's just make it a national holiday. Make it a holiday. Let's make it a national holiday. And everybody votes. You have plenty of time. The polls will be open for 12 hours.

[00:44:06] And everybody, let's just go vote and celebrate America on another, yet another holiday. But I'm – and Erin knows because she works for me, at least indirectly works for me. I'm not a big holiday, but let's give a holiday. Let's give a holiday. Can I pick what color my thumb is? It doesn't have to be purple. I think, you know, appropriately – now, depending on the party in control, maybe you have red or you have blue. How about that?

[00:44:36] Which ballot do you want? You just hold up your thumb, red or blue? Pretty good. Well, we're just simply out of time. Erin, thank you for being here today. Thank you. And Jeff, of course, always appreciates you. And most importantly, I want to say thank you to Megan for her help engineering the program. And I might just mention that, again, if you'd like to listen to the program, you can click on the button that says Watch or Listen. And, of course, she's also put together some great point-of-view highlights on Spotify. I also want to thank Steve for his help. On Monday, we're going to be talking about China. And a lot of that will be next week.

[00:45:05] Enjoy the weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday on Point of View. Do you know anyone who would appreciate a news source that is anchored to God's word and not to a political party? Do you know someone who wishes they could hear today's most confusing questions addressed with biblical clarity? Do you know anyone who wishes they felt equipped to make a difference in this nation? Well, here's the good news.

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