Point of View March 3, 2025 – Hour 2 : Ukraine and Russia and Other Updates

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, we're going to get into all the issues in the news, and not the least of which is what happened Friday while we were doing the broadcast.

[00:00:27] We were already making some comments about the back and forth between President Zelensky and President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance and others, and we will certainly get into that in due course. I've often times said that some of these conflicts that show up on the main screen, and this one certainly was quite visible, are the ultimate kind of political Rorschach test or inkblot test. Everybody sees what they want to see out of it.

[00:00:55] I have had people telling me that this was a classic illustration of President Zelensky asking for so much and being unappreciative. I've had people tell me that what J.D. Vance was saying was completely inappropriate. I've had people say that what the Trump administration now is doing is doing the bidding of the Russian government, and that there are people that are naive about Vladimir Putin.

[00:01:23] I've had other people that have said that this is a good illustration of the kind of corruption that has taken place in Ukraine. Maybe an illustration of the way in which sometimes President Zelensky talked to the former president, Joe Biden. As a matter of fact, we know, if you have not seen this, some great videos of him getting angry with him as well.

[00:01:45] Or even a continuation of what led to the impeachment the first time, or one of the first times, of Donald Trump because of the phone call that he had between him and President Zelensky. So everybody sees what they want to see, and I'll get into the details. And, of course, we'll open up the phones to give you some comments. I'm sure you have quite a few. But I thought it would be appropriate to start with an article I was going to use on Thursday or Friday, and this really didn't come about.

[00:02:14] It is written by David Bonson. Now, if you say that name sounds vaguely familiar, he was on at least twice last year. I've, of course, known his father and also appreciated him. But he wrote this piece, which has the title Curb Your Hysteria. Now, he wrote it back in February. Of course, I guess much of this did happen in February. But we're now into March, by the way. And this was before the dust-up or the shouting match or the conflict that was taking place in the Oval Office.

[00:02:43] But I think it is wise because he goes on to say that at one point in my adult life, much later than I wish it had, I learned that a person worth emulating is a person who possesses poise, calm, and sobriety. He says,

[00:03:10] And so he's a little bit concerned about, as we have been, the two sides, and sometimes there's more than two sides, are shouting each other, not listening to each other, and aren't necessarily evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of their own argument as they begin to point out the problems with someone else's argument. He says, The current political environment brings this reality for individuals into the public realm.

[00:03:36] The Trump moment generates excitability and, in some cases, outright hysteria. It does so for good reasons. There can be bad reasons, he points out as well. But the point he makes is that this is, in a sense, the world we find ourselves in. And he says, I've seen, he takes on both sides, I've seen opponents of President Trump rehash the Hitler line. The news reporters assume that free speech is a weapon that can cause genocide.

[00:04:04] That's one that we talked about about a week ago. And otherwise intelligent people claim that the president is setting up a corrupt government, which he intends to never leave. As he points out, a lot of these comments, statements fall on deaf ears, because they've been overplayed, really, for the last nine years. But then he goes on to take the other side on. And he says, I would be lying if I did not say that there's an equal amount of hysteria from some Trump supporters,

[00:04:34] which in some ways is more disturbing, mostly because it's less expected. He talks about people making such statements. And again, I don't agree with this. He doesn't either. What President Trump has done in the last five weeks is nothing short of Churchillian, Reaganite, or Lincolnesque. And again, there are all sorts of hyperbole being used and made statements and the rest. And he then talks about that even with the various executive orders that President Trump has signed,

[00:05:03] he says these are easy orders to sign, lacking in stickiness and natural popular actions, given the current state of the culture. But he says, Hear me correctly. They should be celebrated. But analogies of these executive orders to winning the Cold War are things like, this is right up there with the Gettysburg Address, or the tax bill of the 1980s are simply preposterous. He would have been helpful if he had some links to some of those,

[00:05:32] because obviously he's seen and heard some that I haven't seen as well. But here's the point. He says the hysteria of Trump haters and the hysteria of Trump lovers is not the subject of the article. He says my primary caution is for those tempted to be hysterical about the hysterics. He says, for example, many on the right feel that they were marginalized to the fringe of society.

[00:05:57] Even the conversation we had today with Natasha Crane could make you feel like that. Really, the culture hates us. And he says, in some respects, the feeler that maybe America's walls of DNA really and civic order weren't enough. And Egboin points out that election losses, whether in 2020 or 2024, depress people, and cultural losses depress people even more. But he says,

[00:06:25] if you're going to really weather the storm, if you're going to really be able to kind of make your way through these turbulent years of 2025, and 2024 was turbulent as well, going all the way back to 2019 probably, he says, look, disappointments will come, and sober judgment will materialize, but along the way, some human excess has to be treated with grace. I don't say this to sermonize. I recommend it as a therapeutic approach.

[00:06:55] Dealing with the hysteria will be much easier with an anti-hysterical approach. There is lots of sound and fury right now from those who believe Trump is Hitler, and those who believe that Trump is Jesus. I hope not. But nevertheless, but there is some legitimacy in sound and fury. He goes on to actually point out that I'm well aware that polls are now showing that Trump's peak might be fading.

[00:07:22] Everyone can feel a certain exhaustion with some of the chaos. I'm also aware that many of the actions of the new administration of the last five weeks have been wildly popular with the American people. But he goes on to remind us that, you know, some of that will be coming to an end. And he says, coverage of the state affairs lacks rationality, balance, and good balance, and good measure should be taken with a grain of salt. He says,

[00:07:48] the need of the hour for our political scene is the same thing we've only needed when we become adults. Wisdom, grace, and restraint. Calm people are impressive people. The best advice as someone who is laser focused on the short term victories, tax reform, deregulation, meritocracy, that do not violate our long term mission, the constitutional order, the country of character, conserving the American ideals of freedom and virtue,

[00:08:17] is that you do your best to ignore the hyperbole and hysteria on all sides. To call balls and strikes, there are plenty of both, I assure you, and to stay calm in your own response, both to the administration and to the historical response of others, he says, this too shall pass. With that as background, let's get into, of course, the controversy last week, and the controversy still unfolding, and we'll be back right after this.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Sean McDowell observes that in a culture that glamorizes sex, chases fame, and shames those who don't fall in line, it takes a rebel to be a Christian. That is why the title of his new book is A Rebel's Manifesto. His book for young Christians focuses on the challenge, the culture, relationships, sexuality, ethics, and cultural engagement. He published much of this in a previous book as ethics being bold in a whatever world. When I did a radio program with him,

[00:09:28] we talked about the fact that he needed to both update chapters and add new chapters. The section on relationships were added because of current problems with loneliness, bullying, and suicide, and a chapter on transgender ideology also needed to be added. You know, we talked about the fact that Sean McDowell will oftentimes role play as an atheist and take questions from Christian students. After he finishes, he asks them to describe how they treated their atheist guests. They often use words like rude, aggressive, and disrespectful,

[00:09:57] and then concludes that if this is how they treated a fellow Christian role playing as an atheist, perhaps they have a lot to learn about better at loving their neighbors. We also spent some time talking about the influence of smartphones and social media. For example, he lists five ways smartphones influence you. It affects, for example, how we access truth. It affects us emotionally and spiritually. It also affects our identities and relationships. This is a book that you should give to your children or grandchildren,

[00:10:25] but I would also encourage you to give a copy to your youth leader. At the end of each chapter are questions that can be used to guide a small group discussion with young people. These are issues they confront, and they need a sound biblical perspective this book provides. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:53] That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Once again, let's see if we can get into this, and one of the articles I've posted is a piece that the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, actually did after this dust-up or blow-up or whatever you want to call it on CNN, and I thought that was a good kind of point-counterpoint.

[00:11:21] I'm going to follow it up with a piece by Kurt Schlichter, who's been on the program before. He's somebody that you have to kind of use a little more sparingly, if for no other reason that he does some pop-off with certain words, and poor Megan would have to be getting near the swear button if he was on. As a matter of fact, recently I saw where he had produced this one video, and somebody said afterwards,

[00:11:45] Kurt would do a lot better if he didn't do these podcasts when he had been partaking of adult beverages. But even when he's sober, he gives us some difficulties around here. But I think this piece on 10 hard facts about Ukraine and NATO is very helpful for this reason. He says, I like the Ukrainians. I trained them, and actually worked with them in deployment. And so he's got some good facts. I think at least 7 of the 10 I think very helpful of.

[00:12:13] But the first piece I wanted to come to is where Marco Rubio, who I tend to see a little bit more perspective. I think sometimes he can step back and see what is happening. Of course, he's the one that first reported that originally when he met with President Zelensky, along with others on this deal for the rare earths, said, well, yes, we might be willing to consider that. Let me take it to my legislative council.

[00:12:40] Then immediately went out and started saying that I told them to their face. We are never going to be bullied by the United States of America. And I thought, first of all, you lied to the secretary of state and others in the room. I think the vice president was there at the time as well, which is why the vice president got a little testy with him as well, and then lied to the Ukrainian people. But nevertheless, the bottom line was that this was supposed to be just a signing.

[00:13:06] And it was something that would actually bind the United States to Ukraine. I think that's going to eventually be a done deal. He actually said that the agreement was supposed to be signed on Friday. It would actually also include later on a security guarantee. He said, though, on CNN on Friday night, I think that the president Zelensky should apologize because he was turning this thing into a fiasco that did not need to take place. Because the goal of the meeting, he said,

[00:13:35] was to finalize an economic agreement for the United States to gain access to Ukraine's natural resources. Now, are they bullying this country? Well, the argument being made is, look, we have spent, and there's where you start getting into the numbers, $175 billion or $350 billion, depending on who you listen to. We'll leave that for another conversation later. But in the interview he did with CNN's Caitlin Collins, she pushed back a couple of times,

[00:14:03] which I think was appropriate as well. So you can read this. And the idea was that this was supposed to be signed. And there was really not the idea that it was even supposed to be signed in front of the press. It was supposed to be signed five days earlier. But Zelensky wanted to come to Washington and apparently lecture Donald Trump on diplomacy. And, of course, the argument being made by, of course, President Zelensky is, you can't trust the Russians.

[00:14:32] I'm going to get to that in just a minute. And at the same time, the argument being made by the government, at least the United States, is, is there at least some chance that we can bring Russia to the peace table? He said, if there's a chance of peace, even if it's a 1% chance, that needs to be explored. But that's, of course, where Caitlin Collins pointed out, you have referred to Putin as a war criminal and a butcher, by the way, accurate terms, not disagreeing with that at all.

[00:15:02] But you don't come into a conversation calling him a war criminal if you want to get him to the peace tables. And so you have some people saying, by not calling him a war criminal to his face, and actually trying to meet with him, you're advancing the Russian agenda. And, of course, that's the argument being made as well, that the, Donald Trump is naive. That's really hard for me to argue. Or that this was a setup. We'll come to that in just a few minutes. So,

[00:15:29] this piece kind of gives you some back and forth, where some of the statements being made by Marco Rubio were then challenged by Caitlin Collins. And near the end, he takes on all sorts of things that have been misreported. I think falsely reported, maybe intentionally falsely reported. For example, he was very upset about the reports that said that the United States had not coordinated with Ukrainians on negotiations.

[00:15:59] He said that's absolutely false. Over the last 10 days, the Ukrainians have met with the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of State, the Vice President of the United States, even had a phone call with President Trump. And, of course, he was in the Oval Office on Friday. So, again, I try to give you some pieces that give you a little more context, because most people have either said, I'm so grateful that Donald Trump, you know, stood up for the American people, or Donald Trump is advancing the Russian interest.

[00:16:29] And I think that's maybe why I wanted to also bring you this piece by Kurt Schlichter. First of all, because he likes the Ukrainians and worked with them. Ten hard facts. I'm just going to pick out seven before we take a break. Number one, the obvious one, Russia is absolutely in the wrong for invading Ukraine. So you start with that. Anytime you then point out some of the issues with Ukraine, immediately say, well, then you're advancing Russia, or you're actually not acknowledging where Russia is at fault. No,

[00:16:58] that's the starting point. And again, he goes on to say, nothing Ukraine did excuses or justifies Russians actions. But we still need to understand why he gives us one of the historical factors we've talked about before. And that is, if you look at the map of Ukraine, in the eastern part, there's a place where most of those individuals are Russian speaking people. Russia has considered Ukraine to be part of Russia.

[00:17:26] And there where you have ethnic Russians, who sometimes, even if they speak Russian to Ukrainians, they get mad. So you have to understand, it is a country that is somewhat divided. Geographically, it looks nice on a map, just as say, Yugoslavia looked nice on a map, or Czechoslovakia. But you know, once the Berlin Wall fell, and the Iron Curtain fell, a couple things changed there as well. But that's point number one, Russia's at fault. Number two,

[00:17:56] Ukraine is not going to be able to win the war, if the definition of winning the war is recovering all the conquered Ukrainian territory. Russia's in a war footing. Russia has more resources than Ukraine has access to. And you can understand that taking back some of that land probably is not going to happen. Likely is not going to happen. Number three, President Zelensky will have to accept the reality that America will need to be paid back for its aid, which means,

[00:18:25] as a practical matter, access to Ukraine's mineral reserves. This could be a joint venture that would help them and us. Repay some of us. Put in businesses there as well. Various factories and industries, which would then give them income to rebuild a completely devastated country. And so that is the case. Number four, this is the one we've talked about before. Ukraine is an unbelievably corrupt country.

[00:18:55] And the idea that no substantial portion of our aid money has been stolen is ridiculous. If you go out on the Internet, there are all sorts of stories being told. I sometimes say, I don't even know who to trust, but there are people talking about funds making their way here and there and everywhere. Peter Schweitzer, I've quoted before. Take his book, for example, secret empires, how the political class hides corruption and enrich family and friends.

[00:19:24] This certainly has been helpful to the Biden family. It's been helpful to various Democrats and Republicans, too. I think I mentioned the other day, Paul Manafort, for a while, was part of the Trump kind of kitchen cabinet. You might notice he's not there anymore. You can even read the book by Dan Bongioni on follow the money. You can get some of the facts there as well. Number five, the American people, by and large,

[00:19:52] are tired of subsidizing Ukraine's ending of this war. And another one, Europeans should be taking the lead in supporting Ukraine and should be taking the lead in defending Europe. Well, it turns out that that is one that we saw, because after he left, President Zelensky went to Europe and was greeted with open arms. And now the UK and France are talking about the coalition of the willing. And one other one, he says there,

[00:20:19] the campaign to insult critics of past Ukrainian policy by calling them Putin's puppets and so forth is a lie and is going to result in enmity towards the idea of helping the Ukrainians, I think is an accurate one as well. Just gave you seven of the ten hard facts, but those are some things that need to really be addressed. I thought when we come back, okay, let's talk about who's at fault. I think you can find it all the way down the list.

[00:20:48] And so we'll give you some facts on that real quickly, but also we'll open up the phones. Maybe you have some thoughts about that as well. Obviously, President Zelensky was trying to say, I don't think we can trust. I know we can't trust the Russians. You have no idea what it's like to have lost so many people in Ukraine. They've devastated our country. Donald Trump, J.D. Vance say, we understand that, but can we find some way to bring about peace and end this? A meat grinder.

[00:21:16] And many times they were talking past each other, but I'd love to get your thoughts as well. 1-800-351-1212. Also going to move on to some other topics, because as you might imagine, there's a lot going on today. We'll be right back. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism,

[00:21:43] and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports. Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth. It is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom

[00:22:13] to stand against darkness today? Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net slash signup. Every weekday, in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time. It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash signup right now.

[00:22:40] pointofview.net slash signup. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now,

[00:23:10] here again, is Kirby Anderson. By the way, as a program note, this is going to be an interesting week. Tomorrow we have Steve Taylor with us. We'll be talking about the arts for a while, and then we'll be kind of getting ready for the fact that tomorrow night is actually an unofficial State of the Union address. Don't you think some of these issues, whether it's doge or deportation or the issue of Ukraine, are going to surface? Obviously they are, in terms of the speech by President Trump, but also the reaction from Congress

[00:23:40] should be very interesting. So on Wednesday, we're going to spend some time with our good friend Gary Bauer to evaluate the State of the Union address. Then we're going to have, if that's not enough, our good friend Sean McDowell, his new book coming out as well, which really is almost a good companion to the conversation we had today with Natasha Crane on when the culture hates you. So I think we are going to be in for quite a bit. That just gets us to Wednesday by the time we get to, of course, our Friday weekend edition, much more.

[00:24:09] Let me say a few more things about this and then move on to some other topics. And that is, let's just look at the principles here. Putin, Vladimir Putin. I think we've already made the case, but let's make it again. An evil individual, an individual that has been with the KGB, an individual that is probably, I think you could make the very compelling case, I can make it in my mind, but again, you have to prove it in court of law, a war criminal. And so the kinds of things the Russian army has done

[00:24:38] are inexcusable. So that's on the table. And the argument being made sometimes, which now brings us to Donald Trump, is you're naive. It's one of the few times I've ever heard somebody refer to Donald Trump as naive. He's kind of a deal maker, but it's possible. And of course, some arguments are even making the idea that Trump really likes Vladimir Putin. I'm not sure that he does, but okay, if that's your perspective,

[00:25:06] I can't maybe push you off of that. But I also recognize if you're going to try to bring somebody to the table, whether it's the leader, the dictator of North Korea or the dictator of China or the president or essentially the dictator of Russia, you don't start out by referring to them as a butcher and a war criminal if you want to try to bring them to a table with the possibility of bringing about a ceasefire or peace. Which of course brings us to Donald Trump because some people say,

[00:25:35] well, Donald Trump likes Putin and he actually hates Zelensky. Okay. How did that come about? Well, remember when Donald Trump, as I mentioned about 10 days ago, referred to Zelensky as an elected dictator. Okay. Hyperbole. Later on, he said, did I say that? Typical Trump. Okay. But let's be honest, you know, as Victor Davis Hanson and others have pointed out, President Zelensky has postponed a scheduled election. In many cases,

[00:26:04] he suppressed habeas corpus. Right now, of course, because they're under war footing, under martial law, he shut down opposition media. He's really taken political power. He shut down free speech. I would say that if you're trying to understand, again, President Zelensky, probably good to understand some of the problems there. And I just mentioned some of the scandals of which those are well known.

[00:26:34] And if we have to bring Peter Schweitzer on here or a variety of other individuals to document those, glad to do so. There are certainly a lot of stories out there about the way in which some of the money has been spent by some of those leaders in Ukraine in the past, including by the president. But we'll leave it at that as loan. And, of course, then this also brings up one of the issues that you heard from the media, and that is that this was an attempted,

[00:27:04] if you will, ambush. And so one of the posts here from Jessica Berlin was the Oval Office ambush is a wake-up call to Europe. America doesn't have your back. You're out of time. Seize Russian assets in the EU. Embargo Russian energy. Allow Ukraine to hit targets in Russian territory with missiles. Well, first of all, Michael Tracy, not exactly an individual that would be considered pro-Trump,

[00:27:33] but pretty much left of center, said, wait a minute. And he posted this on X. Anyone who rationally watched the full 50 minutes will see it was not an ambush. The first 40 minutes were normal and cordial. Then came this self-inflected meltdown by Zelensky. If you can't rationally describe the meeting, perhaps your policy extrapolations are also irrational. I've run into some people that said more than I would do it. I sat down and watched it a second time.

[00:28:03] I said, you've got more patience than I do. And they're saying, no, this looked like a pretty straightforward, formal meeting that kind of got out of hand pretty quickly. And Michael Tracy went on a little bit later saying then there is an irony in this paranoid EU overreaction to every one of Donald Trump's statements that is the end of the Western alliance. This could impale, as they said, at least some of those individuals

[00:28:31] to take a rash action towards Ukraine. He even says the irony of that meeting was that we are on the cusp of formalizing Ukraine as sort of a U.S. protectorate with continued U.S. military aid and a framework for deploying NATO troops, all of which were major U.S. commitments under the circumstances. But apparently, again, Michael Tracy says that was not enough. So that brings us to one other individual. Sometimes the press hasn't done a great job of covering it.

[00:29:00] But what about J.D. Vance? Well, if you can summarize J.D. Vance here, first of all, he made the case that Europeans were terrified because they were concerned about their own domestic interest. But at the same time, as we pointed out on Friday, some of them haven't exactly been giving the kind of funding that Donald Trump thinks they should be giving funding to, to NATO or to the war effort. Given the advantages J.D. Vance made

[00:29:29] the case in terms of GDP, population, natural resources, and area, it just didn't look like we could realistically, even with the current arms shipments, have Ukraine realistically defeat Russia. And so the argument being made is the United States has leverage both on Ukraine and Russia, but of course, a lot of people have been critical of him, if for no other reason, talking about the fact that you don't seem

[00:29:59] very appreciative. But that is not something that is unique to that meeting. If you want to go back to 2022, and NBC has covered this, and you can find this out on the internet, they were working very hard at the time to point out some of the tiff, some of the conflict between Joe Biden and President Zelensky. President Biden actually got angry, and there was all sorts of issues because, again,

[00:30:29] President Zelensky wanted more. He wanted more armaments. He wanted more munitions and also seemed very inappreciative. And again, if you watch that, he was wanting the individuals sitting around there at the Oval Office to realize what it's like to have lost so many individuals, to have seen the devastation of your country, and to recognize that he's fighting a war just to stay alive, and he doesn't trust Vladimir Putin. So I think we can

[00:30:58] honestly come to a rational conclusion that those were certainly some conflicts that have been brewing for some time. Some of those conflicts actually surfaced a while back under Joe Biden, and will continue to surface as we go forward. Is there a possibility that this particular mineral rights agreement will be signed? I think the answer to that is yes. Interestingly enough,

[00:31:28] after President Zelensky was there in the Oval Office, he went to Fox News. Brett Barr asked him for an apology. I don't know that you got one. Other people say he did apologize. Again, everybody sees what they want to see in this whole thing. But the bottom line is, where is he going to go? Yes, Europe is going to provide some funds. I think they said they were going to provide, what was it, a billion dollars? Okay, that is more than nothing, but given the kind

[00:31:56] of armaments necessary and the kind of military action, we are dealing with a Russia that is at a war footing, and as a result, seems to be dedicated to smashing the last remnants of the Ukrainian army and to actually take over that country. What can be done? Well, the only argument you seem to be getting from Europe right now is let's keep fighting until eventually

[00:32:25] Russia declares, you know, a willingness to come to the peace table, and that is, I think, somewhat dangerous because one of the other things raised by Donald Trump, you heard it more than once, is World War III. One of the reasons I did a booklet a couple of months ago on nuclear war is, first of all, because that whole issue of nuclear war surfaced last year with the, of course, the movie

[00:32:55] that won Best Picture of the Year and the Oscars. By the way, the Oscars were last night. Did anybody watch those? Probably not. Anyway, it's a side point, but we have a whole generation that maybe does not understand how devastating a nuclear conflict if it unfolded in, between Russia and Ukraine could be to the world. So, this is not one with easy answers. Hopefully, I've given you a lot of different perspectives and sides

[00:33:24] to a conversation that sometimes isn't well covered by the mainstream press, but we try to give you some articles to read. So, again, this one of Marco Rubio and CNN and also the one on 10 hard facts about Ukraine and NATO are certainly worth your read. We'll come back and talk about the fact that we're going to declare English as the official language.

[00:33:54] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Last few minutes, I have a question for you, and that is, should the United States actually have English as the official language? Now, it is interesting to see why that developed, and that is, back when he was the second president of the United States, John Adams, in 1780, actually proposed that English

[00:34:24] be the official language of America, but it was a little more difficult to get that enacted because at the time, we had so many different people here as colonists who spoke multiple languages. languages. You had those individuals that came here from Germany that spoke German, but they also spoke English. You had some people that came here from Italy, and they also spoke Italian, and you had people, a few people from France that here, and they spoke French and English, and you had

[00:34:53] the Dutch, you had a variety of different languages. Most people at that time had to be somewhat bilingual, but it seemed just maybe a little bit forceful to make English the official language, and then kind of just incubated there for a while. I remember when I was growing up on the San Francisco Bay area, there was a man by the name of S.I. Hayakawa. He was a professor at San Francisco State University. He later

[00:35:22] became a senator, a U.S. senator from California, but back then, he was a grammarian, and he was a linguist, and he really called for the idea of America to actually officially adopt English as the official language. Again, it didn't seem like a big issue, but it was an issue because over the weekend, Donald Trump signed an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States. It is the

[00:35:52] first designation in the country's history, and you will see that one of the articles I've posted comes from National Public Radio, NPR, Elena Moore, I think she does a good job of covering both a point and counterpoint. First of all, the order that he signed on Saturday is really more than just designating English as the official language, because essentially it also rescinds a policy that was implemented all the way back in the 1990s by

[00:36:21] President Bill Clinton, which at the time required agencies to provide assistance programs with people with limited English proficiency. Now, the difficulty, of course, is that back then it was sort of being thought that well, you provide English and then Spanish, but as you well know, you can go to certain parts of the country, Los Angeles being one. I think I was seeing the list of nearly a hundred different

[00:36:50] languages spoken within the Los Angeles school system, so obviously that is the case of trying to provide it for everyone, but one of the reasons why I think that churches should consider doing ESL, which stands for English as a second language, is it's a great opportunity to integrate people into the American system, system, and so the order allows agencies, if they want,

[00:37:20] to voluntarily keep those support systems in place, but no longer does it mandate that. I think that makes some sense as well. And so the order says a nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language. Now, if you want to understand what's happening in the States, more than 30 states already have

[00:37:49] listed English as an official language, and yet we still understand that we are a multilingual culture, because if you look at the latest data from the U.S. Census, that estimates roughly about one in ten people now speak a language other than English, and that is almost three times as much as what was in the 1980s. Why is

[00:38:19] that happening? Well, you know why. We've had an open border, and when you have people coming here from Guatemala and Venezuela and Colombia, they speak Spanish. When they come here from China, they speak, of course, Chinese, maybe two different kinds of Chinese. When they come from different parts of Africa, it can be Swahili, it could be French, it could be whatever they know in that particular area. Of course, when they come from the European countries, it could be German, Italian, French,

[00:38:49] all sorts of things of that nature. And so there's where we find ourselves today. What I think is interesting is that in an attempt for NPR to give some back and forth, they quote from Roman Polo Maris, who is the head of the League of United Latin American Citizens, who is critical, of course, of Trump's administration's statement, saying, quote, our founding fathers enshrined freedom of speech in the First Amendment without

[00:39:18] limiting it to one language. They envisioned a nation where diversity of thought, culture, and expression would be its greatest strengths. I think that's probably true, but at the same time, that doesn't necessarily say that we couldn't have English as the official language. He went on to say, declaring English as the only official language directly contradicts that vision. He went on to say, America thrives when we embrace inclusivity, not when we silence

[00:39:47] the voice of millions who contribute to its success. Well, again, as we started the program talking about curb your hysteria, there's a good example. When you say, English is the official language of America, we're not silencing the voice of millions who contribute to its success. If anything, we certainly are a melting pot people, but in the past, what oftentimes took place was, yes, you would come here from Germany, you would come here

[00:40:17] from Ireland, you'd come here from Italy, you'd come here from Spain, you'd come across the border from Mexico, you'd come here from China or Japan, and for a while, you would be in your culture, and you would speak that language, and oftentimes you would speak that language at home, and then you would go off to school, and you would learn English, because if you're going to thrive in America, you learn English. By the way, that is true in other countries as well. As you

[00:40:47] may know, from time to time, I'm invited to go and speak at Word of Life in the Philippines. They say the future for you in the Philippines is to learn English, because if all you know is Tikalig, that is not going to help you if you're going to be successful in the 21st century. When I go to Word of Life in Hungary, first of all, Hungarian is a linguistic island. Only people in Hungary and a few people in Romania speak Hungarian, so if you don't

[00:41:17] speak another language like English, you're going to be really hurt in the future. So isn't it interesting that when you go to other countries, they recognize how important it is to speak English. If you're a pilot, you better know how to speak English because that's the language of pilots. If you really want to understand what's on the Internet, although we certainly, even in our own ministry, have a Spanish website, a website that has a little bit of Arabic

[00:41:46] and a little bit of Chinese, most of it is in English, and that is the case as well. So maybe sometime in the future we'll open up the phones and give you a chance to express your opinion about that, but Donald Trump over the weekend decided to actually make English the official language of the United States. Of course, it's just an executive order. The next president could reverse it, and it's another good example of something that probably needs to be

[00:42:16] enculturated and maybe even legislated. And when I mention that one last time, we do have our take action item. tell your member of the House of Representatives no taxpayer funding for abortion. Yes, of course, we have an executive order, but we're going to, over the next couple of weeks, talk about different pieces of legislation to actually make official something that Donald Trump has tried to do with his executive order. So if you haven't taken the time to go to the website, point of view,

[00:42:46] you'll see my viewpoints commentary today on a Sean McDowell book. We'll be talking with him about his new book on Wednesday, and you'll find out a lot more about these issues. Most importantly, I want to thank Megan for her help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for introducing the program, and we will look forward to seeing you tomorrow right here on Point of View. Are you confused about changes happening in Washington, D.C.?

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