Point of View March 4, 2025 – Hour 2 : Tuesday Updates

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, if you'd like to join the conversation, let's open up the phones because we're going to be talking about the State of the Union address.

[00:00:26] Maybe some of you have some thoughts about what you would like President Trump to say tonight before the joint session of Congress. Let me, before we get any further, explain why over the last couple of days, because I've had some other people ask, why are you calling this an unofficial State of the Union address? Well, let's get back to basics. If you pull out your Constitution, I've got one right here by me,

[00:00:50] Article 2, Section 3 says in the Constitution that the President shall periodically give to Congress information on the State of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. A typical State of the Union address usually takes place in January, sometimes in February, but certainly not in March, okay?

[00:01:16] This is something that usually happens in the early part of the calendar years. It is a time in which you can set the nation's budget, maybe talk about your plans for the economy, maybe talk about some progress or achievements that have taken place. And historically, until the last century, this was usually delivered in a written form.

[00:01:40] But in 1913, Woodrow Wilson, 28th U.S. President, began the practice of addressing Congress in person. That has happened ever since. Of course, first we had radio, now we have television, now it's become kind of a theatrical production. And oftentimes goes much longer than I think either members of Congress nor even the framers would have intended. But that's the way it is. Now, why is this one different?

[00:02:09] Well, I'm reading from some material put together by National Public Radio. NPR said that he will, that is, the President will deliver his first address to a joint session of Congress since his re-election. It will sound somewhat like a State of the Union address, but it is not one that would be classified as such, because that usually has happened after a president has served a length of time.

[00:02:36] And, of course, he has just simply come in here in January. The typical State of the Union address usually happens in January and has become quite a broadcast event. And so for the last, pardon, four decades, presidents have opted not to designate their first speech to Congress as a State of the Union address, but more generally an address to Congress. Again, traditions can change, but that's really what we're talking about here.

[00:03:06] And there are going to be a couple of very important issues that you can imagine will surface. The D's are a good way to focus on that. First of all, deportation. No doubt he will be talking about the individuals who have been or will be deported under his executive order. That D will certainly last a while and certainly would be controversial.

[00:03:32] Another D, of course, has to do with Doge. And I suspect some people are even wondering whether there will be some boos when he talks about some of this, because this, of course, has led to laying off different federal workers. Another one, which I'm going to get to in just a minute, is, of course, the economy. Inflation on the one hand and how that's related to tariffs on the other are certainly going to be important.

[00:04:00] And one other one, obviously, because of President Zelensky. We talked about that yesterday. Being in the Oval Office, the dust-up, the blow-up, whatever you want to call it, what that might mean in terms of foreign policy. So there are many things that the president can address tonight. Love to know if you think that certain things should be addressed, certain topics should be addressed,

[00:04:25] what your expectations might be, and that is the case. My first article, then, is one by Dominic Pino, in which he gives his expectations for the economic effects of tariffs. And the tariffs are something which are coming into being today. So that's why I thought it would be good to talk about tariffs for just a minute. One, because I have no doubt he is going to mention those tonight.

[00:04:53] Number two, it is going to have an impact on the economy. Now let's talk about pros and cons. Pros, I've talked about, and even the other day when we had Dr. Merrill Matthews here, he saw it almost always in the negative. I see some positives, not the least of which is the threat of tariffs against, for example, Colombia caused them to open up the opportunity to deposit individuals

[00:05:20] who came here illegally from Colombia. The threat of tariffs to Canada and Mexico at least began to have some conversations about Canada on a northern border, Mexico on our southern border, to actually help us protect the border. You also have some automakers suggesting that if these tariffs are going to be there any length of time,

[00:05:43] maybe it would be a good idea to begin to manufacture more autos here in the United States rather than in another country. So you can say at least that it's had some positive effect, and I could go through a list of other positives, but let's talk about the potential negatives. Derek Pino puts it this way, probably a negligible effect on the inflation rate, at least as measured by CPI. That would be the Consumer Price Index.

[00:06:11] And if inflation doesn't budge much, then you might have some people that are supportive of Donald Trump's tariffs to say, see, it didn't really have that much negative effect. And Derek Pino's suggesting maybe it won't. Number two, he talks about higher prices for goods to which the tariffs apply. Now, recognize that this might also cause more Americans to buy American rather than to buy things that are manufactured in, say, China.

[00:06:40] So we'll see where that goes. But if indeed foreign businesses have to compensate with the issue of tax increases that come from tariffs, they're probably not going to lower prices, although I suspect President Trump's going to argue that they will. Well, I think just the opposite, they may try to pass those particular taxes or increase on to the American consumers. We'll see. Everybody has their opinion. And sooner or later, we're going to have facts rather than just opinions.

[00:07:10] A couple more real quickly. Maybe a negative impact on GDP growth. Maybe even a negative impact on the number of jobs production and things of that nature by raising the prices of some things like steel, aluminum, oil, copper. These might leave less money available to pay workers. So that's a possibility. And then most importantly, if you've been paying attention to the stock market, right now the stock market is, that's how to put it nicely, underperforming,

[00:07:37] because they are starting to try to schedule into their estimates on the value stocks, trying to, if you will, calculate what they, as individuals in the stock market, estimate would be the impact of tariffs. So those are just a few things that we can talk about in terms of tariffs, which are now implemented today. Certainly by the end of the week, we'll have maybe some facts and figures and maybe a roundtable discussion on that.

[00:08:07] But let's take a break. And I would love, before we move on to some other topics, and we have quite a few here today, I'd love to get your thoughts about, do you have any advice that you would have given to the president if he called you up and said, what would you like to have me talk about at the State of the Union address? So I thought I'd give a few of you a chance to maybe render your thoughts and opinions, and then we'll move on to some other issues, because it is now evidence, as my next article points out,

[00:08:35] that even though Donald Trump has, in some cases, signed executive orders, not everybody wants to follow them. No surprise, we'll talk about that. And take some of your phone calls right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] You know, television host Mike Rowe has been an advocate for blue-collar workers who have kept this country running. He explains that opportunities have never been better for anyone willing to work and willing to learn a skill in demand. Unfortunately, we have 7 million men, ages 25 to 54, who are not only not working, but not looking for work. Economist Nicholas Eberstadt refers to that in a recent Washington Post op-ed as the flight from work. The U.S. currently has 11 million unfilled jobs.

[00:09:31] Businesses in every sector nationwide are desperate for workers, including positions that do not require high school diplomas. Mike Rowe has provided more than 1,000 scholarships to young people through his Mike Rowe Works Foundation. They are trained for skills that are in demand. Welders, steam fitters, pipe fitters, mechanics. None require a four-year degree. He says there's never been a greater need for skilled workers like right now. He says if you're inclined to think that way and work that way, the world is your oyster.

[00:09:59] Unfortunately, if you're not, and a man, you're probably sitting at home spending 2,000 hours sitting in front of a screen. A recent Fox News poll asked this open-ended question. What message would you send to government? A majority said, lend me a hand. The only other time a majority said that was during the pandemic. But we are two years past the pandemic and lockdowns. Mike Rowe argues that two things could be true at the same time. First, there are people who need a hand who are well-intended and willing to work.

[00:10:26] Second, many others have been given a hand and have done nothing with what they've been given. I'm always willing to give someone a hand up to better themselves, but I think it is time to question whether we should be giving a handout to millions who won't work. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net.

[00:10:57] You're listening to Point of View. Your listener-supported source for truth. Once again, we'll take some phone calls. Let me just again give the number. I don't know if I did before. 1-800-351-1212. 1-800-351-1212. I remember decades ago when Marlon Maddox was at a rally, and he said, let's all say unison, the 800 number for Point of View. And everybody said it in unison. I thought, well, that's amazing. That many people have memorized the number.

[00:11:25] But in case you don't know it, 1-800-351-1212. If you'd like to join us, we'll talk for just a minute about what you might expect or would hope to hear from the president about the State of the Union address. Then we're going to get into some other issues. But let's go out to Georgia first. Denise, thank you for joining us today here on Point of View. Yes, thank you so much. I just happened to turn on the – I'm in the car right now, so I don't have my notes in front of me. But I could do this in my sleep.

[00:11:52] We would just love – we just Federal Express a big document to U.S. Attorney Pam Bonde. We have been – you may remember Tucker Carlson stated in 2023, there is nothing more corrupt in this nation than higher education. And I assure you we can prove it in Georgia. To give you an example, Sonny Perdue, who was our former governor, is now the chancellor. And we even brought – I've been a whistleblower for over 10 years.

[00:12:21] And we even brought to his attention millions and millions of dollars under the table that are lining pockets in 2009. And I have a letter from him. And he says there's nothing I can do. And now he's the fox guarding the hen house. Well, again, we've had – oftentimes we've talked about the move from one group to another. If you look at an individual that was at FDA and now works at Pfizer, of course, we've seen this for years in what is oftentimes called the Iron Triangle.

[00:12:50] Individuals move from think tanks to the government to then a regulatory agency back to the agency. They're supposed to be regulating. And, of course, there are just all sorts of examples that – you know, back – and this goes back 30 years when I was in graduate school. We were talking about that. And, of course, we have a booklet on the so-called deep state and some of the corruption there. So I haven't heard as much about what happens in higher education.

[00:13:15] But every single day it seems like Elon Musk or some of the other individuals associated with him have surfaced other particular honeypots that have been used to fund particular organizations. And if you're really concerned about waste, abuse, and fraud, you should be supporting what is happening right now with the government. But it is amazing to me how many people seem to be out protesting and warning and actually even calling for –

[00:13:45] well, it was a couple of cases I heard Elon Musk say, and he's received all these death threats. Who would have ever guessed? So, Denise, if, again, we can find out more about what's happening in Georgia, be glad to report it. But I've got a feeling what you are dealing with in Georgia probably people are dealing with all over the country, don't you think? Oh, there's no question about that. But I have to tell you, this is a purpose I never asked for, but I've accepted it. I used to work for the chancellor at UNC Chapel Hill, a vice president at Mercer.

[00:14:14] I know what I'm doing. And to tell you how bad it is, the attorney general in Georgia, his name is Chris Carr, he even sealed my documents. And he's running for governor. So does that tell you how bad it is down here? But I assure you, I fought the VA for another subject for 28 years, and I won, and I'm going to fight the Board of Regents just as long for my children and grandchildren in this nation. Well, appreciate your phone call. Obviously, I don't have a chance to verify anything of that.

[00:14:44] But, again, I think it is an illustration of why there are more and more individuals that have begun to open their eyes to the fact that there is a fair amount of waste, abuse, and fraud. The example I love to use is on two different occasions. We have Dr. Merrill Matthews sitting across on our weekend edition, and he wrote a book years ago on how this whole area of waste, abuse, and fraud was surfacing in places like Medicare and Medicaid.

[00:15:14] Primarily in Medicaid, but some in Medicare and, of course, even questions about Social Security and the rest. That book has been around for a decade or two. As I've jokingly said, before there was an Elon Musk, there was a Dr. Merrill Matthews and many other individuals like that over the years. There were members of Congress that we're talking about, the misuse of funds and the way in which there was incompetence,

[00:15:39] and in some cases a fairly significant amount of what could be considered to be fraud. And so, again, we will see how individuals tonight in Congress respond to when the president talks about rooting out waste and abuse and fraud.

[00:15:57] I'm hoping that he has made the point of trying to make sure that every one of his numbers are easily fact-checked so that it doesn't end up being a, well, he said, they said kind of thing because there is certainly enough fraud to go around. And so I'll take some more phone calls in just a minute. But one of the other articles I wanted to point you to is, as we've pointed out before,

[00:16:23] just because a president signs an executive order does not guarantee that everyone, either in the federal bureaucracy or even in the states, follow this. And as you well know, there has been an attempt by President Donald Trump, and he will talk about this tonight in his executive orders, to no longer have DEI kinds of separation on the basis of individuals on race and sex.

[00:16:52] Publicly funded institutions are not supposed to do that. There's a Supreme Court decision that's come down in that regard. And there are the, of course, executive orders the president has signed. Well, I bring you to this next article. This one is by James Lynch, and he actually documents an organization, which I've just begun to find out about, called Parents Defending Education.

[00:17:16] And they found already over 100, essentially, school districts in 20 different states, 26 different states, and the Washington District of Columbia, which are actually violating what the president has ordered by creating what now they call affinity groups. And providing safe spaces for so-called underrepresented individuals.

[00:17:41] Now, as you might imagine, many of these school districts that have these so-called affinity groups are in blue states, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, just to mention a few. In Illinois, I know we have listeners there, have close to at least two dozen school districts with these identity-based groups, twice as many as any other state.

[00:18:04] These are where you actually gather together individuals who are separated based on immutable characteristics or sexual orientation. That's Illinois. Let's go to Colorado. The Denver Public Schools have what are called belong groups, which, again, are an attempt to pull together associations for black Latinx. That's their word. Managers of color, women of color, people devoted to deconstructing privilege.

[00:18:34] Well, let's go on to Portland, Maine. We have listeners in Maine. The Maine public schools have affinity groups that are available to BIPOC and LGBT employees. Let's go to another one. State of Tennessee. That would be in Hamilton County. We have listeners there. A school district paid a consultant $50,000 to conduct an educators of color affinity group, and then had other race-based training sessions there. And let's see.

[00:19:03] We pick up one more because there has already been some news that's been in the news about Missouri. And, again, we have listeners there. A school district in Missouri continues to openly promote DEI in its newsletter, and even took the time to use the newsletter to attack President Trump. So what's going to be the follow-up to that? Well, I think you will hear that tonight. But one of those is that Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, has tasked the current attorney general, that would be Pam Bondi,

[00:19:33] with enforcing his DEI orders first in corporate America and then in federally funded educational institutions. And just the other day, the memo that came out from the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, instructed the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to carry out Trump's directive to fulfill America's promise of equality under the law. Matter of fact, it goes into a couple of details,

[00:20:01] which I think I'll just leave off since we're coming to a break. But you can read this. It's about a two-page kind of summary on what is taking place. And it is one of our articles on the website pointofview.net. Let me just real quickly mention what I did last hour, and that is we are one more time giving you an opportunity to contact your member of Congress, if you've not had a chance to do so, to tell your member of Congress no taxpayer funding for abortion.

[00:20:30] That's a take-action item, which you might say, well, it's already been accomplished because, indeed, there was an attempt by Donald Trump, through the executive order, to reinstitute what is called the Hyde Amendment. But this is an attempt to actually put this into law under H.R. 7. So this would be taking something which right now might exist under an executive order and making it permanent with a piece of legislation.

[00:20:58] We're convinced that right now the executive orders have taken care of some of these issues, but the next president could reverse those with an executive order. So today we're talking about the issue of abortion. You've already heard me talk about DEI. I think that's the next one coming up. Got a couple others in that regard. And over the next couple of weeks, we're going to encourage you to contact your members of Congress to see if we can make some of these things in executive orders actually the law of the land. Let's take a break. We'll come back with more right after this.

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[00:22:57] You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Final half hour, if you'd like to join the conversation, that number is 1-800-351-1212. One of the questions I have on the table is, first of all,

[00:23:22] what would you want the president to say tonight in this sort of unofficial State of the Union? So I'd love to get your comments. 1-800-351-1212. Might also put a second one on, which we'll get to in just a minute. Who do you think is going to be leading the opposition to what Donald Trump is doing? And I have a very good idea who that is based upon the second article we've posted. But just as a program note, let me just mention that tomorrow, after the State of the Union Address,

[00:23:50] we will spend some time in the first section, really, about the first half hour talking with our good friend Gary Bauer. His reactions and your reactions to the State of the Union Address, or the unofficial address, if you will, the State of the Union Address due to Congress. And then we'll have our good friend Sean McDowell will be with us. He's got this new book, Apologetics for an Ever-Changing Culture. And again, that's something we talk about so often here on Point of View. Well, tonight, of course, the president will speak, and then there's a traditional rebuttal.

[00:24:19] The rebuttal comes from Elisa Slutkin. She is a member of Congress. She actually comes from Michigan in the 7th District in Michigan, a swing state, somewhat seen as a rising star. But I would have to say that if you wanted to try to pick somebody who is really beginning to surface as kind of a constant rebuttal to Donald Trump, it would be the senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy.

[00:24:47] And I think there are a couple things you can say about that. He may be thinking about running for the presidency, and oftentimes an individual that fills a gap. And there seems to be one right now. When you ask people, who's the leader of the Democratic Party, you get all sorts of interesting answers. But no one really begins to fill that role. But over the last couple of weeks, I think it is fair to say that Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut has been able to fill that role.

[00:25:16] And the article that is written here by Byron York, who is, of course, the writer with Washington Examiner, says that he is one of the Democrats urging his party to resist President Donald Trump on a wide range of issues. But let's for a minute go to the New York Times. The New York Times put it this way. Mr. Murphy has seemingly been everywhere all at once since Inauguration Day, staging a loud and constant resistance to Mr. Trump

[00:25:45] at a time when Democrats are struggling to figure out how to respond to him. And so then Byron York goes through some of the examples. He says, first of all, Senator Murphy has exhibited the usual resistance obsessions, focusing furiously on Trump, the Department of Government Efficiency Head Elon Musk, and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. They go on to say that the senator, Senator Murphy, actually was on CNN the other day

[00:26:13] and said that Trump and Musk are scheming with Putin to transition America into a kleptocratic oligarchy to steal our deity, to steal our Medicare, and to steal our Medicaid. At this point, Byron York goes, huh? Well, I mean, there's quite a bit there, but I can give you the complete quote. And maybe it's worth giving you the complete quote

[00:26:40] because I don't want to ever be accused of, for example, making fun of somebody who is coming up with a theory, kind of conspiracy theory, out of the fever swamps of Inside the Beltway. But again, this is what Senator Murphy said. The entire pretext for that meeting, meaning Friday, was an attempt to rewrite history in order to sign a deal with Putin that hands Putin Ukraine. This is disastrous for U.S. national security. This means that China will be on the march. Putin may not stop.

[00:27:09] America may be at war with the nuclear power. And for what? For what? It appears as if America is trying to align itself with dictators, that Donald Trump wants us to have our closest relationships with despots around the world because it makes it easier for him to transition America into a kleptocratic oligarchy where Elon Musk and Donald Trump rule and steal from the American people. If we were allied with democracies, it would be harder. But if the United States' closest partner is Russia, then it makes it a lot easier for Donald Trump,

[00:27:38] Elon, and their billionaire pals to steal from the American people to steal our data, to steal our Medicare, to steal our Medicaid in order to enrich themselves. All I got to go is, whew, really? But nevertheless, this is the argument. And after he finished at CNN, the host there is Dana Bash, said, well, there's a lot there, you think? And again, without any training, this is where I think it gets a little bit funny. Byron York has a little bit of fun at this.

[00:28:07] Says, look, I don't have any psychiatric training, so it would be unfair to suggest the senator is exhibiting some of the signs of fevered thinking. Afroenia, I guess is what it's called. The phenomenon by which a person inclines to believe conspiracies may tie together unrelated information and events weaving together in a narrative that is in line with what they perceive as truth, according to Psychology Today. But he says it does appear that he has discovered a pattern of relationships between things such as Medicaid and Ukraine

[00:28:37] that are, quite frankly, not related. But nevertheless, this is what I think is coming from an attempt to counter some of the things that President Trump is doing right now. So, Byron York says, how many Democrats share Senator Murphy's views? And he says, well, it's not really clear, but it is clear that if Murphy plays a leading role in his party's response to Trump, Democrats will fall into the same Russia mania that characterized the resistance

[00:29:05] in Trump's first term in office. Remember, that was a Russia, Russia, Russia hoax and all the rest. That the White House is becoming an arm of the Kremlin. That was some of the phrases we heard from the first term in which Donald Trump was in office. As a matter of fact, Senator Murphy declared on CNN every single day, you hear from the National Security Advisor, from the President of the United States, from his entire security team, Kremlin talking points. How is the President to negotiate

[00:29:35] an end to Ukraine war with a domestic opposition like that? Byron York asks. And again, you can see that there are some people that are using that to ask questions of Donald Trump. In the meeting last Friday in the Oval Office, a reporter asked Donald Trump, asked President Trump, for example, Europeans are worried that you align yourself too much with Putin. And Trump responded,

[00:30:04] well, if I didn't align myself with both of them, meaning, of course, the man sitting next to him, of course, President Zelensky and President Putin, we wouldn't have a deal. He says, you want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, hi, Vladimir, how are you doing on the deal? Doesn't work that way. I'm not aligning with Putin. I'm not aligning with anybody. I'm aligned with the United States of America. And, again, Byron York argues that what Senator Murphy

[00:30:32] seems to not understand is that the Trump plan could be the best path forward for Ukraine, which is in a terrible position after being invaded by Russia, now in its fourth year of war. It's totally dependent on outside aid. Just two days before the Zelensky meeting, Donald Trump told reporters, I've had very good conversations with President Putin. I've had very good conversation with President Zelensky.

[00:31:02] And until four weeks ago, nobody had conversations with anybody. It wasn't even a consideration. Nobody thought that you could make peace. I think you can. I think the wise assessment there is, is that there may be a limited opportunity. Yesterday, you heard me quote from the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, saying, even if there's just even a 1% chance, isn't it worth trying to do that? But again, the reporter asked,

[00:31:31] but if Mr. Putin gets to keep the land that was claimed by force, if the Russians get to keep the territory that they claim by force, doesn't that send a dangerous message to China about Taiwan? And again, the response from Donald Trump, you try and take it away, right? We're going to do our best we can. We're going to do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides. But for Ukraine, we're going to try very hard to make a good deal so that they can get back as much as possible.

[00:32:01] We want to get back as much as possible, he has said there as well. And there are other individuals that have written about this, and one of those is a man by the name of Michael Lynn, who wrote that Trump's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine fits in what he says the long tradition of presidents from Lincoln to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Eisenhower, to Johnson, and beyond, dealing with wars and dealing with aggression around the world. And perhaps there are good reasons

[00:32:31] to oppose Trump's Ukraine strategy, he wrote, but to be consistent, more or less to invoke American ideals ought to condemn then FDR and Churchill for agreeing to a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe that lasted half a century after 1945. And they must condemn Eisenhower and Johnson for failing to take significant action to punish the Soviet Union for crossing democratic rebellions in East Germany, in Hungary,

[00:32:59] and in Czechoslovakia. And the point is being made here, we have done this before, when you're dealing with evil dictators, sometimes you can do the best you can do, and sometimes it isn't enough for certainly freedom-loving people, but this is at least the attempt being made right now by Donald Trump. On the other hand, you have the Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy using that to argue against Donald Trump,

[00:33:29] and I suspect tonight, if you turn on your TV after the speech, of course you'll hear the rebuttal by Representative Slotkin, but I think you'll hear a lot from Senator Chris Murphy. He might be running for president. We'll find out soon enough. We'll be right back. You're listening to Point of View,

[00:33:57] your listener-supported source for truth. About a week ago, I had a commentary that had the title Counter-March, and it was based upon a piece by Rich Lowry in which he was arguing that just as we had Herbert Marcuse talking about a march, a long march through institutions, now Donald Trump has a counter-march to that. There's a different way to look at this, and that is our last article we've posted by our friend Victor Davis Hanson talking about

[00:34:26] a counter-revolution. We're going to hear about a counter-march or a counter-revolution for some time, but I think it gives us a little bit of an idea of, again, how the president, that is President Donald Trump, is going to position some of the things he's doing tonight because Victor Davis Hanson puts it this way. He says, at some point, some president was going to have to stop the unsustainable spending and borrowing to have a country left some president would eventually have to restore

[00:34:54] a non-existent border and stop the influx of three million illegal aliens a year. Some commander-in-chief finally would have to stop the theater wars abroad, and in some respects, what he is saying is Americans right now are watching, and I think tonight we're going to hear in this presentation, this speech by President Trump, they're watching this long-awaited counter-revolution, he says, to bring the country

[00:35:24] out of the madness by restoring common sense of the recent past. He says, it's easy to run up massive debts and too hard to pay them back. Biological men, he says, should not manipulate their greater size and strength to undermine the hard-won accomplishments of women athletes. Affordable fossil fuels, when used wisely, are still essential to modern prosperity. American education must remain empirical

[00:35:54] and inductive, not regressing to indoctrination and deduction. And he says, it's easy to destroy a border and hard to reconstruct it. It was not Trump who invited in 12 million unaudited illegal aliens, half of them could have been possibly criminals, who is the real culprit in the Defense Department, the new secretary with the hard task of restoring the ideal among depleted ranks that our race,

[00:36:24] religion, and gender are incidental, not essential, to defeating the enemy and assuring our national security. It goes on to ask, is it widely wise to divert money from needed combat units and weapons to indoctrinate recruits with social and cultural agendas that do not enhance but likely undermine our national defense? He goes on, but again, who are the real culprits, the true culprits,

[00:36:53] who so cavalierly turned a hollowed agenda into a weaponized tool to warp elections, harass political enemies, lie under oath, surveil parents at school board meetings, doctor court documents, and protect insider friends? And so, again, the point he's making is a lot of this happened when he was not in office for four years, and I think Donald Trump tonight, President Trump, will make a comparison

[00:37:23] to what it was like just before he left office, especially before the pandemic hit, and what we actually find ourselves with right now. And I think also, Victor Davis Hanson points out that the people that have followed Donald Trump, he says, are not high-fiving while firing people. They're not laying off minors or frackers and convincing them or directing them to learn how to code computers

[00:37:51] or dismissing half of the country as deplorables. He says, the left screams that those who are tasked with balancing a budget and pruning back a straggling bureaucracy are heartless, but really trying to provide a country for the future. And so he says, no, the pitiless are those who recklessly thought and sought to hire with borrowed money and fire people on the basis of their race,

[00:38:22] use federal programs to feather their own nest, and harassed and arrested those for their politics. We don't have SWAT teams raiding homes of ex-presidents right now. No one's trying to take a presidential rival in the future off of state ballots. No one is coordinating local, state, and federal prosecutors to indict, harass, and bankrupt an ex-president. And no president, his dementia sheathed by political insiders and a totish media, is working three days a week

[00:38:51] avoiding press conferences or stonewalling reporters' questions. He concludes with this really interesting line, no wonder the current normal seems abnormal to the status quo of the recent past. I've, of course, given you just a brief summary of it, but Victor Davis Hanson reminds us of what we've been through these last four years and why the president is doing some of the things he is doing, and it will be interesting to see the reaction to that tonight

[00:39:21] in the State of the Union address. Well, just before we end, I thought it would be good since we started with a discussion about the arts to maybe just mention real quickly the Oscars. Yes, I know you weren't watching it because no one else was as well, but in a classic, and this is an article that just came out recently, classic Oscars style, a movie that no one has ever heard of, only grossed $41 million. By the way, some of the Christian films we talk about

[00:39:49] here have made more than this film. In the box office, took home Best Picture. If you are unaware, the movie is called Onora. It's a film, and again, I'm using this advisedly, so I'm going to clean it up a little bit. It's a film about a sex worker, that's also a prostitute, who marries a Russian oligarch. One of the writers put it bluntly and said, it's pretty much a porno film with a half-baked storyline about a stripper and her whirlwind romance

[00:40:19] with a rich mobster. And, of course, we know that oftentimes the movies that are now even nominated, much less finally selected for Best Picture, Best Director, whatever, are using still the DEI quotas in all of the rest. But there's a Christian Review website, I'm never familiar with it, Geeks Under Grace, and they said, I think this is a good summary, what's the goal of a Nora? Unfortunately,

[00:40:49] I can't define the opening scene of the film as anything other than a pornographic movie. I can't with good conscience defend it, and I don't use the term pornographic lightly. I can go on, but you can kind of get the idea where we're going. And it just, again, illustrates how awful some of the stuff coming out of Hollywood is, and how out-of-touch Hollywood is. To pick a film that none of us, listening to Point of View, probably would go and see,

[00:41:18] and that apparently not very many other people have been able to go and see is just a good illustration of that. This, I think, is going even beyond the pale, and sometimes the question around here is should we even talk about it, but at least to let you know that we know it's there is, I think, significant. And there was one other point, and that comes from our friend Mac Walsh because he didn't watch it, but apparently at least watched the clips in which you had somebody stand up there and say,

[00:41:48] we gather tonight at the Oscars on the ancestral lands of the Tongva, the Tataviyama, and the Kumash peoples, the traditional caretakers of this water and land. And of course, you've got to have some kind of political statement about the indigenous people. Except Matt Walsh did the historical look and said, you know, she pays homage to the Tongva tribe, but the Tongva tribe actually moved into Southern California thousands of years after it had already been occupied by

[00:42:17] another ancient tribe. They killed and displaced those inhabitants and took over, and then they get to claim the title of indigenous, and if they get to claim it, so do we. As we've pointed out before, if you really start looking into the history that is used to make us feel guilty about the land that were occupied, there was a lot of violence, violence, a lot of, of course, the film shows depraved sexuality, this shows depraved violence,

[00:42:46] and that is just, again, your quick highlight of the Oscar films. Why, it's probably good you didn't take the time to watch them. That's all we have for today. We certainly want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. I had two producers today, so Karen and Steve, thank you for producing the program, and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow right here on Point of View. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority.

[00:43:16] They say men can be women, and women men. People are prosecuted differently, or not at all, depending on their politics. Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing, you feel like giving up, but we can't, we shouldn't, we must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, never give in, never give in, never, never,

[00:43:46] never, never yield to force, never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. And that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone, but together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net

[00:44:14] or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries. Point of View.net