Point of View March 5, 2025 – Hour 2 : Common Sense?

[00:00:05] Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:53] We'll be right back.

[00:01:15] This first half hour, we'll spend some time with Gary Bauer talking about politics, talking about Donald Trump, talking about the Democrats, talking about congressional issues. Second half hour, talking with Sean McDowell about apologetics for an ever-changing culture. Even this hour, we're going to get into a variety of different issues. Some of them will be judicial, some will be political. And that is certainly the case.

[00:01:37] And I think it is important if we are going to really apply a biblical world and life view, we need to apply it to every area of life. And politics and the culture is certainly a very relevant part of that. And Christians may disagree about how much they will individually get involved, because after all, not everybody's a hand, not everybody's a foot.

[00:02:00] If you want to use the illustration the Apostle Paul used about the body of Christ, Christ the head, but all sorts of different aspects of ministry. And that is certainly the case. So we'll get into some of that tomorrow with him. And I think some of the comments he makes about this celebrity culture are really concerning to me as well.

[00:02:19] We recognize that certain individuals, because they have a best-selling book, all of a sudden then charge what I sometimes think is outrageous amounts if they go and speak for a Christian school or for a pregnancy resource center. And, you know, there are just a lot of issues we'll probably get into with him. But let's leave that for tomorrow, because I'm sure in the hour we'll get into some topics that you will want to address.

[00:02:44] If you'd like to respond to some of the things I'm going to put on the table this hour, let's open up the phones. That number is 1-800-351-1212. And this summary, which comes from our friends at Daily Signal, Fred Lucas put it together, 10 takeaways. I might not look at all 10, but it's a way to kind of get us started. And the first was this idea of common sense. If there was a theme that ran through President Trump's message last night, it was common sense.

[00:03:14] Common sense has become a common theme and will never go back, was one of his lines. Let me give you a longer statement as well. He said, over the past six weeks, I've signed nearly 100 executive orders and taken more than 400 executive actions to restore common sense, safety, optimism, and wealth across our wonderful land. The president then went on to say, the people elected me to do the job and I am doing it. In fact, it has been stated by many that the first month of presidency is the most successful in the history of our nation.

[00:03:44] Of course, you heard some of that in our conversation with Gary Bauer. And so there has been a concern. And I remember in the past, even before some of this was all that political, that I had a message on uncommon sense. And there's some passages in the Old Testament where you can see individuals applying a very significant amount of common sense. And common sense wasn't even so common even a few years ago.

[00:04:14] And it seems to have just run out the door more recently. And as, again, Sean McDowell just illustrated out of the political issue, just in the cultural issue, if somebody had told him almost 18 years ago that you should have a chapter on transgender, he'd say, first of all, what do you mean by that? And why would we want one like that? Or even though he has a philosophy degree, why would we want to talk about critical theory? Well, that's critical race theory. That's critical queer theory.

[00:04:43] That's all sorts of things that came from the Frankfurt School. And, by the way, if some of that sounds a little unfamiliar, do you have kind of a Cliff's Notes version of that? The answer is, yes, there is. My booklets that we make available are certainly going to address things like critical race theory and where does that come from and transgenderism and all the rest. So there are some very interesting comments just about this issue of common sense.

[00:05:10] Another one that Fred Lucas talks about is, after all the boos and heckling, Trump went off script and talked about, with these Democrats here, there's nothing I can do to win them over, to get them to stand, to smile, to even clap. And as we talked with Gary Bauer, that was certainly the case. So I'll skip that one. It's pretty obvious. But number three was restore true democracy. You know, one of the battles during the campaign and even before it was obvious that Trump was going to be the presumptive nominee.

[00:05:39] This was going back almost 18 months or almost two years ago, was that democracy is dying in the darkness. And so we're fighting for democracy. Well, Donald Trump decided to take that on as well. My administration will reclaim power from this unelected bureaucracy and we will restore true democracy to America again. He signed a Schedule F executive order that makes it easier to fire bureaucrats.

[00:06:07] I've heard some people express their concern, which I think is legitimate, that some of this may be happening too fast. Probably some mistakes will be made. I mean, we're talking about human beings, talking about individuals with a limited amount of knowledge, sometimes making decisions. But the argument is incrementalism certainly hasn't worked. It's going to take all we can to do anything to, as he calls it, drain the swamp. This, of course, gets us to a couple of others.

[00:06:35] And one of those is the issue of the national energy emergency. He says, I terminated the ridiculous green new scam. He was doing all he could to kind of tap the chest of a few of the people in the room. Withdrew from the unfair Paris climate accord, which is costing us trillions of dollars.

[00:06:57] And so, again, some of the focus was on trying to, as he later went on to say, drill baby drill. And recognized that if we want to try to bring prices down, one of the things that was driving prices up was limited energy. If the energy that you put in your, for example, car, or the energy you put in your water heater, the energy you put in to heat your home,

[00:07:26] the energy that is needed for a trucker to bring food to the grocery store, the energy needed to actually keep that grocery store cool. I mean, just begin to think about if those particular dollars drop, that's the way in which you can prevent the prices from going any higher. Will they drop? Not necessarily, because that's going to get to one we'll talk about after the break. That is the issue of tariffs and a few other issues.

[00:07:55] But that, I think, is just a brief look at a few of the takeaways from the speech last night. We'll come back and pick out a few more. And then get into this issue of the transgender sports. I put that article there because it reminds us of the fact that, okay, if you think that Donald Trump is wrong for saying that there's only a man and a woman,

[00:08:19] you think he's wrong for banning men from women's sports, what's your alternative? And this is where Noah Rothman's piece talks about the incoherence of those who have opposed the Trump executive orders. And so we'll get into that in just a few minutes. We'll be back, but also we'll open up the phones, give you a chance to join the conversation. 1-800-351-1212. We'll be right back.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Homelessness not only affects big cities, but can be found in small towns as well. Scott Morefield tells a story about Bristol, Tennessee and Bristol, Virginia, that illustrates the impact that public policy can have on social problems like homelessness. First, let's explain the geography. Bristol is really two cities with two governments that are right next to each other. They are divided by a state line that runs down the main street.

[00:09:26] The division provides a perfect test for the impact of laws and policies. One past example of the differences came during the pandemic and lockdowns. The Democratic Virginia state mandates were much different than the Tennessee policies. It created a weird time where half of the main street was essentially shuttered, while the other half prospered. More recently, Tennessee passed a law that made camping on public property a felony. As you might expect, the homeless problem gravitated towards the Virginia side.

[00:09:54] The kitchen director of the local shelter said that he heard numerous people at the evening meal say, I'm going to get this meal and then I'm going to go over to Virginia so I don't have to worry about getting thrown in jail and have a felony on my record. The principle is simple. Remove the incentives and create disincentives for homeless people and they go elsewhere. In this case, they migrated to the other side of town. It wasn't long before Bristol, Virginia passed a camping ban, though it was merely a misdemeanor offense. Three months ago, I talked about the book by Michael Schellenberger with the arresting title,

[00:10:24] San Francisco, Why Progressives Ruin Cities. He documents various reasons why the homeless problem has become worse, but one of the most important reasons is lax enforcement. The two cities of Bristol illustrate how policies do affect homeless behavior. 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. Back once again, if you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212. Let me just mention real quickly that, of course, the tariffs are the most controversial, and I think we are going to probably have to take the good with the bad. On the one hand, some of these tariffs have been very helpful in forcing countries

[00:11:21] to begin to reevaluate the way in which they treat American goods, and that's where he said whenever they tariff us, we tariff them. But a long-term tariff is going to, as we've already pointed out, increase the cost of goods and services that come to this country and certainly one of the more controversial aspects. He said we've been riffed off for decades by nearly every country on earth, and we will not let that happen any longer. He's very concerned about the trade deficit.

[00:11:51] Of course, we've tried to educate you about some of that, and we'll come back to that again. But I do believe that that's one of those ongoing issues we'll be watching. And if you've been watching the stock market, and I know some of you perhaps are, the concern about the tariffs is one of the reasons why the stock market is, I guess a nice word, underperforming. Let's get a few others on the table here. One, of course, was the issue of the back-and-forth with the Ukrainian president, Zelensky.

[00:12:20] I'm going to get to that one in just a minute because I did allude to that with Gary Bauer, some of the influence that I think Senator Chris Murphy, who's becoming kind of a rising star right now in the Democratic Party. Zelensky had met with them before, and that was the case. But the argument has always been that, well, you're just a Russian shill or something like that. But he, last night, made it very clear that simultaneously we've had serious discussions with Russia

[00:12:49] and received strong signals that you're ready for peace. But he also made the case if you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides. Ukraine is ready to sign any time that is convenient for you, and so that is on the minerals part. There's kind of a three-step process. One has to do with the minerals. One has to do with security. One, of course, ultimately gets you to a peace accord. And there's a lot more that needs to take place between now and then.

[00:13:17] Also, of course, he talked about Lake and Riley. America will never forget our beautiful Lake and Hope Riley. And, of course, one of the things that we talked about with Gary is sad reaction or lack of reaction sometimes to some of that as well. But this brings us now to this issue of transgender topics. And that is he talked about his executive order cutting off taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in those actions,

[00:13:47] highlighted the story of January Littlejohn, a mother who saved her 13-year-old daughter from a transgender ideology, and then came to that very poignant statement that Gary Bauer mentioned just before we let him go. That is, the president said, Our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.

[00:14:10] And this, I think, brings us into some of the issues in the other article I've posted by Noah Rothman. And that is, many times we're talking about 80% to 20% kind of issues. And certainly when you get into the transgender issue, it's sort of an 80-20. And so I'm always wondering if indeed you disagree with 80% of Americans how you make your case.

[00:14:38] Maybe you try to appeal to a person's emotion. Maybe you try to give some facts and figures. But oftentimes what happens is you just simply label them as transphobic. And that's supposed to be the argument. And it's a really poor argument to put it together. And Noah Rothman reminds us, as we just talked about with Gary Bauer, that the success of the Democratic Party were able to block a Republican-sponsored bill

[00:15:08] that would have barred federal funding for schools that continue to allow male athletes to compete in women's sports. This was an attempt to deal with an issue that has been kind of front and center in the Democratic Party. And, of course, as we've already pointed out, we have our take-action items. And even here you have the presidential executive order that is at the moment protecting women's sports.

[00:15:35] But the bottom line is the next president possibly could, within an executive order, replace that. So I oftentimes, when we're engaged in a back-and-forth, I want to hear what is the best argument you have on your side. And I will give you two. One comes from Senator Tammy Baldwin. When the legislation was put forward, she said that the bill was an attack on localism.

[00:16:04] In other words, it's an attempt on the federal government to overreach. She said, for example, I, for one, trust our states, our leagues, our localities, to make these decisions without interference from Congress or the president. Well, Noah Rothman raises a very good question. If you're concerned about having local autonomy, if localism was the solution to this issue of a cultural conflict,

[00:16:30] why then did Democrats craft a national standard compelling the inclusion of transgender males in women's athletics? Why is it that when you had President Joe Biden expanded the Title IX protections to include prohibitions on discrimination based on gender identity? And more importantly, when there was a measure that was put forward to allow for common-sense exceptions

[00:16:59] to this blanket national standard, did you shoot it down? So the first argument against banning men from women's sports came from Senator Tammy Baldwin, and it was based on the idea that the federal government should have no place in that, coming from a party whose previous president and whose particular legislative counsel wanted to prevent anyone from being able to have an exception.

[00:17:28] So that's argument number one. The other one comes from Senator Dick Durbin, and he said that the bill lacks a clear enforcement mechanism, could subject women and girls to physical inspection by an adult if someone from an opposing team accuses them of being transgender. That's an argument that AOC has been used. Does anybody really take that seriously? I'm not sure if you're a boy or girl, so you're going to have to strip search for me. Do you really think that's going to happen?

[00:17:58] And again, that is kind of an argument that I don't know that it needs a whole lot of explanation, but nevertheless, that one was one. And then there's one other one which is kind of interesting, and that is a few of the Senate Democrats argue that, well, it's really not much of a problem. Well, then if it's not much of a problem, why can't we just make sure that it just never becomes a problem?

[00:18:22] And you can see that what we have here are arguments that sound somewhat convincing, but if you just take a moment to kind of bring them apart, take them apart, evaluate their meaning, I think you're going to come to the conclusion that that isn't so helpful. And I think this is one of the reasons why I wanted to post this piece by Noah Rothman on democratic incoherence on transgender sports. On the one hand, you say this.

[00:18:51] On the other hand, you've been doing just the opposite. Don't you just pay attention to what people say. Pay attention to what they do. And I think you can learn some lessons there as well. Finally, I thought it would be helpful to mention just a few of the others on this website that we posted, some of the takeaways. One of those is, of course, the idea that some of these woke ideas do not belong in the military,

[00:19:16] which is exactly why Trump declared wokeness is going to be gone from the schools, the military, and more. Our service members won't be activists and ideologues. They'll be fighters and warriors. Sounds like Pete Hegseth. But, again, these are sort of what you might call 80-20 issues. Most Americans think that we want to have a military force that is going to be able to rival any military force in the world,

[00:19:43] defeat any other military force in the world at a time when China is raising some really significant concerns. We're going to be talking about this over the next week or two, especially since our next Outlook magazine addressed that issue, and that is the case. And then finally, as we pointed out, whether it was Lakin Riley or the other one, the wonderful story of this 13-year-old individual, DJ Daniel, brain cancer,

[00:20:12] his dream to become a police officer, all dressed up like a police officer, and the president made him a Secret Service agent, and just illustrates, again, the fact that when he's talking about cancer, also said that he has encouraged the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to reduce childhood cancer rates and to figure out why that is happening. So those are just a few of the many highlights from the speech last night.

[00:20:40] And when we come back, we'll get into some other topics that certainly need to be addressed. And, of course, if you'd like to join the conversation, that number is 1-800-351-1212. If you'd like to know a little bit more about some of the issues we've addressed, we've posted some articles on the takeaways from the Trump speech, Democratic incoherence on transgender sports. Just a few minutes, I'm also going to talk about maybe the Democrat that was behind some of the Zalizky disaster,

[00:21:09] and Cal Thomas has some comments about Ukraine ministers speaking truth into that issue as well. So we'll cover some of the issues of Ukraine. All that coming up right after these important messages. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:21:39] London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, 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,

[00:22:08] it is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom 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.

[00:22:34] It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash signup right now. Pointofview.net slash signup. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:01] 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. By the end of the hour, if we can, let's spend just a few more minutes on this issue of Ukraine, the dust-up or the back-and-forth or whatever you want to call it, the conflict between President Zelensky and President Trump. We now know a lot more, I suspected quite a bit, from the time.

[00:23:30] And a lot of it goes back to Senator Chris Murphy. We talked about him in the first hour. I talked about him yesterday. It is becoming more and more obvious that he may be seen as maybe even the presumptive nominee to actually lead the Democratic Party and run for president three years from now. We'll see where that takes us. But he has been everywhere saying all sorts of different things, tying together some conspiracy ideas,

[00:23:57] which I pointed out from a piece by Byron York on Monday, which seemingly make no sense at all. But that is not the issue. There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that he is the one that actually recommended to President Zelensky to come in there and try to get a few more concessions from Donald Trump, maybe even blow the whole thing up.

[00:24:24] Now, I recognize, as I've said before, whether it's last night watching the State of the Union Address, although it's an unofficial State of the Union Address, the speech before Congress, or watching that meltdown that took place in the Oval Office on Friday, everybody comes with their preconceived ideas. Some people say that it was a setup, it was an ambush, that this was just an attempt by Donald Trump to portray Russia as the good guys

[00:24:52] and to advance the Russian talking points. You hear that on one side. On the other side, of course, you've seen individuals say, I can't believe that President Zelensky was so unappreciative and actually destroyed the meeting. We now know a few things that Zelensky said under his breath. If you can understand Russian, you know he said some pretty nasty things. But, okay, that's where it is.

[00:25:15] But I think we have also noticed that after a few days of reconsideration, President Zelensky decided he better come back to the United States. There is this wonderful piece that Matt Vestva put in here, which comes from X, where one of these individuals was trying to kind of put this in context. Again, this is a little bit of tongue-in-cheek, but it says, okay, Europe says to Zelensky,

[00:25:44] President Zelensky, we have your back. Canada is going to send you an F-18. It hasn't been serviced in 27 years and the engine is missing. France is sending its finest Peugeot. British are supplying you a 1970s battle tank, but to Poland. And then finally, Zelensky, President Trump, I've reconsidered.

[00:26:05] And the bottom line is, as soon as President Zelensky went to the UK and other places to see what Europe could do for him, you realize that if you want to have anything likely to counter the Russian military might, you're going to have to depend on the United States. But a lot of this came from conversations that President Zelensky had with Democrats,

[00:26:33] including one of those, Senator Chris Murphy, who is a senator from Connecticut. Let me just read this piece from the New York Post. I think you'll get the idea. Before meeting Donald Trump, President Zelensky met with anti-Trump Democrats who advised him to reject the terms of the mineral deal the president was offering. This according to Senator Chris Murphy. Chris Murphy said, just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement

[00:27:02] where Putin gets everything he wants and there's no security arrangements for Ukraine. Okay, that was actually posted on X on Friday, just before that meeting, that ill-fated meeting there in the Oval Office. He attached a picture of Zelensky at a conference table with Murphy seated opposite of him. Earlier meeting with Democrats undercuts the wild claims that Trump and the vice president, J.D. Vance, staged an ambush. In fact, it was Zelensky who came with an ulterior motive.

[00:27:32] Again, that's quoting from the New York Post. The purpose of the meeting was to sign the mineral agreement he and Trump representatives had negotiated. Matter of fact, they were going to sign it without even having a press conference, but nevertheless, that's the case. He had twice refused to sign it after promising to do so. I told you that story about the conversation it had with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. But then, thanks to Murphy, we now know he had no intention of signing it on Friday.

[00:28:00] By listening, again, this comes from the New York Post, to the nakedly partisan advice of Democrats, instead of dealing forthrightly with the current president, President Zelensky portrayed his countrymen and now at least leaves them without the military and diplomatic protection that only America can provide. Looks like that's been reinstituted since this was written. And, of course, then they go on to say, good luck counting on Britain, France, and the rest of Europe to save Ukraine.

[00:28:26] Maybe the Germans will send Strudel, and, of course, you can get the rest of that piece, which we've posted for you as well. One of the individuals that we tend to watch every once in a while on CNN, wouldn't recommend it for the faint-hearted, but there is one outstanding light sometimes in the midst of some dark statements, is a man by the name of Scott Jennings. Scott Jennings sometimes goes for the juggler, and in one of the things he posted on X said this,

[00:28:56] that is, he's referring to President Zelensky, he has obviously learned a valuable lesson. Never, ever take the advice from Chris Murphy of Connecticut, unless you need a clown to make balloon animals at a child's birthday party. As one person said, kind of wicked stuff, but it illustrates, again, what was going on there.

[00:29:19] So, there was a desire to sign the mineral agreement, probably going to do so. But, to be fair, and I always get criticized for trying to give the other side, I've also posted a very good piece by Cal Thomas, in which he talks about the conversation he had with a number of ministers from Ukraine.

[00:29:43] And this is eye-opening as well, because, as I've said before, there are two sides to any story. You've heard the phrase, it takes two to tango, or two to tangle, and that is the case. And to be fair, let's recognize this is the case. Cal Thomas said that while President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukrainian President Zelensky were duking it out in the Oval Office, we also had six Ukrainian Christian ministers from different denominations

[00:30:12] who were coincidentally or prophetically down the street telling guests at the Institute on Religion and Democracy how Russia is treating people inside the territory it has occupied. By the way, I think very highly of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. We used to have guests from there and probably need to do that again. One of those is a minister from the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church. He told Cal Thomas that 700 churches of all denominations

[00:30:40] have been deliberately damaged or destroyed by Russian rockets and by soldiers wearing badges that say Russian Orthodox Church, the only church, he says, the Russians will tolerate. So there's a religious element to some of this which we need to talk about. I asked him about Trump's belief that he can trust Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep his word. The minister from the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church said,

[00:31:07] quote, even when Putin speaks of the weather, you can't believe him. We don't trust a word, he says. Would you trust someone who has killed millions of people? Would you trust a deal with Osama bin Laden? So you can see why there is a great deal of skepticism. I think rightly so on the part of the Ukrainians that we can never trust the Russians. One of the other individuals in that meeting is the president of the Ukrainian Union Conference.

[00:31:35] He says his grandfather was murdered by the communists when they ruled Russia. Cal Thomas asked him about the Ukrainians who tried to flee the country. He tells of a group of 140 he knows who tried to escape and seek shelter from a constant drone and missile attacks. Only 12 of the 140 made it to safety. Some were shot, others just disappeared. So again, it is just a reminder of the brutality of the Russian army,

[00:32:05] of the fact that war crimes are obviously being committed, and those particular issues should never be forgotten, even if we try to bring about some stalemate, some kind of peace negotiation, even some kind of ceasefire to prevent this from going on. He also, Cal Thomas asked about the reports of widespread corruption.

[00:32:30] That's where the individual made the argument that only about 5% to 7% go into the Ukrainian treasury, but nevertheless, we have weapons and ammunition, but some of them have been sold on the black market. So there are obviously some other issues that they addressed, but if you really wanted to get a sense of the point counterpoint, that's why I wanted you to know a little bit of the behind the scenes,

[00:32:58] which is in this third article, Democrat Behind Zelensky Disaster, but if you wanted to understand a little bit of what it is like to be on the ground in Ukraine, that's why we have that fourth article by Cal Thomas, Ukraine Ministers Speaking Truth. Those are both available for you to read. They are a couple of troubling statements that you might imagine,

[00:33:23] because we're talking about a brutal war taking place between Russia and Ukraine. Posted those on the website. Obviously, we may come back to this issue again, but I think we need to move on to some other topics. There are some decisions that came down today that you need to know about. We'll talk about those right after these important messages.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, let's see if we can talk about a couple of issues that you do need to know about. One was announced last night by President Trump, and that is he announced that Mohammed Sharifuda, who is the ISIS terrorist who orchestrated the attack at Abbey Gate, that's where on the way out of town, on the way out of Afghanistan,

[00:34:24] we had 13 Americans killed in this attack. Well, the individual that was responsible, the ISIS terrorist, actually, as he said, was on the way to the United States. He has now arrived, and you might remember last night that he said that he will face the sword of justice from the United States. You would not have known that would happen if it hadn't been for the president to have announced it last night.

[00:34:53] Maybe we'll see some news reports about it here, but that goes all the way back to the botched withdrawal that took place in Afghanistan and the death of 13 individuals, American heroes. So we'll talk about that probably this weekend, maybe on our Friday weekend edition. I know Dr. Merrill Matthews, Patricia is going to be with a couple others, so we'll do a roundtable discussion about that. And also another one that I wanted to announce real quickly

[00:35:22] is the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that President Trump must unfreeze $1.9 billion in foreign USAID payments. This is amazing to me. First of all, as we pointed out just a minute ago, or at least an hour ago, probably better to say, but we do need to come back to it again,

[00:35:46] that some of these district court judges are trying to hamper what Donald Trump is trying to do. No surprise. Remember when he was trying to build the wall, some of the district court judges prevented him from doing this or that. And, of course, ultimately some of these will be resolved in the Supreme Court, but that takes time. But, interestingly enough, this is a case where you have Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Alito

[00:36:15] that are four, but you, of course, have John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett that went with the liberals. But in their dissent, ask a very important question. Does a single district court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out and probably lose forever $2 billion in taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic no,

[00:36:43] but a majority of the court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned, says Justice Alito. So that's something else that even in an attempt to try to cut funding, some of those funds which have been frozen have now been unfrozen. In this case, it's not a final ruling from the Supreme Court, but a decision not to change the district court ruling,

[00:37:09] which for now illustrates again how we are going to have a long, protracted battle over the issue of doge. So, again, just wanted you to be aware of the fact that there are a number of things. A victory in terms of bringing to justice the individual that led to the killing of 13 Americans.

[00:37:31] On the other hand, spending $1.9 billion through USAID payments that I think you've now heard, many of which go to some pretty questionable actions. But there's where we are. Just before we end, I did mention that President Zelensky has changed his mind, and I thought it might be good just to read just real quickly before I get to some other issues what he has said.

[00:38:00] Because, again, sometimes you have to explain what he's writing. And President Zelensky said, quote, Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible. He went on to say, my team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. He went on to say, we do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. Okay, there's an appreciated comment.

[00:38:30] And here's the one that probably would not make sense to you, because he said, and we remember the moment when things changed, when President Trump provided Ukraine with javelins. We are grateful for this. We know the military terms. We're not talking about a javelin you throw in track. We're talking about what is called the javelin anti-tank missiles. In his first term, when Donald Trump gave the anti-tank missiles,

[00:38:57] the javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, that actually stopped the potential invasion by Vladimir Putin. So he's hearkening back to the time when there was no invasion in Ukraine, when Donald Trump was in power, when he had provided them with some javelin anti-tank missiles, which pretty much stopped the possibility of a Putin invasion when Trump was in office.

[00:39:26] Then Zelensky, after saying, I appreciate this, went on to say, quote, our meeting in Washington at the White House on Friday did not go the way it was supposed to go, not go to the way it was supposed to be, I guess is how he said it. It is regrettable that it happened that way. It is time to make things right. And then finally, he also says, regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it any time in any convenient format.

[00:39:56] We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work effectively. It is quite possible that within the next couple of weeks, that blow up, that dust up, that conflict, that shouting match, whatever you want to call it, may just be a footnote in history. So we will see how it unfolds.

[00:40:20] Let me just mention again, we have our action item, but my commentary today is entitled Flight from Work. We'll get into this probably sometime in the next week or so, but it's just a reminder that as we have many times watched the television host Mike Rowe, really as an advocate for people to go into some of these occupations that don't require a college degree,

[00:40:47] he has been very concerned about the fact that we have, as you've heard me say on this program before, 7 million men, ages 25 to 54, who are not only not working, they're not looking for work. That quote, which has been used by Mike Rowe, actually comes from Nicholas Eberstadt. He's been on the program with us in the past. He's an economist working with an organization, a think tank in Washington, D.C.,

[00:41:14] and actually was part of one of his commentaries entitled Flight from Work. We have at least 11 million unfilled jobs. Donald Trump is trying to bring more jobs back to the United States. That certainly is happening because of the threat of some of these tariffs. He talked about some of that yesterday. There are some other reasons for that.

[00:41:40] But if we bring jobs back to America, and then American men won't get those jobs, won't go and use their technical expertise or just their brute force and willing to learn a new trade, we're going to be in a very difficult set of circumstances. And one of the things I've appreciated about J.D. Vance is let's not give up on American workers just yet. But we're going to have to change the mindset a little bit.

[00:42:09] And if we're going to bring jobs back to America, in some cases manufacturing jobs, jobs that involve welders and steam fitters and pipe fitters and mechanics and things like that, we better also do what we can to encourage young people to learn those skills and to seek out those professions, to seek out those places of employment because we will need them.

[00:42:35] And actually, they can make a very good living doing those kinds of jobs. So, again, that's my commentary today. I'd encourage you to read it and maybe pass it around as well. Most importantly, we're out of time. So I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. We are looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. It's going to be an interesting interview as we talk about what it means to be a Christian and how we can go forward as Christians in the 21st century.

[00:43:03] So I look forward to seeing you then right here on Point of View. If you appreciate the trustworthy news and biblical worldview that you hear on Point of View, would you consider joining our team, the Truth Team? Listeners like you have been the backbone of Point of View for 53 years. But today there are more voices competing for Americans' attention than ever before,

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[00:44:26] Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.