Point of View October 25, 2024 – Hour 1 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll be right back to the next day of election, the day after election.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_03]: So we'll get into some of that in just a minute.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Probably need to do a few thank yous.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_03]: First of all, Dr. Merrill Matthews in here and thank you for covering the program on Monday.

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Glad to do it.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And that was very good, a piece you did with John Fund and we'll come back maybe to get to some of those a little bit later.

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Pennedextra also did a program and so did Liberty McCarter.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_03]: I could have actually been here Thursday, but I went to the dinner for the 100th anniversary of Dallas Theological Seminary.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_03]: And up there on the screen is a video by Kelly Shackelford, also in studio with us today, because you went there as well, did you not?

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I did, I did.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so and of course, by the way, Canna Cut, also their 100th anniversary.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_03]: So we've been talking about 50th anniversaries, but certainly that is the case.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_03]: All right. First Amendment. We're going to spend on the First Amendment for a little while here.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_03]: First of all, I did not know, Kelly, that if you wanted to hold a religious sign, the First Amendment did not allow you to do that.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And you had to get a permit from the city.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Tell us that story.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a it's a new concept to me, too.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: The founders would be so enlightened.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, we it's it's one of these things.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just hard to believe. Right.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. Our client has a sign that is very simple.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not even a big sign. I mean, it's it is standing on a public sidewalk and simply to share the gospel.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, talk about something kind of basic to our founding and to the First Amendment.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And they literally came up to him and told him that he would have to go in and apply for and get a permit for him to be able to hold his sign.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And he thought, well, you know, that somebody's confused.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: They they they passed a law to do this.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my. And it was confirmed.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So we are now having to.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's shocking.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Go into court to say, you know, when there's that free speech thing in the First Amendment and free exercise of religion.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you know that that means that the government doesn't have to give you permission first before you're able to speak?

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, this is now what we're fighting over.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's it's pretty incredible.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know what it is.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I've seen a number.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got another case.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got a a school board member who won the right to be on the school board.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And each of the school board members get get three minutes to talk about whatever they want to talk about at the meeting.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And she was told she can't use a scripture verse in her time of free speech.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So that one's going on.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And they didn't back down.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_02]: We're in federal district court in Arizona over that.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just saw another group today.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_02]: A lady went up to a meeting.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was a school board meeting to to disagree.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And she was arrested and just won her dismissal of her case.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So there needs to be some basic education, I think, on the First Amendment.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I would think so.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_05]: I was just going to say one of my best favorite quotes in the article about that holding the sign was the First Amendment is my permit.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And some people have missed that, I'm afraid.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Also, might just mention since, again, we're in election season, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about elections criminalizing compassion.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And you've got a pretty long list now of pastors.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, again, we're talking about just a private citizen there or an individual selected to the city council or school board and all that.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_03]: But also, whether you talk about Pastor Chris, Pastor Joe, Pastor Howard, Pastor Mike, I won't even go through all of those.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I would encourage you to go to firstliberty.org.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_03]: And there's a place where you can send a letter of support.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_03]: But at a time when oftentimes we want to actually undergird and encourage pastors, there have been a number of pastors that have been under attack, haven't they?

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_02]: No doubt.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we and this is a look, I've been doing this for 35 years, religious liberty, First Amendment cases.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But this is really unusual over the last year.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: There's all of a sudden this new bucket of cases, a big bucket, I might add, of pastors who have been criminally charged for being pastors.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, for feeding somebody who is starving, for opening the doors of their church in the freezing cold to a homeless person.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there are numerous and you could see with the list, if you go to firstliberty.org, this is new.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, again, we just haven't seen this.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, it's obviously, you know, we live in a weird culture, right, where you can go to a major political candidates rally and they say, Jesus is Lord.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And they say, you're in the wrong meeting.

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's something clearly there's a there's a hostility that we just haven't seen a level.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_02]: The good news is the Constitution is on our side and we're eventually going to win.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, it's not easy.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_02]: For instance, take the the dad's place, the Chris, Pastor Chris Savelle.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what they're doing to him is horrible.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, 19 criminal charges because he would not lock the doors of his church when the homeless shelter was full.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's Ohio and it's February.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_02]: It's freezing.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And there are people out on the streets freezing to death.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: The idea that he wouldn't lock the doors of his church.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you would think that this would go away.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And we we went up to the federal court to try to stop all this while the all the state court, the lower court stuff was going on.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And we had two of the three judges we had on our panel.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_02]: There were Trump judges and they refused to do anything at this point.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So for that, we're going to have to he's going to have to wait.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So meanwhile, he's been through persecution after persecution.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_02]: This has been going on now for 10 months.

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's a number of times he's told us, he said, I know, you know, we go into a hearing.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_02]: He say, I might be in jail because if they tell me I have to do this and Jesus says, no, you can't.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Then I'm going to jail.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And so he's having to live through this.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So I do think we will eventually win.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But in the in the process, it's not a lot of fun.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And pastors and people are going through this that they shouldn't have to go through this.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_05]: In years past, Kelly, I remember there were people who were trying to hand out sandwiches or something like that to a low income homeless people and so forth.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_05]: And the city would push back saying these sandwiches have to be made in a city approved kitchen.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Does any of that play into this?

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's what they're doing is they're taking local regulations and rules.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like arresting the little children serving lemonade.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mean, it's it's it's really not what these things were intended for.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But the difference is in these cases, their regulations that might have some purposes in certain situations run directly up against some of the most powerful freedoms in our country, which is the right of freedom of assembly as a church, the right, the free exercise of religion, the right of free speech.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And when they do that, now these regulations have to be really, really totally necessary.

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. And so and what we found in all of our cases we've had so far is not only are they not necessary right across the street, they're not required to do what they're telling the church to do.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's it's really a very pointed kind of an approach where they just want to be the power in the town.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And the church is getting in the way of that.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Can talk about the First Amendment.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_03]: In one of the articles we posted, the First Amendment must take a backseat to the fundamental freedom of unlimited abortion.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll talk about that right after these important messages.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_03]: According to an increasing number of politicians, the First Amendment doesn't protect misinformation.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Ironically, most of what they are saying is misinformation.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Former Senator John Kerry told the audience at the World Economic Forum that the First Amendment is a roadblock to progress because it allows people to spread misinformation.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_03]: He lamented that our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer it out of existence.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Minnesota Governor Tim Walsh criticized social media sites because they act as a megaphone for misinformation.

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And two years ago, he proclaimed there's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_03]: But let's focus on his most recent statement in the debate he had with Senator J.D. Vance, who challenged him on his prior statement that the First Amendment does not cover misinformation.

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_03]: His response was the classic.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_03]: You can't yell fire in a crowded theater.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_03]: That's the test.

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_03]: That's the Supreme Court test.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, it is not.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_03]: The quote comes from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_03]: In a 1919 case of Schenck v. the United States, he argued that the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing panic.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_03]: In the context, it had nothing to do with a case involving two members of the Socialist Party of America.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_03]: It is not law, and it is not the Supreme Court test.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_03]: In fact, it comes from one of the darkest chapters of U.S. history when the government passed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I believe the cure for bad speech is more speech.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_03]: The cure for misinformation is not censorship, but making more accurate information available.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01]: For a free booklet on a biblical view of Israel, go to viewpoints.info slash Israel.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Viewpoints.info slash Israel.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Back once again, and we're going to stay on the issue of First Amendment for a couple of reasons.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_03]: First of all, the article that we're going to be talking about now by Guy Benson,

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_03]: First Amendment must take a backseat to the fundamental freedom of unlimited abortion.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll get into that in just a minute.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_03]: But I thought I'd also mention my commentary today, which is posted,

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_03]: and it has a quote from John Kerry talking about how the First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to hammer out any kind of misinformation.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_03]: And, of course, then you also have the former, well, actually, the current Minnesota governor,

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_03]: and maybe I'm going to say former vice presidential nominee.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll see how this goes, saying that really there is no guarantee of free speech.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_03]: You can't yell fire in a crowded theater.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And I quote the fact that that really came from Oliver Wendell Holmes.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_03]: It had nothing to do with speech, and it's kind of all sorts of misinformation.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_03]: But, Dr. Merrill Massey, let me come to you for just a minute.

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And that is Kamala Harris had an opportunity when she wants to turn the page.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Now she's talking about closing the page.

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Nevertheless, even though she recognized we're really divided, the question was asked of her.

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a good question.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, would you at least provide a concession so that if somebody had moral objections about abortion in a hospital,

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_03]: that you would at least allow that?

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And the answer was, no way.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, this is interesting because my piece in The Hill a couple of weeks ago was under the title of

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Will the Real Kamala Harris Please Stand Up?

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_05]: There you go.

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Going back to the old What's My Line show that older people will remember,

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_05]: where that's where they ended up with the last things that the real person would stand up.

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Because she says she said so many things that she's flipped on.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_05]: And one of the things that she said in that speech where she was talking to the Pittsburgh Economic Club,

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm a pragmatist.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_05]: I want to be able to work with people.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_05]: We want to come to common ground and so forth.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And I said in there, fine, what concessions are you willing to make on the issue of abortion?

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Just let us know where you're willing to give and take so that you can get some common ground and we can move on.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_05]: And, of course, there are no concessions she's willing to make on this.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_05]: She is not a pragmatist on this.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_05]: She's an ideological pro-abortionist, period.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, in this article, Guy Benson says that she's a top-down, command-and-control, worldview individual.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Because, again, having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area,

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I understand some of the people that she surrounds herself with and what she believes.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_03]: And, Kelly, again, where's the opportunity to advance religious liberty?

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't see any.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, this is obviously a direct attack on religious liberty.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And freedom of conscience, even for those who aren't people of faith.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And, really, this, you know, your quote you read from Waltz on this, that essentially the First Amendment is an obstacle to this misinformation.

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like it's an accidental thing that kind of got through.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a defect.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like the founders never thought of the fact that maybe people would say something that wasn't true or that was a little off.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And it really goes to a mindset that I think is prevalent on the left, which is they tend to be not as religious or not religious at all.

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So, to them, the ends always justifies the means because the ends is their religion.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, whereas somebody who's a person of faith would go, you know, that might be a good goal.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, the way we get there is very important.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I just think these people are so – that's their religion and that nothing should get in the way of their goal.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Not the First Amendment.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Not your religious freedom.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you just need to get with the program.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's really ends justifies the means mentality is all it is.

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And you see it if you look for it, you see it over and over and over again with different issues.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_02]: They think because the end is so good, whatever means necessary to get you there is appropriate.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_05]: And here's how you know how strong she is on this.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_05]: People have been commenting for months now that Colin Harris doesn't give straight answers when asked a question about a policy.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_05]: She sort of rambles off into I was born in a middle class background and things of that nature.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_05]: The one thing that I think she's very clear on is abortion.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_05]: She doesn't ramble.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_05]: She doesn't hesitate.

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_05]: She doesn't say I'm going to work with him to find some kind of consensus where we can move forward with abortion legislation or something of that nature.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_05]: Work with the other side.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_05]: She's clear.

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_05]: She will not accept anything except what the pro-abortionists want.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's interesting because that is the only thing she's really taking a firm – you know exactly where she stands on this,

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_05]: whereas so many other things you're not quite sure where she stands.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think one of the reasons for that is I think she has a number of things that she really does.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean she grew up – the whole San Francisco liberal thing is not just a pejorative.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_02]: It really is kind of where her –

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, it's a mindset.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think the reason she's willing to speak more on this one is because she's been told this is the one political advantage.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that – so she's a little freer with that one.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_02]: The other – which we could get to in a little bit – the other thing that she said in the town hall, I don't know if you noticed this,

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_02]: is she was asked about court packing directly.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And her answer was – wasn't, oh, no, I wouldn't court pack.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_03]: It was kind of equivocated.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: It was – it was, we've got to do something.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, we have a problem.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it made very clear that court packing is on the table for her.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_02]: It is on the table.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Which, again, for those who haven't listened enough on point of view and heard,

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_02]: court packing is about the only thing that would dramatically dismantle or restructure the Supreme Court

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_02]: that doesn't take a constitutional amendment.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Literally, it's just a majority vote.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you have one party that has the House, the Senate, and the presidency, four months for now,

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: they can add 10, 15 justices if they want to.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_02]: The problem is everywhere they've done that in the world, your country's over.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Your freedoms are over.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that one was one that, although she came up close, you know, she didn't –

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_02]: she wasn't as emphatic as she has been on abortion because that was sort of her green light area for politics,

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_02]: where if you looked at court packing and where that falls, most of the country understands that is a really bad idea.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And to Kelly's point about abortion being the one thing they really feel like they can discuss

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_05]: because they have an advantage with that, Kamala Harris is coming to Houston today

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_05]: to appear with Colin Allred, not because she's going to win Texas, but she's trying to help Colin Allred,

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_05]: but they're going to be talking about abortion.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_05]: They're trying to stress that point because Colin Allred – I don't believe the one-point advantage that Ted Cruz has.

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's probably more in the three- or four-point range.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_05]: But having said that, they feel like they might be able to do it if they can get enough people pro-abortionists out to vote against Ted Cruz.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, you guess what I was going to say next?

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_03]: This is a turn of phrase, which I wish I wasn't always writing my commentaries weeks ahead because this was pretty good.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Donald Trump is warning the country will end up like Detroit if Kamala Harris is elected,

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_03]: but Kamala Harris is cautioning that if voters put her in office – puts him in office, it'll look like Texas instead.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And so she's actually coming to Texas.

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_03]: You say, why is she coming to Texas, as you pointed out?

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_03]: But she says, if we don't stop Donald Trump now, we're going to have 50 Texases,

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_03]: and that is because she believes that this issue of abortion is a winning issue.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_03]: It can even be a winning issue in the state of Texas.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And so it is interesting to see how that has played itself out because, in many ways,

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_03]: there has been this assumption that since they've seen in some of the midterm elections,

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_03]: abortion amendments sometimes have worked.

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_03]: They are thinking that that is the tip of the spear, and that's how to win this election in 2024.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And the reality is all the polling on abortion shows that about 80% of the country is in the middle,

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_02]: that either extreme of no abortions at any time, there's 80% of the country that won't go there.

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But neither will 80% of the country go to abortions in the last few months, right?

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So the thing that you get huge numbers for is if no abortion until 16 weeks.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And so somehow they avoid having to discuss.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Like Kamala Harris has been asked a couple of times about the,

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_02]: so you're in favor of protecting abortions at seven, eight, and nine months,

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_02]: and she won't answer those questions.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Right, because she knew what the answer is.

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and so the commercials, all the things you see on this issue are not honest.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They're all on the edges.

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_02]: They're not about the real issue in the middle and where people stand

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_02]: because most people are in favor of restrictions up to a certain amount.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And then hopefully those who are pro-life, if they'll take that position,

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02]: can then start to convince people that they should move it a little more back

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_02]: and a little more back and helping understand why that's the case.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But the issue is really not that the whole country is this rabid pro-abortion like they act.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just they're not required to define what they're really talking about.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Good point.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_03]: We're going to take a break, and, of course,

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_03]: we're looking at the moment of the presidential election in Kamala Harris.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_03]: First article was by Guy Benson.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Second one we're going to talk about after the break by Dr. Merrill Matthews,

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_03]: who points out that actually if you are looking down the corridors of history,

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_03]: at least in the modern world, of the most wasteful administration in modern history,

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_03]: that would be the current one that we're talking about.

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_03]: It would be the current one.

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And the fact that we are dealing with a deficit of $7.65 trillion.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_03]: So we'll talk about that.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And then we have some articles about Donald Trump and then some about the Senate

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_03]: because, as Kelly points out, if you don't have a filibuster in the United States Senate,

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_03]: you really don't have a country anymore.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_03]: So we'll be talking about those.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_03]: So a lot of focus on the election today.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_03]: But as we go through, we'll give you some facts and figures that maybe you'll hear nowhere else

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_03]: except here on Point of View.

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll be right back.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_01]: They say men can be women and women men.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_01]: People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_01]: It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_01]: You feel like giving up.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_01]: But we can't.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_01]: We shouldn't.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_01]: We must not.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_01]: As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II,

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_01]: never give in.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Never give in.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Never, never, never.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Never yield to force.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we say to you today.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_01]: This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_01]: We can't do it alone, but together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Back once again, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Dr. Merle Matthews, Kelly Shackelford in studio.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And, again, let me just mention that the first comments we made about having to get a permit to post a religious sign,

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_03]: we have the article now posted.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_03]: It actually took place in South Carolina.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I might just mention as a program note, next week I will be in Georgia and South Carolina.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll be doing live broadcasts from Augusta, Georgia, and Burfield, South Carolina.

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And we'll talk about that then.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_03]: So, again, you can certainly find all of the material we're talking about with Kelly Shackelford at First Liberty.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_03]: We, of course, have that link under his website.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_03]: If you go to our Election Central, we also have our first link also to Kelly Shackelford's excellent resources there as well

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_03]: because we feel that you might want to have both what we have available and what he has available.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_03]: And so that goes to firstliberty.org slash elections with an S.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_03]: But, again, we have a link, and that's been posted since September 5th.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_03]: So if you're still in the process of – matter of fact, I think most of you know who you're going to vote for.

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_03]: I imagine almost all of you are registered to vote.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Imagine a good number of you voted.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I voted ahead of time.

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I have.

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so that's the case.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_03]: But we're talking about people that you know that aren't going to vote because in a few minutes we're going to talk to Kelly about all the people

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_03]: that call themselves born-again Christians and say, I just can't make it to the polls.

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you can't see the differences between the two presidents, just work down and look at the whole issue of the Senate we're going to talk about.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And then certainly 36 governors' races, all sorts of other things, 435 races for the House of Representatives, and on and on and on.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_03]: So lots of resources there.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_03]: But since I mentioned it, this article that came out in The Hill by Dr. Merrill Matthews,

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_03]: at $1 trillion, Biden-Harris the most wasteful administration ever.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And you're getting some facts and figures from the Congressional Budget Office.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And although I tend to be a little bit cynical and skeptical, I read your article and go, I can't even believe this.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_03]: This is something that is unprecedented.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_05]: So the deficit for this past fiscal year is $1.8 trillion.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_05]: When you add up the Biden-Harris four-year deficit, it's $7.65 trillion, which is about 50% more than Trump's four-year deficit.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_05]: And that included the year of 2020, which really jumped up significantly because most of Trump's deficits were actually fairly small compared to what Biden had been doing.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_05]: But the Government Accountability Office goes and does a regular check on what it calls improper payments.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And so improper payments, it sounds like that's all fraud.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_05]: It's not all fraud.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_05]: A lot of it's fraud.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_05]: But sometimes it's the government overpaying people.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Sometimes it's underpaying things.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_05]: And they go and they try to track this and find out how much money went out that shouldn't have gone out.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Some of it has said fraud, but others for other reasons.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_05]: And they've been tracking this now for a number of years.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And it turns out, they track this every year.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_05]: And if you look from, say, 2009 to, say, 2014 or so, it's in the neighborhood of $109 billion, $116 billion, $108 billion, something like that.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_05]: It was fairly level in those years.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_05]: It ticks up a little bit and starting in really 2018, 2019, and it sort of shoots up in 2020 when you go to the pandemic.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_05]: But then it shoots up even higher under Biden.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_05]: So that in the mid-20-teens, you know, 2015, it's running about $107 billion, $108 billion.

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_05]: And Biden's first year, 2021, $281 billion in improper payment.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_05]: In 2022, $247 billion.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_05]: In 2023, $238 billion.

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_05]: And so I just – they didn't have – they hadn't gotten to 2024 yet, so I just took 2023 and added it because that's actually on the low end for him.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_05]: And they get you a trillion dollars in improper payments.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_05]: And the point I make in that is that even though not all of this is fraud, some of it's just the government making errors, it's still wasted money.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_05]: A trillion dollars in wasted money.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_05]: And the point is the more the government spends, the more it hands out, the bigger these numbers are.

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_05]: And unless you get in control of this, we frequently hear politicians say, elect me, I'm going to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And they never do it.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Most of them never even pay any attention to it.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_05]: This used to be a scandal.

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't seem to be a scandal anymore because nobody's talking about it.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, I'm glad you are because I don't think anybody's going to be talking about it.

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And, Kelly, I'm just thinking that part of this has to do with, okay, let's go back four years and we have the pandemic.

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And so even under Donald Trump, there was spending and more spending was coming out.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_03]: But when the pandemic dropped and when we finally wanted to get back to normal, Joe Biden said, oh, no, we'll just keep that level.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And we'll just keep spending.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_03]: So you have two facts in here that are pretty amazing.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_03]: And that is Biden and Harris have wasted more money than any other administration, according to the Government Accountability Office.

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_03]: You also, of course, have stuff from the Congressional Budget Office.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And they have wasted more taxpayer money.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And so if you go by to the third page of your article and fourth page, you then give us all sorts of stories of scammers.

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And when you just send all that money into the economy, first of all, you get inflation, right?

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And second of all, you get scammers, don't you?

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that was one of the biggest points.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if there's probably any big point in the election to not to the person who's well off, but to people who, you know, are living paycheck to paycheck.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to know one of the reasons why you're seeing this migration of paycheck to paycheck people from, you know, the Democrat side in this presidential election over to the Republican side, it's because of this.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_02]: It's inflation.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Because, you know, if, you know, if you somebody's sitting at the gas station.

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I heard this story directly where the son is out pumping gas in.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I've heard this story.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And and he turns to his mom and says, Mom, how much?

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And she says, ten dollars because they can't afford any more gas.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's not a lot of people.

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So they can they can fill their gas tank up.

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a little.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, maybe they take one less trip or maybe they, you know, put a little less savings away or whatever.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_02]: But for those people, this is big.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And inflation is is has been devastating to them.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And to me, the biggest the without a doubt, the biggest I don't see if if Merrill agrees with this.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_02]: He's the financial guy.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But to me, the biggest by far, and it was obvious to me at the time was when they did the I think they even called it the inflation reduction.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, they did.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And and we we'd already done the stimulus spending, which was already we knew going to cause some inflation.

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_02]: But when they doubled down and they put like a trillion dollars more into the economy with that, which was really the Green New Deal.

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_02]: That's really what it was.

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And they renamed it.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_02]: They even admitted that.

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_02]: They just they just they just flushed all this money.

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And Kamala Harris broke.

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_02]: She was the time she broke the tying vote and is proud of it.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And that to me was when inflation just took off like a rocket.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think that is the biggest thing of the entire this this whole election between the presidential choices.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_02]: To me, that was the key.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's what's coming back to roost against the Democratic side right now.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_05]: You mentioned the Medicare and Medicaid in there.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's where most of the improper payments go.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Several years ago, I was looking on the Web site Mafia Today, which tracks stories about the mob.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's right.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_05]: It turned out the first four stories were mob people, New York mob families, crime families moving to Florida because it they so they could scam Medicare.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Where all the seniors are.

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, yes, yes.

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Because there's so much money to be made and nobody that you're not getting on anybody's turf.

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, you're not I'm not dealing drugs in one place and I'm getting on somebody else's turf.

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And 60 Minutes did an interview and it's still on YouTube.

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_05]: You can go and see it.

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I'm going to say 10, 12 years ago, interviewing a guy who had been caught doing this.

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_05]: And he's in jail.

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_05]: And he said, if I remember something like, you know, we were making 30, 40 thousand dollars a day off this.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_05]: And they finally caught him.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And the only reason they caught him is because he was being so greedy.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_05]: If he was willing to settle for 30, 40 thousand a month, it would probably have been fine.

[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_05]: But when they start doing this kind of thing, they went and started checking out some of the addresses where they were claiming to be getting Medicare reimbursements.

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_05]: One of them was a closet was a closet with brooms in it.

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just amazing the kind of fraud that goes on in this.

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_05]: And the government really hasn't clamped down on.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_05]: And the more you spend, the bigger the problem is.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I see an article here from Dr. Merrill Matthews.

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Medicare and Medicaid fraud is rampant.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_03]: And that showed up in a number of places and for Forbes and real clear policy and everything.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_03]: If you just type in Merrill Matthews, Medicaid or scandal or anything like that, you will see that, you know, written books, articles and everything else.

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And always the politicians try to hoodwink us in that we're going to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And I've never seen it happen yet.

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_05]: It does not happen.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_05]: They try to recapture some of it, but it's a very small portion.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, we talked a little bit about Kamala Harris when we come back.

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of commentators are saying that Donald Trump is a fascist.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_03]: So I want to maybe define what fascist means and why that is starting to show up in terms of that particular issue.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And then we've got some questions about some of the polls.

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And, of course, a question about the relationship between Donald Trump and Elon Musk and also the relationship between Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_03]: and some others.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And Tulsa Gabbard, she decided she wanted to be a Republican.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Did you notice that the other day?

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_03]: That's kind of interesting.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_03]: So we certainly have a lot more to cover.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And we'll talk a little bit about the polls.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Of course, the only poll that really matters happens in November.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_03]: But we've seen some trends that you might need to know about.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_00]: A false abortion narrative lives in our presidential politics.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_00]: The narrative is that state restrictions on abortion, passed since the Dobbs decision in 2022, are placing women in serious danger.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Supposedly, hospitals fearing they'll run afoul of state law are refusing to treat women for miscarriages or abortion complications.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Abortion advocates, including our vice president, blamed the Supreme Court for the death of Amber Thurman, age 28, following a medication abortion.

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_00]: She was nine weeks pregnant with twins.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Medication abortions accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_00]: The sustained growth in the use of the abortion pill since it was approved in 2000 is due in large part to the FDA's progressive easing of restrictions on its use.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Many medical experts contend the FDA did not adequately study its safety.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_00]: The FDA approved the two-drug regimen to be used during the first seven weeks of pregnancy and in 2016 extended the requirement to 10 weeks gestation and allowed non-physicians to prescribe the drugs.

[00:34:54] [SPEAKER_00]: In 2021, the Biden administration eliminated the requirement that women seeking a medical abortion be evaluated in person by a medical professional.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_00]: A Wall Street Journal editorial states the obvious.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Thurman's death affirms what anti-abortion activists have argued, that the two-pill abortion regimen is far more dangerous than its advocates claim.

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Since Georgia's abortion law bans abortions after six weeks gestation, Amber Thurman made an appointment at a North Carolina clinic for a surgical abortion.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_00]: She arrived too late for the appointment.

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Rather than reschedule the surgical abortion, Amber opted to begin a medical abortion.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_00]: She took the first pill and drove back to Georgia.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_00]: At home, days later, she vomited and passed out.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_00]: She was taken to a Stockbridge, Georgia hospital.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_00]: The babies had no heartbeat.

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Standard treatment involves an antibiotic and a DNC, but it was hours before Amber received either.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_00]: She died of sepsis.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_00]: No court decision or law prevented her timely treatment.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_00]: For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Mike Ritz again in studio with us today, Dr. Merrill Matthews, Kelly Shackelford.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And again, we're focusing some issues on Donald Trump.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_03]: That will continue into the next hour.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_03]: We also have some very good articles about the senatorial elections, and we've already talked about its importance.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_03]: But this comes from the editors of the Wall Street Journal.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_03]: It was inevitable as Election Day nears, the progressive panic over Donald Trump escalates.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And so now, not only is Donald Trump a threat to the Constitution and to democracy, he's a fascist.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it would be good to at least define what fascism is, which was national socialism.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_03]: But nevertheless, I don't think, Kelly, I've heard so many times and so many commentators, since I watch a lot of programs I don't recommend it to the faint-hearted, using the term fascist even more so than the word Hitler.

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_02]: But that's what we're hearing.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty amazing.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, number one, he's been president before for four years.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_02]: We kind of know what he would be like, good and bad.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_02]: We really don't need that.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, one of the first thoughts I have is that if you look at one of the few things that Kamala probably has had over Trump, it was that Trump would always call people names, right?

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_02]: It was that Trump would say things in his rallies about her.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_02]: People would go, stop saying that, right?

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, now that's not an advantage because she's calling him names, right?

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And people don't like this.

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_02]: This is – it's not only bad in that way, but it's a sign to people too that you're in trouble as a campaign.

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, Hillary Clinton did this at the end of her campaign when they realized she might be going into trouble, the deplorables.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And now, you know, Kamala Harris is doing this.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And even if people were doing it, for the candidate to do it, it's just – it's bad.

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_02]: It's bad form.

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_02]: It looks bad.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It turns people off.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You're trying to get people in the middle.

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, when you say that, you're saying everybody who would think about voting for him is a fascist.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, so this is why it was bad for Trump to do it towards Kamala.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But now she's going the same direction, and this is not going to help her campaign.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a sign that the campaign is falling.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, it's interesting.

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Excuse me.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_05]: I heard an interview yesterday with Frank Luntz.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_05]: And James Carville has apparently come out, and his recommendation is Kamala should get even more negative and calling Trump more names.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_05]: And Frank Luntz said, you know, I think James is just – James is brilliant, but I think he's absolutely wrong on this.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_05]: He said Kamala was doing better when she was trying to talk about, oh, the opportunity economy and things that she wanted to – a vision and being positive.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_05]: He said she's turned negative, and you see her numbers going down as – I'm not sure that's all the case.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_05]: But it's interesting that you've got these discussions where James Carville says you need to get even more negative, and Frank Luntz says, no, I think you need to cut that negativity and be more positive and forward-looking.

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Let's see if we can talk about the polls because one of the articles here, which you had recommended, Dr. Matthews, is by Jonathan Drager, will Trump outperform the polls?

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'll talk about that a little bit later.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll talk about the Senate because you've been on the program before saying that even when you look at some of the swing states, there are five senatorial elections in the seven swing states.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_03]: And a few weeks ago, Democrats were ahead in all of those.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_03]: That is no longer the case.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_03]: It is no longer the case.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll see some trends.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_05]: When we talked about it, it was the Democratic candidate in all of those was ahead in some cases by six, seven, eight points.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it wasn't even close, even though Trump and Harris were pretty close within the margin of error.

[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_05]: And the question is, since there isn't a lot of split-ticket voting anymore, when people go to polls, would they vote for the Democratic Senate and then say, well, I can't.

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_05]: If I'm voting for this Democratic senator, I'm not going to vote for Trump.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Or would they come in voting for Trump and say, well, then I'm going to go ahead and vote for the Republican Senate candidate in there.

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_05]: And the polls have narrowed significantly over those five swing states.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_05]: You kind of expected they would narrow some, but it's possible that Trump could end up winning those five states with Senate elections and maybe pull in two or three of the senators from that as well.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And again, we'll get to that in a little bit because, as Kelly points out, that is really key in terms of all the confirmation.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Because if you think about that, you're not just voting for the president.

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_03]: You're voting for also the 4,000, sometimes as many as 5,000 appointees.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And I look those up, and you have most of those are presidential appointments with Senate confirmation.

[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_03]: All the cabinet secretaries, all the federal judiciary, all the U.S. marshals, all the U.S. attorneys, as well as all the federal boards and commissions.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_03]: The FCC, the FCC, you know, FCC, you know, if FCC is hostile towards Christian radio, what you listen to might be a problem.

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_03]: FEC, Federal Elections Commission.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_03]: If indeed you wanted to have various kinds of issues of integrity, FTC, labor relations, the list goes on and on.

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And so in some respects, both the presidential election and some of these key senatorial elections are going to be key, aren't they?

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah.

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, let's talk about something we mentioned earlier, but to another level.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_02]: The Senate, like we're, I know we'll talk about this later, but let's say, let's say you have a, a president Trump.

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And, and you're concerned about who he's going to appoint to the Supreme Court and all the lower courts, which is, he might have, he had 235 last time, right?

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's a lot of lifetime appointments.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, okay.

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_02]: When he did that last time, he, the Senate was 51 to 49 Republican Democrat.

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And that 51 included people like Jeff Flake, you know, Collins, Murkowski.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_02]: These aren't exactly, you know, full throated conservatives, right?

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Very true.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So when you look at who he put on the Supreme Court, that might be very different than, he didn't put a Plank Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, right?

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_02]: He put Brett Kavanaugh.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And he put Amy Coney Barrett.

[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_02]: If instead, some of these reports, he were to pick up four or five seats in the Senate, now he's got room and he might put a stronger conservative.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, he probably would on the Supreme Court or on the lower court.

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So it not only makes a difference in, you know, who they can put in these positions, but it also makes a difference in how strong these people are in these different appointed positions where the Senate has to give approval.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So the Senate is bigger than I think people think about not only who controls it, but how much control they have.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_05]: And on the flip side of that, if Kamala Harris wins, if Republicans have the Senate by one or two votes, Kamala Harris cannot put any radical leftist on there because she won't be able to get the votes.

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_05]: So she would have to ultimately be a little more pragmatic as she says she wants to be in any appointment.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Except on abortion.

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Except on abortion.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Except on abortion.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_03]: But just think about this.

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_03]: You're listening right now, probably on Christian radio and not every program that is on a Christian program, but most of these are Christian radio stations.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And just imagine if you put people on the FCC that are really sort of hostile to Christianity.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And we've seen a few of those in other positions that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have put on.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_03]: All of a sudden, some of these Christian radio stations having to come justify more or maybe program according to the public interest.

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_03]: The fairness doctrine.

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And bring in LGBTQ people on some of the talk shows.

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you can see very quickly how if you control some of these three-letter agencies, you also get rid of the filibuster.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_03]: And no longer are you putting people like Neil Gorsuch or Brett Kavanaugh or certainly Amy Coney Barrett, but instead people like Kajanji Brown, Jackson and others.

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_03]: That's a whole different world.

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_03]: In one generation.

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_05]: It's probably fair to say that even though the president sets the agenda, most of our lives are controlled by people who run these agencies because that's where we're interacting with them.

[00:44:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, we're going to take a break.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_03]: And when we come back, I want to get into another issue, the whole Elon Musk factor, which, again, Dr. Merrill Matthews has written about.

[00:44:35] [SPEAKER_03]: But if you're as we're going to the particular material that we make available today for you in the election central, let me encourage you to get some of that, pass it on to others.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_03]: But even for people that say, I'm not sure I want to vote for the president.

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_03]: You are talking about voting for those 4,000 or 5,000 people.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And those two candidates would put very different people in the bureaucracy and really change the country.

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And we'll talk more about that when we get into the senatorial elections.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_03]: But let's take a break.

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll be back with more right after this.

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_01]: The Bible tells us not to worry.

[00:45:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And yet there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today.

[00:45:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry.

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_01]: God gives us a next step.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_01]: He says we need to pray.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_01]: But sometimes even knowing what to pray can be difficult.

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And that is why Point of View has relaunched our Pray for America movement,

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_01]: a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation.

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[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_01]: along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others.

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[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America.

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Point of View will continue after this.