California Road Trip and Will Judges Stymie Trump?

California Road Trip and Will Judges Stymie Trump? Those are the topics we'll discuss today on the Christian Worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. I'm David Wheaton, the host. The Christian Worldview is a non-profit, listener-supported radio ministry. Our website is thechristianworldview.org and the rest of our contact information will be given throughout today's program. As always, thank you for your notes of encouragement, financial support, and lifting us up in prayer.

In the second and third segments of the program today, Daniel Schmid, a constitutional attorney and Associate Vice President of Legal Affairs for Liberty Counsel, which is an international non-profit litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family, Daniel will join us to discuss the legal showdown between the executive and judicial branches of government as judges try to stop many of the executive orders of the Trump administration. But before we get to that, I mentioned on last week's program that I would tell you more about a recent trip to Southern California. Now, my brother and I typically go to Los Angeles in early March for Shepherd's Conference at Grace Community Church, but this year another trip to Southern California in mid-March came up where our family was awarded Family of the Year by the United States Tennis Association at their annual meeting. You might be thinking, do you still even play tennis?

Well, not too much, but the award wasn't just about me. There have been four generations of our family involved in various aspects of the sport of tennis, whether competing, coaching, teaching, volunteering, managing community development programs and facilities. My grandfather learned the sport in his late 60s and taught it to his daughter, my mom, and my three older siblings who then taught me when I was about four years old. There's three generations right there.

Now the fourth generation, my nephews who competed in high school and some of whom are professional tennis coaches today. And so my sister Marnie and brothers Mark and John and I were honored to travel to the San Diego area to receive the USTA Family of the Year award this past weekend. Since my son had spring break from school the same week, my wife Brody and I and Tommy went to California six days early for several things related to the Christian worldview.

It wasn't just a good trip, but we considered it a blessed trip. First, we enjoyed hosting a luncheon for about 15 Christian worldview partners at Grace Community Church after the Sunday service there on March 16th. The church was kind enough to provide a conference room where we had a very special time getting to know Christian worldview partners from all over the Los Angeles area. That same day, we were able to attend Grace Community Church for the morning and evening services and see many longtime friends from Shepherds Conference over the years, which is held at the church.

Now the pastor of Grace Community Church, John MacArthur, is still recovering from some serious health problems, so he's not preaching right now, but he gave a health update during Shepherds Conference that I'll play in just a few minutes. Now the next day, Monday, we visited KKLA 99.5 FM, the radio station owned by Salem Media Group that broadcasts the Christian worldview every Saturday at 8 a.m. in the Los Angeles area. The program has been on KKLA for three years and has provided a good platform to reach listeners in Los Angeles with the biblical worldview and the gospel. So thank you to our Christian worldview partners for your support of the program on that station.

Now that evening, Monday night, we had dinner with a man named Russ Haut, a now retired former executive of Salem who helped me in my early days in radio. I've probably told this story before, but when I was 32 years old and coming off the professional tennis tour at the end of 2001, beginning of 2002, I was trying to figure out what to do next with my life, and I was single at the time, and my parents and I were driving in the car one evening listening to radio. And my mom said to me from the front seat, David, have you ever considered getting involved in Christian radio? And I had never considered that, but she said that because Christian radio had had such a big influence in our family. My grandmother back in the 50s became the first believer in our family when she had the radio on and heard the gospel preached by a pastor. She got down on her hands and knees in her kitchen and she believed in Christ and was saved. A couple years later, my mother was saved the same way through listening to Christian radio, and then shortly thereafter my father was saved.

And so when I grew up, Christian radio was on constantly in our home, whether through the teaching programs or music. And so fast forward many years to 2002, about six weeks after my mom suggested that to me, I was interviewed on a local sports program called Beyond Sports here in Minnesota. And about two weeks after that interview, the host of that program called me to say that he wanted to get involved in a new career, and how would I like to take over his radio program?

It was obvious that God's providence was at work. So just to shorten the story here, a couple years after getting involved in radio and having a co-host on that program called Beyond Sports, I was in California and met Russ Haut, who was working for Salem at the time, and he opened up a door for me to go to Salem's talk host and producer conference in Washington DC in 2004. And after going there and seeing all the things being discussed and the issues of the day, I came back to Minnesota thinking I'd like to go quote-unquote Beyond Sports and start talking about some of these other issues from a biblical perspective. So I credit Russ with opening a door that moved me in the direction of what the Christian Real View became back in 2004.

So that was all on Monday. The next day, Tuesday, we visited Living Waters in South LA to do part two of the interview with Emil Zwain, Easy, on his book Fight Like a Man. And the Living Waters team, including Ray Comfort, were just so incredibly welcoming to us.

We all had lunch together at their office, and Ray and I even squared off in a game of ping-pong. And I can just say this about Living Waters, whether it's Ray or Easy or Mark Spence or Oscar Navarro, the ones you hear on the Living Waters podcast, and all the others behind the scenes. These men and women are just great models of a sound and contagious faith in Christ. That was a highlight of our visit to California. After that, we traveled south along the coast of California towards San Diego, where we visited Ambassador Agency in Irvine, California.

Now, they take the Christian Real View every weekend, and they distribute it to all the stations that air the program around the country. And there we enjoyed meeting Peggy Campbell, the president of Ambassador, and also Ben Brigman. You've probably heard me mention him on the program.

He does the final production for the Christian Real View each Friday, and they were kind enough to let me use their studio to record the introduction and transitions for part two of that interview you heard last week with Emile Zawain. Now, to conclude this travelogue, we then drove south along the coast to a resort near San Diego to meet my siblings at the United States Tennis Association annual meeting and received that award for Family of the Year. Now, the format of the award ceremony didn't provide opportunity to say a few words of acceptance, but I just wanted to include a brief portion of what I had prepared to say.

Just a couple paragraphs. I said, Family of the Year is particularly meaningful for us because a close family is what my grandparents and parents cultivated in what we are still blessed with today. We all live near and see each other often here in Minnesota. If our 91-year-old mother were here, she would say, as she often does, it's all because of Christ. And what she means is that anything we are or have accomplished is not because we are so good or gifted, but rather because Christ and His truth transformed our family, starting when my grandmother and then my parents, when they were in their mid-20s, heard and believed the gospel.

Mom is right. It is all because of Christ. Thank you again to the U.S. Tennis Association for this honor. So, we flew home to Minnesota this past Sunday and are so grateful for all the ways God blessed the week we had in California. Now, just a few words about John MacArthur. He has been out of the pulpit for most of the past two years with various health problems. In case you don't know who he is, John MacArthur has been the pastor at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles for the past 56 years, the head of the Master's Seminary and the Master's University. He's been the preacher you hear on the Grace to You radio program. He's written many books, author of the MacArthur Study Bible, stood up against Los Angeles County, and he's been the governor of California, and California Governor Gavin Newsom during the COVID lockdowns.

They kept their church open. He's perhaps the most influential pastor of the last 50 years, at least in the theologically conservative realm. Well, as I mentioned, I wasn't able to attend Shepherds Conference at his church this year, which is a gathering of 5,000 men from around the world at Grace Community Church, because I was going to be traveling to Southern California week after the conference and couldn't make two trips. But I did watch parts of Shepherds Conference online. John MacArthur was scheduled to preach the last session on Friday evening.

That seemed a bit unlikely after it was reported that he had been in the hospital for seven weeks. Well, instead of preaching, Shepherds Conference played a video from John MacArthur to the attendees, which was a sobering reality of the sin-cursed world we all live in that afflicts our earthly bodies. Here's what John MacArthur had to say in that video. I want to say grace to you, all of you who are at the Shepherds Conference.

For me, it's the highlight of the year, so you have to know my disappointment in coming to you through video. It really came down to being the only option because I haven't had such a speedy recovery as I hoped to have. I feel great. I just lost a lot of strength by being seven weeks in the hospital. I mean, it's the hospital that can kill you. You can survive the illness. If you can survive the hospital, then you've won on every level.

It took a toll on me physically, so I'm seeing physical therapists and trainers and trying to get back as soon as possible. I had the message on my heart, and I didn't want to lose the opportunity to give it to you, so we printed it up in a booklet. The good news is you don't have to listen to me, and you don't have to take notes because you're going to get the sermon in a booklet form. I just know how much I miss being at Shepherds Conference. I love the fellowship.

I love the preaching. I especially love the singing, every aspect of it, and the camaraderie and fellowship of meeting people is always a highlight, so thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your faithfulness and being a part of Shepherds Conference. I'll be praying for you and asking the Lord to bless in an unusual way and sharpen all of us for whatever the Lord has for us in the future.

I realize I'm on the last lap. That takes on a new meaning when you know you're on the short end of the candle, but I am all thanks and praise to God for everything for everything He's allowed me to be a part of and everything He's accomplished by His Word in these years of ministry. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that was just heartbreaking to hear, but also heartening that his faith is strong and that he has the same burning desire to preach the Word. Whether he will be able to is another question, especially after hearing what exactly his physical problems are. The MacArthur Center for Expository Preaching has a podcast where he detailed what he has gone through the last two years. I don't think many people knew the extent of his health problems. I know I didn't.

So here he is being interviewed in that MacArthur Center podcast and the music under his voice was in the original recording. Somebody asked me the other day about my physical condition and I said the truth is I went 85 years and then went off a cliff. I had the need for surgery on my veins to keep me alive. I had surgery on my lungs to keep me alive. I had a replacement, this is amazing, of the aortic valve with a procedure called TAVR with a procedure called TAVR to keep me alive. So literally I'm now kept alive by stents, by I think it's a cow valve, lung surgery, and one more.

This will be new to people. My kidneys have essentially come down to the final stage. So over the last two months I've been in a long elongated hospital setting and I've come out of that and entered into the world of dialysis. It keeps me alive. Literally dialysis I can sit in a chair and watch my blood go out and spin through this machine that does what a kidney does.

Kidneys are this big and the machine is two feet wide and three feet high to replicate that. But anyway I have to do that three times a week and it takes four hours. Four hours. I can't live without it. Again sobering but encouraging that John MacArthur's faith has not faltered and he can say with the Apostle Paul, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. That's where every believer needs to be.

Remember to pray for John MacArthur. He has truly been a warrior for the faith. Let's take a short break to tell you about some resources and events going on with the Christian Royal View.

Coming up next, Daniel Schmid, a constitutional attorney with Liberty Council, will join us to discuss the legality of judges making decisions to stop the executive orders of President Trump. I'm David Wheaton and you are listening to the Christian Royal View radio program. We need to remember that as our Savior hung upon that cross, extended his arms and bore those stakes in his hands and his feet, that crown of thorns on his head, he was paying for our sin. Our sin put Christ on the cross. We need to pause before we indulge in sin. Look at the cross.

Look at what the Savior did to redeem us and say, I can't sin against the Savior who did that. That was Emile Zawain, President of Living Waters and President of our new featured resource, Fight Like a Man, a Bold Biblical Battle Plan for Personal Purity. This important book is softcover, 272 pages, and retails for $17.99. For a limited time, you can order it for a donation of any amount to the Christian Royal View.

To order, go to theChristianrealview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. The Overcomer Course is designed to help young adults gain clarity and conviction on the most foundational issues of life and the faith. Day one sessions address salvation, the authority of scripture, life purpose, and spiritual growth and discipleship. Day two sessions present God's design on time, work, and money, sex, singleness, and marriage, the local church, and overcoming temptation. Between sessions, enjoy fellowship, food, and fun at the farm, including activities and games, cookouts, an espresso bar, trail walks, bonfires, and more. Tell the young adults in your life about the Overcomer Course Friday, Saturday, June 20th and 21st at Stonehouse Farm in Jordan, Minnesota.

To foster personal connection, the course is limited to 40 men and women age 18 to 28. Full details and registration at theChristianrealview.org or call 1-888-646-2233. Welcome back to The Christian Worldview.

I'm David Wheaton. Be sure to visit theChristianrealview.org where you can sign up for our weekly email, The Christian Worldview Journal monthly print publication, order resources for adults and children, and support the ministry. In the first 100 days of the Trump administration, Democrats have been staggering as Trump and his team execute a kind of blitzkrieg against liberal policies. But it was inevitable that the left would fight back, and now their strategy is apparent. Use leftist judges, appointed by President Obama and Biden, to stymie Trump's orders. But do unelected judges really have the authority to overturn the orders of a nationally elected president? Or has Trump overstepped presidential authority when it comes to such things as cutting government spending and deporting those who entered our country illegally, including a Columbia graduate student who calls for the destruction of Israel? Daniel Schmid, a constitutional attorney and associate vice president of legal affairs for Liberty Council, an international nonprofit litigation education and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family, joins us today on The Christian Worldview to discuss the showdown between the Trump administration and the third branch of government, the judiciary. Daniel, thank you for coming on The Christian Worldview radio program today. Well, let's jump into an article that Robert Knight wrote.

He's a columnist for The Washington Times, and I'll just read two or three paragraphs here in his most recent column. He said, in Mr. Trump's first 60 days, Democrats have filed more than 125 lawsuits challenging his policies, many of which involve downsizing government under the aegis of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, two of Mr. Trump's most popular executive orders, and he's signed many so far. Banning transgenders from military service and denying federal funds to hospitals that subject minors to chemical or surgical sexual mutilation were put on hold by federal judges. Likewise, federal judges temporarily have blocked Mr. Trump's orders ending birthright citizenship and firing federal employees who run diversity, equity, and inclusion DEI programs. One judge ordered payment of much of the $2 billion in grants that Mr. Trump froze on January 20th from the US Agency for International Development, USAID. Another judge put a hold on Mr. Trump's suspension of certain refugee programs that are part of his strikingly successful border security effort. Democrats charge that anything Mr. Trump does constitutes a, quote, constitutional crisis, but the real crisis is allowing any of more than 677 unelected district judges around the country to cancel the policies of a nationally elected president.

Again, that's from Robert Knight, columnist for the Washington Times. So we have judges, Daniel, who are appointed and unelected, stopping across the country a president's executive orders who was nationally elected. In your view, and in Liberty Council's view, are these judges exceeding their powers, and if so, why? The most recent one, Judge Bogman, I think, one of the US district judges in DC, where he ordered the US Department of Justice attorneys to tell the president of the United States to turn a plane around.

It was deporting the trend de aragua people. Now, the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which is a very old statute, and it's meant for wartime, but it has some specifications. The Supreme Court has said on several occasions that act is not subject to judicial review. Meaning that there is no judge in the country that sits under Article 3 of the Constitution that is permitted to impede the president's efforts under that act. Nevertheless, you have one judge in DC who thinks not only can he hear a lawsuit that deals with it, but is also empowered to then direct the president to turn a plane around.

That's nonsense, in my opinion. He has no jurisdiction over that one. One of the other interesting ones was President Trump issues an executive order that says the policy of the United States government is that we recognize two genders, male and female. One wouldn't think we'd need an executive order to articulate what biological reality dictates, but nevertheless, here we are. And so he has this executive order, a group of doctors sues the president and the HHS secretary and some others to say, well, that's impeding our ability to provide care for individuals who are gender confused. And as part of the executive order, they had stripped everything off of U.S. government websites that espouse this nonsense transgender propaganda, just taking it off.

There's a general judgment, just taking it off. There's a judge in Rhode Island. It was either Rhode Island or Massachusetts who issued an executive order telling the United States government to put content back on their websites.

You have no jurisdiction to do that. There's some core Article II powers the president has. Foreign policy is one of them.

National security is a big one. And then immigration, another which is to oversee the executive branch. Now, a federal judge under our U.S. constitutional system somehow is given the authority to moderate content.

The other one, and it's related to Doge, the Elon Musk department, if you will. It's not really a department. I find it quite fascinating that these judges are even allowing plaintiffs to sue the department because it's a fictitious name. It's not the Department of Homeland Security that has a secretary and that has a staff and a building and an apparatus, if you will. What President Trump has essentially done is hire an auditor, an outside auditor.

He's got a guy in there and the guy has some younger team members. They're essentially to go in, look for things, and then advise the people who actually run the department. Yet injunction after injunction after injunction has named Elon Musk and Doge these fictitious entities and says, you must stop doing whatever you're doing and the president can't empower you to do anything.

All he's doing is advising cabinet secretaries and saying, hey, guess what? USAID, full of fraud. But we have the receipts.

I mean, we have seen what the fraud entails. And these judges are saying, no, now you must write a check to these groups. So now they're in charge of the purse strings? Because I thought under our constitutional system, that was Article one.

That was the legislator, the power of the purse, as people learn since high school civics class. So you have these judges who are not only impeding into the core executive function, but you have them impeding into the legislative function by mandating that checks get written and then just running amok. So they have stepped grossly outside the bounds. I know part of the problem that many of your listeners are aware of is that I don't think the Supreme Court has stepped in fast enough. There comes a time when a higher court has to say, knock this off.

And I think we'll get there. This has been allowed to run amok. And I don't know if it was mentioned in the article, you were interesting, but I read the other day that the number of universal injunctions that have been issued against this president in the two months and a couple of days he's been in office is more than every other president, including President Trump's first term combined.

Wow. So in nearly 250 years of the country, we have not had as many universal injunctions against the executive as we have in two months. And now if you think the law changed that allows that to occur, it didn't. That's a bunch of roving judges who said, we don't like President Trump. We don't like the people who supported him. The 80 million people who voted for him can pound sand because we're going to rule the way we want to. The agenda he was elected to enact is not ours. And so we're going to stop it. I think all of that gets overturned eventually, but it's impeding the progress of the nation. We don't have endless time to clog the executive branch with injunctions that the court has no authority to issue. Daniel Schmidt is our guest today here on the program, the associate vice president of legal affairs for Liberty Council.

We have links to them on our website, thechristianworldview.org. It seems to me as certainly not a legal expert at all, but just an observer that our legal system has become so much more politically partisan. Where someone lines up politically, Republican or Democrat, if they're in the legal system, a judge, let's say, oh boy, they are going to adjudicate right down that line. And if they don't like something going on from the other side of the political aisle, they will figure out a way, as we're seeing, to disregard and precedent the law of constitution to make rulings in favor of their political side. Is that an accurate observation that our legal system has become increasingly politically partisan? And what can be done about that now that there are judges populating all these courts around the country?

I think there's no question that the answer is yes. The famous statue of Lady Justice, she's blindfolded for a reason. It's not supposed to matter who the people are in front of you. And that's why, Jen, historically, the black robe that you see them wear is symbolic. They are covering up their own personal biases and personal predilections and personal views.

Your program is called the Christian World View. I've told people for many years, you can't hide your world. That's impossible. And you can't fully remove yourself from it. But that's different than saying I'm going to impose it on others regardless of what the law requires. And that's the problem we face today. Now, there have been things written on this ad nauseum as to why that is.

I think it's very simple. For one, we had eight years of Obama and four years of a Biden administration that didn't hide the fact that they were after radical ideologues to fundamentally transform the government. Your listeners will remember the famous words of President Obama saying, well, I want to fundamentally transform America. One of the ways he went about doing that was stacking the judiciary with radical ideologues who he knew would issue the decisions of the type we're seeing today. The Democrats never miss with their judges. Republicans frequently do, where we're told, yeah, this guy, he's very conservative. He's going to apply the law as it's written.

He's an originalist or a textualist or a constitutionalist, depending on your particular bent. But this guy is going to call balls and strikes. That's what John Roberts said in his nomination hearing for chief justice. That's what the law and the judge is supposed to mean. And we just, it's neutral. We call balls and strikes.

You add water and stir. The facts come in, the law comes in, we add water, we stir. And what's supposed to come out as a neutral application of the law and fairness coupled with due process and all the rest of it. We don't see that now.

And the reason we don't see that was intentional. So you have an article three federal judge in the district of Columbia, the nation's captain, who was adjudicating a case concerning president Trump's transgender military order prohibiting individuals who have a mental illness, which is what the diagnostic manual says it is saying, we probably don't want those guys defending the homeland. I think that's fair.

I think most reasonable people would say that. You have an article three judge in the district of Columbia, the nation's capital, who says that's not even based in reality. Your notion that there's only two genders isn't real.

Now going back to the history of the world and the creation of time, that's always been true. But now you can be a judge. You don't even have to be some radical professor. You, you would always hear that from radical gender studies professors.

You could go to the Ivy Leagues and hear that probably for the last 20 years. I never thought you would hear that in an open hearing by a federal judge chastising the article two executive. The reason it's partisan is because those who don't hold the Christian worldview, as your program has gone, wanted a judiciary stacked with a bunch of people who not only don't hold the Christian worldview, but are ideologically and radically opposed to it. And that's why we see these things here. There are some on the conservative spectrum who I have legitimate concerns and opposition to sometimes, but I think by and large the vast majority of them want to see what the law says and what the facts say and they reach the conclusion.

I don't think the same can be said of a lot of the Democratic appointees and that was by design. Very interesting. Daniel Schmidt is our guest today here on the Christian worldview talking about various legal things going on in our country right now. He's the associate vice president of legal affairs with Liberty Council. We have links to him and Liberty Council at our website thechristianworldview.org. We'll take a two-minute break to tell you about some ministry resources and events. Stay tuned because next Daniel Schmidt will discuss whether it violates the first amendment to crack down on anti-Semitism that's been prevalent on college campuses and to have a pro-Hamas graduate student at Columbia University deported.

I'm David Wheaton. You are listening to the Christian worldview radio program. The Christian worldview journal is our monthly 12-page full-color print publication designed to sharpen your biblical worldview on current events and issues of the faith. The journal is anchored each month with three columns including one by Christian geopolitical and prophecy analyst Soren Kern.

You will also find details on radio programs upcoming events resources for adults and children ministry updates and more. The journal is mailed to all Christian worldview partners who support the ministry at ten dollars or more per month or 120 dollars or more per year. Plus when you become a Christian worldview partner you'll be sent a complimentary copy of my hardcover book my boy Ben a story of love loss and grace. To become a Christian worldview partner and receive the journal go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to box 401 Excelsior Minnesota 55331. We need to remember that as our savior hung upon that cross extended his arms and bore those stakes in his hands and his feet that crown of thorns on his head he was paying for our sin our sin put Christ on the cross.

We need to pause before we indulge in sin look at the cross look at what the savior did to redeem us and say I can't sin against the savior who did that. That was Emile Zawain president of Living Waters and author of our new featured resource Fight Like a Man a bold biblical battle plan for personal purity. This important book is soft cover 272 pages in retails for $17.99. For a limited time you can order it for a donation of any amount to the Christian worldview. To order go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to box 401 Excelsior Minnesota 55331.

Welcome back to the Christian worldview I'm David Wheaton be sure to visit thechristianworldview.org where you can sign up for our weekly email the Christian worldview journal monthly print publication order resources for adults and children and support the ministry. In this final segment we will discuss some legal questions in the news with regard to freedom of speech. Our guest is constitutional attorney Daniel Schmid of Liberty Council.

Daniel I want to ask you about a couple other legal fights I guess you could say that are going on right now. President Trump has done a lot in the first couple months since he's been in office lots of executive orders and one of the things his department of justice is doing and I'll just read a quote here by Charlie Kirk the well-known conservative advocate of Turning Point USA he posted this he says who is Mahmoud Khalil? Khalil is a roughly 30 year old former Columbia graduate student that's Columbia New York. In the words of the New York Times Khalil is quote the public face of protest against Israel at Columbia. He has acted as a spokesman for an anti-israel pro-hamas student group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest or CUAD. CUAD says it is quote fighting for the total eradication of western civilization unquote.

CUAD believes that October 7th was a quote moral military and political victory unquote. Khalil this graduate student at Columbia was the negotiator on behalf of students who started the tent city on Columbia's campus and who illegally took over a campus building. Khalil distributed pamphlets of pro-hamas propaganda titled Operation Al-Aqsa Flood Our Narrative.

Al-Aqsa Flood is Hamas's code name for the October 7th terrorist attacks. Khalil was in a group that disrupted a Columbia class on Israeli history to attack the country and the professor for quote normalizing genocide unquote. Then Charlie Kirk closes this post by saying all of these actions violate the rules that allowed Khalil to come here as an immigrant and there's efforts now as I mentioned to try to get Khalil deported from our country for his advocacy for a terrorist organization. Now I think most people listening to this would say well that's a good thing let's get this guy out of the country but we also have the first amendment to the constitution and freedom of speech and so forth so what is your view Daniel on a case like this? Is it legal for President Trump and the Department of Justice to work to deport someone like Mahmoud Khalil for their viewpoints and some of the things they've done in this country and is it setting a precedent Daniel for when let's say the left gets in power are they going to be trying to do the same kind of things for those who oppose their worldview? It's an interesting question and I think people are right to be concerned anytime the government starts attempting to take action based on the viewpoint or content of somebody's speech the first amendment doesn't prohibit that and so I join in a pause but I do that for a living I'm primarily a first amendment lawyer and I see that stuff all the time and I'm a first amendment absolutist I think the answer to speech you don't like is more speech I have no problem with that it's a little bit different for you and I than it is for somebody who is essentially here on a privileged contract of course every individual in America particularly citizens have the right to speak on issues whether they're popular or not standing in the streets and sidewalks and say whatever they want there's some exceptions you can't defame people you can't do some other thing but if you are a non-citizen and are not born here have no claim to American citizenship you have no right to be here for America to say okay well we will allow you to come here on certain visas whether it be work visa student I think this guy's was a student visa if I'm not mistaken when he was originally granted it part of the conditions that attach to attach to those which is why I call it kind of a privileged contract which is you didn't have a right but we'll extend you the opportunity to be here to do certain things but we're only going to allow that if you agree to do x y and z and part of that contract is you have to be law abiding I think the secretary of state Marco Rubio was on one of the sunday programs or a news channel not long ago he said if you had told us that was your intention when you came here on filling out the green card application or the student visa application was oh I want to come to America because you have a first amendment right that's going to let me say whatever I want to and as soon as I get there I'm going to advocate for terrorist organizations I want to be as anti-semitic as I can I'm going to disrupt college campuses I'm going to go to one of your what used to be one of your premier college campuses and set up things that disrupt the entire operation of the university and you won't be able to do anything about it the people who reviewed that patient never would have allowed him to come here and nor should they so if you lie on that and say well I want to come and be peaceful and I won't do anything and I just want to go to school and you have these awesome programs that I would like to participate in he filled all that out instead I would agree to be law abiding disrupting a college campus occupying it you remember the old Occupy Wall Street crowd that's essentially what they're doing on these college campuses and they're disrupting it not only that they're causing violence disrupting the classrooms they're like barging into some of these things and forcing a problem in the learning environment that's not entirely one if you want to take it from the constitutional perspective you're not entitled to say whatever you want to wherever you want to there are limits to the first amendment one of which is you can't incite people to unlawful or violent action advocating for terrorist activities and espousing all of the things that you just talked about which is to eliminate the west America no matter what our particular constitution says or the various laws that we have in place namely the first amendment we're not obligated to grant you permission to come to our country for the sole purpose of espousing the destruction of everything we hold dear the law doesn't require that nor should it the law aims to be imminently practical and so if you come here lying about what your intentions are we're not required to keep you here so that you can continue to espouse the destruction of everything we hold dear and cause all manner of problems while you're doing it of course we can revoke the privilege for you to be here you didn't have a right to it in the first place and if you don't have a right to it we can revoke what we granted you out of the goodness of our heart so the notion that that's somehow a violation of the first amendment is nonsensical to me because he didn't have the right to come and reap the benefits of the first amendment so it's not saying well we're taking it away because you exercised your first memory right you'd rather say whatever you want to but you can't actively violate the law and do all manner of things that you said you wouldn't and then expect to say here and then wrap yourself in the cloak of the first amendment doesn't work that way i think the government has every right to remove them and i think they should well that's well explained daniel schmidt is our guest today here on the christian world view final question for you daniel and it's an offshoot of the question i just asked and has to do with the widespread anti-israel anti-Jewish sentiment that we were seeing all across college campuses across this country and now the trump administration is trying to do something about that they're trying to suppress or maybe even criminalize if i'm not misunderstanding or misinterpreting what they're trying to do but they're trying to get rid of anti-semitism and of course as believers we're against that kind of language and anti-semitism and so forth and yet again we're for freedom of speech is it any different than what you just explained about the columbia graduate student calil when it comes to this issue of anti-semitism where people are out in the streets and marching against israel and saying things against the existence of the jewish state and all the things they do on college campuses is there any difference there that you see and again is it dangerous for christians in the future when another political party is in power let's just assume for the sake of the answer that they were born here they're american citizens and they just happened to go to college where they not radicalized but they've been rainwashed and they're not conservative they don't understand even what they're talking about there are still limitations on what you're permitted to do in the exercise of your first amendment right if you want to stand on the street corner and say whatever you want to against jewish people and you want to be anti-semitic about them and you want to say yeah the jewish state doesn't exist this is america you can have that opinion and i told you a moment ago i'm a first amendment absolutist i think the answer to that speech is to go out there and explain to them why they're wrong now that same college student can't go stand on the street corner outside his college campus and say i don't think the jewish state should exist i don't like the jewish people now we should go and get them and incite people to violence okay well there's a jewish fraternity house down there let's go throw them all with all cocktails through the window or harass and harangue the jewish students that are coming in and out of there that's not protected in addition to that what you see often in these anti-semitic protests is it's not peaceful first amendment doesn't protect your right to throw molotov cocktails or cause destruction to other people's property or be generally disruptive you can say whatever you want and it can be offensive to a vast majority of polite society and that doesn't matter but there's a line and i think with the protest that comes up on these college campuses where they're disrupting classrooms they're occupying territory where they're not entitled to be oftentimes it's private property like taking over buildings there was one of them i came i think it was yale or columbia i don't remember which one they took over a building they said we're staying here well no you don't own the building and you're causing disruption there we have the right to move you out regardless of the fact that you're doing it for expressive reasons there are a great many people who find the christian worldview and positions that i know your program holds and that i hold to be quite foolish and offensive too and as a matter of fact we haven't broached this topic but since it's called the christian romery we'll take what the scripture said about it which is the cross is foolishness to those who don't know christ of course they're going to be offended by what you and i are saying the last 30 minutes we've been together there's a lot of things i've said are grossly offensive to people and that's fine and i'm offended by a lot of things other people say the first amendment says you get to say what you want but it doesn't allow me to go out and engage in violence against those that i disagree with and at that point it's not a threat to the first amendment to shut down that it's a threat if you say you can't hold that view there's no thought place and can't go out and silence a man who's peacefully standing on the sidewalk saying i don't like the fact that the palestinians don't have what they want or that the jews don't have what they want or whatever i mean whatever the issue is you're allowed to hold it speak it there's just a limit to it yeah we've seen some really egregious violations of this over in the united kingdom and in britain recently and they don't have the same first amendment we do and uh it's very disconcerting what goes on there when citizens post something on social media against the government narrative they get visits to their home and i think they've been arrested and people praying you're just praying silently uh near an abortion clinic over there are arrested we've had that here too i'm often want to point that out because you often hear people say well we're just one step away from that we locked up some individuals who were just outside the capital on january 6th in 2020 for four years without a trial date a lot of those people were peacefully engaging in speech and the prior administration threw away the key for the duration of the administration some of those people are just getting out there were individuals who from the january 6th of 2020 until days ago sat in a cold dark cell for doing nothing but engaging in speech about an election they thought was questionable so we do that stuff there are pro-life protesters that i have represented who got arrested for standing outside an abortion clinic under the last administration up to and including a almost 90 year old woman who was a holocaust survivor who had to get a presidential pardon to get out of federal prison because of the prior administration if you think it doesn't matter that you would elect people who have the same christian worldview as the name of your program it does because we do that same thing here depending on the administration and it's scary i could go on and on about that it's not just great britain it's here they locked up kim davis rare spousing of you against same-sex marriage the first one ever to be thrown in jail for christian worldview in the country born on the will to be free the christian world requires vigilance and requires your listeners and you and me and all of us to be proactive about maintaining a country that was born on the judeo-christian worldview itself to maintain that world view and that's exactly why we are so thankful for liberty council and what you and matt and others do there and there's some other organizations that work on similar things protecting faith and freedom in our country so we appreciate your hard work on that daniel and thank you for coming on the christian worldview radio program today all of god's best and grace to you your family and your family and liberty council thank you very much thanks for having me all right you can find the link to our guest daniel schmidt and liberty council at thechristianrealview.org you may want to consider supporting the important and excellent work that liberty council does and as we transition to a new month the april issue of the christian real view journal will be mailed in about a week with the plan of it arriving in your mailbox before easter weekend we're excited about the three articles for the april issue jesus christ the lamb of god by josh bice president of g3 ministries he writes about the first passover in the old testament book of exodus and how christ is the perfect and final fulfillment of it the second article by sorin kern the managing editor of the journal and a geopolitical analyst on why christians should support israel and finally an article titled fight in the power of christ for sexual purity by emil zwayne of living waters a recent guest on the program remember that all christian real view partners receive the journal as a thank you for your support just get in touch if you'd like to become a partner our contact information will be given in just a moment lots of other content in the journal including photos of our trip to california and details on the overcomer course for young adults which is friday saturday june 20th and 21st at stonehouse farm in jordan minnesota the course is now 25 filled so please encourage the young adults in your life and church to sign up soon consider making a family trip where the young adults attend the course while you visit the area if there are enough parents or grandparents who come you may host a pre-course thursday evening welcome gathering thank you for joining us today on the christian worldview and for your support of this non-profit radio ministry in our turbulent world let's remember what scripture proclaims jesus christ and his word are the same yesterday and today and forever until next time think biblically live accordingly and stand firm the mission of the christian worldview is to sharpen the biblical worldview of christians and to proclaim the good news of jesus christ we hope today's broadcast encouraged you toward that end to hear a replay of today's program order a transcript or find out what must i do to be saved go 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