Can MAGA save the Midterms?

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What's up, America? Welcome into it. It is the Todd Starns Radio Program. It is not Todd Starns, though. He is still out and about.

Our thoughts and prayers are still with him as he is on the path to recovery. And we cannot wait to get him back behind the microphone.

So we will be thinking about him and we'll be talking about him throughout the program today. But welcome into it. Andy Hoosier, setting in today for the Todd Starns Radio Program. Back at it and moving that Liberty University studios from Memphis, Tennessee out here to Wichita, Kansas, my flagship station, and of course, a great affiliate. Of the Todd Starns radio program.

There is plenty going on. In fact, Donald Trump just wrapped up a press conference in the Oval Office right just a few minutes ago as he has officially signed a new proclamation for the presidential fitness test at Public Education Systems. That's pretty awesome. We'll touch on that in just a little bit. I want to hear from you today at 901-260-5926-901-260.

5926. What's on your mind today? There's plenty to talk about and cover. And I do not want to waste any time because we have a great guest on the program right out of the gate today. Is he my congressman here in the fourth district of the state of Kansas?

He is a great friend. He comes on my program all the time. And I know he comes here on the Tom Stones Radio program. But Happy to have on from the 4th District from the great state of Kansas, the man himself, Congressman Ron Estes, on the line with us here. Congressman, how are you, my friend?

I'm doing well, Andy. How are you doing? Doing great. It is great to have you on the Todd Starnes Radio Show on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Hotlines. There's a lot to talk about with you because you guys in Congress had a really busy week or so the past couple of weeks.

Finally, after 75 days, we're able to reopen up Department of Homeland Security. You guys have done a FISA extension. You passed a five-year farm bill out of the House. Man, it's like you guys came right out of the Easter holiday and hit the ground running this past week. Yes week, yes, last week was really was productive in terms of getting some things moving forward.

And all those things you mentioned are so important as we look forward. And I can talk specifics about each one as we go through that. You're looking at the farm bill, we're wanting to move that forward. There is a lot of stuff that we did in the Big Beautiful bill last year that helped farmers. But right now, we're really wanting to look at things.

The farming community is struggling right now with some of the input costs and low grain prices.

So we're trying to look at things like how do we update reference prices and make sure that if you sell corn or wheat or grain sorghum, you can make money off of that. Making sure that the crop insurance programs out there are protected, making sure that we're getting our exports out and we're supporting farmers to actually make sure that we can continue to feed the world. And we want to make sure that we give some of the certainty to folks in uh all across the farm country, whether you're uh in Kansas growing wheat and corn or maybe even in California or elsewhere throughout the work throughout the country. Yeah. Amen to that.

It's been desperately needed. I want to see the last farm bill that was passed. I want 2018. Was that right? And I know we did kind of an extension of it.

Then we did a little mini farm bill that was in the One Big Beautiful bill last year.

So the fact that it's been that long since we've actually updated the agricultural sector in this country and we tried to kind of sort of do it last year with the One Big Beautiful bill, this was a long time in coming and desperately needed, wasn't it? It really is. And as you said, we've been doing some extensions through that. But and that's okay. It keeps from falling backwards, but it doesn't move forward.

And that's what's so important about now that we've put this in place, we've made it made it the law of the land and actually update things. It costs more now with higher prices for fertilizer and diesel fuel, some of the input costs that farmers have.

So we want to make sure that we help protect them with the programs that we put in place. Yeah, no, amen to that. Talk about the breakdown of the farm bill. I know, unfortunately, and this is something that is really unfortunate. I don't like it, but it's the reality.

I don't know if we're going to change it in any faction. But the SNAP program, the food stamps, essentially, is the dominance of the farm bill, 80, 90% of the entire farm bill funding. But then the part that is actually important, like you said, crop insurance for farmers and trying to get the agricultural community where they need to be with getting paid the proper rates. I always say it all the time: I don't know how farmers do it when every aspect of their entire business is out of their control, from the price of the grain when they buy it to the price of the desalin that goes into their truck to the weather that destroys the crop once you put it in the ground if it actually freezes or destroys it to when they sell it at the co-op at the end of the day. Everything's out of their control, and it's pretty wild that they continue to survive year after year.

Yeah, it really is. I mean, farmers are are are, you know, Entrepreneurs from day one. I mean, they're willing to take a risk every year with what they plant and what the prices are going to be, what their costs are going to be. And yet, they're great stewards of the land, and they look forward to this every year in terms of helping make sure that they can continue to support America, support folks around the world. And actually help help with national security from a standpoint of you don't run the risk of not having enough to eat.

And so it's important the risk that they take. And I want to make sure that they don't lose out in conditions that are beyond their control. Exactly. Yeah. Last question on the farm bill before we move on.

But first, I have to thank you guys for passing the version that you did. There was one amendment to it during the conversation, Congresswoman Anna Polina Luna putting it in there, getting rid of the pesticide immunity. Essentially, it's an immunity from anybody challenging pesticides that may cause any kind of medical issues. I know that was in the original draft version of it. You guys were able to remove that.

Thank you. What was that conversation look like? Because out of all the news of the farm bill, which there's a lot of good information in there, that was kind of the one piece that stood out media-wise that got a lot of attention. Yes, I think one of the problems we have in some of these discussions, particularly if you're looking at allowing labeling to be done of products By state, you end up with a patchwork of 50 different states that might put a different labeling in. And so, you know, we want to make sure that we provide farmers the tools and equipment and the capability that they have to continue to be to provide us the food that we need and rely on.

And President Trump and HHS Secretary Kennedy are actually looking at how do we make America healthy again and focusing on what do we do and how do we continue to make sure that the food that we have eat helps us maintain health and actually improve it. I mean, recover some of the things that have gone on the last few decades. Making food healthy and eating real food, which is what's been the mantra coming out of government, and it's really been encouraging to watch for sure. We're talking with Congressman Ron Estes, he's from the fourth district of the state of Kansas, my congressman here in the state of Kansas. Let's shift gears a little bit.

Let's talk about Department of Homeland Security. 75 days, the record has been broken for the longest government shutdown, a partial government shutdown, where they wanted to drain the funds for immigration and customs enforcement. But it led to, as well, no funding for border security. It led to no funding for Secret Service. It led to no funding for FEMA.

A complete disaster. And obviously, you know, Congressman, we're here in the middle of the country with Tennessee and Kansas and Missouri and Oklahoma and Nebraska. Wildfires, tornado season, spring weather. That's what we're seeing right now. And yet, FEMA didn't have a whole lot of funds to help with recovery efforts on that front.

After 75 days, you guys were able to actually get that back open. I got to ask, what was the purpose? And did Democrats actually get anything that they were trying to stop in this process?

Well, I mean, the bad part about this was that this was a gimmick that the Democrats have been pushing for the last seventy five plus days to shut down the Department of Homeland Security. And basically, it stems back to President Biden Opened the borders and made sure that there were all these illegal immigrants coming into the country. President Trump closed the borders, and the Democrats said, Well, we're going to shut down border patrol, we're going to shut down immigration enforcement, and basically an attempt to reopen the borders and play in this game through this process. And ultimately, they still never moved off of their demands. And so, finally, the only thing that could be passed through the Senate was to do a partial funding of the Department of Homeland Security.

And that's a key theme right now: what we passed last week, which was good. It ended the shutdown for the majority of the department, but it only funded agencies like FEMA and the Secret Service and the Coast Guard. It still doesn't provide the salaries for the Border Patrol and for the ICE immigration control. And so, President Trump, through his exact borders, been paying those salaries. We're continuing to work on the reconciliation process to make sure that we can actually fund ICE and a border patrol moving forward.

That's going to roll forward in the next couple of weeks. President Trump says he probably has authority through June has enough money through June 1st to continue to pay salaries. But after that, we've got to have something in place to make sure that we keep the borders closed and make sure we help address security in our country.

So it was a great step last week, but we still have some more work to do. Yeah, we got some more work to do. It's unfortunate they continue to hold this up. Is that their end goal is just to especially for immigration customs enforcement just to let that fund to dry up and hope that department and agency goes away? It really is.

I mean, that's the push that they're trying to campaign on politically going into the fall. And it's just a continuation of their open border policy. And that's a horrible thing. I mean, what they've also done through this process is break the appropriations process.

So now next year or any year in the future, if somebody doesn't like a particular program, they're going to shut down a department within one of the agencies.

So maybe they want to try to shut down the Air Force because they bombed Iran to stop Iran's nuclear production. And so it's really going to be disruptive in future years. Yeah. It's going to be really unfortunate. Congressman Ron Estes from the Fourth District of the state of Kansas.

Last question for you. We've got just about a minute or so left here, but you talk about this reconciliation process. Are you optimistic that we're going to get this done by the end of May if we have that funding up until June? And what else could potentially could we see in that reconciliation bill? Yes, I think we can make it happen.

One of the things we did accomplish last week and in addition to funding all of Farm and Homeland Security or the biggest part that we did fund and doing the farm bills, we completed the first step of that reconciliation process. And basically, now the House and the Senate have both passed aversion, and now it's up to the committees to actually come up with the exact dollar amounts that go into those salaries so that we can actually fund their operations. And so we have time this month to do that, to do that legislatively, get it between the House and the Senate. I think there's agreement on doing that. Um Part of one of the regrets I have right now, just goes back to the Democrat strategy, is that because of the short time frame, we probably won't see much else in that reconciliation process because we've got to get the Border Patrol funded and we've got to get Immigration Control funded so that they have salaries.

These are important government employees, and we need to make sure that the job that they're doing to help protect us, that they're paid to do that. Right. It is priority number one. We've got to get that done. Congressman, we appreciate the time very much.

As Congressman Ron Estes from the 4th District of the state of Kansas, we always appreciate you coming on the Todd Starns radio program, my friend. All right, great. Thank you, Andy. Yeah, you betcha. Always a pleasure.

My congressman, great friend. We've had him on the show many times. Todd always enjoys chatting with him as well with Congressman Ron Estes from the 4th District of Kansas. Your thoughts on some of this, the reconciliation process moving forward for the month of May, the focus of what Congress will be working on, we'll see what else could be happening with that conversation. We'll take a break, get your thoughts on this, and more right around the corner for the Todd Starns radio program.

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Granger for the ones who get it done. Welcome back to it, Todd Starns Radio Program for a, what is today? Tuesday post-Monday celebration, greatest day of the entire week. Andy Hoosier sitting in for Todd Starnes today as he is on the recovery. Cannot wait to get him back behind the microphone.

And we appreciate Congressman Ron Estes joining us here in the first segment of the program. A lot of great news coming out of Washington, D.C. We have a lot more to do. We're counting down the times, my friends. Midterm season right around the corner.

The primaries earlier than you can imagine in many states. And then we, of course, have the November midterm election. If Republicans want to win and keep their majorities right now, we better start, I don't know, codifying the Trump agenda, which apparently is very difficult for some to do. Uh within Congress, but they are working on it. In fact, I saw a headline today from the Washington Post: White House lawyers are prepping staff on how to deal with a Democratic Congress.

Are we really that scared about what's going on in the midterms? We'll speculate on that here in just a little bit. Before we go into some of the other policy issues, yesterday was a really wild, interesting day. What do I mean by that? The alleged assassination attempt at the correspondence dinner.

The individual, which I don't like to say their names because I don't want to get them any credibility or any type of popularity, was in court. And apparently he's been on suicide watch because he was planning on that being the end. And now that he's not at the end, then he has to deal with moving forward. And he's been on suicide watch in jail.

Well, he showed up in court yesterday, and apparently the judge apologized to the way he's been treated in jail. Judge Zia Farraqui apologized to suspect Cole Allen for the treatment he's received so far while he's been behind bars. He's been put on suicide watch by the Department of Corrections, and the judge was asking why. An attorney for the government said that he was put on suicide watch because he told FBI agents the night of the White House correspondents dinner attack that he didn't expect to survive. And his language suggested that he really was not expecting to survive his trip to Washington, D.C.

and the ultimate incident where he allegedly showed up. Up with a weapon to try and assassinate President Trump. He's been charged with that crime, but the judge is very concerned about his constitutional rights, saying the defendant has requested a Bible, has requested meetings with his legal team, and that has not been allowed. He's been put in restrictive 24-hour lockup. Come on, man.

You're telling me that because he was on suicide watch, he's been in 24-hour lockdown, has not been able to communicate with the outside, has been able to talk to his lawyers because he has a constitutional right to do so, but because that he's been isolated, that the judge has apologized to him on the way that he's been treated. In fact, the direct quote was something of the sorts of being fascinated and disturbed about his treatment in jail.

Now, I'm not one to want to cause harm to individuals or one that wants people to suffer. At the same time, if you're having the attempt to go and assassinate leaders of the free world and assassinate the president of the United States, and you do it in the sense. That you have now built your entire life around that, knowing that your life is coming to an expiration date. Meaning that you plotted it out in California, you purchase multiple firearms in one of the states. It's one of the most difficult states to purchase a firearm because of their gun laws already.

You have two handguns, you have a shotgun, you have multiple knives. You don't take a plane because you know you can't get through security with those, so you take a train to go across the entire country. That would take some time. You're committed by that point. Which, by the way, if you want to go down the gun conversation, really reinforces the idea that gun regulations and gun control do not work in any way fashion, right?

Even though the wait period, oh, you might just get bored and just get burnt out on waiting for this thing. No, no, if you're committed, you want to do some kind of harm, that's proof positive right there. Even the most stringent and gun regulations in California did not stop this guy from legally purchasing a firearm with intent to do harm. That shows not the problem with the gun, but the problem with the mental health crises in this nation of people wanting to do harm. But I digress.

That's a whole other conversation for another time with the Second Amendment. But now. He didn't die. And now he's on suicide watch because he doesn't know what to do with his life, and he has to suffer with his consequences of his actions. Oh, mon dieu.

And the judge Apologizes to him for that, or apologizes to his attorney. For that, because he's isolated on Suicide Watch 24/7. That's a little strange to me. I'm all about giving the people the human rights they deserve, and he has the right to due process, but it doesn't have to be comfortable. And I sure as heck don't want him scrolling on social media while he's sitting there in jail, supposed to be recollecting on his actions.

Him pondering, remember your parents always sent you to your room as a kid? Go and think about what you did, and they isolate you in your bedroom. And apparently, now the judge is apologizing because that's what he has to go through. That's a little weird to me. We got lots more coming up here for a Tuesday on the Top Stars Radio program.

Yeah. Welcome back to my Top Stars Radio program on a Tuesday today. Andy Hoosier sitting in, 901-260-5926. If you want to jump on the program, we would love to hear from you today. Plenty to cover and talk about it.

It's a busy news cycle, especially for the Trump administration, which it always is. Let's be honest, when is it not a busy news cycle for the Trump administration? That dude is always go, go, go for his age, and to keep doing what he's doing, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible to watch him in action because he runs circles around most White House staffers, and it's kind of fun to watch. He keeps Congress on their toes.

Congress has a lot of work to do. Hey, if you're going to win the midterms, you better start codifying what he's done in the past year, which is like. 400 executive orders because we don't want the power exclusively through the executive branch. And God forbid we see another president that's a Democrat coming in anytime soon. They can reverse and stop every progress that he's been able to make, which is not ideal.

So we need to see Congress start acting on that front. That being said, Trump's starting off this morning with a lot of news and signing a new proclamation this morning, right out of the gate for the Presidential Fitness Test Award. And RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, all the health professionals in there, really excited to see that we're actually going to do a Presidential Fitness Test Award again. Back in the day, now, this was not during my time because I graduated, what, 2007 was my graduation?

So still on the millennial front. But prior to that, I remember hearing about at least the fitness test where you had to, you know, climb to the top of the rope and hit the bell and come all the way back down. We never did that. I did, however, you ever see those pegs on the wall where you had to like use the pegs and try and climb up that? I did used to do that, but I just did it on my own.

That was like when I was halfway in shape.

Now, not so much. I got a little work to do to get back to that level, but it's nice to see a Presidential Fitness Test come back in the Fitness Test Awards that will be announced as the order directs the President's Council of Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition to create these school-based programs. That reward excellence in physical education and develop criteria for a presidential fitness award. Just to put this into perspective on why this is important. Because not only are we working on the health front of getting rid of dyes and over-processed foods and so on and so forth, trying to make us healthier on that front, but.

Children. Probably one of the worst and least fit generations that we've ever seen in this nation. When you have 60% of children that are declared as obese, children. That already are obese. That's kind of a problem, is it not?

When you have 80% of a generation that is either unfit or do not want to join the military, that's leading to not only a fitness problem for our children to be healthy without health care costs down the road, but also a national security risk when you don't have a generation that's actually fit nor wants to actually join the military in some fashion. And that 80% is due to either obesity or health issues or substance abuse or mental health issues in some fashion. And that's a problem.

So, this is one step in the right direction. We have plenty more to take, but we have to do this in stages and we have to attack it from all different angles. And bringing that test back. I know that we're going to see a lot of angry. Unfortunately, we're going to see a lot of angry kids.

And let's just be honest, the helicopter parenting with the parents that don't want to actually force their kids to not play video games all day long and actually want to be attentive to their kids, which is very rare, unfortunately, and now in today's times, that you're going to have parents signing notes to exempt them from taking these tests. I know. You think I'm crazy. That is the prediction I have for the show today on the Todd Stearns Radio program. My prediction is that we will literally have parents writing letters to the school saying that my kid, because of playing the victim, because of their heart disease issue, because of their whatever, they have a bad ankle because it's sore when you actually walk around kind of thing, that you will have parents out there signing waivers to their kids saying that they don't have to participate in this stuff and they're going to try to exempt them, openly saying, I don't want my kid to be healthy and to get healthier.

So therefore, they're going to be a victim of society. And this ties into one thing Congress is supposed to be working on. They haven't been working on it. If you remember at the beginning of the year, the Trump administration did sign a bill or released his, quote, great healthcare plan trying to encourage Congress to reform our health care options in the country and get rid of Obamacare and give us better health options there and work on the pharmaceutical side of things and get our healthcare back to where it needs to be. The other side, very angry about it, obviously.

They try to focus on more of the universal health care. Healthcare is a human right. And the only way we can take care is if we have this government-run healthcare where everybody gets the same treatment.

Now that treatment's going to be like the DMV and it's going to suck, but at least we're going to have some type of coverage, right? That's their plan. The problem is, is that That doesn't work, especially when you have choices like this.

So, you want choices to be unhealthy and then have people actually take care of your health care. I don't see it. I don't get it. It's a lot of reform, and we need to start forcing these kids to be healthy again, not only for the national security issue, but later down the road where we don't have an entire generation that's needing massive amounts of medical services that are extremely expensive and forcing us into bankruptcy, either as an individual or as a nation, if we're subsidizing everybody through a nationwide healthcare system. But good first step, really excited about it.

The Presidential Fitness Test Award that is being announced through the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. That being said. Yesterday, the Trump administration also busy. And ironically, this week is officially Small Business Week, Small Business Awareness Week. And show of hands, anybody listening to the Todd Starns radio program right now, how many of you are small business owners?

And by definition, small business is really a company that employs less than 500 employees. Which that's a decent-sized company if you have 500 employees, but still considered a quote-unquote small business. The massive economic driver in this nation is small business. Because we're the ones that hire the vast majority of employees. In fact, major corporations, I want to say, only employ.

3% of the work population? I could be wrong on that number. I'm just pulling that one out. But from what I seem to recollect or remember, that seems about right because the vast majority of employees in this country work for small businesses with the millions of small businesses that are in this nation. that drive the majority of economic growth.

And that's exactly what the place as we celebrate National Small Business Week.

So let me begin by saying congratulations to the small business people of the year from all Fifty states, it's a big deal. That's a big deal and you can be proud of Yourself, our country is made up of a lot of small businesses, and that ends up being a really big business. As small business owners and operators, the people in this room represent the 36 million small businesses who create 40 percent of all economic activity in the United States. Think of that. A uh group of people added together.

You're essentially the most important factor business was in the whole. In the whole country.

So why is this significant and why is there irony attached to this now with Small Business Week and Donald Trump holding a small business summit yesterday?

Well, this comes at the helms of Friday's May Day protest of over 6,000 organized protests across the nation of a whole bunch of workers, which I question on whether they were actually workers or not. I'm just throwing it out there. I think that they were the, unfortunately, the millennials, my generation, crawling out of their parents' basements and looking like vampires seeing the sun for the first time in ages and going out and doing their 8647 signs and yelling about Donald Trump and, you know, hitting effigies of Donald Trump with sticks and thinking they're really cool and really special and, you know, flying Palestinian flags. And it turned into an anti-like a no-kings protest all over again, just an opportunity for them to go crazy. But it was technically May Day on Friday, which is a communist holiday for the International Workers' Day for them to try and fight for better working wages.

And they tried to plan for. in economic blackout. Shutting down stores, shutting down businesses, crashed the Trump economy to show how bad it is because workers are never treated fairly and they try to play victims in society. I don't know if it worked in your neck of the woods, wherever you may be, to see an economic blackout. I don't think it works because I didn't hear any stories about, oh my gosh, no, we could go and get services today.

I didn't hear that, even with the 6,000-plus protests that happened across the country.

So. If that's the case, then well done, Democrats. You officially just wasted another day's worth of time. In fact, the only economic change that I saw was that that same day on Friday, Donald Trump having a rally down in Florida and people taking days off work to try and wait in line to go to that. That probably had more of an economic impact, negative impact by people not working or being there or doing anything than the 6,000 protests of May Day back on Friday.

So we go from May Day on Friday to protest business. Corporations are evil. Anybody making money is bad. You got Bernie Sanders out there protesting, saying that anybody making a million dollars or more is really evil. We got to tax them.

They got to pay for their fair share. All this other garbage. When, to be honest, as a small business, Especially if you have 500 employees, 400 employees, you're probably making. a million dollars or more because that's the value of your business. That's really not hard to do in today's economy.

I mean, it really doesn't take a whole lot to be worth a million dollars in value. But according to the progressive left, you're the problem with society. You're the ones that need to pay your fair share. And If that's going to be your campaign tactic, good luck. I don't see how that's going to work, and I don't see how any business is going to support you, or any business owner, or even a worker who's working for a small business, understanding the financial strain of small businesses and trying to work to keep them afloat every day, understanding the hardship it takes to run that thing.

I doubt that they're going to be open to the idea that if you just make the X amount of money or you're valued in X amount of money, we're going to tax the heck out of you and regulate you, which is what the progressives have been doing and what their campaign style is going into midterm season. We provided 100 percent expensing and bonus appreciation, which is tremendous. One of the biggest things that you have. I mean, people have no idea how big that is. The businesses do.

So that businesses can deduct 100 percent of the cost of new facilities, equipment, and capital investment in the first year. It used to take 38 years of deduction.

Now you get it done in one. You can take one so you can expand. I think that's what made us so successful in the first term, but now we have it for a 10-year period. All right, business write-offs, Democrats. Don't like that one as well, obviously.

Do you remember back when Donald Trump was running for president the first time against Hillary Clinton and they tried to catch him up on all the tax write-offs that he had as a business owner on why he wasn't paying his fair share of taxes and why he wasn't? And they were trying to do it in a derogatory term: say, oh, you're cheating the system and you're using the system to write off and not have to pay on taxes. And his response was, you're right. And if you don't like me doing that, if you don't like having all these write-offs, then go and change the laws because it's the law saying that I'm allowed to do that. And as a smart business guy trying to keep as much money as humanly possible, I'm going to utilize those tax codes to try and write off this stuff.

So I don't have to pay as much. If you don't like that, change the tax code, but you're not going to change the tax code because all the wealthy business people on the other side of the aisle also benefit from these. And Democrats shut up pretty quickly on that issue. Hillary Clinton, especially. Shit up on that issue because he was right and he exposed what's been going on behind the surface for a really long time.

So now he's working to expand more of those.

Now, I purity-wise, I Ideologically. Theoretically, we could advocate for the idea that if we're going to simplify the tax code, we don't need write-offs. We would just lower taxes to the rate that it would be easy, simple, and fair for everyone. And we don't need to worry about an IRS. We don't need to worry about filing taxes every year.

We don't need to worry about all the special write-offs to try and limit it because it's so small and minuscule. It doesn't matter whether it's a flat tax, whether it's a straight sales tax, whatever the idea or the flavor that you like on the tax code reform, those are all great ideas. That's ideologically what we could strive for until we get to that point. We need to make the tax code as easy and as simplified as possible, especially for small businesses to keep as much money in their pocket, which Democrats obviously do not like. By the way, if you know the show Pawn Stars, Rick was there at that small business summit with President Donald Trump.

Very nervous, he seemed like, but still, if he is any indication of where other small business leaders are in the country, that he's still very happy with the way things are rolling for the Trump administration. I just want to say he's amazing. He's done so much. I mean, so much for all of us. I mean, the backbone of this country is small business, plain and simple.

And the last guy in office, all we heard was that we were the evil people, we were the bad people, everything else like that. We don't pay our fair share, whatever that's supposed to be. And he made it tough. And this guy, the big beautiful bill, absolutely amazing. You know what I mean?

God bless you for letting me get 100% appreciation. It really helps out. And all I can say is this. Is literally, I mean, I'm a history buff and I know a lot about this White House thing and everything. Literally, he's going to go down as maybe the best president ever.

I love this guy. All right.

So there you have it. Small business owners, I want to hear from you. 901-260-5926. I know we have some economic uncertainty. I know we have high gas prices right now.

I know that prices on the shelf are probably higher because of the travel expenses and the shipping expenses right now with the price of oil and gas and everything else. Outside of that, and overall in general, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. If you work for or own a small business, are you still happy with the Trump administration? Latest polls show that Donald Trump may be slipping on the economic issue. And for the first time in a while, according to some polls, take them with a grain of salt, that Democrats are leading on the economic topic in this nation.

Is that going to drive people to the polls in November? I want to hear from you. Is that really true? Because if so, that's a cause for concern on how short of a memory span that we have to remember what they do to the economy compared to what's happening right now under a Trump administration. We'll get your phone calls on that when we come back around the corner.

It is the Todd Starns Radio Program. Don't you? Welcome back to the Time Search Radio program on a Tuesday today, the small business summit happening from the Trump administration yesterday. It is small business week. I want to hear, as you're a small business owner, where do you stand right now economically?

And do you still support the Trump administration as we go into a midterm season where Democrats and the polls and the mainstream media are claiming that Democrats now lead on the issue of the economy because of the affordability agenda?

Now, that being said, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. It seems like we're moving in the right direction outside of the oil and the travel issue itself. Everything else seems to be moving relatively well. They keep saying that we're on the front for a recession later on this year, although we still see economic growth.

Now, the first quarter was a little bit slower than what we had anticipated, about 2% economic GDP growth, but still decent and still more than the Biden administration. And we saw about 3% inflation overall. You're never going to get rid of inflation. The whole goal is just to kind of slow it down the most you can. And 3%'s well beyond what the Biden administration had been seeing under their time when it was 7% and 8% inflation.

So if we have that short of a memory. To remember what the economy was like under a progressive Democrat, then I got to be honest, I really don't know what to tell you. That being said, the focus for the small business right now is a good focus because we are seeing a lot of changes in the economy. If you saw over the weekend, Spirit Airlines has announced they are shutting their doors and they blamed the high gas prices and they said it was very difficult. They've been in business for more than 30, 40 years as Spirit Airlines and shutting their doors here soon.

And they blame the oil being over $100 a barrel. And I can't but think that it's not a little bit politically driven with Spirit Airlines and blaming Donald Trump. Because while oil has been over $100 a barrel, it is the fifth time since they've been in existence as a company where oil has been over $100 a barrel. And every other time outside of this one. The other four times, three under Obama, one under Biden, all of them have been under Democrat rule.

But because one time it happens with a Republican, and no, we gotta shut the doors, gotta wrap things up, it's all done, we can't function any longer, and it's all because of Donald Trump's fault. I don't quite buy that narrative. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But more choices in the private sector are good news. Maybe one of the industries isn't making the right decisions, but because it's now focused on the private sector, we'll see what the response is.

I don't know if you've seen this or not. This is from. What is it? The Wall Street Journal? Yeah, Wall Street Journal on this one.

There's been apparently a secret team that's, quote, blowing up Ford's assembly line, Ford Auto, making a thirty thousand dollar electric truck. And the story goes on to they've been doing tests overnight. It's been super duper secret, and they're trying to transition the company a Ford into the electric vehicle industry, and especially the electric truck. industry. Truck drivers, I live in Kansas again.

Truck drivers, I could be wrong. I highly doubt that if you're driving the truck for the purpose of what a truck is used for, hauling things, going out into the field, doing a lot of heavy lifting, I doubt that you're going to want a $30,000 electric truck. Pretty sure you still want the good old Um, the Hemi and the good old power of a combustion engine to make sure you're not stuck somewhere. I could be wrong, maybe it's the 21st century, but who the heck knows? Lots more coming up for the Todd Cearns Radio Show.

Stay here. Live from the Liberty University Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's conservative blowtorch. Wow. I love this American. Touch.

Star. What is up, America? Welcome into the Todd Searns Radio Program. No, it is not Todd. He is still in recovery mode.

I can't wait to get him back behind the microphone, man. It has been way too long. We miss you, Todd, dearly. But get healed, get recovered. We got this covered, baby.

We are doing the thing for a specially for a Tuesday, the post-Monday celebration, and Cinco de Mayo. If you celebrate that, so happy Cinco de Mayo to you. Andy Hoosier setting in for the Todd Searns Radio Program today, moving the Liberty University studios out here to Wichita, Kansas on the Big Talker KQAM, my flagship station, and. Great affiliate of the Todd Starns Radio Show. Great to have you along with us today on the ride: 901-260-5926.

901-260-5926. I haven't given much. I want to give an update on Todd for just a moment before we get to our guest, because as you know, having a health scare. And thoughts and prayers have been out to him. He's been off for a while.

I haven't given much on the air just because I didn't know how much he wanted public, but he has posted a few things on social media. And for all the great listeners out there, I want to give you an update on where he's at. He is back home and he is recovering. I believe he has some doctor's checkups today, but we need to make sure he's okay. And get him back here doing the thing.

So this was, I want to say, just last night, maybe, yesterday, with an update on where he's at, saying, I'm glad to be home and I cannot thank my cardiologist, the team at Stern, and the phenomenal cardiac team at Baptist East for getting me back up on my feet. We are truly blessed with some of the finest medical personnel in the nation right here in the Mid-South. My cardiologist called me tonight and reiterated how fortunate I am. A 90% blockage of the main artery. And I must tell you that I'm taking some time to get my head wrapped around the events of the past five days.

I'm just so blessed to be surrounded by my precious family and my sweet friends, my church family, one above and beyond. And my family at K-Wam and the national radio show have taken charge with Dylan at the helm. I had my first outing earlier today to drive to Kroger to get some baby aspirin. I feel like I ran a marathon. It's going to take a little time for me to get back on my feet, but I will be well on my way.

In the meantime, a few guest hosts will be taking over. Also, as a journalist, I always believe in correcting errors at the source, and I do want to apologize for telling you that gravy was actually healthy for you. It turns out sausage gravy is not a lubricant for your arteries, after all. My apologies. I long for the day when I can relax in the sun and drink a Dr.

Pepper.

So, that was the latest post he's made on the condition on social media. Todd, we love you, my friend. We are praying for you. We want you to heal rapidly, and we need you back behind this microphone. We need you on the radio soon, sooner than later, but heal.

And as you said, you have an amazing team. You have an amazing team there at KWAM. You have all the great leaders with your team. And I'm happy and honored to be part of helping you and being able to cover this while you're back in recovery mode.

So we love you, Todd. Can't wait to get you back on the microphone before we know it. All right, 901-260-5926. 901-260-5926. I do want to.

We have a lot to get to today. Obviously, yesterday being Small Business Summit for the Trump administration, this week is Small Business Week. The latest polls, and this leads into our guest here. That we have to kick off this hour of the program on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker hotline. Latest polls, according to them, they say Donald Trump's approval rating at an all-time low of 35%.

Do you believe it?

Now, according to the press briefing he just had earlier this morning, he says among Republicans that his approval rating is still at 95 to 100 percent. But overall nationwide, 35% approval at the same time. On the issue specifically of the economy, 81% of the young generation, I'm assuming me as a millennial and my generation and younger, they say that the economy is going in the wrong direction. Is it just because of gas prices or is it more? And is there more something to it?

That's where we go to at the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Hotline. Happy to have on the show to talk about this and so much more. Good friend of mine, he's with the Conservative Caucus, theconservativecaucus.com. You can find all their information. The man himself, Mr.

Jim Pfaff, on the line here. Jim, how are you, my friend? I'm doing well. And by the way, I just scanned the arrest music. Presidential approval poll.

And over the last 20 days of their polling, it's between 43 and 47% approval. I just don't, I don't accept these other goals. They're just really goofy, frankly. Yeah, it's really goofy. And they find any way they can to downplay the support for Donald Trump, even with all of the quote-unquote controversy that he's caused throughout the years and everything that he's doing, that they still can't grapple why he's gaining in support.

And in fact, even CNN ran a poll recently showing that among some of the demographics in the black vote, especially that he's actually on the increase at record highs for the Republican Party right now.

Well, and there also Mark Finn recently, the guy. Who was Clinton's bolster back in the day and does the Harvard Harris poll. I mean, he was just out and he's not a radical lefty Democrat. He's pretty moderate and very critical of the radical left. But he's been saying recently, listen, I'm not predicting Republicans are going to keep the House and the Senate in November, but Democrats better be aware that their negatives are so low.

that they're in real danger of not being able to pull that off. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty concerning. Obviously, you guys with the conservative caucus focusing on a lot of grassroots issues and trying to get ready for the midterm election. There was a headline that posted today from the Washington Post: White House lawyers are prepping staff on how to deal with a Democrat Congress.

Are we really getting that concern that we're not going to do well in this midterm election?

Well, I think the odds on is that Democrats take the House. I think the Senate is quickly. becoming untenable, although not entirely so. because I think you're going to get a Georgia backlash in spite of a kind of a weak Republican candidate against John Ossa. But I think that you're going to see that in a close race.

Go Republican. Michigan is going to Mike Rogers. By the way, I'm no fan of Mike Rogers. But you you're you're you're gonna have a Republican Pick up in Michigan. And then it becomes really difficult because the map works against Democrats.

But in the House, it's a much different matter. There are a lot of races at play. I think we don't know what's going to happen. We still have some of these final redistricting things working out. If Virginia.

uh overturns the referendum that would have Taken their congressional makeup from six, five Democrat to ten, one Democrat. Uh I I you know, I I think that uh Republicans have a better than decent shot. of coming around this floor to pass its map. I think you're going to see now Mississippi and South Carolina, I think, are going to redraw their maps. Tennessee is looking at it.

And Louisiana is is being told by the Supreme Court that they must redraw their maps.

So they have a chance to go all Republican there.

So it's still a little up in the air. And in the long run, I Democrats are in a bad place because by twenty twenty eight, you're going to see massive of efforts to redistrict. And it's going to make it worse. And then by Census, it goes all downhill for Democrats. Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned that.

That's where I wanted to go was the gerrymandering, the redrawing of the lines right now. It seems like to me, it's fair game now. It's just wild, wild west, redraw the lines.

However, we need to. Democrats have been doing it for a while. We see a lot of states, especially in that northeastern portion of the country, where we have zero Republican representation. Donald Trump's election in 2024 was a sign that, hey, we need to kind of make this a bit more reflective for Republicans, and that just lost the minds of Democrats. I'm with you.

I'm optimistic that we could actually see that choice in Virginia be overturned. I don't know how you can justify to the courts and say it was a 6-5 with probably one of the best representations in the country to say, no, no, there's only one district in the state of Virginia that's actually Republican.

So we're going to go 10-1 now and we're going to completely overhaul. I don't see how that's logical. And I'm pretty optimistic we're going to see that be overturned, aren't you?

Well, I am optimistic. although it's not in the bank yet. I am optimistic that can happen. But listen, However, any state wants to draw their map, whether it's uh legitimate or illegitimate in our eyes. The Supreme Court said you can political gerrymander.

They said that. That was what this ruling did. And it restricts these federal court cases against the drawing of maps. Which only go against Republican states, by the way, and Republican efforts to draw lines, and never Democrat ones. You can't do that anymore.

It also said you cannot. very purposefully Uh uh draw masked On a race base. And that that is i illegitimate.

So listen, the political gerrymandering is one thing. The problem in Virginia is that they violated the constitutional process. for changing the state constitution, that they compacted the time line in a way that is entirely against the plain language of the Constitution. That would be the basis for overturning it. And then they're not going to have any way to politically gerrymander it because of the process that exists.

Which uses an independent commission, except that they'll try to stack that commission probably. But that's what's going on in Virginia, and I think that that's going to get overturned. But political gerrymandering is the future. It really always kind of existed. The reason Donald Trump pushed it is because Democrats have been radically gerrymandering their states for years.

You've got eight districts in the Chicago area that wind down as far as Champaign, Illinois. For anyone that knows Illinois geography, that's halfway down the state and it goes up into Cook County. There's no community interest between those two areas of the state. And that is that's the worst one of many bad Democrat gerrymanders, especially in the Northeast. Which a lot of people have talked about.

But that's why Republicans need to have a spine. And counter those things because that's only fair. But again, the census is going to kill Democrats and Democrat states because people are leaving Democratic states in droves. No, no, absolutely. You're right.

And you're right. Political gerrymandering is going to be happening for a long time. We're allowed to do that, but that's different from the racial gerrymandering after the Supreme Court came down on the state of Louisiana. And now we're seeing the push by Florida, by Alabama, by Tennessee, by others saying, wait a second, we might have some racially gerrymandered district as well.

So here's the big question, then, Jim, for you: Are we seeing the end between everything that Donald Trump's done with the pushing to end DEI, to get rid of affirmative action, to stop focusing on identity politics in general? Are we seeing the end of systematic quote-unquote racism in this nation from what Democrats have done?

Well, Democrats have not. Walk away from that. the political capability of them to keep pressing that the way they have in the past is going away. But if we ever get to a place in the near term, Where you have a Democrat in the White House and a Democrat Congress, it's all coming back. It'll be much worse than it ever was before.

The the Biden administration so radically went down the hole of eliminating an individual liberty in America. and overturning our constitutional republic They didn't quite get all the way to enshrine it. In our system. But in effect, that's what they did. They will go even worse.

There will be broad censorship. Democrats are still talking about how challenging the First Amendment is and a real problematic thing in a Democrat culture. I mean, that idea is still there with them. But there are two major things happening: Donald Trump getting elected. radically transformed the federal government's Uh, To impose DEI and ESG, all these things.

that are politically motivated to twist and stretch culture around the Democrat ideal. All that has been eliminated in the federal government or largely eliminated in the federal government. You still have a few actors there in employment and bureaucrats that are there, but the structure has been dismantled. The other thing that's happening is when you look at this LA mayors race, I think it's a great example. This Spencer Pratt guy is really shaming Karen Bath.

Particularly over the Pacific Palisades fire thing, but also all the destructive behavior of Democrats in LA. And he's gaining some traction. I don't know if he's going to win, but he is gaining traction and causing frustration. And California in general is getting frustrated. In other words, the point I'm making is you've got the political move that would allow these Democrat efforts to take place.

That has been somewhat extracted from culture in the short run. If they consolidate power again, they could turn that political effort back in their favor. But right now, the politics is not on their side to keep pressing that. They have to make the case. To the American people, do you want to go back to the Biden administration?

And I just don't see the American people accepting that in the near term. No, I really don't. I'm really excited to see a potential Republican for the first time in a while actually be able to take over the governorship in California. And Gavin Newsom, I can smell the desperation from him because he is out there trying to justify everything that he's been doing. And it's hilarious to watch for sure.

Jim, we got just about a minute or so left. Here's Jim Pfft with the Conservative Caucus, theconservativecaucus.com as we chat about the latest. Right now, at least I know that's a long ways away until the midterms in November. Right now, what do you think is the number one issue for Americans to drive them to the polls? Is it the economic issues and gas prices?

Well, I think it is, and it always is. The James Carville is bad in a lot of ways, but the one thing he got right is it's the economy stupid. That really ultimately does drive the political agenda. There can be black swans that come in But Donald Trump's got to get the focus away from Iran and the efforts there. I think he has to be honest and deal with it as he is, but he needs to get the agenda back on The real economic successes that have taken place.

And he needs to urge the Republican Congress. and do something dramatically positive. Through reconciliation since they can't bypass the closure vote with Democrats. If they will do that, I think that the win the political wins could be behind Republicans. But they're doing a whole lot in Congress.

Republicans are. To tell the American people, yeah, I know you don't like Democrats, but don't vote for us. But if Spencer Pratt's commercials, Could be the commercials that are done nationally in every congressional district. pinning Democrats with the failures that they have and showing that they have no actual agenda positively, then I Republicans could pull it off. We'll see if they're willing to do it.

It's a lot up to them. We're going to be trying to do that on our side, but they need to do it from their place of power. They got to get it done as well. They got to do it on their site. And they have the golden goose.

They have the prime opportunity to do it. What are we waiting for right now? And, like you said, we could do a reconciliation bill that doesn't need the filibuster. We could put in the entire Republican platform and everything we want to do into this thing and cram it through and make us win into a big victory for the midterms. We'll see if that actually happens or not.

Jim, we are out of time, my friend. Always love it. We got to get you back on and do it again soon. Thanks, Andy. Good to talk to you.

Hey, you bet. Always a pleasure. Jim Paff with the Conservative Caucus, theconservativecaucus.com. Go and check those guys out. Great conversation as we are here for the Todd Starns Radio Program.

Your thoughts on this and more when we come back right around the corner. Hi, welcome back to it. Thoughts aren't radio program. Great conversation with Jim Pfaff with the Conservative Caucus. He's absolutely right.

I don't understand why there's so much hesitation to get things done. I understand there's a filibuster issue going on in the Senate, but if we have a reconciliation bill where we can kind of throw everything in there to some limitations, but we throw as much as we possibly can into a reconciliation bill and we pass it with simple majorities, that's not an issue with the number that we have in Congress. That's an issue with the mindset of the Republicans that just don't want to get the job done. Hint wink wink, Mr. John Thune, the Senate majority leader.

We have the prime opportunity. We have the golden plate. Republicans always say, give us the House and we'll be able to stop things. Give us the Senate and we'll be able to get things done. Give us the presidency and the House and the Senate and we can just roll through our agenda.

And this happened the exact same time with the last Trump administration and Trump admin 1.0, where we got the House, we got the Senate, we got the presidency.

Now it's time to go, baby, go. And what are we doing? We started off kind of sort of strong last year, and then we kind of got sidetracked. And then we did pass the one big beautiful bill. That was great news.

And then it's been stagnant. Reconciliation bill, Save America Act. Get rid of the FISA courts, which I know is a controversial thing, but let's get rid of the FISA courts. That would be my idea. Let's push back on repealing Obamacare and reforming the healthcare issue.

Let's do so many great things. And if we did that during the summertime, Which maybe they're planning on that. I'm always the eternal optimist. I'm not much of a conspiracy.

Well, I want to take that back. I am a conspiracy theorist, but let's look at the best case scenario here. They're plotting and planning to do this major reform. With a reconciliation bill with our entire agenda, and we're going to do it during the summer right before election time. I'm down with that.

I just don't know if our leadership's smart enough to plan something that elaborate. Got to take a break. We got lots more coming up for the Todd Starnes radio show. Stay here. Hmm.

Welcome back to the Time Sterns Radio program for a Post-Monday celebration. Andy Hoosier, who's sitting in for Todd Starn, says, as he is recovering, he'll be back behind the microphone. Hopefully, sooner than later, we miss him dearly on the microphone.

So look forward to getting him here soon. If you want to call into the program, 901-260-5926, would love to hear from you as we cover the latest, again, the missed opportunity or a struggle in Congress. Where are we at with giving Congress the majority in both chambers and the presidency and the Trump administration that's like, hey, we should ruffle some feathers and we should hit the reset button and do a lot of radical changes to fundamentally transform the United States. And I say that not in the sense of what Barack Obama did back in the day, but the fundamentally transforming America back to what we're supposed to be in the first place. Re-fundamentally changing, yeah, what we're supposed to do from what they fundamentally transformed back in the day.

It's a crazy time. All right, 901-260-5926. I do want to get to our next guest on the program, though, with the Liberty University Studios, as he is a regular guest here on the Todd Starnes Radio program for the day. And it's a great opportunity to talk about the opportunities we have and the opportunities missed that we're seeing in Congress right now. He's a Republican strategist.

You can find him on his tweety or the X at Josh Jones DC. The man himself, Mr. Josh Jones. How are you, my friend? I'm good.

I'm good. How are you? Yeah, doing great. Appreciate you jumping on us here with the Todd Starns Radio Show. Let's talk about where we're at now.

I've seen, and we've been reading the polls today, that we see one poll that Trump mentioned that among Republicans, he still has a roughly 90% approval rating, 95%, 100%. He said 100%, but I think it's right on 90%. Then we hear other polls that his approval rating is sitting at 35%. According to MSN today, they say that there's a new poll showing 81% of young Americans say the economy is in bad or terrible situation and going in the wrong direction. Josh, are we missing the boat here?

And what the heck do we have to do? To win people back over before the midterm elections in November and allow Democrats to somehow have economic choices again, because that doesn't seem like the very smart move to make. Yeah, you're right. Going back to your original point about the poll, the large majority of Republicans still support the president as they did when he first took office back in 2016, going up all the way until now, 10 years later. And Democrats still hate him.

And his poll numbers amongst Democrats are in the single digits. That hasn't changed over the course of Trump's entire political career. Where you do see the fluctuation is the independents, right? Who are they going to break for in the upcoming election? That's what you have to fight for.

But arguably, more important than that, as of right now. Is for Republican voters, you have to give them a reason to come out and vote. In 2024, the reason to come out and vote was a rebuking the Biden administration. That was a motivating factor of we don't like what the Biden administration has been doing, particularly as it relates to inflation and cost of living.

So we want to change course, and that's what drove people to the polls. Heading into the midterms, Republicans have to give something to drive people to the polls. If people feel like the cost of living is still up, which it is, and that Their life is becoming more and more unaffordable, the Republicans have to address that issue in order to drive those voters who care about that issue to the polls, particularly as you mentioned, young people. As a young person myself, the vast majority of my friends who I graduated college with or went to high school with, who are now in the early stages of their professional careers, look, they've landed good jobs and they're working in respected companies and industries, but it still feels like the cost of living is just too much to surmount. A lot of people don't know how they're ever going to afford a home.

And if neither party is addressing that issue, that's just leaving chips on the table.

So that's, I think, what Republicans have to do heading into the midterms this fall is give a reason for people to support you. Otherwise, they're not going to come out and vote for you. That's a great point.

So, here's the question: then, how do you think we should do that? I know that Zoran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, was the one that coined the term originally on the affordability issue, and Democrats tried to run with it. And kudos to President Trump. He tackled that issue and made it his own and said, We're going to address the affordability issue. That was after, by the way, the passage of the One Big Beautiful bill with the no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security.

So, we've had some big wins, but right now, like you said, I mean, the conflict in Iran is causing some higher gas prices, causing some stress at the pump a little bit and the economy in general because of all the travel and expenses to ship different items.

So, what can be done? We have a summer when Congress right now is working on a potential reconciliation bill. Is this the golden goose opportunity for us to throw a whole bunch of our agenda in there and pass it by summer to say, look at what we've done? I I th I think In an essence, that is what Republicans need to do. Because this Congress, and this is no indictment of Mike Johnson or any Republican leadership on the Hill, but this Congress has passed the least amount of legislation of any Congress in history.

Congress is setting on their hands. For example, we have a unified government right now. Republicans control the White House and both chambers on the Hill, but yet we've only passed roughly, and this was like a month ago, 88 pieces of legislation. Take that and go back to the first Obama administration. By this point, Congress had passed 250 bills, roughly speaking, supporting their agenda.

So Republicans on the Hill. Aren't pushing the agenda into getting it legislated and signed into law by the president.

So you've seen the president and the administration take a lot of executive action, which is great because that allows you to implement your policy and your agenda quickly. But that also means as soon as a Democrat is elected president again, that's going to get taken away.

So I think if you want to motivate Republicans, Start passing bills and get them to the president's desk before November and be like, look, you sent us to do this job and we're doing it, and here's the evidence. Yeah, that would be really nice. I would really enjoy that, and I think a lot of people would as well. What is the biggest obstacle here? Because we hear from the argument all the time, especially in the Senate, is we have this filibuster.

We don't have the 60 votes to get things done. And therefore, well, sorry, we'd love to do it, but we just can't. Is that really, truly an obstacle? Or is there a way to get around it? Either by ending the filibuster, which the Trump administration, President Trump has advocated for, or doing the actual stand-in filibuster like we should have done with the SAVE Act in order to just say, you know, the standing or the verbal or whatever they call it with that particular filibuster to say when Democrats leave, they're not counted and therefore we can actually get this passed and to actually use some political leverage here.

Why haven't we exercised or flexed our muscle here a little bit? That's a great question. I wish I had a simple answer to it. But to your point, yeah, do I think necessary the Senate should get rid of the filibuster? Not necessarily.

But there's other ways to get your legislation through the Senate that doesn't require you to nuke the filibuster altogether. Like you said, you could do the standing filibuster or better yet, and look. I get it, there's strong policy differences between Republicans and Democrats. But if you can make a deal in the Senate where there is a handful of respectable Democratic senators who would listen to reason, make that deal. Meet in the middle just to get these bills across the finish line.

Because for example, the Save America Act is one of the most flagship pieces of legislation that the administration is supporting and that Republican voters deeply care about. That's something you can't just let fall by the wayside. You have to keep fighting for it. Even if Democrats keep stealing walling, don't let them get away with blocking this. No, like you said, I mean, it's not just Republicans supporting this thing.

What? 80% of the American population in general, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, everybody actually support that. Just by passing that would give us major kudos going into the midterm season on the campaign trail for summertime. It would just be that easy. And it seems like, Josh, and you've seen this, you've been following this for a long time.

It seems like every time Republicans get the majority, we fall on our face. And then when we get the minority, we love being in the minority. We play the victim. We can't do anything. We need the House.

We need the Senate. We need the presidency. We need this stuff. And if only we could get those, then we would do really well. And we give it to them.

And then they don't do anything. And I think there's a lot of frustration there. I think you're right. I think you're right. And not to get too philosophical on it.

But to your point, whenever Democrats take the majorities in the White House off at the same time, they get things done. They pass big bills for better or for worse. Oftentimes for worse, but they come together and they're in lopstam every step of the way. Republicans don't do that. And I think, one, it speaks to the fact we're a big 10 party and there's a lot of ideological differences, but then the party speaks to the fact that we're a big 10 party.

But also, two, And I think this goes back to our core political philosophy, is Republicans are inherently more individualistic than Democrats. Democrats are becoming the collectivist party, the Democratic Socialist Party, they all think of one mind, whereas Republicans were the individualist party. And I think you can see that whenever it comes to uniting as a party on either side of the aisle in terms of getting things done in DC. Yeah, that is well, that is very true. And you know what?

That's a good thing and a bad thing. I love us being the wicked, wild, independent thinkers on our party. The problem is that when we have too much of that, then we can't get anything done. And it's really frustrating. We're talking about Josh Jones.

He's a Republican strategist. You can find him on his social media at Josh Jones DC. Let's talk about the positive side here for just a moment because I am still optimistic, even though we're hearing about all this doomsday about how Democrats are going to sweep us in the midterms. I don't know if that's necessarily true. Hearing different interviews with the chair of the RNC and how the party is in general, we are dominating on the fundraising side.

We're bringing in a lot of money. Elon Musk says that he's going to be helping out candidates across the country. Democrats are still trying to dig out of a hole. Because they took out, what, like $40 million, $70 million last year for special and off-season elections and took loans out, and they're just trying to pay those back right now.

So they're still, while they have momentum from just the rhetoric standpoint, financially, they're still struggling really badly. Is that going to help us go through this year? Yeah, I mean, it definitely is. There's a huge addenance on the Republican side of the aisle. And let's, you know, just to set the table a little bit, that hasn't ever happened in modern history in the sense of Republicans having more money in the fundraising side of things compared to the Democrats.

If you go back every modern election in the last 20, 25 years, Democrats have always, always, always had the spending advantage when it comes to, especially every election, particularly when it comes to House and Senate races. For once, Republicans, we have actually crushed the Democrats in their fundraising. I think that is going to have a big impact come this fall. Because, look, obviously it is about momentum and grassroots and having that support on the ground. But also, too, a big part of it is getting on the airwaves, getting your ads out there, getting your message out there to the voters so they can hear what you actually stand for.

So I think, look, as long as Republicans are smart about how they spend the money, then it'll put us in a good spot and can make up some of that difference of the momentum that the Democrats have. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because you're right. Traditionally, Republicans, conservatives, we do way better at the grassroots campaign level, knocking doors, making phone calls, connecting with our constituents, and winning them over with a one-on-one conversation. We do that way better than the Democrats. And in fact, under Barack Obama, when he was looking over and heading over the Democrats, he completely gutted the statewide Democrat parties.

And they're still suffering from that years later because they never invested down at the local levels for that grassroots campaigning. And I think that's come to bite them in the butt.

So we are, if we spend it responsibly and if we are financially responsible, like we say we are when we're trying to craft budgets at the government level, then we should do relatively well on that front. Last topic for you as we shift gears here, I want to talk about the bickering among the Republican Party. And you teased it with all the different wicked, wild free thinkers that we have, but. It almost seems like we now have an insurgence internally from the quote-unquote MA movement fighting amongst the MAGA movement. And that's the Marjorie Taylor Greens, and that's the Tucker Carlsons and the Candace Owens that have sabotaged the party and trying to tear it apart from within.

We're traditionally very good at doing that ourselves as well. But is this a concern to drive people away from the movement, do you think? I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think a lot of times, particularly for those of us who work in industry, people can get caught up in the Twitter feeds and the online rhetoric from some of these influencers. But if you go and talk to the average voter and ask them, hey, what do you think about Tucker Carlson's latest position on the Trump administration?

They're going to be like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

So I think, look, does it have some level of impact? Sure. All things do. But is this affecting the midterms in any serious way? Absolutely not.

And look, political movements evolve. They don't just stay the same. And that's a good thing. The circumstances on the world stage change, the circumstances in the country change, and you have to be willing to adapt and overcome. That doesn't mean you drop your principles, but you have to be flexible.

And I think that's what you see from the Trump administration. And some of these people, like you said, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, others. I think they're still stuck in this mindset of, hey, No. They need a newsflash. Hey, it's not 2015, 2016 anymore.

But are we still putting America first and advancing those same principles we were advocating for then? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, if you would listen to Candace Owens and Erica Kirk is nothing more than a CIA operative wanting to take out Charlie Kirk intentionally for her to run Turning Point USA and do whatever with it.

So, you know, I guess there is that theory out there, and you have the right to believe it, even though how loony it actually is. Josh, we appreciate it, my friend. That's why you're the rock star breaking this down for us, giving us some hope and optimism. We need to see Congress act, but I'm still optimistic that we're going to hold these elections in midterm because we're the eternal optimists here on this program. Josh, we appreciate it.

Got to get you back on and do it again soon. Thanks. I appreciate it. Hey, you bet. Republican strategist Josh Jones.

You can find him on the Tweety at Josh Jones DC and go and check him out right here on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker hotline of the Todd Starnes Radio Show. Let's take a break. Let's break some of this down. Get your thoughts on it when we come back around the corner at 901-260-5926. It is the Todd Starnes Radio Show.

All right, welcome back to the Tot Starns Radio Program. Moving through the day today, I want to tell you about our friends over at MyPillow. As you know, Michael and Dell and the MyPillow employees are thanking you for the great support that you've given them over the past year, and they're looking forward to making 2026 the best year yet. And as a thank you to the Tot Starns Radio listeners right here on the program, MyPillow is exclusively offering free shipping on your entire order at wholesale pricing. That means they're bringing back the mega sale exclusively for the listeners here on the program.

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Amazing deals. All right, 901-260-5926. Let's go to the phones and let's go to Murph in Germantown, Tennessee, on the great flagship of KWM. Murph, what's going on, my friend? How are you?

Hey, thanks. Thanks. Listen, I'd recommend those my pillows. We have four of them, and they're great. Oh, good.

Stock up on them. That's awesome. I love that. Yeah, buddy.

Now, I've got a couple of questions for you. I was listening to all of your gurus you were talking to. Yeah. Okay. And.

Number one, where in the United States Constitution does it say the President of the United States is in complete control and dictates the American economy? That's question number one. Second question, number two. Where can you find anywhere in the Constitution or the Federalist Papers Or Anything along that line, the word affordability, where does that deal with econo with constitutional issues. Third question.

Okay. If you recall, Franklin Delanore Roosevelt guru or adviser, Henry Hopkins. Democratic Party We will tax Tax, tax. We will spend spend Spend. And last but not least, people think the economy is rough and tough and bouncing around, what have you.

Nancy and I bought our first house in nineteen eighty two. She was just out of nursing school, and we had a two year old. The interest rate was sixteen percent. Yeah. And we went into debt to our chin.

And slowly but surely, that debt went all the way back down to the bottoms of our feet. And now Fifty years later, We have no complaints. Yeah. Well, God bless you for that. And you're right.

1982. Yeah, that would have been towards the end of the Jimmy Carter era when those interest rates were so insanely high and everybody thought that he did such a great job. But that's why we saw that pendulum swing to Ronald Reagan, where we had to recorrect that course, right?

Well, you take care. If you answer those questions, please, sir. I will do so. I tell you what, Murpho, we are going into the top of the hour now.

So I have them written down and I will answer your questions as the top of next hour as we come back because those are great points. And I'm glad you brought those up as we talk about the economy, the affordability issue, and whose role that actually is.

So great points. And thank you for that very much, my friend. Murph, over with K-Lamb, the flagship for the Tot Starns Radio Program. We'll address some of those issues when we come back in your phone calls. They're great points.

Where do we go with the economy and whose responsibility really is it to make the economy quote-unquote affordable? It's the Tot Starns Radio Program. We'll do it right around the corner for the next hour. Stay here. Live from the Liberty University Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's favorite gun-totin, Bible-clinging, deplorable American.

That's us! That's right! I love Love this American ride. Todd starts. What is up, America?

Welcome into it. It is the Todd Starns Radio Program. It is so great to have you for a Tuesday today, a Cinco de Mayo celebration. If you are not eating a taco for lunch today, then what the heck's wrong with you, man? Come on, stuff it.

Get enjoy it. Get to enjoy the taco or the torta. Do whatever you got to do, but it is Cinco de Mayo.

So happy Cinco de Mayo to you. I enjoyed mine.

So here in the Wichita area, by the way, my name is Andy Hoosier, filling in for Todd Starns. He is recovering on recovery mode. We are praying for him. And I tell you what, with the way it sounded, 90% blockage of his main artery of his heart, which is why he's had his health issues the past week or so. The fact that he caught it when he needed to and he went and got it checked out, I mean, that is a sign from God itself.

So thank you so much for that. And the fact that he's going to be on the recovery mode, we want to hear him back behind the microphone relatively soon, and we cannot wait for that to happen. But until then, Todd, have no fear. We are here and we got you covered, brothers. We love you very much.

But Andy Hoosier sitting in today, moving that Liberty University studio out to Wichita, Kansas. KQAM, Witchdown's Big Talker, my flagship station and great affiliate of the Todd Starnes radio show. If you want to jump in, 901-260-5926. 901-260-5926. Happy Cinco de Mayo.

I celebrated the Cinco de Mayo this past weekend. I know, not technically on May 5th, but yesterday was May the 4th. Be with you today, Cinco de Mayo. Here in our cluster of stations that we have in the Wichita, Kansas area, we have a Spanish station, 1025, the Raza, and they have their Cinco de Mayo celebration every year. It is at our county zoo, which is one of the best zoos in the country, mind you, by the way, which is really awesome.

And they have. Thousands of people show up to this thing. It's insane. For their celebration, bands all day long, food vendors, other vendors checking it out. I think just we got some of the preliminary numbers and just paid people that don't even already have like memberships to the zoo that show up.

Just one-time paid members, paid people that showed up to the event on Sunday, over 8,000, 8,09,000 people. It was insane with how many people show up to this thing.

So it's awesome. We love it. And I go there every year, not only to because I'm part of the family of cluster radio stations and support them, but. I have to get my torta. And if you don't know what a torta is, highly recommend it, man, because it is one of the best food you will ever eat in your entire life.

And I am okay eating a torta seven days a week, three times a day. I'm okay with that. That's it.

So, that being said, happy Cinco de Mayo to you. And if you celebrate that, if not, then whatever. It's an excuse to go eat tacos. And who the heck doesn't want to eat a taco? I mean, come on, man.

All right, 901-260-5926. No guests this hour. You and I chit in the chat doing our thing here on the Todd Starns radio program. We had Color Murph at the end of last hour, and I wrote down the questions that he had asked. He asked three questions, and I want to address those.

Because he brings up great points across the board on the economy. The economy seems to be the number one driving factor to people in election season, whether things are doing well or not doing well. And unfortunately, it all relies on a political party or a president that's in office on whether they get the credit of it doing well or not doing well. And that's not the way the system's set up, but politically, that's kind of the way the system's set up. We always look at the economy.

Oh, the economy did well under Ronald Reagan. Oh, the economy didn't do so well under Jimmy Carter. Oh, the economy did well under Barack Obama. And the problem with that argument. is that it takes time for economic policy to make a difference.

Now The first question, I guess we can go down these one by one from what Murphy asked us and we can relate them all to each other is number one, he asks, where is it in the Constitution that the president has control of the economy? And the generalized basic answer to that is that it's not. There's nowhere in the Constitution that the president dictates the economy or controls the economy.

Now, based on policy they advocate for, if you spend more money at the government level, then you have to either raise taxes or you have to print more money. Either one is a bad option.

So therefore, based on the policy that you advocate for can dictate whether the economy is going to do well or not, because if you're lowering the value of the dollar, you're not going to have a strong economy. If you're raising taxes on people, then you're putting more financial burden on them because they have less money in the private sector and therefore you're going to have a bad economy.

So, the policy that you advocate for will dictate the economy one way or the other, but there's nowhere in the Constitution. where the President itself controls the economy. In fact, Congress holds the power of the person. They make the majority of those decisions, and the President can advocate for one policy or another. The problem is, is that we live in a society of instant gratification.

And you can blame social media, you can blame just a bunch of really impatient people that we live in a society of instant gratification. And the prime example of what we're seeing right now is the nation of Iran and the conflict that we're going through right now in the gas prices that have gone up. We have forgotten, as a society already, with our short-term memory loss that we have and with the instant gratification that we want, that the unfortunately, this is not good, but unfortunately, the vast majority of society. Does not care how much corruption is going on in DC. does not care about threats going on abroad.

Does not care about the global powers trying to dominate and get rid of the idea of nationalism, get rid of the idea. Of the America First Agenda, most people don't care as long as their day-to-day operation is just untouched. And we're seeing that right now. Donald Trump saw a threat with Iran. And he said, we need to do something about it.

Now, whether you can agree with that or you can disagree with that, you can think it's an America first agenda, or you can say he's betraying the America First Agenda by focusing on global issues and getting involved in another foreign conflict. You can say that having a nuclear weapon with Iran is a bad thing, or you can say we just don't really care. It's not our responsibility. It's not going to reach us.

So who really cares? Depending on where you stand on that issue. Donald Trump felt the need that that was a major threat to the United States. Unfortunately, that also affected the Strait of Hormuz, where twenty percent of the oil passes through that the globe uses. Why we have 20% of our energy demands through a strait that's controlled by a terrorist regime, that's kind of weird to me.

And he thought that to be a problem, and he understood the concept. That it may be a little rocky temporarily while we address this issue. After already solving the energy crisis and having lower gas prices within Munt to go back to what he was at the end of the first term of his administration, that we realized it's going to be rocky for a short time while we address this issue and then it will go back down. And in fact, probably will go back down better than what it was even prior to this from what we saw about a year ago. From now.

But people with their short-term memory loss and their instant gratification, they don't care. They just don't care. And that's why we see all these polls, and the media is going to exemplify it and they're going to run with it and talk about how bad people are and how angry people are with the Trump economy, which is why MSN has this poll right now that shows that 81% of young adults say the economy is in bad or terrible state. Because we went from having some of the best gas prices that we haven't seen in four plus years at the end of the first administration to now gas prices not even to the peak of what it was under Joe Biden, but it's higher than it was a year ago.

So therefore, every catastrophe is out there. It's the end of the world. It's the doomsday scrolling.

So, to answer point number one, does the president have control of the economy based on the Constitution? No. But in the Society and the culture that we live in today, we put that responsibility on them. And based on their decisions, even knowing that it's going to the ends are going to justify the means and that we're going to see better stuff at the end of the day without corruption happening behind the scenes to run it, that he knows it's going to be better based on these policy changes. People don't care.

That's really honest to God. And if you are one of those, I want to hear from you on the program: 901-260-5926. If you are, it's like, hey, my life is doing my thing, going to work every day, putting food on the table. That's what I care about. I don't care about anything else, and I don't care that there are corrupt individuals in DC.

that are benefiting from the way the system operates right now. I don't care that there are threats and terrorist regimes around the world that control the energy that I use. As long as we don't rock that bow, I can keep my day-to-day operations functioning relatively okay. I just don't care. I got better things to pay attention to.

And that instant gratification, why isn't it the way I want it right now? That's point number one.

Now, point number two, he mentioned about the affordability. Affordability is not a term in the Constitution in any way, shape, or form. And affordability is relatively speculative, right? It may be better priced for consumer goods in one area than it is in another area. That comes down to the idea of states.

Prime example: price of gas again. Right now, we see here in Kansas, we just hit an average of $4 a gallon, I want to say, and people are losing their minds. They're all angry. We are still, as Kansans, proud Kansan here, we are still the second cheapest gas in the entire nation. I don't know where, Dylan, what are you guys there in Tennessee?

What's the gas prices for you guys out there right now? Is it right around $4, a little over $4? I don't know. I think we're right up next to $4. We're like 380.

Okay, 380.

So you guys are right up there about where we are then.

Okay. So, okay, yeah.

So, a little bit different than, let's say, California that's sitting at $6 or $7 a gallon. What's the difference?

Well, the difference is, if you want to talk about affordability, it's again back to policy, but at a statewide level. Because Again, getting back to an idea of Constitution, that these powers are supposed to necessarily come back to the states with state sovereignty to make their own economic decisions. And $4 a gallon of gas in Kansas, because of the lack of taxes, lack of regulation over that industry, vastly different from a state like California that taxes them immensely because they are a greedy, socialist, Democrat-run state, and that's why they have $6 gallons of gas. It's not because of the evil oil company. They're not making a difference in profit from gas sold in Kansas compared to gas sold in California.

That's not what they're doing. They're just making the same amount across the board, but it's the taxes on top of that at a local and statewide level. That's what we need to be aware of. Policy at the federal level, policy at the statewide level. And affordability is relative based on where you live in the nation.

Heck, in California, what, San Francisco, LA area, you have to have what, like at least $200,000 just to survive out there? Kind of crazy. I don't know how you do it, by the way, either. Beautiful area. I don't know how you make that much money to survive on a regular basis.

That's kind of wild. And I envy you on that. I envy you being successful to make that much. I don't envy having to just barely make ends meet with that kind of money. That's kind of hard for my brain to wrap my head around.

But nonetheless, that leads to the issue of how we actually get out of this. And it's twofold. And I know this is probably relatively unpopular for many that are listening to the program right now, but it's more than just government policy. It is also our own personal responsibility. Yeah, I know when we put the pressure back on ourselves, it becomes extremely unpopular, and I can hear the dials turning away.

How dare he say that I have to take responsibility for this? But it's true. Look, if you have a mortgage that is well above your means of what you can pay for, and an auto loan on top of that, and a whole bunch of credit cards and living on credit card, I don't mean to turn into like a Dave Ramsey financial expert here. I'm not, but. As our caller said at the end of last hour, 16% interest rate on a home?

That's kind of crazy. And God bless you being able to pay that off. That's kind of crazy. I remember before I got back into radio, for those that don't know on the Todd Stearns radio show, I was a banker. I was a personal banker.

So I actually worked at one of the banks inside of a grocery store.

So I was the teller doing your deposit or withdrawal while I was pitching you a credit card, while I was opening up your checking account, and I was filing your mortgage or refinance for your home or your car loan or whatever. I did it all. And at that time, this was... Oh, I don't know. 20, not 2015, 2012, 2013.

I don't remember. Around that time, we were running sales for 1.5% HELOX, home equity lines of credit, 1.5%. And now I go to the bank and it's like 6%. Kind of crazy. So a little bit different time, but you got to have those responsibilities at your own level.

What can you afford? And living in debt is not affordably living because if something happens, what do they say? 60%, 70% of Americans. can't afford a a $1,000 emergency that may come up. And that's kind of an eye-opener.

So, not only should we be calling for Congress to act responsibly with our money and not taking out a whole bunch of taxes and not regulating us to death and not spending above their means when we have, by the way, just the report a couple of days ago of Congress hitting $37 trillion of a national debt and now spending or at least being in debt of 100% of the GDP. Meaning if you take every penny. From every man, woman, child, small business, and corporation across the country, it would barely pay for what we're doing at the federal level. 100%. And that's kind of wild.

When we used to have it capped at, what, eighteen percent, maybe twenty percent of the GDP, government could only spend that much because we want GDP growth and we want to keep government spending down. We have to get back to that level. But at the same time, regardless of what government does, Our finances are our own responsibility. And we can't rely on to make or break based on what policy happens in government. Because if you rely on government to do the right thing, you're going to be poorly mistaken.

And that's going to be an issue.

So I hope that answers the questions on what we have to do. It's a multi-front level, but unfortunately, we've like to pass off the blame. We like to play the victim and we like to look at the leaders to say, do something, which is more of a cultural issue. Hey, government, there's a problem. I feel uncomfortable.

Government, do something. And we see that across the board with the economy. And with education and with guns and public shootings, government do something. And I think we're finally, finally, here's the optimism before we wrap this up. I'm finally starting to see that transition in culture.

Because we're seeing now Less people relying on government for the answer and looking towards a higher power. Taking responsibility back into their own hands, going back to church, finding that guidance, and realizing that a bureaucrat and politician in government in Washington probably is not going to solve your issues. And we have to find a way to get that power back away from them that we gave to them for so many years. And we have to figure out a way to start taking that power back into our own hands and figuring it out ourselves. Because I don't know, I may be 37 and may not have a whole lot of life experience.

But at the same time, I have learned pretty quickly that if I want something done, Can't really rely on someone else to do it. I got to figure it out myself. And that's an unfortunate way of the world, but that is a realist way of the world. All right.

Your thoughts on this? Agree, disagree? I want to hear from you. 901-260-5926. It is the Todd Starns Radio Program.

All right, welcome back to it. It is the Todd Sterns Radio Program. I know I went on a long tangent there. You can agree, disagree. I'd love to hear your thoughts on where we're at economically, who's responsible for it, and how do we fix this issue and this madness that we are in right now, culturally and politically here in the country.

901-260-5926. By the way, speaking of how we spend our money responsibly or lack thereof, there has been some new information from the Transparency Task Force of Vice President J.D. Vance, Dr. Oz, and their investigation of hundreds, and I mean hundreds of hospice care facilities in the state of California, cutting them off from speculation of being fraudulent and then. Never getting a call back, meaning kind of confirmed that they are fraudulent.

I know that when you post this on social media, they say, oh, it's fake news, but it's really kind of not. Dr. Roz was on an interview just recently and said this. Numbers out there, so everyone's clear. One in three hospices in America.

are in Los Angeles, not California. LA. One and three. I mean, how many people are dying there? Obviously, it's fraudulent.

And the red flags that were mentioned in that wonderful report are all evident. You have doctors selling their souls, basically their license number, to open multiple hospice relationships. They dishonestly claim people are dying when they're not. If they steal your money, they will steal your life. They don't care at all about you, as you saw from that wonderful couple that's thankfully now being adopted by a real hospice.

And I'm a big fan of hospice. When done correctly, it works well. But when one in three hospices in the country are in Los Angeles, we believe that at least half of those are fraudulent. This is massive fraud.

Now we've already delisted 450 hospices. That is an unbelievably large number. And guess what? In that first tranche, no one's complained. No one's calling us and saying, no, no, no, we are innocent.

They know they got caught. They're just going to go off and scam somebody else, which is what's happening, by the way. That is mind-blowing. 450 of them that they've cut funding off and not a single call back saying, hey, where's my money? Like, none of that stuff.

That's wild to me. And it really just reaffirmed that not only do we have fraud. But it seems like, and this is why, number one, in my opinion, this may be an extremist, radicalized position, but governments, especially federal government, Constitutionally, it is not supposed to be involved in social programs. Period. End of story.

That is Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, nothing. Like all of that stuff. If you want those types of programs, those are supposed to be done at a statewide level. That's my opinion. Very controversial.

You can take it or leave it on that front. But I think that they're not supposed to be done in the first place. The fact that they are done, and it's so easy for this fraud to happen with 450 hospice facilities, tells me. That the fraud was built into the system to allow to be happen.

So, when they crafted the whole structure of these programs in the first place, they left it open to allow this type of fraud. And it's time for a reset button on how all of it functions on all levels. We'll talk some more about that around the corner. It's the Time Stars radio program. Lots more coming up.

Stay here. All right, welcome back to it. It is the Todd Starnes radio program on the home stretch here. I want to hear from you at 901-260-5926. You can find more information about Todd on his website, ToddStarnes.com.

Also, don't forget to follow him on social media. He is putting some updates out on his health condition, how he's doing. Hopefully, back at it before you know it behind the microphone. And we cannot wait to hear him on the radio again. If you want to find my information, you can at Who's Your Reason, H-O-O-S-E-R Reason, hosting the Voice of Reason radio program as I am flagships here in Kansas, KQAM, the big talker, and a great affiliate of the Todd Starnes radio show.

I want to hear from you today, though, at 901-260-5926. We have not talked much about this issue today, so I figured we need to. Earlier today, the Trump administration did. He signed the proclamation for the Presidential Fitness Test Awards. For public schools, which was awesome.

And by the way, I saw the video, there were a lot of kids there, both in the Oval Office and then outside. Trump was out hanging out with the high school kids out on the front yard of the White House. And they were sitting there and chatting and hanging out and just having a good time. And then Donald Trump totally busted out the dance moves to show them how to do some proper dancing. You can see the typical Donald Trump dance style at 80 years old, which is well done.

And I love that. And he was showing the kids how to do that.

So showing those young kids how to bust out the moves on the dance floor. That was really neat. But while the ceremony was going on, he did do the proclamation for the presidential fitness test, but then he was also answering some other questions. He did bring up the issue of Iran. They didn't shoot the ships that were guarded by us.

I'll tell you that. We knocked out a lot of missiles.

So what happens is that we have. Uh a situation where we have total control. As you know, the blockade's been amazing. It's like a piece of steel. Nobody's going to challenge the blockade.

And I think it's working out very well. We're going to see. I can say this: Iran. wants to make a deal. What I don't like about Iran is they'll talk to me with such great respect.

And then they'll go on television, they'll say, We did not speak to the president. We did not, I just spoke to. We did not speak to the President.

So They play games, but let me just tell you, they want to make a deal. And who wouldn't? when your military is totally gone. We can do anything we want to them. Who wouldn't?

Who wouldn't? So, all right, so President Trump making that statement today. Here's the issue: This is, they promised it would, or hoped, that it would go on between four to six weeks.

So, I believe in week number eight. I want to say, so we're about two months into this conflict, and I ask you the question. I turn it over to you and your expertise and your opinion on where do we go from here. Because they said four to six weeks, and we're still involved there. We continue to try to negotiate with whatever leader, now that we're 50 people deep into their roster, for the Ayatollah and for this regime that was running the nation of Iran.

And we don't know exactly who the leaders are. We get different agreements and different proposals and negotiations from different people every time. Donald Trump still wants to negotiate with them. When we're now battling with the Strait of Hormuz. And now we have this Project Freedom, which is allowing the safe passage of ships in and out of there.

So that will help the economy here, will drive oil prices back down when things start flowing normally through there while we blockade things coming in and out of the nation of Iran itself, because that is their economy. The oil industry that's stockpiling, by the way, all the refineries that they have, all the oil production that they have in Iran, it's sitting there. We're not buying that oil. We're allowing the flow of other oil from around the world, and by the way, seeing a lot of ships coming here to the US of A, which is. another reason why we're seeing high gas prices, because we're not the only ones now using our own oil.

We're now selling it to other people on the global market, which in the long term is going to be really cool. But for now, in the short time, it's going to be a bit of a strain on us with the demand that's increased for what we have.

So I turn it over to you and ask. What is the future of this? My personal opinion, I have been saying for a while. And I called this at the very beginning as well: the only way that this would end is a regime change. And I don't mean by us, by putting in our own people and trying to do a regime change, like we have said we've not wanted to do.

And a Trump administration that does not want long-term conflict and does not want to be part of a regime change, like Pete Hankseth has said, that his generation, our generation, we've done that, we've been there, we don't want anything to do with it. Again, that's not the type of situation we're in. But if we end this entire Muslim, radicalized Islamist regime and say, hey, people of Iran. You're not predominantly Muslim. You're not predominantly Islamist.

They've tried to convert you for the past 40 years, but you're predominantly still not that religion and not that ideology. You're Persian. You're Uh, you're Arabian, you're Aryan, you're these different belief systems, and different people of Iran with a long, rich, and beautiful history. You are not predominantly or historically Muslim or Islamist. Let's get rid of this government regime and then make sure that no other nations come in to create a vacuum in there, but say, hey, Persian people, hey, original Iranians, do your thing.

And in my opinion, whether you agree with that's what we should do or not, my opinion, that's the only thing that will end this because Donald Trump has said it in his own statement that we're negotiating with these people. And then they turn around and say, no, we don't talk to the president. We don't talk to America. And then they try to do this negotiation and they give this peace proposal and then they end up not abiding by it. Kind of like Vladimir Putin in Russia.

He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, we'll stop bombing Ukraine. We'll stop bombing the apartment complexes and everything else. And then while he's saying that they have drones out there blowing up apartment complexes and killing civilians, which is crazy. And the UN, by the way, another example, 2,485, why the United Nations is a worthless organization because they do absolutely nothing. We should dismantle the UN.

We should pull out of the UN and just destroy the entire concept of global governance. Because it doesn't do anything. Vladimir Putin has committed more crimes against humanity than anybody else in modern America and modern age, and we have done nothing. Why? Because they're on the board for crimes against humanity.

They're the humanitarian organizations and boards on the UN, and they're not going to vote against themselves saying that they're committing crimes against humanity.

So it's never going to work. That concept will never function or never be successful. But back to Iran, they're never going to follow through or abide by. They have never. Follow through with any of the Iranian deals.

The deals that they made with Barack Obama back in the day, with the deals they made with Trump in the first administration, with the deals they made with Joe Biden in his administration, they've never abided by it. They don't understand the basic concept of the rule of law. That you write down something on a piece of paper and that you have to abide by it. You have to have self-restraint to not bridge what is written on that piece of paper. They don't understand that concept.

To them, it's still kind of the Stone Age. We're the dictators, we're the authoritarians, we're going to do what we want to. We'll execute the people that we want, we'll impose tariffs or impose taxes on the people that we want. We'll start war when we want because we just have our own agenda. And that's really the nation of Iran and how it's going to work.

So, in my opinion, it's never going to stop until that's done. And they don't want to do that. They're trying to negotiate, they're trying to play nice, but at some point. We have to say enough is enough. And Donald Trump, I don't know when that threshold is for him.

Obviously, he's privy to more information than I am. But just by observation, the third-party outsider looking at the 30,000-foot view right now, that's the only way this is going to end. And I don't know if they have the political capital to do something like that. Pete Hegseff with the Department of War made a statement earlier today with a press statement to kick off the morning as well and was talking about where we're at right now. Iran is the clear aggressor.

harassing civilian vessels, threatening mariners from every nation, indiscriminately and weaponizing a critical choke point for its own financial benefit, or at least trying to. For too long, Iran has been harassing ships, shooting at civilian tankers from all nations. and trying to impose a tolling system. Iran's plan, a form of international extortion. is unacceptable.

That ends with Project Freedom. Two U.S. commercial ships. along with American destroyers, have already safely transited the strait, showing the lane is clear. We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact.

All right, so that was his statement earlier today. Is that working? Is Project Freedom going to be the savior to get things going again? It's going to temporarily maybe save the economy or get gas prices back down by the flow of oil through that straight again, but it doesn't solve the issue. It doesn't solve the main issue, which is we have a regime that continues to be rabble-rousers, not abide by any agreement that we shake hands to, completely not even admit publicly the conversations that they're having with the Trump administration.

Well, they continue to do their own thing. And again, the only solution there is to end the regime and say, hey, Iranian Persian people, go do your thing again and take your country back. And until that's done, I don't know. It seems like we're trying to beat around the bush and do everything except. What needs to be done, and right now, with the popularity of this conflict in Iran, that apparently is now in the approval ratings lower than Vietnam or Korea.

With our conflicts there, we have to do something. This is not a good look for the midterm season. This is not a good look for the quote-unquote affordability agenda, trying to get our economy back on track. When Donald Trump says that most Americans are willing to pay the higher gas prices to make sure nuclear weapons aren't obtained by Iran, I agree, but this is not supposed to be a long-term thing. And they keep saying it's not going to be.

So when is it going to be done?

Now that we're eight, nine weeks into it and you promised four to six weeks. And I don't mean to badger the Trump administration because overwhelmingly I support what they're doing, but come on, do what we're good at doing. I want to see an operation kind of like the Nicolas Maduro thing. I want to go in, I want to eliminate it, and get out and be done with it. The first bombing we had at that nuclear site was kind of awesome, right?

It happened in the dead of night. No one really expected it. We flew over that, and this is before the conflict about a year ago, right? They flew in there, blew up the uranium site, and boom was out. Done.

Like, hey, hey, we're not starting a long-term war. We're getting this done. We're making sure they don't have any type of nuclear capabilities in some fashion. Then we were concerned that that might be continuing in that regime that's just not getting along with anybody else. We have to put a tamper to them.

We want them to kneel and recognize their lack of ability and recognize that they're not working well with the global stage. Cool. Where are we at with that? Project Freedom and protecting and doing the blockade and allowing the freedom of flow through that strait. That's a great step.

If that's what our plan is right now, then that's what the long-term. move is going to be. Is let's just stay there and just protect the strait as Iran continues to be the nuisance in the region. What are we doing, man? What are we doing?

Where's the end of this look and how do we fix that? Because we want the economy done here, especially for midterms, to look better and get things back on track. And we do want, we can't isolate ourselves. One of the issues I have, and I want to go to Marjorie Taylor Greene for just a moment. She spoke at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Now, to preface, I'm a fan of Ron Paul. I'm a fan of the libertarian movement. I think that they're sometimes so ideologically driven, they don't understand how to turn their ideology into progress and productivity. And that's the problem with most libertarians. But overall, I consider myself a conservatarian.

And I agree with people like Rand and Ron Paul. I agree with people like Thomas Massey. I used to agree a lot with Marjorie Taylor Greene. But, you know, they have to find a way to be. More productive with how to implement their actual agenda.

She says that all of this global issue. Is a turning away of the America First Agenda. And I don't necessarily agree with that mindset. This is what she said just a few days ago.

So I ran for Congress believing in this concept of make America great again. And to me, that meant our businesses. To me, that meant how our tax dollars are spent. And to me, that meant for our own families and our future. and for our country.

I'm also a great believer in state rights. And I believe that the federal government has grown into, it started out as a cute little puppy. back in seventeen seventy six, one that was so lovable. But over these years, it's grown into a giant monster that eats all the food in your kitchen and your pantry, goes to the bathroom all over your house, chews up your sofa cushions. and basically destroys your home.

That's what our federal government is. All right.

So I don't know what she's talking about there. But look, ideologically, I'm sure that most of us listening to this program here on the Tom Starns Radio show, most of us agree with that mindset. Government is too big. We should bring power back to the statewide level. And we want the America First agenda.

And we want the idea of America first by focusing on our domestic issues. I completely agree with all of that. The problem is with Marjorie Taylor Greene and with Ron Paul and with Rand Paul and with Thomas Massey, whom I adore and I appreciate and I stand with them ideologically, they don't understand that there are greater things out there as well that you have to address. Whether we like it or not, we live in a globalized economy. Which means issues with foreign policy and trade issues and tariff issues and debt issues and people buying our debt and buying our bonds and foreign threats and terrorism.

All of that is related to how well we are here on the domestic front.

So, yes, you have to be involved in those issues in order to focus on the America First Agenda. That's kind of common sense now. You cannot be what they're advocating for in the purist mindset of an isolationist nation. We don't care what's going on anywhere in the world. We're just going to focus on right here.

That's not the way that things work today. Because ideologically, I agree with everything. The problem they have is that they don't see that everything is interconnected. Because if we just allow Iran to have this straight and to dominate and to threaten and to do what they do, and we're like, no, no, we don't want to rock that boat. We want cheaper gas prices here.

We don't want that to impact us. We're just going to let them continue to be corrupt and crazy out there. That's not good policy. And it's unfortunate to see a lot of these purists walking away from the MAGA movement, walking away from the Trump administration. But we have to answer the question: Trump administration, what is the long-term play here for Iran?

And negotiating and trying to talk with them doesn't work.

So, what's the next step in making this happen? 901-260-5926. 901-260-5926. It is the Todd Starns radio program back after this. All right, welcome back to the Task Storms Radio program.

Got a few minutes left here. If you want to jump on the show, looking at headlines on Dredge Report right now, it shows that apparently the ceasefire is not doing well with Iran. Coincidentally, according to Pete Hegsup, he says we are still in a semi-quasi-kind of sort of ceasefire, but it's not working out where Iran continues to taunt and have been launching more missiles.

So, obviously, again, shocker not following along with the ceasefire or agreeing to anything because, well, they just don't listen to anyone at any point. And eventually, we'll have to come to that realization. Hey, want to tell you about our friends over at Patriot Mobile. As you know, every day Americans make choices that shape our country's future, and right now, That cell phone provider that you support on a regular basis. Where's that money going and what do they actually stand for?

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That's patriotmobile.com/slash Todd or call 972 Patriot and make that switch today. All right, 901-260-5926 is the number if you want to call into this program. Coming up later on, in fact, relatively soon, I think, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State and the fill-in-the-blank any other duty that he does, is going to be guest hosting the press conference today to fill in for Caroline Levitt, who is out for her maternity leave. And that guy, I don't know how Marco Rubio does it. He is probably one of the most fascinating guys in politics because he's he reminds me of a radio guy where you just wear all the different hats and you do so many different things.

As Secretary of State and is the head of the task forces and the Board of Peace for the Trump administration, and he's apparently the White House decorator, and he is also a DJ. This past weekend was a video of him doing some DJ work at a wedding, and now he's going to be press secretary and fill in for Caroline Levitt. The memes are truly real with him doing just about everything under the sun for the Trump administration, and it shows the versatility that he has. And I think he enjoys it. I really think he likes that one.

By the way, I think he's also going to be. The president of Venezuela, because why the heck not, right? And that was kind of his baby to try and topple Nicolas Maduro and get that one done.

So, God bless you, Marco Rubio. Keep that one up. And with everything else that you're doing. But hopefully, we'll see Todd back behind the microphone before you know it. It's been an honor and a pleasure to do so.

Andy, who you're filling in for the Todd Starns Radio Program. Everybody, have a great Tuesday. We'll see you back on the radio soon. Bye.