Most Americans Say Country is Going to Hell in a Hand Basket

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That's us, that's right. I love this American ride. And hello everybody. Welcome to the Todd Starnes radio program. We are so delighted to have you with us today.

A lot going on. And we've got some great guests coming up as well. 844-747-8868 Write down that telephone number You will need that if you plan on giving us a call During the program today Congressman Scott Perry is going to be here Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus Also, we're going to check in with Megan Basham Over at the Daily Wire She has an exclusive story Disney says they are going to oppose and fight against the Texas order that stops these sex change surgeries on kids.

So we're going to be talking with her about that. Also, she has some breaking news for you Southern Baptists out there.

So finally, somebody's doing something about the wokeness of the Southern Baptist Convention. Man, that denomination is going to hell in a handbasket. And I'm a member of that denomination, by the way. Also, our good friend Mark Meckler, we met him at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. He is president of the Convention of States, and there is a brand new survey out concerning our borders, which have literally been overrun.

Now, a couple of things before we jump into the story of the day. and grace baker i um i was wondering i i don't know if we should hold this till the end of the show but i think we just need to go ahead and let people um decide uh for themselves let people you know we'll let people decide if they want to participate in this uh right now and let's go back after we have people cleared out of the uh control room there uh so we'll get back to that in just a moment but anyway um again uh we have some exciting news to share with you and we will do that in just a few moments. There is a new survey out, and this survey is fascinating to me. A majority of Americans say the country is going to hell in a handbasket.

Now, I'm somewhat intrigued by this survey because I have known this for quite some time, and I suspect many of you have as well. The Marist College folks did a survey at the behest of Deseret News, and it's a pretty in-depth survey on America and American faith.

Now, I remember as a kid growing up, and I was born in 1967. 1967. And I can tell you that when I was a kid growing up in the 1960s, that people went to church. There was an effort afoot in the 1960s, I think, to move this country away from God. And it started with the sexual revolution.

There was a lot going on there at the time in American history. But by and large, people went to church. By and large, there was a reverence to God. By and large, people knew right from wrong. There was still prayer in school.

There was an effort to be a moral and just people. But that clearly is not the case now.

So the question is, what happened? Where did we go wrong? I mean, most of the country now agrees that something is not quite right.

So what happened? The survey found that 72% of Americans believe the nation's moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction. 22% think the country is headed in the right direction.

So we're going to jump into all of this. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a quick break here, and we're going to regroup. 844-747-8868. The question is very simple.

Do you believe that the nation's moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction? 844-747-8868. This is the Todd Starnes Show. About to back up and bring it. It's Todd Starnes.

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All right, we're just going to blame that on the Russians. I don't know what the heck was going on. Welcome back to the Todd Stearns Radio Program, America. And my sincere apologies for the technical snafu at the opening of the show. But we've got things worked out now, and we're going to get back to business.

Welcome to the Todd Stearns Radio Program. A delight to have you with us today.

So, look, I want to explain, share with you a little bit of information. This week, we'll be heading over to the state of Georgia, and President Trump is doing a big rally and got the call from Mar-a-Lago last night.

So we're excited to be a part of the lineup. I know we have a lot of great listeners across North Georgia and the Carolinas, and we hope to see all of you there. I'll be giving a speech during the pre-show, and also we'll be doing a lot of interviews during Newsmax's live coverage.

So if you can't make it to Georgia, then we would love to see you on Newsmax TV. All right, so back to this survey we were talking about. This is a brand-new survey that's really talking about the spiritual condition of America, the faith of America. You say, well, Todd, why is this important? You know, this is a political talk show.

Yes, it is. But it's a talk show about America. And if we're going to fix what's broken with America, that's not going to be fixed by the Republicans or the Democrats. That's going to be fixed by we, the people, getting back to church.

Now, this survey that was conducted by Marist College and released by Deseret News found that 72% of Americans believe the nation's moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction. Only 22% of the country, and most of those people are in Berkeley, believe that we're going in the right direction. Hal Boyd, the executive editor of Deseret National, says that there are some other issues they discovered. Most people are not going back to church. Religious service attendance, or if you're going to church or synagogue, fewer people are going to church or synagogue.

You know, I noticed that after the China virus pandemic. Two years, all these preachers, these woke preachers, they shut down their church houses. And I was talking to one of them a couple of weeks ago, and they were like, yeah, we don't know why people aren't coming back.

Well, it's because they got out of the habit, out of the routine of going.

So a lot of people would rather just stay at home and watch church on the YouTube or watch a live stream, but they don't want to go back to the actual church building. And I know this is going to sound silly, but another reason why church attendance is down on Sunday, it's because of soccer. Yes, soccer. Most soccer matches are held on Sundays. And I remember this going back to the late 1990s when the soccer craze really hit.

There were a lot of pastors that were very concerned because the soccer practices and the soccer matches were actually on Sunday when most of these kids would have been in church.

So you put all of that together and you've got fewer people going to church.

Now, the poll also took a look at political breakdowns. And I thought this was pretty interesting. not much of a surprise here, but according to the Marist survey, about 7 in 10 Americans consider themselves to be spiritual, which means nothing because there will be a lot of spiritual people in hell. I have no doubt about that. Got to be a Christian.

More than half of Americans, 54%, say they believe in God as described in the Bible.

Now, that number used to be upwards of 80%.

So what's happening?

Well, there's been an all-out assault on Christianity, on faith in this country. And that goes all the way back to, and really, if you're looking at a starting point, that starting point would in fact be the Supreme Court decision that outlawed prayer in school. That was really when that issue really popped onto the national scene. You say, Todd, why is this all important? We've got a Supreme Court nomination.

Yes, we do have a Supreme Court nomination going on right now. and the confirmation hearings. I get that. But it all ties in together, because if we don't get our values right, we're going to screw up everything. And we talked about this on the program a lot.

We talked about it yesterday. When you don't have absolute truth, you have chaos in the culture, and that's what we have right now. The founding fathers, when they were sitting down together and coming up with our freedoms, and they were trying to figure out, okay, do we give people the right to bear arms? Do we have a free press? The first thing they came up with was freedom of religion.

That is literally the bedrock, the foundational freedom we have. And what's been happening since really the 1950s, and it has accelerated into the 21st century, we have seen the far left, We have seen the atheists and the agnostics take a jackhammer to the foundation of this country. And my concern has always been that if you're able to weaken freedom of religion, if you're able to shove God out of the public marketplace, then every other freedom we have is in jeopardy. You say, well, Todd, how can you say that? That just sounds like hyperbole.

No, it's really not. And I say that because our rights are not given to us by mankind. Our rights are endowed to us by our Creator. That is codified in our founding documents, ladies and gentlemen.

So if you do take God out of the mix, if you take God out of the equation, then you've got nothing. And what have we seen happen over the past? Really, what have we seen happen over the past five, ten years where there have been efforts to silence and punish people of faith? Look at the attacks on the family. As a matter of fact, we don't even know what that word means anymore.

We don't even know what our pronouns are anymore. But when you break this down politically, it's really interesting. 90% of Republicans say that America's moral compass is broken. Only about half of Democrats. And that's an interesting number because, quite frankly, most Democrats do not go to church at all.

They are not religious at all. 81% of Republicans believe the Constitution was inspired by God. Only 36% of Democrats agree with that. That is a dangerous number. A dangerous number.

So I'm curious, folks, do you believe that the nation's moral compass is broken? And if so, does it really matter? You know, there are a lot of people, including and especially libertarians, who believe that we should not have any sort of religious component of our nation as far as government. they believe in that falsehood of separation of church and state, which, by the way, those words do not appear anywhere in the Constitution. But that's what they believe.

844-747-8868. Let's go to Arkansas. Steve on the line. Hi, Steve. What's on your mind?

Hey, Todd. What you're talking about this morning really hits home with me. I heard this the other day, and it's definitely worth repeating. And the reason everybody believes we aren't in the right direction as a moral compass, right now this country doesn't have a moral compass. Our leadership, whether it be political, private sector, or religious, none of them are.

A compass tells you a true direction and keeps you on a true course. All we have is a bunch of political weather banks. they're just checking the political winds and going whichever direction they think is best for their little agenda even if they have to make crap up to do it and what this country needs is a compass that keeps you on a true direction and we just don't have one right now you know steve and and i we're going to be talking about hunter biden in just a little while but to that point, you know, we don't have any moral leadership in the White House right now. When you look at Joe Biden and his family, I mean, that family is just messed up. And you really, you really wonder what in the world was going on in that household where the kids, at least the two surviving kids, became drug addicts, I mean, and had horrible, horrible things happen to them over the course of their lives.

And it's because there is no moral compass there. There is no following the religious beliefs or the tenets of their faith, Steve. I agree, and I'm not trying to pat you on the back, but really, the closest thing people are getting right now to a moral compass is kind of a conservative meeting. And it's basically because y'all are the only people in the country right now that are trying to figure out what the truth is and let the people know it. People are that star for the truth.

And if you look, you're talking about how churches dropped off and everything's dropping off. Look at the growth in your industry over the last several years, over the last decade. And that's because people are so star for the truth. They just want to know the truth. They don't want to know exactly what everybody thinks about everything.

They just want to know the truth. And Steve, I will go back to Donald Trump, and I contend that he is a moral man. You may not agree with his tweets. You may not agree with his language, his behavior. But you know what, Steve?

I believe this man went out there every single day, and he was honest with the American people. He told us the way he saw things, and when he made promises to the American people, he delivered on those promises. I can't say that about some of these other Republican politicians, Mitt Romney and John McCain, who sweet-talked and sugar-talked all the Republican voters, and then when they got elected, they literally turned their back and screwed the voters who put them into office in the first place.

Well, I agree. I agree 100 percent. Trump is like the rest of us. We all have our flaws. Definitely.

But name me one policy that Trump did that was for nefarious reasons. It wasn't because it was honestly what he thought and what ended up proving to be the best thing for the country. Absolutely, Steve, and I appreciate that call. Good comments, as always. But going back to, I mean, you know, again, people will say, oh, Mitt Romney, or let's just say John McCain, may he rest in peace, John McCain was this great moral leader.

That's what the rhinos will tell you. But this is a guy who had the opportunity to shut down Obamacare, and he deliberately sabotaged that vote. Remember the C-SPAN cameras? And he knew where those cameras were, looking directly into the cameras and the big thumbs down. That was a big up yours to the conservatives and to the Republican voters.

Wacko birds. That's what he called all you Tea Party people. You remember that back in the day? Agents of intolerance. That's what John McCain called all of you evangelical Christians out there.

But Donald Trump, on the other hand, yeah, you may not like how he conducts his life. You may not like all this other stuff. But in his heart of hearts, this is a man who delivered on his promises. He did not screw the American voters. He did not turn his back on you.

At least he stood his ground. Thank you, Mr. President. 844-747-8868. That's our phone number.

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Wow, the Supreme Court confirmation hearing is underway. And as predicted, anybody who raises an issue, this is a fascinating, look, the Democrats, they're not stupid. They know what they're doing. and the Democrats truly believe that it doesn't matter who the person is. It doesn't matter their qualifications.

But if that individual, that nominee, it doesn't matter if it's for the Supreme Court or for, I don't know, the dog catcher. If that person is a person of color, that's the only thing that matters. It doesn't matter if they don't have any experience or they don't have the credentials. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the color of their skin.

Now, here's why this is important. Because if you have a person of color as your nominee, that means any white person, any person of the Caucasian persuasion who raises a question, who has an issue, who has a problem, who smiles, who is breathing, is immediately labeled a racist.

Now, to that point, I want to play some audio from Little Jimmy Kimmel. He's got this show that nobody watches in the late nights. Here's what Little Jimmy had to say. But in Washington, they're holding a confirmation hearing for Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee. Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Unless something unexpected happens, A vote is expected to go along party lines. These hearings, they give a number of our Republican senators a chance to compete in one of their favorite events, the subtle racism jamboree. And Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina got out ahead of that. He said he expects to be called racist at these hearings and made an interesting comparison when invoking the heated confirmation hearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. There were headlines all over the country, really, accusing Judge Kavanaugh of being basically Bill Cosby.

None of us are going to do that to you. And if any of us does that to you, all hell will break out. And it should. Um, thanks, I guess. I disagree.

I actually think they should treat Ketanji Brown-Jackson exactly like they treated Brett Kavanaugh. Interview every single person who's accused her of sexual assault. Don't stop, even though there are none. Do not stop. Judge Jackson will be the first black woman on the Supreme Court.

She can get confirmed without a single... She doesn't need any Republican votes to get confirmed because the vice president is the tiebreaker, which would be the GOP's ultimate nightmare, having this decided by two black women whose names they can't pronounce. Senator Ted Cruz was actually Judge Jackson's classmate at Harvard Law School, though she will not likely get his vote. He pontificated at length today about not turning this into a political circus and worked a plug for his podcast in while saying that. All right.

Well, there you go. I don't know what the podcast is, but there you go. Again, this has nothing to do with qualifications. Joe Biden told us that. President Biden told us that this has absolutely nothing to do with qualifications.

He was only looking for a woman who was a person of color. That's it. And it had to be a black woman, actually. It was a specific person of color. He wanted a black woman.

He could have nominated Oprah. It doesn't matter. It does not matter.

So now you've got Judge Jackson up there, and she's facing a lot of questions about why she has a bad habit of giving pedophiles lighter jail sentences. Let's play cut one, please. As you said, the guideline was based originally on a statutory scheme and on directives, specific directives by Congress at a time in which more serious child pornography offenders were identified based on the volume, based on the number of photographs that they received in the mail. And that made total sense before when we didn't have the Internet, when we didn't have distribution. But the way that the guideline is now structured based on that set of circumstances is leading to extreme disparities in the system because it's so easy for people to get volumes of this kind of material now by computers.

So it's not doing the work of differentiating who is a more serious offender in the way that it used to.

So the commission has taken that into account. And perhaps even more importantly, courts are adjusting their sentences in order to account for the changed circumstances. But it says nothing about the court's view of the seriousness of this offense. No, of course it does. Of course it does.

And this woman clearly, clearly sides with pedophiles and child predators.

Now, she can explain or try to rationalize it any way she wants to, but the reality is that she has a history of giving pedophiles lighter jail sentences. As a matter of fact, Judge Brown Jackson is also guilty of advocating for the release of 1,500 prisoners prisoners from the prisons there in Washington, D.C.

Now, this happened during the early days of the pandemic. Among the people that she wanted released into the general population, we're talking about bank robbers. We're talking about some guy who shot and killed a U.S. marshal. We're talking about drug dealers.

At the same time, she was wanting to open up the jails in Washington, D.C., this same woman was advocating for lockdowns on law-abiding American citizens. It's unbelievable. But this is who is about to be confirmed, and she is going to be confirmed. I mean, this is all a show trial right here. That's all this is.

It's for show. She's going to be on the Supreme Court.

now the question i have her policies did those policies lead to an outbreak of crime in washington dc they have released thought hundreds if not thousands of prisoners onto the streets and it's not just washington dc by the way you want to you want to know why crime is skyrocketing across America? Because by and large, most Democrats in Democrat-controlled cities open up the jails. You got a bunch of the bad guys who used to be behind bars who should still be behind bars, and they're walking the streets, going in and doing the smash and grabs and taking all the $500 sneakers, going into the stores, the jewelry stores, doing the smash and grabs. You don't think there were any consequences to just opening up the jails? But this is the woman the Democrats won on the Supreme Court.

And again, it's not about talent or ability. It's all about skin color with the Democrats. They've got to play the identity politics card. You don't believe me? How about Exhibit A?

Kamala Harris, the dumbest broad to be elected vice president. I mean, dumb as a rock. It's unbelievable. It so bad that Joe Biden now has to go to Poland to undo the chaos she caused when she went over there in the first place This is what we dealing with here folks and it a great big mess Anyway we going to get the lowdown from Adam White He's got a piece in the Wall Street Journal. He'll be here in the last hour of the show, along with our good friend Congressman Scott Perry.

844-747-8868. That's our toll-free telephone number, 844-747-8868. Triggering microaggressions from coast to coast. It's Todd Starnes. is only making it worse.

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Tell me about it. Did you have any idea that was going on? None. I mean, you saw Derek at the game last night, too. Did you have a clue?

No, but you know, teachers like me, parents, we don't always know as much as you guys do. Kids hear first about what's going on with other kids. Half the time, it's rumors. It can be hard to tell sometimes, but if you're ever concerned about a friend who's having trouble with alcohol, prescription drugs, bullying, violence, anything, you need to tell an adult. Mom or me, a teacher, coach, school counselor, someone you know and trust.

Dad, no kid is going to tell an adult about that kind of stuff. I get it, but if we don't know, we can't help. Speaking up about a problem, that's what helping a friend is all about. For more information, visit underagedrinking.samhsa.gov. We all make choices about alcohol.

Kids make choices whether to drink or not. Bye, Dad. Remember, I'm going to Alex's party tonight and sleeping over. Hey, Ann, remind me about that party again. And adults make choices whether to talk about it.

That's true of parents and every other trusted adult in a kid's life. Kids want to know our expectations, and they want honest answers in everyday conversations.

So talk with your kids and help lead them on a positive path, because when you talk, they hear you. Learn more at underagedrinking.samhsa.gov. We all want our kids to grow up safe and healthy.

So we show them how, and we tell them, with honest conversations that let them know what we expect. That's especially important when it comes to alcohol and other drugs. Kids need to know the dangers and how to avoid them. And when it comes to pain medications, opioids, they need to know that they should never be taken without a prescription and never shared with friends or family. It's dangerous and illegal.

So talk with your kids, because when you talk, they hear you. All right.

It's going to be a lot of fun up there in the North Georgia mountains. Commerce Georgia coming up Saturday. President Trump's going to hold a big rally. Herschel Walker's going to be there. David Perdue, yours truly, is going to be there as well.

Looking forward to giving a speech and trying to get everybody riled up there. It's going to be a lot of fun. And we would love to see you in person. We'll also be doing some great live hits for Newsmax TV.

So if you can't make it to Georgia, you can certainly watch us in our live Newsmax TV coverage. Have you heard about this story out of Memphis? This story, I don't know why this story has got me going, but it cracks me up.

So Memphis International finally unveiled their new concourse.

Now, Grace Baker, I know you and I, we have been in this airport.

So it's a beautiful airport. Yes. But I did notice something the last time I was there, which was last week. It's not very Memphis-y. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I do kind of know what you mean. Parts of it is. The old airport, you know, they had what, at one time, I think four or five barbecue joints. Yes. No barbecue.

You know, they want to be more upscale.

So they got the Memphis Brewhouse. They've got some generic Memphis restaurants and a Lenny's. And then they've got the Memphis Grizzlies, like, sports pub. Yeah. But again, really nothing that, you know, BB Kings or Elvis or anything like that.

Yeah, no, not really. All right.

So anyway, and I just noticed that. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. No. It's just, you know, you want a little bit of, when you go to the International Airport in Austin, Texas, it's just kind of a quirky airport, and they sort of thrive on that. And I think Memphis may have missed the mark.

Because there's just sort of, that airport could be anywhere. See, airports are just airports to me. I like it. Yeah, they're getting a Chick-fil-A and a TGI Fridays or something, like Chili's. Maybe it's a Chili's.

Yeah, it's okay. Right. I know. Give me some interstate barbecue. Yeah, honestly.

I want a pulled pork sandwich with some coleslaw. See, I'm a sucker for soft pretzels. I'm like, give me a pretzel stand-up. That's not too bad. Yeah, they got a Starbucks, too.

So anyway, there's artwork all over the airport. Yeah. And they paid for this artwork with our tax money. And the artwork's pretty good. I mean, it's okay.

It's all different styles.

Some of it I like. Very modern. I don't love all the modern stuff.

So one of the paintings that has caused controversy is of Elvis Presley. The beloved Elvis? The beloved Elvis. And it's not like bloated Elvis. It's like, and it's not skinny Elvis.

It's Asian Elvis.

So there's an Asian American artist who lives in Memphis area.

Okay. And he's known for putting his face on the paintings. And they're not really paintings. It's artwork. Sure.

So it's like a picture. Mixed media. Yeah, mixed media stuff. And so anyway, it's his face.

So he's dressed up like Elvis. The white jumpsuit, the whole nine yards.

Okay. So Elvis fans, and they take this stuff very seriously. Oh, I know. You never call an Elvis, you know, there's no such thing as an Elvis impersonator. They're a performance artist.

Agreed. And if you, and I learned my lesson the hard way.

So anyway, there was a lot of negative feedback from Elvis fans. Sure.

And they say it was disrespectful. They're like, why don't you just put up a painting of Elvis? Like a velvet, a giant velvet Elvis. You don't know what those are, Grace Baker. But back in the day, they used to sell those at only the finest roadside stands.

I've heard, okay, I'm aware of the term. I've heard it in songs and such. Jeez, Alou. Literally a song, You're My Velvet Elvis. I've heard that song.

I'm sure someone will come in, will call in, and they will explain what the velvet they're beautiful. Back in the 70s, every home had like a portrait of Jesus and a velvet Elvis. And maybe Richard Petty. Oh, my gosh.

So anyway, Tommy Cha is the artist. And so the airport got so much negative feedback over Asian Elvis that they took it down. I've never gone like, oh, I'm going to go complain to an airport about their appearance. Who does that? Like I get about a flight, but you're going to complain to Delta or wherever.

Not to the airport necessarily. I don't understand who spends their time. It's just one of those things. I'm like, people do that?

So there's an organization called the Urban Art Commission, and it's about as leftist as you could possibly imagine. I mean, just by the title. And they're responsible for decorating the airport at taxpayer expense. And it's important to remind people that tax dollars were used here. Sure.

So anyway, they took down the painting.

Now the Urban Art Commission is accusing the Elvis fans of being racist and being homophobic. Dang. Which I don't know what, I don't know Tommy Cha's pronouns. I don't know.

So I don't know why this would be homophobic. But anyway, they're saying that it's xenophobic, it's racist, and it's homophobic. And they want that painting of Elvis to go back up.

so people are going bonkers over this and just lighting up the social media pages i i just want to throw this out there i agree with the elvis fans so what i do sound the alarm no i do i agree with the elvis fans here now i want you to think about something elvis presley was what grace baker he was caucasian he was caucasian he was a white man and what have we learned over the past decade grace baker no cultural appropriation yes no taco tuesdays i'm trying to i'm looking at the foot oh i see the photo that's weird it's a weird right i'm putting this on the live show blog because it's you've got to you really have to see i don't know I'm not going to describe it. It's just bizarre. But a guy doesn't look anything like Elvis. Not remotely. Honestly, if I had just walked by that, I mean, I see the outfit, but if I just walked by it, I wouldn't have thought that, oh, that's an Elvis picture.

So all of these people, and I will say that most of the criticism is coming from the identity politics people. But I just tell them, put the shoe on the other foot. Yeah, it's true. Because if this had been a, let's just say somebody did a painting of Martin Luther King Jr. And MLK was a white guy.

What do you think? We would have had Al Sharpton marching in the streets of Memphis, Tennessee. Right? Yeah, it's true. Or Hispanic Oprah.

Fair point. You know what I'm saying here? Completely. It's ironic. By the way, years ago when I was at Fox, they sent me down to cover Elvis week, which is, it's amazing.

It's a little weird, but it's amazing. It's a lot of fun. How could it not be a little weird? I met a lady. Elvis has had a lot of fans and still has a lot of fans in Asia.

And I met a lady from South Korea, and she was decked out like large Elvis, and she was a big girl. And she had the sideburns and the jumpsuit and looked just like him. And she started singing, Are You Lonely Tonight? No. And it was just as bad as you might imagine.

Oh, no. I've got that audio somewhere in the archives way in the archives I'm just saying I mean if you're going to play the cultural appropriation card right you got to play it all the time that's all that's all I'm saying here fair point so anyway there's a big gaping hole there at the New Memphis International Airport that's where Elvis used to be well I think we just need to put a portrait of Todd Starnes up there you go I guess you should say that Elvis has left the building alright stick around On hour two coming up, Megan Basham. Wow, she's got something to say about Disney. You're going to want to hear that story. 844-747-8868, our toll-free telephone number, toddstarns.com, our website.

Thank you very much, America. Thank you.

Well, our good friend Mike Lindell is back at it again. Hello, everybody. I'm Todd Starnes. Mike Lindell not only created the best pillow, but now he's created the best towel in the world. That's right.

Mike Lindell found the best towel company right here in the USA. They have proprietary technology to create towels that feel soft but actually work. And they're all made with USA cotton. They come with the MyPillow 60-day money-back guarantee. Get this, folks.

You're going to get a six-piece set, two bath towels, two hand towels, two washcloths made with USA cotton, soft yet absorbent. absorbent normally $109.99 now just $39.99 all you need to do is go to mypillow.com click on the radio listener special and get deep discounts on all my pillow products including the towels just enter the promo code stars or call 800-839-8506 for these great radio specials that's 800-839-8506 use the promo code stars Live from the Liberty University studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's favorite gun-toting, Bible-clinging, deplorable American. That's us, that's right. I love this American ride. Todd Starnes.

Oh, yeah.

So, Grace, I don't know about this. I was on the Instagram, and we're just going to let people, what do the young people call it, the gram? The gram. Do it for the gram. Do it for the gram.

I don't know if you want to say that in front of a police officer. Fair enough.

So, I posted an item on, we had some guests on the show last week from this organization called Eyes of Faith. Yes. And they sent me some sunglasses. in the mail i almost stole them they're the i mean they're pretty cool they are pretty cool they don't look good on me they're definitely for a guy well i'm trying to see so we we just we were playing around and in the studio and we've got a photograph of me with the shades on and i'm not quite sure i sort of look like one of the guys from reno 9-1-1 i well i actually reposted that photo and did a little photoshopping to it too so oh lord okay i can't wait to see that All right.

So, folks, Instagram, ToddStarnesFNC, if you want to check these shades out. And let me know what you – wait a second. Why does it say – it says C-translation. I don't understand what I wrote. I write in Southern, but it's not that illegible.

Oh, no. You got hit with the – they don't understand y'all. It's unfortunate. It is very unfortunate. All right.

So go and let me know if you guys like these things. And if so, I may just get a pair. I don't know.

844-747-8868. Welcome to the show, everybody. Good to have you with us. If you missed the first hour of the program, we're heading down to the state of Georgia on Saturday. President Trump invited me to come and speak at his rally.

This is rally number two, and we're going to have a great time. Hope to see you there, and we'll have more details up on the website a little bit later. There is a lot of chaos right now surrounding Disney, and we've been covering these stories for really quite some time now. But there's a disturbing story up on the Daily Wire about Disney's plans to oppose a Texas order criminalizing sex change surgeries on kids. Our good friend Megan Basham is on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line right now.

Megan, good to have you with us. Always good to be here, Todd. Thanks for having me. All right, let's just jump right into this. what did you discover?

I know people have been reaching out to you inside Disney. What are they telling you? Yeah, you know, it's been really interesting how the employees of Disney, there must just be a lot of them who feel very censored, very afraid for their jobs, because a couple reached out to me. I wrote one story, and then the floodgates kind of opened. Suddenly, my DMs are just filled with Disney employees letting me know that they are not happy with what the company is doing.

So I wrote a very long piece this week. I'm going to try to summarize it. But essentially, the new-ish CEO of Disney, a man named Bob Chapek, is actually a fairly conservative guy. He's more of a pragmatic guy than anything. Certainly more conservative, though, than the prior CEO, Bob Iger, who was a big Democratic donor.

Well, Bob Chapek came in and let everyone know that there is a new sheriff in town. Disney is not going to continue to be political. It's not going to continue to pressure legislators.

Well, that lasted for about five minutes.

So then the Florida bill, the very good Florida bill, the parents' rights and education was passed in Florida. It's waiting at Governor DeSantis' signature. And in that interim time, the activist employees at Disney have just been getting up to all kinds of malarkey. I'm going to use the word malarkey. they've been leaking things to the press they've been running to their social media to air grievances um calling disney homophobic transphobic all the typical words but uh you know to me i go i just think some people should be fired but that is not what happened bob chapik uh became very frightened of all of this negative media attention i spoke to one very high level disney executive who is also conservative, somewhat secret conservative, who told me that Bob Chapik was facing a deep state of his own at Disney.

And that frightened him. And out of the mix of cowardice and not really understanding what he was up against, he backed down.

So they have really, really backed down. They are now saying that, yeah, that they're opposing the Florida bill. They've ended all political donations in Florida. And then at a meeting yesterday where employees were messaging me during the meeting, all hands on deck, town hall within Disney, they were saying that this ship has been completely taken.

Now Disney is announcing that they are going to oppose Texas Governor Greg Abbott's order to investigate those who would perform sex change surgeries and sex change treatment on children for abuse. They are opposed to that.

So de facto, Disney is now, I guess, for sex changes on children. And Megan, one of the words that stood out to me in your piece involved the human rights campaign. Whenever you see those three words, it is bad news for freedom and America, because these folks are radical leftist, and they want to shut you down. And I saw them do the same thing. I mean, you talk about a deep state.

There was a deep state at Fox News Channel, and they're just funneling these human rights campaign journalists into the building. And then people are shocked, you know, when they start when they stop covering these important issues involving sex and gender. And I see the same thing happening based on the reading of this story. The same thing is happening with Disney right now. Yeah, and I think that that's a really important point and something that conservatives need to wake up to is that these things are not just happening organically.

There are very, very motivated and strategic activists on the left, and they have figured out how to leverage pressure against corporations to turn them into political weapons.

So, you know, no element of your life is allowed to be politically neutral now from, you know, the soda you drink to the razors you buy.

So I think that's something that conservatives are going to have to come to terms with. And that was kind of part of our reporting was discussing just how these um it's called environmental and social governance investing it's a very big topic but what it is is is how these activists get in companies and threaten them so they don't do what's best for the bottom line they make political choices and that explains why they're going back and adding in the the lesbian scene to the new Pixar movie coming out, the prequel to Toy Story. Yeah, I mean, can you imagine just a couple of years ago, I really can't even wrap my head around it, that we're having a same-sex kiss in a children's movie.

So those are the demands. Remember when they told us we're not after your kids? Where did that go? Oh, yeah, they're after the kids. That reminds me, and I'm going to try to tie this in.

A couple of years ago, there was a lot of turmoil in Austin, Texas, the independent school district. They had churches that were renting school buildings on Sundays for services.

Well, the LGBT mob came after the school district. The school district ended up standing the ground, but Megan, in an about face, they took all the rent money the churches were paying, and they used that money to fund the district's gay pride celebrations. And the lesson here, there are so many evangelicals, so many people of faith that go down to Disney and they just turn a blind eye to all of this, but in reality, Megan, they're the ones that are funding, or at least helping to fund all of this. Right, and I think that that's something we need to talk about, because you go, yes, we are to be as innocent as doves, but Scripture also tells us to be wise as serpents, and I think we've been lacking that. I think there's been a naivety and just a real slowness to catch up with what the left is doing.

And to that point, years ago, this was back in the 1990s, Dr. Richard Land, who was actually a tremendous leader of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, launched the big boycott of Disney World and just got crucified, not just by the left, but even today, many of these woke evangelicals just dismiss Dr. land and that whole effort. But now look at where we are with Disney, and they're using all their profits to do horrible things. Yeah, and I think that that actually is another really interesting conversation we need to have.

Another colleague of mine at the Daily Wire, Andrew Clavin, brought up this week that, you know, there's a tendency now in evangelical circles, and Southern Baptist circles in particular, to sort of sneer at Jerry Falwell in the moral majority. But you go, they they were activated and organized, and in a lot of ways, they held the line for the common good, for a culture that allowed more introduction of the gospel, and prevented kids from being sucked into really demonic ideology.

So I think we need to revisit how we think about these sort of Christian warriors of yesteryear. No, I'm all for that, and on that note, you've got another great piece up at The Daily Wire, and again on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line, Megan Basham from dailywire.com. You've been following the developments in my denomination of the Southern Baptist Convention, announcing the nomination of Tom Askell and Votie Bauckham to fight back against this woke drift in the Southern Baptist Convention. Yeah, so they reached out and offered me an exclusive on, you know, revealing their announcement to the world before anyone else in the press, and I was happy to have that. And it was a great interview.

I think a lot of people are very particularly excited to hear about Bodie Bauckham getting involved. He just has a huge fan following people who really respect and appreciate his bold voice in speaking out against racial ideologies that divide Christians along the colors of their skin.

So I think a lot of people are super excited about that, and I appreciated the chance to do it.

So yeah, I hope everyone reads that piece. And I'll say bluntly, I don't know the other candidate at all who is currently, has already accepted the, well, I guess you guys don't nominate until the actual convention. But he has said he will accept the nomination, another pastor by the name of Willie Rice.

So a lot of people are going after me on social media. And I just kind of said, look, I don't really know this person. I don't know his record. I just saw what I saw that is out there right now. Oh, he's a leftist.

Yeah, he's one of these Russ Moore woke leftists. That's who he is. And he compared Trump voters to idolaters.

Now, they're trying to disappear all of his social media footprint. But, you know, that stuff is always going to be there, Megan. And so it's a troubling thing. And it's just a difficult time in the Southern Baptist Convention. And I think people didn't understand how left that convention was going.

and I hope they can save it. Yeah, and I will say this, that, you know, this same week that we're having these conversations, I'm seeing pastors posting pretty alarming environmental talk, things along those lines, that I go, wow, anytime I see pastors whose political preoccupations dovetail perfectly with the political preoccupations of the left, you know, alarm bells go off in my head. Yeah, all you need to know about the woke Southern Baptist crowd, they were the ones that had a big gathering back in 2016. They invited Hillary Clinton, they invited Jeb Bush, and they invited Marco Rubio, none of whom happened to be a Southern Baptist.

Meanwhile, they ignored Mike Huckabee, who was in fact a Southern Baptist candidate at the time.

So that's who these people are. Yeah, when I was working on this report, one of the things that did bother me was for all of this talk of racial justice, it seemed very clear that there's a tendency to ignore the black and Hispanic SBC leaders and voices who don't align with a left-wing ideology.

So I was pretty curious to me that I went, gosh, why are you ignoring people like Lee Brand and Carol Swain and Bodie Bauckham? Just a little strange. It is all these woke white preachers. I think they've got a Biden race problem myself, but that's just me. Megan, we're going to have to leave it there.

Great stories, as always. Keep up the good work. I appreciate it. Thank you.

You too, Todd. All right.

Megan Basham, everybody. And we have links to both of those stories over on the live show blog. I would encourage you to check those out. I am curious. I mean, if you're a Southern Baptist, are you concerned about how your denomination has gone woke and the leadership going woke, all these mega churches that are going woke, 844-747-8868.

We're going to look at the phones after we come back here. 844-747-8868. This is the Todd Starnes Show. You're listening to Todd Starnes. all right welcome back to the show everybody good to have you with us let's go to the phones here 844-747-8868 lisa is listening to us on the talk station in north carolina hi lisa what's on your mind.

Hey, Todd. Howdy. I was just listening to you talk about the churches and the trans, and I guess my question is, the trans is such a small group of people. How have they become so powerful? Yeah, you know, that's a great question, Lisa, and it's much like the, you know, I don't know why, but when I'm on the Instagram, Lisa, for some reason, I get all these, I don't know the algorithms, but for some reason I'm getting all these videos of like animals attacking each other.

And it's very fascinating. But there was this one where you had this little tiny metrosexual purse dog, you know, those little tiny little things. And it was it was barking. It was barking and trying to attack a giant bear that was on the that was on the porch. And the bear turned tail and ran.

And again, I think that's the problem with us, is that we are the majority. We're a mighty majority. But we are so conditioned to be bullied by a small minority of people that we just capitulate and we wave the white flag of surrender. It's really bothersome to me. It is to me, too, because, I mean, I am a white conservative.

I have a son. And so it concerns me for him. In 2022 I shocked that the message is to divide instead of unite He talking about humans instead of you know women or men And women are getting the short end of the stick across the board Yep, no doubt about it, Lisa. And this whole transgender movement, that's what it's really about is putting women in their place. But there's something much larger than that coming down the pike, and that is really the erasure of all gender roles.

I mean, they want to destroy the nuclear family in America, and that's how they're going to do it. I agree. I agree, and it makes no sense, because without a man and a woman, there couldn't be a difference, according to them, a non-gender or whatever they want to say, but it's all made up. Nothing based on science. You are absolutely right, Lisa.

Absolutely right. Got to leave it there. God bless you, and thanks for the call. Let's go to Maine. Mike listening to us on WLOB.

Hey, Mike, what's up? Hey, Todd. Listen, for Memphis International Airport, they should paint the Duck March in the fountain at the Peabody. That would give them some advertising for downtown.

Well, there you go. Now, Mike, for the people who may not know, the Peabody Hotel, downtown Memphis, Tennessee, and they have the wonderful ducks that march down every morning and are floating around in that pool. And, Mike, yours truly has been an honorary duck master. Oh, you have, yes. Oh, it's quite the honor.

They gave me a duck walking stick and a certificate. It's very nice. And the red tuxedo. I didn't get that. It was nice.

It wasn't that nice, Mike. All right, Mike, we've got to run here. I've got to take a break. Good hearing from you. 844-747-8868.

That is our toll-free telephone number. We'll get to your calls when we come back. Also, Mark Meckler, president of the Convention of States, there is a new survey out about the border. And by the way, over 100,000 illegals are marching towards our southern border. You know, Biden, they're saying, oh, Biden doesn't care about the Ukrainians.

He doesn't care about the Ukrainian border.

Well, why would he? He doesn't even care about our own border, for crying out loud. All right, 844-747-8868. This is the Todd Stearns Radio Show. All right, folks, looking forward to seeing you Saturday at the Big Trump Rally in Commerce, Georgia.

And we've got a lot of listeners up there across the North Georgia area, also into the Carolinas. And if you plan on going, give us a holler. We'd love to say hello and greet you. Give us a call, 844-747-8868. All right, there is a big trouble brewing at our southern border.

There are reports of up to 100,000 illegal aliens, another massive surge, millions and millions. Nobody knows the exact number, but I suspect it's probably north of 20 to 30 million illegals now live in this country. There is a new survey out conducted by our friends at the Convention of States Action in partnership with the Trafalgar Group. 65% of Americans believe Biden will not fulfill his promise to secure the border. Let's go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line.

Honored to have with us from the Convention of States, Mark Meckler. Mark, hope you're doing good today. I am. Great to be with you. All right.

So this survey, what were you surprised by in this? You know, I'm not surprised by the overall numbers because obviously the situation at the border has been speaking for itself loud and clear since the beginning of the Biden administration. What I'm surprised by and continues to surprise me is as you dig into the numbers, as you look at what are called the cross tabs, and that's where respondents are divided by various demographic groups. What you see is basically the president has lost the entire country. It's not just hardcore right wing Republicans.

I think one of the most surprising figures is when I look at the age cross tabs and what you see is 18 to 24 year olds. You literally have over 70 percent of 18 to 24 year olds that are not confident that Biden is going to secure the border.

Now, remember that Democrats always say they have the youth group.

So he's lost them. And that is also true when you look at voters by race, by ethnicity. Absolutely incredible. If you look at, for example, Asian voters, 60, almost 69 percent are not confident. When you look at black voters, that's 40 percent.

You look at Hispanic voters, it's about it's over 50 percent. He's lost the entire country on this issue. And I suspect if you were to break down those numbers by state, you would see even higher numbers, especially with Hispanic voters. You know, Mark, we get calls all the time from Hispanics living in border states, and they're among the fiercest defenders of a secure border. Yeah, look, it's affecting them the most.

I live here in Texas, and when you go to the Rio Grande Valley, which runs along the border, obviously, what you find is that these towns, these cities are starting to flip to the red. They're flipping to Republican because these people are feeling the actual real daily impact of illegal immigration, of open borders. Crime is up. Jobs are difficult to find. People are scared for their day-to-day existence.

It's really bad for folks on the border. We have a lot of Hispanic communities along the border. Mark Meckler with Convention of States on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line, breaking down the numbers politically, not really much of a surprise. 89% of Republican voters not confident.

Now, here's the number that's going to be the killer is 76.6% of independent voters. He's lost the independent vote, and he's lost a good chunk of the Democrats. Yeah, so he's lost the independent vote, and this has been an extraordinary trend, Todd, as we've watched these polls. We've been doing this polling for about a year now, and what I've watched is a trend across all demographics, all age groups, all races, all parties over the year towards the right. In other words, they're living under terrible left-wing policies.

They're having an actual effect on people at home, on their pocketbooks, on their feelings of safety and security in their hometowns, and they're moving to the right. But this is especially true under Hispanics. On virtually every poll I've seen in the last year, the majority of Hispanics are much closer to Republicans than they are to Democrats. What do you think the end game here is with all of this? I mean, Biden clearly sees the polling data.

He knows that this is very unpopular with the American people.

So why do you think he continues to ignore the border?

Well, I think we need a little bit of nuance there. I don't think Biden sees any of this on an actual individual level. I don't think he's cogent or coherent. I don't think this stuff gets shown to him. I think folks in his administration who should know better do.

but they're beholden to the radical left of their party. All of the enthusiasm in the Democrat Party is on the far left, and open borders is a far left policy. It's a radical, globalist kind of policy that is promoted by the far left. And so I think because of that obligation to the far left, they're kind of in an alley now. They can't come out.

They can't moderate. They can't lock down the border because their far left would be against them. And they've already lost the moderate part of their party.

So I think they're in an impossible situation here. All right, 844-747-8868. That's our toll-free telephone number. That's 844-747-8868. We're here with Mark Meckler from Convention of States.

Mark, how is that effort going? You guys are, what, about 19 states now? Yeah, it's actually going incredible. And this has been an amazing year. Just in the last month, we have passed Wisconsin, Nebraska, West Virginia, which was amazing, literally passed in one day.

It came out of committee, and it went to the floor in the House. The president of the Senate stood on the floor of the House waiting for it to pass, took the actual signed resolution over to the Senate, interrupted proceedings, and passed it within about an hour. That was kind of miraculous.

South Carolina has now passed the House and the Senate. Slight difference in what they passed, so the Senate version is headed back to the House. I believe they'll concur within about the next week or two, and that'll make that the 19th out of 34 required states. And for our new listeners, just explain in a nutshell, real quick, what you guys hope to accomplish with this convention of states. Yeah, in a nutshell, Article 5 of the Constitution contains the way we can amend the Constitution.

The second clause says states can gather in convention, propose amendments, and specifically it was put in there to restrain federal tyranny. And that's what we hope to do. We hope to impose term limits on Congress and on other federal officials, the deep state staffers, bureaucrats, administrators, and even the judiciary. We plan to impose fiscal restraints, a balanced budget amendment, tax and spending caps. Most importantly, Todd, scope and jurisdiction restraints.

In other words, saying things to the federal government like, no, you can't be involved in education. You can't be involved in energy. You can't be involved in health care. These are areas that the federal government was never intended to be involved in. And calling a convention of states is the only way to put them back in the constitutional box.

All right.

Well, we've got links to your website over on our live show blog. Mark, we're going to leave it there. Appreciate all this great intel. Great to be with you. Thanks, Todd.

All right.

Mark Meckler from the Convention of States. Again, the survey, 65 percent, a majority of the country, believes Biden will not fulfill his promise to secure America's borders. And I'll tell you why. It's because they want to overthrow this country. They want to flood this country with illegals.

And I'm talking about the socialists, the radical progressives, the people like the Bernie Sanders and the AOCs of the party. They want to flood this country with illegals. It's very simple. They want those folks beholden to them, the Democrat Party, at the ballot box. And that's why when these illegals come over, they get free food, They get free housing, free medical care, you name it.

We're spending tens of millions of dollars caring for illegal aliens and their health needs while American citizens are going without health insurance.

Now, I'm all about being a good Samaritan, but we've got a responsibility to take care of the people within the borders of this country first and then everybody else. And I know there are a lot of people out there, especially this woke evangelical crowd and the never Trumpers that believe to the contrary. But if we can't if we can't provide for our own, what does that say about us as a country? All right, look, real quick, I want to go to the phones here. Mike's been holding on for a while.

Statesville, North Carolina, WSIC, our radio station there. And wants to weigh in on this Disney story. Hey, Mike, what's up? Hey Todd, always a pleasure to talk to you And what a great show today Absolutely fantastic Both your guests, wonderful I teach school I taught part-time college basketball And taught in public schools for 20 years Following retiring from a business career And I was absolutely shocked When I went into public education And started seeing what was going on And I remain to this day and you're exactly right most of our teachers probably 80 percent are moderate politically to conservative they may be more liberal on something like in the environment like I am but they're generally very conservative go to church you know love their families but you got that tiny little group that bullies their way through and I agree with you 100 percent parents and Conservative teachers have to stand up and not be afraid to be bullied by these people. I mean, we look at Ukraine.

People are giving their lives for freedom. Surely we could take somebody criticizing us because we're willing to tell our students that all our great scientists believe in God, which happens to be true.

so I salute you for the effort and I hope you keep calling us to this to this need for us to stand up and be counted well Mike I appreciate those kind words and certainly sounds like you're doing just that in the classroom as well and it's going to take all of us but the good news here is there there really are more of us than there are of them and what all you need to do is look at what happened in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Moms and dads rose up, and it was a tough fight, but they fought back against those radical school boards, and they won the day. And they did it because they were not afraid. And you know why they were not afraid? Because their cause was righteous.

That's what it's all about. Mike, appreciate the call. By the way, got to say hello to a good friend of this program listening to us on WPMO, our friends down in Pascagoula, Mississippi. I tell you what, Grace, I think all of South Mississippi and L.A., and that's Lower Alabama for you. I was about to say.

Surely not Los Angeles. No, not Los Angeles. But all of Lower Alabama and Mississippi listen to this program. That huge radio station. Bear assessment.

So anyway, we're going to be down there for July 4th that weekend, and I'm going to be speaking at It's a Lighthouse Baptist Church. Pastor Randy Toole is listening to us as we're driving around town there.

So I want to say hello to the pastor. And, you know, don't get pulled over. You've got to watch the speed limit there. Yeah, no speeding. Even when you get fired up about something, no speeding.

Oh, a funny story.

So years ago, I was in Georgetown, South Carolina, which Grace Baker is famous because? I don't know.

It's the Gritz capital of the world. Oh, I didn't know it. Everybody knows it. What do they teach you guys at university? unbelievable i've only been to north carolina once anyway i at i i'm not a big fan of grits but as the guest speaker they prepared 13 variations of grits for breakfast oh my gosh i had to sample all of it i love grits that's that was my response do you remember how about that is it cheesy i mean you gotta have cheese you gotta i like the yellow grits i guess i don't know cheese and butter and you know i convinced our managing editor our managing editor caleb park was with us on that trip and uh you know he had never been south of the mason dixon i was about to say he probably didn't know what a grit was no so you know what i told him i felt really bad about this so i said well i said see the uh the state flag there and they had the palmetto tree i said that's actually the grit tree and they grow in cluster i told him i said they grow in clusters like grapes and he believed me how do you believe that when did you break it to Please say he didn't say anything.

No, he didn't. He thought he was learning. He thought he was getting knowledge. I mean, he thought he was learning something. Oh, Todd, that's just cruel.

Like NBC, the more you know. The more you know. I'm just telling you.

So anyway, oh, yes.

So we're down in South Carolina. The pastor, the lunch, they feed you after church on Sunday. Sure.

Rushing to the airport, which was in Charleston. And the blue lights come on. and the pastor and the wife are in the front seat i'm in the back seat and the pastor is trying to get out of the ticket and this state trooper wasn't having he was a no-nonsense guy i think he was a lutheran oh so anyway he saw the bumper sticker on the pastor's car i'm just like the fish oh it's the jesus fish you gotta watch this fish and was like i don't trust him you see i have no markings on the Cadillac so nobody knows you know I have one driving like a bat out of you know where so anyway we're pulled off the side of this highway and the I'm in the back seat and I'm just quiet as a church mouse and the pastor I knew what the pastor was gonna do he said he told the police he goes well officer I'm trying to get we're trying to get to the airport I have a Fox News channel host in the back seat. He was trying to use me, and I'm thinking, preacher, that's a bad idea. He says, he goes, oh, really?

Who do you have in the back seat? I have Todd Starnes from Fox News. And the guy, he rolls down the window, and the state trooper peers in and looks at me, and he says, honest to goodness, he says, I watch CNN. No. Gave the preacher a ticket.

I was going to say that. I'm just telling you.

makes everything worse there you go that's a big bet to assume it is we'll post information about that uh that big event coming up president trump saturday in uh commerce georgia and we're gonna have a great time there 844-747-8868 this is the todd stern show it's the todd stern's radio show All right. Can we just get real for just a moment? Oh, a little jazz music. Can we get real for a moment, America? This thing over in Ukraine, something's still not quite right about all of this.

And I, you know, it's easy to get sucked into this. Todd, how dare you? How dare you say anything? How dare you ask any questions about Ukraine? You pro-Putin commie lover, you?

Well, I'm sorry. I just have some questions about it.

So Zelensky's coming out. And the whole point of what was the point of all of this?

So Zelensky says that they wanted membership into NATO. Putin says, no, that's not going to happen. That puts us in jeopardy. We're going to invade you.

So now, so the invasion has happened. Russia is committing genocide, horrible atrocities, all allegedly. It's there are terrible things that are happening out there. I mean, and when I say allegedly, some of the more heinous things have not actually been verified. I mean, yeah, when they're blowing up buildings, okay, that's verified.

But there's a lot of crazy stuff coming out of Ukraine, and you just don't know what to believe. And it's been that way from day one.

So now Zelensky all of a sudden is saying, you know what, guys, we've had a chance to think about it, and we're no longer interested in being a member of NATO. Appreciate you.

Well, wait, wait, what? You went to war over this. And so now Zelensky is saying, yeah, we're not interested in NATO membership, And if Russia agrees, everybody can, you know, Russia can just pull its troops out and we're going to have all this money from the United States and we will rebuild our nation. Does that set, folks, are you, is something off here? Am I missing something?

This, it's just not making any sense. Not only that, and this is really, this is going to drive people bonkers here, but can we have a conversation about the neo-Nazis who actually have military-grade equipment operating in Ukraine? Anybody want to have that kind of a conversation? You know, Putin was warning about these neo-Nazis and it's been completely dismissed by the mainstream media here in this country. You're not allowed to talk about it.

But the reality is they are there and they have been there for a very long time. And this is a very powerful group of people.

So I just have some questions. Do you have some questions about what's really going on over there, folks? Is it all adding up to you? 844-747-8868. That's our telephone number.

Yeah, pray for the people that are getting blown to smithereens, but something's not right here, folks. Live from the Liberty University studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's conservative blowtorch. That's us, that's right. I love this American. All right.

Well, hello, America. Good to have you with us. Welcome to our three of the big show. We've got an action packed hour coming at you. I want to bring you up to speed, though, on a breaking news story out of Atlanta.

And we've got a story up on the website, Todd Stearns dot com. If you know anything about Atlanta traffic, it is just a nightmare on a great day. Interstate 85 northbound and southbound shut down. A man barricaded himself inside a Greyhound bus there on the interstate. And a SWAT team called in.

And the interstate's been shut down for quite some time now. All the passengers, the bus driver, everybody's safe. And now we understand that SWAT was able to take the gunman into custody. But it is a traffic nightmare there in the Atlanta area. The only good news is that you get to listen to this program a little bit longer because you're stuck in traffic.

So we'll have a good time. 844-747-8868. That's our toll-free telephone number. That's 844-747-8868. Want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line here in our beautiful Liberty University studios.

Honored to have with us Adam White. Adam White is the co-executive director of the Gray Center, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Adam, good to have you with us. Great to be here. Thanks.

Well, let's talk about what's happening up on Capitol Hill right now, where confirmation hearings day two. I mean, it's a foregone conclusion that Judge Jackson will be confirmed. But there's still a lot of questions, and you raised some of those questions.

Well, Democrats certainly expect to see Judge Jackson confirmed. They're running the Senate hearing so far, kind of like a prevent defense, less focused on scoring their own points and more focused on trying to prevent Republicans from scoring points. That said, Republicans have raised a number of interesting issues, ranging from Judge Jackson's briefs that she filed in cases involving Guantanamo, Right now, Senator Lee is asking her questions about her judicial philosophy. But one of the things I hope that senators will explore, and that they raised in their initial statement yesterday, is Judge Jackson's understanding of why the Supreme Court's legitimate, and then hopefully why she disagrees with those who are trying to delegitimize the court, possibly even Packett. And I heard a bit of that testimony, and she refused to say whether she agreed or disagreed with that idea of packing the court, saying that that was a decision that had to be made by the Congress and not the Supreme Court.

I get that. But again, I think based upon the record we've seen, she is going to be a true leftist liberal judge on the highest court in the land. It's fascinating to watch how she's answered questions so far about judicial philosophy. All her answers are geared towards reassuring senators and the public that she's not a judicial activist, that she believes that judges ought to be restrained and that they are restrained by law. She sounds a lot like a conservative judge, and you've seen that in previous nominations of justices, Kagan and Sotomayor.

Now, I don't expect her to necessarily rule that way. I'd largely be surprised if she's very different from Kagan or Sotomayor. But I think it does reflect the fact that the conservative approach to the Constitution and the Supreme Court, its calls for judicial restraint, really have become the conventional wisdom and mainstream of American political thought. And progressive lawyers and judges really have to reframe their own approaches in those terms. Again, Judge Jackson is going to be confirmed, but I think the main theme of the hearing so far is that Republican senators really have framed these debates on conservative legal terms.

And Senator Durbin and others, by playing defense, have largely allowed that to happen. I think because, again, they recognize that conservative legal approach really has become the legal mainstream. And again, to your point, back on the court packing, I mean, you had Ginsburg, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, strongly opposed to this, and they were pretty outspoken about it. Really no reason why she could not have weighed in here. And again, mainly because she's going to be confirmed.

I mean, it's not like this is going to be a deciding issue for the Democrats who control the U.S. Senate. I don't blame her necessarily for avoiding the specific policy question of should Congress pack the court. But I think there's the deeper questions that I hope the senators will return to. Democrats and progressives are calling for court packing because they think the Supreme Court is illegitimate.

So senators ought to ask this judge what she thinks of a court's legitimacy. What makes the Supreme Court or other courts legitimate? That, after all, is the premise of her work as a judge on the D.C. Circuit. It would be the premise of her work on the Supreme Court.

And I think more narrowly, senators ought to ask her whether packing the court with extra justices would actually make the court's work better or worse, harder or easier. Judge Jackson currently serves on a court where they hear cases in three judge panels. The Supreme Court hears cases in nine judge panels, which is more difficult. If you were to pack the court with two or four more justices, it would profoundly change the way that justices go about their work.

So senators ought to ask her about that. One of the reasons why I'm so focused on this issue is last year, President Biden appointed me to his commission on the Supreme Court. I was one of the conservatives on that commission. I spent a year studying the history of court packing threats and the danger that it might pose to the Supreme Court. It really is one of the most important issues of our constitutional era.

And so I think it's important that the senators ask her about this, even if she won't necessarily answer their questions. You know, it's interesting, Adam. And by the way, we're speaking with Adam White, who has a great piece in the Wall Street Journal. Will Kentonji Brown Jackson defend the Supreme Court's legitimacy? Senator John Cornyn out of Texas asking, why would you call Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and George W.

Bush war criminals in a legal filing? and she replied that she doesn't remember and that she did not intend to disparage the president by calling him a war criminal. This has just been playing out today and I was struck by the question as well. It turns out, and Senator Durbin tried to clean this up a bit when they came back from a break moments ago, it turned out that years ago in one of the briefs that Judge Jackson as a lawyer filed on behalf of clients in one of the Gitmo cases, her client listed a number of legal claims against President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, and others, including that the government had committed torture in violation of the laws of war. I don't think she used the term war criminal, but that was the upshot of the legal claim.

She's clearly trying to back away from this. Democrats are as well. But I think it's a strong reminder that words have meaning, and it's important for us in our constitutional dialogue and the work of the courts to not throw around accusations like this against the government, against anybody. We saw a lot of that during the war on terror years where the Bush administration was accused of really horrific and illegal things And I think it important that we be reminded of that if only to remind people going forward of the importance of actually avoiding that kind of destructive rhetoric Adam, they don't care. I mean, we saw them do this during the Justice Kavanaugh hearings, which, I mean, that was unacceptable behavior on Capitol Hill to treat a man like that.

So the Democrats, they just don't care. And then they turn around and they expect the Republicans to be held to a higher standard, which the Republicans always do, and nothing is ever fixed. Nothing ever changes. You know, I testified at the Kavanaugh hearings on some of the constitutional issues, and I remember the protesters being there, although by the time my panel got there, the protesters were so bored they went home. But I think you're right, and all this talk in the run-up to this confirmation hearing about how people were hoping for less destructive, less heated confirmation hearings, They're really forgetting the fact that we only see that for Republican nominees, whether it was the nominations of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, or a decade ago with Robert and Alito.

After all, Alito, yeah, Bork. Alito, they attempted to filibuster him. Republicans, sure, they gave Merrick Garland the silent treatment, but they've never gone after nominees as personally and as pointedly as we've seen Democrats do. All right, Adam, we've got to leave it there. I've got to take a quick break here.

Appreciate the great insight here. And we have a link to your column over at our live show blog. Thank you again. Thank you.

All right.

Adam White from American Enterprise Institute. By the way, real quick here, Jen Psaki not going to Poland. Want to know why? She's got the China virus again. Again.

She's fully vaccinated. That just being announced from the White House podium a few moments ago, she will not be going to Poland with the president. But got to take a break here, folks. We'll be right back. From the front lines of the culture war, it's Todd Starnes.

I don't know you well, but I've been impressed by our interaction, and you've been gracious and charming. Why in the world would you call Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and George W. Bush war criminals in a legal filing? It seems so out of character for you. Senator, you may have been talking, are you talking about briefs that I, or habeas petitions that I filed?

Talking about when you were representing a member of the Taliban and the Department of Defense identified him as an intelligence officer for the Taliban and you referred to the Secretary of Defense and the sitting president of the United States as war criminals. Why would you do something like that? It seems so out of character.

Well, Senator, I don't remember that particular reference. And I was representing my clients and making arguments. I'd have to take a look at what you meant. I did not intend to disparage the president or the secretary of defense.

Well, being a war criminal has huge ramifications. You could be subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and hauled before that international tribunal and tried for war crimes.

So it's not a casual comment, I would suggest. All right.

There you go. Senator John Cornyn, we referenced that audio just a little earlier, and then Dick Durbin followed up by saying that Cornyn is incorrect, that she never referred to the president as a war criminal. We'll get to the bottom of all of that. In the meantime, I want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line here in our beautiful Liberty University studios. Honored to have with us Roger Byron from First Liberty Institute.

Roger, hope you're doing good today. Hey, Todd. Thanks for having me on.

So there is a crazy story happening in Elizabethton, Tennessee. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is based in Wisconsin, is very upset over three iconic crosses on a mountain that overlooks the city. What's going on there?

Well, Todd, back in the 1950s, there was some local youths who were encouraged to do something creative for the town. And around Easter, they decided to erect three crosses on a hillside outside of town. And there they've stood ever since. They've now become a historical landmark of Elizabethan, and they've been there for 70 years. And there's no reason they shouldn't be there for 70 more.

And these are not like the giant, you know, when you have the giant American flags on the side of the interstate. I mean, these are fairly simple, rustic crosses that sort of blend in, I guess, to the hillside there, the mountainous community. Yeah, they appear to be just plain white crosses that, you know, if you look up, you can see that they're there. Everyone in town currently, except for maybe the oldest residents, you know, grew up with them there. And this complaint, of course, I guess, began three years ago.

and apparently, you know, whatever list that this organization keeps for complaints that they've issued, Elizabethan has come back up on the list, and so they've reissued a complaint.

So here you have again, the cross is up there, 70 years, no problems, a bunch of out-of-town atheists and agnostics from Wisconsin raising a stink about this. Where do things stand now? Has the city made a decision on what to do about the crosses?

Well, the good news is that the law is squarely on the side of the city. The controlling law here is the Supreme Court case that we won at the Supreme Court just a few years ago in 2019. It's called American Legion versus American Humans Association. First Liberty represented the American Legion in that matter. The Legion is a longtime client of ours.

and in the American Legion case, the Supreme Court upheld a government display of a government-owned World War I memorial cross. The cross itself was over 30 feet high, and it stood upon a large pedestal, making the entire memorial almost 40 feet high, and it sits right in the median of a very busy public highway, and it had been there for many years, and a similar organization made complaint and ended up filing suit. And the Supreme Court found that memorials that are established but also have some type of religiously expressive component to them, whether they're a monument or a symbol or a practice, are presumptively constitutional. In other words, the law presumes that established symbols or monuments or practices that incorporate some type of religious expression are constitutional unless they can be proven otherwise. On the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line here in our Liberty University studios, Roger Myron with First Liberty Institute.

You know, Roger, you would think that these anti-religion folks would get the message, but it seems like the fight just goes on and on and on.

Well, it's not about the anti-religion groups getting the message. They know what the law is. This particular group, their primary mode of operation appears to be sending complaint letters like these, maybe as many as 1,000 a year, to small government entities around the country, apparently in an attempt to bully them or perhaps coerce them into doing what the organization wants out of fear of possible legal action. And it's not uncommon for there to be no real basis for the legal complaint. And it seems to me, because like you said, I think this isn't an attempt to bully to some extent.

If a city or a community gets one of these letters, it would be wise for them to reach out to First Liberty Institute, I have to imagine. Yes, that's what we normally recommend. Number one, do not respond to the letter. You're under no obligation to do that. Number two, before you do anything else, reach out to First Liberty.

You can do so at firstliberty.org, and we can advise you on where you stand with law and give you advice and guidance and representation where needed on what your next steps would be. You see, and that's the neighborly thing to do, Roger. This is why we love you guys, because you're offering to help out the good people there in the Tennessee mountains. Yes, that's a fine place to be. And I can tell you this particular matter with cross displays because it's cross displays that are most often targeted by these groups.

And cross displays make up most of the litigation in these areas.

Well, under our case, the American Legion Supreme Court win just in very recent years because obviously the case is very new. the 11th circuit upheld a 35 foot cross display in in pensacola florida that had been there since world war ii that was erected specifically for easter and it stood there since the second world war with sunrise easter services being held there someone had installed benches specifically for sunrise easter services and the 11th circuit based upon the american legion precedent found that this was an established, long-term tradition that used religious components, obviously used to cross. And you guys won the day. Roger, I hate to do this. That music means the computer's going to cut us off here.

But, folks, we have a link to First Liberty Institute over on the website, toddsterns.com. Roger, good luck to you guys fighting the good fight. Folks, we've got to take a break. This is the Todd Stearns Radio Show. We'll be right back.

All right, people, good to have you with us. Welcome back to the Todd Surge Radio Program. Jen Psaki announcing that even though she's been fully vaccinated, she has once again come down with the China virus. How many times is this? I mean, are they really giving them the vaccine?

I mean, you hate to ask that question, but, you know, I mean, here they are.

So she's not going to Poland. She'll be staying home, and President Biden heads out there. Want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line here in our beautiful Liberty University studios. Our good friend, he is the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Congressman Scott Perry from Pennsylvania. Hey, Congressman.

Todd, great to be on with you, and great to be on with people who love liberty from liberty.

So thank you very much for the opportunity. You know, Congressman, I saw a report from the Associated Press yesterday. I'm just I'm getting a little confused. You know, we stand with the Ukrainian people. We we support them in their effort to repel the invading Russian armies.

But at the same time, I'm not you've got the president of Ukraine now coming out and saying, well, we're really not interested in joining NATO after all. What's going on here? Are you are you I mean, should we are we right to to be confused? Are we right to ask questions?

Well, look, I think it's pretty, you know, it's we might do. the same thing in his shoes. He's trying to save his country and the people in his country against the invaders who don't care. They're killing people indiscriminately, don't mind bombing civilian targets as opposed to military targets. He's trying to do whatever he can, in my opinion, to stop the bleeding, to stop the fighting, to stop the destruction of the country that he that he represents and he loves.

And so I think he's going to say things like that and to see if that can offer some respite and some place where there can be a discussion or a cessation of hostilities and, you know, an opening up of a place where there can be some way to bridge this problem and solve the impasse here. Obviously, you know, Vladimir Putin, quite honestly, I think what it does show, too, is that Vladimir Putin never really was interested or concerned or paranoid, as we've been told about NATO. Vladimir Putin is trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union, and I think that by doing what Zelensky did, it calls him out. Because if that's the reason, then the fighting would stop immediately, right? But that's not the reason.

No, it's not. And again, I don't believe that that's going to stop what's happened. I don't think that Putin is going to withdraw the troops. I'm with you. I think we should have been believing Putin from day one.

Donald Trump was warning us about, you know, even back in the day, Mitt Romney was warning us about Russia.

So everybody knew the danger was there. And now here we are. And the question is, what is the Biden administration going to do about it?

Well, I think what you're seeing them do is what they're going to do about it, which is stand back and telegraph weakness to the rest of the despots and enemies of the United States around the world. And sure, you know, we're doing what we can to help provide Ukraine with either defensive or offensive weapons as you see them. But let's face it, it's obviously too much or too little too late and too much of the Biden woke and Green New Deal agenda that has opened the door for Russia to do this. And, of course, our enemies are looking at it as well. And, of course, part of the solution, if you're Joe Biden, is to turn to Venezuela, is to turn literally to Iran.

you know who it's just been reported that Iran you know was seeking to find assassins in the United States to kill John Bolton and and Mike Pompeo the former Secretary of State and so the fact that we would even consider turning to those states as opposed to turning to the state of Texas or the state of North Dakota or my goodness how about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who's sitting on top of Marcella Shale gas and oil, the Utica Shale gas and oil. We've got great resources here. And quite honestly, we can probably starve out Russia's war machine from an economic standpoint if we would just help Americans buy their gas at the pump for less than $4.35 or $5 a gallon. But he won't do it. On the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line is Congressman Scott Perry, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.

You know, Congressman, I watched Kamala Harris's performance in Poland just the other day in Louisiana. Are Democrats seeing the same thing the rest of us are when it comes to Kamala Harris? I'm sure they're seeing it, but they're not going to say anything, right? Democrats, unlike Republicans, Democrats never admit they're wrong and they never apologize for the things they do, including destroying the country. We're all embarrassed to the point where it almost defies description.

You don't literally you don't even know what to say after one of those performances. It's so it's so embarrassing and humiliating. But look, they're going to they're not going to own it and they're not going to do anything to change it. And they'll actually stick up for her at the end of the day, because to them, even if it means the destruction of the country, it's more important to have a leftist in office than it is to admit your failures or certainly the failures of the leftist policy. You see, I do wonder, Congressman, if there if there have been talks within the Democrat circles about Joe Biden.

I mean, they know that his mental faculties aren't where they are. But I think they've they've looked at Kamala Harris and they realize the better deal is to keep Biden where he is in that condition. Every day we wake up, right? And we think, how could it get any worse? We can't believe it's as bad as it is.

We think it literally can't get any worse. Yet every single day we seem to be surprised that we wake up and something is even more profoundly absurd than the day before. But I think that you're probably right. The most profound absurdity would be somehow if she were to ascend to the presidency. And that's beyond the intellectual grasp of all Americans, including the left, although they'll never admit it.

Good point. Good point. Congressman, how are gas prices in your neck of the woods?

Well, they're high. And we just got gas today. It's about $4.40 a gallon. Still record high. I think it did subside a little bit.

But it, of course, has nothing to do with the Biden administration. Of course not. They're not helping. It's the world market has settled into the fact that there's going to be a war in Ukraine with Russia and that there's going to be some volatility in who's buying gas. But, you know, it's fungible just like money.

And so the Russians are still going to sell their gas on the market. We're just going to buy it from some other despot, apparently, instead of making our own. And that's what would really make the difference.

So people are feeling it, whether it's at the pump directly or, of course, when they go to the grocery store, when they when they go buy a two by four or when they go to their their kids dance lesson. They're feeling it in every single thing they do. And it's important that Republicans in particular, conservatives certainly make sure that all the American people make the connection to the Biden administration policies, because, Todd, this is just the beginning. People see it at the gas pump, but they don't realize is that this whole push to the Green New Deal is not really just about you driving an electric vehicle. It's actually about you not driving at all, because in California, you know, where they're trying to push electric vehicles.

Now they're saying you can only plug in at certain times because the grid can't handle it. The grid can't handle any of this, especially when we're closing down power-producing facilities. I live in the shadow of Three Mile Island. It's shut down, and the left wants to shut down almost all power-producing facilities unless they're wind and solar. And a modern economy can't run on that, and they know that, but they don't care.

What they want you to do is either drive an electric vehicle if you must drive at all. They prefer you to take mass transit, and I'm on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. They want to move that out into rural areas to give you that option. But the last option at all is a fossil fuel-driven vehicle. But what they really prefer is you not driving at all, and they're going to start controlling it.

That's where we're headed. They're going to control if you drive, when you drive, and where you drive. That's it. That's it. Congressman, we're going to have to leave it there, but you're spot on accurate there, sir.

Appreciate the great work you're doing and the great work the House Freedom Caucus is doing.

Well, thank you, Todd. God bless you and your audience. We ask you to stay in the fight with us. All right.

We're there with you, Congressman. We sure are. All right.

Congressman Scott Perry, House Freedom Caucus. And he's right. This is all about shutting down your cars. They want those cars parked in the garage. That's why they really don't care about these high prices at the gas pump.

As a matter of fact, somebody was pointing out, I saw this on Twitter, they said, well, gas is $10 a gallon over in Sweden.

So what are the Americans complaining about? You know what? Because we're not Sweden. We're America. Unbelievable.

All right, look, going right to the phones. I know a lot of you have been on hold. Hang tight. Got a couple of lines open, 844-747-8868. That's 844-747-8868.

Oh, I got to tell you all about our good friends over at Patriot Mobile. Man, do they love America. Do they love our Lord. They are America's only Christian conservative wireless carrier. And, folks, they have some incredible deals for our audience.

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Now, all you need to do is go to PatriotMobile.com slash Todd. That's PatriotMobile.com slash Todd. And use my first name as the promo code, Todd. Let me tell you what you're going to get. You're going to get a great discount, and you're going to get free Premier activation.

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Todd Starnes. All right, welcome back, everybody. Let's go right to the phone. Charles, North Carolina on WSIC. Hey, Charles, what's on your mind?

Hey, good afternoon, Todd. Todd, I want to ask you a question. You know, when somebody becomes a pilot, they learn that they only have so many hours in a gas tank when they're up in the air. You can only fly out so far before you reach a point of no return, and you have to come back. And my question to you is, do you think, because I've read articles to support this, do you think that there's a point of no return for America as far as the damage that could be done to our economy, foreign policy, immigration, the culture.

I mean, to the point to where no matter who comes after Joe Biden, that we just can't recover. Because I think we're fast approaching that point. And I mean, I have some, you know, things I think we could do, but I just want to get your opinion. What do you think? Yes.

To some extent, I do believe there is that point of no return. Are we there yet? No. But I am concerned about what happens if we can't stop Joe Biden, if for some reason the Republicans can't win the next presidential election. And I say that, Charles, because it's the nation's school system.

This is what we've got to get a handle on. And if we can't fix what they're teaching in those classrooms, then we are going to hit that point of no return. And especially when you look at how shrewd the Democrats are. They control Hollywood. They control social media.

You saw what they did with TikTok. They're unleashing all these little TikTok stars out there to carry Biden policy and foreign policy to the younger kids.

So, yeah, I think that is possible.

Well, I think we're fast approaching that economically if we lose our status as reserve currency of the world, which we're at the point of almost doing that. But Todd, as far as Joe Biden goes, so let me just throw something out there and tell me what you think. You and I both know he's a disaster. Kamala Harris is worse. And if something happens to Biden, Kamala Harris is going to take over.

Something happens to Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi is going to take over.

So what's the solution? I think the solution is the Republicans that have to have a landslide in the midterms. And I think we're on that trajectory. I think it's going to be the right competition. I agree.

Okay. So the first step is to get control of the House of Representatives. And I also think we're going to pick up seats in the Senate. And Todd, after we do that, I think that there's only one legal and constitutional pathway to course correct. And I think that needs to be that the new Republican Congress needs to nominate Donald Trump as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

and along with showing the american people how we're going to help them on inflation immigration all the other issues out there joe biden and kamala harris need to simultaneously be impeached and there's enough evidence there on that laptop and other things and if we can do that and i think it would be easy in the house you just have to have a simple majority now the senate you're going to have to have 67 to convict right but i think with the overwhelming preponderance of evidence, hopefully we can get there. And in doing so, Donald Trump would have sent to the presidency and we can course correct. And I know that seems like a long shot.

Well, it is a long shot right now. It seems like the only shot. I don't know what else to do. The Republicans better get their act together and Trump better stop campaigning on the stop the steal. We've got to we've got to put forward a positive message.

Here's how here's what here's what Biden did of the country, and here's how we can fix it. And if the president does that, and we have a positive message going in, because again, these voting issues have to be fixed on the state level. They've got to get that together. If not, if we're going to re-litigate what happened in 2020, then it's going to be a tough road. It's gone.

Well, I'm not saying we have to, that's not what I'm talking about. This has nothing to do with that election. No, it has to do with campaigning, though. And we've got, I mean, if you're talking about winning a super majority or majority in the house we've got to make sure we're campaigning on a message that this is about stopping biden it's not about re-litigating we can't about it's about it's about controlling inflation controlling the southern border controlling crime taking back control of our schools our culture no that needs to be the message but in my opinion the only person the only the republican party is going to have to get back in a position of power to do that all Got to leave it there, Charles. Good call, as always.

Appreciate that. Grace, my phone is buzzing. Do you know I'm on the Citizen app that shows you all the crime that happens in Memphis?

Somebody just robbed a family dollar store. Again? What kind of a moron robs a family dollar store? I feel like this happened not that long ago. I mean, if you're going to rob, why would you not rob, like, I don't know, Victoria's Secret or Bloomingdale's or something like that?

Well, they're stealing cash from the register. I'm sure there's a lot of $1 bills in there. You see, the problem with Memphis, we've got stupid criminals. That's the problem. That's okay, because then they're easier to catch.

I'm okay with that part. Did you hear about this story? This is terrible. There were two people arrested. Police found drugs in the car, and they also found drugs in the rectum.

Ew.

Somebody stuffed a bunch of drugs up their wazoo. That sounds painful.

So the police are doing the body search. You know, they do the body cavity search at the jail. They pat you down. And they said, sir, what do you have up your rectum? And so the guy was like, they found a white powdered substance.

And the guy said it was either crushed up Percocet or Tylenol. Oh, gosh. I mean, you know, maybe he thought he maybe had aches and pains back there and he thought the Tylenol, that'd be an easier way to inject it. Turned out to be crack cocaine. Oh, yeah.

You know what I would have done? If that had been me. Sir, what is that up your wazoo? Relief factor. Oh, my.

Relief factor. I'm just saying that's too many jokes. I got to work on the Gorka. Oh, crack. I got I got to work on the Gorka impression.

All right, folks. Good day. we've got an action-packed week. Former Senator David Perdue is going to be here. Herschel Walker, Senator Marshall Blackburn.

We have an all-star lineup all through the week. It's going to be a lot of fun. Folks, ToddStarns.com, that's where all the fun continues. Be sure to check out our great stories. Caleb Park and the journalism team working super hard for you.

Be good, America.