The End of an Age?

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Visit LegacyPM Investments dot com. That's legacypminvestments. com. Live from the Liberty University Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's favorite gun totem, Bible-clinging, deplorable American. That's right.

I love this American. Todd Starnes. Yes, indeed, it is. What's up? Welcome into it.

It is the Todd Starnes radio program. Todd Starns out today, though. He's out and about doing his book tour, which I am so excited about. I cannot wait. To see where he all goes with this book tour.

And I'm excited because he's coming to my hometown here in just a couple of days. We'll have some more information on that here in just a bit. But welcome into it, the Todd Starns Radio Show. My name is Andy Hoosier, filling in for the great Todd Starns today, broadcasting, moving the Liberty University studios. Out to Wichita, Kansas, where I hail from with my flagship station KQAM.

So great to have you with us. If you want to call into the program, you're more than welcome to do so at 901-260-5926. Again, 901-260-5926.

So I believe. That Todd is in Arizona today.

Now, I have a copy of his book sitting in my hands as we speak right now, Twilight's Last Gleaming: Can America Be Saved? With his book tour that's been all over the country. And he continues to go all over the country. He's in Arizona today. I believe he's coming out to Wichita, Kansas, like I don't know, just guesstimating here.

But like tomorrow night, he'll be here Thursday, Wednesday and Thursday, and then moving on again, other places.

So really excited. He continues to have a great response. And everybody loving his book. I've been working my way through it as well, and it's pretty fantastic. If you want more information on that, you can go to Todd's website at todddstarns.com.

Man, what a day today! First off, it's Monday. Hope you had a great weekend. Coming up at the bottom of this hour, we have Paul Tice. He is the author of the book The Race to Zero.

We're going to talk one of my favorite topics: ESG. The social programs, the social credit score for not only the consumer and the American people, but for businesses and corporations across the nation. What does that entail for us moving forward? Kind of an interesting conversation, right?

So we'll talk about ESG coming up at the bottom of the hour. It was a wild weekend as we start to finally see some springtime, and that means storms, and that means, but that also means, I want to jump right to it. That also means today, the end of the world. Can we. Can we prepare ourselves?

The solar eclipse happening today across the nation. And I have to tell you, I have never seen in my entire existence, I've never seen so many conspiracy theories lined up for this one.

Now, that's not to say that a guy like me doesn't enjoy a good conspiracy theory once in a while. I am all about it. But can you imagine and call me if you've heard some and what which ones you believe or which ones you may think happen?

Now, here's the thing. The solar eclipse happens at different times throughout the day. And as this program will be live, it will be happening in the Wichita area where I'm at. In which talking at 148.

So it will be the last 15 minutes of this program that we'll be on.

So I've already warned the producers. And everybody back at the Great KWAM in Memphis, Tennessee. That if I don't come back on the air for the last segment of the show, You'll know why, but it's going to happen at different times, obviously, throughout the day. And I've heard so many conspiracies about this one. The weirdest part is.

Is that this apparently somehow Confirms to some people that a solar eclipse happening in the middle of the day is proof positive of the flat earth theory. Has anybody else heard this one? I'm still trying to wrap my head around that because the moon moving. In front of the sun is case positive of the fact that we have a flat earth somehow.

So I'm not sure how that one works. But those that want to believe it or try to defend it, you're more than welcome to call in at 901-260-5926. I'm totally open to whatever conspiracies that you may have heard for this one. I've heard about the three days of darkness, the second coming of Jesus, which look, if it happens, it happens. I'm totally ready.

We'll be ready to make this thing happen. But I don't know if that's necessarily the case. They've talked about some of the synchronicities and similarities happening in this one. And again, cool if that happens. But before I got it, here's a little bit of backstory for me.

Before I got into politics, before I got into radio in high school, I was actually going my goal, I wanted to work for NASA. I was going to be an astronomer. I enjoyed physics. I still have it. I still have my telescope that I got back in high school.

That's about a $3,000 telescope, and I've seen some beautiful images with it. I am a logical kind of guy. I am a scientific-minded kind of guy. I am a numbers-crunching kind of guy. I am a factual kind of guy.

And as much as I said, Is I may or may not enjoy a good conspiracy theory. Conspiracies can be easily debunked if you use some logic on many of them. The ones that can't be easily debunked, and I'm all for hearing. Let's bring it on. I'm ready for the alien invasion happening relatively soon as well, so I'm preparing myself on that front.

But the good solar eclipse conspiracies, I want to hear from you. Which ones have you heard, and which ones do you actually believe in? 901-260-5926. It's going to be a fun time. And again, if you hear some dead air for the last 15 minutes of this program.

Then you'll know why. Going to be fun.

Well, we'll talk about it throughout the program today. Got a lot to get to. Obviously, a big weekend that happened this weekend as it's all eyes now on the general election. All eyes on November of 2024, especially for the presidential campaigns. Even though the conventions have not happened to essentially concrete in these candidates to make them the official nominees, they are now the de facto candidates for the election with Donald Trump and Joe Biden and raising massive amounts of money.

So, a couple weeks ago, as you know, Joe Biden held a big conference, and he had to do it not by himself. But with the big hitters for the Democrat Party, or at least what used to be the big hitters of the Democrat Party, we have Barack Obama, we have Bill Clinton, we have Joe Biden, we had the celebrities with Stephen Colbert or Colbert, however you want to say his name with the late show, which can I be honest, that he is not a good late night talk show. He is he's just not. He was good when he did the Colbert rapport and he actually did political jokes. He was somewhat entertaining.

But now that he tries to actually do the celebrity thing, he's just a terrible host. The last time I actually watched a late night talk show, Was when Craig Ferguson remember him on The Late Late Show after David Letterman? I didn't even enjoy David Letterman a whole lot. I watched Craig Ferguson. He was the most entertaining late night talk show since he's left off the air a few years ago.

I guess it's been like 10 years ago now, but since then, I have not watched a single late night talk show. But apparently, Stephen Colbert was there. They raised $25 million, shattering records of how much money that a presidential candidate has made in a single night in a benefit dinner with all the big hitters in the elite gathering together and donating to Joe Biden, hitting that $25 million mark in a single night.

Well, Donald Trump took that and he said, hold my sweet tea. And he went out there in Florida over the weekend and rocked out a fifty million dollar one night presidential campaign contribution night, which just blew the doors off of any record. Again, what Joe Biden may have broken with a record, Donald Trump just doubled that. And that's really a reflection of what we saw back in the 2016 election, was it not? That we saw, according to them, this is what we're the speculation of what we saw during the election of 2016.

You can speculate thereafter with all the theories, and I'd be happy to hear them again as well. But we shattered records for voter turnout, too. Or Donald Trump may had, what, seventy five, seventy six, seventy seven million votes. And then according to them, Joe Biden rocked it with like eighty four million votes. When most presidential races, they float between fifty million and sixty million per candidate.

And we topped that.

So, this is a sign of people either really, really excited about the presidential candidates that we have with Donald Trump and Joe Biden, or they just really, really despise the other guy and want to make sure that they do not get into the office.

So, it's going to be interesting to see. How this race continues to build up. But if we're breaking records already so early in the game, then what's it going to look like as we get closer to the election in November?

Now, according to CNN, looking at some of the numbers and the amount of cash that's on hand, now this is prior to the big breaking campaign contribution nights that each one of them had. This was as of March 21st.

So I have not seen some updated numbers as of yet. But according to CNN and the middle end-ish of March, Donald Trump had roughly $33 million on hand with cash on hand during the campaign, with Joe Biden sitting at $71 million.

Now, I don't know if that's necessarily true. I think a lot of that comes from some super PACs, but nonetheless, they said that Joe Biden was dominating Joe Biden, or I'm sorry, Joe Biden was dominating Donald Trump with cash on hand and political contributions.

Now, that's all kind of turned around since we've had the changeover with the RNC. Right, we had Ronald McDaniel come in as the co-chair. We have a new chairman for the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, which I'm sorry, Laura Trump came in as the co-chair. Ronna McDaniel out as the chair. And I know Todd talked about that bust with media outlets and her trying to back off on supporting Donald Trump and trying to be the hoo-rah Republican supporter because she wanted a nice, sweet deal with media to try and get her name out there.

But since that change has happened, And we have a new chair. We have a Trump in there as the co-chair for the RNC. They're raking in some massive funds where apparently they had the greatest first quarter of the year since they've had since the campaigns began over the past few years.

So that's good news. The Republican Party starting to build up some steam. I was hesitant, maybe a little bit concerned about. The Republican Party having a quote-unquote dynasty with another Trump involved in it, with Lord Trump becoming the co-chair. But that's not to say that they're doing a fantastic job and that they're actually rocking the money.

So they've been gathering massive amounts of funds, and then Donald Trump waltz in with one night and rocks a campaign fund with $50 million over the weekend.

Now, the bigger question is. Of what the platforms are and what the special agenda is to focus on with the voters to get them riled up.

Now, mind you again, we're still early on in the race.

So things are going to change. The October surprises, so to speak, are going to be happening all throughout the summertime. The legal issues they try to throw on Donald Trump are going to continue to happen. But nonetheless, right now at this moment, the question is that you need to be asking yourself: who are they talking to? Who are they pandering to?

And what agenda are they trying to focus on? And it seems to me. That the main focus for both Joe Biden and Donald Trump right now are social issues. Which is kind of weird to me, but that really shows to me that they're pandering to the younger generation because the younger generations. Focus more so on the social issues than they do economic issues, for example.

There was a study done actually, I want to say six, eight months ago, that showed that young conservatives, especially, like end of millennial age and Gen Zers. The Republican conservative young generation showed that near 60 to 80 percent of them. wanted to focus on social issues. wanted to address abortion. Wanted to address the family unit.

Wanted to address the LGBTQ issue, wanted to address all of this. They weren't necessarily as interested in economic issues, which Okay, cool. But at the same time, the economy is like the number one priority. We don't have the ability or the luxury to actually address those other social issues if we don't have a cranking economy that's punching out things and keeping us healthy and allowing us to make a decent amount of money and keeping inflation low and allowing us to buy goods to keep on the, you know, on the dinner table.

So, to me, being the number-crunching, data-driven kind of guy that I am, I enjoy economic conversations. But right now it's all about socials. And Joe Biden made that very evident just a few weeks ago during the Easter holiday when he had to bring up the Transgender Visibility Day above Easter Sunday, because, well, they happen to fall on the same day, and therefore we need to talk about this. Not the fact that we have an entire month for Pride Month or that we have like 50 other days for transgender awareness in some fashion across the nation. No, it had to be specifically Transgender Visibility Day.

And then, oh, yeah, by the way, to all my Christian friends, happy Easter. It's kind of hell that day working. And it didn't go very well.

So he's trying to backtrack on that just a little bit. But earlier today, Donald Trump released a campaign message. Talking about the abortion issue. And how that is one of the major focuses on the campaign trail is addressing abortion with all eyes and everybody on pins and needles about how he's going to take a stance. on abortion.

I didn't know it was going to be a controversial thing because being president prior to and being one of the only sitting presidents in American history to actually go to the pro-life rally in Washington, D.C. and speak at that, I assumed that he was a relatively pro-life kind of guy. But he said this in a message earlier today. Many people have asked me what my position is on abortion and abortion rights. Especially since I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of something that all legal scholars, both sides, wanted and, in fact, demanded.

be ended. Roe v. Wait. They wanted it ended. It must be remembered that the Democrats are the radical ones on this position because They support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month.

The concept of having an abortion in the later months and even execution after birth, and that's exactly what it is. The baby is born, the baby is executed after birth is unacceptable, and almost everyone agrees with that. My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, The law of the state.

There it is. Donald Trump's message on abortion. And is it a controversial one, or is it one that falls in line with how conservatives have been moving on this issue? Repealing Roe v. Wade from the Supreme Court just a few years ago, making it a state rights issue, trying to bring it back down to the local conversation, and then being able to try and push a pro-life agenda at the statewide level, which is much easier, by the way, than doing it at a federal level.

Your thoughts on this? 901-260-5926. 901-260-5926. I'd love to hear your thoughts. The stance of Donald Trump on the abortion issue, and will social issues like this.

Be one of the top priorities for the campaign moving into November of 2024. Got to take a break at Tandy Hoocher filling in for Todd Starnes and the Todd Starnes radio program. Stay here. Hi, this is Todd Stearns, and I want to update you on my Calatrin journey. I'm still losing weight.

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So our 90-day supply is where our huge 86% success rate is. Check it out today on our website, toplos.com. That's T-O-P-L-O-S-S.com. And be sure to use that discount code, Todd. Many states will be different.

Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that's what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people. You must follow your heart, or, in many cases, your religion or your faith. Do what's right for your family and do what's right for yourself. Do what's right for your children.

Do what's right for our country and vote.

So important to vote. There it is, Donald Trump's campaign message talking about abortion and each state being able to do their own thing, bringing the abortion issue down to the statewide level. It is really good. And heartwarming to me, the fact that we're starting to hear an actual unified message and an actual platform for what we stand on abortion. I know Republicans have been arguing, obviously, about this for a very long time on where we go, how many weeks until you can actually do that cutoff point for an abortion, or whether it should be a federal thing because we should defend life at a federal level, whether it should be down to a statewide level because we believe in the concept of federalism.

So, there's a lot of different concepts and ideas from the conservatives on where that line is drawn and to each their own on where they stand on that opinion. Obviously, we're very pro-life. We support the right to life, we support the right for children to actually, I don't know, survive and actually live. And Donald Trump has been very staunch on that and coming out with this platform and essentially saying that we need it at a state level. And then individuals make their own individual decisions based on your culture, based on your religion, based on your personal belief, and based on you doing what's best, not just for you, the individual, like you, when you look at yourself in the mirror, but your family and your children.

Man, personal responsibility.

Now, that is a very foreign aspect in politics, is it not? That's a very foreign thing that you hear a politician say because most of the time, on both sides, we got to be honest: Republicans and Democrats, we hear about it as the government needs to do something. Government steps in. That's why a government needs to ban abortion. The government needs to force states to allow abortions.

The government needs to do this. The government needs to do that. Instead of saying this is an individual choice. And while we're pro-life, And we support children. And we don't want the murdering of children, we can't allow that type of policy to happen.

It needs to be done at the statewide level, and then, guess what? It's up to you. You, the voter, you the activist, you the catalyst for change in your own community. to be working with your state legislature and actually make sure they make the right choice to do what's right at your state level and then do what's best for you and lead by that example at a family level as well.

So this is, to me, a wonderful position for Donald Trump to take. This is exactly how we need to go. And I really hope that the Republicans get behind in a unified message when it comes to this issue, because this could be the make or break for some on social issues. And this could win over some that are on the fence from the other side of the aisle. That don't like how radical that the left wing has become, allowing abortions to happen all the way up to nine months.

Andy, that doesn't happen. It does, it may not happen often. But they want it to be allowed. And remember for them, it's not about just allowing you to make your choice. It's allowing the choice and then shaming you if you don't do the same choice that they want.

So that's only step one, and you know what the rest of the steps actually look like. Lots more coming up right around the corner. Paul Tice will be joining us right here on the Todd Starns radio program. Stay here. You might have heard Mike Lindella MyPellow no longer have the support of their box stores or shopping channels the way they used to.

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It is the Todd Starnes Radio Show, Andy Hoosier, filling in today for a Monday Eclipse Monday, end of the world Monday. Are you prepared for that coming up here in just a couple of hours? We got some calls on the line. We'll get to you in just a moment. Don't go anywhere, but I want to get to our guest right out of the gate here as we move to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker hotlines as we hang out with Paul Tice.

Now, this is an issue I love talking about ESG, and I know Todd's mentioned it as well. Probably one of the most dangerous things that we could potentially. Uh have in our system. A social credit score. A way for the government to control the financial institutions and the corporations that by default will trickle down into us.

What is it, and how do we fight some of this stuff? Paul Ticey is the author of the book, The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System. Paul, how are you, my friend? I'm doing good, Andy. Good to be with you.

Yeah, great to have you with you. I appreciate you very much. Talk about ESG for a moment. Do you agree that this is probably one of the more dangerous things that's happening in society right now? Yeah, I mean, I would say that's probably the most serious threat to capitalism in the free markets that we've seen.

really in two hundred years. Because it's It's occurring kind of behind the scenes I don't think the American public, whether they're invested in the market or not, really can appreciate what's going on. But as you say, it's the equivalent of the Chinese social credit scores. And unless we reverse this thing over the next few years, you're going to have a progressive litmus test for who can access the market for capital and who's not allowed to. Starting with fossil fuel companies.

Yeah. Are we already starting to see it? Do you think we're seeing and watching businesses which we're seeing them quote unquote go woke and hire these equity and diversity and inclusion directors with their companies, which in some cases I don't even understand why we need one? For example, even like Chick-fil-A announced that they're going to be hiring one of those Disney hiring an equity, diversity and inclusion officer, which they've, I think, had for a while, seeing some of the movies that's come out here. But is it because that's what they're choosing to do to try and be a progressive company?

Or are they being forced to do so because they have to in order to get the loans or work with the banks because of this movement? Yeah. I mean, EST is really a pressurized system, and everyone is under duress to comply because if you speak out, Chick fil A would be a good example, if you don't toe the line on every progressive policy point, then you become the next target. And I think the big threat h is hanging over the heads of Of CEOs is that Um If you cross the activists that are pushing this agenda, you may be cut off from financing. And I think that's one reason why in the Bud Light example, where they clearly have lost revenues and market share, Over the past year, they still have not been able to come out and write the ship.

And I think that's because they're sensitive about. not transgressing against the progressive policies.

So um it it it is being companies and Wall Street firms using pressure. And first, it's been moral pressure. going forward, it's going to be the regulators coming in and making it a mandatory system. Yeah, it's a cause for concern. I know the Biden administration has come out over the past year talking about small banks, for example, and how they're supporting small banks and how they're supporting the small financial institutions across the country.

But it seems like those are the ones being squeezed, which is what usually happens with progressives anyways. They squeeze the little guy, but they're squeezing the small banks because they're trying to get them on board or to be bought out by some of the bigger conglomerates that are already on board with this movement, aren't they? Yeah, I mean, literally everybody has to comply and Even if you disagree with it, you're not going to speak out. Um And as we've seen over the last few years, I mean, a lot of firms will just come out and issue policy statements around political issues like uh voter ID. Because that is required now.

I mean, you have to speak out in support of. of leftist causes. Um but if you're a small bank, you probably sell to a larger competitor down the road. That is probably your for a takeout.

So you have to spout the same pro ESG policies if you want to make yourself more attractive. Um to a larger competitive Competitor to buy you out.

So everyone. has to comply. As I said, it's a pressurized system. And every firm on Wall Street actually right now is a member of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, which is their the leading activist group for ESG on Wall Street. And as a member of that group, you have to integrate ESC into all of the assets that you manage.

And you mentioned the banking sector. We're already starting to see banks kind of defund the oil and gas sector. It's starting over in Europe, but it's coming to the US.

So there's already the movement starting to To starve capital from oil and gas companies, and that eventually is going to lead to a constricted supply situation. It really is. Let's go a step further here and let's talk about where it happens on the consumer end. We teased it at the beginning about potentially being like a social credit score, so to speak, with only working with businesses that are allowed to stay in business because of going down this road.

So, what would that look like moving forward if they're able to? Push this forward and overhaul the entire system to squeeze out these businesses that don't go along with this mindset, the ones that do cave and end up going along with this because they want to stay in business.

Now that means that as consumers, we have very limited options. We essentially don't have a free market any longer, and that we only buy from businesses that have an agenda that we may or may not agree with here. Yeah, I I think that the major threat and the The um the theme behind the the title of the book About creating the financial system is ESG, for all the focus on woke issues. not to dismiss those. They're obviously you know, a serious threat, particularly if you have a a young family or you have kids in school.

But I I think there's been somewhat of a a distraction with with DEI. And maybe people are dismissing ESG as just the latest battle in the culture wars of the last several decades. It's not. ESG is different, and I think climate change needs to remain the focus because that's going to impact every American. Um so ESG focuses on climate change, decarbonizing, getting to net zero.

Forcing the transition away from fossil fuels. It's not just good enough to invest in clean energy if you want to, you also have to stop investing in fossil fuels.

So if the ESG movement succeeds in that endeavor, Then Energy prices are going to go up. The price of everything will go up in turn, including food, and it's going to make the inflation that we've had the last couple of years look like. Child's play. It's also going to restrict your consumer choices. And you already see the government.

reinforcing that with bans on gas powered cars. Uh, you know, in this part of the country, we can no longer, uh, in New York, at least. Um, Build new homes with natural gas infrastructure, furnaces, and spill-ups, right?

So they're trying to crush end consumer demand for fossil fuels.

So that's already happening. and that'll kick in over the next five to seven years. And so if they succeed in defunding oil and gas, It's going to be highly inflationary. It's going to lower economic growth, living standards. And given what they're trying to do with the electricity grid, which is electrify the entire economy at the same time that they're pushing more intermittent wind and solar into the grid, We know what that's going to look like.

We're going to have more power outages like we had in Texas three years ago. And when that happens during the winter, people will die.

So we're going to have to deal with issues as a country that we haven't had to worry about for the last one hundred years.

So that's really the negative scenario. And no one on Wall Street can actually explain why that macroeconomic scenario a forced transition away from fossil fuels. is going to be good for the financial markets because it's not. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it doesn't make any sense at all. And, like you said, we're going to start seeing outages for a first world country, and we're supposed to be like the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth right now. That we're going to see the outages in the summertime when we turn our AC units on too high and they tell us that we need to crank up the heat in our house, or during the cold time, like you said, when we're trying to actually stay warm. But yet, we're supposed to plug in our electric vehicle and actually strain the grid even more to the point where California even told them during the summer last year to like not plug in your vehicles as much because the grid could potentially go out because we don't have enough. It doesn't make any sense to me.

We're talking with Paul Tice. He is the author of the book, The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System. Correct me if I'm wrong. Because the progressives obviously don't get this point and it kind of falls on deaf ears. But the oil companies themselves are investing in alternative energies, aren't they?

They're always staying up with making things more efficient and finding new ways to create energy and doing it in a proficient manner. Where, unlike some of the solar and wind energy, it's not just doing it for the sake of doing it, but we're going to make sure that it's cost-effective and it's actually efficient for the actual consumer, which is a wild concept in today's times, right? Yes, well, I would say I'm somewhat critical of the energy sector and how Companies over the last 20 Years have responded to the climate challenge, and now the ESG challenge. which is basically just working its way through the financial markets.

So you've seen U. S. energy companies invest on the margin in biofuels, renewable endeavors, Carbon capture. You see a number of the bigger players, you know. Putting capital towards that.

Again, I think that's being done under duress, right? It's not the bulk of their capital spending, which is still focused on oil and gas production, which is to the good. But it's a mixed message that's being sent. Um And clearly Um if they fully transition over to the renewable side, we're not going to be able to support the economy or the current power needs of America.

So I would prefer that the Energy sector would speak out more aggressively about the whole argument around climate change and the problems with the data. the fact that we can transition away from fossil fuels Rather than, I think, taking somewhat of a cynical approach that, okay, I'm gonna invest a little on the margin to make it look good, and hopefully, I get less grief. from the activist. while still doing what I'm doing and hoping this will all blow over. And I think that's a good example for what's going on with ESG really across the board.

If you can cower the energy sector and CEOs there not to say anything and to kind of Yeah spend some of their budget on these endeavors. Then you can do that really to any company in any industry.

So it just shows you how effective the pressure has been. Yeah, no, absolutely. We've got a few minutes left here, Paul, but let's shift gears and talk about what we can do. I live in the state of Kansas. Our state government, and I know other state governments, I believe Florida and some others as well, have passed laws to start investing in non-ESG businesses to try and fight this movement, trying to stop investing at a statewide level and investing in some of the ESG businesses out there to try and really make a stand against this agenda.

Is that working, do you think, so far? And what else can we do to try and stop this movement? Yes, I think what the Red States are doing in terms of pulling back some of their business, their state business as well as their pension fund business from more ESG focused managers, BlackRock in the main, I think that's all to the good. I think it keeps the issue front and center for the American public. But that's not going to be enough at the end of the day because Red States don't control enough of the pension market to really make a difference.

And Creating a safe space for anti-ESG investing is not the way we should be doing it. We need to focus on keeping the entire market free. and putting ESG into its own separate bucket.

so that it doesn't contaminate the rest of the market.

So that should be the strategy. I think it's helpful. But what the Red States really need to do, what I think Americans really need to do to facilitate that, is speak up about this, be more situationally aware about how the climate change regulations Through ESG, are now kind of closing in our economic freedoms and give your Republican lawmakers an earful so that they're more aggressive. leading the charge in terms of pushing back on these regulations that we now have, financial regulations around ESG, and then also keep going. I mean, we have to go after all the climate regulations that have sprouted up in this country extra legally over the last decade.

and dismantle those. And I think if we succeed in that, then it will basically undercut the entire ESG market, and that should blow away in the wind. Boy, wouldn't that be nice. I'd love to see that. It almost seems like right now, the way we are handling it is that we're seeing a segregated economy right now.

We have conservatives supporting certain businesses, progressives supporting certain businesses right now. We boycott certain businesses because we don't like their stance on issues or because of this ESG, a segregation economically, which is not going to be healthy for the economic state long term in this country. Yeah, no, it's not. And I do think that for every Firm like BlackRock, where the CEO firmly believes in sustainability, there are many more companies that are. afraid to speak out, and so they are complying And keeping a lower profile.

So we need to free up. The bulk of the CEOs in this country, including in the energy sector, so that they're free to make their company strategic decisions. without having to worry about pressure from outside activists.

So I think we need to keep that in mind. For just targeting one firm, it's not going to do anything. Even if you were able to get BlackRock. to completely back away from ESG, which they haven't been doing. I think it's been a tactical retreat over the last couple of years.

But even if we're able to do that, it's not going to change anything because no one's following BlackRock because they think ESG is a great new way to invest and it will lead to outperformance. Everyone's doing it because they're under duress. And again, I think the Bud Light's a good example of companies where you can pull a lot of business away from them and still they won't do what they need to do. And this is a company that's had like a pitch-perfect marketing approach. Over the decades.

And so I think there's something else going on, and I do think it's the behind the scenes Pressure. Yeah, what a wild thought. Actually, allowing business to operate their business on their own accord without having force the activists across the country and just let the free market do its thing and you can choose where you want to actually spend your money. It's a wild time. It is the race to zero: how ESG Investing Will Creator the Global Financial System.

You can find it at encounterbooks.com. You can also find it on Amazon and other places as well. It's a fascinating conversation. I think one of the most important things that we should be focused in working on in this nation because we could see the overhauling of our financial and economic system. Paul, we appreciate the time very much, my friend.

We'd love to chat again soon. Sure, I'd love to. Thanks, Andy. There it is, Paul Tice, author of the book The Race to Zero. We appreciate his time very much.

Got to take a break right back here on the Todd Starnes radio program. Welcome back to it, the Tom Starns Radio Programme Hoosier Filling In moving the Liberty University studios out here to Wichita, Kansas for the day today. And as we talk about ESG, it is unfortunate we're seeing the segregation of the economy. But I tell you what, when you protest, when you stop purchasing products from certain companies, it works. But Light is a prime example of that.

Doritos is trying to go down the same road. Disney's been doing it forever. And you finally said you've had enough. Not to mention most of the wireless carriers out there as well. where they're just completely insane.

They've gone completely to the left and they like to advocate for that left wing agenda.

However, Americans have had enough of supporting those woke companies that hate our values and fight against us on our own values. And are you tired of that compromise? It's time for you to switch to Patriot Mobile, America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. As they're the example of putting the causes ahead of profits, and that's why we're proud to support them right here on this program. Patriot Mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage.

Giving you access to all three major networks, which means you get the same coverage that you've been accustomed to, but without actually funding the left-wing agenda. I know a wild concept, right? When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you support the First Amendment. The Second Amendment, the sanctity of life, and our military veterans and first responders, their 100% U.S.-based customer service team makes switching easy. You can keep your number, you can keep your phone, or you can even upgrade.

Their team will help you find the best plan for your needs. Here's what you have to do: go to patriotmobile.com/slash Todd or call 792 Patriot. You can get free activation when you use the offer code Todd. Join us and make the switch today, patriotmobile.com/slash Todd. That's patriotmobile.com/slash Todd.

Or you can call 972-PATRIAT. We're proud partners with us here on the Todd Starnes radio program. It is wild to me. That there are so many businesses that get to that point where they're quote-unquote too big to fail. And when they're too big to fail, that means that they get to do whatever they want to.

And when we decide to not support them financially any longer, then the business seems to just, well, we're just going to go ahead and keep doing our own thing because we want to drive an agenda home instead of actually doing what's best for, I don't know, the business.

So now we have businesses, thank God, because in a free market, laissez-faire, capitalist society, we have companies now that'll actually fill that void by supporting our causes and supporting our businesses. And then we just use our money there and keep getting the same great services. And that's what you do with Patriot Mobile and so many others. Got to take a break. Our number two of the Todd Starns radio program right around the corner.

We'll talk more about the abortion. Ukraine, and so much more. Stay right here. Live from the Liberty University Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's common sense conservative commentary from Todd Starr. That's right!

I love this American ride! Yes, indeed, Divans, what's up? Welcome into it. It is our number two of the Todd Sarns Radio program.

So great to have you with us, Todd out and about today. He's on his book tour, traveling out with Twilight's Last Gleaming. I believe he's in Arizona today, which. God bless him for heading out to Arizona. And I guess it's not summertime, so it's not the 200 degrees out there yet, but still enjoying the wonderful state of Arizona.

I'm excited because he's going to be coming here to Wichita, Kansas, where I'm hailing from here in the next few days. Excited.

So, by the way, he will be doing his show live from our studios Wednesday and Thursday as the Liberty University studio is moving here today to Wichita, Kansas. My name is Andy Hoosier. Such a great honor to fill in for Todd Starns. Any opportunity we get a chance, so wonderful to be able to sit in the seat for him. While he's doing his thing, Twilight's Last Gleaming.

Can America Be Saved? The book tour is ongoing and it is going beautifully, might I add, by the way?

So we'll talk some more about that throughout the program today. Welcome into it: 901-260-5926. 901-260-5926. If you want to jump on the show, there is so much to talk about and so much to get to. Congress is getting back in action in DC today.

So, what's on the agenda? What's on the slate? We'll get to that in just a moment. Also, the big news with Donald Trump earlier today with all eyes, pins and needles from the conservatives about where he may stand with his position on abortion, which I find kind of interesting, making this statement earlier today. Many people have asked me what my position is on abortion and abortion rights.

Especially since I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of something that. All legal scholars, both sides, wanted and in fact demanded be ended. Roe v. Wade. They wanted it ended.

It must be remembered that the Democrats are the radical ones on this position because They support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month. The concept of having an abortion in the later months and even execution after birth, and that's exactly what it is. The baby is born, the baby is executed after birth is unacceptable, and almost everyone agrees with that. My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint. The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both.

And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, The law of the state. So, Donald Trump's official announcement on where he stands on abortion. Much of the religious individuals on the right side of the aisle waiting to see what that stance was going to be. And it's at least a position.

Let's be honest there, right? It's at least a position that Republicans are starting to form and craft. Because if you heard, even on the debate stage throughout this past year for the presidential race and the primaries, that we're all over the place when it comes to the stance on this.

Now, obviously, the vast majority of conservative Republicans are religious and are very pro-life. And they support the right to life. And we do not want to see babies be murdered at all in any way, shape, or form.

So that's a stance that I think we can all agree on. The difficult position is where we draw the line on politically and the role of government to step in and deal with this issue, where we talk about six weeks, or we talk about 12 weeks, or we talk about a trimester, or we talk about at conception, or we talk about, I mean, it's all over the place. And one thing that Republicans have not done a very good job at is coming up with a uniformed position on this stance, and Donald Trump essentially making that uniformed position.

Now, because with the vast majority, near three-quarters of the Republican Party standing with him in this race, did he fall in line with enough of the conservative right to support him on this issue? That's the big question of the day: 901-260-5926. Apparently, it wasn't enough for some, like Mike Pence, former vice president, making a tweet out just a little bit ago saying, just about an hour ago, actually, saying President Trump's retreat on the right to life is a slap in the face to millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020. By nominating and standing by the confirmation of conservative judges, the Trump Pence administration helped send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history where it belongs and gave the pro-life movement the opportunity to compassionately support women and unborn children.

In the landmark Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court returned the question of abortion to the states and the American people. which is what Trump just mentioned, by the way. The American people elect presidents, senators and congressmen, and the majority of Americans long to see a minimum national protections for the unborn in federal law. But today, too many Republican politicians are all too ready to wash their hands of the battle for life. Republicans win on life when we speak the truth boldly and stand on the principle that we all know to be true.

Human life begins at conception and should be defended from womb to tomb.

However, much of our Republican nominee or other candidates seek to marginalize the cost for life. I know pro-life Americans will never relent until we see the sanctity of life restored to the center of American law in every state in this country. That was Mike Pence on the tweetie, or on X, sorry, just on the tweetie a little bit ago with his stance on where Donald Trump was: the slap in the face to pro-life Americans. Is that true? Whoa.

I mean, those are some pretty hard stances.

Now, Mike Pence has come out vehemently against Donald Trump throughout most of this campaign so far. I don't think he's liking him at all.

So I am curious on where you stand here. Is this enough for Donald Trump?

Now, looking at it politically, Obviously, we have to decide as conservatives, limited government conservatives, on where we stand on this issue. Does the Constitution. Give the federal government power to rule in this, and then we go the opposite direction after Roe v. Wade. Obviously, you brought it down to the states.

Then we put a national federal law ban in, or do we keep it at the statewide level for the states to make their choice? I will say, as a staunch Federalist myself, believing the state should have the majority of the power out there, that we have a better opportunity to actually change policy by our actions in our own community. By leading by example, And by fighting at our state legislature, which is way easier to be heard than it is going up to Washington, D.C. and doing something about it up there.

So, as a pro-life conservative Christian myself, I would say it's easy for us to do this battle on the home front. No, I'm going to take my example because I live in Kansas. We are one of the very pro-abortion states in the area. In fact, our abortions have skyrocketed in the state of Kansas because we gave our Supreme Court the decision to say that it is a constitutionally protected right.

So, everywhere in the Mid-America region, the flyover areas from Texas on up, they're all coming to Kansas. Do I like that? Absolutely not. That drives me crazy.

So, I have to work better, and we have to work with our legislature better to try and fight this and put limitations on it, which our statewide organizations and our state legislatures are trying to do. But right now We have to come to the admittance here and recognize the fact that Republicans in Washington, D.C. don't have the legs nor the spine nor the backbone necessarily to do what they need to do if they tried to even approach abortion at a federal level, on which occasion you can debate on whether that's something the federal government should be addressing or not at the end of the day. For example, Congress back in action today. They're heading back to Washington, D.C.

And priority, numero uno, what's on the slate for them to address? Ukraine funding Ukrainian funding. That's what's on the slate for them to deal with right now. And the. Democrats are loving this.

Republicans are trying to find a way to say, well, we're going to support it, but we're not really going to support it. We're going to give them a loan instead of just a grant. They're talking about all these different options.

Okay, great. Mike Johnson saying that he could put up a bill here, even by this week, on Ukrainian funding and supporting Ukraine with more funds coming from the United States out to there. Here's my big question: Republicans, when did we just forget our whole battle that we've had for the past, I don't know, five, six months? Because I thought could be wrong on this, maybe you should correct me here, but I thought that this was an issue that we said we would not send any money to Ukraine until we address our immigration problem at the southern border when our southern border continues to get worse. I thought that was the stipulation.

Was I right? I mean, did we? Is that what we were doing? No.

Okay. Apparently not. Apparently, now we tried it, it didn't work.

So, I guess we're just going to let it go. For those that may not remember, because I know we have short-term memory in the world of politics, that we crafted a bill before the holidays, like way back before even around Thanksgiving time. Mike Johnson came in as a speaker. We said we were going to promote conservatism. He was going to be the one that's going to stand up and fight against these individuals.

We were going to be the staunch leaders, and we were going to start turning things around. And we said that we would not send any more money to the Ukraine until we actually address our southern border.

So.

Some great conservative individuals, James Langford, for one, out of the state of Oklahoma, who has invested a lot of time and effort investing in what to do at the southern border, worked diligently with an entire team. in a, I guess you could say a bipartisan manner, to come up with a immigration bill.

Now that immigration bill didn't turn out to be the best because Democrats essentially took it, hijacked it and turned it into what they wanted to. And not saying it was a completely disastrous bill. It could have done something, but it's not what we need at this time when things are a little bit more on the nine one emergency front. We needed something more staunch, and it didn't give us that quite what we needed.

So it failed. But the whole goal of the immigration bill was to attach Ukrainian and Israeli funding to that bill to where, sure, we can help our foreign aid friends out there, but we need to address things on the home front as well. And this is where Republicans draw the line to not do anything until we actually address our southern border or at least start moving forward in a positive manner, stopping the massive flow of migrants. Illegal migrants, mind you. That didn't work.

Directly after that bill failed, the next couple of days, Democrats tried to put up the bill essentially stripping away the immigration and putting up solely the Israeli and Ukrainian funding, which really showed that they had zero interest in addressing actual immigration. They just wanted to pass a bill that included the stuff in it.

Now we're coming back from break. We've passed our federal budget. We spent the $1.2 trillion for the last six appropriation bills. We passed a massive overhaul of spending, which was way too much than what we needed to do, like usual. Nothing really new or special there.

But now we're at the point where we're coming back and we want to pass some type of Ukrainian funding. This action alone doesn't that just go against everything we said we were going to do by standing strong and saying we wouldn't pass Ukrainian funding? Until we address the border.

Well, we tried, Andy. That's the best we could do. Really? We're just going to do one shot here, and that's it. We're not going to do anything else.

We're not going to tweak anything else, not going to work on it. That's it. We did our one shot, and I guess we can't do anymore. Is that how we do things? I know that's the best for government work.

But I thought we just keep trying. I thought we just take it up a notch and we keep working on it. We just start tweaking more bills. We start rewriting something if we have to. We do whatever it takes to actually pass our legislation, but we stand firm on our promise as conservatives, as Republicans, as Republicans in the House, that we wouldn't pass Ukrainian funding until immigration was handled, or at least moving in that right direction and passing some sort of bill.

Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene, obviously not very happy with Mike Johnson. She passed a resolution a few weeks ago saying that he was on thin ice and that she would start removing him from the speakership again, potentially causing more chaos before the election. I don't know that that's necessarily the best option. But we got to do something. With Mike Johnson essentially turning around and saying, Well, I'm going to start passing this now.

Now, we have to come to the realization that Republicans are narrowing their majority. They only have essentially a one-vote majority now with Mike Gallagher that's essentially going to be out of office by the end of this month. From the state of Wisconsin. Because I don't know why. I mean, he's great.

That's cool. If you want to go out, then, you know, we give our hat tips and our farewell here on the program. We can give them the proper farewell, but at the same time, I thought that you got elected to fulfill your term, and you're not doing that, knowing the ramifications this could have for the Republican Party and conservatives trying to actually get something done before the election.

So we can lump it up into an election cause. But we have an emergency right now. And Republicans always have the prime ability to not unify. To not work together to actually fight against each other and then do things that actually harm ourselves, like, I don't know, leaving office early and narrowing down our one-vote majority in the House to an ununified party that essentially can't get anything done.

So, I ask you, with Ukrainian funding and with an abortion stance, where's the opportunity right now for us to pass resolutions on any of these and actually be productive in Congress? What we're going to see right now is a stalemate in Washington, D.C. and not see a whole lot get done at all, which I'm kind of okay with because I don't want government to really do anything at all anyways. But I really don't want left-wing progressive agendas to move forward, which is going to be more likely right now than a Republican conservative agenda. Because with the three, four, five, ten Republicans on in the House that always like to side with Democrats in the bipartisan manner to get things done, that they're going to be ramming through stuff, and conservatives are going to have zero chance to do anything productive On this front, and that to me is a cause for concern.

So I understand the frustration with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I'm right there with you. I stand behind you, my friend. But right now, where do we have the numbers to do anything in a conservative fashion? How can we stop the Ukrainian funding?

And is this to you on the campaign trail going to be a sign that Republicans are backing off and again cowering to what's going on in D.C. because they want to support Ukraine moving forward with this agenda? 901-260-5926. 901-260-5926. We'll do some more of this when we come back right here on the Todd Starnes Radio program.

Welcome back into Intode Stars Radio Programming Hoosier Filling in. By the way, the statement from Donald Trump on the abortion issue. I just want to put this into perspective for you. Whether you agree, disagree based on the abortion issue itself for the social. Project.

I want you to think about this for a moment. What's the acc accusation? What's the attack that we hear from the other side of the aisle about Donald Trump being an authoritarian, being dictator? I mean, we literally had what was it, Joe Scarborough? And some other media outlets literally say that Donald Trump would become a complete dictator and authoritarian, that he's out there for blood, that he would execute his political opponents, throw everybody in jail when he becomes president again, which I got to say, that kind of dials up the political rhetoric to an 11 on the scale.

When you're cranking up your music in your car, that takes it to a little bit higher. You hear the thumping from that guy next to you, which is kind of fun on occasion. But nonetheless, that takes the fear-mongering and the politics of fear up to an entirely new level of absolute rhetoric.

Now, there's an audio clip, and I don't know who this is. This was on, I'm assuming, some sort of podcast because, and I don't think it would have been allowed on a radio program. I played it for the producers here, so that way we're not going to get in trouble. But this is the mindset again: the fear. The rhetoric, the hatred, the anger that these people have, they literally wake up in their life and they say, How can I be angry in my life today?

And Donald Trump is the most evil, horrible human being on the face of the earth. Because this is the rhetoric that we're hearing from some individuals today. As soon as he takes the oath. He will have generals walk down the steps of the capital. He will take a hammer.

and break the glass where the Constitution is, and he will tear it up in our faces. and say now, I'm the king of the f ⁇ ing world. You will bow down. He will punish everybody that didn't vote him. Let me tell y'all how I know this shit.

I know it because I know what mental illness looks like. I can tell. That mania is unstoppable. See This m is Hitler. Mm.

He didn't come to play. All right. That one is, man, I tell you, that takes things to an entirely different level, doesn't it? You have to set your bike fluid and get your brake working so you can stop something. I mean, this takes up the rhetoric to an entirely different level.

Now, again, logically, which I know that she's thinking irrationally and emotionally, so we're not looking at things logically here, but someone who's advocating for the concept of federalism, for the states to have choice, to get the federal government out of certain things, for us to actually make our own decisions to live by example, as Donald Trump went to say, that people are based on religious views, personal views, taking care of you, taking care of your family, taking care of the people around you. That. As opposed to the federal government to iron grip the authoritarian power coming from the federal government, not just on abortion, but whatever issue that we're talking about. Please, please, I'm begging you, explain to me how that's some type of Nazism, how he's Hitler, how that's fascist, how he's going to tear apart the Constitution, how he's going to become this authoritarian dictator, how he's going to arrest and execute his political opponents. I'm telling you, this is the rhetoric that they are all about right now.

And I don't know where you can go from there because usually the rhetoric builds itself up to a blowing point of just kind of. Insanity by the end of the election, but if you're starting at this level, Where do we go from here? Insanity at its best, my friends. I think the solar eclipse is starting to get to people already. That's my explanation.

That's what I'm going to go with. It's the Ty Sears Radio Program, Andy, who's your felony? Stay right here. Welcome back, Dimit. It is the Todd Starns Radio Program.

Andy Hoosier filling in for Todd Starns today on a Monday, on Eclipse Monday. Are you ready for the end of the world? It's coming up here in the next hour or so. I'm telling you, I'm going to.

So, the producers, I've already warned them that it's going to happen apparently the last 15, 12 minutes of the show, I think, next hour.

So, if I disappear and I don't come back for that final segment, then they'll know what happened. Um Or I went to grab a cup of coffee or something. I caught sh not quite sure, but nonetheless, it's going to be a fun day. We'll see what happens through all of this. 901-260-59-26, if you want to jump on the program, would love to hear from you.

I want to shift gears, though, and go back to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker hotlines. As we talk about, and we just mentioned it in the last couple segments, Ukraine. And now Congress has some decision-making to do. They're back in action again this week, and they're discussing what to do with Ukraine. Ukraine funding.

Do we give them more money? Do we give them more resources? Do we give it a grant instead of a loan? Do we give them a loan instead of a grant? What's the next step here?

Or will Republicans do what they said they were going to do before and say, we won't pass Ukrainian funding until we actually do something on immigration? And just because attempt number one failed, doesn't mean that we just throw our hands up in the air, throw in the white towel, and just walk away from it and give Democrats whatever they want to. I don't know. That's an interesting conversation. But now we heard last week.

That Apparently, and then the announcement from Mr. Blinken, our very own Secretary of State, that Ukraine will be joining NATO.

Now this complicates things a little bit, right? Because Obviously, Russia does not want NATO on their doorstep. That's been the entire point of this.

So, the bigger question now is: where is this coming from? I know Ukraine's been asking to join NATO for a while, but they didn't want to get involved and allow Ukraine to join NATO until after this conflict was resolved and the application process was finalized and so on and so forth. But now we're seeing things get complicated a bit because now they will be joining NATO.

So, the bigger question is: will NATO be supporting Ukraine more so than what the U.S. does? And does that mean we can back off a little bit? Does that mean the conflict escalates a little bit? Because now Russia and Vladimir Putin has NATO right on their doorstep and involved specifically in the country they didn't want them to be involved in.

And does this make a bigger conflict in the region that will have to be more heavily involved in with a potential larger conflict and a regional war? That could escalate even further. It's a scary time, and it's kind of strange to talk about all that. And more happy to have on the program for the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Hotline here on the Todd Starns Radio program. He's the author of the book, The Last Best Hope: A History of American Realism.

Excited to have on here, Mr. John Halzman. John, how are you, my friend? Very good, Andy. Let's dodge the bullet at the end of the world.

Yeah, let's dodge the bullet at the end of the world. That's right. I mean, I guess it doesn't matter if the world ends with the solar eclipse today, we don't have to worry about any of this, right? That's one very positive way to look at things. There it is.

Let's talk about this because now I think that we've complicated. We've thrown the wrench in the system. We now have Ukraine apparently joining NATO and moving forward with this transition. What does that do to this conflict right now, John?

Well, don't believe it. Tony Blinken is indulging in irresponsible, magical thinking. This is dinner theater. To get into NATO, you need the unanimous support of all thirty two members to get in. You have to prove that you're an established democracy, which Ukraine is not.

They're not having elections in the middle of their war. They've suspended opposition parties and a lot of their media, hardly democratic. You have to be a capitalistic country. Anybody who's ever done business knows Ukraine is one of the most corrupt places on earth, so they don't meet that standards. And Tony Blinken can say whatever he wants, but an administration run by Donald Trump will not, repeat not, be in favor of Ukraine joining NATO.

To join NATO would take months and months and months. They're no remotely near there. What Blinken is trying to do is throw the Ukrainians a bone because they're losing the war. If they're losing the war, is it solely because we're not giving them all the ammunition and money that they're asking for?

Well, let's think about that. President Zelensky said the quiet part out loud over the weekend when he said basically that. If that's true, this is not a sustainable war. If the only way Ukraine can win the war is if we endlessly reach into our pocket and write check after check after check, that is not sustainable. We've written checks for one hundred fourteen billion dollars up to now, and they're losing.

How much do we have to spend for them to win? The United States has its own problems. Ukraine is at best a peripheral issue. As you mentioned, Andy, securing the border comes first and foremost. Dealing with peer superpower competitor China is easily next This is way down the list.

And yet again, the Democrats are going down a rabbit hole because they think they can do everything all the time all at once. And you simply can't in the real world. Yeah, you really can't do that. And look, I'm all for supporting Ukraine. They're an ally.

I get it. We need to do our part to help them. But where's that line drawn on, like you said, when we're essentially it's going to be a U.S. conflict with our money, our resources, our guns, our ammunition, and then they're just the surface-level skin that's covering up the conflict with their name on it saying that they're the ones doing this. At what level and where's the line drawn before we say we can't do this anymore?

And why are we so heavily involved in this thing? And we ran into this in Afghanistan. We take these in Iraq. We take these peripheral issues, and Wilsonian hawks and neoconservatives make them as though they're a world war when they're not. The rule is very simple: the United States can't let anybody dominate either Europe or Asia.

That's why we fought World War II, to fight the Nazis in Imperial Japan. It's the Roosevelt rule, named after good old FDR. Russia doesn't remotely get near to dominating Europe if they defeat Ukraine. They can't make it to Kiev, let alone to Western Ukraine, let alone to the Baltic states. I live in Milan, Italy, and trust me, Andy, Gucci and Prada are safe tonight from the terrors of the Red Army.

What this war has shown is the weakness of Russia, not its strength.

So it doesn't rise to the level of a major conflict where we have to go all in. Rather, we need to take care of our $34 trillion deficit, the fentanyl crisis that's ravaging this country, the educational crisis we all know we're in. The kids simply don't know remotely enough for the new era and deal with our our border, Ukraine is about twenty seventh on a list of twenty five. Yeah, that's a great point. We're talking about John Halzman.

The Last Best Hope is the book. You can go and check it out on Amazon, other places as well. Do you think Republicans are going to stand firm like we mentioned? I mean, we went into the holidays last year with the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, that made the pledge to conservatives and Republicans that we would stop this endless spending with Ukraine, and that while we want to help them, we need to focus on the home front. We need to pass an immigration bill.

And we didn't allow it going into the holidays, which, of course, Democrats lost their minds over. And we worked hard on and diligently on an immigration bill. It didn't happen.

So now apparently we just throw our hands in the air, throw the towel in and just say, okay, I guess you can have all the Ukrainian funding again? Or do you think Republicans might actually stand up and say, you know, maybe we should hold on to this and keep working immigration? I think they will. And part of the reason is a function of Speaker Johnson having a majority of one. You heard me right, one congressman in the incredibly fractious Congress.

And so if he were to do this, there's more than one Congressman who would agree with us on this very point.

So no, I don't think they're just going to throw in the tell on immigration, nor should they. We cannot be a country where our foreign policy serves the interests of others more than it does ourselves. That doesn't mean we don't help out. Of course, we do. We do our part.

We support the people we can, but we do it in a measured way, always balancing that against what's best for our own people. That's a foreign policy fit for our new era. And frankly, that's what my book, The Last Best Hope, is all about. That's what we need to do. Let's talk about Russia for a moment.

You mentioned that this just showed their weakness, which I agree. I had always heard that Russia was one of the top three, top five strongest militaries in the world. It's the U.S., it's China, and it's Russia, the three great powers of the world that could dominate at any time. And right now, Russia has had a hard time taking over this very weak, very small, very non-funded nation like Ukraine. And they've been going at it for however long this conflict's been going on now.

They've lost many, many, I think, what, over 100, 200,000 soldiers, according to some of the reports that we're hearing, showing their weakness. And now they're advocating for a rallying cry to even do more. At what point is the resources just not enough for Vladimir Putin to send into Ukraine? Or is this the personal vendetta where he doesn't care how much it destroys them? They want this regardless.

The thing is that at the moment, wars only stop when both sides realize they can't get what they want through military means. I mean, Clausewitz. I mean, you learn it in my business, intro to freshman class. And at the moment, neither Zelensky nor President Putin think that they still think they can win militarily. But sadly, after another tragic season of bloodletting, come November or so, when the lines haven't moved and they haven't, Andy, Russia controls about twenty percent of Ukraine, and that number hasn't dramatically altered in quite a while.

Now we're in a World War I trench style warfare situation with Bakhmut being Verdun at the moment. The lines aren't going to move. And so we hope that with the coming of perhaps a new President and President Trump, who understands that this is a limited war of limited interest to America, everybody will come to the table. But that will only happen when both sides give up their magical thinking and think that they can actually not get what they want through military means and then come to the table. We can't do that for people.

We're always trying to do things for people, and it simply doesn't work. I can't care more about European security than Europeans do. Yeah, that is true.

Well, and you said that they've consumed roughly 20% of Ukraine with their invasion. Isn't that what Vladimir Putin wanted? During his interview with Tucker Carlson, he had mentioned he really only wants those couple eastern regions that are right there on the border of Russia to help fight what he called Nazism and fascism in that region. And he wanted to take control because they identified themselves as Russian over Ukrainian, anyways. He's essentially taken those two places.

So, why the conflict that's continuing after that?

Well, I think that's right, and that's the basis for a deal down the road late this year and maybe into next year, because Putin has what he calls Novorusiya, New Russia, the Russian-speaking areas. If you look at a map from Rostov-on-Don in Russia through Mariupol, through the Donbas, Luhansk and Donetsk, the Sea of Azov, all the way along that coast of the Black Sea, that is a Russian-speaking area. It's contiguous and it goes to Crimea, and that's what he's got. That's all he's going to get. He's not going to take Kiev.

He's certainly not going to take Western Ukraine, which is much more Western culturally and outlook. When you go there, if you go to Eastern Ukraine, think Dr. Zhivago, Onion Domes and Lara. When you go to Eastern Ukraine, think the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The architecture is different and the culture is different.

He's never going to get that far.

So he sees about what he's going to get. It's the Ukrainians who have to be brought on side, and sadly, that's going to take more bloodletting. But on the other hand, the United States is keeping the lights on in Ukraine and privately, in a way, not to humiliate our allies. we need to remind them that realism is about negotiating from a position of strength and not waiting until you're weak. They'll never be stronger than they are today because in this stalemate, they're losing to the Russians who are firing five artillery shells to everyone from the Ukrainians.

The deal needs to be sooner rather than later.

Well, and like you said, we need someone that can actually negotiate this stuff. And Donald Trump hopefully will be able to have that chance to do so when he gets back into office in November, or I guess in January, because that's what he does. And we've seen very evidently that Joe Biden is horrible at negotiating, and his foreign policy is, well, let's just say subpar. We've got a couple of minutes left here, John, but let's bring it back to the home front here and talk about American realism and the history of us doing this sort of thing abroad. Is this any really different from what we've seen historically of what the United States has done with our involvement in small conflicts around the globe?

And I think, Andy, this is right, that I was really heartened to write this book. We've been in tough spots before as a country. And the book does thumbnail sketches of our history from George Washington and Alexander Hamilton figuring out the Jay Treaty, siding with the hated British after the Revolution, because it was in the interest of the American people. From John Quincy Adams saying we don't have to fight stupid wars and will inherit the Western Hemisphere to Abraham Lincoln coming up with the great, quote, last best hope of Earth in the darkest days of the Civil War, through Nixon dealing with China, the Kennedy brothers mastering the Missile Crisis. And the one thing that underlies all these crises is a realist approach, which puts American people and their interests first, not that of unelected bureaucrats or international institutions, but American institutions, American people and the genius of what we are as a country.

And I wanted to go back to that. I felt like the Beatles. It was get back for me. Let's go back to what worked in the past and then look at our foreign policy through this incredibly successful lens. And that's what the whole book's about.

Yeah, wouldn't that be nice? We got just about a minute left here, but John, do you think that we're learning our lessons? Because history tends to repeat itself unless we learn from our mistakes from the past. And I don't know, especially under the current administration, that we've necessarily learned anything. Although I think we're in new territory when we have someone that doesn't remember their name half the time as the leader of the country.

But are we moving in a better direction, at least, to start learning from what we've done in the past? Yes, Andy, I'm bullish. I took this book to Washington, where I used to work for a long time. I spoke to senior Republicans in both the House and the Senate about this book. There was a lot of excitement about saying we're living in this new era of politics where the neocons have left the Republican Party.

We have Jeffersonians and Jacksonians at the base of our party who are inherently realist, and it's a message whose time has come, and that's why I'm so excited about the book. Go check it out, The Last Best Hope: A History of American Realism. You can find it on Amazon, other places as well. John, great to talk to you, my friend. Keep up the fight.

Let's do this again, real soon. Look forward to it, Andy, and let's dodge that eclipse. Let's dodge the eclipse. That's right. We'll hopefully be here for another couple hours after all this falls in.

I love it. It's John Holzman. You can check it out, The Last Best Hope, on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Hotlines. We'll take a break, answer your calls, and we come back right around the corner. It is Andy Hoosier, filling in for the Todd Starnes radio program.

Stay here. Yeah. Welcome back to it, Todd Stern's Radio Program. Andy Hooser filling in today, Todd out on his book tour, going from California to Arizona. Twilight's last gleaming.

Can America Be Saved? His book, I have a copy of it. Right here in my hands as we speak right now. I've been glancing through this throughout the breaks and reading some of this stuff over the last few days. And it is a must-read.

You can get more information at ToddStarnes.com with his book and the book tour.

So he'll be joining Arizona today, and then he'll be traveling out here where I'm actually based out of and coming to visit the big talker KQAM's studios in Wichita, Kansas. He'll be doing his show live from here, where I'm sitting right now with the Liberty University Studios, moving to Wichita, Kansas. He'll be sitting out here. Wednesday and Thursday with our event. We have an election rally, book tour event, dinner, banquet thing that's going to be a lot of fun.

And he'll be joining us for that Thursday evening before, I believe, heading back to Memphis on Friday.

So he's got a busy week all over the place, and I am so excited to see him actually meet him in person after having the honor to fill in for him for the show so many times here. On the airwaves. 901-260-5926. 901-260-5926. If you want to jump on the show, interesting conversation: our move with Ukraine.

Ukraine hoping to get into NATO. And again, NATO wanting to bring them on. But what would that do with the conflict with Russia? It was an interesting point, though, of how weak Russia is.

Now, that's not to say that they don't have technology. That's not to say that they can't do something devastating, but it is showing the weakness of their military right now. And they've been exposed. Their Achilles heel has been exposed, essentially. Showing what they can and cannot do.

But that's not to say they're not still a threat. Then, of course, partnering with China. I'm sorry, we got to do it in the Donald Trump fashion, the China. The China, and once we partner with them, then it's kind of game over.

So we need to stay on top of the stuff in the foreign policy, the negotiating skills, the strength that we have from our own government. is kind of struggling and lagging a little bit.

So we have some work to do on that front. Bringing it back to the home front here, though, there is, it's kind of funny. There was a post from MSN where Donna Brazil, former DNC chair, And she was doing an interview. Fox News covered it about expressing her frustration with the media's coverage of President Joe Biden. Where she says that the media has not been covering Joe Biden enough and well enough to get his agenda across because, quote, no one's listening when the president speaks, which I know that could be kind of challenging when the guy doesn't remember his name half the time.

But that's, I mean, You got to do what you got to do. But man, even the Democrats are a little frustrated.

Now, of course, he's lagging in the polls big time. In fact, all these swing states, six out of the seven swing states, Donald Trump shows that he's up right now over Joe Biden. And they think, according to the statement from Joe Biden last week, that they're going to start gaining momentum slowly. They're like the turtle in the race, right? The turtle and the hare.

They want to be the slow-moving, and by the end of it, they're going to flip red states and turn them blue. That is the statement that's made by the Biden administration. And right now, they're just expressing their frustration. The reason we're not gaining traction is because the media is not covering us in a positive light. No one's listening when the president speaks.

And she went on to say, Donna Brazil Beaning, the former DNC chair, that he needs to take a firmer stance towards Israel and Ukraine, and he needs to make that statement heard very vividly for the Democrats to understand his position on it, where he's been kind of wishy-washy. But he really hasn't been. The media just needs to listen to him more and broadcast his propaganda even further.

Okay, sure. Lots more coming up on the Todd Starn Show. Stay here. Live from the Liberty University Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's conservative blowtorch. That's right.

I love this American ride. Todd Starnes. Oh, yes, indeed, it is. What's up? Welcome into it.

It is the Todd Starnes radio program. Todd Alto. He is out and about doing his book tour. Twilight's last gleaming. Can America be saved in California?

Heading down to Arizona and then heading out to my neck of the woods in Wichita, Kansas, throughout the middle of this week.

So excited to be here. Andy, who's your filling in for Todd Starnes as we move the Liberty University studios out to Wichita, Kansas, rocking it like we do every single Monday. Going live! And we love doing it each and every day. I love having the opportunity to fill in for Todd Starnes during his book tour.

And he'll be actually broadcasting from my studios here. In Wichita, Kansas, on Wednesday and Thursday, so super excited about it. Hey, we got an hour loaded up for you, it's going to be insane, as Donald Trump likes to say. And I think we're going to make it bigly. That's what we're planning on trying to do the best that we can.

Which, by the way, the eclipse has started according to apparently, there's some portions of the country already starting to see the eclipse based on where you're at. I went outside during the top of the hour break and I was looking at it. I had my glasses and went up and looked at it, and the moon's already starting to cover the sun.

Now, our peak time, apparently, in the Wichita, Kansas area, is in about 40 minutes from right now, exactly 40 minutes from now.

So If the last segment of this hour, if I don't come back on the air, then you know what happened to me.

So it's been fun. It's been fun working with all the producers and the call screeners. It's been fun working with you, all the listeners. I love you to death. And Sayonara, I guess.

But would love to hear some of your conspiracies on what's happening with this one. 901-260-5926. 901-260-5926. If you want to jump on, but let's go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker hotlines and talk about this, shall we? The solar eclipse, which I'm fascinated with.

I told you in a couple hours ago, if I was not in politics, if I hadn't done radio, I was going to work for NASA. I knew I was going to work for NASA. I wanted to be a scientist. I bought myself a $3,000 telescope. While I was working my senior and junior year of high school, I wasn't working to buy a car, although I did, but I was working to buy a telescope and I bought one.

And it's magnificent, and I still have it. It's a very beautiful telescope, and I've seen some really cool stuff with it. But then, my senior year, I took a government class. I'm like, this is a lot easier. Easier than physics.

I think I'll stick with politics and arguing with people. And I understand the importance of that now. But this stuff I geek out on, and I really geek out on the conspiracies. About what's happening with the solar eclipse.

So, talk about some of that and more with us here on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Hotlines. I'm excited to chat with this guy because the last time I chatted with him, I was filling in a while back for Todd Starnes and I loved it.

So, really happy to have him back on as well. As he's the president of Wall Builders, which you can find online, wallbuilders.com. Happy to have on Mr. Tim Barton. Tim, how are you, my friend?

I'm well. Thanks for having me back on. Yeah, yeah, it's great to have you. First off, happy solar eclipse day. The world has not ended yet, but we can't say that before the end of the hour, right?

No, and you know, I feel like there could be worse things at this moment. Projecting into America's future, like maybe this is a saving grace for us, right? Like, as a person of faith, I'm like, Jesus, just come back and solve all these problems. This is getting too crazy down here.

So I'm holding out hope, but nothing yet. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I keep hearing all the doomsday predictions and everybody that prophesies when the end of times will be. I've always told them, I say, stop teasing me. If it's going to happen, then I'm excited.

Let's make it happen. I'm ready. Bring it on, brother. But right now, it keeps being the tease, and I'm getting frustrated with being teased all the time. No doubt.

And actually, one of the things I thought about leading up to this interview, I wanted to have some history tidbits and some fun things from American history or history in general. And it reminded me, there's a guy named Abraham Davenport back in 1780. He was a member of the Connecticut State Legislature for 25 years. But in 1780, they called it New England's Dark Day. And there was a day when there was an eclipse.

Darkness covers all over the state, and people were freaking out thinking like the day of judgment, right? God's wrath's coming, something bad's gonna happen. And so, in the middle of their state legislative assembly, the House Calls for a recess. They said, Hey, they adjudgment, we're getting out of here. And he was in the Senate at that time.

And so the Senate, there was a motion to adjourn the Senate. Uh and he protested. He said, Hey, okay, hang on, guys, let's Let's process this. And this is a quote from it. He says: the day of judgment is either approaching or it's not.

If it's not, there's no calls for an adjournment. And if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought in. And and he wanted to finish. And sure enough, And they voted and they brought candles in, but I just loved his perspective.

It was like, it's either happening or it's not. And if it's If it's happening, there's nothing we're going to do about it. And if it's not, then we shouldn't freak out and be silly about it. Let's go about our business. Just such a fun perspective, although conspiracy theories can be fun as well.

But I mean, really a grounded perspective of. life's happening. And either God is calling an end to this whole thing or He's not. But if He's not, then we should continue on about our business. And there's a lot of fun kind of tidbits and moments from history, but certainly a time when up in New England, they were very devout back in 1780.

Faith is all over the New England area. And people were convinced it was the day of judgment. And a couple hundred years later, we realized, nope, that was not in fact the day of judgment. Yeah, that's a great story. I love hearing that.

And you're right. If it's going to happen, there's nothing we can do about it anyways. It's going to happen before we all know it because I'm pretty sure. I mean, I'm not a biblical expert by any means, but you know, they say that we're not going to know when the time is for this to happen. And these phenomenon, these events happen frequently.

And now that we better understand science, we better understand the universe around us. We understand these things. We can predict these things, obviously, when we know down to the precise minute when it's supposed to happen for all of us.

So we understand these things in a better fashion, which is great. But it's wild how we've always tied this to some type of, I guess, a fear-based mentality of we need to be scared about these things. And that's happened all throughout history, hasn't it? It really has.

So many times when people thought it was judgment of some kind, and really, based on the culture, the climate, whatever century you happen to be in, they have different beliefs But almost universally, everybody's always believed in some kind of higher power, some kind of God. And especially when you look at the places where they have a better documented history to see the way that people thought about these Uh whether it's a solar eclipse, moon eclipse, what whatever these kind of dark happenings are, or even, you know, like a a a moon that looks red at times, the red blood moon kind of thing. People always connected this with some kind of eternal significance. And one of the things we have posted on our website Is a sermon from 1806, and it was an observation from a pastor looking back, and it was reflections on a solar eclipse. And he had five points, and he really did a good job driving home some of it.

And his first point was. guys, it's amazing what science has done, how far we've come that now we're seeing and he said we see these different worlds floating around us, right? We've called them planets. But he says, we're learning so much. Science has come so far.

He gets to point number two and he says, You know, we he was preaching a sermon a week after it happened. And so he's looking back and says, okay, you know, we a lot of people were getting really nervous about this, and now we can look and contemplate that. Even though this wasn't the end, it made a lot of us think about something eternal. And that's really good because we should process. Eternal.

He gets his third point, and it says it brought to many of our minds the final judgment. That, you know, one day we're going to have to stand before God. He gets to the fourth point. He said, something else it might have reminded us of was. On the day of the crucifixion of Jesus, when the sky got totally dark in the middle of the day, he said, We had a day here, it got totally dark.

And then he concludes and says, but one of the good things is that after there was darkness, there was light again. And for those of us that are people of faith, after a dark moment where, you know, living this earth, there could be a lot of darkness, but there's going to be a coming of cheerful light and it's going to shine on. And it's just, it's interesting that these events are nothing new, but certainly the way that people used to process it. And when there was a significant grounding of faith in America, where people looked at this through a biblical lens, going, okay, what can we learn? Because there's so many places in the Bible, especially in some of the major minor prophets that talk about some of these eclipses and how, you know, God might have intervened or done something.

But even beyond that, people have often thought that there was some kind of deep spiritual something, day of judgment, whatever it is. And certainly we see a lot of examples of some of those faith aspects. And so if people want to see some of these details historically, there's some cool things on our website. But this one specifically is a sermon from 1806, right after they had. Had an eclipse back then from Joseph Lanthrop, and it's a fun sermon to go back and see the way they used to think about some of these kinds of issues.

It's a great message. Like you said, whether it's however you interpret it on a spiritual or religious manner, the fact that it makes you think, it gets you thinking. It kind of makes you ponder things a little bit deeper is, I think, maybe the meaning why some of this stuff actually happens.

So, yeah, and you can find this piece. It's a great piece. I was reading through it as well throughout this morning at wallbuilders.com. It's depending on how you use these types of phenomenon, for example, because that's a message of good to actually ponder and think a little bit deeper. And then we hear the stories of like Christopher Columbus and taking some of the resources from Native Americans and saying, if you don't give us all your stuff, then God, my God, will black out your son, knowing that this thing was about to happen as well.

So we kind of get on both ends of the spectrum, don't we?

Well, there's no doubt that people have been manipulative and deceitful historically over time. There's no doubt that people have tried to do things for power and control. Even when we hear politicians say, hey, this is just a sign of climate change, some of the dumbest tweets ever that have come out regarding some of this. And I'm saying that alluding a little bit back to the earthquake in New Jersey fault line. And people are.

Yeah, but C Tim, that was a 4.8 magnitude, and this is on 4.8, so therefore they had to be a coincidence, right?

Well, you know, something significant was happening. And but people have always tried to use things to their advantage.

So that's something obviously that happens. People try to manipulate and promote their agenda, but as we look back and see some of these things, it really is. A significant moment for us to be able to go, okay, right, is there a God? Is there something out there? Does my life have value and meaning?

These are important questions to ponder. Hopefully, people ponder some of these, and maybe even the eclipse today can encourage and challenge people to think a little bit deeper about their life. Yeah, I really hope so. We got just a couple of minutes left here, Tim, and it's always great to chat with you, wallbuilders.com. But as you mentioned, it hopefully does encourage people or challenge people to think a little bit deeper.

There is a movement that I've mentioned on my program a few times about the younger generations. I'm 35, I'm part of the millennials, and between the millennials and the gen zers, that the majority of these generations' populations don't say they necessarily attend church regularly, but are more spiritual than what they have been in the past. Do you think that's a good thing? or a bad thing for society when we look at the foundational beliefs of this nation as a Judeo-Christian nation, where they're not necessarily identifying, quote unquote, as a particular religion, but they say they're more spiritual. Yeah, I think it's good that they're identifying something spiritual because they might then be open to something deeper.

As people might be familiar with the Bible, the Apostle Paul was very famous in the Bible. And in the book of Acts, he goes to the Areopagus, and there were these people worshiping, and they worshiped all these gods, but they didn't know the true God, right? The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, his son. They didn't know this, but he goes to them and says, guys, you're amazing because you're so spiritual, but there's somebody you don't yet know. I think there's some benefit when a rising generation is open to something spiritual, but there is some negative when they think that the spiritual journey is purely subjective and that everybody determines truth for themselves because that doesn't work in society.

It will not help America or any people, nation, or family even be strong.

So there has to be a basis for morals. There has to be a basis for truth and reality. But the fact that they're open to spiritual things means that they are looking and they're very reachable if people would actually. Take the time to invest and try to go make disciples as people of faith we've been challenged to do. Yeah, I agree with that because right now we have a movement to where they say that there is no spiritual belief and that we need to go towards the government solving problems and the government being the ones to actually take care of the issues.

And the fact that they're recognizing that humans may not have all the answers and that there's got to be some type of higher power, whatever they believe in in that aspect at least is a good sign of moving in that right direction, I think. And that's good news. That's good news for sure. It's Tim Barton, president of WallBuilders, WallBuilders.com. Tim, it's great to have you on the program, my friend.

Thank you so much. Keep up this fight with educating people. Happy solar eclipse day. Hopefully, the world doesn't end in the next hour. Or hopefully, maybe it does.

Sorry, this might be helpful, but it's always great visiting with you. That's right. That's right. Always great to chat with you, Tim. Appreciate it.

That's Tim Barton again with Wall Builders, WallBuilders.com. We'll take a break right here on the Todd Starns radio program. Stay here. Rocking here on Monday for the Todd Starns Radio programming the Hoosier filling in for the great Todd Starns.

So great to have you with us here on a Monday, 901-260-5926, 901-260-5926. The solar eclipse is upon us. I am looking out the window here, and so in the studios here in Wichita, I have a massive window, which scares the you know what out of me when birds hit the window in the middle of the program, which has happened multiple times before. But I can see things starting to get darker. The moon is slowly creeping up onto that sun, which means we're in for a fun treat here.

To talk about that, actually, on the line with us, let's go right back to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Hotlines, giving an update from around the country and even there in the Memphis, Tennessee area with the flagship of the Todd Starns radio program at the mighty 990 KWAM. The award-winning morning show host, Mr. Ben Dieter, with us. Ben, what's it look like out there for you, brother? Yeah.

Well, Andy, I feel like I'm in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace. I didn't realize this would be such a Super Bowl size. Of that party, I'm on top of the South Grand Central Hotel, which is called the Yeah. In this case, we're not watching ducks, we're watching this sign. And I have my glasses right in front of me, and I'm looking up as we speak.

And it's starting to look more and more like a fingernail, which I think is the cra That we're all waiting for. Yeah, there it is. How much visibility are you supposed to get out there in Memphis? Here we're supposed to get like 87 to 90% coverage.

So I think you guys are going to get pretty close to the same, aren't you?

Okay. Actually, we're hit about ninety seven point seven percent of this bank.

So not quite totality, which is really unique for this area. I mean, in places of Tennessee, parts of Tennessee, excuse me, It is in the path of totality. A lot of our listeners, Andy, this morning made off to Arkansas. You could go about two hours to the south of us. where Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is basically shut down the state for the next three days.

To Jonesboro, Little Rock, all of those places are going to be in total totality, but no, not quite. Here in downtown Members. Wow. Not quite. You guys are right on the cusp, though.

It's wild to see. Yeah, we've seen the declaration of emergency from some states. We've seen schools close. I know in the Oklahoma and Texas area and Arkansas, I believe, as well.

So it's wild. They're essentially just shutting down the entire strip with people coming out and checking this out. And it's something to see so many people out here on top of the Peabody in downtown Memphis. You've got kids, you've got parents.

Now there is a lot of drinking, so you do have to bring your ID if you want, which is they've got a signature drink. It's called the Eclipse. It's made up of house black coconut dorbet over orange juice and pineapple.

Now I can't drink it because I'm on the company clock. But all sorts of people are out here. And really, I would describe the mood as just a party. It doesn't sound like these people are too worried, Andy, that the world of the end is coming. And if they are.

Well then they're gonna go out in a party. Yeah, I was going to say, if it is going to be the end of the world, then they're going to go out with a bang and have a good time doing it.

So I can officially say, Ben, that I think you need to be off the clock now and that you can enjoy one of those eclipses because that sounds well done. I think that sounds pretty good. Yeah. I got the green light. I'm not clearing that by Todd because Todd is off and you're hosting this show.

So you are the final authority. Thank you. There we go.

Well, just roll with it, Ben. We appreciate the update, my friend. Enjoy the eclipse, and we'll see you on the other side. All right. Good stuff.

See you, Andy. There it is, Ben Dieter. Appreciate that. The award-winning morning show host there at the Mighty 990 KWAM in Memphis, Tennessee, the flagship station for the Todd Stearns radio program. I love it.

We have another caller on the line. We'll get to you as soon as we come back. Plus, we'll have our congressman joining the program and get an update of what's going on in D.C.

Now that they're back in there, back in action, and so much to talk about and cover going into the eclipse. I see getting darker outside, so let the party commence, my friends, and we'll see what happens as we move through this solar eclipse Monday, the Todd Stearns radio show. Stay here. Uh Welcome back to it on the home stretch here for the Todd Starns radio program for a Monday Solar Eclipse Monday. It's getting darker out there.

If you are watching, it should be an interesting one to see. We'll see if we can finish off the program here over the next half hour of the show. 901-260-5926. We have a couple callers on the line. Don't go anywhere.

We'll get to you here momentarily, I promise. But I do want to shift gears a little bit and go back to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker hotlines. Washington, D.C., back in action this week with a lot of things on the priority list, including Ukrainian funding. And now that the budget's actually settled, Well, for the most part. And then some other issues that we are Seeing Congress address right now.

But there's a new push, and Democrats, man, I'm telling you, losing their minds over this one. They're not very happy. Yeah. They don't like it very much, but they have come up with their own alternative. But there's a push now to rename an airport for the Donald J.

Trump International Airport. What would that entail? And what's the response been from the Democrats, which has been kind of fun to watch? Talk about that. Happy to have on the program here on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker hotline.

From the 14th Congressional District of the great state of Pennsylvania, excited to have on here Congressman Gaia Reschenthaler. Congressman, how are you, my friend? Good, Andy. Thanks for having me on, and please just call me Guy. Trump derangement syndrome is on full display with this bill renaming Dulles International Airport for the greatest president of my lifetime, Donald J.

Trump. It's really been fun to watch. Yeah, the meltdown has been astronomical, and it's been, of course, it's always entertaining to see them with the Trump derangement syndrome and the meltdown. But first off, talk about where this idea came from originally to actually rename the airport. Yeah, sure.

So I was walking through Dulles Airport with some colleagues, and I was explaining to my colleagues just how bad of a Secretary of State that Dulles was. how a lot of the problems in the Middle East and particularly Latin America that we have today are directly attributable to the failures of Dulles and how it's absolutely absurd that we have an airport named after him. And so my colleagues kind of laughed, and they were like, What would you name that guy? And I said, On the top of my head it said, well, Trump, of course. And everybody laughs.

And then somebody said, we should really do that.

So the next day, I'm back in my office, I draft the bill. It's a whopping one and a half pages single space. And then the chaos and the overreaction ensued from the left.

So I must have hit a chord, we're doing something right. But think about, Andy, how great it would be that if people coming into Trump International Airport, coming into the capital of this great country, the first thing they have on their ticket is Trump to remind them that this is the greatest president of my lifetime, a guy that exported, made America an energy exporter, that had peace and stability around the world, a growing economy, just all of his achievements. fully on display for people coming in. And then just think about how wild it would drive the left if when flying into Washington DC, they had to pick between either going to Trump International or the Ronald Reagan airport. Classic.

Yeah, it is classic. It is fun. Are you seeing in Washington now that we are getting closer to general election 2024? Are we seeing a unified Republican voice of elected officials behind Donald Trump? Because I know that when the first time he ran for office, obviously there were a lot of holdouts and we became our own worst enemy.

Most of those individuals are out of office now, and it looks like almost an entirely different Republican Party. But what's the feel in D.C. right now as we get closer to the general? Yeah, well, and by the way, good riddance to those Mitt Romney style Republicans. We've had a lot of turnover here in the House of Representatives.

It's really good because the party is much more of a Trump, much more of a MAGA style populist party than it ever was before. And that's going to be the secret to our success. We would have had failure after failure if we would have stayed on the same track that George W. Bush had us on, that Mitt Romney, that Paul Ryan had us on. But with Trump bringing in this populist movement in the party, we're now a viable national party once again, and we should thank Donald Trump for that.

But as far as Republican unity, it's always tough with us because we're the party of ideas. We're the party of individual rights. We have a big tent. We're not monolithic like the Democrats. You know, where I'm I'm the chief deputy whip.

I'm dealing with everybody from Northeastern Republicans like the Wall Street Style Republicans to Southern evangelicals to Rust Belt pro-union guys to Western-style libertarians, like my good friend Thomas Massey, for example. That's a good thing for our party. We want to have this competition of ideas. We want to have this vibrancy. The Democrats are the ones that are constantly in lockstep behind their woke ideology.

They're the ones that are the extremists. It's important for us to just keep our eye on the prize, and that's attacking Democrats, showing how extreme and off base they are. and then winning these elections.

So I don't look at the disagreements within our party necessarily as a negative as long as we're all united in attacking the left and stopping their radical agenda. Yeah, we pride ourselves on having a wider umbrella to actually challenge our ideas and actually make ourselves better, which the Democrats don't do. But yeah, it is nice to see. I just wish sometimes we keep some of our tuffles within the party instead of going outward and attacking ourselves, which has been kind of the case for many Republicans right now, which is unfortunate. Speaking of Trump derangement syndrome, I don't know if you heard this.

I want to play a little clip of this, but there was a podcast done with an individual by the name of Jennifer Lewis, a podcaster, talking about what would happen if Trump gets back into office in 2024. As soon as he takes the oath. He will have generals walk down the steps of the capital. He will take a hammer. And break the glass where the Constitution is, and he will tear it up in our faces.

and say now I'm the king of the f ⁇ ing world. You will bow down. He will punish everybody that didn't vote for him. Let me tell y'all how I know this shit. I know it because I know.

What men? I'm not sure what I'm doing. Mm. That mania is unstoppable. See This is Hitler.

Mm. He didn't come to play. So I think she does understand what mental illness looks like because she's presenting it right there. But this is the rhetoric that we have to go up against here, Congressman. Yeah, well, Andy, just remember, whatever the left is accusing the right of doing, they themselves are doing that themselves.

They're the king of projection. It's total Freudian.

So, by her saying this, that somehow we're the threat to democracy or we're the threat to the Constitution. They're the ones that are actually the threat. They're the ones that want to have authoritarianism. They're the ones that want to bring in DC as a state. They're the ones that want to blow up the filibusters.

They're the ones that want to pass the Supreme Court. They're the ones that want to take away our individual rights and freedoms and our liberties.

So they're the ones that are the threat. And this kind of rhetoric and they'll be the first ones to tell you that you need to tone down your rhetoric in words or violence. They're completely hypocritical. They are a danger to representative democracy. They are the true threat in society right now.

And they are so deranged as a party. If you do polling and you ask Republicans and Democrats what the biggest threat to the United States is, most Republicans will say either China or our national debt. or maybe our border crisis now because it's such an important issue at the time being. But if you ask a Democrat the same thing, overwhelm overwhelmingly, the plurality of those answers are going to be Republicans. These are people that have completely lost it, and they think our biggest threat is internally from conservatives.

So it shows you where they are and how Trump's derangement syndrome has seeped out into everything they do and how unstable, irrational and dangerous the left has become. Yeah, it's unfortunate. We're talking with Congressman Guy Reschenthaler from the 14th District of the great state of Pennsylvania, pushing to change up the international airport in D.C. to the Donald J. Trump International Airport.

The response from the Democrats on this one has been fun because then their response was: well, let's name a federal prison after Donald Trump because that's where he needs to be. Just again, like you just mentioned, I mean, the DTS, the Trump derangement syndrome, the absolute hatred, which I've never seen so much hatred for one particular man in my entire life. I think that they've gone just a little bit too far in some of this rhetoric.

Well, Andy, I can jump in there. That hatred they have for President Trump, that's not just directed at President Trump. It strikes it at all of us because I'm here in Washington, D.C. I work with them every day. The animosity, the disrespect.

looking down their noses, holding us in disregard. That's for everyday Americans who live in what they perceive as flyover country. President Trump is just at the forefront of it, taking all the hatred and vitriol. But don't kid yourself, that's not directed at President Trump. That's directed at all red-blooded conservative Americans.

That's what's so scary about it. And remember, President Trump is the first one in a very long time that came into this from outside the Beltway establishment. He terrifies them because he knows that President Trump represents the everyday common man, your average American citizen, and that infuriates them. They don't see how somebody that didn't come from within the system can take all this power. And Trump is a very real threat to them.

The DC establishment, the deep state, the unelected career bureaucrats, that's where this fury is coming from. And you know you've touched a nerve when you get this kind of reaction from them. That is very true, Congress.

So we got just about two minutes left here before we have to wrap this up. But I got to ask you guys back in D.C.

now getting everything up and going. We've heard priority numero uno seems to be the Ukrainian funding. We had the promise from Speaker Mike Johnson back before the holidays that we wouldn't pass Ukrainian funding until we also addressed the immigration. We've tried the immigration bill. Obviously, that didn't happen.

But what's your thoughts on now the new renewed conversation about Ukrainian funding? And do you think it's going to happen?

Well, we'll see what happens. I can tell you one thing: we've got to be very careful as conservatives here because we don't want, if Russia makes advances into Ukraine, we're going to own the Ukrainian defeat.

So, just as Biden and the radical Democrats owned what happened in Afghanistan, the complete embarrassment that was the withdrawal from Afghanistan, we'll own Ukraine.

So, we've got to be careful. What I think we need to do is we need to have nuance here. We need to say that we'll pay for lethal aid for the Ukrainians to actually kill Russians and try to hold the lines where they are, but we're not going to do things that the Democrats want, like pay for the Ukrainian police force, pay off their debt while we're going into debt, pay off their pensions when we have problems with senior citizens not being able to live off Social Security payments.

So, there's a lot more area of gray than there is black and white contrast. But I do want to point this out: look at how the Democrats act with Ukraine and compare it to Israel. The same Democrats that want to make sure that we have a blank check and no time limits, no off ramps with Ukraine. They're the same ones that want to put parameters on Benjamin and Yahoo. They want the one they're the ones that want to ceasefire, and they're the ones that want to cut off aid to Israel.

So I'll let you draw your own conclusion, your audience, why that is, but it's a complete double standard how they treat Ukraine and how they treat our number one ally in the world, Israel. Amen to that. Yeah, and it's only going to get worse for you guys because now that you're going down to a one simple majority vote in the House, it only complicates things, and we have to find a way to limp ourselves through until the election and actually see a change in power. Which hopefully we can see a majority come back on the Republican side, both chambers and the presidency as well. From the 14th district of the great state of Pennsylvania, it is Congressman Guy Reschenthaler.

Congressman, we appreciate the time very much, my friend. Keep up the fight in D.C., we'd love to chat again soon. Hey, thanks, Andy. Take care. Hey, absolutely, you as well.

Lots more coming up right back here on the Todd Starns Radio program. Ah! Welcome back to it. It is the Todd Cearns Radio Program. While I'm still here, I didn't disappear.

I didn't go anywhere. Did you go anywhere? Man. I guess we're all still here for a little bit longer. I guess the eclipse wasn't.

Well, I did go outside during the break because we just hit our peak. I hit it perfectly. We ended the interview about a minute before the peak here in the Wichita area. I went out, I saw it, and it was really neat. I love it.

It's such a beautiful thing. It's always such a cool thing to see this. But got the glasses, looked up at the sky, and saw it. The craziest part to me of watching this is the shadows that you see on the ground. That's pretty fascinating.

By the way, thanks again to the Congressman coming on the show. I love it. The response from the left side of the aisle losing their minds with We're all gonna die! Because of you! I thought that was going to be the eclipse, but apparently it's just the fact that Donald Trump might be back in office again this year.

901-260-5926. Got open lines for you for the last couple of minutes here on the program. And with that, let's go to line number two and go to Scooter, listening on the mighty 990 KWAM out of Arkansas. Scooter, what's going on, my friend? Hey, do you think this eclipse is some kind of psyops by Biden in the deep state?

Wait, say that again now? I didn't hear you all the way. Is this eclipse some kind of psyops being run by the FBI, the DOJ, Biden, and the deep state? You know, it could be. It could be.

So, Operation Bluebeam, if you've heard of that one, there is a theory out there that the government will pull some type of global phenomenon, whether it's the returning of Jesus or alien invasions or something, in order for us to fall into the new world order. And according to Alex Jones, take him as you will, he said that there would be massive rituals and sacrifices from Masonic organizations around the world during this time.

So, I have not seen any of those yet, but I'm waiting for them to happen. But it didn't stay dark for the three days, so I think we're going to be okay.

Well, the reason I the reason I ask is Todd is really frigging stupid and will believe anything he hears.

So if we started a a a rumor or story that it's a deep state op. He'd kind of be dumb enough to believe it, wouldn't he? I don't think so. He's a pretty smart guy in my book. Appreciate the call there, Scooter.

So we don't need to be going all mean here now, do we? We can have some fun.

Now, look, I've told you before, I'm all about listening to conspiracy theories. I'm all about listening to as many conspiracy theories as I want to. But at the same time, we use realism, we use logic, we use rationale. And if you want to talk about conspiracies and the deep state that is messing with things, then you need to at least look at conspiracies that have some type of legitimacy to them. Like, I don't know, the federal government trying to take over the entire private sector.

And if you don't believe that's happening, Andy, that's just conspiracy, then you can look at the consumption of a sixth of the economy with the healthcare industry. And the fact that we literally have people out there saying that this gal that was on this podcast railing on conservatives that went even further saying that this individual is Hitler, meaning Donald Trump, and that he would put black people into camps again, and then, of course, eliminate any political opponent because of the tyranny.

So, if you're, let's just go there, if you're dumb enough to believe any of that garbage, then you're probably a Democrat if you want to go Jeff Foxworthy style here. I mean, that's the rhetoric that we're hearing from the campaign trail, and people apparently buy that stuff.

So I would like to ask the question and look the self in the mirror. And say, are we falling for that thing that Donald Trump's going to be some type of tyrant and authoritarian to shred the Constitution, eliminate political opponents, and just bring in his own will? Which obviously is not the case. And in fact, conservatism is the opposite of that. And yet the Joe Biden administration seems to continue to centralize power by scaring people into making the government do something at the end of the day, which is literally authoritarianism.

So, yeah, if there's a deep state psyop program going on, then. It would be done from deep state individuals. Which would be progressives, which would be liberals. And I'm not going to say what are legit and what's not because we don't have any proof of some of these. There are interesting ones, though.

Interesting conspiracy theory. I mentioned Operation Blue Bleam.

So for those that don't know that operation, you can Google it and find it. Again, I'm not saying I believe them. I'm saying that they are fascinating and interesting to talk about. But it is the theory that the government has the technology. To either stage the second coming of Jesus or some type of alien invasion, and they do it by however technology that they have to make us fearful.

So that way, we look towards the government to continue to militarize themselves and control more of the mass population. And I could see that. I mean, we have the weaponization of the CIA and the FBI, don't we not? We have the IRS that apparently needs IRS auditors to carry firearms when they go and actually do audits with individuals.

So, yeah, we're seeing a weaponization of the government turning against us, which is what the major concern is. And like the guy or not, the independent candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been all over that stuff, not just with the vaccines and the FDA and the NIH and some of those very extremely corrupt organizations that need to go to the wayside and just poof disappear like I wish they would have done during the solar eclipse here recently. But he also has talked about the weaponization of the CIA and the FBI against our own American people, which I think should be a cause for concern for everybody.

So You can make fun of conservatives and us for being quote-unquote conspiracy theorists and believing in deep state stuff all you want to. That stuff actually has evidence and validity to it. The just blaming someone for the moon. Is a little bit far-fetched, but nice try. I appreciate that.

That's pretty awesome.

Well done. That does it for us today. We're out of time already. Can't believe it. Go check it out.

ToddStarns.com, Twilight's Last Gleaming. Can America Be Saved? Go check out the next book. I am so excited for him on his continued book tour. He's in Arizona.

He's coming out here to Wichita, Kansas the next couple of days. Excited for our event. Little plug, you can go to kkwamradio.com for that one. Until then, everybody, have a wonderful Monday. Enjoy the solar eclipse.

Have a great one. We'll see you on the radio.