Steve Bannon Sounds Alarm on Elon Musk

Live from the Liberty University studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's favorite gun-toting, Bible-clinging, deplorable American. That's us, that's right, I love this American ride. Todd Starr. Oh yeah.

Well, hello everybody. Welcome to the Todd Stearns Radio Program.

So very happy to have you guys with us today.

Well, it is going to be a jam-packed week. And folks, I've got great news to share with you when it comes to the confirmation hearings, which get underway tomorrow. Pete Hegseth is going to be first up. It is looking very good. the report I'm getting from our friends and our sources in Washington is that the Republicans are all on board.

Everybody's been whipped into shape, and it's going to be good. By the way, we're hearing now that all of the president's nominees are going to get confirmed.

So we'll keep you updated on that. We're going to talk about that a little bit later on with Ron Blewey from the Daily Signal. There is a disturbing story about the federal employees, also known as the swamp. But the good news is that Trump's cabinet picks are set and ready for confirmation.

So that is great news. Also, coming up a little bit later, I'm excited to have Raheem Kassan joining us. You remember him, one of the co-founders of Breitbart. I'm sorry, co-founder of the War Room.

Now he is editor of National Pulse, and he has some concerns about Elon Musk, and I think those concerns are worth airing out here on this radio program.

So hang tight. You folks on WSIC and WSIC land, we're going to be talking to your great morning show host about what's happening there in western North Carolina with the recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene, And that really is our starting off point today, because it's becoming increasingly clear that the good people of the Carolinas and East Tennessee have been completely erased from the mainstream media's memory.

Now, this morning, I checked in at the National Weather Service, and this morning in Batcave, North Carolina, it was around 20 degrees when people woke up this morning. There are people in places like Batcave that are waking up in tents this morning. Thousands of people across the region are living in trailers or cheap motel rooms, and they're waiting for help that has yet to arrive. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of controversy over the weekend about FEMA kicking a lot of these hurricane survivors out of their temporary housing.

now the challenge for a lot of people in the carolinas they did not have flood insurance nobody thought they would need flood insurance and in many of these cases insurance is not covering the the cost of rebuilding not only the homes and the businesses but the infrastructure that was just completely wiped away all of it it's gone entire towns and villages just wiped off the face of the earth and i want to stop for a moment here and i want you to understand this because today, of all days, we've got the liberal lurkers, you know the types, the seminar callers, and they're waiting for me to say something that I will never say because it's something I just don't believe in. But here it is. We should have great sympathy for the people of Southern California. We should have great sympathy for the people of North Carolina. And if you are one of these people and you celebrate when a bunch of liberals lose their homes, or you're one of these people that celebrate when a bunch of conservatives lose their homes, then you've got a moral problem.

You've got a spiritual problem, and you need to deal with that. Because loss is loss. And some of the stories we've been seeing coming out of Southern California are just heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking. But my concern is that the mainstream media, they're focusing all of the attention on Pacific Palisades in Southern California.

They're focusing all of the attention on what's happening there. Where were all of these network news anchors when the floodwaters were washing away homes and communities in North Carolina? Where were those people? And you know who I'm talking about, these network news anchors, and they've got the perfectly coiffed hair. they've got the pouty lips and they're emoting as they trudge through the smoldering ruins of Southern California right there was none of that in North Carolina none of that in East Tennessee none of that in Georgia or the Carolinas or even Florida and I want to tell you why I'm going to tell you why because there aren't many Hollywood celebrities living in the hills and hollows of Western North Carolina, right?

So that's why they're in Southern California right now. And they're focusing on all of the homes, all of the businesses that got impacted that were owned by the rich and the famous. But I'm telling you right now, there are not too many billionaires living in Western North Carolina. There may be one or two, but not too many. No, the people in North Carolina, they're just hard-working, church-going country folks.

And in the words of our good friend, the congressman from East Tennessee, Tim Burchett, dadgummit, their lives should matter too. But their lives don't matter. Their lives don't matter to Joe Biden, who, by the way, is now Joe Biden's promising to pick up the entire tab of what happened in Southern California. What about the people of North Carolina? It just shows you in a very clear way what the media thinks about you folks.

And it's sort of eye-opening. It shouldn't be surprising, right? We've been talking about this for years here on this radio program. It should not be all that surprising. But it's all the more reason why talk radio is so vitally important, because we do talk about those things.

And I just believe that the lives of the people in North Carolina are just as important as the people who lost their homes in Pacific Palisades. And what a mess that has become. You know, they're blaming Donald Trump for this. Donald Trump hasn't even put his hand on the Bible yet, and they're blaming Trump for what happened out there in California. when, in fact, what they need to be doing is placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of Gavin Newsom and also the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass.

Now, I went back and did a little research over the weekend, and it turns out, aside from a period of time in the early 2000s, the late 90s, early 2000s, every mayor of Los Angeles has been a raging Democrat. And Karen Bass had plenty of opportunity to fix all of this, but she chose not to. Instead, she focused on everything but that. And I know I'm catching a holy you-know-what today over something I wrote of one of my columns I wrote on ToddStearns.com. And I'm just curious here.

Maybe I overstepped. I don't think I did. Maybe I got it wrong, but I don't think I did. And it just seems to me when you look at what the fire department has been focused on, it's been everything except fighting fires to the best of their ability. And I pointed out here in my column that we ought to be hiring the best and the brightest.

And we should not be hiring people based on their sexuality, whether they're a male or female, whether they're gay or straight. None of that matters. I don't care what you do in the privacy of your home. I want to know, are you the best person for the job? And if you're the best person for the job, then by golly, you got the job.

Now, this fire chief, Kristen Crowley, she has earned all this national acclaim. She was the first female fire chief in the Los Angeles Fire Department of History. She's also the first LGBT fire chief. and she went out there and she's made it a i mean this is you can go out there and search for yourself but she has made it her platform to use diversity equity and inclusion in her fire department in other words she wanted to hire more lgbt firefighters and more female firefighters i got no problem with that my only question is this are they qualified do they know how to put out a fire? Do they know how to use a fire hose?

Are they able to carry out a person from a burning building? I think these are all very legitimate questions. And now the media is giving me the what for? Calling me a homophobe, calling me and accusing me, by the way, how dare you? How dare you?

And this is coming from a lot of Christians. How dare you? You call yourself a Christian man, and you're bringing politics into this, who do you think you are? Where is your passion? Where is your mercy?

Where is it?

Well, I'm going to tell you where it is. It's right where it's always been. But let me say this. You have to address the political issues in real time or else it gets forgotten. Right?

You've got to.

Well, how do we get into this mess?

Well, we've got to talk about that. And we are talking about it. And it's enraging people in Southern California, because ultimately their own policies, the policies they voted for, the people they voted for, have come back and bit them in the behind.

Now, here's the reality. They had some very well-qualified people that were running for government office in Los Angeles, very qualified people. They chose not to hire, they chose not to elect those people. Instead, instead, ladies and gentlemen, they embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion. And you know what happened?

Just take a long, hard look at what used to be the community of Pacific Palisades. It's gone. Smoldering ruins.

Now, a lot of people are saying, well, Starnes is just, he's insensitive, he is unkind, he is uncaring. And you know what? You can call me those things, but I'm also a realist. And we've got to start talking about these issues, because if we don't address these issues, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to have more communities burned to the ground. That's the reality of it.

Not to mention the criminal incompetence coming from whoever was in charge of the water department, which, by the way, was yet another diversity hire.

Now, get this. There is a staff person within the Los Angeles Fire Department, and this individual, her job is to handle all of the diversity stuff. That's her job. And so she's going out there and she's doing these videos, and she's mocking people. She's mocking victims of fire.

it's unbelievable. There's also a report up on Todd Stearns.com that the International Association of Fire Chiefs is now instructing people, don't call them firemen anymore. Don't do that. That's a big no-no. You can't call them firemen.

You've got to call them a fire officer. What? It's all part of their new inclusive language guide, and they're saying that the word fireman is no longer gender inclusive, and instead you got to call these people fire officers. Also, you can't say manpower and you can't say man. You got to say staffing or personnel, but you can't say man or man.

Anything to do with the dudes is verboten. They're at the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

So what does that mean? That means the policies that are happening in the Los Angeles Fire Department are more than likely happening in your local fire hall. the international association of fire chief strongly encourages fire departments to have written policies that prohibit disrespectful hurtful exclusionary and or unprofessional language including but not limited to jokes regarding gender racial religious alternate lifestyles and or ethnic jokes and slurs in the workplace and that all personnel are held accountable for following these policies so if you got a joke about a lesbian and a polish guy and a black dude in a bar don't share that in the fire station they're just sucking the sucking the life right out of us aren't they ladies and gentlemen it's true i was watching over the weekend i was it's been cold here in memphis and the roads have been freezing over. I stayed home this weekend. And I was watching a couple of the old episodes of All in the Family with Archie Bunker.

And I thought to myself, how would the modern-day Gen Zers react to a character like Archie Bunker? It's just unbelievable. When you look at how much free speech has been stifled in this country, it's just jaw-dropping. And it's only getting worse but fortunately that's all going to change in a few more days when Donald J. Trump puts the hand on the Bible, takes the oath of office, and we start making America great again.

And I don't know about you, but I cannot wait for that to happen. But have you noticed that, ladies and gentlemen, have you noticed what the media is doing? Why do you think it is that they have chosen to ignore the plight of the people in the Carolinas and East Tennessee. All right, here's our telephone number. If you want to join the program today, become a part of the show, give us a call 901-260-5926.

That is our telephone number. That's 901-260-5926. This is the Todd Stern Show. Oh, well, this is interesting. The inaugural program has been released, and this is going to be good.

Get this. Carrie Underwood is going to be performing at the inauguration. That's going to be a lot of fun. And you wonder, are people going to go after Carrie Underwood? Dieter, is she the one who's saying, Jesus, take the wheel or something?

Is that the same Carrie Underwood? Correct. All right. Very good.

Now, that's a huge get. that's pretty spectacular. Because she can actually sing. A lot of these people can't sing. It's true.

And she's a country girl. Or you're going to have some poet or something up there. You know, the Democrats love their poets. The laureates or something. It's going to be 20 degrees.

Nobody wants to hear slam poetry. Oh, by the way, so you're going to have, this is very ecumenical, the Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, Cardinal Dolan, Oh. And Reverend Franklin Graham.

So you're going to get the Catholic and the Protestant prayers right off the top. Nice. Then you've got an imam. They paired the imam and the rabbi together, along with a preacher from Detroit.

So there you go. It's very ecumenical. Very inclusive. Very inclusive indeed.

So there you go. And University of Nebraska-Lincoln combined choirs are going to kick things off there, and it'll be a lot of fun.

so there you go uh let's go to the phone lines here baxter in georgia wdun hi baxter i understand you have a question oh todd oh first of all i want to say i love my pillow i've got some in my face but i love them wait i just want it wait what your wife hates my pillow well she doesn't hate them she's not she's like a feather pillow person you know feather pillows oh yes i know She's a princess, so she's got to lay on stuff. I understand. Man, I tell you what. I can't believe this. Have you ever seen Buster Crabb or Buster Keaton?

Tarzan, yes. Yeah, well, what about the guys way back in the day that they would do all these crazy stuff, you know, like the, I forget what they're called, the police. They were back there, and they were idiots.

Well, that's what reminds me of the people out there in California. because i saw we saw a movie a video of two guys that were supposed to be firefighters this reporter said they were watching them you know the reporters watching these guys look what they're doing they had no pants on that were suitable for being around a fire and blue cheese and they were carrying water in purses like with purses and they were taking it running over to this little fire and dousing the fire and running back and get some more water can you believe it keystone cops my friend yeah the keystone cops yeah baxter let me say this because we're gotta we gotta head off to break here yeah you're right it is the keystone cops uh the other big problem they have is a lot of the looters are dressing up as firefighters and they're going into these homes and so that we may be seeing some of that but i saw the same image as you did that was weird 901-260-5926 we'll be right back and welcome back everybody this is the todd starnes radio show want to play some audio and this is from the la fire chief so now it's every it's liberal on liberal violence here uh every man for himself cut number seven let me be clear the 17 million dollar budget cut and the elimination of our civilian positions like our mechanics did and has and will continue to severely impact our ability to repair our apparatus so with that we have over 100 fire apparatus out of service and having these apparatus in the proper amount of mechanics would have helped and so it did absolutely negatively impact i want to also be clear that i have over the last three years it's been been clear that the fire department needs help we can no longer sustain where we are we do not have enough firefighters with that i have also requested multiple budgets interim budgets to show how understaffed under resourced and underfunded the lefd is so with that also we have clear data that shows the lefd needs more help we need 62 more fire stations these reports also show that we've had a 55 increase in overall call volume since 2010 and guess what we're doing it with less firefighters i was also directed to develop a plan as part of a budget reduction exercise and that could equate to 48.8 million dollars and i warned i rang the bell that these additional cuts could be very very devastating for our ability to provide public safety that would have resulted to 15 fire stations closing down and potentially the elimination of over 300 firefighters again i want to be clear that i submitted a very large budget that will actually allow our firefighters to do their job there you go so she's laying out the argument that you know They told City Hall, they told Karen Bass what they needed, and she didn't deliver.

Southern California pastor Jack Hibbs, and Jack's been a good friend of this program. He's been on the show many times in the past. He is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, and that's in Orange County, so it's a little further south from where the fires were. But he's got a lot of church members that live in that area, and the entire area has been impacted by this.

So Jack Hibbs said something very interesting from the pulpit yesterday. He is out there, and he is using the pulpit from his church to call out the leaders of California. And he says that Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass had got to go. They got to go. And a lot of people are now upset over Pastor Hibbs.

And they're saying that the church has no business being involved in this conversation. Here's what the pastor said yesterday. Cut number five. And you proved me wrong. I challenge you today if you don't like what I'm about to say.

California has been under unmitigated Democrat 100% power control. Democrat. Supermajority. What does that mean, supermajority? It means nobody can oppose their decision making.

And now you've got it. you've got a situation where a catastrophe came and the billions of dollars that you and I gave was diverted to other woke, stupid democrat projects. That's not hyperbole, it is a fact. You don't like it, change your party. If you don't like it, change different.

But I'm telling you right now, I'm upset and I'm angry and it's the right kind of anger. I'm telling you this right now. When you open up a fire hydrant and nothing comes out, and then Joe Biden says, it's because we need electricity, it was turned off for the fire hydrant to turn on. In some cases that might be true. If the fire hydrants are on top of a mountain, you need a motor to drive the water up.

That's extremely rare and it wasn't the case in these fires. bad management horrific politicians who took your money and took trips like Karen Bass, the mayor of LA she decided to go to Africa the week of the fires to be on a little trip that you paid for she was really put out when she was told to come home, it didn't look bad I mean it didn't look good, but it looked very bad you've got Gavin Newsom flying down here and then at a command center laughing it up with some people and it's caught on tape while he spends nine point so many millions of probably your dollars to buy himself a new house it's time to replace the leadership in california you don't need any more you don't need any more examples these fires could have been stopped yeah and he's right i mean was there anything you heard in there that that was wrong now there are people and i posted the the video of this portion of the sermon on our social media platforms and the liberal lurkers are out there one person writing in saying tax churches if they are going to engage in politics that might help pay firefighters so the argument here is that churches have no business being involved or weighing in on anything to do outside of the church house.

Now, do you agree with that?

Someone said, well, if that's going to be the rule, we got to start taxing the African-American churches because they do politics all the time. I'm just, I'm telling you, I have no problem with churches being engaged in the political process at all. We're all American citizens.

Now, people are coming to the pastor's defense, but he's got a great big target on him now. And I would contend one of the biggest problems in California is that the churches have been silent for so many years that the churches have not stood up. But I'm curious, do you have a problem with the fact that this pastor in Southern California is rising up and using his pulpit to say, we got to fix things here, folks. We got to fix things.

Now, it seems to me, if you go back and you want to talk about whether or not churches can talk politics from the pulpit, we've got to get rid of the Johnson Amendment, the Johnson rule. and the only reason Lyndon Johnson implemented that rule was to punish the churches who opposed his candidacy that's all but it seems to me that if you silence the churches then you've lost the fight and they almost did that with Donald Trump they came very close to doing that with Donald Trump 901-260-5926 is our telephone number do you have a problem with what the pastor had to say there 901-260-5926 all right let's go to rich and jackson tennessee wtjs our great affiliate there hi rich hope you're doing well today what's on your mind it's been a very long time and what an honor uh and mr jeter I want to thank you for bringing him to your show He is the best I totally agree with the preacher Whatever in California I spent quite a little bit of time there when I was younger Anyway, I told Ben I would talk about the Inauguration and I can't wait I am I'm to the right of even the preacher Here's the deal I've always had. People like the mayor there and so on, they need to give up all of their ill-gotten gains. And the people that have really trampled on us need to be looking at prison time. I tell you, I did a DUI about 20 years ago, and it's only bars.

I don't mean drinking bars. I mean bars that will get the attention of these people. I want to say one more thing before I go. I hadn't talked to you forever. It was back when we were having all the LBG stuff here, public, and I got caught up in it, and I was like Barry Goldwater.

I was too whatever he said. I worked for William Buckley when I was a boy for a few weeks, and I've only been treated good by people on the right or people, whatever. If you want a dull evening, folks, sit at a table with dim types that have no interest. You're going to find out there are two countries. And Trump's greatest contribution to me is that he lifted the scales off of my eyes.

I thought I was pretty slick. He gave America. He pulled the wool. He exposed all these lies. And I can't believe that we went this far.

If America's to be saved, it'll be God, and it'll be Trump, and a little tall Barron behind him. Boy, look at Barron. He's a bad little dude. Ben, thank you, and thank you, Mr. Starr.

Well, Rich, God bless you, and thank you as well for the kind words, and appreciate you calling in. And, Rich, I think you're 1,000% correct here that Trump came in, and he just uncovered everything. everything and trump is so comfortable in his skin you know that's why and he's gonna he's gonna anger and he's gonna irritate let me i'm gonna go on the record here and say he will anger and irritate every single faction of the republican party even the america first movement and he going to do that because he thinking big picture here he everything he does is not going to make you happy but Trump has a big picture plan And you got to be patient here folks and you got to wait and see how all this plays out That's what you have to do. All right, 901-260-5926 is our number. That's 901-260-5926.

This is the Todd Stern Show. You know, we talk about what's happening with the economy. and I want to encourage you as you go into 2025 to take a long hard look at where your money is invested and if it's all in the stock market you need to think about that really hard my recommendation is to diversify your retirement plan your savings whatever you're trying to do you need to diversify into physical gold silver and platinum and that's why my friends at priority gold are really really anxious to talk to you. Priority Gold, they make it very easy to diversify. You got to act now, though, and this is not some sort of a pressure thing.

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Now, folks, if you're following the numbers, gold already up 21% this year and still climbing, and so this is a great opportunity to take a long, hard look at your retirement plans. By the way, if you're a young person, maybe you just got some Christmas money, might be a good idea for you to take a look at investing in gold as well.

So here's what I want you to do. Write this number down. Text the word GOLDEN to 24999. That's GOLDEN to 24999. You're going to get a free gold investor guide, and it's not going to be a pressure sale sale here folks that's not that's not how priority gold operates they want to educate you first and then you can make a smart decision so again text the word golden to 24999 all right let's go right to our phone lines 901-260-5926 david in jacksonville north carolina David what's on your mind?

Well I agree with Jack Hibbs I think he's outstanding just like a lot of other pastors in California which have the big mega churches they do and have stood up like Rob McCoy where are the pastors in the rest of the country this is almost similar to Dietrich Bonhoeffer 12,000 pastors in Germany and only 3,000 stood up and look at what happened to Germany we've let our pastors and our christians have let this country slide you can point the fingers and you once you point one you got point three back at you because they're not doing anything so i agree with him and we need to have politics in the church it's always been there and it founded our country through pastors so i'm agreement and it needs to be stronger in our churches wow so you think it needs to be even even beyond what pastor jack hibbs preached I do. I do. They ought to tell people who to vote for, who to vote, but vote biblically. Look at the Bible, and the Bible will teach you how to vote with the values and all. And our pastors aren't doing that.

They're glossing over it. They're glossing over the major concerns of our country because we have no Christians standing up in the gap. There are some that are, but they're not publicized as well because they don't have the major platform. And that's why I enjoy your show, because what you bring on is that biblical point of view. And we need to have that back, because our country is not going to turn around just by waiting for God to do something.

God empowers us to do it, and we need to stand up and grow a backbone. Yeah, David, I'm with you. I really like the way you're thinking there. And the argument could be made that the reason why the country is in the shape it's in right now is because a majority of our churches have just disengaged from the culture war. And I'll give you an example of that.

And it's so nuanced in a lot of cases. And, David, thank you for that call. But let me give you an example. I'm all about literacy. It's so important that children learn how to read.

And I know here in Memphis, our school system has completely failed the children. And over 70% of the kids cannot read at a third-grade reading level.

So there are a lot of Christian ministries out there in the Memphis area that are committed to teaching kids and working with kids and teaching them how to read, which is an important thing, and it is a noble thing. But step back for a moment. Where are the pastors telling moms and dads from the pulpit that they've got a responsibility to start teaching their kids how to read? It's not the school system's responsibility to teach your kid how to read. That kid should already know how to read by the time they go into the school.

So mom and dad, what are you doing?

So to David's point, there is a role for the church in every aspect of our lives. But what have we done? we've relegated church to Sunday when it's convenient. And, you know, look at what we got. And California is a great example of that.

By the way, Ben Dieter, I'm a little aggravated right now.

So I ran out of community coffee. And so I finally got around to ordering the community coffee. And the community coffee finally got here.

Now, you know, we've had this, what, massive, we had a massive snowstorm. I don't know, what did we get, what, five inches of snow?

Something like that, six, seven inches of snow. It's snow all over the place. And so anyway, I'm out there, and I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for the delivery to get here.

So this morning, we had the snowstorm on Friday, got here Monday morning, and all of a sudden, I'm about to walk in, and I glance over, and we've still got a lot of snow on the grounds around here because it's been cold. It's winter. And so I'm going in and I look down and I glance and there's a package. And I'm like, what in the world? And so I pulled the package out of the snow drift and it's like completely soaked.

The entire package soaked all the way through. You're not kidding. Go look at Todd's X account right now. I took a photograph of it. This case is an Amazon Prime delivery.

You're being a snitch, Todd. snitches get stitches well you know what bring them on because they're dealing with their hey they're messing with my coffee oh it was the coffee it was the coffee no well at least it wasn't a piece of technology a laptop or an ipad well if it had been it would have been destroyed because the entire even so the package was they didn't even bother to put it in like a you know some sort of a plastic so that the uh the snow wouldn't get it it was a paper it was a paper envelope paper package it was soaked all the way through it just completely disintegrated and then the coffee package is completely disintegrated seems to me if you see a bank of snow you wouldn't drop the package in said snow you would maybe find i don't know on top of the mailbox on top of a vehicle exactly that's or just wait what what in the world now i'm wondering How many other packages have been delivered like that? And we didn't get them because somebody came and you had one of the porch pirates. Oh, that's a great point. We live in the most dangerous city in America.

We've got lots of pirates running around. I blame DEI. I don't know. I can't say that. I'm blaming everything on DEI now.

Well, you know, I mean, there was a time when if you were a delivery guy, you took care. I mean, that's the problem. Fast food workers. There was a time when you took pride in your work. Right?

Nobody takes pride in anything. Took pride in flipping burgers.

Now you're lucky if you have a patty in between your Big Mac, per your last story when you went to McDonald's.

Well, I switched over. I'm trying to eat healthier, so I ordered a Filet-O-Fish sandwich at McDonald's. And I opened the thing, and it's like this tiny little, they shrunk. And it's like the bread's halfway this way, and you've got the tartar sauce that's smeared all over the place. I'm like, this does not look like the commercial.

Maybe it's a smelt. take some filet-o-smelt yes that's exactly what it is thank you Ben Dieter I'm saying take some pride in your work people for crying out loud I gotta go back and get some more coffee alright 901-260-5926 is our number this is the time so geez bye Live from the Liberty University studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's common sense conservative commentary from Todd Starr. That's us, that's right. I love this American ride.

Well, hello everybody. Welcome to Hour 2 of The Big Show. Great to have you with us today. I want you to write down our telephone number. You will need this if you plan on calling in.

901-260-5926. That's 901-260-5926. There was a terrific story in the Daily Signal that caught my attention this morning. Tyler O'Neill is the writer, and I'm not surprised by the gist of this story.

Now, I told you in the first hour that it's looking as though President Trump's cabinet picks are going to have a pretty quick confirmation process. We're not hearing of any problem issues now, and it looks as though all the Republicans are on board. And it really has to be that way. The clock is a-ticking. As soon as the president wraps up his inaugural address, we're off to the races, and the clock is ticking.

So we've got a lot of work to do in this country to accomplish President Trump's agenda. All that to say is we can't be having any of these inter-party squabbles. We've got to get on board. We elected President Trump. His agenda is the mandate, and we've got to go for it.

The problem is going to be within the swamp. And I've told you many times on this program that there are some very dangerous, nasty critters lurking in the D.C. swamp. The headline, Deep State Gearing Up, Nearly Half of Federal Employees in the Swamp Plan to Resist Trump. I want to go right away to our Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line.

the executive editor and president of the Daily Signal joins us, Ron Blewey. Ron, good to have you back with us. It's good to talk to you today. And yes, isn't this remarkable that you have this type of situation? I mean, it's the exact type of thing that any Republican, but particularly Donald Trump, is going to have to deal with.

I mean, this is, I mean, it's a surprising number. I'm not surprised. I think we all knew there was going to be some pushback and blowback here. But according to the rmg research a poll uh 42 percent of federal government managers intend to work against the administration it's so true steve and it's one of those things where when i hear these legacy media outlets saying where's the resistance to trump you know there there's no protest happening in the streets of washington dc and people are making million dollar donations to him So I don't think that conservatives and certainly people who are serving in the Trump administration should fall into a sense of complacency because the deep state is alive and well. They may not be making as much noise this time around, but they are going to resist Donald Trump and his agenda at every opportunity.

And this has big implications for his ability to deliver on the promises to the American people, particularly when it comes to restoring the economy to a sense of Americans doing well for themselves and not struggling with inflation every day. to securing the border and bringing under control the illegal immigration problem and all of the other things that he hopes to accomplish through executive orders and other administrative actions.

Now, there will be things that Congress is able to do through a budget reconciliation process, but he needs those people that you were just talking about to be confirmed as quickly as possible so they can get into these agencies and make sure, to the extent that they can, that these federal government workers are carrying out the agenda as he so orders. Rob Blewe on the Todd Stearns Show today. Rob, I'm curious here. This survey is pretty fascinating to me because they surveyed Main Street Americans. It seems like everybody that they talk to is on board and ready to make all this happen except for the government workers, the bureaucracy.

Are you surprised by that? There are, Todd. There are three million federal workers.

Now, they're spread out all over the country, but there's a fair number in the Washington, D.C. area. And this is a problem that has stymied Republican presidents in the past. The problem usually is, you know, explained this way. You have a Democrat president come in, bring in a large number of federal workers with them, and those federal workers don't leave when that president's term is done.

And so this has happened during the Reagan years, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush. It happened under Donald Trump's first term. Republicans leave office and their political appointees tend to do the same.

Democrats burrow into these government agencies so they can continue to carry out the left's agenda even when a Republican is in place. This is why Donald Trump tried to make civil service reform a priority of his first term, why it is high on the agenda for his second term. And this means simply doing things that in the private sector are common sense, like firing somebody who doesn't carry out their orders.

Now, if you are working at a fast food restaurant or a manufacturer of any kind and you were insubordinate in your job, you would face ramifications for that. The only employer that doesn't seem to have that same type of standard is the federal government. Yeah, that's what's mind-blowing here. When you look at the numbers of people who are not coming back into the office to work, I mean, so many years after the pandemic. Rob, how, I mean, is it possible for Trump and his team to go in there and just start firing all these people?

Can we do that? There are certain things, Todd, that we can do.

So number one, first and foremost, some of your listeners probably have heard of Schedule F. That is a change in the way that the government would interact with certain types of employees. And so a lot of these employees who enjoy broad protections would now be basically at-will employees, and that is something that Donald Trump was able to put in place, but Joe Biden rescinded.

So he'll have to go through a regulatory process to do that.

Now, there are other steps that a president can take in terms of removing those people, some of them creative ways, maybe like early retirement or moving them out of positions of authority where they are in a position to stymie his agenda, moving them into other areas. And let me just say, this is not just, you know, your typical agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency or Health and Human Services. This is happening even at the Department of Defense with our U.S. military in terms of the woke agenda that they are putting in place there. And so there is a lot of work for these cabinet secretaries and their deputies to do.

So the first step is obviously confirming people like Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., making sure that they are in those agencies able to oversee things so there's not some acting director in place for a long period of time, and then making sure that Donald Trump exercises his authority to put in place the 3,000 political appointees who will then be in a position of authority to make sure that the civil service workers are not the ones calling the shots. And this was a challenge during the first term. It took a long time for a lot of these people to be confirmed. And you have a situation now where there are 53 Republicans.

And let's just look at history here. If you go back four years, Democrats voted in lockstep for every single one of Joe Biden's nominees. And, Todd, you know, Republicans always seem to have this firing squad where they, you know, will shoot at their own. And I suspect that because they have three votes at margin, there will be a fair number of Republican senators who don't go along with every pick. I'm still confident that Donald Trump's cabinet will be confirmed.

As you said, I'm not seeing any signs that these cabinet secretaries won't be in these positions of authority. But, you know, how quickly, we don't know. And what the civil servants and the deep state will try to do in that interim period is my guess. I don't know if we've been able to – well, this is from the reporting of Breitbart, and it's very exclusive. And Jason Miller, who is President Trump's senior advisor, shared this.

So we have to imagine this is legit. Mike Waltz plans to clean out all deep staters from the National Security Council. He says, quote, we're taking resignations at 1201 on January 20. I like this kind of thinking. Yes, this is exactly the type of thinking.

So this in particular, so the National Security Council is one of several policy councils within the White House office itself. And so they have tremendous power to influence the president's decisions and oftentimes will operate even without the president's decision.

So they you need people in place. And remember, the National Security Council is where you had all of those problems originate with the first impeachment of Donald Trump. And so, you know, this is an area where you have to have strong, courageous leaders go into these councils and make sure that even if you're working for the White House, you have to be aligned with the president. I mean, this is rule number one. And I think Trump recognizes from his first term in office that he can't have any rogue employees out there who are doing things behind his back that aren't in complete 100 percent agreement with the agenda that he wants to pursue.

And where is it even more critical than the national security of our country? I mean, one of the first and foremost things that our Constitution spells out, and so if you don't have people there who are aligned, you know, you're not going to probably get into some of the other agencies that may carry less significance and importance. It's just terrific news. And Walt's interviewing or doing an interview with Breitbart saying, quote, everybody's going to resign 1201 on January 20th. We're working through our process to get everybody their clearances and through the transition process now.

Our folks know who we want out in the agencies. We're putting this request in. In terms of the details, they're all going to go back.

So there you go. I mean, this is the way to do it, and we just need to make sure this gets done. Are you hearing any concerns, any issues about any of the cabinet picks and the confirmation hearings?

Well, to your last point there, I will just say that one of the other encouraging statistics in the poll is that 54% of the majority of Americans, even among elite Americans, the elite 1%, 52% said that Donald Trump should have the ability to fire those people.

So I think that the American people are with you and me on this one, Todd. As it pertains to the confirmation hearing, so they'll start with Pete Hegseth tomorrow. There are a number of the cabinet secretaries who are lined up to face tough questions on Capitol Hill. Chuck Schumer has indicated that they will use procedural maneuvers and they will look for gotcha moments among the senators when they're questioning these cabinet nominees.

So I suspect it'll be a lot more fireworks and antics on the part of Democrats than actually any meaningful attempts to stop them from confirmation. And so the big question is they probably won't confirm anyone this week. The earliest that they would vote on a nominee is Monday, the 20th. That's when Biden's first cabinet secretary was confirmed four years ago. and I'm hopeful that Trump will have maybe in place at least five, maybe even six at the end of next week, because that's, you know, on par with what Biden had and what he had in his first term.

And then shortly thereafter, as we enter the month of February, yes, if I were John Thune, I'd set a goal to get the cabinet secretaries done and then move down to the next level, which is the deputy secretaries, make sure that they're all confirmed. And then you have, like I say, 3,000 appointments.

So a lot of people that the Senate will need to act upon, some of them will be less controversial than others, but then if you also throw in the mix all the judges, there's a lot of work to do. All right. Well, Rob, we've got to leave it there. Good stuff, folks. Go to the Daily Signal and read this terrific piece, Deep State is Gearing Up.

But you know what? Trump is prepared for it, and he's got a plan, and we're not going to let anybody thwart the president's agenda. Rob, always good having you on. Thank you. Thanks, Todd.

All right. There you go. Rob Bleuey, president and executive editor of the Daily Signal. Dailysignal.com is the website.

So they're holding some press conferences up in the Capitol regarding the safety of everybody attending the inauguration on January the 20th. First of all, I'm curious if any of you folks are planning on making the trip. Are any of you folks going to the inauguration? And if so, are you concerned about safety? There have been, I am personally, I am concerned.

I am concerned. And I believe the drones and all the stuff that we saw happening over New Jersey and the Northeast, something's going on here. and i'm not sure that we've got a plan to handle a drone attack on large groups of people that are gathered on the washington mall now the secret service agent in charge of the inauguration just announced that it is a higher threat environment and they're activating every resource to keep president trump and everybody else safe let's take a listen so i would say what's different is we are in a higher threat environment. What is the difference in comparison to the last inauguration or previous inauguration? Last inauguration?

Yeah. I would say we have a slightly more robust security plan. We've been planning for this event for 12 months along with our partners. It's an ever-changing threat environment, and so we stay flexible. If we see that, hey, we need to shore this particular checkpoint up, we do that.

So what's different? We've learned. This is our fifth NSSE this year in the Washington Field Office. We've done 83 NSSEs. Each one we take a look at.

And if there's areas where we need to improve, we do it. But what I can tell you is that we are 100% confident in the plan that we have put in place for this inauguration, that the public and our protectees will be safe. All right, there you go. That coming from the Secret Service, they're expecting about 25,000 law enforcement and military personnel to be boots on the ground. The D.C.

police are saying that nearly 4,000 cops nationwide have actually volunteered to come help on Inauguration Day. Also, we understand all D.C. officers will be activated for the event, and they are anticipating an historic crowd.

Now, that really is remarkable that you would have law enforcement from all over America saying, you know what, I'm taking some vacation time, and I'm going to come to Washington, D.C., and I'm going to stand there and protect my president and the people in that crowd. But there are a lot of other people who believe that we need to forget about doing the outdoor ceremony, do something indoors where it's controlled, where it is safe, and the risks are limited. And somebody raised this on X, and I hadn't really thought about this. You don't want to let your mind go this way, but some of those U.S. Capitol Police, as we saw on J6, are not good actors.

And you would hope and pray that something would not happen there. But I'm just saying we've got to be on guard, and there are a lot of people and a lot of good people that I know who are very concerned, and when they're concerned, we should be as well. All right, got to take a break here. 901-260-5926. That's 901-260-5926.

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So don't delay. Order now. Use my promo code STARNS at MyPillow.com or call 800-839-8506. all right my new favorite show uh landman is uh this was the season finale i love this show the the writing is just spectacular and the the way they attack these left-wing loons is remarkable i want you to listen to this little bit of a conversation between billy bob thornton and a liberal attorney. Cut number 12.

Why new pumps? What's wrong with these? You mean wells. Too shallow. How deep do they need to be?

Dale? Between 10 and 13,000 feet. But you got to drill at an angle and then you got to frack it. Frack it. You shoot a ton of salt water down hole and you squeeze all that oil out of the fractures.

Then you pump it up, separate the water. Technology, it changed the game out here. Yeah, isn't this the technology that's causing earthquakes in Oklahoma? There were earthquakes in Oklahoma before fracking, ma'am. Jesus Christ.

Tommy! Yeah? Look, you understand, I don't think anyone should be doing this, all right? I think it should be illegal.

Well, then you should have run for Congress instead of getting a job with an oil company. I just, I have a very hard time advocating for something I believe is wrong. Says the lawyer. Good and bad don't factor into this, Rebecca. Our great-grandparents built a world that runs on this s*** right here.

Until it starts running on something else, we've got to feed it. Or the world stops. Hey, there is an alternative. You can throw your phone away and trade that Mercedes in for a bicycle or a horse and start hunting for your own food and living in a tent. But you'll be the only one, and it won't make a damn bit of difference.

Plus, I hear the moral high ground gets real windy at night. I love this. It's not for women or children, this TV show, but it is really entertaining. I got to check it out. Landman with Billy Bob Thornton.

All right, welcome back, everybody. This is the Todd Stearns Radio Show. Hope you guys are doing well. A lot going on right now, ladies and gentlemen. Want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line, and we are honored to have the owner of WSIC the host of the incredible morning show there Justin Kazepas joining us Justin hope you doing well God I don know if you can hear but the little bit of snow that we actually got here in the Lake Norman area is falling off the roof as it continues to melt.

You guys in Memphis took all the snow from us this weekend. What happened? Yeah, we did. It's incredibly inappropriate, and I did not move back home to Memphis to deal with snow.

So that's a big problem. I appreciate you having me on the show today, Todd. I really do. All of us in North Carolina, we enjoy the program. And, you know, when I bought the station in 2023 and then learning more about what you're about.

And there's definitely a community and audience that's interested in what you've got going on on your show.

Well, we had a great time, of course, during the book tour. I came by and just had so much fun meeting all of your great listeners. and it was just a lot of fun and always enjoy always smile when we have callers from wsic and you've got a lot of them so uh and that and that's great news i'm sure for your advertisers it's it's the power of local right todd like now you as an owner as well this time of our country and our nation and the world the power of local community and people who you know actually are in your backyard and living life with you and have to go to the same grocery stores and go go to the the different places where our kids hang out and the schools. And it's so real now more than ever, it feels like. And, you know, Justin, and we're going to get around to talking about, you know, the latest conditions here in western North Carolina.

But when you look at what's happening, even in California, where you had KFI, the great news talk station, going live 24-7 to provide news and information. You know, here at KWAM, Ben Dieter literally spent the night at the station to make sure that we had live coverage of the snowstorm and all the gridlock. that's when radio and we saw this happen with you know in western north carolina where radio really does become a lifeline for so many people it's amazing todd that you know you hear stories all the time no matter where you get your information from about things and events and sometimes tragedy sometimes great things happening to people but again when it happens to people that you actually know in your life and you're actually affected no matter the words you've heard before until you experience it. And there's people literally, you know, here in Western North Carolina that a flood happened, a one-in-a-thousand-year flood that happens, right? And for whatever reason God allowed it, we may never know, right?

But once in a thousand years, and your world is just turned upside down in such a moment, and that's the realest thing anybody could experience. And so, again, just the power of local communities is amazing. Glory to God. Justin, what is and how are things? We're hearing so many different reports, and you never know.

it's hard to figure out fact from fiction these days, but what is the situation in Western North Carolina and the people that lost everything? Yeah, and something I have to level say with everybody on, so where we are at, again, what I call the Lake Norman region of North Carolina, we are at the bottom, in essence, of the mountain, a little bit past Piedmont, just north of Charlotte. And so Western North Carolina being literally a day trip for a lot of people, right, from this area across four hours of North Carolina, You can get from coast to Piedmont and cities and some beautiful mountains and, again, making it a wonderful place. And we really leaned into partnering with the local community. Again, our Chamber of Commerce, Todd, run by Bill Russell, president and CEO of it, it's just a phenomenal Chamber of Commerce.

Again, another great extension of local partnerships and coming together. And there are some major communities there, right? Your Boones, some of your Asheville. And Asheville's obviously got a lot going on, but grateful for some funding. that sounds like it's coming in directly to Asheville, too, which will certainly need it from a water perspective, I think.

The other major areas are open, right? You can go to the ski resorts in the mountains of North Carolina and come and have a great time. You could have got a beautiful Christmas tree, some of the best, right? I think North Carolina supplies like a substantial portion of the country's Christmas tree. Shout out to the wonderful agriculture community we've got here.

But there's some people that if you lived in the holler, and it was like you're a third, fourth, fifth generation, you know owner of this property you were wiped off the map in some instances and it's just um it's wide the gap is wide as far as for people to people now at this point of who's in which position it's it was just shocking for me to see you know joe biden get up and say well we're going to cover 100 of the fire response in in southern california okay well what about maui what about western north carolina you know why is it that and i'm asking you this question why do you think that the media they've got all their news anchors broadcasting from pacific palisades but not bat cave north carolina it's an amazing question todd and we actually talked about this morning on the radio show we were catching up for friday because we had just talking about it you know there's a lot going on in the national scene right now to be able to talk about as much as there is the local scene right now again looking everyone kind of looking forward to january 20th and what's going to happen and what's going to move quickly in a dynamic but for it for it to just be like so instantaneous for one community while at the same time, you know, what's the slow draw where FEMA told the Chamber of Commerce in Boone area, North Carolina, they're out of money. I thought FEMA was out of money. And so it certainly calls into question, okay, where are we at as a country? Is everything really level set? Is everything even?

How do we truly get from subjective to objective, right? How do we make our way there in this transition? It's going to be a transition. There's going to be a lot of things flying at a lot of people. Look, you own a radio station, you do a national show, Todd.

How much content is there in a day for people to absorb and get hit in the face with?

So really leaning into finding the ways to connect at a deeper level. I think, you know, biggest currency beyond time is going to be face-to-face, right? That's going to be the best currency going forward, in my opinion. Wow. Again, it's just really shocking, you know, when you see the level of devastation, and I have spent so many years over in that part of the state.

Are they making some progress here? Are people starting to see the rebuilding? There's no question. There's no question that the amount of movement that occurred in such a short amount of time was nothing short of amazing and miraculous, right? There's no doubt about that.

But something just as naturally, like you can't just take a 150-year-old town or a 100-year-old town or a 50-year-old town and just say, okay, overnight we rebuilt it, that's it. It doesn't even, while you want to get the structures and the physical back up, the true emotional feeling for people in all of this, right, and how it'll shift, you know, decades and generations, if you would, that's really what we need to also be having a conversation about. All right. Wow. All right, Justin, it's, again, just shocking.

And I know so many people, some Heritage Purse has been out there. we've been trying to you know just keep people reminded that the rebuilding continues and it goes on and you know one day we hope the whole area gets back to the way it used to be oh and it's a great area to visit go there now go check out western north carolina there's a lot of great people there that you you should go there and support there if you have an opportunity look you see the numbers on population talk i shouldn't be telling you about north carolina in fact know what go away don't nobody else come the state's closed it's great but we like it so So don't get excited about it, okay? There you go. All right. All right, Justin Kazepis, the owner of WSIC, our great affiliate there in North Carolina, Statesville, North Carolina.

Great town, by the way. Justin, we'll get you back on soon. Thanks a lot now. Thanks, Todd. Take care.

All right. Good man right there. Good radio guy, too. And we love, love, love talking to our friends and affiliate owners around the country. By the way, I want to give a shout-out and a congratulations to the radio station I own, our great team here at KWAM in Memphis.

Barrett News Media today named KWAM as one of the top 20 news talk radio stations in America. And last week, they announced that Ben Dieter's morning show, you know, Ben does double duty here, and he's the host of the morning show, one of the top 25 morning shows in America.

So well done to our great team here in Memphis, and we're just so excited to bring great radio back to the Mid-South. That's what it's all about. All right, we're going to have to take a quick break here, folks. 901-260-5926 is our number. That's 901-260-5926.

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And welcome back, everybody. Good to have you with us. This is the Todd Starnes Radio Show. Coming up in the next hour, we're going to be talking to the editor of National Pulse, Rahim Kassam. Great interview about Elon Musk.

A lot of people now very concerned about where Elon is going with this crackdown on speech on the Twitter platform. I still call it Twitter. Also, Bart May is the author of a brand new book called Faith Driven Leadership. I'm really excited about this book. Bart's a good friend and I want to encourage you to get a copy on Amazon.

You're going to love this 52 Weeks of Biblical Wisdom. And he draws insight from a lot of people, including folks like the owner of Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A, Popeye's Fried Chicken, for example, Tim Tebow.

So it is really a fun book, and it's pretty insightful, especially if you are a leader in your church or your business or wherever you might be a leader. You're going to want to get a copy of this book by Bart May called Faith Driven Leadership. All right, let's go to the phone line. Statesville, North Carolina, WSIC. Keith is on the line.

Hi, Keith. What's going on? Hey, Todd. First and foremost, I've been a long-time listener, follower, and a big fan. Just always insightful to listen to your show.

I just heard you talking to Justin from Stateswell area about the Hurricane Helene efforts in western North Carolina. I've been a part of it since day one through a local fire department here, as well as getting supplies taken into the western part of North Carolina, different areas, Burnsville, Bakersville. Swannanoa, Black Mountain, Asheville, Marion, Old Fort. The efforts up there, they're disappointing. The people, the citizens, the people around the United States, they've been nothing but outstanding and great.

But when it comes down to government, there's still a lot that is lacking in that area. The people there are still hurting. There's been 5013C nonprofit organizations that have just been resurrected from the devastation to try to get people the help that's needed.

So, you know, it's really heartbreaking when the devastation is going on in California with wildfires. My heart goes out to them, you know, definitely prayers for those affected. But it looks like all the attention is turned away from Western North Carolina, you know, monetarily, the help efforts, FEMA, things like that. They, you know, it was kind of shocking at first. like, okay, where's the help the United States always offers when the hurricane first hit?

And nobody was talking to FEMA, governmental assistance, anything for the first three to four days.

So it's been heavily relied on with the citizens, the people, from other states, from our state, North Carolina, from the local area, things like that. And that's where we're still at. There's only so much the citizens can do that the people can do. There's only so many fundraisers we can do, but we're still trying. 150 percent, we're still trying to do what's best for the people to get them back up and be sustainable.

But when you hear comments from our president saying that they're going to take care of things 100 percent for those affected in California, it can't help but add a little salt to the wound of, okay, is our people in North Carolina, do they not matter? Does it come down to the financial side of things? Is California worth more than what our folks in the mountains are worth with job resources and things like that? It kind of angers people, and that's the backlash that I'm hearing now from the people in western North Carolina. But we're a long way from being okay, the folks in western North Carolina.

But they're waking up every day trying to be as positive as they possibly can. knowing that every day is going to be a difficult day. You've got people that's out of FEMA vouchers for hotels. They're getting told that their last day is, you know, it could be today. And they'll be sleeping on the snow.

They'll be sleeping outside. They'll be going to makeshift shelters once left, sleeping in cars. That's not how the American people should live. That's not how people in North Carolina mountains should live. And that's it, Keith.

They shouldn't have to live like that. And that's what angers me is the way the people in Western North Carolina are being treated. And it's just not right. We've got to treat all Americans the same. It doesn't matter how much money you have in your bank account.

And I think the broader issue here is that we can no longer rely, and we never could really rely on the government. You've got to take personal responsibility for yourself and for your family. and you've got to make sure that you've got a plan in place because the government will fail you. And I think that's the lesson in North Carolina. It's the lesson that's unfolding right now in Southern California.

Keith got to run, but thank you for those kind comments. Let's go to Patty in Statesville, North Carolina. A lot of North Carolina folks today. Patty, is it true you're going to the inauguration? Yes, I am.

Listen, I've been to so many rallies, Todd. You know I talk to you. I've been to so many rallies. Me and my girlfriend, we've been all over. This is one rally I'm not missing.

This is once in a lifetime. Am I right?

Well, yeah. And they're having a big rally like the day before the inauguration.

So Trump's doing a big rally and then Inauguration Day. Yeah, well, I'm staying with my girlfriend in Greenville, Virginia. Yeah, so it's not too far from there. And so we're going there. They have 15 acres, a beautiful place.

We're going to have a good time. We're all going to the inauguration. But you know what I was telling Vin? I'm not worried about outsiders. I'm more worried about insiders hurting him.

What do you mean? If somebody wants to do something to him, I'm more worried about the inside job than the outside.

so you think somebody within like what the secret service or something or some of law enforcement might try something look on july 13th july 13th we'll spell it all out if it wasn't for the lord he wouldn't be president right now he was president july 13th you know that patty it's i mean look it's i am concerned i am just concerned about the safety of everybody on inauguration day right but i really i'm going to say something todd i'm i'm saying i'm not worried i think we're more worried about the inside circle that the outside am i do i have a point there patty you gotta you gotta watch your six while you're out there i'm gonna you really let me let me tell you something i'm watching everything but you know what i'm not gonna miss this and i'm sure he's not good he's not he's never backed down from anything and guess what the lord is working with him you know how it is he wouldn't have been here right now if it wasn't for july 13th okay fair enough fair enough patty we gotta let you go we're late for a break but have fun and i expect photos you gotta send you gotta send us photos i can't Can you imagine Ben Dieter, Patty, and her friends at the inauguration? You know, if I was going to the inauguration, I'd be hanging with Patty. You got that right. She's a party. I've never met Patty, but I'm working to fix that.

Todd, I'm going to take a couple days off. I'm going over to North Carolina. I'm going to meet these people. Let me tell you something. We had so much fun on the book tour.

I know. I didn't get to go. I will work. We got another book coming out soon.

Okay. But we had so much fun. I mean, they actually had a food truck. The Wiener. Is it the Wiener Wagon?

I think that was the name of it. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Are you going to the inauguration?

I've had some listeners ask. I know. Unclear. And here's the thing. I probably should go.

But from the radio perspective, at least here in Memphis, we've got all the bells and whistles. And we're able to provide, I think, better coverage. Because otherwise, I'm going to be doing the show. And we'll be broadcasting the inauguration ceremony on the program.

So we're going to be dipping in. Unclear, though, right now is the answer, the non-answer to your question. All right, hang tight, everybody. Hour three of the big show coming up, 901-260-5926, our number. That's 901-260-5926.

This is the Todd Stern Show. Live from the Liberty University studio in Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's conservative blowtorch. That's us, that's right, I love this American ride. Todd Starks. Oh yeah.

All right. Hello everybody. Welcome to hour three of the big show. Good to have you with us. Border to border, coast to coast, across the Fruited Plain.

Wow, we've got a lot to get into this next hour of the program. Over the weekend, I was following some of the things Steve Bannon was writing about and the concerns that Steve Bannon has about Elon Musk and his connections to the Trump White House, how much influence Elon is going to have. This is the headline from the New York Times. Elon Musk is an evil person, Steve Bannon says. There are many within the America First movement, and I consider myself to be one of those people in that movement, that are really concerned about some of the changes that are being made, the attempts to silence people that might disagree with Elon Musk, and they might, you know, again, these might be all legitimate concerns.

But Elon promised early on that X was going to be a platform of free speech, and that's just clearly not the case anymore. I want to bring into the conversation the editor of National Pulse, a great publication, co-founder of War Room, Rahim Kassam. Rahim, good to have you with us today. Thank you for having me.

So I'm curious, do you share the same concerns that Steve does about Elon Musk? Yeah, I do. I think when you look, the way I think about it is, and I was talking to a friend of mine about this recently and explaining to him that when the Democrat Party decided that it was going to start taking billions of corporate cash, George Soros money, all that stuff, it still tried to present itself as a party of the American worker, at least ostensibly. That changed over the course of about 20 years. It became the party of big corporate enterprise, globalism, took union considerations, worker considerations, and kind of placed them at the back burner.

And then you look at what happened with the Tea Party as well, where the Tea Party got a bit more corporatized, took a lot more money from the Coke Industries guys and that kind of thing. And you sort of start to see the same things potentially happening here too. We know that Elon Musk, and look, I don't want to be unkind about it. I think we all acknowledge that he put a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of his money into helping Donald Trump and helping the Margo movement. But it shouldn't ever be the case that when somebody comes along and strokes a big check that they immediately get to be the biggest voice in the room.

And that's what Elon Musk has done. He's become the biggest voice in the room. He sucks up all the attention. He's constantly on the terrace at Mar-a-Lago. You know, he's constantly interviewing people, taking meetings, helping staff up the administration.

And there's a corollary to all of that as well, which is to remember that as much as we might like Ron DeSantis as a governor of Florida, and he was roundly rejected in the primary, and Elon Musk was one of his primary and early backers.

So I just don't see when you have a situation with so many wonderful, mago voices, people who have marched up and down streets, knocked on doors on cold, rainy nights, people who have worked at the coalface of Washington, D.C., trying to drain the swamp for the past 10 years now as part of this movement, that one man should be able to come along and go, oh, actually, by the way, we do like H-1B visas now. I think that is what Steve is getting at when he talks about the evil at the heart of it. He doesn't have that poor, MAGA, America first mentality at his core, and I think that's why he desperately needs challenging all this stuff. Yeah, and this was my concern in the first Trump administration, Raheem, is that you had a lot of these folks that were certainly never Trumpers all the way through the campaign. All of a sudden they find themselves inside the administration working against President Trump's agenda, and we just can't afford to have that happen again.

That's where a lot of the pitfalls came. That's where a lot of the failures came. was, you know, people need to understand that President Trump is actually an extremely magnanimous person. He's an extremely welcoming person. He likes the idea of burying hatchets.

He doesn't like the idea of having long, drawn-out fights with people for what he understands as being no particular reason at all. But those people don't, you know, the never-Trumpers or the more establishment types, they don't think like that. They think of their rugged self-interest, that perhaps in Elon Musk's case, are his business interests. There is a conversation to be had about why he's doing all of this. I think that's a very interesting conversation.

He's sort of lining up a series of dominoes, especially around Europe, because he has been at war with Brussels and the EU's regulatory regime for a long time. And that's fine. I understand it perfectly. It makes perfect business sense. But to turn around to these parties, whether they're in the UK, whether they're in Italy, Germany, or indeed the MAGA movement here in the United States, and say, right, actually, you know, we're changing the very nature of this movement, that sets alarm bells ringing.

I think, you know, personnel as policy is always the mantra we hear. But the problem, and once again, it is happening now as well. We report on this stuff a lot over at the national polls. The sorts of people that are getting pulled into the administration, there are some of them who are really, really not, you know, where you and I would be. I go back to Rush Limbaugh, and he was not all that active in the social media world, and his argument was, why would I base my business model on a platform that I don't control, which I think makes a lot of sense.

At the same time, we've got to be able to get the message out, and I guess that's why websites like the National Pulse, shows like Steve Bannon's, are so vitally important. Yeah, that's right. And look, again, from a business perspective, I totally understand Elon Musk wants us to publish all of our articles, you know, straight on X, no links elsewhere. He wants all video to be native in the platform, et cetera, et cetera. But look, what have we seen in recent weeks when people have started to disagree with him aggressively and vehemently on his platform?

He's removed some of their verified check marks. He's limited their ability to reach people as a result. And it was very much, look, here's the new boss, same as the old boss. That's how old Twitter used to operate, and it's increasingly how new Twitter is looking like it's operating. I mean, what, you know, and again, I agree a lot with what Laura Loomer says.

There's some stuff I disagree with, and we can have a conversation about, you know, how she does it. That's fine. But the reality is everything she's putting out there turns out to be true, and I can't even find her. Her stuff would be on my page every single day, and it's not there anymore. It's not there anymore.

And look, you know, I'm the same way. I've known Laura for over a decade now. She sometimes is her own diplomatic worst enemy, but on a case-by-case basis, if you look at the heart of what she's talking about, there's no reason for somebody like her to be limited in their reach or their ability to... Remember, Elon Musk put this thing together and took it over and allowed people to monetize their own social media. And that was all extremely good-natured and very welcome.

And then we get to a point where Laura Loomer is criticizing him, disagreeing with him publicly. And she loses all of her subscribers on the X platform.

Well, if that had happened under the last X or Twitter regime, we'd be up in arms about it. The entire movement would be up in arms about it. But now you've got a situation where this guy is inside the tent, and he also happens to be one of the wealthiest men in the world, and so people are a little bit intimidated of speaking out. Look, Steve Bannon is never somebody who is afraid to take on a fight. And you look at how things went last time with Jared Kushner and some of his business interests.

I really do think he's just trying to avert another problem like that. I don't think it's particularly personal to him. it's whether or not this second Trump administration which really has about 18 months of runway in front of it before you get to midterms and then looking at the next presidentials to actually get those things done people will remember Steve Bannon's whiteboard in the Oval Office or just adjacent to the Oval Office in the West Wing that whiteboard really should be at the heart and soul of the second administration a thousand percent alright Raheem we're going to leave it there always appreciate your great insight and the great work you're doing for the country. Thank you so much. Anytime.

Cheers. All right. Raheem Kassam, ladies and gentlemen, editor of the National Pulse, co-founder of War Room. And he's right. And there a group of us and we are solely focused on the Trump agenda I don care about anything else Nothing else matters This was the mandate that we gave Donald Trump.

He won, and he's going to carry out that mandate, and nothing can stand in his way. And it does concern me, and clearly there are others. Steve Bannon feels the same way. You heard Raheem here. When you see Elon Musk at the balcony, at the dinner table, pretty much taking up residence at Mar-a-Lago, that's a concerning thing.

That's a concerning thing.

So we've just got to keep an eye out on the influence that Elon is having. But what he did, the reaction he had to people who opposed him on the H-1B visas, that is disturbing because it shows me that he doesn't have a thick skin. and when push comes to shove, he's going to silence people on his platform. And at the end of the day, guess what? He can do that because he pays the bills over at X.

All right, we've got to take a quick break here, folks. 901-260-5926. Do you share those concerns, or do you think it's good that Elon and Trump are thick as thieves? 901-260-5926. This is the Todd Stern Show.

I don't really like working. I'm going to need a priority parking space. I only work remotely. How are your safe spaces? Can I bring my dog to work?

Will your company protect me against microaggressions? You're triggering me. Is this interview almost over? You don't run a daycare. You run a business.

So why use high-priced recruitment agencies who charge you up to 40% of an employee's first-year salary so they're focused on getting you the costly talent, not the best fit, which means you get more of this. What's your policy on paying employees to attend protests? And I demand eight weeks of vacation. And I need at least 12 weeks of paid vacation. I'm going to need a lot of mental health days.

Do you have a game room? My pronouns are Z's and Z's. Isn't it time you hired grown-ups? Call redballoon.org and skip those high-priced recruitment agencies. Call 833-880-0600 for a free consultation.

That's 833-880-0600 for a free consultation. Redballoon.org. All right, welcome back, everybody. Hope you're doing well today. Having a good day?

901-260-5926 is our telephone number. Let's go to John in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Hi, John. What's on your mind today? Oh, first of all, I hope you had a great Christmas, and I hope you have a very successful New Year, and may all the liberal channels poop their pants when they hear your voice.

Well, thank you for that. Yes, thank you. I need you to clear up a rumor, mirror, of true or false, and I'll hang up and listen for your answer. First of all, you know, a member of our church, he owns and operates a chopper, so he's taking supplies down in North Carolina. But I was reading an article that a group of Amish people from the Amish community went into the storm-struck areas and built tiny houses, and the FEMA was saying they couldn't do it, but the Amish being who they are said they did it anyway.

And I'll just hang up and listen for your response. Great show, Todd. God bless you.

Well, thank you. Thank you, John. Appreciate that. The answer is yes. The Amish did, in fact, send a good many folks up, and they built a number of these tiny homes.

I think the numbers I saw were 12 homes in 48 hours. I mean, that was pretty impressive. But the Amish are just phenomenal folks, and they went down there and they got right to work. And I think FEMA could learn a lesson from those folks.

So it's a terrific story. This item from Kennesaw, Georgia. Did you know that Kennesaw, Georgia is the one town in America where residents are legally required to own guns and ammo? I kind of figured it might be Memphis, but no, it's Kennesaw, Georgia. This law goes back to the 1980s.

the gun law states is this true is this true that kenesaw i mean i think it's a great thing here anyway kenesaw's gun law states in order to provide for and protect the safety security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm together with ammunition the law excludes residents with mental or physical disabilities, felony convictions, or conflicting religious beliefs. I like this idea.

So apparently the BBC is involved. They did a big story. And the mayor, the mayor of the town, Derek Easterling, says it's not like you go around wearing it on your hip like the wild, wild west. We're not going to knock on your door and say, let me see your weapon. the mayor says to his knowledge there have been no prosecutions or arrests made for violating the law.

Now, I will say, according to this article on Fox News, Kendall Tights is the author. The law is a source of pride for some and embarrassment for others. Who would be embarrassed by something like this?

Well, yes, it's a rhetorical question, Bendy. I know who would be offended. tree hugger, liberal soy boy snowflakes. According to Fox, most residents told the BBC the law keeps citizens safe.

Now, this is interesting. There were zero murders in Kennesaw, Georgia, in 2023. Zero. There were two suicides involving guns.

Well, you can't, okay, but you can't blame the city hall for that. according to customers at a local pizza joint if anything criminals need to be concerned because if they break into your home and you're there they don't know what you got look this is a fair point it seems to me from a safety perspective the bad guys are going to avoid Kennesaw Georgia because everybody's packing heat there the city law was established in the 80s and again it makes a requirement to own guns and ammunition. Quote, it doesn't matter if it's a gun or a fork or a fist or a high-heeled shoe. We protect ourselves and we protect our neighbors, one citizen said. Blake Weathersby is the groundskeeper at the Kennesaw First Baptist Church.

Oh, you know, they got guns. They're packing heat on Sunday. At one point, Weatherby said he owned over 20 guns. Pat Farris, who joined the council in 1984, said the law was created to be more of a political statement than anything else and added that he isn't sure how many people even know the ordinance exists. By the way, Morton Grove, Illinois, that's the first city to ban gun ownership.

I wonder what the crime rate's like there. I mean, you may as well just roll out the red carpet for the criminals, right?

so there you go Kennesaw I believe Kennesaw State University that's the home of the owls imagine if Memphis tried this no I'm so jealous I don't know if town envy is a thing but I have I have come down with town envy whereas in Memphis they're trying to take away all of our guns imagine if they gave everybody guns and said you actually have to use this when someone steals your vehicle use the gun. Here it is. Back in the early days of the country, the early days, if you were the victim of a crime and you did not have some sort of a musket, then that was on you.

So you had a responsibility as a citizen to protect yourself and your family. I have a pocket knife. That'll work. Yeah. It's in my glove box.

Bear spray. Yep. Yep. Gun Barrel City, Texas. They have a similar law, by the way, as does Virgin Utah.

So there you go. Gun Barrel. Gun Barrel City. Wow. It's a major metropolitan area there.

So I don't know. I kind of like it. I do because, again, if you're a criminal, I mean, these criminals, they're not stupid.

So they're not going to go to – that's why you haven't had any murders in Kennesaw, Georgia, because people know you're packing heat. That's right. You could be the victim, criminal. All right, 901-260-5926 is our telephone number. That's 901-260-5926.

You know, we talk a lot about being prepared, which is why you need to be preparing for your retirement. Priority Gold, ladies and gentlemen, one of our great, great sponsors of the Todd Stearns Radio Program. Got to check them out. They've got all sorts of great programs and great things to keep you and your family safe and your retirement safe as well.

So be sure to check out Priority Gold. We have information over at toddstearns.com. All right, hang tight, folks. I told you we're going to be talking to the author of a brand new book, Faith Driven Leadership. Popeye's Fried Chicken, Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby.

They've got a common bond, and we're going to be talking to the author of this book coming up next, Faith Driven Leadership. We'll be right back. I don't really like working. I'm going to need a priority parking space. I only work remotely.

How are your safe spaces? Can I bring my dog to work? Will your company protect me against microaggressions? You're triggering me. Is this interview almost over?

You don't run a daycare. You run a business.

So why use high-priced recruitment agencies who charge you up to 40% of an employee's first-year salary so they're focused on getting you the costly talent, not the best fit, which means you get more of this. What's your policy on paying employees to attend protests? I demand eight weeks of vacation. I need at least 12 weeks of paid vacation. I'm going to need a lot of mental health stays.

Do you have a game room? My pronouns are Z's and Z's. Isn't it time you hired grown-ups? Call redballoon.org and skip those high-priced recruitment agencies. Call 833-880-0600 for a free consultation.

That's 833-880-0600 for a free consultation. RedBalloon.org. All right, welcome back, everybody. Good to have you with us on a busy Monday Newsday. Don't forget, 5 o'clock Eastern, the Todd Stern Show on Newsmax.

And we have a full slate of guests. We're going to be doing a deep dive into the confirmation hearings coming up. Starting tomorrow, Pete Hegseth will be first up, and it will be very interesting to watch.

So we'll talk more about that later. Brand new book is out, and we have a lot of authors that come by and promote their books, pitch their books. This one is special. It is a great book written by a good friend. His name is Bart May, and the name of the book is Faith Driven Leadership.

And we have a link to it up on our website, toddstearns.com.

So I would encourage you to go there and check out the book. And you can also get a copy of it at Amazon, 52 Weeks of Biblical Wisdom with Leadership Insights from Faith Driven Leaders. Bart, good to have you with us today. Hey, thanks, Todd. Appreciate you having me on.

Well, congratulations. I mean, what's that like? Writing a book, was it a long process for you? It was a long process. And quite honestly, the idea for this book, Faith Driven Leadership, you know, really came last year during a season of travel for me.

Imagine the airports and the hotel rooms, and you're very accustomed to that, Todd, I know. And I was searching for a devotional book that combined both faith and leadership, and one that kind of, you know, looked in the world today of kind of real life stories and what can we glean from those leaders. And I really couldn't find anything. And so that's when I kind of felt God prompted me to write my own. And in the midst of those travels, I started jotting down ideas.

And it really became what I would call a God-given process. The stories of leaders, the Bible verses, the reflections, they really came together in ways I can't fully explain. And writing this devotional not only deepened my faith, but also transformed how I approached leadership in my own life. Because you're a business guy. I mean, you're in the business world.

What is that like, and how do you employ your faith in what you do in the day-to-day?

Well, I think for me, leadership is all about influence.

So it's not even necessarily the role that I have in the business world. I mean, it can be the parents out there that are guiding their children. It could be in the community and churches.

So for me, leadership is about influence, and how can I influence others with my faith? And there's simple things that you can do. There's simple ways that we've seen leaders in the world today do that. And so how can we learn from them was really the perspective of this book. There does seem to be a lot of people.

I think we went through a season over the past decade where there has been a focus on leadership. What is it to you? What is it that makes a good leader?

Well, wait. How much time do you have, Todd? I think for one, one is about influence. I think about servant heart. I think about being able to listen.

Those are key aspects that I at least try to drive home in my leadership on a daily basis, right? Whether it's in my home or whether in the office, to me, those are key things. And now if I can combine that with faith, right, and the values that we have as a Christian, and I can bring that into that leadership, it starts to influence, and it starts to make people question, hey, why is he acting like that? Why is he leading like that? And that opens up the doorway for conversation.

One of the things I love about your book, again, it's 52 weeks, and it doesn't read like a devotion normally reads. I mean, this is like, these are some really thoughtful concepts. You know, you tell a story, and then you provide these, you know, I guess, talking points, things for people to consider. How did you come up with the 52 people that you were going to write about? That, to me, seems like a mammoth task.

It took a while. and quite honestly as you start to jot down the ideas for the book you you come up with a couple of people and you're like hey i might have something here and then you're like all right i'm at 20 i'm at 30 uh how do i get to 52 and some of these are are leaders that i look up to um look i'm a big fan of chick-fil-a as we all are but there's something to be said for the day that i crave chick-fil-a is on a sunday everybody craves chick-fil-a on a sunday but they're closed. That was a faith-driven decision by their leadership to close on a Sunday. And so those are people that I look up to. I mean, Todd, you're not going to mention it, but Todd, you're in this book.

You are a faith-driven leader. And I think about Ephesians 6 and putting on the full armor of God. And you do that every day when you get on this radio show and stand behind faith and freedom. And so those are people that I look up to that I wanted to include in this book and it seems that i you know i know you mentioned the papa john's and the chick-fil-a there are other people besides people associated with chicken uh so i do want to make that clear no it's true i was just drawn to those i'm like you wrote about it i feel obligated to mention it um and and you're right about that i have to tell my dan kathy story though uh years ago when i was at fox uh they were getting ready to launch chick-fil-a into the new york city market for the first 10 or 11 years of my existence in New York City, we had no Chick-fil-A. It was like being out on a mission field.

So Dan Cathy came in. They were actually opening it right across from Fox, which was brilliant strategy. And Dan Cathy came in, and he gave us all this wonderful swag. And so I wanted to give him a copy of my book. He sat in.

We did a big interview. And he says, well, how much for the book? I said, no, this is a gift. And he talks real fast. He He goes, no, no, no, no, I need to know how much is the book?

How much is it? $25, $30, $40? How much is the book? And I said, Dan, it's free. And so it was cold.

It was super cold.

So I was going to walk him and his wife downstairs and out of the building. When I get back up, I'm just reaching. I was reaching in to pull my gloves out, and I'll be doggone if he had to stuffed a $50 bill. And I'm like, Dan, Kathy, what? But it's that kind of caring attitude, you know, just a very generous spirit.

and so I was glad to see that you wrote about the Kathy family there. But you also mentioned people like Elon Musk, for example. That's right. What can we learn spiritually from Elon Musk?

Well, it's a stretch a little bit, Todd, in some aspects of that. But if you look at Elon, he is a visionary leader, a very strategic thinker. And the Bible tells us in Proverbs that we need to be visionaries. And so you can make that connection there with Elon that we have to be a visionary leader. We have to set a vision for the people that we're leading.

And again, whether that's the kids in our home or whether that's people in our Fortune 500 job. And you mentioned, and it's not just modern-day business leaders, but you go back and you talk about William Wilberforce, for example, or Eric Lydell, the great runner, right? That's right. The athlete. That's right, the athlete.

Yeah, and there's others. I mean, I would be remiss if I don't mention my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln's in here. You know, I study Abraham Lincoln very much, so he had to be included. I would even mention the late Jimmy Carter and his, you know, political differences aside in some aspects, but he had a servant heart and his compassion for Habitat for Humanity, which I participated in many times. Those are other aspects of this book.

again folks the name of the book is faith driven leadership 52 weeks of biblical wisdom with leadership insights from faith driven leaders you can get a copy on amazon we have a direct link to it up on our website right now what's been the response so far from from the book people reading it well it's been tremendous as far as you know the text that that my wife gets and by the way let me just mention her uh mitzi is an amazing wife oh she's great she's she has been editing this book she was very thoughtful in it her support her wisdom her insights were really invaluable throughout this process she started sharing on social media um through her channels and quite honestly you know all of our friends and family have started by and they've been texting saying can't wait to start the book i've gotten texts uh from my friends and really that's what this is all about. From my perspective, if this book helps even one person grow in their faith and in their leadership, then it's been worth every moment for us. And so I pray that that's what's happening. It's really terrific. And I think we've even got a couple of books.

You brought some to give away, is that right? I did. I even signed them, Todd. I don't know what that's worth. It goes down in price, actually.

I learned that lesson the hard way. I'll get some other copies. Trust me, by the way, nothing is – just prepare yourself. Nothing is more humbling than when your book lands on the discount table. But that happens to all of us.

But right now, this is an exciting new book. And, folks, you've got to get a copy of this. And we're going to give away a couple of copies. Ben, we're going to make it super simple. Let's say caller number four gets a copy of the book, 901-260-5926.

That's 901-260-5926. and we're going to hook you up with a copy of Faith Driven Leadership written by our good friend Bart May. You know, when you talk a lot about your faith journey, and I have to imagine that's a big part of who you are and what you do as a dad. You have two sons, and Parker is a student at university studying to be broadcast journalist. How important is that for dads to instill that faith into their kids?

Oh, I think it's tremendously important. I think at the end of the day, I'm responsible to show them what it looks like to be a faith-driven leader. And whether that's in my home or whether what they see me at work, that's what I want to instill in them, those values.

So that then, as you said, as Parker's at Samford and even my youngest son, Spencer, is in high school, that they can be leaders in their own way. Again, I go back to leadership is all about influence. It's not necessarily having the fancy title or the role, but what can they do in a day-to-day life? And they can certainly make a difference for others.

So you may be, I don't know, a clerk at a hotel or you could be a janitor or somebody working the line at Chick-fil-A. Right. And you can be a leader. I mean, you can have those leadership qualities there. I truly believe that, Todd.

I think it's not about the necessary role. And again, this book is based around prominent leaders, but hopefully it's a challenge to those that no matter where you are in your walk of life, to your point, whatever role that is, you can have influence on others. And the most important influence you can have is by showing those Christian values.

Well, I just think this is a wonderful thing. Folks, get a copy of the book right now. It's called Faith Driven Leadership, written by our friend Bart May. It's available exclusively on Amazon.

so that's where you're going to want to go and get a copy all right Dieter do we have a caller here let's go to Deanna uh hi Deanna how are you I'm great how are you well I'm doing well you sound very happy today and cheerful I am so excited wonderful now Deanna where are you calling from I am in Cleveland Georgia well home of WRWH our great affiliate they're also true at McConnell university which is a great school yeah that's right and deanna congratulations you are a winner of one of bart's books well done you all right uh deanna we're gonna put you on hold for just a moment and get all of your particulars and uh congratulations we'll get that book out in the mail to you all right again 901-260-5926 and we'll just try it again, Dieter. Caller number four, you're going to get another copy of Bart's book, and we're going to pick that up after the break. Bart, thanks for coming. I hope you didn't have to take the day off. I did not.

You're on lunch. Let's just not let the office know that I'm here. I won't tell you. This is fantastic being on your show, Todd. I appreciate it.

Well, congratulations, and thank you for including me in the book as well. I read my chapter. It was pretty darn good. I'm like, I like that guy. All right, Bart May, everybody, faith-driven leadership.

Get yourself a copy at ToddSterns.com. We'll be right back, America. All right, folks. Again, talking about our friends at Priority Gold, I want you to get out your smartphone, write this down, text the word GOLDEN to 24999. That's GOLDEN to 24999.

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Well, that was kind of fun. It was not often that we have guests in studio here in Memphis, and I love it when we do. And Bart's book, folks, you're really going to love it. And look, if you've got a teenager, get them a copy of this because they're going to be able to learn a lot. And what I love about this, not only do you get the biblical insight, but you also get some history and you get some insight into who these leaders are.

All right, let's go down to San Angelo, Texas. James is listening to us. Hi, James, how are you today? Hey, I'm doing great, Todd. James, congratulations, my friend.

We're going to give you a signed copy of Faith Driven Leadership written by our good buddy, Bart May. Man, I'm excited to get it. I'm a small business owner myself. Look forward to reading it. Is that right?

What kind of a small business do you have, James?

well we create a alternative to the old style suspenders it's a belt worn under your pants because the no sag hidden belt pants suspender i love those are those are great by the way yeah i had some advertising on here a while back yes sir but it's been a while well we we love those and is it no sag it was a great your commercials were so awesome uh they they really didn't catch people's attention no sags no sag yes sir well y'all do a great job i love listening every day james god bless you and uh hang tight ben deter is going to get your info and deter let's uh let's get james's a contact info as well and if you haven't heard about his company no sags Guys, men of the audience, you've got to go check him out. He's a good fella. All right, there you go. Well, again, folks, it's been a great start to the week. We have got so much more coming up.

And the big story of this week will be the confirmation hearings. Pete Hegseth is up first. And I'm excited about this. I'm excited to see the administration take shape, take form.

so on January the 20th at noon, we can start making this country great again. And it's going to be a process. You know, I was listening to J.D. Vance over the weekend on one of the shows, and he said, hey, look, one of the things that we're going to have to come to terms with is the media narrative surrounding the deportations. Let me explain this to you, folks.

The deportations are going to happen. It's going to happen.

So the media is going to frame this as Donald Trump ripping families apart. And you cannot believe any of that at all. First of all, the families are going to be deported together. Second of all, the sad reality is you have hundreds of thousands of children now in this country that have been brought across the border. We don't know who mommy and daddy are.

We have no earthly idea.

so don't buy into the media coverage it's going to be ugly and it's all going to be untrue but this is nothing more we've all come to expect it but you're going to have to have a pretty you're going to have to have a pretty thick skin over the next little while because they're going to be throwing everything in the kitchen sink at Donald Trump and his administration and you just can't let it bother you at all so we'll be getting into more of that tomorrow tonight on Newsmax We've got a great show lineup. We're going to be talking to a congressman from California. And there is an effort underway to organize some sort of a recall of Governor Gavin Newsom, also a recall of Mayor Karen Bass.

So we'll be checking in on that. John Huddy is going to be with us live reporting from Brentwood, California, at the Mandyville Canyon. they're actually expecting even more fires this week as those winds start to um to blow back up so a lot happening out in california a lot happening up on capitol hill and folks we're going to bring you right to it on newsmax starting at five o'clock tonight on newsmax too in the meantime head over to our website we have some great resources for you there get a copy of bart's book you're gonna love it i promise you that and you can get a copy at toddstarnes.com get out there have a great one everybody you be good america