Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk. A daily program powered by the Truth Network. This is kind of a great thing and I'll tell you why. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together.
Speak your mind. And now here's today's Truth Talk Live host. This afternoon between President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and President of Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky, as an afternoon press conference was canceled.
Mr. Zelensky left the White House without any agreements for future support. All of this on the hills of the Department of Government Efficiency, affectionately known as DOES, continuing to identify foreign aid programs that are simply taking advantage of the generosity of the American taxpayers. It's a busy Friday. I'm Joey Hudson in for stew today. Welcome to this Friday edition of Truth Talk Live. It's always a pleasure to spend some time with the wonderful, positive, very smart listeners of Truth Talk Live. And of course it's Friday, so we're wrapping up another week. Hope it's been a good one for you. I hope God has blessed you this week.
One reminder, Friday's always Free Speech Friday for me. So whatever's on your mind, I'm all ears today. You can join the conversation. 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-348-7884. You can email me directly joey at joeyhudson.com and let me add one other way to connect with me. Not to confuse you, but you can also text me directly as well. 864-477-JOEY. 864-477-5639. And I hope you'll join me on my daily podcast every day, Just the Truth.
Just search for it wherever you listen to podcasts or at my website joeyhudson.com. So this has been a busy week in our nation's capital with the Department of Government Efficiency continuing to identify and cancel wasteful spending. And in some cases, what appears to just be downright fraud. We've all suspected that we've had a lot of this type of thing going on in our federal government. But until now, no one has actually dug in and taken a look at how we could potentially save money.
And it's not without some pain being felt by a lot of the programs that are involved. Doge, of course, led by Elon Musk. They have a website that anyone can go to. It's called the Doge Live Tracker. You can follow the savings in real time. Just go to dogegov.com backslash dogeclock.
If you can't remember that, just text me or email me joey at joeyhudson.com. I'll send you a link to it. To date, as of right now, and I'm looking at it, Doge has identified $54.63 billion with a B in tax dollars saved. This includes 95 initiatives so far, which accounts for savings of $364.23 per taxpayer.
And remember, this program has a sunset. This is a program that President Trump set up with a definite period of time to accomplish its goals. It's not another never-ending federal program.
In fact, Doge Live Tracker indicates that there are 491 days left in their mission. Now, this has ruffled some feathers, so to speak, and among Christian relief groups. Here's a story today from thechristianpost.com. Christian refugee and humanitarian organizations are speaking out as the U.S. State Department confirmed on Wednesday that it's cutting 92% of foreign assistance-related grants in order to save approximately $60 billion of taxpayer dollars. The agency plans to cut around 10,000 United States Agency for International Development. This is the U.S. aid program that we've heard so much about that is run as part of the Department of State. According to a Wednesday appeals court filing from the Trump administration attorneys, they're going to be able to do this. These groups have rushed to the federal courts and in some cases have found more liberal justices who have tried to pause the cancellation of some of these programs.
Approximately 500 USAID awards and around 2,700 State Department awards will be left in place according to the latest report. Now, of course, the Trump administration has been bombarded with these lawsuits, trying to reverse some of the cancellations, trying to tell the administration, well, you can't stop these programs. These programs are in place.
They've been there for years. And this is the attitude that has us in the place that we are now. But this week, the U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in an emergency order placed a hold on a Biden-appointed federal judge's order that would have forced the Trump administration to continue paying for a lot of these foreign aid programs, some of the grant recipients. The Trump administration has argued that the cuts to U.S. aid are necessary, of course, to combat waste and abuse, charging that the organization has been supporting ridiculous and in many cases malicious pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats with next to no oversight. They've been spending billions of dollars for years.
Nobody's really paid attention to what they're spending it on, which has put us at a crossroads. And let me ask you today, I want you to think about this on this beautiful Friday afternoon, what obligation does our federal tax dollars, our federal government have to funding a lot of these Christian relief organizations, many of them well-known, many of them we know, many of them we donate to. But is it the United States government's place to fund these Christian programs? These are organizations that have wonderfully Christ-centered missions. You can't argue with some of them. Some of them not so, but a good many of them. They're doing God's work, but they're nonprofits. Shouldn't they be raising operating funds from their memberships, from their churches, from donors who like to support faith-based programs rather than relying on the generosity of the American taxpayer? And what point do we go too far with this? Now, I'm sure many of you probably support some of these programs. We're going to talk about some of them today. But do you agree that this should be your option?
That you should be able to write a check and send it to whichever organization you believe is doing good, not have some bureaucrat in the federal government decide that they want to take your tax dollars and prop these organizations up? 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH is how you join today's conversation. I'm Joey Hudson in for Stu. Continuing this Friday edition of Truth Talk, I'm Joey Hudson in for Stu this afternoon.
Love for you to join me today. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. You can also email me directly, joeyjoeyhudson.com. And I love your text messages.
Just text me at 864-477-JOEY, 864-477-JOEY. You know, as followers of Christ, we are called to serve the least of these, to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. And a lot of the leaders of some of these international relief organizations are reminding the U.S. that we have an obligation to continue taking care of some of these folks. Meryl Green is president and CEO of World Relief. She says that the new policies coming out of the Trump administration is, in her words, effectively ending a 45-year bipartisan refugee resettlement program with the stroke of a pen.
She reminds the United States that as followers of Jesus, we're called to serve the least of these, and she says cutting off life-saving assistance to vulnerable communities is an abdication of that responsibility. The Department of Government Efficiency has identified a number of these programs, though, that they believe is taking advantage of the U.S., taking advantage of you and me, taxpayers, some examples given by the White House for pretty much just eliminating this whole U.S. aid agency. For example, 1.5 million spent on advanced diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities.
This is given as an example of one of the contracts that has been canceled, and rightly so. I'm not sure what our tax dollars or why our tax dollars should be sent to Serbia for their workplace and business communities. Another example that you can find on the Doge website, 2 million spent on sex changes and LGBT activism in Guatemala. And get this, delivering hundreds of thousands of free meals to Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in Syria. So these are some of the programs that have gotten caught up.
Unfortunately, there are other programs that probably are doing pretty good. The Christian Post says that news of the Trump administration's plans to cut these programs to eliminate pretty much this entire agency has drawn opposition from the Evangelical Refugee Resettlement Organization and World Relief. This is the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals that is one of nine organizations that receives grants from the State Department to resettle refugees in the United States. World Relief also has aid programs overseas that are well known. In a statement yesterday, World Relief, which has been critical of the Trump administration's halting of the refugee resettlement program, said that these cuts could impact critical programs that provide life-saving support to some of the world's most vulnerable populations.
In their news release, they stressed these award terminations threaten food security, health care, and essential services in crisis-affected countries, exasperating, suffering in regions already facing extreme hardship. And I don't doubt any of this. But I go back to my question for you on this beautiful Friday afternoon. Where's the line?
Where do we stop here? Where does our obligation, where does our government's obligation with our federal tax dollars end, and where do some of these wonderful nonprofit Christian relief organizations, where does their private fundraising start? Some of these programs say that the cuts impact the State Department's reception and placement program of these resettlement agencies to help newly arriving refugees.
They say that the move negatively impacts refugees from Afghanistan arriving on special immigrant visas, including those who, some of them who served in the U.S. Armed Forces when we had troops in the area. They assisted our troops. The organization also stated that it's received premature termination notices in all but one of the countries where they've been serving communities with grants through the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance. This includes Sudan, where World Relief received permission to continue programming. And again, I'm sure these are wonderful programs. And I feel for the people in these areas, particularly, you know, the young children.
There's a story out of Georgia of a company in Georgia that I'll share all the details with you in a few minutes, but in essence, they package peanut butter type meals that in some cases provide the only nutrition that some of these kids in these areas receive in a day. And it's heartbreaking to hear about this. But don't we at some point? I mean, this is why we have never been able to get our deficit spending under control because we try to do everything for everybody. So I'd love to hear from you today.
Am I just being selfish by saying that I think that it's time for some of these wonderful Christian relief organizations to be able to survive on their own and not to be dependent upon our tax dollars? Is that okay? Email me, Joey at JoeyHudson.com. Join the conversation today. 866-34-TRUTH.
866-348-7884. How do you feel about our tax dollars being spent on these types of programs? How do you feel about the fact that a lot of them have been cut now?
And some may even have to close down. Ms. Green, the CEO of World Relief, says the church has long played a role in alleviating suffering, but we can't do it alone. She says our government must uphold its commitment to protecting human dignity and aiding those in the greatest need.
And she's right. As Christians, we want to help the least of these. But where does our obligation of helping as a Christian community end and where does the government step in and vice versa?
Some of the comments online from people today, and this was an article that was published today, some of the comments I'll share with you up next, they seem to agree that it's time to make some tough decisions, that we can't be everything to everybody across the planet. 866-34-TRUTH. 866-348-7884. I'm Joey Hudson in for Stu today. Continuing this Friday afternoon edition of Truth Talk Live, I'm Joey Hudson in for Stu. What a beautiful afternoon. Glad to have you.
I always enjoy spending some time with you. You can join the conversation today. Call 866-34-TRUTH. 866-348-7884. Email me, Joey, at joeyhudson.com. You can text me, 864-477-JOEY. And of course, let me invite you to join me on my weekday podcast, Just the Truth.
Just search for it wherever you listen to podcasts and on my website, joeyhudson.com. I was talking with you about this article published today where a lot of the Christian relief organizations that are seeing their international funding cut because of the cost cutting of the Department of Government efficiency. This organization, Doge, that is being led by Elon Musk. And as American taxpayers, I think we all are pretty quick to agree that we have to get our spending under control. That we need some relief with our federal taxes and we need a smaller government, a more efficient government to do what our government was designed to do. But no one up until this point has ever really wanted to get in and look under the hood, so to speak, and make some of the tough decisions that appear to be being made now. And some of these tough decisions are affecting these Christian relief programs. And of course, they're pushing back because they don't want their funding cut. Some of the comments, though, from people online are saying, for example, Reverend Athletic says, if your program is in great need, then you should have no problem raising support from individuals.
John writes, notice Franklin Graham is missing from the list. He stated in a recent interview that he's fully supportive of Trump cutting foreign aid. Another commenter agreed, saying, yes, most Americans are for ending foreign aid. There are too many Americans in need.
And that's the other argument that's often made. We send billions of dollars overseas when we have a lot of need here in our country. We have a lot of domestic nonprofit organizations who need help. Another commenter posted a link to another article, which was from CNN, that tells the story of a Georgia company. It's called Manna Nutrition. And they make a special kind of peanut butter paste that many humanitarian aid workers evidently use.
It says that it's fortified with milk and essential vitamins, packed with calories, and sent to severely malnourished children around the world, including some countries in Africa. This week, Mark Moore, who is the CEO and co-founder of this Fitzgerald, Georgia-based plant, got word that the U.S. Agency for International Development was canceling Manna's contracts for providing this product. Mr. Moore told CNN that just minutes before a phone call to them, he'd received a series of contract termination letters from USAID.
Now, CNN writes, still reeling, Mark Moore described the furious scramble that the news had set off at his plant. One of his first orders of business, asking his workers, mid-production, to immediately stop putting labels that say USAID on the pouches that the peanut butter paste is put into. Moore was quoted as saying, every one of those packets has printing on it that says, from the American people, USAID. And if I don't deliver it through USAID contracts, it's trash.
I can't distribute it, he said. It's not like I can squeeze that peanut butter back out of that packet and put it in a new packet, so it's a problem, a huge problem. Now, CNN reported that his predicament is just that one of the many aftershocks of the Trump administration's rapid decimation of USAID, I mean, they've closed them down in a matter of weeks, that thousands of other positions similar to this are being affected. In normal times, Moore says that his plant produces 10 pouches of this life-saving paste every second. And he says, each small bag contains 500 calories worth of the special peanut butter, which does not require refrigeration or additional preparation, and it's labeled as R.U.F., which stands for ready-to-use therapeutic food. USAID has been a major supporter and funder of R.U.F.
products over the years, according to the CNN report. He said, at one point, he asked if they could FaceTime so that he could show the CNN reporter some of the packaging in his plant, and there's a video of him holding up these packages of these sealed pouches of peanut butter. And he showed a package that had 45 boxes, it had USAID branded on it, and he also evidently does some for UNICEF as well.
UNICEF is the United Nations agency that helps provide aid to children worldwide as well. He said in their warehouse that there are around 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded rough meals ready to be shipped out. And he estimates that if USAID doesn't pay manna for those boxes, he will have at least $10 million in wasted peanut butter pouches on his hands.
And that doesn't include, he said, the additional $14 million in reimbursements from the federal government that he's already waiting for. He's not sure if he's going to get paid for those. Now, I get back to one of the comments that was made online that, so you've already produced these 400,000 boxes. You've already put the USAID label on them. And the idea here is that these are to help feed hungry children in parts of the world who suffer from malnutrition. So if you already have them, rather than complaining about a government contract that's been canceled, shouldn't we be rallying the Christian community to find another outlet to raise the money to ship these 400 pouches of peanut butter to this country so that a child can still have that nutrition that they need? If these products have already been produced, why wouldn't he and some of the relief organizations find a way to privately raise the money, privately ship these to places where they're needed? I don't think anyone is going to care about the fact that they have USAID labels on them, even though they're not going to be sent by USAID, evidently, in the future.
I don't think anyone cares what kind of brand is on them. The whole idea is to get these in the hands of children who need food. And I think that has to be the new way of thinking, right? In the CNN article, Aaron Boyd, described as a USAID nutrition advisor who was laid off from the agency in January, said that it's not an overstatement to say that children will die as a result of the decimation of the USAID funding.
But do they have to? Are there not Christian organizations out there ready to fill this void? If there was really the need there, and I don't doubt that there is, but isn't this a time for the churches and the faith community to really step up in a big way and to fill the void that these government programs are going to leave? Boyd said even before this happened, there wasn't enough funding to treat all the children who were suffering from starvation.
He said children with wasting are too thin and their immune systems are too weak, leaving them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease, and death. And we've seen these images. We've seen TV ads. We've seen online ads showing some of these countries where children are literally dying. But again, as a faith community, rather than complaining about the fact that the government is no longer going to be funding this, isn't this an opportunity for us to step up?
Again, where does the job of government end and the Christian community begin? 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. Email me directly, joey at joehudson.com.
It's a beautiful Friday. Welcome in to Truth Talk. I'm Joey Hudson. In for Stu. Truth Talk Live! You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com Welcome in to this Friday afternoon edition of Truth Talk Live. I'm Joey Hudson.
In for Stu. It's always a pleasure to spend some time with you. And of course it is Friday, and Friday in my studio is always Free Speech Friday. So whatever's on your mind, I'm all ears. You can join the conversation 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. I always welcome your emails, joey at joehudson.com.
Let's go to the phone. Steve is in Ohio. Welcome, Steve. Hi, Joey. How are you this Friday afternoon? I'm doing very, very good. How are you?
I am wonderful. So what's on your mind? I would agree with you.
You kind of have to start somewhere with this. And I think if we go back to what is the government's role, the government's role is to protect the rights of its people. And then you would have some say, well, it's my right to help certain people not suffer.
To have someone help you is a privilege and a blessing. It's not necessarily a right. And I just can't help but think in some situations where someone steps in and does a lot of the work or just hands you money, are you holding back God from working in other ways and making that happen and getting to the end cause in other ways? I think you're forced, if you say the government's not going to get involved with all of these charitable things around the world, then it backs all the way up to the pulpit and the preacher has to maybe talk more about tithing.
Yeah, yeah. To fund these things, and that may be a topic that's not always fun, but God's more than able to take care of these worthwhile causes. Well, and Steve, a lot of the comments online about this kind of said that, a lot of people saying, hey, I would rather pay less taxes and be able to have more disposable income to support these types of organizations, and I can vet them myself. If you go through and you read some of the horror stories of some of the things that we have been funding, like sex changes in Guatemala, why is our taxpayer dollars being spent on those types of things, yet they're standing on their head now, literally, because some of the real worthy projects are going to be canceled because of the abuse over the years of some of these other programs. And it kind of goes back to, I think it kind of touches in a way like help in ways of food stamps or whatever the assistance might be.
It's oftentimes designated with good hearts and good reasons for a temporary setback, but it's not supposed to be something that becomes a generational norm, because I think if people don't sometimes suffer in a certain way, deep inside of them it doesn't stir them up and it doesn't force them to pray and say, Lord, how can I and how can I help my family and my neighbors get out of this situation, not for the short term but for the long term? And thinking like that I think kind of has led to us settling our nation like we did many years ago and other countries making serious changes, because they don't want to just take handouts from somebody else, they want to make long-lasting changes. Right, it's the old teach a man to fish. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And these are tough decisions, Steve, because again, you see some of the images of starving children in African countries and then you hear the story of this Georgia company who makes these peanut butter meals for these kids, and I get that, but on the surface that's all great, but this company, it appears too, has been built just solely on government contracts.
Yeah. And if there's a real need for those meals, and as I explained, the story is they have 400,000 packaged now ready to be shipped, but they're saying, well, they'll sit in the warehouse. Well, let's get some churches together and figure out how to ship them over there. Well, and up here in West Central Ohio, we're inundated now with this bird flu, and it's just like one more example. If I'm going to go out and get into the poultry layer business as a business, and I know that if I get an illness or if the price of eggs goes in the toilet, no one is going to step in and help me.
The government, that's not their job, so they're not going to be there. I may not put up a building that holds three million birds overall. I may say, let's just scale this back and do this where, worst case scenario, we can survive, and I think any business, wind, a lot of what's going on right now in energy, solar, it's subsidized. In a true business sense of capitalism, which I believe is the healthiest way to do it, if it can't stand on its own, then it's not a business, and it shouldn't be propped up. Exactly, exactly.
That's the old don't put all your eggs in one basket, and it appears some of these have. Hey, Steve, it all makes sense. Appreciate you listening in Ohio. Thank you. Have a blessed weekend. See you, Joey. Sure thing.
Bye. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. Love to have you join the conversation on this Friday afternoon.
Free Speech Friday, whatever you want to talk about. Pew Research released its third religious landscape study this week, and the report concludes that despite a consistent decline in the share of adults in the U.S. who say that they're Christians, and they've been doing this study. It's the longest ongoing study of Christianity ever. Pew has been studying, been polling people for 17 years now. The bad news is, yes, that those who identify as Christians is down compared to a decade and two decades ago. Pew says, though, the trend appears to have slowed in the last five years that they have been doing the study. Now, the troubling part is that this slowdown may not last because some of the other data from Pew shows that America's young adults are significantly more likely to be unaffiliated with religion than their older counterparts, which, if you just think about it, it's suggesting that we may have a bigger decline in the next decade. They have over 36,000 respondents in this 2023, 2024.
They wrapped it up in December of this religious landscape study. It's the largest single survey Pew Research does. The survey was previously conducted in 2007 when 78% of U.S. adults identified as Christian.
And in 2014, that share dropped to 71%. The latest study shows that between 2019 and 2024, the share of U.S. adults who identified as Christian hovered between 60 and 64%, with a current reading ending in 2024 of 62%. The largest share of American Christians identify as Protestant, 40%, followed by 19% who identify as Catholic. About 3% of Americans identify with other groups like Greek, Russian Orthodox, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, which are categorized as Christian subgroups, according to Pew.
So think about this trend. 2007, 78% of U.S. adults identified as Christian. 2014, just seven years later, it dropped to 71%.
And now 2024, we're down to 62%. That's troubling. And that says to me that we Christians have some work to do.
We've got to do a better job of our discipleship, right? According to the study, adults who said that they're unaffiliated with any religious group and identified as atheist or agnostic or nothing in particular constituted 29% of the population. And this is the group, sadly, that's been growing in recent years, the group of religiously unaffiliated. Pew says the rates at which Americans pray and attend church have stabilized to a degree, despite being lower than the rates of 2007. About 44% of Americans say they pray at least once daily, while 33% say they attend religious services at least once monthly. Some of the other interesting findings of the study show that significant majorities of Americans believe people have a soul of spirit, 86%. Believe in God or some type of universal spirit at 83%. Those who believe there's something spiritual beyond the natural world, but they just can't understand it, 79%. And those who believe in an afterlife is 70%. Pew says that while 83% of Americans say they believe in God or a universal spirit, chances are many do not believe in God as described in our Bible. So, folks, again, we have some work to do there as disciples, right? If you're part of a small group or maybe you need to create a small group, to go out in the community and work harder at telling people about Jesus Christ. It's been fun being with you, great being with you. I'm Joey Hudson, in for two.
