Discover the Truth Behind the Podcast Wars

0:00We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, pre-born. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time, she will choose life. But she can't do it without our help. Pre-born needs us, the pro-life community, to come alongside her. One ultrasound is just $28. And to donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby, or visit pre-born.com forward slash AFR. Jonah Ellis in the morning on American Family Radio. I love talking about the things of God because of truth and the biblical worldview. The U.S. Constitution obligates our government to preserve and protect the rights that our founders recognize come from God our creator, not our government. I believe that scripture in the Bible is very clear, that God is the one that raised up each of you, and God has allowed us to be brought here to this specific moment in time. This is Jonah Ellis in the morning.

1:01Good morning, it is Thursday, March 19th, and you've probably been paying attention to the so-called war in Iran, but there's also a war going on on the domestic front, and this has been dubbed online the podcast wars, and not nearly as invasive as what's going on in Iran, but nevertheless, actually really critical overall to the future of conservatism, the GOP base, and according to, or a knack-and-tire at the blaze through his opinion piece that was published yesterday, the right's only way out of podcast chaos is radical honesty. He says the conservative movement doesn't need more de-platforming, it needs fewer lies, fewer games, and fewer sacred cows. So I think he's really spot on here, and he goes on to say that the conservative movement has come off the rails would comically understate

2:03the damage, wild accusations bounce from show to show, members of Congress pick petty fights on social media, President Trump even waited into the internet drama, while another war rages in the Persian Gulf, plenty of commentators blame podcasts for this new disorder, and the new ecosystem gives them no shortage of bad behavior to cite, but that diagnosis misses the deeper cause. Establishment conservatives treated their audiences the same way they'll legacy-prested, as a resource to be managed, manipulated, and occasionally milked. A movement that has spent decades being lied to will not be stitched back together by scolding people who finally stopped listening. Well, let's welcome in, Orin, McIntyre, and Orin, I think you're spot on here. I mean, even my kind of extended family, my cousins, the four girls, and they're kind of my random jury of like, okay, they're just average Americans who care about politics, love the Lord,

3:04and yet aren't as perpetually online as I am. And so in asking them, just some of these questions, this actually really speaks to someone even like them because they've basically just said, yeah, we've stopped listening. A lot of this just seems like drama, petty infighting, doesn't really care about the deeper issues going on. And do you think that that is just, some of these, the rise of these podcasters, or is this kind of conservative media as a whole? Well, I think that when Donald Trump won the last election, we saw the last panic and say, we have this huge problem. It's this new communications technology we can't control and we don't have any people really doing it well. It's these podcasters, I don't know if you remember this, but they're saying, we have to go get our own Joe Rogan, even though Joe Rogan was already left and they managed to drive him away. But they realized like the critical role that a lot of these new broadcasters were playing.

4:05And the thing that they lamented was that it was melting down kind of this central control of everything. I think we all remember them talking about the dangers of disinformation and platforming dangerous people and the whole, you know, woke cancel culture that came along with trying to stop these podcasters from breaking through. And at the time, of course, conservatives loved it because we were breaking through the mainstream media. Our message was getting through, it was dissolving, you know, these barriers that had existed. I mean, we had always had to talk radio as kind of a way to do the conservative media outside of the normal sphere. But that was kind of a ghetto of conservatism. It really only spoke to the core conservative audience. This was getting it out to everybody all of a sudden and we loved it. But the problem is that, you know, when you have that kind of breakdown of the establishment, it doesn't just stop where you want it to. So the less control of the media narrative got deconstructed itself, but so did many of the barriers that had been constructed around the conservative movement. And I think that's what has brought all of this infighting

5:05would have suddenly erupted into this environment, all these different back and forth personalities because all of a sudden there's no mediating kind of network or anything else, no major establishment that was going to keep people on track. Now the good news is that that means everybody can talk about whatever they want. And many very serious issues get addressed. The bad news is none of the kind of back and forth social media behavior gets filtered out of all the good stuff that's going on. Yeah, and you know, it's the conversation or the real issue is gatekeeping. And whether that's actually a good thing or not. And you know, for a long time because conservatives felt so left out of a legacy media. And you know, yeah, we had Fox News, but you know, it didn't really speak for, you know, a lot of the conservative movement. It was just kind of the PR mouthpiece and still is, you know, for the Republican Party and even, you know, the Lindsey Graham's of the world and all of that. It was a really good thing initially to say, okay, there are other voices that are breaking through.

6:07And we have alternatives to media. And then, you know, the new Trump White House was even allowing alternative media and podcasters to come into the briefing room and ask questions. And it was like, wow, this was going to allow for better and more comprehensive and substantive discourse. But like everything else, Lauren, it seems like what we actually did with that gift was go to the worst possible debatement of that gift. And basically what happened is that without kind of articulating the overall acceptable common, this is within conservatism, not narrative, but like, you know, these are our values. This is what if you are Republican, if you're a conservative, these are the things that you stand for. It allowed for people like the Tucker Carlson's of the world and, you know, the Candace Owens and, you know, all of these others that we could name to claim that they are conservative, well, clearly not actually articulating

7:09conservative values by and large. And so it seems like there's not really a plumb line or a standard of what is up versus down when it comes to people calling themselves and identifying as conservatives because without a meaningful definition, then you don't really have any definitions at all. Well, that's of course true. And look, I'm somebody who ultimately obviously benefited from this. I was teaching high school a few years ago. And now I do what I do because of the podcast environment. So I think there are a lot of benefits of, of course, that I myself have partaken of this. But ultimately, you're right that we lose that central mediating understanding of kind of where the boundaries are. And that is a problem. I want to make it clear. But I do think that the focus is on the wrong problem here. And this was really the core of the piece that I wrote. Yes, there is a lot of bad behavior going around. Yes, I mean, when you see President Trump jumping into a showdown between Mark Levin and other podcasters over the size of his genitals,

8:12like we're in some pretty strange territory when it comes to the media environment. But at the same time, the only reason this is happening is because the conservative media abuse its audience so heavily. Ultimately, it was not serving the interest of American conservatives. So yeah, there were more boundaries, but there were so many boundaries that only one group was being served, and that wasn't an accident. And that's what President Trump came through, broke through the entire political environment to remedy. That's why people elevated President Trump. I mean, one of the classic quotes is President Trump is a middle finger to the Republican establishment. And the Republican base sent it on purpose because they were tired of being lied to, tired of being manipulated, tired of being told that we were gonna close borders and bring back jobs and never seeing anyone take any action on it. That's where President Trump came from. And so we have to recognize that while the narratives and the clashing of personalities and the drama and all of this is a negative,

9:13we only have that because of the behavior of the establishment. And if the establishment doesn't take responsibility for that, if they don't own their mistakes and they don't come forward with radical honesty, you're not gonna get there in lecturing people about getting back onto the reservation by someone who used to teach, one of the first things you learn is you must have the respect of your students, just being able to punish them isn't enough. And if you don't have the respect, when you ask people to do things, and you tell them, oh no, this is what's best and I understand something you don't understand, they're not gonna listen to you because you've burned all your credibility. We cannot demand people to get back inside the box, back into what we believe current conservatism should be if we ultimately are not willing to come to them and say mistakes were made and we are gonna do better and here is the truth. That's critical. Yeah, no, I totally agree and I think that there needs to now be some sort of equilibrium, right? Like we shouldn't go all the way back to the gatekeeping and the, okay, these are the only approved platforms

10:15and you have to go along with kind of the Fox News rules in terms of only praising Republicans and only shaming Democrats if you wanna get on television, go along with their narrative or even some of these other cable networks that say, well, you can't say anything negative about the LGBTQ movement because we don't wanna offend the homosexuals that are listening to our Republicans and their cable news networks with those kind of criteria. So there has to be some kind of equilibrium because to have sort of this free for all is not the solution either. And so how do you think that maybe now the kind of the free marketplace of the free and accessible media without publishers having to actually look at content and say, yeah, you know what, this is actually valuable to the discourse and I don't think that the publishers and the editors over at Legacy Media were doing that.

11:16They were saying, you know, does this fit my agenda? But in a perfect world, editors served a very good purpose and a very good function to cut out the noise or the actual conspiracy theories like what Candace Owens just spews out and would say, you know, no, that's not going to go on the airwaves or in the pages of our magazine. And so where is the balance here between not just having an agenda like the Legacy Media and the Lies but also not just this kind of wild free for all where it feels like we're sifting through a bunch of garbage just to get to some opinions that actually are valuable. Well, again, I think that that is a good end goal but I don't think we're getting there anytime soon and I think everybody needs to get comfortable with that. The Legacy Media and even the conservative media is going to have to pay a price for what it's done and that's really all there is to it. Otherwise, there is no learning.

12:17I don't believe that the conservative media or the mainstream media has learned that what they did was wrong. I don't think they're apologetic. I don't think that they are attempting to make any amends for this. And so I'm not running around trying to figure out how to solve the podcast or problem until we've solved the problem of who's going to platform people. I can't hand control of this back to those guys after what they've done and the fact that they are in no way repentant. So as bad as it is to see these people bickering over whatever, it's ultimately small potatoes to the fact that people light us into war, ended up running us around on issues like immigration, destroyed our society through this attempt at anti-Christian multiculturalism, imported a massive amount of Muslims so they are now building more mocks and test systems than we've ever seen before. Like these are deep betrayals and they were done in large part by the conservative media along with the mainstream media. So unfortunately, as ugly as the back and forth as ugly as the cafeteria fights are, it's really minor, minor potatoes

13:17compared to what was done to us, even though it seemed more orderly under the gatekeepers. If we really want responsible voices again, we need to have a situation where again, people are willing to be radically honest to tell the truth at every turn and to gain the respect again. Where, as you said, editors might have served a valuable purpose previously but there are no platforms to gatekeep anymore. There are podcasts to get way more views than Fox News. So what incentive are we gonna use to rein these people in? The only thing left in that moment is competition. We have to go to the real, not forgive me for saying this, marketplace of ideas. Like that's the only thing that's gonna resolve this issue. Yeah, and I agree with you and I wish that I trusted that people were approaching the free marketplace of ideas genuinely, with this kind of, you know, very good

14:20and in a good faith way. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Instead of a lot of these podcasters who are more concerned about clicks, advertisements, you know, clearly they're just wanting to make money and they're wanting kind of some of these petty fights and these other things. And it's not so much it seems like. It's not so much that it's really about having the discourse be better. It's just about having the money come to them more strongly. And so, you know, there are some benefits for sure that you point out to the opening up of the media and I think that the benefits do outweigh the negatives. I think it's a good thing that we do have, you know, more discourse I am for the free marketplace, even if some people who participate in the marketplace aren't necessarily in good faith or they have, you know, absolutely insane ideas, you know, like all of this anti-Israel rhetoric.

15:21But at the end of the day too, I wish that this was as pristine as suggesting that the people who are engaging in the discourse are doing this in good faith without some of those ulterior motives. But I think that the bottom line then, like the free market always is, is that then it's the responsibility not just on the podcaster or the commentator or the publisher, really the responsibility lies with the listener. And people can through their dollars, through their clicks and all of this determine who they're going to give their time to listening because if ideas like Megan Kelly's currently and all of these ridiculous, you know, podcasters that are going on and these, these little petty, you know, name calling things, if those didn't get attention, then these people would stop doing them because clearly they're motivated, you know, by how viral it's going and how much money their podcasters are making and all of this.

16:22If they weren't succeeding in that, they would have to reframe. And so I think maybe or in the solution is that we need to be better dissoners as listeners. Well, most certainly, I mean, ultimately the, the, you know, burden of, you know, the responsibility of what we listen to falls on us. But, you know, I think it's also important to remember that ultimately when people make that decision, if they keep making the same decision over and over again, we might want to ask why, you know, I think it's easy to accuse everyone of being motivated by dollars. And I think it's absolutely true that there are several bad actors that are motivated by dollars. You know, that could apply to both sides. I don't think Mark Levin is in any way a better actor than Kevin Kelly or even Candace Owens at this point with his behavior. So, you know, I think it's easy to point to radical actors on both sides and say, oh, well, this is very ugly behavior. But the question is, are you choosing the more responsible people on both sides?

17:24There are, I think, responsible actors who have reasoned opinions on both sides. And the question is, you know, are those the people that you're ultimately listening to? You know, I'm actually going to be interviewing Tucker Carlson for my show here on Friday. And this is a conversation that I think I want to have because I want to better understand where he's at and many of the things he said. But I also think that if we don't have those conversations, if we simply leave people out in the wilderness to kind of just talk to their audience, then we're not doing ourselves any favors because without that dialogue, we can't have people then look and see, well, what do I think is correct? Who do I think ultimately is representing these sides in the most responsible way? And I just think that that's the, you know, that's ultimately the solution where we're not going to censor people out of this environment. And so we have to get out of that mindset. That simply is not something that's possible at this point. Now the question is, who are people looking at, who are people turning to for leadership and understanding? And the only way they're going to be able to vet that is to see discussions like this in person.

18:25Yeah, well, you know, props to you. And I hope that you'll ask Tucker, you know, why he suddenly changed and become so anti-Israel. You know, I was texting with him a couple of weeks ago and you know, asked that question and of course he didn't respond. But, you know, that'll be a very interesting interview. But I agree that, you know, more dialogue overall is generally always better than, you know, gatekeeping and just having the quote unquote approved narrative that goes out from, you know, the PR firms that have been legacy media. So we've got to take a break here. But, or in McIntyre, I really appreciate your piece because I think that this really elucidates what's going on in the kind of terminally online. But also the media sphere overall because there's just so much noise that it's really hard for people to sift through. That's why I'm really grateful for networks like American Family Radio, where listeners can always come to this station knowing that you're going to get a biblical world be perspective.

19:27We're never going to stray from that. And that's definitely grounded in truth and a Christian worldview. And that's important because you never know on, you know, some of these other networks, what exactly you're going to get. And it seems like a lot of people shift their position with kind of every wind of politics. So we do need to be grounded in truth. But we'll be right back with more here on Jenna Ellis in the morning. The AFR app is a powerful tool, but it does have limitations. You can't use it to change the oil in your vehicle or get rid of carpet stains. It won't walk the dog, won't pick up the dry cleaning or take the kids to practice. But while you're doing those things, you can listen to your favorite AFR content through the app on your phone, smart device, or Roku. Just go to your app store or visit AFR.net. And listen to AFR wherever you go with the AFR app.

20:30Welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the morning on American Family Radio. We're going to West Virginia now and a law that if you're not in West Virginia, you may not have heard of, but does have implications at least in the debate around homeschooling across the country. And so this is titled Ray Lee's Law. And Mike Donnelly, who is an attorney and is in West Virginia himself, is here to explain this. So Mike, what is Ray Lee's law and how is this impacting the homeschool movement overall? I would like to you and everybody in the audience hope you're doing well this morning wherever you are listening. Home schooling, there are waves that come now and then as I used to fight on a full-time basis when I worked at the homeschool legal defense association a couple of years ago and people, they often mischaracterize and misunderstand what homeschooling is. I'm a homeschooling parent of seven. Jenna, you were homeschooled.

21:31We know what the benefits are. But there are attacks on freedom. And I was just talking with somebody last night. In fact, Jenna, it was a mutual friend of ours, Senator Kevin Lundberg. I was talking with Kevin last night, homeschooled that also in Colorado. And I said, homeschooling freedom is the canary in the coal mine for all freedom. And when you see homeschooling freedom under attack and you know that there is a fight for freedom going on there and that's what was happening in West Virginia. Fortunately, this law was defeated at the literally, literally last second at midnight on the last day of session. This law could have passed, which would have put restrictions on people who wanted homeschool their children if there was even just any kind of CPS involvement. And of course, we know that CPS is an important institution in protecting children as an appropriate role of civil government. That children should never be abused and they should be protected. But that doesn't have anything to do with homeschool and their education law. And unfortunately, there are too many people and it's not just West Virginia. This has been a battle that's been fought in a number of states.

22:32In fact, it's going on right now in the state of Connecticut. That is an active situation, which, you know, homeschoolers cross country need to know about they need to be praying for their fellow homeschool families in the state of Connecticut. We dodged a big bullet in West Virginia, but people in Connecticut are still fighting that battle. So, you know, it's a fight for freedom and, you know, I encourage folks to stand for them, stay engaged and it's a fight that we have to continue to do, freedom isn't free. Right, well, and so explain a little bit about what this law would have done then and why, you know, this is, you know, and I agree with you that the fight for homeschooling parental rights, the family, all of these go to a fundamental core freedom, which is the institution of the family. 100%, 100%. So, this law specifically would have prevented a person from moving their children out of a public school to homeschool if anyone had made an allegation. And there were other things too. In fact, it was a very poorly written law. In fact, there's so much drama around this particular issue

23:35that's been going on for years because a young girl tragically died in West Virginia. And this has happened over the years. There have been a number of children who've died and opponents of homeschooling and opponents of freedom and proponents of government solutions for everything. Always wanted to say, well, we should, we gotta do this, we gotta stop people from homeschooling when there's a child who gets injured or tragically is killed, not because of bad, evil, criminal parents. And in this case, this law called Rayleigh's Law was a girl named Rayleigh Browning but she had been in public school for years and she had been on CPS's radar for years. The issue wasn't homeschooling, the issue had nothing to do with that. We had to do with the fact that CPS officials in West Virginia failed to follow their proper protocols and to protect this child as they should have done. But what happens? Legislators say, you know, this child wasn't in school, we've got to make sure that every child is in school and if they are suddenly taken out of school and we've got to investigate that family, we've got to stop them from doing that. Well, there are a lot of problems in schools. And parents have very good reasons

24:35for wanting to take their children out of schools. Here's this transgender insanity, you know, teachers are abusers, 10% of girls in public schools are sexually abused by teachers. There's bullying school, they're all kinds of reasons. And so to try to scapegoat homeschooling as these legislators in West Virginia wanted to do is wrong and interferes with parental authority and they get armed children. And so I jumped into the action along with the attorney to sell the A in the homeschool community in West Virginia and we fought a hard fight over the last two weeks of March as the legislature came to an end and we're successful in fighting the still and defeating it. Yeah, and it seems like there's always a pretext for wanting, for the government wanting children to be out of their home, out of their parental environment and under the influence of state-funded educators and institutions. And, you know, while things like what happened to Rayleigh are utterly tragic

25:37and obviously, you know, there are aspects of abuse that happened, the solution isn't to say, well, now everybody can't homeschool or that, you know, that this wouldn't have happened if she was just in public schools. That's an extreme solution to a problem that I think is a totally separate question. But it seems like there are always these types of incidences where then the state uses that as the pretext to say, well, we have to basically monitor your children and we don't fundamentally trust parents. And so then it becomes a matter of parents having to earn the right from the government to be, you know, vetted and all of this before they can choose constitutionally protected options like homeschooling and that's the complete wrong analysis. Well, you're absolutely right, Jenna, that is precisely the problem. You know, we don't seek a license to parents from the government, children are a gift from God, God created the family, you know, there is in the world and there are evil people

26:40and there are bad parents, you know, intentionally bad and some due to circumstances unable to provide for their kids, but so there's a role for government. Nobody disputes that in child abuse is a serious problem that deserves a serious response. Going after homeschooling or going after education is not a serious response. There are solutions to this problem. I imagine there are legislators across the country listening to us and right now. So here's some solutions I want to propose. Number one, get rid of anonymous reporting. When you allow anybody anywhere to make a report, you open the door from malicious reports and I can tell you having been at HSLDA for almost 20 years. The number of malicious reports that I dealt with just for homeschooling families was significant and the numbers bear that out even in West Virginia. Their own numbers show that 91 plus percent of all allegations made in West Virginia ultimately are found to be unsubstantiated. That's a massive problem of false positives and an investigation from a CPS agent

27:43into a family is very traumatic for a family and for kids in and of itself. So number one, get rid of anonymous reporting which makes it possible for all kinds of crazy malicious or just irrelevant allegations to be made. Number two, give agents authority to have a dynamic response to a situation if a allegation is made against a family or a situation. Allow the agent to go in there and say, you know what, this is really not a situation where we need to be involved. But what happens is they have these really long protocol checklists and they have to go through every single one of them which takes an inordinate amount of time. What does that mean? That means they don't have time to go on the cases that really matter. So those are two proposals I think that would allow you know, CPS agencies to focus on cases that are really bad and not have to go through massive investigations of families when there really isn't a need to do so. Yeah, yeah. And those are really great solutions

28:44because you know, parental rights like any other fundamental, constitutionally protected right, we don't earn our right from the government or prove to the government that we are fit. There once there is a credible allegation that goes through due process, can parental rights and cases of abuse and neglect be foreclosed or eliminated, you know, yes. But that has to go through process. The fundamental posture of the government toward the parent is a presumption of fitness and that's what laws like this, why they're dangerous is because it seeks to basically make the parent prove fitness upfront to the government which is giving the government an inordinate amount of power and something that would basically turn parental rights from a fundamental right to a mere privilege and that the government can arbitrarily determine how, when, where, and, you know, why parents can practice things like homeschooling and make these kinds of decisions.

29:45And so, you know, these are really important issues across the country. You know, this was in West Virginia, you mentioned Connecticut, but for everyone listening across the country, these are issues that go directly to the core of the family. This is why we need to remain vigilant and we need to ensure that parental rights remain fundamental. Mike Donnelly, otherwise, you know, we're seeding something that is fundamental and turning it into a mere privilege and these kind of isolated cases and there are obviously some that the government rightly should step in. Those cases don't mean then that the rule overall for parents is that we have to prove ourselves to the government because children belong to parents, not the state. I'm 100% Jenna. I mean, you put it so well. You know, and the Supreme Court has recognized this and recognized it on numerous occasions. It says that fit parents are deemed assumed to act in the best interests of children

30:46and the problem with these laws is exactly what you said. They violate due process. They take away due process. They violate that presumption of innocence until proven guilty. And I think we've done a huge disservice to our country by creating these child protection agencies that are civil and nature rather than criminal. In my view, child abuse that the government should be investigating and punishing is criminal and it should be done in criminal court. But that's not how it is done. It's done in the star chamber courts that are protected by gag orders and privacy laws where the public is not allowed and I understand that you want to protect children and families. But so often what happens is each child's protection systems, they're watching each other's back. The judges are looking out for the workers. The workers are looking out for the guardianed items. The guardianed items are working with the attorneys. It's always the same people in these situations.

31:48And it's just an institution and a process. And they don't really understand the impact that it has on children and families when they take children wrongfully out of families or when they investigate a family wrongfully. It's very, very harmful. And so our country is based on this premise of due process and you put it very well. Yeah, well, thanks so much for bringing this hard tension, Mike Donnelly, and you're right. And even in the criminal context, there can still be protections, close hearings, all of those things. But then the standard of proof would be higher. And the government should be held to a very high standard when it comes to something like parental rights. So an incredibly important issue. Really appreciate it. Follow Mike Donnelly on X. At Donnelly Speaks, we will be right back with more. Abortion moves fast. And right now in our communities, women are being pressured to make irreversible decisions in moments of fear and panic.

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33:49To donate, dial pound 250 and say the key word baby. That's pound 250 baby. Or visit preborn.com forward slash AFR. That's preborn.com forward slash AFR. Welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the morning on American Family Radio. Welcome back. And so as we were talking about yesterday, Joe Kent resigned from the Trump administration. And so he was a longtime Trump ally and his resignation came as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. And now he's been booked on Tucker Carlson show in Candace Owens, of course, because I guess that's where the Trump defectors go to invent their anti-Israel rhetoric. And it's just been really amazing to see how even the war in Iran has really fractured the mega base

34:52and everything according to at least a segment of that base seems to be according to them just all about Israel. It can't possibly be that Trump actually thought that maybe Iran getting nuclear weapons and having an imminent threat actually fell into the category of America first. No, it's always just about Israel and kind of complaining over all of that. So what's really going on here and how should we look at this maybe geopolitically and of course through the biblical lens? Well, let's welcome in my good friend David Brody who is the chief political analyst for CBN News and also is a contributor now to all Israel news, our good friend Joel Rosenberg. So that's a really amazing get. I think for all Israel news and David, thanks so much for joining and kind of stepping back and maybe going big picture for a little bit. How do you see a Trump positioned here politically?

35:53You've been around Trump since his first administration covering politics a long time. It seems like he's not really winning any popularity points with at least a segment of the base but then there are still a lot who support him. Yeah, it's a great point Jen and good morning to you. Look, this is a different Trump this time around. The Monroe Doctrine Trump, if you will, in the second term compared to the first. You know, to me Jen, this has always been a bad if we're really going kind of arrow view here. He's been asked what is he want his legacy to be and he says said multiple times and people need to understand this is to keep point. He wants to be the peace president. And so when you think of it in those terms, Q, what we're seeing right now, whether it be in Iran or in Venezuela, possibly Cuba and you go on down the list and look at Gaza right, the board of pieces, I mean, it's everything and we didn't see this as much for sure.

36:56You know, we saw the Abraham Accords in the first term and we didn't see this as much for sure in that first term. So when you look at it from that lens, you can kind of understand, I shouldn't even say the word kind of. You can totally understand the MTG, the Tucker, the Candace, the the woke right, the the air quote, America first crowd because I think it's more like America only and we can get into that. You can see their frustration. There's no doubt about it because they feel like they were promised a different Trump. And I'll be honest with you, I get that to some degree. Having said that, I think their premises been totally wrong from the get go. In other words, the war in Iran is America first. We need into that and all of it and is MAGA. But the point is is that from a political standpoint, this is a certain percentage of MAGA, a small percentage of MAGA. And this is where the media loves to do the old, you know, if you read every media headline to 50, 50 split, MAGA is splitting. It's not as much MAGA splitting down the middle. It's not that because the majority still back Trump

37:58and what he's doing here, especially evangelicals. The issue is the younger generation is listening to some of this crazy stuff on the woke right. But beyond all of that, even if you fracture MAGA 2%, 4%, 5% on that America first or the America only crowd, even if you have that splinter. And when I say splinter, I'm talking about people like that sit home and don't vote in the midterms. No vote in 2028. You've got a problem in the Republican circles and that's kind of the political problem for Republicans right now. Yeah, and you know, it's such a great point that this is a different Trump in the second administration, but I think very different from what a lot of people were expecting, especially compared to the emphasis during his campaign. Comparatively, I think to the emphasis during his administration. And so, you know, there was less kind of revenge politicking on the domestic front and a lot more of the foreign policy focus. And it's interesting when you mention

38:58he wants to be the peace president. It seems counterintuitive to then going and, you know, conducting these air strikes against Iran and then, you know, the strikes against the narco terrorists and, you know, a lot of these things that he's doing. But really, it's, it's, and people keep calling this a war which, you know, and I've even done that, you know, even just this morning, introducing this segment. But really, it's just a temporary conflict to get to his overall goal. And I think that actually using the term war is a little premature. But explain that calculation from kind of the Trumpian Trump world perspective of being a peace president and then conducting these types of offenses. Yeah, I mean, look, I think you could make the argument and that this is, this is where it gets a little controversial when I say this, but I think you could make the argument that this is kind of like an American, American first or a mega imperialism.

39:59And what I mean by that is not, not colonialism. That's not what I'm talking about here. But there is a sense that President Trump is kind of an in way. I hate to kind of say it kind of going around the world seeing and reshifting the balance as it relates to China and Russia and the axis of evil that we heard back in the George W Bush administration. It's kind of like a two-point version of that to do it in a very different way. And I know people get kind of spooked on the imperialism aspect of it, but I think there is a part of that here and it kind of plays to Trump's personality. And so I get why people are spooked by that. But I will say this and I'm kind of extrapolating it to say something that I've said now for about two to three months. And I believe I've been one of the first, if not the first to kind of say this, now we're starting to hear more about this. But I predicted about three months ago that I believe that President Trump is going

41:00to endorse Marco Rubio for president. And I said this a while back before Venezuela, way before Venezuela, actually. And because you saw what was going on that I believe that President Trump, where his mentality is now, he is more in line, or I should say Rubio, is more in line with his thinking going forward in terms of the way Trump sees the world as opposed to J.D. Vance. So I think that's the big storyline as we continue to follow it, but that's a whole nother political kind of warranted. Yeah, and I'm right there with you because I think that Trump has been very smart to not prematurely endorse either Vance or Rubio, but especially Vance when everyone initially expected him to, as soon as he was nominated Vice President. And it's been really interesting actually to compare kind of the national scene to what's going on here in the gubernatorial race in the state of Florida, because likewise, Governor DeSantis has not endorsed anyone

42:01and everyone's just assuming. And I even assumed in the very beginning that the pick from DeSantis would be his lieutenant governor because he just made that appointment in Jay Collins. But then as time has continued, especially as I've seen how frankly terribly that campaign has been run, a lot of other things we could go into later, it is very wise that DeSantis has held his fire. And he said specifically he's gonna wait until spring after the legislative session kind of see where the playing field is. We know he's not gonna endorse Byron Donalds. He said that he doesn't agree with him on that policy front, but he's waiting to see. And people are just assuming that Jay Collins is the guy similarly to how people are assuming that Jay DeVance is the guy, but both Trump and DeSantis know how endorsement works. They also know how much things change. And they also, they don't want to just say, okay, way too early, yeah, he's the guy. And then overlook somebody who actually is going

43:01to be a lot more immensely popular. And I think how Rubio has conducted himself as Secretary of State, he's been incredibly impressive. I know from the 2015 campaign, I mean, going back over 10 years ago, some really solid Christian friends of mine back in 2015, we're saying, we're very, Rubio's supporters saying, he's a very sincere Christian. He'd be an amazing president. They're gonna support him in 2028. And so, I think this all is just all going on that people need to really pay attention to instead of like you were saying, David Brody, just kind of the mainstream headlines or kind of this rhetoric that's very divisive from the MTG Tucker Carlson crowd because they're not getting what they want. But interestingly, it does seem like Lindsey Graham hasn't quite gotten the memo that Trump is the peace president because he's out there as if this is like the start

44:04of a 30 year war or something. I don't think he's helping Trump's overall agenda. No, no, someone needs to have a, how do we say this? They come to Jesus meeting, if you will, or a TED-A-TET with Lindsey Graham to say, slow your role Lindsey and get off any of the go pills that you're on because, I mean, this idea of I'm going around the world, we're going around the world marching. I'm sorry, we're marching around the world, really? Okay, let's not quite phrase it that way. So, Lindsey needs to kind of as they like to say, slow his role. He's doing the president no favors from a PR perspective and playing into the MTG type crowd. And speaking of the MTG crowd, it makes me think of JD Vance. And then it makes me think of this idea that clearly JD Vance has a, there's an issue, an underlying issue with Tucker Carlson the whole Israel situation. It's all right there, as we know. And you wonder how it's going to play out in 2028

45:05because you know JD Vance is going to run. You wonder what's going to happen with this quote, America first crowd. And to be clear, I want to just be clear about this. They say there, they keep calling themselves America first. There's MAGA and America first. And I think they're totally different. Totally different. I mean, I think America first is America. Only it's more that isolationist crowd. It's like, it's not just about, they want to stop forever wars. It's not that. They don't want war at all. These are piecing, these are pacifists. These are whatever you want to call them. I mean, this is kind of like the liberal 60s crowd, kind of risen in different form. So this idea that there, I mean, the last time I checked, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can be America first. I mean, look at President Trump on immigration or look at President Trump on the economy. I mean, he's doing certain things just from a domestic standpoint that is totally MAGA, totally America first. And he's also conducting America first type policy in Iran and other places. So look, and here's my issue with the MTGs and others

46:09in that, and then Tucker's and everything. How is it not America first in terms of military conflict with Iran? You have Iran killing over 1,000 Americans in the last 47 years and quite frankly, that's a low estimate based on all the proxies. I mean, if Americans are dying at the hands of a foreign country and you're now saying, you know what, we're going to take that threat out the head of the snake. How is that not America first? It makes no sense that there's been no literally intellectual backbone to their argument whatsoever. Yeah. And this is where I think the frustration with the podcast wars and all of this is coming because you see the people that are screaming the loudest having the least substance. And so that makes it really easy then for the left and the Democrats and the Trump detractors to suggest that he doesn't know what he's doing and he's just engaging in these forever wars. And this is totally against his America first agenda

47:11that he promised and you know all of these things. And it seems like somehow the base overall hasn't thought this through well enough to be able to kind of push back on that and say, you know, no, here's the actual position. But at the same time, do you think that the White House and Trump himself have articulated this as clearly as, you know, even you're doing this morning and saying, listen, you know, this is about the legacy, the America that I want to leave to my predecessors. Well, you know, this, I have one, I had one election left. This is, you know, the last couple of years in office. You know, I mean, he's not making things in true Trump fashion. He's not really making things all that abundantly clear. No, he, Jenna, that's such a great point. He's not making it clear. And it kind of ends in his argument in his world and Trump's world and ends with, I am MAGA, period N, full stop. That ain't going to cut it, especially with this crowd.

48:11The three percenters or whatever you want to call them, you know, the tuckers of the world. And I keep saying the tuckers of the world, but let's remember, as you know, Jenna, it's not so much the tucker and tandis and you know, all these other folks, I mean, they have huge followers or a lot of followers. Because of that, we're looking at a younger Gen Z crowd, if you will. And I had someone come up to me, very close family friend who came up to me and said this to me. He said, hey, isn't that now who dead? I'm like, what? Okay, stop, stop. Where are you hearing that from? Oh, I heard it quote online. And the thing is, is that in the past, we'd be like, ha ha, hilarious, that's funny. No, now today, it's like, no, seriously, is he dead? Like, I question, they question everything. And it's great to be free thinker. It's great to be questioning everything. But we've gotten to a point because we've lost faith in our public institutions that we were trying to course correct and go the full opposite way.

49:12And now we've got wild, wild west stuff led by tucker, tandis and crazy people like Jackson, Hinkle and all these things. I mean, it's just out of control. And the young Gen Zers and others, not just young Gen Zers, are caught in all of this, caught in a crossfire. And that's a real, real problem, especially inside the four walls of the church, which is a whole other podcast and whole other topic. Yeah, well, we're going to have to do those up podcasts and topics coming up soon, David Brody, because there is so much to talk about. But I think this was just a great appetizer, if you will, and to give people some things to think about. So really appreciate it so much. People can follow you at CBN, all Israel news, and then also, of course, follow David Brody on exit, David Brody reports. And that's all the time that we have for today. So as always, you can reach me in my team, Jenna at AFR.net.