In this gripping episode of Washington Watch, host Jody Heiss delves into the pressing issues unfolding in the Middle East and at home. Featuring in-depth interviews with Congressman Randy Fine and other experts, the show explores Israel’s strategic actions in Gaza, the international community’s response, and the narratives shaping global perspectives. As tensions rise, understand the stakes through honest discussions and expert insights. Simultaneously, the episode brings attention to an alarming case of apparent selective legal action in New York, where Attorney General Letitia James targets a faith-based organization, raising questions of bias and judicial integrity. Attorney General Brenna
SPEAKER 12 :
from the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and soundbites into conversations with our nation’s leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Sitting in for Tony is today’s host, Jody Heiss.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, good afternoon and welcome to this August 4th edition of Washington Watch. I am Jody Heiss, senior fellow here at the Family Research Council and your normal Friday host. But I’m honored to be sitting in this August for Tony. All right, we’ve got a lot to bring your way. Let me kind of break down some of the highlights for you. All the lies about a so-called famine in Gaza continue to be pushed by the Hamas terror group, along with several of our European allies who are now buying that lie hook, line and sinker.
SPEAKER 03 :
How come the Brits are so critical of Israel? I don’t remember the British feeding all of the Nazis in World War II and feeling it was their responsibility to do it. I don’t remember the French doing that either. This is an uncanny kind of twist of history.
SPEAKER 09 :
That, of course, was Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. And we will be getting the latest truth about the war between Israel and Hamas when I’m joined by Congressman Randy Fine in just a few moments coming to us live from Israel. So he’ll be with us here in just a moment.
SPEAKER 16 :
There is not a conflict over the last decade where this broken, corrupt humanitarian system managed entirely by the United Nations has not prolonged and exacerbated these conflicts. And you can rest assured that this current war would have ended a long time ago if the UN wouldn’t have been complicit in all of this. And you know, the crazy thing is every day, despite all of this, we ask to help them get their food to more people because people need help, but they don’t want help from us because apparently the light we’re shining on them is just a little too bright.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, that was Johnny Moore with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. He’s the executive chair. We’ll be hearing from him on what exactly is happening in Gaza. And we’ll do that by way of a conversation that he and Tony had on this week on Capitol Hill. And then DEI, well, it’s not completely dead on the University of Iowa’s campus. And this is despite the fact that there’s a state law that bans a woke agenda from the taxpayer-funded university. Well, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Byrd will share how she is combating this woke mob’s lawlessness on DEI. And then to close out the program, I’ll be joined by Family Policy Alliance President and CEO Craig DeRoche. We’ll be discussing an outrageous case coming out of New York where the Attorney General there, Letitia James, is targeting yet another conservative with trumped-up charges that have led to an unjust sentence of jail time. So don’t go anywhere for the next hour. We’ve got a lot to unpack and bring your way. You don’t want to miss any of it. But if by chance you do, you can always catch up by going to our website, TonyPerkins.com. So keep that handy. All right, let’s jump into it today. Breaking earlier today, many news reports are indicating that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to fully take over Gaza. This would include areas where the remaining hostages are believed to be held. And as this is happening, of course, we have France and Britain who are two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. They’re saying that they intend to recognize a Palestinian state. And they’re not alone. Canada is doing the same thing. They’re all bowing to Hamas’s demands for recognition. So how should the United States respond both to the prime minister’s takeover decision and our allies’ dangerously misguided decision to recognize a Palestinian state? Joining me right now, live from Israel, is Congressman Randy Fine. He represents the 6th Congressional District of Florida. Congressman Fine, thank you so much for joining us. I know it’s late where you are. Thanks for staying up. Welcome to Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 14 :
It’s good to be here. It’s an honor to talk to you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I know you’re traveling there, obviously, in Israel right now. You’re speaking with a number of leaders while you’re there. To the extent that you can, what are you hearing from them?
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, I just got here this morning, and so there haven’t been that many discussions at this point. But what it seems clear is that the Israeli government has made the decision to fully annex Gaza. And I think it’s an unfortunate decision, but one that has to be made. I mean, what is clear is that Hamas has no intention of surrendering, has no intention of releasing the hostages, and is going to wait for their allies, which is what you have to call them now, in France and Britain and Canada, countries that have to come to Muslim terror to back them up. So Israel has no choice if we want to bring this war to an end, but to conquer the enemy. And so I fully support them in doing that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, it’s really a head-scratching thing to watch nations like Great Britain and France and Canada and wondering what in the world are they doing. At the same time, we have Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided to fully take over Gaza. What’s your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER 14 :
Look, I think those countries are saying what they’re saying because they have submitted to radical Islam. I mean, they have allowed people who have no desire to integrate, who come into their countries largely on government benefits. They don’t seem to want to plead for asylum in Muslim countries. They seem to want to come to their countries. And now they’re a meaningful percentage of the electorate. So they’re just having to kowtow to their voters. But as for what Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to do, look, he has an obligation to to bring this war in for an end. And the way wars end is one side wins and one side loses. But for decades, the West has said to Israel, you can’t win. You can’t win. I mean, right now we have the, you must feed the enemy, you must make them comfortable so they can regain their strength and try to kill you again. And so Bibi, it sounds like, has decided he’s going to win the war. He’s going to conquer the enemy and make them submit. That’s how wars work. And to be clear, that is what Hamas has said they want to do to Israel. They have said they want to conquer Israel, and they want the Jewish state, which, by the way, is incredibly important to Christians as well, they want it to submit. And I think that would be a scary thing for both of our religions.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. So right in the middle of both of these scenarios, when we’re talking about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision on the one side and other countries like Canada and France and UK, right in the middle of that is the United States. How should we, in your opinion, respond both to the issue with other countries trying to recognize a Palestinian state and the decision of the prime minister? What is the role of the U.S. in all of this?
SPEAKER 14 :
I think what we can do is say to Israel is ignore the idiots and do what is right. I mean, the fact of the matter is, look, France is just, they’re addicted to surrender. That’s just what they do. The UK and Canada, again, have both embraced radical Islam in their countries. So why would we be surprised when they say they are going to support it in other parts of the world? What the U.S. has to do is be strong, and we have to support Israel however they need it. And I think we have to do something, and I’ll be calling on Bibi to do this when I see him this week, is what is clear is that Israel and the West is winning the military war, but to some degree we’re losing the PR war. The Muslim terrorists are very good at lying. And we have to do a better job of making sure the truth gets out there because so many people are just willing to buy it as is. It’s like these pictures of starving children next to fat mothers and other children that are perfectly fine and people refusing to deal with the hard facts of the conditions on the ground, which is we can talk about. There’s a reason there are a lot of kids in bad shape in Gaza. And it turns out, you know, if you marry your cousin, which almost half of Gazans have done, you’re going to have a pretty good chance of your kid having a problem.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, good point. And I saw today that Israel is calling on the legacy media to start showing pictures of the starving hostages that they’re holding in the horrible conditions that they’re in by way of comparison. But you refer to them as don’t listen to the idiots. I believe it’s the way you said it. And I mean, look, that’s just putting it straightforward. But unpack for us, Congressman Fine, what are some of the real world consequences of When our allies start believing the lies of a terror group,
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, I think the consequences is we lose them as allies. I mean, these countries, it’s less about what they’re doing with Israelites, what they’re allowing to take place in their own countries. France has Muslim Sharia no-go zones. In the UK, if you criticize Islam, you go to jail. But if you want to call for the deaths of Jews, that’s a-okay. I mean, what worries me less is about these countries, their support of Israel. Look, Israel doesn’t need their support. Israel’s used to being alone or being alone with the United States. What worries me is about the collapse of Western civilization. Because that’s what I see. I see people who have no desire to assimilate, do not share the values of the countries they’re going to, and do not seek to add value to those societies, come in and ruin them. You can look at the same problem in the United States in our immigration system. Too many of the wrong kinds of people who don’t want to add value, don’t want to assimilate, and don’t share our values. It’s not about the color of their skin or what they look like. It’s just, do they want to come and add value? And these countries have allowed these people in. They’ve talked about taking children from Gaza to give them health care. But once they do that, then they have to bring their extended families. It’s a disaster for these countries to be thinking about doing these things.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and you talk about these countries that have allowed these people to come in and really transform their country. I mean, we’ve watched through the open borders that we have here, a lot of this type of stuff coming across our own borders as well. How do you think that these lies potentially have contributed to that, to the exploding anti-Semitism that we’re seeing right here in America on college campuses, not to mention worldwide, like some of the countries that we’ve mentioned?
SPEAKER 14 :
Look, it’s bad. I’m not just a member of Congress. I’m a Jewish member of Congress. I’m one of four Republican Jews. And so this affects me personally and my family personally. And I will say that when the world said never again, it lied. Because never again is going on right now. And the level of anti-Semitism that you see online, on social media, that you see on our college campuses, that you see in our streets, Jews being attacked, their homes being graffitied, it is reminiscent. It is exactly what happened in the 1930s in Germany. And I’ve got news for people. If your life isn’t going the way that you wish, it isn’t because the Jews did it to you. It’s because you screwed up your own life. But people hate Jews because, frankly, no group’s been treated worse in history, yet we always figure out how to come back and be prosperous. I think a lot of people are just miserable and want someone else to blame.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, real quickly, are there some things that we can do, perhaps Congress, but just as an audience even, to combat some of these insidious lies that Hamas and their allies have been spewing on the world stage?
SPEAKER 14 :
I think the biggest thing that people can do is they can call their elected officials. Look, most Republicans, there are two exceptions that are pretty anti-Semitic, but most Democrats have abandoned Israel. And look, look at who they want to be the mayor of New York. I mean, a guy who’s a flat-out Muslim terrorist from Uganda. So they need to register to vote. They need to vote. And they need to tell people in their party, if they’re Democrats, that this isn’t okay. Not all Democrats believe this nonsense. But they also have to tell the facts. And the fact is this. And your speaker that you played the clip from, from the Gaza humanitarian—actually, no, it was Mike Huckabee who said it. Never in history. Just got a few seconds. Never in history has a winning army been told they have to take care of the losing army, and that’s what’s happening here. It needs to stop, and I think the war is going to come to an end soon.
SPEAKER 09 :
Congressman Randy Fine, thank you for staying up late, coming on live for us from Israel. Hope you have a fantastic week with your trip there. Thank you. All right, coming up on the other side of the break, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Byrd will join me to discuss how she is combating DEI at the University of Iowa. Stay tuned.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory. Family Research Council invites you to join our Stand on the Word Bible reading plan as we reflect upon the life of Jesus, the Word who dwelt among us. Come with us and discover the glory of the Word. Read the Gospels and witness the life-changing story of Jesus, His life, death, and resurrection. Come read how Jesus transformed the lives of common people and how those same people transformed the known world through the power of the Holy Spirit. Come with us for 10 to 15 minutes a day and read the entire New Testament before the new year. Find our Bible reading plan and daily devotionals from Tony Perkins at frc.org slash Bible. Join us and stand on the word.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good afternoon. Welcome back to Washington Watch. I am your August host, Jody Heiss. Glad to be with you and glad to have you joining us. All right. The University of Iowa and its officials have found themselves in quite a bit of hot water lately. The controversy actually erupted late last month after Fox News and Town Hall caught two separate university employees admitting on a hidden camera that the university is still promoting DEI initiatives in violation of state law. So what can the state attorney general do to address this defiance of the law? Well, I’m honored now to have that state attorney general from Iowa, Brenna Byrd, joining us right now. Attorney General Byrd, thank you so much for joining us on Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 22 :
Yes, thank you. Good to be with you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it is great to have you listen. I want to get to the University issue here in just a second, but before we jump here, I’ve just got to bring this up, because I know you just had in eye of the first year anniversary of the pro-life heartbeat law that went into effect one year. Congratulations. Give us your reflections, your reactions to that.
SPEAKER 22 :
Yes. Well, one year with our heartbeat law, and it was a tough journey to get here. Back before I was elected Attorney General in 2018, it was the first time our state passed heartbeat. And my predecessor, the Attorney General that I beat, he refused to defend our heartbeat law in court. And so fast forward, this heartbeat law, when I was elected, we put the full weight of the Attorney General’s office behind defending our law in court. And it was upheld by a close vote of our Iowa Supreme Court and it’s the law here in Iowa.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, hats off to you and so many others that have stood in the gap fighting for that. And now congratulations, a year anniversary on that heartbeat law. And we are grateful for all that you’ve done to stand in the gap for that. If I can shift gears with you here real quickly, let’s go back to the University of Iowa and where we have a couple of employees there who have been caught on hidden camera. saying that the university continues to engage in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in spite of the fact that that goes against state law. Your reaction to all of that?
SPEAKER 22 :
Yes, well, Iowa has a law that says DEI is not allowed. And in fact, discriminating against someone on the basis of their skin color, that’s been illegal for a long time. And DEI is just another way of doing that. Our law says that taxpayer dollars can’t be spent on it. Our state universities can’t hire people based on it, have scholarships, no promotion of DEI on the campuses. And the videos that were released were quite disturbing. They apparently show folks working at the University of Iowa who are paid for with taxpayer dollars being very upfront that they haven’t changed what they do, but they are just going ahead and doing what they want and calling it something else. So we are investigating. We’re putting work into figuring out just what happened, pull that curtain back, and get some sunlight on what is going on there because the law must be upheld.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, so just for clarity’s sake, what…
SPEAKER 22 :
is the law that they violated i mean unpack that for us what specifically did these two individuals allegedly do that was breaking the law well we’re still investigating it and the investigation isn’t done but let me tell you what the allegations are and the law that is implicated there the law in iowa passed by our legislature signed by our governor says that no taxpayer dollars can be used on dei initiatives That means they can’t pay someone whose job it is to do diversity, equity and inclusion. Law also says that the universities can’t promote DEI and they can’t use DEI in hiring scholarships, admissions to the school, all of those types of things. And so the legislature was very clear what was not allowed. And that’s exactly what we’re investigating here. They cannot use taxpayer dollars to advance the cause of DEI with the taxpayers own money.
SPEAKER 09 :
OK, and it seems as though they are bragging of the fact that the University is doing this, so I. I guess I want to get to the truth of that. Is this a case of just a couple of bad apples at the University? Or is in fact the University more broadly engaging in some sort of campus wide active cover up of their continuing DEI activities?
SPEAKER 22 :
Well, that’s just the sort of thing that our investigation is looking into. We will look into relevant information and documents, other types of evidence related to this, and get to the bottom of it to see whether it’s just two individuals who are isolated or whether it’s part of something larger. That’s why we have that investigation.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it’s it would seem as though an I sort. I certainly don’t know that it’s more than just two individuals, but I’m glad you’re investigating that. So let me take this a little bit deeper than what can you do? The Attorney General of the great state of Iowa. What what power and authority do you have as this goes forward to specifically if the right word would be to punish the University for their open defiance of state law? Let’s start with that. What can be done?
SPEAKER 22 :
Well, there are a couple of things that we can do. And I would note that sunlight and sunshine are great disinfectants. And when we pull that all back, when we pull that curtain back and Iowans, legislators, the governor, everyone sees what is going on there, I think action will result from that. People need to know what’s going on so that they can solve that problem. I think that’s one thing that will be a big help. The second thing of course is the law that was passed allows us to go to a court to get an action for mandamus, which basically means the judge would tell the university to follow the law. So we have a couple of tools at our disposal, but I think just pulling that curtain back will do a great deal to help us root out illegal DEI and other legal violations at our universities.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, at the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. What’s the point of having a law if there are no consequences for breaking the law? And there’s got to be some way to ensure compliance as well as punish willful defiance of it. So do you think at the end of the day, this is all going to be taken care of once and for all?
SPEAKER 22 :
Well, I certainly hope so. I know sometimes the roots of the woke left run deep and it can be difficult, but this is a good first step to root all of this out. And at the end of the day, this is about taxpayer dollars. It’s about education, not indoctrination. That’s what that law is all about. So I’m hopeful that we will get the problem fixed, but I am not naive enough to think that it’s an easy thing to do, but we’re going to do the work.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, thank you so much, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Byrd for coming on and breaking this down for us. And again, congratulations on one year anniversary, the heartbeat bill. But what you’re doing now with the university, keep the torch ablaze and thank you for joining us today. All right, friends, after the break, we will be hearing from the executive director of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. That would be Reverend Johnny Moore. He’s going to be correcting the record on the so-called famine in Gaza. So stay tuned. It’s coming your way right after the break.
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SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Washington Watch. I’m your August host, Jody Heiss. I want to share with you coming up now a clip of Tony’s weekend program called This Week on Capitol Hill. And he had a fascinating conversation with the executive director of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Reverend Johnny Moore. And they’re correcting the record on the so-called famine in Gaza. We wanted to bring this your way. So here it is.
SPEAKER 08 :
The situation that Hamas created in Gaza has opened an avenue for the terrorist organization to push propaganda even as its own people suffer. But as President Trump indicated this week, the fastest way to end this suffering is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages. Has the rest of the world forgotten who started this? Joining me now to discuss his organization’s efforts in coordination with Israel is the Reverend Johnny Moore, Executive Chairman of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Johnny, welcome to This Week on Capitol Hill.
SPEAKER 16 :
Hey, Tony. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER 08 :
So on Friday, a milestone was hit. In just a couple of months, you’ve been able to deliver 100 million meals directly to the Gazans.
SPEAKER 16 :
That’s exactly right. And by the way, it’s not just over the course of one active war. It’s been over the course of two wars. I mean, we had the 12-day war right in the middle of it. And what makes our operation unique, Tony, is that our food goes directly to the people of Gaza. So we have served 100 million meals of food, affecting half of the people of Gaza, between 800,000 and a million beneficiaries, not one single truck being able to be stolen by Hamas.
SPEAKER 08 :
millions of dollars has gone into humanitarian aid through the United Nations. Where’s that all gone?
SPEAKER 16 :
It’s gone to Hamas, actually, either directly or indirectly. And the Gaza Strip before October 7th was an aid-based economy. And so Hamas’s primary way of controlling the people of Gaza was to take free aid from the international community, from the United Nations, from UNRWA, and use that aid for its purposes. And they did it in all kinds of ways. And the UN knew that they were doing it. So they would tax the aid. They would steal a percentage of the aid and give it to their fighters. They would take free aid. They would sell it on the black market. And over the course of the war, since October 7, Hamas has done even more. They actually use the UN aid convoys to transfer fighters and messages in order to facilitate their actions against Israel. And even over the course of this war, Tony, they’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars to prolong the war, to sustain their operations by taking the gifts of the world, stealing them, and selling them. And it’s not a small number. The World Food Program itself and their publicly disclosed statistics admit that 90% of their aid trucks over the last several months never made it to their final destination. That’s the problem we solved.
SPEAKER 08 :
So let me just get a very fine point on that, Johnny, is that you’re saying that the humanitarian aid that the world has been, the international community has been screaming for through the U.N. has actually gone in and funded Hamas’s war effort.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, I mean, if this wasn’t the UN, everyone would be saying this is material support for terrorism. And because it’s the UN, it seems like they get away with it. But we’re not letting them get away with it. But it’s actually even worse than what you were saying. So in the middle of the ceasefire negotiations, when everyone was being hit with this famine in Gaza story, the United Nations was actually the primary institutional spreader of this story. And for sure, there’s hunger in Gaza. There’s acute hunger in Gaza. That’s why we exist. And we’ve said from the very beginning, we can’t do it alone. We need help from other people. But what the United Nations was doing is while they were decrying famine in Gaza, this alleged famine in Gaza, there’s no famine in Gaza. There are hungry people in Gaza, no famine in Gaza. They had 950 truckloads of food, not outside of the Gaza Strip, sitting inside the Gaza Strip that they were refusing to distribute. So they were, in effect, sitting on the Hamas side of the negotiating table and using hunger for political purposes. And by the way, everything that we’re doing, Tony, began with President Trump on May 5th in the White House. He said that he was angry that the food meant for the people of Gaza was being stolen by Hamas and the United States was going to do something about it. And since he said that, we’ve done something about it. In two months, 100 million meals of food, and the people of Gaza know it comes from America, and they know it comes from President Trump, because not only do we see smiles on the faces of these people, they actually thank America, they thank President Trump, and they finally feel free, because food means freedom from Hamas.
SPEAKER 08 :
A minute left, Johnny. So this is why not just Hamas, we expected from Hamas, but the United Nations criticizing the effort that you’re doing because it’s exposing the hypocrisy of the United Nations.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, and it’s all over the world. It’s not just in this conflict. There is not a conflict over the last decade where this broken, corrupt humanitarian system managed entirely by the United Nations has not prolonged and exacerbated these conflicts. And you can rest assured that this current war would have ended a long time ago if the UN wouldn’t have been complicit in all of this. And you know, the crazy thing is every day, despite all of this, we ask to help them get their food to more people because people need help, but they don’t want help from us because apparently the light we’re shining on them is just a little too bright.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. That is some valuable information of an interview that Tony had with Reverend Johnny Moore. It took place on the program This Week on Capitol Hill. And Johnny Moore is chairman of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s effort to send food aid directly to the Palestinian people. If you would like to see the entirety of that interview, you can do so by going to thisweekoncapitalhill.com, thisweekoncapitalhill.com, or of course you can have our Stand Firm app and watch it as well. Listen, we also have a letter out there for you. Speaking of Israel, you can sign on to the letter that we’re asking President Trump to resist any initiatives that would call on Israel to exchange some of their land for uncertain promises. And you can join that letter by texting LETTER to 67742. All right, after the break, we have an outrageous case coming out of New York and conservatives, pro-lifers in the crosshairs. Stay tuned.
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Family Research Council is committed to advancing faith, family, and freedom from the East Coast to the West. So FRC is going to Southern California for this year’s Pray, Vote, Stand Summit, October 17th and 18th at Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills. Join us for this powerful gathering of Christians desiring cultural renewal and spiritual revival. The Pray, Vote, Stand Summit brings together Christian leaders, issue experts, and government officials for a time of prayer, inspiration, and action. Together, we will seek God’s guidance for our nation and engage in meaningful discussions on the intersection of faith, government, and culture. If the spiritual foundations and the cultural walls of our nation are to be rebuilt, we all have a role to play. May we each find our place on the wall as we build for biblical truth. Register now at PrayVoteStand.org. That’s PrayVoteStand.org.
SPEAKER 06 :
Jennifer, it’s so exciting to be here with you today talking about our new book, Embracing God’s Design. Who is actually going to benefit from reading this book in your view?
SPEAKER 23 :
There’s so many different audiences that can benefit. The first one are counselors themselves, because we have some material in there where we really address the gender dysphoria diagnosis and what is wrong with it. We have information for people who are wanting to go back to embracing God’s design for their life.
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This is really magical to have the therapist and the individual who suffered come together and write about why this is happening and why we’re seeing this.
SPEAKER 23 :
And we brought all of that experience to the table. We want to see people walking in the fullness of who God has called them to be and not a false identity.
SPEAKER 07 :
Order today at embracethedesign.com.
SPEAKER 20 :
How should Christians think about the thorny issues shaping our culture? How should Christians address deceitful ideas like transgenderism, critical theory, or assisted suicide? How can Christians navigate raising children in a broken culture, the war on gender roles, or rebuilding our once great nation? Outstanding is a podcast from The Washington Stand dedicated to these critical conversations. Outstanding seeks to tear down what our corrupt culture lifts up with an aim to take every thought and every idea captive to the obedience of Christ. Whether policies or partisan politics, whether conflict in America or conflict abroad, join us and our guests as we examine the headlines through the lens of Scripture. and explore how Christians can faithfully exalt Christ in all of life. Follow Outstanding on your favorite podcast app and look for new episodes each week.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good afternoon. Welcome back to Washington Watch. I am your August host, Jody Heiss. Glad to have you joining us today. Hope you caught the ad that just ran. It’s time to go ahead now and mark your calendars. The PrayVote Stand Summit is coming up October 17th and 18th this year. It’s going to be on the West Coast at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in California. And friends, I’ll tell you, this is a powerful, powerful event. brings together Christian leaders, issue experts, government officials. It’s a powerful time of prayer and inspiration and action. I encourage you to go ahead now, visit PrayVoteStand.org and learn more about the conference and how you can register today. All right, it’s a well-known fact at this point in our nation’s history that New York’s Attorney General Letitia James is shall we say a pro at politically motivated charges against her opponents. I mean, just look at President Trump’s yearlong history of conflict with Attorney General James since he became president. I mean, literally hundreds of millions of dollars in fines that the president is still fighting in court. Well, the latest victim with Attorney General James’ politically motivated punitive actions is the New York Families Foundation’s executive director, Jason McGuire. You may have heard of all of this by now. He’s been on this program, in fact, many times in the past. The New York Families Foundation is one of many family policy councils nationwide that work to promote faith, family, and freedom. And they do so at the state level, whatever state they may be on. Well, we’ve got a developing situation coming out of New York. And joining me now to unpack this situation is Craig DeRoche. He’s the president and CEO of the Family Policy Alliance. Craig, welcome back to Washington Watch. It’s great to have you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Jody, it’s a real privilege to be with here. It’s a pretty dark thing going on, but one that God’s got his hands on and the audience needs to hear about.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, amen to both of those facts, and I want you to unpack it for us. Before we get there, maybe let’s start with a little historical backdrop of all of this. If you can kind of give us a little bit of history in terms of New York’s Attorney General Letitia James as it relates specifically to politically motivated investigations against conservatives, we’ll just put it that way, generally speaking, and pro-lifers, but conservatives.
SPEAKER 10 :
Nope. absolutely so it’s become more common that uh we know that liberal prosecutors uh use prosecutors in america don’t have checks and balances like other elected offices they get their budget and then they kind of are off to the races the checks and balances are supposed to be defense attorneys but uh only donald trump and she made it even hard for a former president united states billionaire to keep up with her because she can leverage the entire weight and power of the government And she’s not doing it to follow any legal basis under the color of law in her job. She just has been using it as a political organizer for several years now. It hasn’t caught up to her, but with what she’s doing with President Trump and now what she’s doing with Jason McGuire, there’s a lot of people even on the left, Jody, that are saying this could wind up costing New York many millions, if not more than hundreds of millions, as well as end up putting her behind bars with some of the investigations are uncovering about her actual criminal activity in these endeavors.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. All right. So let’s narrow this down. What’s happening in the case now with our friend, New York Families Foundation Executive Director Jason McGuire. You mentioned this. So wind it down. Sum it up for us. What’s going on there?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so what happened was Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, it is her place to look after nonprofits. She just hasn’t done it before for anybody except for Christian conservative ones or the President of the United States. And what she did was… She went on what Donald Trump, the president, calls a witch hunt, and people might not know what that means, but she was using her power to subpoena documents and hire forensic auditors to look for T-crossings and I-dottings with the hopes that she could find something. There wasn’t any crime committed. She did this for three years. She subpoenaed over 7,000 documents and had scores of attorneys and staff people doing this. And what she found after all these years in 2025 was that there were six receipts missing from a filing that should have been included in 2019. And that is the letter of the law. He had the receipts. He just didn’t include them. He didn’t steal money, didn’t do anything. But to the letter of the law, that is actually a violation. So we’re negotiating, and he’s negotiating. He’s raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. He’s using every tactic to try to get him in jail on this side of the state, his wife in another county, and the other side to separate the family while they’re raising their kids. Maximum pressure. It was all to get our donor lists. And he showed up at the end of the thing and said, wait a second. All I was doing is missing their receipts. Here they are. And they said that’s the letter of the law. They got the judge to say the next step is you have to turn over your donor list. So he said, well, then I’m guilty. you know, and thinking, whatever, I’ll just pay a fine. You don’t get to do what the NAACP won the victory from the Supreme Court in 1958 to do, to become the thought police. And the judge, radically, along with the prosecutor, said, we’ll teach you Christians a lesson. Until you get under our heel, until you hand over your sermons and your donor lists, you will spend time incarcerated. So he was incarcerated until 6 a.m. this morning, and he’s got to go back Jody, for six more weekends. That is the banana republic justice system in New York State that is being carried out right now as I’m on the show.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I mean, that’s just, it is so disturbing to think that this is actually happening right here in the United States. As I understand it, this is not the first time that the New York Families Foundation has been targeted. Am I correct in that?
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s what I’m saying. So they targeted them for this thing, and actually it was from a 2018 campaign, Jody, if you can imagine this. That’s what we mean by lawfare. If you can imagine, and now there’s been some scrutiny on Letitia James where people have, she’s been out there pointing out to 330 Americans how badly they stink at their life and that she’s willing to lock up everybody except for Diddy, it seems, is a criminal in New York with serious charges. And she comes after these folks and people are starting to say to her, wait a second, you’re filling out, mortgage applications with fraudulent information, which actually is criminal intent. When people don’t turn in their receipts on some paperwork filing, that’s what we call a mistake in America. And then, Jody, what happened after this was pointed out to her As we, you know, we push back on our side against Pride Month, they seem to embrace it. When she was pointed out the errors of her ways, she doubled down. She issued a press release saying he stole $16,000 from the nonprofit. She’s had since 2018 to investigate that. he was the ceo he’s allowed to pay himself sixteen thousand dollars a year that’s pretty underpaid for new york from what i’ve been reading she accused him of stealing that there’s he paid taxes whatever it was there’s no irs or whatever so she feels so empowered right now jody to cover up she’s incarcerating a christian for not handing over his donor list that she’s now trying to say he stole 16 000 and she’s had seven years to enter that into a court record so we’re just trying to bring this forward we’re so grateful to washington watch We’re still the little guys, right? Donald Trump got to, you know, her lawfare got to be on the news. Our guy’s already been incarcerated for four nights, and we’re trying to get your audience to plug in and get behind pray vote stand. We’re going to be there, Jody, by the way. All of our groups are going to be there. We hope you’re all there, but we need your support right now to help Jason. We need this issue to become known in America, what she’s doing to smaller people besides the governors and the president.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Have you ever seen anything like this? I mean, let’s just, I can’t think of a situation, but from what you’re describing, I mean, we’re talking a misdemeanor of that amounts to at least allegedly paperwork errors and he’s spending time in jail.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, two weekends already, and he already has his wrongful incarceration in his defamation suits. But folks, our law system is designed to be slow, and he’ll get his relief. He’ll probably never have to work again in a few years. But right now, a human being is incarcerated because he’s trying to stand up for the lives of the unborn. That’s what this is over. She wanted our donor list. She wanted to suppress this, trying to protect women in girls sports. That’s all that this thing is about. And unfortunately, Jody, yeah, you’re talking to a guy that got prosecuted in 2010 for two and a half years for possession of a firearm while intoxicated and I didn’t even have a gun. Liberals, when they can take down a conservative, I won that case, by the way. You can read all the headlines, but it’s published law. They literally made it up. And people weren’t used to that back in 2010 for police and prosecutors to manufacture an event and prosecute a former speaker of the House in Michigan. But absolutely, I worked, Chuck Colson hired me the first day I met him. I could give you story after story after story of the most egregious things you’ve ever heard, but know this coming from me and from the Chuck Holson of the world. There are people that are Christians that did things wrong, and I’m one of them. God has used me in my experience to benefit other people. So this isn’t about me. It’s about seeing a case very clearly. I could see, I sat in the front row of Rosa Parks Funeral, and I could see who Riley Gaines was instantly. It took America seven years to figure out that Rosa was just there first. Riley had worked for 10,000 hours and 20 years to get her seat. a much more egregious outstep. And on this, I worked for justice reform for 15 years and stood next to Donald Trump. That’s one of the pictures behind me, signing the first step back. And people thought that that was squishy or weird. It’s not. Our constitution, the left warps it to take away our life as Christians when we’re breathing after we’re born, equally the same way as they try to take away our liberty and our freedom and our life before we’re born. It’s evil and it needs to be confronted. It’s already in the Constitution. And this is what unifies, I think, the social conservative movement.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Craig, do you think that this is what’s happening in New York, what you’re describing happening more broadly? Is this… a hostility against conservative family values? Is this more widely a spiritual battle for the soul of our nation that we’re watching across the country? How would you describe what you’re seeing as this type of thing is broadening?
SPEAKER 10 :
What I’d say is it’s the same people doing the same things for the same reasons that they did it to black people in the 50s, that they did to women before they allowed them to vote and everything else. There’s a certain group of people that are under the possession of the evil one. And they know that if human beings are treated equally and given dignity, and if their life and their liberty comes from the hand of God, that means that everybody from AOC to this prosecutor, Letitia James, all the way up to Donald Trump. can’t tell them who lives or dies. That’s what America is. It’s an affront to the devil because that’s our freedom and our liberty. And that’s what they’ve been trying to do since Thomas Jefferson wrote that we’re all created equal. This is the belly of the beast. And usually they only do this about abortion. But in this case, Jodi, she’s crossed so many lines using the criminal justice. I believe that liberals and progressives, how can they defend her actions? They just spent the last 20 years talking about incarcerating people that act like she’s acting. So this is one that I really think we need to talk about.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. How do, real quickly, how do we need to be praying about this situation with Jason?
SPEAKER 10 :
Pray for Jason that God is already using him just to guard his heart and to be safe physically with what she’s trying to torture him physically and mentally. Spiritually, the spirit is vibrating off of Jason, as you’d expect. I hope when he’s through this, come back on your show. But be praying for Letitia James, too. She is… setting herself up to be one of these American figures that books will be written about that we have to move on from to progress toward that more perfect union, the arc of justice bending toward humanity and justice that Martin Luther King talked about. She’s an example of what we need to get rid of in public policy. I’m not trying to say that as a person. I wrote in one of my pieces today, I probably did worse things when I was Speaker of the House of Michigan than she does as Attorney General. It doesn’t mean you don’t call people out. It doesn’t mean you don’t remove them for office, for cause when they’re acting this way. It’s extra constitutional. And she is literally the tip of the spear of what is wrong with lawfare in America.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Shifting gears real quickly, we’ve just got a couple of minutes, but the Family Policy Alliance just recently wrapped up another very successful social conservative policy conference. What were some of your big public policy takeaways from that event?
SPEAKER 10 :
So folks, here’s the thing. You heard my frustration before, and I’ve had to spend time in jail for things I did wrong. So I’m angry today, maybe a little more than the spirit would have me be angry, but I am so full of hope. Thank you for saying that, Jody. We had such a big event for all. There’s over, I think, over 350 different social conservative groups, groups as big as Focus on the Family and ADF and and first liberty and people like that and and folks the core everybody knows that family research council and family policy alliance are kind of like sister organizations frc does a lot of federal stuff we we have a lot of strength in the states and jody i think it was just really a powerful one-two punch because a lot of the social conservative progress we’ve been making over the last decade was in the states right and but now it’s ripe for us to do it in congress we have a lot of bipartisan support for some of the ending this gender insanity we’re hearing some breakthroughs on that that was really the breakthrough i think that the gender insanity uh is showing signs of abating the public polling on that is about 85 to 15 if you’re wondering how long it’s going to take for gavin newsom and gretchen whitmer to come around but but they’re still fighting it but we are clearly winning on that one jody
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I could not agree with you anymore. And I think that certainly has to be a priority going forward, both on the state level as well as a federal. And, Craig, I just want to say thank you for standing the gap, your own battles, standing in this for so many battles, so much water under the bridge of your life and your leadership and willingness to stand up and be counted. I just want to personally say and do so publicly. Thank you. We deeply appreciate it. And thank you for joining us today on Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you. I want to say who introduced me to Tony Perkins the first time was Chuck Colson. So I just want to leave you with that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Awesome. That’s great. Thank you, Craig D. Roche of the Family Policy Alliance. We appreciate it. All right, friends, that wraps up this edition of Washington Watch. Hope you have a fantastic remainder of your day and we’ll be right back here with you again tomorrow for more cutting news on Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 12 :
Washington Watch with Tony Perkins is brought to you by Family Research Council and is entirely listener supported. Portions of the show discussing candidates are brought to you by Family Research Council Action. For more information on anything you heard today or to find out how you can partner with us in our ongoing efforts to promote faith, family, and freedom, visit TonyPerkins.com.
