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On this episode of Washington Watch, host Jody Heiss dives into the aftermath of the historic 43-day U.S. government shutdown. Discover the significant economic and social challenges it presented and how the administration plans to navigate the reopening of federal programs. We also explore the impactful trade deals President Trump has secured with Latin American nations, offering a unique glimpse into the geopolitical strategies shaping the future of the U.S. economy. Further, we turn our focus to the Catholic Bishops Conference’s bold stance against gender-affirming care in hospitals and how it might affect millions across America. And, as executive
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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 13 :
Yeah, I mean, it did cost us real percentages on the GDP. It cost us probably trillions of dollars when it’s all said and done, literally. I mean, it’s the longest shutdown in history, as you noted. And there are real consequences for that kind of nonsense. And it’s going to take us a while to get back, but we’re right back at it. I mean, the Republican Party, all of us said from the very beginning that this is an unnecessary thing.
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That was House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier today speaking about the financial consequences of the 43-day government shutdown that ended this past Wednesday. Welcome to this November 14th edition of Washington Watch. I’m your Friday host, Jody Heiss. Thank you so much for joining us. Coming up… The government is slowly reopening, but that 43-day shutdown still hit extremely hard. The White House says it costs the economy some $15 billion per week. Congressman Glenn Grothman will be joining us next to discuss the impact and what’s ahead for Congress. Plus, Tina Deskovich, CEO of Moms for Liberty, will be joining us to explain President Trump’s new executive order fostering the future of American children and families and what it means for all of American families. All right, you’ve heard us all say it over and over. It was the longest U.S. government shutdown in history, but it’s now all over, although the effects are still being felt. About 1.25 million federal workers went unpaid during that 43-day period of time. Programs like the Head Start program, SNAP, food benefits, all of those were massively disrupted. Air traffic was hit hard with flight delays and cancellations due to controller shortages. The White House economic advisor, Ken Hassett, says that the shutdown cost the U.S. economy roughly $15 billion per week. Joining me now is Washington Stand reporter Casey Harper. Casey, the government is slowly, slowly reopening. What steps is the administration taking to ensure that this reopening is a smooth process?
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right, Jody. The U.S. government’s a big machine. It takes a moment to get going. But the longest government shutdown in U.S. history is officially over. Now, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced $10,000 bonuses for TSA officers who took extra shifts and showed, quote, exemplary service during the 43-day closure, while President Trump has proposed similar rewards for air traffic controllers.
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What I’m so proud of, though, today and what I’m here talking about today is the outstanding patriotism and service of our TSA officers and officials that stepped up every single day to make sure that those individuals at our airports and at our transportation systems continued to be safe and secure while they went about their daily lives and limited the impact on those families that relied so much on getting to where they needed to be on time.
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Now, this shutdown forced 50,000 of those TSA officers and 13,000 air traffic controllers to work without pay. Of course, some couldn’t do it, which caused long airport lines, thousands of flight delays and cancellations. Airlines are now urging the FAA to ease domestic flight cuts as operations gradually return to normal. and FAA employees have begun to receive partial back pay. Meanwhile, critical federal programs are restarting. SNAP, which is commonly known as food stamps, is set to resume next week and provide food benefits to those families who went without that support during the shutdown, Jody.
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Well, thank you, Casey. I wanted to get this from you as well. The Justice Department is taking action against California, in fact, taking the state to court over their new redistricting map. Do you know what’s at the heart, really, of that lawsuit?
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right, Jody. So what’s going on here is the Trump administration is taking a hard stand against California’s new redistricting map. They’re calling them an unconstitutional power grab. The DOJ has joined a lawsuit challenging Proposition 50, which is a successful ballot measure that could hand Democrats as many as five extra House seats and a new congressional map. Attorney General Pam Bondi says California, quote, tramples civil rights by drawing districts based explicitly on race, a move the administration argues is illegal and designed to lock in Democratic dominance. California Democrats argue they’re just offsetting similar gains made in Texas. Either way, it looks like this redistricting question we’re seeing around the country could be resolved in the courts, Jody.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow. That’s going to be very interesting to watch. Let me put this out to you, too, Casey. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has designated several left-wing European groups as terrorist organizations. Can you bring us up to speed on those designations?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, Jody, the U.S. is taking a major step against left-wing extremism. So, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated four Antifa-linked groups in Germany, Italy and Greece as global terrorists. He said the move strengthens President Trump’s effort to confront Antifa’s pattern of political violence, which we’ve seen here in the U.S. Rubio says these groups openly embrace anarchist and Marxist ideology, and they’ve actually carried out assaults and bomb attacks across Europe. He added that they’ve targeted police, government buildings, and people that they label as right-wing. Germany’s Antifa group has been tied to multiple violent attacks, with several members arrested over the past year alone. Rubio emphasized the U.S. will use all available tools to stop extremist violence and warned that more Antifa-aligned organizations worldwide could soon be targeted.
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All right, Casey, thank you very much for keeping us up to speed on these big issues happening in our country. I want to go back now to the discussion on the effects of the government shutdown and preview at the same time what’s next on the agenda for Congress. And joining me now to discuss this and more is Congressman Glenn Grothman. He serves on several House committees, including the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He represents the 6th Congressional District of Wisconsin. Congressman Grothman, welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to see you.
SPEAKER 19 :
Glad to be on the show, Jody, and glad to have a chance to talk to you again. We served, as you know, what, eight years together in the U.S. Congress.
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Yep, absolutely. Sat side by side, in fact, on the oversight committee. So let’s talk about this. Yesterday, the White House released some perhaps not so surprising data on the Schumer shutdown. The National Economic Council director, Kevin Hassett, actually said that the Democratic shutdown cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 billion per week, a stunning amount of money. Were you surprised by that finding? Well, it was a little bit high.
SPEAKER 19 :
I’ll tell you what surprised me, Jody. When they finally reached a deal, including Democrats making the deal, and the Democrats did get some things in this deal we can talk about in a minute, I was shocked that only six of the 215 Democrats who are congressmen voted to reopen the government. Even after a deal was reached, 209 Democrat congressmen wanted to keep the government closed. And we were just getting to a point where it was really affecting people. I mean, two or three weeks in, I don’t have a big government presence in my district. The major thing I was getting at home is, you know, who cares? It doesn’t affect me. And it affected very few people. But we were just getting at the point where it was causing airline travel to slow down. We were getting to the point where EBT or food stamps was not being paid. And anyway, 219 Democrats, I think just because they personally don’t like President Trump, said, no, we want to keep the government closed. Like I said, it surprised me. I don’t know what you say if you’re running for reelection and saying that, you know, this far in, you still didn’t want to open the government. But that’s the way it was.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep. And we’ll see how that all goes. As I mentioned, introducing you, you serve on the Oversight Committee, which is very much responsible for checking into any area of our government where there is waste, fraud and abuse. So overall, a very, very busy committee. But when you look at the Schumer shutdown, as it’s been called, of course, millions of Americans were deprived of their SNAP benefits and so forth. But Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins also found some disturbing news of fraud and abuse in the program, a host of things, among which was some 5,000 dead people who are still receiving benefits. Your reaction to that?
SPEAKER 19 :
It’s a complete mess. And they ought to send these things back to the state. This is true whenever you have such a large country. We’re right now at a position in which we have over 40 million people on food stamps. It’s not surprising. We have a lot of illegal immigrants on the program. We have dead people on the program. We have people probably working for cash on the program. It’s filled with fraud. And like I said, as far as I’m concerned, they can send it back to the states or counties who I think would be a little bit more on the ball as far as preventing this from happening. Not to mention, I took the time during the shutdown to tour some of my local food banks. There are food banks all around the country. I happened to tour three in the 6th Congressional District. And one of the things you notice is how much more the volunteer organizations, the churches, and the food banks care about the people they’re giving food to. You don’t see, as you go through those lines, Pop-Tarts. You don’t see Mountain Dew. You don’t see other, what I’ll refer to as junk food. On the national level, when Congress votes for this stuff, you know, they’re getting PAC checks. from the food processors to keep every piece of garbage out there. And it shows, it shows, you know, the uncaring Congress and what they’re giving people, particularly when we got an obesity epidemic in America. diabetes epidemic. So I think that’s one of the things that we learned. And I hope that Congress, next time we reauthorize the food stamp program, we’re saying only real food. Not this crap, which is not good for Americans and quite frankly is a benefit that on some foods your average American cannot afford, but the people on food stamps can.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good point. Let me switch gears with you, if I can. The Jeffrey Epstein scenario is still a major focal point in Congress, unfortunately, I guess. But Democrats on the Oversight Committee released some additional Epstein documents. Your reaction to what they released?
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, I think it’s always interesting the more you get, you know, names of famous people that show up. They keep looking for something. And for President Trump, they weren’t able to find anything there one more time. But it’s a sign of the moral decline in America that they apparently got hundreds, if not thousands, of men to go out on this island. And some quite famous ones, like a lot of Americans, I’ll be watching as we release more and more documents.
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We’ll see how that unfolds. And of course, the swearing in of Representative Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, she will now be the 218th, the deciding vote to release the discharge petition on the Epstein files. So that’s coming forward. In fact, Speaker Johnson said going to be voting probably next week. What do you anticipate the discharge petition is going to do? Is that going anywhere? Well,
SPEAKER 19 :
It’s going to pass because, like you just said, we have 218 votes already. I don’t know what the Senate’s going to do with it. I am curious as to what is being hidden. I know President Trump feels we’re releasing enough on the oversight committee. We don’t have to do any more. We’re gonna be winding up exposing innocent victims of this thing, but we’ll see how the vote works out. To me, I think politically the government wants it and it would be nice if our speaker just said, everybody vote yes and let the chips fall where they may.
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Well, that might be exactly what happens. We shall see. Thank you so much, Wisconsin Congressman Glenn Grothman. Always great to see you, my friend. Glad to be on the show. All right. Coming up, President Trump has just signed a slew of trade deals with several Latin American countries. So what’s in those deals? How will it impact America? How will it impact our economy? Well, we’ll discuss all of that after the break with our next guest, Dr. Dave Brat. So stay with us. We’ll be right back.
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For over 4,000 years, the Jewish people have had legal, historical, and biblical ties to the land of Israel, especially the heartland of Israel, Judea and Samaria, which much of the world still calls the West Bank. To Israelis, Judea and Samaria is far more than a name. It’s the center of their ancestral homeland where nearly 80% of the Bible’s events took place. Abraham purchased property in Hebron, Jacob in Shechem, Joshua made an altar on Mount Ebal and led the Israelites into a covenant before God. On Mount Gerizim, overlooking Shechem, Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well about worshiping neither on Mount Gerizim nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth. Judea and Samaria is nearly a quarter of Israel’s current land mass, not a small strip of land on the Jordan River, but a vital and strategic part of the nation’s identity. The October 7th massacre, launched from Gaza, shattered the illusion that giving away territory brings peace. Gaza, which was once seen as the cornerstone of a two-state solution, became a launchpad for terror. Today, only 21 percent of Israelis support a Palestinian state. Trust in a two-state solution has all but collapsed. The Middle East is changing. Iran’s grip is weakening. New alliances are forming. But Western countries and some U.S. officials still chase the mirage of a two-state solution. History speaks clearly. The 2005 Gaza withdrawal, backed by the U.S., led not to peace, but to a terrorist regime. Judea and Samaria are 24 times larger than Gaza, deeply woven into Israel’s geographic and spiritual fabric. To surrender them would not bring peace. It would invite conflict and existential danger. Family Research Council stands with Israel’s rightful claim to sovereignty. It’s time for America to do the same for history, for justice, and for lasting security in the Middle East.
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Welcome back to Washington Watch. I’m your Friday host, Jody Heiss. Thank you so much for tuning in today. All right. Yesterday, President Trump announced some major trade deals with several Latin American nations. The trade agreements with Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala will help greater streamline market access between the nations. So what do these trade deals entail? And more broadly, how will the state of the U.S. economy be impacted by all of this? And will it move the needle in terms of where our economy is? Well, joining me now to give his assessment is Dr. Dave Brat. He’s a senior vice president of business relations at Liberty University. And like me, a former member of Congress. And it was an honor to serve together with Dr. Dave Brat. Dr. Brat, welcome to Washington Watch. Always great to see you.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hey, thanks for having me on, Jody. You too.
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You bet. All right. Give me your assessment of these trade deals with Latin American countries.
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Yeah, well, most economists, they’re supposed to model the real world. And what they leave out from the real world in economics is geopolitics, right? They’re just treating tariffs like they’re taxes and that alone. If you’re just doing a textbook study, that might not be optimal. But Trump’s using these to level the playing field, right? The G20, the richest 20 countries on the globe, have two WE HAVE A LOWER TARIFF BARRIERS THAN WE HAVE ON THEM. WE HAVE A LOWER TARIFF BARRIERS Right. Two to three times, 200 to 300 percent. And so that that’s what Trump’s overall goals are. Now, he slapped them on and, you know, everybody everybody would like business would like, you know, confidence and certainty going forward. And so now with this affordability issue, you know, President Trump’s going back and forth with these countries, kind of micro fine tuning things on certain product groups like coffee and cocoa, et cetera. if it can be shown that we don’t produce them here, which is largely the case. And so, you know, it would have been ideal to have, you know, certain flat rate tariffs fair set way ahead of time. But that’s not the real world, right? The real world is, you know, different countries have different leaders who are, to different degrees, America first and respectful of the U.S., We’re paying still, right, for the world’s geopolitical stability, right? The Europeans, Trump, you know, a couple of years ago said, you guys need to pay your fair share. And they are now. They’re going up from one or two percent of GDP spent on military and defense and patrolling the seas to three or four, in some cases, five percent, even India. you know, who’s been relatively quiet, you know, on that front, taking responsibility for the size of their economy and people are starting to play a role. So Trump should be commended for the huge moves on geopolitics. And we’ll, you know, we’ll ride out the little ripples on the certain products and good cases as they unfold.
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Yeah, it’s a difficult area to navigate through all of that. Let me ask you a little bit more broadly. What’s your assessment of the economy right now as a whole?
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Yeah, well, I’ve been yelling at everybody up in D.C. as loud as I can. They’re not listening. I told them, don’t start cheerleading and don’t take ownership of that economy. Because, you know, a few big things, right? Inflation, GDP growth, jobs, capital investment, right? So let’s just go through them real quick. Inflation, Biden had 20% inflation, 21% inflation over his four years. Trump was at 1.41% prior to Biden. So huge inflation under Biden, and unfortunately, prices ratchet up 20%, but they never come down. And so when people say affordability, yes, they’re feeling that, and it’s real, and Trump needs to explain, that ain’t me. That was Biden and the Federal Reserve printing way too much money out of COVID. So that’s number one. Two, long run, Trump’s doing everything right. We just went over the tariffs. And so he’s bringing in $2 trillion pledges in capital investment U.S. and over $10 trillion in capital coming in from abroad. That capital is the number one determinant of economic growth. So that will guaranteed help the economy going forward. But that capital probably takes two, three, four years to even start having its effect. And so then, you know, GDP growth, the Atlanta Fed has us growing at four right now. It’s been two. You know, the long-run trajectory is only two. And so one thing that politicians don’t pay any attention to is education. If you want the economy to get going, you cannot have 12% literacy rates, 12% reading rates for poor kids in Chicago’s inner city. How in the world are you going to have an economy, right? If Trump does that… hits it, right, that the black, brown, blue collar workers will stay strong with Trump if he shows he really cares about them. And so that’s just a quick overview of the fundamentals of the economy, not the stock market. Stock market’s different. That just goes to the rich top 10%.
SPEAKER 03 :
Interesting, interesting perspective and thoughts with all that. Let me ask you this. There’s been so much talk with the government shutdown and now talk of the impact, some $15 billion a week estimated. Do we have any idea of how the government shutdown will impact the government and potentially our economy?
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Well, I don’t want to detract from the pain it’s causing to government workers and soldiers and military and all that. But in the big scheme of things, those numbers are not in the trillions. And so we’ll get past that. The bigger thing is to expose what the Democrats are doing. They’re just full-on socialists right now. They want endless government spending and an endless size of the government sector, which, of course, slows down economic growth, increases the debt and deficits, and it’s like competing with Santa Claus. And our side, sooner or later, has to fight that fight. We cannot let it go on, even though it’s going to be a painful fight. We have to take on the Democrat philosophy of endless government spending or this country is going to go down the tubes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it really is something that we’re going to have to hit face on. Do you see Congress having the will to do that?
SPEAKER 12 :
No, no, not at all. Congress, I mean, you know, as well as I do and everybody, they don’t, we promised back when I was in there that we’re going to repeal Obamacare, right? For seven years, we promised that. And then we didn’t do the one thing we promised. And so, you know, I want a contract with America on the border invasion, 20 million, on the endless wars, on the inflation, on jobs, getting the kids housing affordability, you etc. We need a contract with America. Mike Johnson needs a contract and Thune, and they better have it out in six months with results in six months of something happening because the big, beautiful bill ain’t cutting it. We just had elections in Virginia, California, and Jersey, and you saw it. Yep.
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Maybe they’re listening to this program right now. Thank you so much, Dr. Dave Brat, Liberty University. I do, too. Always great to see you. Best to you and your family. You, too, brother. All righty. All right, coming up, Mobs for Liberty’s Tina Deskovich will join me to highlight another great Trump executive order. Stay with us.
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Three years ago, the Supreme Court issued its historic Dobbs decision, a ruling that overturned Roe versus Wade, which for nearly 50 years imposed abortion on demand, silencing voters and bypassing the democratic process across the country. The Dobbs decision was a huge step forward against abortion, but it didn’t outright ban it. It returned the power to the people. Now, 29 states have laws on the books protecting life. However, there’s a catch. Abortion numbers since Dobbs have actually gone up with an increase of 12% since 2020, climbing from 930,000 to over 1 million in each of the most recent years. So how can this be? The answer is simple, the abortion drug. Today, over 60% of US abortions involve abortion drugs, many of these without medical oversight. In 2021, the Biden administration quietly removed bare minimum longstanding safety protocols for the abortion drug that have existed for 20 years to protect women from life-threatening risks and ensuring informed consent. The Biden DOJ then declared that they would not enforce the Comstock Act, which prevents the mailing of anything that causes an abortion. This is not only illegal, but also dangerous. A study shows nearly 11% of women who take the abortion drug end up in the emergency room with serious complications. Unless the Trump administration reverses these reckless Biden-era policies, pro-life laws will remain largely symbolic. Without a full review and repeal of Mifepristone, unborn lives will remain in grave danger, and pregnant mothers will remain at risk. Let’s stand for life and end this mail order abortion drug pipeline. Sign the petition urging the Trump administration to take action at frc.org slash stop chemical abortion.
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Good afternoon. Welcome back to Washington Watch. I’m your Friday host, Jody Heiss. Thank you so much for tuning in. All right. Yesterday at the White House, President Trump signed another executive order, one titled Fostering the Future of American Children and Families. It’s an order from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wide effort. Its purpose is to promote the welfare of foster children and also protect the constitutional rights of foster parents. So what all more specifically does this executive order call for? I think that’s a fascinating discussion. And here now to discuss it with me is Moms for Liberty CEO Tina Deskovich. She was actually at the White House for the signing of this executive order. Tina, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thank you for joining us.
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It’s a pleasure to be here with you today.
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All right. Now, some people may be scratching their heads wondering why it was an executive order like this necessary. So why don’t we start there? Why was it necessary and what’s your overall assessment of it?
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So in America, we have a problem lately of neglecting our most vulnerable children in the country. And I think it really came to light during COVID when we put children in the back seat, basically kept schools closed, listening to special interest groups, listening to teachers unions and their needs and their political desires, putting them ahead of children. And the children that suffered the most through that were the most vulnerable children, poor students, students and families in poverty, special needs students. It was remarkable to watch that unfold. And another area of society that has been neglected over the last several decades are children in foster care. One thing that we know for sure is only 50% of foster kids actually graduate high school and only 3% go on to earn a degree. And so the American dream should be available to all Americans, including our foster children.
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Absolutely. So let’s kind of springboard from there and give us a reality, because I know there’s many who are watching, listening right now who either have already done so or are considering praying about becoming foster parents. Give us the reality of what many Christian mom and dads are looking for. Four, when it comes to this issue of fostering or adopting, what are some of the issues that they’re facing and what would you say to them as they’re going down this path to potentially foster a child?
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Of course, you have to prayerfully consider it before you bring anyone into your home, but is there a greater way to show Jesus’ love than to care for a child who has no parents or who has parents that have failed them miserably if they’ve ended up in foster care? In my opinion, there’s nothing more beautiful you can do than take on a foster child and raise them and nurture them. You know, I grew up in a home with a single mother, four children. My mother did not finish high school and it was a big struggle. I did not grow up in the foster care system, but I absolutely needed other adults in my life to help me be successful. I almost became a high school dropout myself. I absolutely had no intention of ever going to college, let alone graduating. But there were parents in my life of my friends that kind of took me in, drove me and said, I will take you to take the SAT. You’re going to take it. I’m going to pay the $25 because you need to have a bright future. And if adults, caring, loving adults didn’t step in in my life at that time, who knows where I would be today?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, great point. And, you know, at the same time, we have a lot of states, different agencies who are very hesitant at best when it comes to placing children with Christians. What are the reasons that these various states or agencies give for wanting to disallow Christians from adopting or being foster parents?
SPEAKER 17 :
One of the things that that executive order yesterday did was help protect against, I’d say, discrimination from states against Christian parents. And so we’re very thankful to First Lady Melania Trump and President Trump for that executive order yesterday. As you probably well know and your viewers know, in some states like Colorado and California, They say this is an LGBTQ rights issue. And so if you are a Christian in your home and you are raising your children with biblical principles, they say it’s a conflict to put a child in your home if you do not affirm transgender children.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow. So does this type of discrimination, I think that’s really what it boils down to, does it happen with parents of other faith backgrounds, or is this discrimination just reserved for Christians?
SPEAKER 17 :
What we’ve been seeing in America lately, it’s been reserved for Christians. I don’t know of any current cases of maybe a Muslim family or something of that nature, but I would assume that it would extend to other faiths. You know, we have more Christians than anything in the United States. And so we are obviously going to see more cases of that.
SPEAKER 03 :
I was really encouraged watching this yesterday, how President Trump made just some powerful references to scripture in signing this EO. How did that impact you?
SPEAKER 17 :
I always love when President Trump ventures over into Scripture and the spiritual natures of things. You know, 2015 leading up to 2016, I wasn’t so sure about President Trump. I had reservations. I had a hard time voting for him in 2016, even though I did. And just watching his spiritual growth over the years, and especially since what happened in Pennsylvania last year, it’s just been remarkable to witness. I have a lot of pleasure, and I get a big smile on my face. And to be in the room there while he is discussing Scripture and watching his spiritual growth is fun.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you know, I had the exact same feeling with that. And I had the same reservations that you did initially, really not knowing much about him. But to see how far he has come in his willingness to speak out boldly on these truths has just been fascinating. Thank you so much, Tina Deskovich, from Moms for Liberty. Always great to have you. We appreciate it.
SPEAKER 17 :
It’s been my pleasure. Have a great weekend.
SPEAKER 03 :
You too. Thank you. All right. Coming up, FRC’s David Claussen will join me for our weekly biblical worldview discussion. So stick around. We’ll be back in just a moment.
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Our founding scripture for this is Ephesians 6, verse 13. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day. And having done all to stand, stand therefore.
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Family Research Council’s Pray, Vote, Stand Summit 2025 brought together Christian leaders, issue experts, and government officials for a time of prayer, inspiration, and action.
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We are equipping the body of Christ to understand that what is happening around us is not just political, it’s not just cultural. At its heart, it is spiritual.
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We gather in a nation that has torn the foundation apart, and we have separated our governing documents from our divine source. Jesus Christ. We need truth now more than ever to guide us.
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I’m believing, God, let this be a testimony of the American church, that we become so full of the fire of the Word of God that we cannot contain it. We have to tell people about it. We have to make disciples.
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The idea of America was the idea that our rights don’t come from governments. They come from our divine creator, right? Government’s main job is to protect those rights. And because that was the foundation of America, we’ve enjoyed over the last 250 years more freedom, more prosperity, more stability than any other nation anywhere in the world. And that should be celebrated.
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We are living in a moment. What’s that moment? It’s a prophetic moment on God’s timeline. That’s right. And so he needs the church more than ever to act biblically for the blessing of our political leaders and of our nation.
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The number one issue facing America domestically, which is the epidemic of fatherlessness. 40% of all American children today enter the world without a father in the home married to the mother.
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We cannot win the pro-life fight without acknowledging that this is the pro-family fight, that this is the pro-marriage fight. We’re never going to end abortion if we do not secure and shore up marriage.
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We pray that this would be an opportunity, Lord God, for you to use us mere little mortals, but we possess the name of Jesus. God, use us mightily. We pray in Jesus’ name and all God’s people said, amen.
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SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to Washington Watch. Good afternoon. I am your Friday host Jody Heiss. Thank you for joining us. All right, before I get to my next guest, I wanted to let you know that the Stand on the Word store is officially open and just in time for Christmas. So we’ve put together a bunch of really meaningful resources inspired by the Stand on the Word Bible reading plan. These are resources that will encourage your walk with the Lord and help you share the Word with others. And so just for you to know, Christmas orders, by the way, need to be in by November 23rd. So now, now is the time to take a look at the store. Simply text the word STORE to 67742 to get the link. That’s STORE to 67742. All right. Earlier this week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted officially to prohibit Catholic hospitals from providing so-called gender transition and hormonal procedures. And the vote was 206 to 8, by the way. But the conference reaffirmed their stand for the biblical view of male and female. And this happened around the same time that a New Gallup poll showed a huge drop in American adults who say their faith is an important part of their daily life. So we want to discuss all of this and more with David Claussen, who’s the director of the Center for Biblical Worldview here at the Family Research Council. David, welcome back to Washington Watch. Always good to have you.
SPEAKER 16 :
Great to be with you, Jody.
SPEAKER 03 :
And happy Friday as always. All right, let’s start with this decision by the U.S. Catholic bishops to ban gender-affirming care, as some call it, but at Catholic hospitals. Of course, this follows a year-long process or so. So if you would, kind of unpack this decision for us.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, Jody, so this is obviously a very significant group of leaders. This is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. And specifically what they did after, as you mentioned, studying this issue for over a year long, is they approved revisions to their ethical and religious directives that specifically guide Catholic hospitals Now, this is really interesting. I honestly didn’t know this until I dove into this story, Jody. One out of every seven patients that goes to a hospital on a daily basis goes into one of the thousands of hospitals that are connected kind of with the Catholic hospital network and group of institutions and providers. So, again, this is no small group of hospital system. This covers thousands of institutions all over the country. And they just pretty much, in this decision, which was approved overwhelmingly, said that they will not provide what is kind of euphemistically called gender-affirming care. Now, of course, we know what that means, that those are surgical treatments, hormonal treatments, puberty blockers. Again, most of these treatments, especially the surgical, these are irreversible. very damaging, especially to young children. And I think that the Catholic bishops struck a good tone. I always advocate Ephesians 4.15. We speak the truth in love. In their statement, they said, you know, those who identify as transgender can obviously still receive care at our hospitals. They will be treated with respect and dignity. However, we are going to abide by Catholic social teaching. And I think that’s just really, really important. You know, I’m a Southern Baptist. Jodi, earlier this summer, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution that really clearly articulated what a biblical sexual ethic is on issues related to marriage and homosexuality and transgenderism. And of course, the Catholic Church has an outsized influence. And when they speak to an issue like this, it matters. It gets people’s attention. And so I’m grateful. This is a courageous decision. It’s one that accords with good medicine. It’s one, of course, that accords with biological truth. And this accords with Scripture and a kind of a Christian ethic of human dignity. So, grateful for this decision and hope other hospital systems that are run by faith groups take notice of this.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Do we know what type of response this has generated among others?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. One response that I saw the same day that this decision was made, there was a group of kind of theologically progressive denominations. I saw a list of signatures included the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Universalist Unitarian Group. And I THINK IT’S A GREAT IDEA. AND NO SURPRISE, THEY CAME OUT REALLY STRONG AGAINST THIS DECISION BY THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS. BUT THAT’S A STORY RIGHT THERE. THIS IS THE STORY OF THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM. IT WASN’T TOO LONG AGO I HAD A COLLEGE STUDENT ASK ME HERE IN WASHINGTON, D.C., WALKED BY A CHURCH AND SAID, HOW DO WE GET TO THE PLACE WHERE A CHURCH HAS A RAINBOW FLAG This is the fruit of theological liberalism. A hundred years ago, some of these mainline churches that began to get squeamish on biblical authority began to deny things like the virgin birth or a literal bodily resurrection. They made those decisions influenced by things like German higher criticism back in the 1920s, 1930s, Well, by the time the moral revolution is really hitting its stride in the late 60s and 70s, those were the churches that changed their position on things like marriage and sexuality and abortion. And the reason they could do that is a generation earlier, they had already abandoned biblical authority. So we shouldn’t at all be surprised when kind of the mainline theological liberal churches would protest something like THIS DECISION BY THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS ON GENDER AFFIRMING CARE BECAUSE, AGAIN, THESE ARE DENOMINATIONS AND CHURCHES THAT HAVE NOW REALLY NOT LOOKED TO THE BIBLE AS THEIR AUTHORITY FOR ABOUT 100 YEARS.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s well said, and it is true you abandon biblical truth, and there’s no good place you’re going to ultimately land for the good of people, for sure. And that kind of leads me to my next set of questions that I wanted to talk with you about, David. The New Gallup poll, which I referenced before bringing you on, shows a 17-point drop in in the percentage of U.S. adults who say that religion is an important part of their daily life. Now, we are watching right now a lot of discussion, at least, revolved around an uptick in identification with faith, and yet we have a 17-point drop in adults in this country who now say that their religious faith is important in their daily lives. How do we make sense of all of this?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, so I think there’s a couple ways to look at this, Jody. So this particular poll looks at the last 10 years. So in the last 10 years, there’s been this 17-point drop in Americans who say that religion is an important part of their daily life. So back in 2015, it was 66% of Americans who, again, answered affirmatively, religion’s really important. It’s a part of my everyday life. That’s now down to 49%. So right about at half, half Americans, half of Americans say that religion is an important part of their daily life. That feels about right to me, Jody, when you think about the latest trends that we’ve seen. Of course, the research we’ve done here at the Family Research Council with George Barnas shows that it’s only about 6% of Americans who actually have a consistent biblical worldview. Only 21% of regular churchgoers in evangelical churches have a consistent biblical worldview. And we know about 88 percent of our friends and neighbors have a syncretistic worldview, meaning they approach the question of worldview and kind of first principles kind of like you do a cafeteria. A little bit of this, a little bit of this, and ultimately their religion, their worldview is inherently contradictory. It’s incoherent, but they don’t realize it. They don’t care. about half of Americans saying that religion is important. Again, I think that makes sense. But on the other side of that, Jody, we have also seen, as you mentioned, incredible trends towards greater identification with faith. I’ll tell you, this weekend, Jody, I was in Arkansas with Tony Perkins. We both had an opportunity to speak at the Counteract USA event. About 600, 700 Gen Z Christians were there. And the energy in the room was palpable. AND WE TALKED ABOUT SOME OF THESE ISSUES, AND IT’S INCREDIBLE WITH GEN Z IN PARTICULAR, IT DOES SEEM THAT THERE MIGHT BE A REVIVAL. GEN Z IS ATTENDING CHURCH AT A HIGHER PERCENTAGE THAN ANY OTHER ADULT DEMOGRAPHIC. YOU AND I HAVE ALSO MENTIONED The downloads of Christian apps is up, I think, over 70% in the last five years. The streaming of Christian music is also up. Church attendance among younger generations, fueled in part by young men, is back to pre-COVID levels. So I think both of these things can be true. A snapshot of American religious life is about half of Americans think religion’s important. But I do think there are trends moving in the direction—again, this study looks at the last— 10 years, I’d be interested to see if they did it, you know, in the next five years to see if some of this is reversed.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I bet what you’re talking about there, we will see it reversed because, yeah, we’re seeing divine movements in college campuses all across the country. Seems like every week there’s another university or whatever that’s being talked about where hundreds of people are coming to Christ in baptism. So it would be interesting to see where this goes. Let me ask you this, David. The New York Times had an editorial piece they published regarding – calling for, I guess is the best way to say it, an enshrinement, if you will, of abortion rights. What did you make of this? And not just the piece itself, but the timing of it all.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, Jody, I think… IT’S OKAY IF FOLKS DON’T NORMALLY READ THE NEW YORK TIMES, BUT IT IS STILL THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWSPAPER IN THIS COUNTRY. IT HAS A LOT OF SWAY, PARTICULARLY AMONG PROGRESSIVE CIRCLES. AND EARLIER THIS WEEK, THE EDITORIAL BOARD REALLY DID DRAW A LINE IN THE SAND. THE EDITORIAL YOU’RE REFERRING TO IS TITLED ABORTION HAS REMAINED MOSTLY ACCESSIBLE. THAT MAY SOON CHANGE. SO EVEN IN THE TITLE, THERE’S THIS SENSE OF FORBODING OR THIS SENSE OF WARNING. And the piece basically says, you know, conservatives and liberals in one sense are both surprised that abortion numbers have actually gone up since Roe v. Wade was overturned rather than down. And they trace that to the availability of chemical abortion drugs. That’s an issue you and I have talked about now for well over a year, Jody. And so it’s really interesting that they acknowledge that abortion is up, particularly because of these pills. What’s interesting is they are sounding the alarm in this editorial board. They’re wanting their more progressive liberal readers to realize that those of us on the right, those of us who are political conservatives, those who are animated by their theological beliefs and the dignity of human life, that we’re not going away, that we’re continuing to try to protect life. And what was so interesting is they lay out several policy prescriptions actually in this editorial. They argue that Congress should get involved and pass abortion codifications that predate any of the laws, pro-life laws that were passed in the 90s. They call for the repeal of the Comstack law. which, again, that’s law that’s on the books, that’s currently not being enforced, that would prohibit these abortifacient drugs from being mailed across state lines. And what’s really interesting, Jody, one line that really stood out to me in this op-ed, they wrote that, ultimately, reproductive health care should be integrated into mainstream medicine. Now, that is just a bomb that they’re dropping here at the end of this op-ed. And those of us who, again, are fighting for the dignity of women and children need to realize that, again, those who are kind of in the pro-abortion camp, they feel that they have momentum on their side. After the off-year election where Democrats and pro-abortion politicians won those governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, of course, Zohan Mahmoud I’m Donnie winning the New York City mayoral race. They think that there’s some wind behind their back. And what seems clear to me is that the folks in the New York Times, Jody, they want Democrat candidates to run on abortion in the 2026 midterm elections. I think that’s where this energy is going. They think this could be a winning issue for them. And so, of course, that remains to be seen. But for those of us who have pro-life convictions because of our faith, because of our reading of Scripture, because of our view of human dignity and human rights, this editorial, I think, deserves our attention because we need to be the people that continue to make the argument for the dignity of unborn children. Because we don’t hold this issue because it’s a political issue. We hold it because we believe this is the side that God is on. And I think, Jody, we need to be the people that are making that argument in the months and years to come.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. And this is the time for Christians to stand up for life, to stand up for the biblical view of life. David, the last question, we’ve only got a couple of minutes, but I know you just returned from my old stomping grounds over at Capitol Hill. I believe you were sharing with some congressional staff about your new book. If you don’t mind, who all did you speak with and what did you have the opportunity to say to them?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, Jody, I know probably a lot of our listeners and viewers have probably been paying attention to the government shutdown. What you might not realize is that congressional staffers, so those who work for congressmen and senators, they’ve been going into work every day just without pay. And so I was actually invited by a group of congressional staffers that meet every Friday for a book club. So again, a lot of I assume a lot of viewers of this program might not think a lot of good happens on Capitol Hill, but I actually just want to encourage you. There was a room of congressional staffers that invited me to share about my pro-life book, Life After Roe. And then we had about 30 minutes of Q&A where we talked about why Christians hold pro-life convictions. What does the Bible actually say? So I shared actually from the scripture from Psalm 139 and Luke chapter 1. I shared about some of the research about regular churchgoers actually wanting their pastor saved. to speak on this issue. Some of these staffers asked me, what can we do in our churches? What should we say to our pastor? What should we say even to our member of Congress that we work for, for this issue? I think most of the people in the room were pro-life and they were wanting to be equipped And so again, I just left that meeting, Jody, incredibly encouraged that some of these people in key roles advising our lawmakers were looking for wisdom, guidance, and direction. And I hope that I pointed them to God’s word, pointed them to truth. And again, just to be encouraged that there are a lot of people doing really great work on the Hill for the Lord.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, David, thank you for doing that. I know that they were encouraged, and that’s one thing I try to share with people all the time. There are outspoken believers on Capitol Hill, and I’m glad you had an opportunity to be with many of them. David Claussen, Director of the Center for Biblical Worldview here at Family Research Center Council. We appreciate it so much. Have a great weekend. We’ll see you next week right here on Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 15 :
Washington Watch with Tony Perkins is brought to you by Family Research Council. To support our efforts to advance faith, family, and freedom, please text GIVE to 67742. That’s GIVE to 67742. Portions of the show discussing candidates are brought to you by Family Research Council Action. For more information, please visit TonyPerkins.com.
