In this episode, Homeland Security Committee hearings reveal deep political divides as lawmakers grapple with immigration enforcement. Host Tony Perkins breaks down essential conversations with prominent political figures, including Missouri Senator Josh Hawley. Gain an understanding of America’s standing in the global arena, including high-stakes discussions on U.S.-Israeli relations, the controversial Gaza peace deal, and more. This episode promises a thorough examination of the intense political landscape in Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER 21 :
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. Washington Watch with Tony Perkins starts now.
SPEAKER 07 :
Democrats keep talking about affordability. Republicans are delivering it. That’s the theme. That’s what happens here all the time. Democrats give you lots of talking points. And a lot of the outlets of the media amplify their messaging. But we are delivering actual results.
SPEAKER 08 :
That was House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier today as the House is anticipating the Democrats blocking funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which expires Friday. Welcome to this February 10th edition of Washington Watch. I’m your host, Tony Perkins. Thanks for joining us. Well, coming up, the House Homeland Security Committee held an oversight hearing on the Department of Homeland Security. Oklahoma Congressman Josh Birkin, a committee member, will join us later in the program to break down what happened in the hearing and provide the latest on Friday’s critical DHS funding deadline. Plus, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley will share insights on a closed-door meeting with FDA Commissioner Marty McCary regarding the deadly chemical abortion drug Mifepresto. Well, top immigration officials faced a heated session on Capitol Hill where Democrats pressed them over the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. This unfolding earlier today in a House Committee on Homeland Security. Joining me now is Washington San reporter Casey Harper, who has been tracking today’s stories. Casey, what’s the latest and what came of today’s hearing?
SPEAKER 01 :
Sure, Tony. What he did is a nice way of putting it for some of the rhetoric that we saw come from Democrats at this hearing. But as you said, these immigration officials are facing ongoing strong criticism from Democrats on the committee after all the controversy around the Minneapolis tactics we’re seeing from ICE, as well as the death of two protesters there, of course. Now, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino called for a full investigation into those shooting deaths, and he urged leaders to work together. Here’s a clip.
SPEAKER 14 :
While this hearing was long planned, we sit here today in an inflection point, an opportunity to assess and reinforce the integrity of immigration enforcement and to strengthen public trust. Only together can we make our community stronger and the homeland safer for future of all Americans.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, the top Democrat on the committee, Benny Thompson, made a point that many Democrats are making, criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, the masks and other things we’ve seen, and calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign. Now, three Trump administration officials defended the president’s immigration efforts at the hearing. They highlighted the threats that ICE agents are facing and that those are very real, along with the winds that they’ve seen at the southern border. Now, Acting Director of ICE Rodney Scott said that federal agents are going to continue to implement the president’s deportation agenda. But Tony, the timing of this could not be more important given the pending shutdown on these very issues.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, and as the chairman pointed out, this had been scheduled long before. All right. We’re going to find out more about today’s hearing a little bit later when Congressman Joshua Keene of Oklahoma joins us. He’s a member of that committee. Casey, I want to move on to another topic. There’s a lot of anticipation surrounding tomorrow’s meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump. primarily as it pertains to Iran. Now, this comes after a top Iranian official on Saturday threatened American military bases in the region. And this was while talks were going on between Washington and Tehran.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, that’s right. This is a closely watched meeting. And Netanyahu is reportedly coming. You know, they talk all the time, but why is he coming in person? Well, there’s reports he’s coming to bring new intelligence regarding Iran’s military capabilities around concerns that Iran is restoring its missile stockpile that was used up or destroyed in that 12 days war. Now, Israel’s been skeptical of the progress that the U.S. is claiming that they’ve been making and saying that Iran is, because they want to push to guarantee their own security and preserve their own military autonomy and make sure they’re not misrepresented or cut out of any deal. But President Trump, he’s been eager to push the Gaza peace plan into phase two. He wants to get these deals done. He is the deal maker. But there’s a big hiccup there on the Gaza peace plan and Hamas must disarm. And it looks like they don’t want to do that, Tony. So President Trump said he’s considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East as these Iranian talks continue and as the Gaza peace deal may be falling apart.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, we’re going to talk more about that in just a moment. Casey, thanks so much. Always great to see you. Thanks, Tony. While the top item for tomorrow’s meeting between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be Iran, Gaza, as was just pointed out, will be another issue that the two leaders will be discussing. On Sunday, a senior Hamas leader rejected the Trump administration’s demand for the terror group to surrender its weapons, reportedly framing them as non-negotiable. Well, that was a part of the peace deal. So what could this mean for phase two of the Gaza peace plan? Joining me now to discuss this and a bit more, Congressman Pat Harrigan, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Oversight Subcommittee. He represents the 10th Congressional District of North Carolina. Congressman Harrigan, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks so much for joining us.
SPEAKER 09 :
Tony, thanks for having me. It’s great to be with you.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know about dealing with terrorists. You know what Hamas is made of in your service in the Special Forces in the United States Army. What do you make of Hamas’s refusal to disarm?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I think it doesn’t work. I think history has shown that you cannot manage Hamas. You have to completely remove their ability to wage terror operations against Israel and the Israeli people. And if you don’t do that, you’re not going to have anything that could be considered a durable peace. And so, as you mentioned in your initial monologue, this was a prerequisite for the deal. So to me, this would be Hamas breaking with the intended parameters of that deal and is certainly not a good sign for the peace process in Gaza.
SPEAKER 08 :
And President Trump, you know, he’s stated this over and over, and I don’t see him backing away from this. He said either you will disarm or we will disarm you. I’m paraphrasing. I don’t think he’s going to be like former President Obama that, you know, had that red line in erasable ink.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, I agree with you, and I think your paraphrase was pretty darn good there. I don’t think that that provides anybody, whether the West, whether Israel, any options here. So I think certainly this is probably a negotiating tactic on behalf of Hamas. They want something here, but I think they also have to understand that if this is a hard line in the sand for them, it’s entirely different than the overall framework of what this peace structure was supposed to look like and they have to understand that they’re gambling with fire.
SPEAKER 08 :
How hard should we be leaning on our allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others who were a part of arriving at this peace agreement?
SPEAKER 09 :
we should be leaning on them very heavily. And I think that if we’ve learned any lesson over the last 30 years is that we can’t really do anything alone in this area of the world. There’s just so many different disparate perspectives, histories, and circumstances that they don’t see things the same way that we do. And so oftentimes having that helping hand of our various different allies that we have in the region, to kind of translate what we need to have happen and make it make local sense to those decision makers is incredibly helpful and productive. I don’t think that we could have a durable piece without them. They’re all players at the table here.
SPEAKER 08 :
We’re looking at Hamas kind of a persistent problem, obviously a threat, as we’ve seen on October 7th. But then the existential threat of Iran. What do you see coming out of these talks with Iran? And what are you hearing about President Trump and the prime minister meeting tomorrow?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it’s been pretty tight lipped up until this point, but I would tell you that from the perspective of what Iran’s posture and position ought to be here is that they should take a very serious look at what happened to the last foreign leader who had a carrier strike group parked off of their coast. Iran has got to come to the table here. I think when President Trump is really serious about something, he puts into place the initial machinations of America’s ability to project very serious force into a region, and it’s not for nothing. So Iran has got to pay very close attention here. I think it’s very disconcerting that it does seem like they kind of blew through President Trump’s instruction in warning not to harm their own people during this brief little uprising that has happened over the last couple months. I don’t think President Trump is going to forget that. I do think that that was a red line to President Trump. And so Iran has got to be very, they’ve got to be walking on eggshells right now. And if they’re not, what happened in Venezuela should be very instructive to them and their leadership.
SPEAKER 08 :
As I mentioned at the top of this interview, Congressman Harrigan, you served in the United States Army Special Forces. You dealt with terrorism. You dealt with this mindset. And I think the Trump administration gets it better than most. But I was discussing this yesterday with an Iranian expert. We fail to understand that these folks are, they act according to their religious ideology. In the West, we kind of are, not all of us, Christians, we believe our faith, it directs our life, it guides us. But so many in this diplomatic realm, they’re dismissive of the impact that one’s belief system has upon their actions.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and you can’t be dismissive of that. And you also have to understand that this type of radical ideology that sperms out of the Islamic faith is fundamentally incompatible with the way that we live today. and see things from our perspective in the West. And that cannot be understated in any of these negotiations. And so, look, that’s why we’ve had such a hard time getting along with Iran for the last 40 plus 60, almost 60 years now.
SPEAKER 08 :
They don’t want to get along.
SPEAKER 09 :
They don’t want to get along and they value death and we value life and the purpose behind why God put us here on this earth. Those two things are fundamentally incompatible. It’s a lot of the reasons that we have a lot of problems here, particularly in places like Dearborn, Michigan. We’re starting to see in our own country these incompatibility of values. that the founders envisioned for our country that, you know, we might disagree on the solutions to the problems that we have, but we’re at least going to see the problems from the same value proposition and perspective. That’s not the way the world works, unfortunately. And that’s unfortunately also not the way our country’s working anymore, Tim.
SPEAKER 08 :
See, that’s why I think it’s so important to have men and women of faith, the faith that founded this nation, the Christian faith, so they understand the threats and are not dismissive of those who say, look, we want to wipe you out. We want to annihilate you. We want to eradicate you, whether by peace or by arms, by peaceful means, by saturation or whatever. We’ve got to take them at their word. All right, we’ve just got about a minute, a little over a minute left, Congressman Harrigan. All right. Are we going to make the deadline of some type of an agreement before a partial shutdown on Friday with Democrats over the Department of Homeland Security?
SPEAKER 09 :
Boy, I hope so, Tony. But it seems like our recalcitrant Democratic friends are just intent on shutting the government down again, albeit this time a partial shutdown. I think that the Trump administration has actually stepped forward and Republican leadership has also stepped forward in good faith. with our Democratic colleagues. I think that there are some concerning things of what we’ve seen over the last month or so that can be brought back in and stay focused on the mission of deporting illegal aliens from this country, folks that shouldn’t be here, folks that have criminal backgrounds, violent backgrounds in particular. I just think that there’s an awful lot of a AREA FOR AGREEMENT HERE SO TO ME THIS SHUTDOWN SHOULD NOT OCCUR BUT IF OUR DEMOCRATIC COLLEAGUES CHOOSE TO PLAY POLITICS HERE WHICH WE KNOW THAT THEY ARE BECAUSE THE 2026 ELECTIONS COME IN QUICK THAT COULD NARROW THE HOPES FOR ANY TYPE OF AGREEMENT THAT AVOIDS AND AVERTS A SHUTDOWN IT’S AMAZING HOW THAT WORKS ELECTIONS SEEM TO SHAPE PEOPLE’S THINKING CONGRESSMAN ALWAYS GREAT TO SEE YOU THANKS FOR JOINING US Hey, thanks for having me, Tony. Great to be with you.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, Pat. All right, don’t go away. When we come back, Josh Perkin, Congressman of Oklahoma, joins us. We have state leaders that want to keep the deadly drugs out of their states. Maybe if these abortion pills were coming by boat, the administration would change its tactics. It’s time to respect the rights of the states, and it’s time to end death by mail.
SPEAKER 04 :
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, alongside Senator Lindsey Graham, led a press conference on Capitol Hill, urging the Trump administration to end the Biden-era policies that have allowed dangerous abortion drugs to be shipped across state lines. They were joined by state attorneys general, pro-life advocates and multiple Republican congressmen.
SPEAKER 11 :
There are more abortions today in the United States than when Roe versus Wade was the law of the land. And why is that? It’s because of the chemical abortion drug, Mifeprestone. Nearly 70% of the abortions that are committed in the United States today are committed because of Mifeprestone.
SPEAKER 17 :
The federal government is allowing a chemical abortion pill to be sent through the mail that wipes out every state unborn protection law in the land.
SPEAKER 19 :
It’s harder to ship alcohol in this country than it is to ship the abortion pill.
SPEAKER 10 :
And that should never be the case. This is a drug that takes the life of every child. So there is always a death that’s involved in this drug, but is also incredibly dangerous for the mom as well. We think that we should require a doctor to be able to get access to this drug.
SPEAKER 18 :
As a doctor, I think it’s essential that there be human contact before the pill is prescribed.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s not about a national abortion ban. It’s about validating Dobbs and preventing other states from nullifying the legislative policy choices that have been made by our states and facilitating the illegal, unethical, and dangerous drug trafficking of abortion pills into our states without any medical oversight whatsoever.
SPEAKER 17 :
We can simply fix this if we have the courage to do it. So what are all of us telling the administration? You’ve been a great pro-life president, Mr. President. It’s now time to deal with this issue.
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We want to protect life, and we want to give voice to the American people and their right to protect life state by state, city by city, and yes, here in the United States Congress. That’s what this fight is about.
SPEAKER 04 :
Let your voice be heard. Text LIFE to 67742. Sign the petition. Tell the Trump administration to act.
SPEAKER 05 :
The world says love is love, but what does God’s Word say? This Valentine’s Day, discover the true meaning of love, the way God defines it, with Family Research Council’s free digital resource, Valentine’s Day, Love That Reflects Christ. Whether you’re reading on your own or sharing with others, this resource will encourage you and equip you to love the way Christ loves. Text VALENTINE to 67742 to get your free copy today.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks so much for tuning in. By the way, yesterday we were talking with John Stemberger about the state initiatives, ballot initiatives, and we’ve got some, I know it’s kind of complicated. We had several states we covered and we got some emails and calls. People are wondering, hey, do you have a list of those? You can go to TonyPerkins.com. We’ve got a list posted of the states that have ballot initiatives coming up this fall. We’re listing the ones dealing with the life issue, dealing with the human sexuality issue, women’s sports, transgender stuff. TonyPerkins.com, we’ve got the list up there. Earlier today, the House Homeland Security Committee held a hearing on the oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. It was the first such hearing since the deaths of two Minneapolis residents or official people up there. That happened last month. Now, the committee heard testimonies from officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that’s ICE, and the Border Patrol and Citizenship and Immigration Services. So what were the takeaways from this hearing? hearing. Joining me now to discuss this is Congressman Josh Burkine, who is a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, as well as the Budget Committee and the Freedom Caucus. He represents the 2nd Congressional District of Oklahoma, where I actually went to high school and grew up. Congressman Burkine, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER 19 :
Thanks, Tony. Always an honor. I’m so impressed with the myth of Pristone issue that you guys continue to highlight, as well as taking on the sexual immorality that is trying to ruin this culture. Waiting on the ad to finish. Just kudos to FRC.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, coming up in the next segment, I actually have Senator Josh Hawley, who is going to give us an update on his meeting with Commissioner of the FDA, Marty McCary. I’m not going to let the cat out of the bag, but people are going to want to hear what took place in that meeting. All right. Let me get I want to get to Syria because there was a hearing on Capitol Hill about Syria as well. But I want to first get your takeaway from today’s oversight hearing with ICE and Homeland Security, all these different agencies that appeared.
SPEAKER 19 :
Well, I think that people that come in representing the Democrat side, their minds were not changed. And so I think it was so incumbent upon the Republicans to speak to, you know, hopefully the independent that’s trying to figure out the just and the cause. And I would encourage all of your listeners to go to a website, www.dhs.gov. I’m going to repeat that, www.dhs.gov. And why, as I held up a visual in the committee of just in the state of Oklahoma, the number of illegal aliens, sexual predators preying upon minors. I think everyone needs to recenter and really remember a year ago where this country was at when you were hearing stories about 12-year-old girls taken under bridges and raped by illegal aliens and then murdered. Heart-wrenching stories. Trin de Aragua taking over entire apartment building complexes. And then if you will go to that website, I think you will find this is not something that’s abstract. It’s not something thousands of miles away. You’ll find, like I did, 25 miles away from me, Emmanuel Martinez was picked up in Oklahoma, Toco, Oklahoma, for sexual acts with a child. And then you begin to remember, oh yeah, I had that conversation with my teenager who was gonna go to Dallas a year and a half, two years ago, saying stay out where the public lights are, make sure someone’s always with you when you’re getting in and out of the vehicle, because you were heightenly aware of the 15 million people, unvetted, that came into this country. And the stories that need to be discussed is the news stories we’re not talking about, about how these sexual predators would have been preying upon somebody close to you or somebody that you would have known in your communities.
SPEAKER 08 :
So we’re doing a course correction when it comes to immigration. The borders have been wide open. And this is a very rapid change, actually enforcing the law. It’s a novel idea, but it’s happening. And there’s conflict. Now, that’s not to say, I mean, there’s some things I would probably do a little bit differently. But we have to anticipate that there’s going to be some friction because we’re enforcing the law that hasn’t been enforced. And there’s going to be some problems. We’re dealing with human beings. There’s going to be problems.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah. Absolutely. As I said to someone today, imagine you’re in the pocket. And you know everybody on Monday morning is going to evaluate your judgment as a quarterback. But you’re in the pocket. You’re the one staring down the 300-pound defensive lineman. And he’s coming at you. And so there will be human error. People will second guess, but make no mistake. These are individuals that are trying to enforce the law of the land and many times if the detainer issued to the jails in these sanctuary cities would be honored and these people instead of the thousands that have been released. could have been incarcerated in these sanctuary cities and cooperation with ICE would take place, we wouldn’t be seeing this. This is manufactured because those who oppose this administration are trying to make it as hard as possible, but the sad reality is they’re making the communities as unsafe as possible.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s difficult. It’s a difficult situation. It’s a problem that’s been festering for many, many years. I’m grateful for the administration tackling it. You know, looking at this as a former law enforcement official, I understand those decisions you have to make right in the heat of a confrontation.
SPEAKER 19 :
You’re the quarterback, Tony. You’ve had the experience of facing the 300-pound defensive line.
SPEAKER 08 :
And I know that it goes both ways. And I just think we’ve got to be – open-minded, we’ve got to be prayerful about it. I just think that we’re so polarized as a nation. I don’t think it does anyone good on either side to rush to judgment before we have all the facts. And that’s, I think what inflamed these recent events is that we had people on both sides immediately coming to a conclusion. They didn’t even have the facts.
SPEAKER 19 :
First one to present their case seems right until another comes forward and questions them.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, I think I’ve read that somewhere in the good book. Very quickly, we just got about a little over a minute left. Syria was the focus of another hearing today on Capitol Hill. Give us a quick overview of that because there’s a lot of religious minorities, including Christians, that are in the crosshairs there. Right.
SPEAKER 19 :
Nadine Menza, someone you’ve had on FRC, I know, I’m very well aware. Nadine was a key panelist today in the Foreign Affairs Committee. I waved on because of my involvement. And I took her through a series of questions. Number one, is it true, her and the entire panelist, is it true that Turkey’s president, Erdogan, has said he wants to reestablish the Ottoman Empire? True, the response from the panel. Is it true that you’ve not seen anything publicly where Turkey is aghast at what Syria is doing. And is that possibly connected to their unsized influence in Syria? So if their desire is to reestablish the Ottoman Empire, which means to go all the way into Jerusalem, and if you’re really, as the panelists talked about, trying to broker peace between Israel and Syria, then maybe if Turkey’s applauding and Israel is nervous because there’s not a demilitarized zone to the north of them, southern Syria, and at the same time Turkey is trying to gain this access, Russia wants to establish military poke.
SPEAKER 08 :
Josh, we got to leave it there. We’ll finish that conversation another day. Thanks for joining us. Folks, stick with us.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 15 :
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SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome back to Washington Watch. Unfortunately, couldn’t finish that conversation with Congressman Josh Burkine, but very important tracking what’s happening in Syria, and I had some offline conversations with some other members that were in that committee today, and a lot of concerns over Syria’s new leader, whether it’s the issue of is he being an honest broker or is he just over his head. Either way, it’s problematic for that region of the world. Christians, Druze, Yazidis, other religious minorities that are being targeted by kind of a revival of ISIS. But we’ll continue to keep an eye on that. Well, earlier today, members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a closed-door briefing with Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, that’s the FDA, Dr. Marty McCary. And the focus of the briefing was on something we talk about a lot here, It was the life issue, in particular the abortion drug, Mifeprestone, murder by mail. This has been something that the pro-life Republicans have been pressing the Trump administration on to get away from the Biden era policies that still govern this abortion drug. Joining me now to talk about this, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who serves on several Senate committees, including the Health Committee. And he was in that meeting today, joined us by phone. Senator Hawley, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us today.
SPEAKER 12 :
Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, Senator, what can you tell us about today’s briefing?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, I mean, listen, I can tell you it was behind closed doors, which says a lot, Tony. I just hear the facts, as you know well. Seventy percent of abortions in this country are done with the chemical abortion drug, Mifeprestone. And it doesn’t matter what your state’s laws are. It doesn’t matter if the voters of your state have said, we want to protect life. This drug gets mailed in to every state in the union, often coming from overseas countries. You can get it on a website, frequently free of charge. This is where the fight to protect life is right now. It’s about Mifeprestone. And here’s what I want to see happen at the FDA. I want to see them put back into place the basic safety protocols from President Trump’s first term. They were his protocols. You have to get a prescription to have the drug. That ought to be a minimum. You have to go see a doctor to take the drug. That ought to be a minimum. Tony, none of those things are in place now. Joe Biden eliminated all of them. And I just worry that the FDA is dragging its feet on putting any of these protocols back into place. The other thing I’d say is the FDA is supposed to be doing a safety study on the drug Mifeprestone. It’s not clear to me that they’ve even started the study, Tony. I mean, this is a serious issue, and it’s time for serious action immediately.
SPEAKER 08 :
Let me make sure I heard you correctly there, Senator, because I believe it was about 10 months ago when the FDA said that they were going to be reviewing the drug mifeprestone and the reports that there were adverse effects of that leading women to emergency rooms and other complications. Are you saying that that study that was announced 10 months ago hasn’t started?
SPEAKER 12 :
It doesn’t appear to have to me. I have asked repeatedly, Tony, in public letters written to the FDA, have you started the study? When are you starting the study? When will it be done? I’ve gotten zero answers from them. Zilch zero. There’s been public reporting in the news that the FDA has not even started the study yet. And I just have to tell you, I haven’t heard anything to the contrary yet. from the FDA or anybody else. I don’t know that this is even underway. And Tony, I just think at this point, This study, it’s vital. It should be done. I don’t have any confidence that FDA is actually going to do it. And in the meantime, abortions in this country are increasing. There are more abortions now than when Roe was the law of the land. And that’s because of this chemical abortion.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s what people don’t realize. I know our listeners and viewers do because I’ve talked about it many times. But before the overturn of Roe, 930,000 abortions. That’s the best numbers available, mostly from the abortion industry. In 2024, most comprehensive numbers that we have at present, 1.1 million abortions, and the numbers of 2025 that have been crunched so far actually show a further increase. I wanna go back, Senator, to something you said a moment ago about the Biden administration. The Biden administration changed the Trump protocols that were in place in the first Trump administration. That’s what you’re saying we should go back to at a minimum. Why did the Biden administration share with our listeners and viewers why the Biden administration changed those policies?
SPEAKER 12 :
They did it in order to make abortion on demand feasible across the country, Tony, no matter what your state laws are. They did it so that if your state is a pro-life state and you as a voter, maybe you voted in a state referendum and you said, yeah, I want to protect life. It doesn’t matter now because these abortion drugs will get mailed into your state without A doctor’s prescription without a sign-off, it doesn’t matter what the laws are. And the Biden administration knew that. They knew it would undermine any state laws. It would undermine, frankly, any Supreme Court decision. So Roe is gone. Praise the Lord for that. But abortions are going up because this drug is getting mailed in everywhere, and there are no restrictions on it. And here’s the other thing I’d say, Tony. This drug is very dangerous for the mother as well. Recent study of over 800,000 cases of the use of this abortion drug found that in 11% of the cases, more than 1 in 10, the mother experiences a serious health crisis, like hemorrhaging we’re talking about, trips to the emergency room, life-threatening conditions. None of that is currently on the label for this drug. So people are being lied to. Lives are being lost, the babies and sometimes the mother. And it’s time that we did something about it.
SPEAKER 08 :
So why do we have the policies of a Democratic administration still governing the abortion pill in a Republican administration?
SPEAKER 12 :
I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. And to me, you know, President Trump’s protocols on this when he was first in office, are, again, at a minimum of what we ought to go back to. They’re the right call. It would make a tremendous difference, and the FDA should put those back in place. And, you know, Tony, when I got to first interview and cross-examine, as it were, this head of FDA, I told him, This to his face, I said, you need to go back to President Trump’s policies. He promised me he would do a serious review of it. But I just don’t think that that review is even underway. Tony, all I can say is we’ve got to do something to start protecting life in a serious way.
SPEAKER 08 :
We certainly do. Senator, we’re out of time. Thanks for joining us. Not the end of this conversation, I can assure you. Folks, text LIFE to 67742. We’ll be back.
SPEAKER 20 :
Should a Christian support Israel? That question has become one of the most emotionally charged issues of our time, both in the world and within the church. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins offers a clear biblical and prophetic answer. In his latest book, he examines Israel’s past, present, and future through the lens of Scripture, revealing why support for Israel is not rooted in politics, partisanship, or cultural sentiment, but in the unchanging promises of God. Drawing from Genesis to Revelation, Tony Perkins demonstrates that the ultimate rationale for a Christian’s support for Israel is spiritual. Should a Christian Support Israel invites believers to see beyond headlines and ideologies, returning to the foundation of God’s Word to understand His heart for His chosen people and the blessings that flow when we stand with what He has established forever. Text the word Israel to 67742 for more information.
SPEAKER 22 :
The family is the oldest, most tested, and most reliable unit of society. It is divinely created and sustained. And yet, there are those who are always tampering with its values and structure. That’s why we need organizations like the Family Research Council that can effectively defend and strengthen the family.
SPEAKER 21 :
Family Research Council began over 40 years ago, like all great movements of God, with prayer. Today, rooted in the heart of the nation’s capital, FRC continues to champion faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER 02 :
FRC is one of those bright lights that helps us focus on true north. And I shudder to think, had they not been here, that it could have been worse, worse, worse.
SPEAKER 16 :
The Family Research Council is key. It’s one of a handful of groups that I think will determine whether our children live in a country that enjoyed all of the freedom and all the opportunity that we enjoyed in this great land.
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s just a wonderful parachurch organization that doesn’t seek to take the place of the church, but it seeks to assist the family and the church as we try to move forward successfully, not in a defensive mode, but in an offensive mode as we seek to live our lives according to the Holy Scriptures.
SPEAKER 07 :
FRC is not going to be whooped. You know, we’re going to fight. We’re going to take a stand. And again, we don’t retreat.
SPEAKER 08 :
You will never see in front of this building here in Washington, D.C., a white flag fly. We will never step back. We will never surrender. And we will never be silent. Welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us. The website is TonyPerkins.com. Resources up there for you. And by the way, let me, on the way out, I mentioned the petition that we are collecting for the Trump administration on this issue of Mepheprestone. It’s what I call murder by mail because that’s what’s happening. They’re killing unborn children by sending these pills across state lines in many states like my home state of Louisiana where babies and mothers are protected by law. But it doesn’t matter. It does not matter with the abortion pill. So text the word LIFE to 67742. That’s LIFE to 67742. And as Senator Hawley said, we’ve got to do something. We cannot be silent about this. I think we’re Well, I’ll talk more about that in a moment. Our word for today comes from Exodus chapter 12 where Moses is told to establish the Passover as the final plague falls on Egypt. Speak to all the congregation of Israel saying, on the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” Now notice these instructions are for families. The families were to prepare. The families were responsible for applying the blood of the Passover lamb to the door. Without the families walking out their faith in God through obedience to His Word, there would be no nation of Israel. The strength, wealth, and stability of a nation are directly tied to the spiritual, moral, and social well-being of the family, a mom and a dad and children. A nation can be no stronger than its families operating according to God’s plan. For more about our journey through the Bible, text Bible to 67742. That’s Bible to 67742. All right. Tomorrow, President Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. We talked about that earlier. It will be the prime minister’s seventh trip to meet President Trump since the start of President Trump’s second term. Now, before leaving Israel, the prime minister told reporters that he and the president will discuss a series of issues, with the first and foremost being the negotiations with Iran. Joining me now in studio to discuss this and much, much, much more is James Rosen, chief White House correspondent for Newsmax and author of a brand new book that just hit the bookshelves today. And guess what? I have a copy of it. It’s Scalia Supreme Court years 1986 to 2001. It’s the second book in a three book series. James, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us. I feel blessed to be here. Thank you, Tony. So I want to get to Iran, but there’s so much to talk about. I don’t know where to start. Let’s start with Scalia.
SPEAKER 13 :
OK.
SPEAKER 08 :
Because you made a comment as you were coming in the studio, listening to my conversation with Senator Hawley.
SPEAKER 13 :
Right. And I heard you both of you discuss statistics as to how many abortions occur each year. And we heard that there was 930,000 or so a couple of years ago. Now it’s 1.1 million. This book, Scalia’s Supreme Court Years 1986 to 2001, covers the first half of Justice Scalia’s tenure on the Supreme Court, his nearly 30 terms. So this runs from his first day on the Supreme Court, October 6, 1986, the first Monday in October of that year, all the way through Bush v. Gore, the national trauma of the Supreme Court effectively deciding the 2000 presidential contest. The book begins, the first chapter is called Red Mass. That is a special Catholic mass that is held on the eve of the Supreme Court’s opening in the first Monday in October every year. They have it at St. Matthews. It dates back seven centuries in Europe, only about 80 years or so in the United States, about 100 years maybe. And the Red Mass that was held at St. Matthews here in downtown Washington on the eve of the October 1986 fall term opening was attended by the new Chief Justice, who was about to have his first sitting as a Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, who was a Lutheran, by William Brennan, who was the arch-liberal of the Supreme Court at that time, although he was appointed by Eisenhower. He had voted for Roe versus Wade. He was one of the seven who voted. Rehnquist was a dissenter on Roe versus Wade. And then Antonin Scalia, who’s the youngest and newest member of the Supreme Court, hasn’t even really fully sat down there yet. And the bishop at that time of the archdiocese, Archbishop Hickey, who was later named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, delivered a sermon for this red mass. The red mass is held to beseech God’s blessings and guidance for members of the judiciary. That’s the purpose of the red. And the vestments worn are scarlet colored. That’s why they call it the red mass. Archbishop Hickey likened the current practice of abortion, circa 1986, to the Tower of Babel. And he said that the use of language in disingenuous ways serves to estrange people from God. And he said so that when we hear of a quote-unquote right to privacy somehow being twisted into a right for a mother to murder her unborn child, this estranges us from God. Rehnquist needed no persuading. He had voted against Roe versus Wade. He was a dissenter. Scalia had been arguing against Roe versus Wade since he was a professor on television in the 70s. Brennan, of course, it rolled right off his back. But I make the point that the message being conveyed by this sermon was, as the archbishop saw it, that any society that trains its state apparatus to sanction the murder, as the archbishop saw it, of 1.3 million unborn babies a year will assuredly find itself subject to some form of divine retribution. But I looked up the CDC numbers, not from the abortion industry, from the Centers for Disease Control, how many abortions were taking place in 1986, and it was 1.3 million. And I link in the footnotes to that site. Let me go back to that sermon.
SPEAKER 08 :
That is biblical truth. All right. But so we’ve had a court that since that day has what we could describe, spiritually speaking, as repented. The record for that is metanoia, meaning to change one’s mind. The court changed its mind on abortion. but the policies of the country have not.
SPEAKER 13 :
So it took a while, right? Scalia was arguing against Roe versus Wade on PBS programs in 1978 and citing Roe versus Wade as the embodiment of an imperial judiciary. where judges, unelected judges, are arrogating unto themselves decisions that historically had been made in the states by people as voters. The first time he got to rule on an abortion case was 1989 in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services out of Missouri. And the decision there really disappointed him because Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing the majority opinion, effectively gutted Roe but refused to overrule it. And Scalia basically said we should be overruling it. And that was the opinion in which he said that Justice O’Connor, Sandra Day O’Connor’s writings, quote, cannot be taken seriously and cause a great rift. Then we have Casey versus Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Pennsylvania case. 1992, more or less an echo of Webster. Well, not until Scalia is dead and gone in 2022 does Justice Alito. who looked up to Justice Scalia, author of the majority opinion in Dobbs, six to three, overruling Roe versus Wade. I have an op-ed in today’s Politico, the Monday morning Politico, or what, Tuesday Politico, based on my interview with Justice Alito in chambers last year, in which we talked about his late friend and the conservative icon, Antonin Scalia, whose passing is now 10 years ago, as of February 13th.
SPEAKER 08 :
But Alito almost didn’t make it onto the court.
SPEAKER 13 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Because President Bush had nominated someone else.
SPEAKER 13 :
That’s true. And that went down in flames. But over the issue of abortion. We’re talking about Harriet Meyers.
SPEAKER 08 :
Harriet Meyers, because I was here and the conservatives would not take this wink and a nod, although they’ll be OK. We said no more. We want someone who is clear on this issue because she said she was fine with Roe. And so the conservatives drew a line. Senators started to pull off. They had to withdraw the nomination two weeks later.
SPEAKER 13 :
Scalia in 1986 was confirmed by the Senate 98 to nothing, in some measure because his nomination was paired with the elevation of Rehnquist, who was much more contentious for the Senate Democrats at the time. Sam Alito, when he’s confirmed in 2005, it’s 52 to 48. I remember the fight. And yet Alito’s credentials for the Supreme Court were absolutely impeccable.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you just mentioned a moment ago that he was on PBS. He was teaching and he was speaking on these issues before he was elevated to the court.
SPEAKER 13 :
So his positions were no secret. True. And in this interview, which you can find on my X feed, at James Rosen TV, or you can go to Politico and search for the interview with Justice Alito, I asked him, is there a direct line between what Professor Scalia was arguing in the 1970s and his writings in Webster and Casey to Dobbs? And Alito told me, absolutely there is. And he said that, I flatter myself to imagine that Nino, which was the nickname for intimates of Justice Scalia, would have written the Dobbs opinion exactly as I did. But he said he found a kind of a model for the originalist kind of opinion he wanted to write in Dobbs in Scalia’s majority opinion in the 2008 case, D.C. versus Heller, where Scalia wrote the majority opinion and it upheld the constitutional right to own a handgun. I was going to say, that was a Second Amendment. Yeah, it’s a Second Amendment case, but the way it was laid out and the originalist approach to interpretation… was what Alito tried to bring to Dobbs.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, we could take all day and talk about this. And we’ll do it. Let’s do that. We can continue. Everybody else will leave here in about six minutes. But he shaped the court. He had a shaping influence on the court.
SPEAKER 13 :
So when Scalia became a judge and then a justice, there prevailed in the law a liberal notion called the Living Constitution. This is the idea that today’s judges should be free to make very broad readings of the clauses of the Constitution or any law that’s been passed since because the Living Constitution should expand like a living, breathing animal, to account for a phenomena that the founders could never have envisioned, such as nuclear weapons or the Internet or what have you. And basically that is a vehicle for judges to graft their latter-day policy preferences onto the language of the law.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s consistent with how many justices come to this city, and they grow in their positions because they come in somewhat conservative or moderate, and they leave liberal.
SPEAKER 13 :
Scalia stood athwart all that. His idea was original meaning, that every clause in the Constitution and every clause in every law should be interpreted according to the meaning that it was widely understood to have at the time.
SPEAKER 08 :
And he helped really bring up a whole generation of lawyers that see it that way.
SPEAKER 13 :
That’s where he had such a great influence. He was lonely on the Supreme Court when he got there in terms of being an originalist and a textualist, someone who believes the original meaning can be divined quite simply from the text that was enacted and signed. By the time he died, no less a figure than Justice Elena Kagan, who was an appointee of President Obama, had pronounced, in effect, as a result of the Scalia revolution, we are all originalists now. It’s a profound impact on every sector of American law and society. Well, he was instrumental in the Federalist Society. He helped create the Federalist Society. He was one of the original faculty advisors at the University of Chicago Law School. That, too, helped change American law.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, huge, because you’ve got so many lawyers that have come up, judges now, jurists, that have that originalist understanding of the Constitution, which is…
SPEAKER 13 :
It’s night and day difference. Scalia, I also, since this is a faith-based program, I also want to point out there’s a lot about Scalia’s faith in the book, and there was in volume one as well. He didn’t believe in separation of church and state. He felt that the founders had envisioned a place for faith in the public square and public sector. He just felt that the government should never be playing favorites with different religions. But he did strive in his own life to effectuate a separation between his faith as a Catholic, a devout Catholic, and his work as a judge, or a justice. And he felt, I should not be grafting my Catholic beliefs onto the law, interpretations of the law. And he put it this way, which I always found amusing. He said, there’s no such thing as a Catholic hamburger. He said, the closest we could come to a Catholic hamburger would be a hamburger that is cooked perfectly. He had a wit. He had a wit about it. How can folks get a copy of the book? Anywhere. Any bookstore. Amazon.com. Scalia. Supreme Court years 1986 to 2001. If you want to understand modern America and how we got here, this is the book for you and for your kids. And it’s written for everyone, not just for lawyers.
SPEAKER 08 :
And it’s very readable.
SPEAKER 13 :
I mean, it’s not… It’s for everyone, not just for lawyers.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, so I encourage you to get a copy of it. Scalia has had such a profound impact on our country from the court. It’s… It’ll give you a better understanding of where we are and how we got here, and how one person can make a difference. A person of faith. Yeah, driven by that faith, bolstered by that faith, given courage by that faith.
SPEAKER 13 :
I call it the rocket fuel that propelled him to the pinnacle.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you look at some of his… I would read all of his opinions, dissenting opinions, because they were so good, but you could see them coming from that faith perspective. All right, James, I got to move on. We’re like two minutes left. I want to talk. I know you’ve been tracking Iran. This meeting tomorrow between President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, what do you anticipate?
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, I anticipate a meeting of two men who’ve known each other for a very long time and like each other and who are aligned basically in almost all respects as to global security and so forth. The question that’s really pending right now is, as you mentioned, these negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
SPEAKER 08 :
What I’m hearing is the reason they’re coming over is they have new intel that they wanted to share as these negotiations go on.
SPEAKER 13 :
Right. And what I have been hearing is that it relates to efforts by the Iranians since President Trump ordered those strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities last June to reconstitute their program and also their missile program. And the question is really whether President Trump has in him at this point the stomach for additional strikes on Iran. He warned that if they crack down lethally and brutally on their protesters, that he would punish them in that way. That did happen, but he has not made good on that threat. So that pretext seems to have evaporated for action because the protests have died down and the crackdown has effectively ended. And it’s been a while. And there’s also the question of his MAGA base and whether they will be happy to see the United States taking such an interventionist role and a military role around the world. He’s already done quite a bit of that, more than I think anyone anticipated.
SPEAKER 08 :
I think that is true. That is one of the issues that his base is raising, especially when you look at domestic issues. But I do think that the intel is probably going to be pretty convincing that the Israelis bring over. I trust their intel. We’ve moved a lot of assets into that region to be prepared for strikes. Yeah. James Rosen, always great to see you, my friend. I know you’re also a frequent guest on This Week on Capitol Hill, another program we have on the weekends. But thanks for joining us. I like that host a lot better than this one. You do? I do. You see him from a distance. He’s more fluid, I think. Is that what it is? You’re seeing him through a camera. James, good to see you. Thanks for joining us. And folks, pick up a book of Scalia by James Rosen. All right. Thanks so much for joining us. We’re out of time for today, but I leave you with the words of the apostle Paul says, when you’ve done everything you can do, when you’ve prayed, when you’ve prepared, and when you have taken your stand, by all means, keep standing. Thank you.
SPEAKER 21 :
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.
