The Washington Stand’s Casey Harper reports on Florida lawmakers’ approval of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s new redistricting map, and the latest developments from Capitol Hill. Dr. Andy Harris, U.S. Representative for Maryland’s 1st District, offers an
SPEAKER 11 :
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 03 :
Now, I just want to say that sometimes the process around here is cumbersome. That’s the way this works. But in spite of our razor-thin, historically small majority, House Republicans continue to deliver for the American people. We will continue to do that for the remainder of the year, and that is a large reason why we are going to win the midterms so that the grown-ups can stay in charge here.
SPEAKER 10 :
That was House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier today after the House voted to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. Welcome to this Thursday, April 30th edition of Washington Watch. I’m your host, Tony Perkins. Thanks so much for joining us. Well, coming up in a voice vote, the House today moved to end the nearly 11-week partial government shutdown by funding most of the Department of Homeland Security. Congressman Dr. Andy Harris joins us with what comes next as Republicans work to fund the rest. including immigration enforcement. Plus, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Camille Varon will be here to break down an explosive new report on the anti-Christian bias that took place in the federal government under the Biden administration. All of that and more straight ahead. Well, the Republican-controlled House has passed bipartisan legislation to fund key departments of Homeland Security, including the Secret Service, NTSA, ending a partial shutdown that lasted nearly 11 weeks. The measure now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature. after lawmakers moved to avoid disruptions to airport security and presidential protection services. Joining us now to discuss this news and all that’s been happening on Capitol Hill today is Washington Stand reporter Casey Harper. Casey, thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks, Tony. All right. Part of Homeland Security was left unfunded. How’s that going to be funded?
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, that’s right. So House Speaker Mike Johnson, he got the job done today, but it’s really a two-tier plan. Tier one, it was the big win today. They got the funding they needed to restore money to open most of DHS, like you said, Secret Service, TSA, plus FEMA, some cybersecurity workers, and other. They pushed that measure forward and really had to wrangle some conservatives who had various concerns. But they address those concerns by saying, hey, we’re going to pass open GHS part mostly with this bill. And then through reconciliation, we’re going to spend maybe even more, maybe several years of funding for ICE and Border Patrol. And we actually have a clip of House Speaker Mike Johnson.
SPEAKER 03 :
This will relieve pressure from the Department of Homeland Security. Secretary Mullen, who I’ve spoken to in the last couple of hours, will be greatly relieved. The president will. The administration will. We’re not going to have lines at TSA. Everybody will get their paychecks now. We’ll get moving forward. And then we will finish the work and finally get, again, for three years with no crazy Democrat reforms, we will fund Border Patrol and Immigration Enforcement as soon as we return for the work session when that bill is finalized.
SPEAKER 19 :
Now, that pressure that the speaker is mentioning there was a few things. One, several, many federal employees were facing missing paychecks starting this weekend if there wasn’t more funding passed. But also, Tony, we’ve had these major national security concerns like the attempted assassination on President Trump that really ramped up the pressure for them to get this done, and now they’ve done it.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right. Another topic in response to yesterday’s landmark Supreme Court decision regarding Louisiana’s congressional districts. My home state is going to delay next month’s primary election. Actually, early voting started this weekend. It was on my calendar. This is going to give lawmakers time to redraw the state’s congressional map. What’s the latest on when the primary might be held?
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, this is a big development because of that Supreme Court case, which really has upended not just Louisiana, but many other states. Their congressional maps could be changing. So the governor there, Jeff Landry, he delayed the May primary to give that time for the redrawing because the Supreme Court ruled this week on the Voting Rights Act that The proposed map in Louisiana, which created this very long 200-mile district that stretched the length of the state, that essentially it was drawn based on race, and it violated the Equal Protection Clause. Now, the thing to be watching here, Tony, is when, you know… is in Florida, because Florida is the next state that is considering redrawing their lines. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, is trying to get four more seats. That comes after Virginia just redrew their maps, although that map is being questioned in court. So there’s a lot of maps, a lot of court rulings. And it’s unclear, especially after the Supreme Court ruling, how it’s all going to shake out and which party is going to end up with more seats when it’s all said and done.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, Casey, before we bring in our first guest, there is news of new actions of kind of a new wave of anti-Semitism in Britain. Tell us what’s happening there.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, this is really a troubling story, part of a troubling trend, Tony. So two men were stabbed in a Jewish neighborhood in London in what is being called a very serious and just the latest example of a wave of anti-Semitic attacks there. Now, the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that there’s many Jewish people, it’s kind of amazing he said this, there’s many Jewish people who are now afraid to openly show their identity in London. Now, this is a long-standing concern. We actually have a clip of Starmer right here.
SPEAKER 01 :
People are scared. Scared to show who they are in their community. Scared to go to synagogue and practice their religion. Scared to go to university as a Jew. To send their children to school as a Jew. To tell their colleagues that they are Jewish. Even to use our NHS. Nobody should live like that in Britain, but Jews do.
SPEAKER 19 :
Now, Starmer’s wife is Jewish, and she’s really expressed similar concerns. And it’s good that he’s expressing those concerns, Tony, but you have to ask the question, where did this all come from? A lot of critics are saying, hey, this wave of mass migration and this global anti-Semitism is fueling this not just in London, but around the world.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. Back when I was chairing the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, we actually conducted a hearing on the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. It’s a big problem, and it’s a canary in the coal mine against religious freedom in general. All right, Casey, thanks for the update. We’ll talk to you later. All right, a lot of moving parts on Capitol Hill today. We’ve touched on some of them. Joining us now to kind of pull back the curtain and give us the latest as Congress heads out of town is Congressman Andy Harris. He’s a doctor. He’s also the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus and a member of the House Appropriations. He represents the 1st Congressional District of Maryland. Dr. Harris, welcome back to Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 08 :
Good to be with you, Tony.
SPEAKER 10 :
So it’s been a crazy week on Capitol Hill. A lot of moving parks, a lot of late nights. Give us the latest as the dust is starting to settle on the week. What do we have?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you know, we had three major issues in front of us this week. The first issue, of course, is FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And what we ended up doing, we passed a bill out of the Senate, out of the House, rather, that included a ban on central bank digital currency. We think that’s pretty important. The government never have the ability to spy on you through your transactions, through your financial transactions. Senate wouldn’t take that up, so they sent us a clean, what we call a clean month-and-a-half extension of the act, and that passed this afternoon. The second issue we took up was funding the Border Patrol and the deportation and the ICE through what we call reconciliation, which doesn’t require Democrat votes. We advanced that that reconciliation package this week. When we come back in two weeks, hopefully we’ll pass it finally. And to go with that, this afternoon we also passed funding for the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, so the Secret Service, TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, all the things that Democrats refused to fund in the House. We went ahead and funded them because we have a pathway to fund ICE and the Border Patrol, which they still refuse to fund. And then And then finally, what we did is we passed the act. The last act we passed yesterday was the farm bill. We actually, it took us three years to pass the farm bill out of the House. It’s a five-year farm bill, but we passed it out of the House this morning, sent it over to the Senate. So hopefully we get relief for our farmers who are working hard but are facing tremendous financial concerns as the price of all the inputs go up and the price of crops is plateaued.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, that farm bill must have been riding on the back of a mule. Took a long time to get that thing across there. Let’s go back to the I mean, it looks like it’s been a very busy week. And I applaud the Republicans for getting all of this done. I would say you’ve finished about 80 percent of it. As you said, FISA, you passed it. sent it to the Senate, they rejected the digital currency provision for the central bank, sent it back, you’ve done an extension, you’ve got 45 days to figure this one out. Why would the Senate not accept that provision regarding the central bank?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, we truly believe that the Democrats believe that the federal government should have the ability, just like China does, to monitor all your financial transactions and in that way limit what financial transactions they allow you to make. We just think it’s a basic, philosophic difference between, again, the relatively libertarian Republicans who believe the government should not have that power and the Democrats who believe that we don’t see anything wrong with the central government controlling all the financial transactions.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I wouldn’t call that libertarian. I would call that more constitutional in limiting the power of the government according to the Constitution. How do you think that might work out over this next 45 days? Are you going to be able to bring the Senate to a place of agreeing to something that’s reasonable?
SPEAKER 08 :
Look, I hope we do. What they sent, they attached part of the central bank digital currency ban to the housing bill, but they watered it down. They let it expire. This should be a permanent ban. This is an issue, just like you say, it’s a constitutional issue. The government should never have the ability. to monitor your financial transactions and control them. So we’re going to hold out for a permanent ban. And again, this will revisit FISA within 45 days. And a group of us, myself included, we’re going to insist that the central bank digital currency be considered at that time. Or I should say ban on it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. Dr. Harris, I was watching last night where the the vote was left open for several hours. Was that the Freedom Caucus that was negotiating some some arrangements?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, it was. You know, there was a question about whether or not we should consider going to year-round E15 or 15 percent ethanol in your gasoline. There are a group of us who think we get it. Some farmers will benefit, but it will raise the price of gasoline for everyone. And this is not the time to raise the price of gasoline or discuss something that does it. We also think that it hurts small refiners in the country. Again, there were a group of bunch of issues that we needed to resolve. We eventually agreed on dealing with them when we come back in two weeks. So we advanced the farm bill. And thank goodness, again, we have passed the farm bill out of the House of Representatives.
SPEAKER 10 :
You know, I know a lot of people are critical of the process and everything. But, you know, I’ve been around a while and it’s been a long time. I mean, well, in the last couple of years since Speaker Johnson ascended to the speakership. You actually have negotiations, and it does get messy at times, but you get things at the end of the day. You get things done, and members have a voice in the process. I mean, I think that’s refreshing as a member to be able to have your voice heard.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s absolutely true. Our board of directors met this morning. We felt, yes, these were long days, long nights. But as we said, no missiles were fired. No one died in this discussion. So that’s a pretty good day. We think that’s how democracy is supposed to work.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I know some have been critical. I’ve watched the media saying, well, the Freedom Caucus lost again. I don’t think the Freedom Caucus lost. I think they won. I hope everybody won. When you sit down and you have discussions and you improve legislation, it’s not what everybody you don’t get everything you want, but you get more of what you want in terms of what you’re trying to do to represent your people. So I think from my perspective, I think the House is working better than it’s worked in years.
SPEAKER 08 :
Look, I agree. And Tony, with regards to what people say, you know, the members of the Freedom Caucus, we don’t care who gets credit for what gets done. We just want to see something get done that’s better than it used to get done. And we certainly are doing things better than we used to do them.
SPEAKER 10 :
You certainly are. And I commend you, Dr. Harris, for your work as chair of the Freedom Caucus and always glad to have you on the program.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Tony.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, folks, a lot more Washington Watch to come when we come back. An explosive report that was done just released this morning from the Department of Justice. Actually, it’s a whole of government. Look at the Biden administration’s anti-Christian bias. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think all people really need to have this type of education. Well, I can tell you that it’s been an amazing course, period.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think this course is a reminder that a biblical worldview should really impact everything. It impacts our government from the federal to the state to the local. It should impact what we’re doing with our families and with our work.
SPEAKER 05 :
God and Government is a video-driven, Bible-based training course from Family Research Council that explores the connection between between biblical principles and American government. In this six-session video series, FRC President Tony Perkins equips participants with a practical understanding of civil government from a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER 06 :
I would encourage all people to take it. I almost wish I would have took it earlier that I could have taught my kids this.
SPEAKER 15 :
I wish I had known these things when we were homeschooling because I think children and my adults now would just greatly be influenced by that information.
SPEAKER 14 :
So I’m an attorney, and for me, it gives me some direct practical knowledge of what I can do to try to impact my legal community, to make better legislation, to try to encourage legislators to make choices that have a biblical worldview, which is what we really want.
SPEAKER 13 :
Any pastor would benefit from taking this course because we are dual citizens, right? We are citizens of the kingdom of God, but we’re also citizens of this great land, and that comes with responsibility.
SPEAKER 04 :
Even as someone who has been involved in these types of issues for a while, you’re learning little bits and pieces of new stuff all the time. But it’s also approachable enough that newer people, younger people, high school, college students, they can really glean something from this. So I would encourage everybody to take this course, whether it’s the videos, whether it’s doing it in person, bring your Bible study group through it, bring your homeschool group through it, and equip yourself for these challenging days ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
View the course at frc.org slash God and government or on the Stand Firm app.
SPEAKER 09 :
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal. That they’re endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Happy 250th. Happy 250th. Happy 250th. Happy 250th birthday, America. May God bless America.
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Welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us on this Thursday. Well, this morning, the Justice Department’s task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias released the findings of its investigation into bias that was endemic in the federal government during the Biden administration. And the findings, they’re sobering. It’s an extensive report. The task force details how the administration not only sought to limit Christians from living out their beliefs, but in some cases coerced them to abandon those beliefs, make a choice between either working in government or practicing their faith. And some were even targeted, prosecuted, and jailed because of their Christian faith. Joining us now to unpack this is Deputy Assistant Attorney General Camille Varon, who oversees the task force and led the research at the Department of Justice as they drafted the report. Camille, welcome to Washington Watch. Thanks so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER 10 :
Let me ask you, just start by sharing more about what you found across the federal government. This was a whole of government look. This was an extensive evaluation. Tell us about how you did it and what you found.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you. And it’s a pleasure to be here. So this was, as you said, a whole of government effort. So the task force has 17 cabinet level members and other agency heads. But there were other agencies who were hearing about the work we were doing and were excited to participate. And so the report has findings from far more than just the task force members. But to start from a high level, what we found was that the Biden administration was willing to tolerate Christians up to a point. So when Christians held their traditional religious views privately within the four corners of their church, the Biden administration would tolerate that. But the conflicts arose when Christians started to act on their beliefs so that those conflicts most often arose when the Biden administration’s preferred policies on matters that touched on Christian beliefs about life, family, human sexuality, how people identify and view themselves. That’s where Christians ran into issues.
SPEAKER 10 :
And Camille, as I read through the report, you laid the foundation with why religious freedom is important and what it really is. What the Biden administration, and really that’s reflective of the left, this truncated view of religious freedom, that as long as it stays in your head or is contained within the four walls of your church, it’s okay. Just don’t live it out. That’s where the rub was, especially as you talked about the life issue, you talked about the human sexuality issues. But they went further in terms of their collaboration with some of these organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, like Planned Parenthood and some of these other pro-abortion groups that were actually tracking pro-lifers and turning this information over to the Department of Justice for them to act upon.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. No, it was truly troubling, the documents that we found. I should preface this by saying, originally, the recent FACE Act report that the Department of Justice published started as part of the task force’s effort. So our team here spent hours and hours reviewing those 700,000 documents. And it’s exactly what you said. We found that within the Department of Justice, prosecutors and investigators were working hand in hand with these outside pro-abortion, non-governmental organizations, particularly the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood. And what we found was the prosecutors knew that they were constrained by policy and constitutional rights, but there’s emails where they describe that part of the benefit of working with these groups is that the non-governmental organizations could poke around on the internet in ways that the department couldn’t. There were so many different documents that we found from National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood compiling dossiers where they were monitoring pro-life Americans, collecting information about their travel, their whereabouts, their social media posts, including posting of Bible verses. There were even information about the cars that they drove and photos of some of their children And they compiled all of this to give it to the Department of Justice, to the people who were charged with prosecuting under the FACE Act in case something might happen that DOJ may view as a potential crime.
SPEAKER 10 :
So, Camille, I want to go back to what you said about that they had these outside non-governmental organizations doing things that they could not because they were constrained by the law. That would be a violation of certain laws for them to get this kind of information on their own.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, so at minimum, it would violate best practices. And so we’d start with that. There are concerns that some of the conduct here is, May have gone further. I can’t get into specifics because DOJ handles all of its internal personnel and investigations privately. But as the report mentions, appropriate referrals have been made and I’ll leave it at that.
SPEAKER 10 :
In the report, you made reference to the Family Research Council’s hostility against churches report. You know, it’s one of the few that was out there that we were tracking because a lot of these things are one-off and they’re in the media and then they go away. But when you begin to look at it collectively, you realize we have a big problem. Of course, we saw this. 800 percent increase in these attacks on places of worship. What’s the future for this report? Is there going to be an ongoing report? Is there going to be a tracking mechanism or is this just an assessment and then changing a federal policy?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, and so this is a first step. You know, I hope that your viewers will take a look at the last chapter of the report where we have about 20 pages that runs through example by example of all the concrete actions that are already done that the Trump administration has done to protect religious liberty for all Americans. But I should say that this is not the end of the story. There is another year of the task force, and there’s also ongoing effort within all of our different agencies to continue to look at what happened to try to figure out if there were further injustices. Information keeps coming out as we look. And so it’s something that we’re taking very seriously and we’ll continue to report on as we get more information.
SPEAKER 10 :
Camille, we just have a little over a minute left. One of the things that you revealed in this is not just the federal government, but the pressure used by the federal government on state actors and even the business sector.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, that’s right. And we do talk about that because the tone that the federal government sets, the policies that are being emphasized, does trickle down to a state and local level. And often when you’re dealing with these kinds of issues, schools, family, even where your churches can meet, the policies that govern those on a day-to-day basis most frequently show up at the state and local level. So a good example there was the foster care system, where what the Biden administration did was cited by state agencies to keep Christians from being placements for kids in need.
SPEAKER 10 :
Camille Verone, I want to thank you for joining us and applaud the task force for doing this work. It’s very insightful, very helpful. At a minimum, we now know what the government was. We had a hunch. Now we know for certain. And I think this also reveals how they did it so that we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. Thanks so much for joining us.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, folks, stick with us. On the other side of the break, we’re going to talk about one of those organizations, the Southern Poverty Law Center. That’s next.
SPEAKER 12 :
For I know that my Redeemer lives. Job 19, 25. God raised Jesus from the dead because it was impossible for death to take hold on Him. Acts 2, 24.
SPEAKER 05 :
Join Family Research Council in standing on the Word. Visit frc.org slash Bible for free resources to help your family follow the way. Jesus, the risen Savior of the world.
SPEAKER 07 :
One Nation Under God, America’s Undeniable Foundation of Faith.
SPEAKER 06 :
The United States Capitol, an iconic symbol of the American Republic. But few know that this building at the heart of our nation’s government was once something more, the largest church building in America. Since its inception and for decades following, several rooms throughout the Capitol, including the House and Senate chambers, were used to host church services weekly. These services were filled with individuals from all levels of government. The attendance was so pervasive that often it was standing room only. Quote, going to the Capitol on Sundays was then one of the most common things in Washington. Margaret Bayard Smith. This practice was not merely accepted, but encouraged. Quote, I consider it as one of my public duties as a representative of the people to give my attendance every Sunday morning when divine service is performed in the hall. President John Quincy Adams. Housing worship at the center of our Capitol was a living representation of the role that biblical principles played as a cornerstone of our nation’s foundation of faith.
SPEAKER 1 :
Music.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, this is Washington Watch. I’m Tony Perkins, and we’re glad that you’re along for the ride today. All right, one week after they were indicted by a grand jury, the Southern Poverty Law Center this past Tuesday filed two motions in federal court accusing the Trump administration of gross misrepresentations. It’s amazing that the SPLC was accusing the Department of Justice of being deceptive about their deception. Well, anyway, in the statement, the SPLC’s interim president, Brian Fair, said, quote, the government is blatantly mischaracterizing our efforts to successfully fight hatred and violent extremism. Oh, really? Is is this just a desperate attempt from the group to cry that cried hate? But joining us now to to break this down is Tyler O’Neill, senior editor at The Daily Signal and author of Making Hate Pay, the corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Tyler, welcome back to Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 15 :
Thanks, Tony. Always glad to be here.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, more information for you today, I guess, in the anti-Christian bias report that was released from the Department of Justice showing that the SPLC was right up there in the middle of it. I’m sure you’re surprised by that. Not one bit. Earlier in the week, you were on with Jody talking about these two motions. The Department of Justice has only responded with basically a very short response saying basically it’s not done yet. We only showed the grand jury a little bit of the information we have. I really read a lot into that. How about you?
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, I think there’s a great deal more that I’m excited to see, hopefully, as the process continues. What we see from this indictment is a lot of damning information, but it’s the overall story of the information. It’s not the information itself. So I’d really like to delve into exactly how the SPLC works. was allegedly supervising the posts of the guy who helped organize the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, for instance. I think that’s very exciting and interesting information there because it really undermines the SPLC’s claim that these people were just informants tipping off the SPLC to potential violent threats.
SPEAKER 10 :
Not to come off as braggadocious here, but I don’t think there’s two guys that know more about the SPLC than the two of us here talking. I mean, you’ve studied them. We’ve been the recipient of their hate and their slander. But I think there’s a bigger criminal conspiracy here. I think what’s been shown in the indictment is that they were propping up these white supremacist groups so that they could raise money. But I think it was more than that, Tyler. I think they were they needed those groups to exist so that they could then for the left. I think it’s a bigger conspiracy here that they were working for the left. I mean, big I mean, a big conspiracy so that they could have a place to hang the names of conservative organizations next to these white supremacist groups so they could marginalize and demonize them. Because the left was getting worried about the effectiveness of many conservative organizations.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. The left uses the SPLC as their attack dog. So long as there is enough hate out there, real white nationalist agitation, the sort of thing that Charlottesville makes the SPLC more relevant, so long as more of that is out there, they’re not immediately laughed out of polite society immediately. when they come up with this insane connection that an organization like the Family Research Council, which advocates for pro-family policies in Washington, D.C., and does not advocate for violence and does not call for violence, is nothing like the Klan or any of these white nationalist groups. You know, it is beyond the pale. to see your organization compared to that. But, you know, it’s not just yours. It’s also Alliance Defending Freedom winning multiple cases at the Supreme Court. After last year, it’s Turning Point USA. It’s PragerU. It’s even Focus on the Family. I mean, you could not get more extreme than comparing Focus on the Family, which is probably the premier, the first, the best known conservative Christian nonprofit out there. Adventures in Odyssey, I grew up listening to it. It’s still going today. But the notion that Focus on the Family belongs on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan is just so beyond the pale. And yet they’re taken seriously. And the reason they’re taken seriously partially is because Because they’re able to point to the few, you know, isolated… I mean, I remember writing the book, even in the 1980s, the Klan was a paper tiger. And suing the Klan into bankruptcy, the lawyers compared it to shooting fish in a barrel. And that’s in the 80s, when there was real Klan violence. In the 90s, you had a little bit with… with the Oklahoma City bombing, and let’s not completely overlook that. But now we’re talking, I mean, today it’s 2026. It’s 30 years since the Oklahoma City bombing. And the only thing that the left can point to is this Charlottesville rally at which an SPLC paid field operative, you know, they say they’re informants, but really they’re field operatives, He was there and supposedly being supervised by the SPLC.
SPEAKER 10 :
And transporting people to the event. Just a little lesson, about 45 seconds left. You made reference to Avengers and Odyssey, the Bible. You know, the story of Haman, as he set a trap and it was used on him with Queen Esther. This week, two major charitable organizations saying they’re cutting off the SPLC from donor-advised funds, something that SPLC was doing to conservative groups. Thirty seconds.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, even more. I mean, I think your audience is familiar with the name Goldman Sachs. They also are cutting off the SPLC from receiving donor-advised funds. So, I mean, the worm has turned here. The shoe is on the other foot. The SPLC long fought for debanking. Now it’s facing debanking itself.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, they’re going to have to go back to those gift cards that they gave away. All right, stick with us, folks. We’re back with more after this.
SPEAKER 20 :
This is Mission Control Houston here in the Artemis flight control room. Splashdown confirmed at 7.07 p.m. Central Time. A new chapter of the exploration of our celestial neighbor is complete. Integrity’s astronauts, back on Earth.
SPEAKER 17 :
When I got back on the ship, I’m not really a religious person, but there was just no other avenue for me to explain anything or to experience anything. So I asked for the chaplain on the Navy ship to just come visit us for a minute. And when that man walked in, I’d never met him before in my life, but I saw the cross on his collar and I just, I broke down in tears. It’s very hard to fully grasp what we just went through. And when the sun eclipsed behind the moon, I think all four of us, I turned to Victor and I said, I don’t think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we are looking at right now, because it was otherworldly. It was amazing.
SPEAKER 05 :
That was Commander Reid Wiseman of the Artemis II mission, reflecting on their journey around the moon. So here’s a question. Does that sound like a man that just entered space, an empty, cold vacuum of nothingness? Or did he encounter something so profound, so full, so warm and bursting with life, it’s almost as if someone was breathing on it? Perhaps it was so meaningful that the word space doesn’t do the journey justice. Well, it sounds like he didn’t encounter space, but something else, what the Bible calls the heavens. As the psalmist says, the heavens declare the glory of God and continually pours out speech. And that speech just might leave you speechless if you’re seeking it. It seems like Commander Wiseman discovered the truth of Psalm 139 in reality. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven and orbit the moon, you are there. So here’s the glorious news for Commander Wiseman and all of humanity. The heavens aren’t far from any one of us. In fact, the Christian story proclaims that the One who sits in the heavens didn’t stay there. He came down into our broken world, forsaking heaven’s treasure to make you His treasure. And something truly incomprehensible happened the day He died, when the One who stretched out the heavens like a curtain stretched out His hands for us on the cross. But it was impossible for death to keep its hold on life itself. He rose from the grave, he lives, and every sunrise since reminds us that the darkness of night will never eclipse the light behind all light, Jesus, the light of the world. Family Research Council prays that families across America would look up and join the song of the heavens. Praise God in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his mighty deeds. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, welcome back. I’m Tony Perkins and this is Washington Watch. I made that comment on the way out with Tyler. In the indictment, the Southern Poverty Law Center was using gift cards to pay off their operatives. And so now that they’re being debanked, of course it’s going to take them a long time to put that $750 million that they have into gift cards. But we’re going to continue to track that very, very closely because I think there’s a whole lot more behind that. All right, our word for today comes from Judges chapter 3. Now, these are the nations which the Lord left that he might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan. This was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formally known it. And they were left that he might test Israel by them to know whether they would obey the commandments of the Lord. The Lord left these nations in Canaan in part because Israel had failed to obey his explicit instructions, as we read in chapter 2, to drive them out. They also needed to be taught how to fight. This is the same reason God doesn’t remove all the obstacles from our lives. We must learn how to do battle spiritually. How can we advance the kingdom of God if we don’t know how to engage in spiritual warfare? Opposition and resistance makes us stronger. Historian Arnold Toynbee observed this in his study of civilizations. Societies drift into moral complacency, political corruption, and chaos without external challenges that drive them back to the fundamentals. To find out more about our journey through the Bible, text Bible to 67742. That’s Bible to 67742. All right. As we were discussing early in the program, a very busy week, in fact, a really busy 48 hours on Capitol Hill as members now are heading out of town for a one-week recess, a 10-day recess. They’ll be back after that. But as we look back on the week, what were the big issues and how do they impact faith, family, and freedom? Joining me now is our Washington Stand panel, And on that panel today, Stan, the Stan’s managing editor for broadcast, Casey Harper and senior writer, Joshua Arnold. Casey, Joshua, thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks, Tony. So, Casey, let me start with you. In the last segment, we had Tyler O’Neill on, joining us to unpack kind of the actions with SPLC this week in the motion that they filed in federal court accusing the Trump administration of misrepresenting them. Sounds like they might be projecting. What do you think? Right.
SPEAKER 19 :
I laughed out loud at your gift card line. I’m glad you explained it for people who didn’t get it. But there’s a rich irony here. I mean, I don’t want to rejoice in the downfall of SPLC, but there is something that is pretty rich about SPLC, which has really made millions of dollars by libeling conservative groups like Alliance for Freedom, like Family Research Council, and many others by comparing them in a really a laughable way but with a straight face to some of the worst groups in our society and then sending out email after email to people to raise money on it and then as soon as it happens to them they say hey wait a minute this isn’t fair that doesn’t feel nice it’s kind of like the bully finally getting a taste of their own medicine
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and as I mentioned, the Haman, Haman was the kind of the evil guy in the account in Esther who built the gallows to hang Mordecai, and it turned around to be used on him. Well, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the part of the, and this is where I think the big criminal conspiracy comes in, which I do hope gets exposed, is that Part of what they were trying to do by labeling groups such as ours, and now so many others, we happen to be at the front of the line, but there’s a lot of others now on that list, was to get these groups like Fidelity Charitable, Vanguard Charitable, and others to stop giving money to these organizations, to intimidate the donors to these organizations. And now, it was announced this week, as I was just talking with Tyler, Fidelity and Vanguard no longer giving money, allowing money to be given to Southern Poverty Law Center. What do we make of that, Joshua?
SPEAKER 18 :
That’s right, Tony. The reason they gave is because they’re the subject of an ongoing government investigation. So it seems to be related to the government actions specifically. And as you pointed out, these are the same groups that the SPLC had long been trying to get to de-platform conservative organizations. So on one level, it’s good to see that the SPLC is finally facing accountability for their actions. On another level, we need to ask, what is the proper response for us? In Proverbs chapter 24, the wisdom literature exhorts us, do not rejoice when your enemy stumbles. Do not let your heart be glad when he falls, lest the Lord see it and be displeased and turn his wrath away from him. And I think the point there is not that we don’t want to see God’s justice done. We do want to see God’s justice fulfilled because God’s justice is perfect justice. What that’s getting at is our heart posture. You know, Christians are supposed to be humble people and humble. Humble people don’t boast over others or gloat about others. And so it’s really getting at what our heart posture should be. In Romans, Paul makes two really interesting observations. In chapter 12, He says, beloved, don’t avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. And then just a few verses later in chapter 13, he says that the civil magistrate is an avenger who executes God’s wrath. So it’s not that we don’t want to see justice done. We don’t want to see accountability done. come to this evil organization, but we should make sure that along the way we don’t become like them in our own hearts, that we don’t hate them, that we show them Christian love at all times.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and I would also say that, and we discussed this this morning as a team, I don’t necessarily support what these financial institutions are doing because these are donor-advised funds. So if the donor wants to give the money to a group that’s deceptive, You know, that’s up to them. I don’t like to see the government stepping in or, in this case, because we’ve been the recipient of this type of stuff. I just, again, I’m glad. I am glad that justice is being done because the SPLC has hurt a lot of people. I mean, it led to a shooting in our building. I do think that it’s right that this stuff be exposed. But, you know, I’m not going to dance on their grave. But I do want to see their… Ability to influence government as we just talked about earlier in the program with the new anti Christian biased task force report that was released at the SPLC was right up there in the middle of that advising giving direction to the Biden administration on targeting conservatives and Christians. So to one to a certain extent, we don’t want the government using that information. you know, the SPLC has a right to exist, and if people want to be dumb enough, if they’re dumb enough to give them money, let them give them money. But the government should not be using their resources or their information. I’m going to speak to that, about that report. I’m going to shift gears to the DOJ’s Anti-Christian Bias Task Force report, which was I wouldn’t say it was surprising, but to see it in black and white and how extensive it was, it validates a lot of what we’ve been saying, does it not, Joshua?
SPEAKER 18 :
That’s right, Tony. It wasn’t surprising. It’s a lot of the stuff that we’ve spent the last few years highlighting. But the report had 14 key findings, key areas where it identified the anti-Christian bias perpetrated by the Biden administration. And it broke this out into four categories. So the first was enforcement actions, which involve things like its FACE Act prosecutions, where it had much stricter, harsher sentences for pro-life protesters than for those who were firebombing pro-life pregnancy centers and vandalizing churches. Also the Johnson Amendment, its lawsuits against Christian universities, where I was asking for these massive fines. And then federal policies as well, such as its expansion of the Bostock rule, its foster care rule, which tried to penalize Christian foster parents there. It’s taking Nigeria off the list of countries of particular concern, as well as employment action, such as the vaccine mandate, and also specific actions that they took to inhibit and limit freedom, free religious expression. And the sum of this is, you know, you’re… you’re kind of stunned by how much anti-Christian bias came out of the Biden administration. You have to conclude that these people hate Christians, you know, not the kind of Christian that waves a rainbow flag in their church, but the kind that actually believes the Bible. And the next time that a progressive administration comes into Washington, all of these policies are coming right back.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, what was interesting about this is I thought the report was well done in even laying the foundation of why this matters, going back to the historical documents, quoting from the farewell address of President George Washington. But they really captured the essence of what was going on. They used the word a clash of worldviews. that this was a clash of worldviews. And this anti-Christian bias surrounded really three things. It surrounded the issue of the sanctity of human life, abortion, marriage, and human sexuality. And so where, and this is where the SPLC comes in, is that when groups like ours were effective in slowing down that agenda on abortion, the redefinition of marriage and human sexuality, they had to take us out in order to advance. And I think that’s really the story behind this anti-Christian bias report is that the church And I say the church, that’s individual believers, followers of Christ living out their faith is this is exactly what Thessalonians says. It is a restraint. And so in order for them to be unrestrained, they have to silence or or or remove the church. Fortunately, they can’t do that in totality. But Casey. You know, this is great to have this information, but it should inform us on how we live to prevent what Joshua was just saying could happen when the next administration comes in.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah, that’s right. I mean, it’s a warning of persecution to come. And I honestly believe, whether it’s the next few administrations or not, that persecution is coming to the global church. It’s going to get worse. I think we can see that in scripture and that we really are, we’re a last days church. Persecution is going to be part of our lives and it’s only going to increase. That being said, we can still stand up and fight. And I think there’s a few of our themes that are emerging right here. One is that Christians do best when we are fighting in the realm of words and ideas, not in the realm of raw power. And so groups like SPLC, they do best when they’re involved in things like these DOJ investigations or getting banks to crack down on us. I understand the role of what the DOJ is doing now. But I think, ideally, there would not need to be these debankings. There would not need to be use of the FACE Act. There would not need to be these things. If we just went back to our side is preaching the truth of the gospel, and then the other side is preaching either modernism or relativism, then the church will win. If you go back to the realm of preaching, the church wins, the church grows. And as you said, it has to come to persecution, using the government to persecute, to crack down. And that’s what we’ve seen. And I think what’s really troubling ABOUT THIS REPORT, I MEAN, THERE’S MANY THINGS THAT ARE, IS THE WORD THAT YOU SAID EARLIER, TONY, WHICH IS THE CONSPIRACY. WE’RE SEEING THAT THERE WAS THESE ABORTION GROUPS WERE BASICALLY BECOMING AN EXTENSION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT. AND WE SAW THIS TREND THROUGHOUT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, WHICH I THINK IS MAYBE WHAT MAKES THIS WORSE THAN JUST, YOU KNOW, ONE OR TWO GROUPS TARGETING CHRISTIANS. THIS IS THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION to dig up dirt, to get extended sentences on pro-lifers. We saw that the Biden administration was working with tech companies to censor free speech about the COVID vaccine and religious objections. We know that they’ve been working with universities for decades to basically brainwash the next generation. And so you see that there’s this institutional conspiring that is happening. Now, some of it’s been dismantled, but I think people really have to understand how pervasive this problem really is. And the report gets to that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. And I think that’s why the report is so good is because it does pull back the curtain on this. I mean, we we we knew it was there, but now we have the evidence to show that. But we also have something else, Joshua, when when, you know, and there will be another Democratic leftist administration that will come in, given the fact that, you know, our country. It just goes back and forth like Proverbs. You quoted Proverbs earlier says, you know, basically people that reject God’s way is the land of many princes. And so we we just have leaders going back and forth diametrically opposed because we’ve lost our way as as a country. Of course, we can be a part of that solution by Living out the gospel preaching the gospel and seeing hearts and lives change in the community transformed But as we know what’s happening Behind the scenes through reports like this we can prepare for the future putting policies in place both at the federal state and local level to make it a little more difficult for them to do this in the future and
SPEAKER 18 :
That’s right. That’s why organizations like the Washington Stand are really important, because what we do is we’re trying to bring truth to light. We want to show what’s actually happening, and we’re doing it from a biblical perspective. We aren’t out there to cheer for the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. We don’t have loyalty to any particular president or candidate, but our loyalty is to the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, and his agenda, we hope, is our agenda as well as we seek to do good to people made in God’s image and advance truth and beauty and goodness here in Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER 10 :
Very quickly, Casey, on another issue showing the deceptive nature of what the Biden administration was doing, Senator Joni Ernst from Iowa. She had oversight hearing this week revealed that the Biden official seemingly at the direction of the top lawyer at the Small Business Association used the code word Benghazi in reference in internal communications in reference to Planned Parenthood. Very quickly, give us 45 seconds on that.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah. So Senator Joni Ernst, she unveiled this pretty shocking thing that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, which was delving out, as we know, millions and millions of dollars of COVID PPP loans, which are loans that could be the interest could be forgiven. They’re forgivable loans to keep actual real small businesses afloat during the pandemic. Now we know so much of that money was lost to fraud. But we also know that it was given to Planned Parenthood. taxpayer dollars going to Planned Parenthood. And what Joni Ernst revealed is that it was not just going to Planned Parenthood, but the Biden administration coordinated with these abortion providers, and they used code words to hide it, apparently and allegedly, so that they wouldn’t be found out by FOIAs.
SPEAKER 10 :
So Freedom of Information Act requests, if people were looking for Planned Parenthood, it wouldn’t show up because they used Benghazi. Exactly. What’d they have to hide? Casey, Joshua, thanks so much for joining me today. And folks, I want to thank you for joining me as well. Until next time, keep praying and keep standing.
SPEAKER 11 :
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.
