On today’s program: Greg Steube, U.S. Representative for the 17th District of Florida, contrasts an anti-Israel U.N. resolution with pro-Israel legislation recently passed in the House of Representative and discusses legislation he introduced to
From the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington, DC., 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.
The two-state solution that is so vital to the needs of both peoples requires that the main obstacle to that solution, the interminable Israeli occupation of Palestine, be brought to an end. That is why the court has ruled in the clearest possible terms that international law demands that this illegal occupation be terminated as rapidly as possible.
That was Mohammed Saeed Dula, Djibouti’s permanent representative to the United Nations yesterday as United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution 124-14 demanding that Israel leave its biblical homeland of Judea and Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem. Thanks for joining us for this Thursday edition of Washington Watch. Well, as the nation wrestles with $34 trillion in debt, Vice President Kamala Harris has found a way to spend even more.
Vice President Kamala Harris says she supports taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners and immigration detainees, a policy she advocated for as Attorney General of California.
I made sure that they changed the policy in the state of California so that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desired and need.
Florida Congressman Greg Steube wants to cut off the federal dollars used to cut off body parts, stopping transgender operation payments and wacky expenses for illegal residents in detainees act. Congressman Steube joins us in just a moment. Well, the House failed yesterday to pass a short-term funding bill with election protections attached.
We ran the play. It was the best play. It was the right one.
And so now we go back to the playbook. We’ll drop another play and we’ll come up with a solution. I’m already talking to colleagues about their many ideas.
We have time to fix the situation and we’ll get right to it.
What’s next? Well, we’ll be joined by North Carolina Congressman Greg Murphy in just a little bit. You remember this from last week’s presidential debate where ABC News moderator Lindsey Davis jumped in to the debate?
There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born. Madam Vice President, I want to get your response to President Trump.
Well, as I said, you’re going to hear a bunch of lies.
Well, I responded to the false claims of both Davis and Kamala Harris showing the number of states that do not have protections for babies who survive an abortion and are born alive. Well, PolitiFact said that was false. So Mary Szoch, the director of FRC Center for Human Dignity, joins me to fact check the fact checkers.
Well, Daily Wire is taking its latest documentary, Am I a Racist, with Matt Walsh, to the big screen.
Is America an inherently racist country?
I think the word inherent is challenging there. If we say…
Fundamentally.
Fundamentally, yes. America is racist to its bones. All of the…
So inherently.
Yeah.
That was Matt Walsh with Kate Slater. The movie is disturbingly hilarious, and the laughed is furious. We’re gonna talk with producer Justin Folk and co-producer Sean Hampton a little bit later on this edition of Washington Watch.
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That’s CHILDREN to 67742. Help us protect children, both born and unborn. Well, as I mentioned yesterday, the United Nations General Assembly voted to pass a Palestinian drafted resolution that among other demands calls for Israel to evacuate from the Biblical lands of Judea and Samaria.
Now, through this resolution, this resolution is not binding, but it calls on a number of member nations to stop supplying weapons to Israel. Now, this UN action occurred the same day that the US. House of Representatives took a different course and passed the Anti-BDS Labeling Act, which challenges the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
Joining me now to discuss this and much more, Congressman Greg Steube. He serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. He represents the 17th Congressional District of Florida.
Congressman Steube, welcome back to Washington Watch. Good to see you.
Yeah, good to see you.
So, to contrast yesterday with the House of Representatives supporting Israel, even as most UN member nations passed a resolution that would threaten their very existence.
Yeah, I asked the question, why are we a part of the UN.? I’ve voted repeatedly to repeal our funding to the UN. It was 124 to like 13 or 14.
So you had 124 nations say that Israel doesn’t have the ability that has to give up its sovereignty in its own lands that it won in the war of 1967. I mean, it’s just amazing to me how corrupt the UN is, how it’s run by obviously China and Russia and Arab nations, that a sovereign nation, Israel, has to give up part of its sovereignty, which is the Gaza Strip, to the Palestinians who, oh, by the way, have never had a country. There is not a country called Palestine.
So it’s just fascinating where we’re at in the world where 124 nations feel like Israel, one, shouldn’t defend itself and two, should give up part of its land to basically a country run by terrorists.
Any surprises on the House floor yesterday as the House took up the anti-BDS measure that would simply say, hey, you can’t penalize Israel and companies based in Israel?
Yeah, the surprise is Jewish Democrats oppose that bill. They oppose the labeling of made from Israel out of those areas that are Israel’s sovereign land. I mean, it’s just kind of fascinating how political anything to do with Israel is, even with Jewish Democrats who voted against the bill.
Schneider himself who debated against the bill. I don’t know, I feel like we’re just, we know we’re at the end times and we’re walking towards that direction, so nothing that we’re seeing should surprise us if we’ve read the Bible, but it’s just fascinating how Democratic Jewish members will not vote for a bill simply to say that things made from Judea and Samaria should say made from Israel.
Speaking of the end times and where things are headed, I want to switch gears to a piece of legislation that you introduced last week. I mean, this is something that you, if you follow the trail of Romans Chapter 1, you would think that this is where we’re at, but last week you introduced legislation to prohibit taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for illegal immigrants in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security. I mean, why is that legislation even needed?
Well, it shouldn’t be needed, just like we shouldn’t have to have a bill that says that only women play in women’s sports, but unfortunately we’re in a place in our society today where you have to pass that bill and it dies in the Senate to ensure that there’s not biological men competing with women in women’s sports. But same type of thing here. You would think that no way that America is spending taxpayer dollars to do gender transition surgeries for trans inmates and illegal immigrants in our country.
But this is something that Kamala Harris supports. This is something that she has, you know, you played the clip that she is did when she was Attorney General in the state of California. And I’m filing a bill that says that our federal tax dollars shouldn’t go to gender transition surgeries for illegal immigrants.
It’s again, it’s sad that we have to take these kind of steps. What’s also sad is this bill would probably only pass on party lines on the House floor and wouldn’t see the light of day in the Senate because Chuck Schumer runs the Senate and Democrats would absolutely oppose this piece of legislation.
This is kind of like the Save Act that the House passed that says you’ve got to be here illegally and you have to be an American citizen to be able to vote in elections. They oppose that. These are people who are in the country illegally.
They’re in custody and they’re demanding these surgeries and medical treatment that are unnecessary and costly.
Yep. And our taxpayers are, tax dollars are picking up the tab. And hopefully this bill will move through the House process.
It hasn’t been referred yet, but I imagine it’s going to get referred to the Judiciary Committee. I know Jim Jordan would push that bill out of his committee and hopefully it will get a vote on the House floor. We don’t have a lot of time left in this Congress.
We’re not supposed to be here in October to give members time to be back in their districts to campaign. And then after the election, you’ve got a couple weeks in November and a couple weeks in December. So, God willing, President Trump wins in November.
Obviously, a lot of these things will be changed with a different administration who does not support this type of federal government spend. And you’ll have a bunch of cabinet officials who also don’t support this. It’s a complete change in our government, which would be very welcome.
But if necessary, I’ll file the bill again next Congress and we’ll keep working.
Final question for you, Congressman Greg Steube. You’re from Florida, the last attempt on President Trump at the golf course, another attempted assassination. What’s going on?
Is this the result of a federal government, in particular, the Secret Service that has been overrun with DEI as opposed to proficiency in their mission?
Well, these are all facts. You have Secretary Mayorkas who refused multiple requests by Trump’s team for more assets and more security. And this was before the Butler shooting.
You’ve had multiple attempts from Trump’s Secret Service team to get more assets. He’s denied that. Why?
When you have the Secret Service agent saying, we need more assets to protect a former president, why did Secretary Mayorkas deny that? You have a fundamental breakdown, in my opinion, of what happened at Butler, Pennsylvania. We still, as members of Congress, don’t have answers as to who was there that day.
Let’s oppose them. Let’s ask questions. How in the world, as a military service member who served in the war on terror and served in Iraq, how in the world can a guy get up on a roof with a rifle and you have four snipers around that location and they not see him?
Some reports say that they saw him for 20 minutes. Why in the world was he not engaged before he got shots off? And then thankfully you have the situation in Florida where a secret service agent saw gun muzzles sticking out of the bushes and actually took action and prevented a shooting from occurring.
But the Palm Beach County Sheriff made an interesting remark. He said if he was the current president, we would have had that entire golf course locked down. Well, why in the world aren’t they doing that now?
Obviously, there’s been threats on his life. Obviously, Trump’s team, his security team has said we need more assets, and this administration is refusing to provide that to him. It’s incompetence at best.
It’s certainly a dereliction of duty, and it’s certainly an intentional act on behalf of Mayorkas to not give them the security that his own detail is saying that they need to protect him.
Congressman Greg Steube, always great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Anytime.
Folks, just another reminder, we need to pray. I think there’s so much more to this than meets the eye. I’ve talked a little bit about it in the program.
I do think it’s incompetence just as Greg laid out there. I agree with him, and I think he would agree with this if we continued the conversation. There is a spiritual side to this.
There is an unraveling of our society, lawlessness, and it’s because we’ve rejected truth. This is where we need to be praying. We need to be praying not just for the elections, we need to be praying for the heart and soul of this nation, that there is a return to truth.
It really begins not, I mean, yes, we want to see godly men and women in office because government takes on the character of the people that are in those offices. But those who take on those offices reflect the character of the people who elect them. Our churches need to be praying.
We need to pray, we need to vote, and we need to stand for biblical truth. All right, coming up next, a continuing resolution to extend government funding into next year and pass the lame duck session in December while it failed in the House yesterday. What’s next?
How should Republicans respond? I’ve been pretty clear with Republican leaders myself. They cannot accept a year-end omnibus from Democrats filled with all the goodies and toys for the left.
We’re going to talk about it next, but we’ll go away.
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Hello, I’m Jody Heiss, President of FRC Action. Here in America, we thank God for the right to vote, and we can all agree on the importance of this upcoming election. Many of us want to support candidates who share our values, but we’re not comfortable supporting the big national political organizations.
Well, we have a solution for supporting candidates through FRC Action’s Faith, Family and Freedom Fund. Being a super PAC, it allows for unlimited individual and corporate donations, so we can endorse and fund campaigns for people who share our values. By giving to this fund, we’re able to pull all of our contributions together and support and endorse like-minded candidates.
That’s how we move the needle. So let’s be the best stewards possible and get the most out of our political contributions by uniting our efforts. For more information or to contribute, visit faithfamilyfreedomfund.org.
Thank you so much and God bless you.
All of us are born with the desire to find truth and meaning.
While our answers to these questions may divide us, we are united in our need for the freedom to answer life’s biggest questions and make life’s biggest decisions for ourselves. That’s why religious freedom matters for everyone. Religious freedom matters because the powerful have long wanted to control those who are less powerful.
Religious freedom matters because the freedom of those who are different is often threatened by those who believe different is dangerous. At the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, we promote religious freedom for everyone because the only alternative is religious freedom for no one. We encourage Americans and the American government to engage and advocate for the persecuted and they do.
We work every day to bring good news to the afflicted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners. We do it because that’s what Jesus does. We work to give freedom to others because we ourselves have been set free.
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Yesterday, the House of Representatives failed to pass legislation that would have extended government funding into next year, while also stopping election officials in all 50 states from registering illegal immigrants and other foreigners from voting in federal elections. Current government funding expires midnight on September 30. October 1st is when the new fiscal year begins.
And Democrats in Congress appear anxious to pass a short-term continuing resolution in order to set the stage for a bloated lame duck session omnibus. Now, given the stakes, what strategy should conservative members in the House pursue next? Joining me now to discuss this and more, Congressman Greg Murphy, he serves on three House committees, including the House Ways and Means Committee.
He represents the third Congressional District of North Carolina. Dr. Murphy, welcome back to Washington Watch.
Thanks, Tony. Hope you’re doing well.
Doing good. You voted yesterday in favor of the continuing resolution and the SAVE Act. To me, made perfect sense.
It tried to avoid what I see coming, and that is an end-of-year showdown over the budget. Do you see another way?
No, I don’t, Tony, and that’s one reason particularly I voted for this. And this is where I think your prelude to this was spot-on. Democrats want to jam us to, at the end of the year, to put a quick package in, a big, huge package with all their woop policies and all the different, you know, wish list items that they have, progressive agenda.
We have to be strategic about this, and this is where some of my colleagues sometimes I get a little frustrated with not being strategic about it. I’m not a fan of CRs. I’m not.
I don’t believe that’s any way for our military to predict or do anything of the nature. But I think if we can push into March, hopefully President Trump gets elected and we can actually get back to some real true fiscal policies. But we can’t do this if we’re not smart enough and we’re not strategic enough to understand we have to beat the Democrats at their own game.
Agreed. I think that’s what we’re looking at. This is just trying to get it beyond the end of the year so that we can see what the next administration looks like.
If we talk about smart, talk about strategic, let’s talk about how we deal with the growing threat of China, something you’ve been talking quite a bit about over the last week. You serve as the co-chair of the committee overlooking the threats from China. Give us the latest on your concerns about what’s happening with China.
I’m Tony. I am very, very concerned about what China is doing, not only to our nation but to the globe for that matter. I first came in Congress actually five years today, is when the envelope was opened and I began really learning about what the Chinese Communist Party is doing.
They’re basically trying and they’re very actually in somewhat of an outlandish way. They’re saying, look, we want world domination. They’re doing it economically, they’re doing it geographically by the Belt and Road initiatives.
They’re doing so much to try to get Chinese influence. Sadly enough, we’re seeing in the United States in many instances where the Chinese, and of course backed by the Chinese Communist Party, were trying to buy up parcel lands next to very sensitive military sites and other types of insulations. And so we have to stop that.
North Carolina fortunately did a state law prohibiting the sale of these lands to anybody associated or Chinese nationals for that matter. But we need to do something nationally to prevent them from buying us out from under our own feet.
Why is it so hard for some to see the threat that China poses to the United States and the rest of the world? I mean, it’s not like they’re hiding this.
No, it’s not, Tony. But as you and I know, very well know, that strong times develop, our strong individuals deliver easy times and easy times create easy people that they don’t know what the threat is about them. People are busy in their own lives, getting up, getting to work, putting their kids in school, moving on.
They don’t have time to look and see what the real threat of the Chinese Communist Party is. And that’s where it’s left up to us to sound the alarm, to see what’s going on. And also, you know, people also want to get as much money for their land as possible.
And when the Chinese come in and the Chinese Communist Party comes in with essentially an open checkbook, it’s sometimes hard to turn that money down. But we have to understand the number one thing of government is for national security, and that’s what we should be doing.
Well, you talk about, you know, what they’re doing through their Belt and Roads initiatives, going in, getting rare minerals and other products to actually sell back to the United States through the electric vehicles and the batteries, buying up property here, but they’re also working in space.
Yeah. Talk about that. Well, you bring out a good point.
Here we have in the Biden and Harris initiative, buy everything solar, buy everything EV, buy all these windmills. Guess where all those components come from? China.
So, we’re making ourselves dependent upon the very Chinese Communist Party that wants to see our downfall. It’s a very, very woke, very, very short-sighted, myopic view of what’s happening in the world. We need to be infinitely more guarded about our true, how our true adversary, and sadly enough, an enemy at some point, what they’re doing against this country.
Again, Dr. Murphy, to me, it’s just so clear and simple, the threat that China poses to this nation. And you’re absolutely right. They do want to be, they want to be the global power, and they’re working on every front to do that.
And I appreciate the fact that you’re staying on that, as is some of your other colleagues. A final question before you, we only have about a minute and a half left, but news coming out of North Carolina, you’re from North Carolina. News about the governor’s race down there.
Give us the latest on that very quickly.
Yeah, it’s very concerning. There are some reports that Lieutenant Governor Robinson was involved on a chat room with, this is alleged, these are reports with pornography and some of the other, just salacious details of things. It’s very troubling.
Either one or two things, either it happened or it didn’t. If it happened, then Governor Mark Robinson needs to admit it. In my opinion, if it happened, then he needs to resign from the race.
If it didn’t happen, then it’s pretty sad that Democrats would put such horrible details out. Look, we saw for three and a half years, them lie about a cognitively declined president. We saw them lie about Harris.
We saw them push her in without any type of nomination process. I don’t put anything past them. But again, they’re horrible accusations.
I hope they’re not true, but only one person knows the truth and that’s Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. And I pray he does the right thing not only for the governor’s race, but for the whole country.
Yeah, and it is disturbing that it is so hard to know the truth because there’s so many lies being thrown out there. And it doesn’t matter. People don’t care who they destroy in the process.
Congressman Murphy, always great to have you on the program. Thanks for joining us.
Thanks so much, Tony. God bless. Thank you.
All right. All right, folks, after the break, a viral post of mine was fact-checked by Politifact. Once again, the so-called fact-checkers got it wrong.
So we’re going to fact-check the fact-checkers next.
Everything we do begins as an idea. Before there can be acts of courage, there must be the belief that some things are worth sacrificing for. Before there can be marriage, there is the idea that man should not be alone.
Before there was freedom, there was the idea that individuals are created equal. It’s true that all ideas have consequences, but we’re less aware that all consequences are the fruit of ideas. Before there was murder, there was hate.
Before there was a Holocaust, there was the belief by some people that other people are undesirable. Our beliefs determine our behavior, and our beliefs about life’s biggest questions determine our world view. Where did I come from?
Who decides what is right and wrong? Our answers to these questions explain why people see the world so differently. Debates about abortion are really disagreements about where life gets its value.
Debates over sexuality and gender and marriage are really disagreements about whether the rules are made by us or for us. What we think of as political debates are often much more than that. They are disagreements about the purpose of our lives and the source of truth.
As Christians, our goal must be to think biblically about everything. Our goal is to help you see beyond red and blue, left and right, to see the battle of ideas at the root of it all. Our goal is to equip Christians with a biblical worldview and help them advance and defend the faith in their families, communities and the public square.
Cultural renewal doesn’t begin with campaigns and elections. It begins with individuals turning from lies to truth. But that won’t happen if people can’t recognize a lie and don’t believe truth exists.
We want to help you see the spiritual war behind the political war, the truth claims behind the press release in the forest and the trees.
This is Washington Watch. I’m Tony Perkins, your host. Good to have you with us.
The website, tonyperkins.com. Be sure and check it out. All right, yesterday, the so-called fact checkers at PolitiFact flagged a viral post of mine.
They called it misinformation. This coming after last week’s presidential debate, when I called out ABC News moderator Lindsey Davis for this exchange with former President Trump.
There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born. Madam Vice President, I want to get your response to President Trump.
Well, as I said, you’re going to hear a bunch of lies. And as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening.
It’s insulting to the women of America.
Well, as I pointed out, those two women are wrong. I put this up. In 12 states, children born alive after a failed abortion have no legal protections.
And in three more states, children born alive after an abortion had legal rights that governors like Tim Walz repealed. Now, Plenifec has wrongly labeled that misinformation and worked to get the post removed from social media, like Facebook. Now, let’s fact check the so-called fact checkers.
Joining me now to help with this is Mary Szoch. She’s the director of the Center for Human Dignity here at the Family Research Council. Mary, welcome back to the program.
Thanks so much for having me on.
Okay, so let’s fact check the fact checkers, walk us through PolitiFact’s claim, and point out where their facts, quite frankly, are wrong.
Well, PolitiFact argues that federal law, including the Born Alive Protection Act of 2002, and state homicide and infanticide laws, would give protections to unborn babies who are born following, or to babies who are born following an abortion, to newborns. But what they ignore is that because of the lack of enforcement requirements on the 2002 federal statute, and because of the lack of state laws in states like Minnesota, that newborn child, the abortionist is not required to provide the same type of care to that newborn child, that he would provide to any other baby born at a similar gestational age. So oftentimes, what is happening here is that that baby is left on a table to die as the result of the wounds that were inflicted because of the abortion.
And so we do have instances of babies who are born alive following abortions being left to die.
Okay. So whether or not an abortionist, a doctor, as we saw with Dr. Gosnell in Philadelphia, whether or not he inserts scissors into the back of the head of the baby or just leaves the baby on a table or in a box to die, is there a difference in terms of the outcome for the baby?
No, there certainly isn’t. And for those who think that there is, I would challenge you to think of a healthy newborn baby. And if the doctor who delivered that newborn baby would just leave that baby on a table, that baby would certainly die.
When it comes to newborns, they need care because they’re newborns, and they’re vulnerable, regardless of the state that they’re born in. Newborns who have been attacked brutally in the womb, who have been attempted to be poisoned or burned or dismembered, those babies need extra care. And they’re at the mercy of the abortionist who was trying to take their life.
And still, with being at the mercy of the abortionist, still, we have 277 reported cases of these babies being born alive following abortions.
So, this would be like saying, well, you know, someone who attempted murder, and then we’re going to trust them to render aid to the person that they just tried to kill.
Right. And that’s one of the key things with what happened in Minnesota. Governor Tim Walz, he repealed, as you noted in your tweet and in your Facebook post, he repealed the requirement for the abortionist to preserve the health of that unborn child.
But he also repealed a requirement for a medical practitioner to be readily available, who could also provide care to that unborn child, to avoid the scenario that you just described, where we have the person who was attempting to kill that baby, being the one who’s now responsible for care of that child. And so in repealing that, he’s really trying to cover all the bases there and make sure that no babies survive.
But they also do not report. I mean, so it’s the information that’s out there right now. So they say it’s not happening, but we don’t know because they’re covering it up.
Right. And that’s one of the things that PolitiFact said in their statement. They quoted a pro-abortionist who said, the instances of babies born alive following abortions are vanishingly rare.
Incidentally, that abortionist, that pro-abortionist was referring to what’s happening in Minnesota, where the numbers that are being reported are vanishingly rare. But I have serious doubts that suddenly the number of actual babies who are being born alive after an abortion has just considerably gone down.
So Mary, I want to play a clip of former Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia. This was when he was governor. This was in January of 2019.
Clip four, please.
If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable.
The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.
He’s talking about a child that survives an abortion is born alive. How would PolitiFact rate that?
Well, it seems like PolitiFact would say, well, you know, the laws would protect that baby. What we know is that Governor Northam, who was a physician, knows that when you’re in the room, there’s a discussion taking place. And that child’s life hangs in the balance.
Mary Szoch, I want to thank you for joining us. We rate the PolitiFact unfactful, is what we rate them. All right, folks, stick around.
We’ve got more Washington Watch straight ahead as we talk about Matt Waltz’s new movie. It’s stirring things up. Don’t go away, we’re back with more after this.
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Jesus said in John 15, These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. In 2024, in these divided and uncertain times, how can this be possible? By abiding in him through his word.
At Family Research Council, we want to help you do that, which is the reason for the stand on the Word Bible reading plan. In just 10 to 15 minutes each day, you will have read the entire Bible in just two years. But more importantly, you will be abiding in him daily.
Find our Bible reading plan at frc.org/bible. And join Tony Perkins each weekday for a 10-minute devotional, inspired by the daily reading and designed to encourage you on this journey through the Bible. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
And remember, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
Research has found that there are 59 million American adults who are a lot like you. There are millions of people around the country who are born again, deeply committed to practicing their faith, and believe the Bible is the reliable word of God. But that’s not all.
They’re also engaged in our government. They’re voters. They’re more likely to be involved in their community, and they’re making a difference in elections.
The problem is that a lot of them feel alone too. We want to change that. FRC wants to connect these 59 million Americans to speak the truth together, no matter the cost.
If you want to learn more about this group and what it means to be a spiritually active, governance-engaged conservative, or if you want to find out if you are one of these sage-cons yourself, join us. Go to frc.org/s-a-g-e-c-o-n, sage-con, to learn more. That’s s-a-g-e-c-o-n, sage-con, to learn more.
Welcome back to Washington Watch. Good to have you with us. The website tonyperkins.com.
Our word for today comes from 2 Chronicles chapter 3 verse 1. Now Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah where the Lord had appeared to his father David at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Arana, the Jebusite. Now this sacred ground is where Solomon built the temple, the same site where Abraham offered Isaac and where God offered his son Jesus for the sins of the world.
Mount Moriah holds profound spiritual significance and today it remains central to the ongoing conflict in Israel and the Middle East. On October 7th of last year, Hamas, recognized by many as a terrorist organization, launched a brutal attack on southern Israel, killing 1200 civilians and kidnapping 250. Now what you haven’t heard much about in the media is that they called this attack the Al-Aqsa Deluge, a reference to Temple Mount, which has long been a site of religious tension.
As we witness these events, we must remember there is more happening than politics. This land’s spiritual significance runs deep. Let’s pray for peace and discernment, knowing that God’s eternal purposes are unfolding right before us.
To find out more about our journey through the Bible, we’ll text Bible to 67742. That’s Bible to 67742. All right, a new movie out came out last week, Am I a Racist?
It’s the new film from Matt Walsh and the Daily Wire team that produced What is a Woman? Now, it hit theaters, as I mentioned, last Friday, achieving the third highest box office results of the weekend, making it already the highest grossing documentary film of 2024. Now, the film, which features Walsh as a bumbling DEI trainee, delightfully lampoons woke DEI culture.
It is disturbingly hilarious, and the left is furious. Joining me now to discuss the film is the director producer, Justin Folk, and co-producer, Sean Hampton. Guys, welcome to Washington Watch.
Thank you, Tony.
You guys have to be thrilled by the response from the first weekend.
Absolutely. Definitely. Great start.
Great start. We hope that the momentum builds from here. I think word of mouth is getting out about the film.
A lot of great response from people that went to see it in the theater last week, and we’re really hoping for a big weekend coming up.
Sean, you and I actually talked about it a few weeks ago. We were together up in Alaska, and it’s been a few weeks since I watched it. But as I said, it was disturbingly hilarious.
Disturbing because there are people that actually believe this stuff. Hilarious as how foolish they look. And I got to ask the question, because my kids were asking the question, how could these people be so foolish to go on camera and say the things they said?
You know, I think it’s a real testament to the bubble that these people put themselves in and refuse to come out of. I can remember when being an academic meant that you are used to having your ideas challenged and you’re used to having to defend your position. That was the hallmark of an academic at one point, but now it seems that they put up walls.
And anyone who tries to go against what they say, they just have to deal with that wall. And all that to say, I believe they really just set themselves up to be exposed in this way. When your ideas are so weak that they cannot be challenged, and you do not allow them to be challenged, you’re just asking for the truth to come in and shine right through all of that.
Yeah, and Justin, you saw that actually in the first scene, I think, of the movie, where there’s that little therapy session going on, and they all get triggered when they find out it’s Matt Walsh sitting there among them. Now, you really changed the national conversation back with the movie What is a Woman? Now you’re taking on DEI.
What do you hope to accomplish with this?
We really hope to change the conversation around this issue of race. We really hope to, in one way, really poison this DEI push in our country that’s been so divisive and harmful to Americans, much the same way that we did with What is a Woman and gender ideology. Ultimately, we went out and worked hard on this movie, and we just really not just hope to entertain people, but we really hope to move the needle on culture, as we know, politics is downstream from culture.
We really hope to give people courage as well with this movie. I think a lot of people are out there, they’ve been through these DEI trainings, they’re sick of it, they’re tired of the whole idea that we have to categorize ourselves as either oppressed or the oppressor. It’s time for regular everyday Americans to push back, and we just hope that our film not only entertains people, but gives people the courage to push back on this.
So one way to push back is to go to the theaters this weekend and watch the film. Take somebody with you and go watch it.
That’s absolutely the best way to do it. That’s a great way to start. There’s a trade that is involved there too.
We hope that you’re entertained as well, and we really think we will be. It’s a very funny movie about a serious topic, but it does have a serious point to it. And laughter is a powerful tool.
It disarms people. It opens people up to ideas. And that was our goal with this film.
Now Sean, there have been efforts by the left to cancel theaters that are showing this movie, but it’s not been effective to date, has it?
No, not yet. That’s the encouraging part, is that the people are actually bypassing all of that nonsense, and they’re going straight to the source for truth. The left really set themselves up in our case, because their number one tactic is trying to ignore or just avoid something that they think is a serious threat.
But as I said before, the truth always does shine through, and I’m very proud of everyone in the public for it, not believing the media in there, through their silence and ignoring the film, and actually going and seeing it, and taking a friend, you know, and taking other people to see it. There’s so many people saying, I took my friend, and I took a coworker, and I took my family, and I took my mom, and that’s what we need. And we need that kind of community to keep coming around the film.
And so far, it’s been overwhelming the large response we’ve had.
That’s great, because that is one way we make a statement to Hollywood and elsewhere. Justin, I want to ask you a couple of scenes that were kind of my favorites. One in particular, my home state of Louisiana was down in New Orleans, a car repair shop, where it kind of—my take on it was kind of baiting this guy, thinking, oh, you’ve been—this is a bad country, you’ve been mistreated.
He didn’t buy it, did he?
He didn’t. He didn’t go in that direction. And that’s one thing that we found while we were making this movie, when we talked to regular, common, everyday people, is that they’re not caught up in this.
They’re not believing the sort of the lies that are being fed to them. And they’re out there living their lives, trying to make a living. And it’s really these experts, these so-called experts that are being hired by companies that are pushing this agenda, that are the ones that are jamming it down our throats.
And we felt it was important to go out and highlight how just regular, common, everyday people feel about this subject, whether they’re white or they’re black. And Milton is a beautiful story because he owns a auto body shop down there in New Orleans. And he just has a wonderful spirit.
He just is a lovely man. And he delivered a very important message for us, which is, hey, there’s actually a really simple solution here of how to solve this. And that’s just simply loving each other and looking past skin color.
And also, it’s interesting too, because he points out, you know, his main inspiration in life is the Bible. He mentions it in the scene that we talked to him when Matt asked him, okay, well, what do you read? And he says, I read the Bible.
It’s right there in my car, sitting there on my seat. And I think that’s a really important lesson of, you know, his faith and living that faith out in the real world in terms of loving people. And how do we get past racism?
Well, Milton has the answer. And it was exciting talking to him. We didn’t know what we were going to get with Milton.
We sort of found him when we were with my crew member. We went looking for a sandwich and we looked across the street. And there was Milton sitting there on his chair.
And so we’re like, hey, let’s go talk to him. And it’s a wonderful interview. It’s actually I consider it the heart and soul of the film.
It was one of my highlights. And Milton, I don’t know that it was in the film, but he’s not, I don’t think he’s the native of America. He immigrated to this country, I think, based on his accent.
But he loves his country. Total opposite of what we’re being told by the legacy media, how folks view this country. It was one of my highlights.
Sean, one of the other highlights was toward the end of the film, when Matt sat down with Robin DiAngelo, the author of White Fragility. Tell us how that went down. That was shocking to me that she sat down and had this interview.
It was pretty shocking. In the moment, you know, in those times, you’re just kind of always on edge because you’re seeing the person look at Matt and you’re just waiting for them to say, wait, aren’t you? And just that moment never came, but you can kind of get paranoid and every glance, every gesture, you think this is gonna be it.
And then when that moment actually happened, it’s just like you saw on screen, you could hear a pin drop two miles away. Everyone was just dead silent and her finally turning over the money, which by the way, Ben from the movie was very gracious and shared with me one of the bills. So I actually do have some authentic Robin D’Angelo reparations money right here.
Yeah, that was a hilarious moment. I mean, it was, you could feel the tension there about, you know, the left, those on the left, they want to force everybody else to do stuff. But then when they’re put into the position of having to do it themselves, it’s like so awkward.
Well, I don’t know, that’s just kind of, that’s awkward. It was hilarious. And I mean, I think that had to be one of the most unexpected, but highlights of the film for you guys.
Absolutely. It was a very big moment for the film and in person. You know, these scenes, when they end, they’re not just the end of a scene in a movie.
You’re watching the culmination of months of efforts and just a big team that works together, a big family, really. We’ve made two films together now, What is a Woman and Am I Racist? And you’re watching, like as I said, not just a scene ending, but you’re watching the culmination of all of our efforts and work.
So each one of those is a really huge victory to everyone who worked on that team.
And it’s like this interview we’re doing right now. It’s unscripted. It’s live.
You don’t know what you’re going to get when you do it. Just, I’m going to ask you this. Have you heard from any of those who sat down for these interviews, who found out later that they were actually talking to Matt Walsh?
Well, not directly, but they have made statements, several of them, including Robin DiAngelo, actually. And she came out with a statement right before last weekend when the film came out. And, of course, she kind of went to the usual, oh, they tricked me or whatever.
And actually, when you look at what happened there, we did exactly what we said we were going to do. We wanted to hear from Robin DiAngelo, we wanted to get her perspective. That’s actually sort of the whole point of the whole film is to hear these people in their own words.
And I really don’t believe that Robin DiAngelo would back away from anything she said in our movie. We didn’t do any selective editing or any trickery. And I think she would stand by every statement that she actually made in the film.
Now, was she happy about being in a film with Matt Walsh? No. But I think America can see for themselves what these ideas actually are, and they can make their own conclusions.
And that was our goal, I think, with this film.
So, I mean, essentially, what you did is you went into the closed rooms, they’re having these conversations in, because they’re not saying them in such a way. They’re not having debates. We don’t have debates on cable television anymore about these issues, because, as Sean, as you said earlier, they don’t want people to know what they’re talking about.
And so I think that’s the thing they’re upset about, is it’s been exposed what they’ve been talking about, what they believe.
I mean, over the years, whenever you hear about DEI workshops, you typically are hearing some sort of leak that came out. So, Coca-Cola or, you know, Amazon, whomever, Netflix, had some sort of DEI specialist come in, and here’s a leaked document, or here’s some leaked audio. You never really get them showcasing what they talk about.
And they hide behind, well, you have to attend the workshop to hear what we’re saying. But what they don’t want is their hate being recorded and broadcast to the world.
Yeah. Justin, I had two highlights. Actually, there was a third that I really liked.
It was the workshop that Matt hosted at the end, where you had, I don’t know, about eight or nine people came in. We were sitting there the whole time watching, said, are those people for real? Did they really sign up for this workshop?
I mean, was that real?
That was all real. Those are real people. We found them on Craigslist.
As Matt jokes about in the movie, Craigslist is a place where you can get people to do just about anything. So we invited them into this workshop. Ultimately, the goal of the workshop is to have Matt, he hosts the workshop, and he takes these ideas that he’s learned about all throughout the film, through all the people they talk to during the course of the movie, and he incorporates those ideas into the workshop.
Then we basically take things to their logical conclusions of where all of this leads to, and of course, it’s very funny, but it is rooted in something very real, which is these are what these ideas lead to. Even though there’s a lot of comedy in our movie, I think we get the point across of like, is this the direction that we truly want to go with this? I’ve heard from many, many people that have sat through some of these DEI workshops and trainings, and they’ve told me, hey, listen, your workshop in the movie that Matt did is not really any different from the ones I’ve had to sit through myself.
And it’s just very funny with Matt doing it. He’s really a brilliant performer. He can think so quickly on his feet.
He’s got a great deadpan sense of humor. And the workshop is definitely a highlight for me as well. So I’m glad it resonated with you, Tony.
Yeah, yeah, I just I feel sorry for his uncle, though. Well, guys, we’re out of time, but I want to thank both of you, Sean and Justin, for joining us. And let me just say this.
I think you hit the mark. Excellent movie. I’m going to encourage people to go see it this this weekend.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you, Tony.
Thank you so much.
All right, folks, it is worth seeing. It is it is, as I said, disturbingly hilarious because to know that this is happening is disturbing, but they really do show the foolishness of what this is all about. So it’s worth seeing plus you send a message.
All right, folks, that’s all we have time for. Thanks so much for joining us. Let me leave you once again with the encouraging words of the Apostle Paul, found in Ephesians 6, where he says, when you’ve done everything that you can do, when you’ve prayed, when you’ve prepared, and when you have taken your stand, by all means, keep standing.
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