Join Tony Perkins and distinguished guests for a deep dive into critical topics at the intersection of policy, education, and national defense. This episode of Washington Watch opens with poignant revelations about attempts to compromise America’s agricultural ecosystem and features insights from Congressman John McGuire on the legislative efforts underway to bolster national security against bio-warfare threats. We explore the transformative strategies that have enabled the U.S. Army to not only meet but exceed its recruitment targets—highlighting the military’s renewed focus on core values and national service as a calling. With Congressman Kevin Kiley and others, Perkins explores the
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from the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and soundbites into conversations with our nation’s leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Washington Watch with Tony Perkins starts now.
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Welcome to this June 4th edition of Washington Watch. Thanks so much for tuning in. Well, first up, federal prosecutors have charged two Chinese nationals with trying to smuggle a highly contagious livestock pathogen into the United States, an agent capable of devastating America’s food supply. Congressman John McGuire of Virginia will join us with the latest on what Congress plans to do next. Meanwhile, after missing its annual recruiting targets three years in a row, the U.S. Army now claims it has already surpassed its FY 2025 goal with four months to spare. What changed? Well, here’s a hint. Young men and women who want to defend freedom aren’t flocking to pronoun training seminars. They’re flocking to those institutions that want to train them to defend freedom. We’ll dig into the numbers and the cultural sea change reshaping our nation’s military. And on Capitol Hill, the Senate is taking up the reconciliation package, and tucked inside is a headline-grabbing provision, a nationwide school choice tax credit. It’s a voucher initiative that allows parents to choose schools and private schools and homeschool options for their kids. Congressman Kevin Kiley from California joins us to explain how it works and whether it can survive the Senate. And Elon Musk isn’t exactly smitten with President Trump’s self-styled one big, beautiful bill. Musk took to X saying this massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. Well, at the center of the differing views of the one big, beautiful bill is a review of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office. And we’re going to talk with Washington Stan’s Mark Tapscott about the Congressional Budget Office, their scoring and their checkered forecasting record. All of that and more coming up on this edition of Washington Watch. Plus, let me remind you, have you taken the challenge? Beginning June the 11th, families across the country are joining FRC’s 21-day Family Bible Challenge through the Gospel of Matthew. Daily readings, a study guide, kid-friendly activities, and weekly discussion questions will help every age engage with God’s Word together. So if you’d like to take the challenge, text MATTHEW to 67742. That’s MATTHEW to 67742. Well, yesterday, the FBI unveiled a set of charges against two Chinese nationals who allegedly attempted to smuggle a biological pathogen into the U.S. that would damage crops and cattle. Here to discuss this and more, Congressman John McGuire from Virginia. He serves on the House Armed Services Committee. He represents the 5th Congressional District of Virginia. Congressman, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hey, thank you, Tony. It’s good to be here. I tell you, China believes that everything can be used as a weapon and everything should be used as a weapon. I got to tell you, my goal, my number one goal in Congress is I’m a limited government. legislator, but I believe we have to keep our people safe at home and abroad. And we are less safe at home and abroad. If you look at the fentanyl overdose epidemic in our country, it’s being produced in China, coming across our southern border, and poisoning the American people. And this is just another example of them. You’ve seen they hack into our technology, our military technology. They bring people here on a birth vacation so they go back to China, and they have dual citizenship. And this is another example of China going against the American people.
SPEAKER 21 :
Now, these two students coming in in Michigan, what do we know about motive thus far? What were they trying to do? Now, the news reports say that they were just wanting to do research in an educational institution. Do we know any more at this point?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, we don’t know any more about that, but we’re certainly going to do an investigation. But this is egregious, and I think we know if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. And it’s just a constant attack or danger to the American people in our interest. And so we’ve got to respond with tariffs, the intellectual property thefts, all those things. We have to stand up to China.
SPEAKER 21 :
And I think analyzing this, what we have, we have to determine the motives of these two individuals involved. We do have a track record with China trying to infiltrate this country, steal intellectual property. They’re constantly at work attacking our infrastructure in different places. So we know that they have bad motives. And is this a further wake-up call, especially when you think in light of COVID? You know, and what came about as a result of that?
SPEAKER 11 :
Absolutely. We need a wake-up call. I cannot understand why people aren’t banging pots and pans and making a lot of noise. In my district, you know, as a politician, we knock a lot of doors, and we have lots of conversations. I’ve knocked on six doors in my district where a mother or a father cried with me and prayed with me because their 18-, 19-, 20-year-old son or daughter is dead. because of fentanyl poisoning, for example. And I remember one was a big mansion, a larger home, and they were moving to South Carolina. So I asked them, I said, why are you guys moving to South Carolina? And they said, well, we’re tired of being known as the family on the corner that lost our son to fentanyl poison. And when I knocked the next two doors, they reminded me that that house on the corner had an overdose death. And then I’ve also knocked on folks like a trailer where they don’t have a lot of money. where a guy was just, you know, didn’t have a lot of money. All he cared about was his son, and his son is dead. And so China seems to be coming after us in every single way. They’re not fair in business. Like, they’ll produce a product in China, an American product, during the day, and when that company closes its doors, they come in with another crew, and they use the same molds and the same equipment to produce a knockoff product. And so I love the idea of America first. I love it that President Trump is bringing manufacturing and supply chains back to the U.S. And I’m just all about that.
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Congressman McGuire, I know you’ve got to go here in just a moment, but I want to ask you about this. As a Navy veteran, you’re a Navy SEAL, the Army surpassing its recruiting goal with four months left in the fiscal year. For the last three years, they haven’t been able to meet it. I mean, this should not come as a surprise to people, but young men and women who want to fight for this country want to join the military, that that’s their mission, not learning the right pronouns.
SPEAKER 11 :
Absolutely. You know, I love what Pete Hegsat says. No more climate change. No more transgender surgeries. We are here to make our military lethal so that we can protect the American people. And by the way, the Army is going to celebrate 250 years on June 14th. It’s going to be a parade, and that’s a history that needs to be told. And it’s great for recruiting. And like you said, we’ve reached our recruiting numbers for the Army four months early, and we haven’t even gotten into the most productive months for recruiting this year yet. So we’re on the way. What a difference having President Trump in the White House makes. And by the way, if you’re on a basketball team and you hate your basketball team, you’re going to lose. America first. We have a great country. People need to be taught patriotism. Our Judeo-Christian values need to be taught. And we have an incredible country. And I don’t know if you can make it, but I hope you’ll make it to that parade.
SPEAKER 21 :
Final question for you, Congressman McGuire. You keep your—you’re on the Armed Services Committee. You’re a veteran of the Navy. You’ve seen what happens with the woke policies of the Biden administration, of the Obama administration. Can this be reprogrammed? Can we redo and fix the damage that has been done in these four years?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, I got to tell you, as a sniper instructor in the Navy SEALs, if you would have hit me with a baseball bat, I would not have missed that shot. By the grace of God, we got President Trump back in the White House. And it didn’t take him four years to secure that border. He did it in four weeks. And so I believe that God kind of—we weren’t on the cliff. We were over the cliff. And I think the hand of God pulled us back over. But we’ve got work to do. But I know God’s in control. God gets the last word. I have faith that we’re going to turn this country around.
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Well, and we need to continue to pray, vote and stand for those who will do just that. Congressman John McGuire, always great to see you. Thanks so much for taking time to join us today. Thank you. And folks, I do want to encourage you because this is a question I often get as a as a Marine veteran. I have parents will ask me, you know, should I should I our kids join the military given what’s happening? Of course, this is back more during the Biden and Obama years. I think it’s just like when you send your kids to a public college. Well, I think we got to be careful where we send them. and prepare them to go. And I do think we need men and women of faith in our nation’s military, because when you think about the power of the military, the lethal force that they have, we want men and women who know right from wrong. And so absolutely, yes, we should prepare our young people to go into every legitimate area of service and business in our country. But here’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to continue to shape these policies that protect their rights to be who they are in terms of as believers, to exercise their religious freedom and not be punished, which is what we saw during the Biden administration, what we saw during the Obama administration, people being punished for their faith. In fact, I was on C-SPAN earlier this morning discussing this issue of religious freedom and what the Trump administration is doing with their religious freedom commission. And it’s not about imposing religion on anyone. You can’t do that. God doesn’t do that. God gives us a choice. He gave Adam and Eve a choice in the garden, whether to love him and obey him or not. Unfortunately, they chose not to do it. And we’re all paying the price for that. But we want to make sure that we have the freedom in this country, which is what religious freedom is, the freedom to live our lives according to our faith. And that includes in public service, it includes Congress, that includes state legislatures, it includes law enforcement, it includes military, whatever. We need to be free to do that. And General Boykin, the executive vice president here, founding member of Delta Force, we’ve talked about this many times over the years on this program. You’ve probably heard us. That the reason that the military was suffering in its recruiting numbers and its retention was because it had lost its focus and its mission. When it spent more time on training people to use the right pronouns and all of the DEI initiatives of the left, as opposed to being a lethal fighting force, why would you sign up for that? I wouldn’t. I don’t want to waste my time learning which pronouns to use. Now that the military is moving back to its mission to fight and to win America’s wars when called upon, guess what? People are standing in line to join. And that’s encouraging, because we have men and women, young men and women, doing what makes this nation different. And it shows really kind of the Judeo-Christian DNA that we have. As Jesus said, greater love have no one than to lay down his life for his friends. And that’s what we see in this country. But it has to be a military that’s focused And that’s what President Trump and Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense are doing, reverting back to our nation’s, our military’s purpose to fight and to win America’s war. This is something we’ve got to be very, very aware of. A lot of what is happening can be undone by the if we see if and when there is a Democratic administration, they can undo all of the good stuff that has happened here in just the last few months. So we’ve got to pray. We’ve got to pray for the change of heart, the spiritual foundation of this nation to turn while we have the freedom to do so. We need to vote to keep men and women and bring more into office that will stand for biblical truth and righteousness. And then right where you are, right where I am, the opportunities we have, we need to stand for that truth. All right, coming up next, President Trump’s one big, beautiful bill contains a provision which would make school choice more accessible to parents across the nation. I’m going to speak with California Congressman Kevin Kiley on this very topic when we get back. So don’t go away. More straight ahead. Hello, I’m Tony Perkins, and we’re here in Jerusalem, the city of King David. And I’m excited to announce the launch of our Family Bible Challenge to read through the Gospel of Matthew. Now, this 21-day challenge begins on June the 11th, and it’s a part of our Stand on the Word Bible reading plan. It’s in bite-sized readings. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes a day, and we provide a toolbox full of resources to help you along the journey, including a study guide titled, Matthew, the King and His Kingdom. We also provide downloadable resources such as age appropriate questions to engage children. And we have a variety of family friendly projects as well as this, listen, a coloring book, coloring pages about the life of Jesus for the younger kids and your grandkids. Think about it, what could be a better summer activity than to go on a journey through the life of Jesus as a family? Just think what God could do in the lives of your loved ones as they read Matthew, unforgettable stories about the greater son of David, Jesus the Messiah. I hope you’ll join us for our Family Bible Challenge beginning June the 11th. Text the word Matthew to 67742. I hope you’ll join us.
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In a time when Washington seems clouded by compromise, a bold group of lawmakers are standing firm in defense of the values which our nation was built upon. At FRC Actions 100% Awards, 171 members of Congress were honored for voting 100% in line with policies that promote faith, family, and freedom.
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Faith and family made our country, it’s the foundation that made our country not only great, but good.
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The values that make America, faith, family, hard work, personal responsibility. I mean, that to me is the heart of FRC and grateful for everything that they do.
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It’s very important for us to have organizations such as FRC. First of all, I think it keeps us grounded, in addition to which the issues that you champion are issues that we should all be championing.
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FRC is very, very good at honing in on those things that really affect Christians’ lives. Also, working with members of Congress, too, to make sure that those values are instilled in the legislation that we create.
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Having the Family Research Council to guide us is critically important to being able to do the right thing consistently.
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These lawmakers have drawn the line, not just in policy, but in principle. This is more than politics. This is conviction in action. Visit frcaction.org for more information on how you too can make a difference.
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BACK TO WASHINGTON WATCH. THANKS SO MUCH FOR JOINING US. ALL RIGHT. THE WOKENESS OF THE BIDEN ERA EDUCATION DEPARTMENT HAS FUELED THE DESIRE OF PARENTS TO SEEK SCHOOL CHOICE. AND IT’S NO SURPRISE TO SEE TUCKED IN PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, A PROVISION THAT CREATES A VOUCHER PROGRAM THAT FINANCES PRIVATE AND HOME SCHOOL EDUCATION. How exactly would it work? Well, here to discuss this, Congressman Kevin Kiley, who serves on the House Education Workforce Committee, where he’s chairman of the subcommittee on early childhood, elementary and secondary education. He represents the third congressional district of California. Congressman Kiley, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER 12 :
Of course. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER 21 :
So this is something you’ve actually been championing. You want to see the expansion of charter schools as well. Walk us through this provision that is, it appears to be modeled after legislation that started in Arizona back in, I think, 1997 by former Congressman Trent Franks. But it really takes private money to expand these opportunities for kids to private and homeschool education.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s correct. Exactly. So this is based on a bill that I sponsored called the ECCA, Educational Choice for Children Act. And the idea here is to catalyze a school choice revolution across the country and bring school choice even to states like mine, California, that have done everything they possibly can TO RESTRICT IT. SO THE BILL, AND AS YOU MENTIONED, THIS IS NOW PART OF THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL OR H.R. 1 WHICH HAS PASSED THE HOUSE NOW AND WE EXPECT TO BE SIGNED INTO LAW BEFORE TOO LONG. WHAT IT DOES IS IT ESTABLISHES A credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations. It’s 100 percent tax credit. And so then these scholarship-granting organizations will use those funds to provide scholarships for students to attend a private school of their choice. It funds those credits up to the level of $5 billion that they can be claimed across the country. We estimate—and then it continues for four years—we estimate that’ll mean getting $2 kids, a private school choice across the country. And then, as you mentioned, I’m also advocating for inclusion of a bill I’ve sponsored called the High Quality Charter School Act, which is going to do something similar for charter schools by potentially tripling the number of students attending charter schools nationwide.
SPEAKER 21 :
So this in particular helps states like yours in California that, unlike many of the red states that are adopting very similar provisions, as I mentioned, this first started in Arizona over 30 years, about 30 years ago. I introduced it when I was in the legislature in Louisiana, but back then we weren’t quite at the point we are now. Louisiana has something very similar today. This, well, first I want to go to something that the critics say in the educational establishment. saying, it’s taking dollars away from programs that would strengthen all schools, expand access to early childhood education, make sure that our kids have access to mental health counselors and to other mental health supports. How does providing opportunity for kids through private donations into these scholarship funds take anything away from other education?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, it doesn’t. In fact, it’s just the opposite. And the idea that more money will improve student outcomes necessarily has been completely debunked. Under the Biden administration, we increased education spending by $200 billion, and yet student test scores have plummeted. There’s been an inverse relationship. California spends a ton of money on education, and it has some of the worst outcomes in the country. What really does make a difference is giving families options and giving them and giving schools an incentive to offer a high quality product.
SPEAKER 21 :
So what they’re afraid of is competition.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s right. Exactly. Well, they’re afraid of it. But also what we see when the competition does occur is it actually lifts all boats because then the other schools in the area have to offer a higher quality product.
SPEAKER 21 :
Now, as a $5 billion cap, I mean, I think there’s gonna be a lot of interest in this for, again, this is people who get, they get a tax deduction by giving money to these scholarship funds. Now, people would argue, well, that’s money that people would pay taxes on. Yes, but we’re improving education. We’re improving the workforce. And we’re doing it through the private sector. And we’re not, this is not a government-created plan. These are private sector, private education. So, I mean, this looks like a win-win.
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, absolutely. And, you know, when a child is being educated at a private school, then that’s no longer a cost to the public school system either. So, you know, at the end of the day, what we’re doing is we’re allowing parents and families to have a greater amount of control over how their share of education spending is used. And it does it in a way that actually will have broad system-wide effects in terms of improving the quality of education for everyone.
SPEAKER 21 :
And it will—will this not? Correct me if I’m wrong, but as we go into states where we have failing education systems and we have students that their parents don’t have the resources, this opens the door for them.
SPEAKER 12 :
Absolutely. Right now, we have private schools across the country, but only those who have means generally can attend them. But what this bill does is it opens that opportunity up to everyone. So the Democrats who are opposing this bill and calling it some sort of voucher system or claiming that it’s harming the public education system, what they’re really defending is making school choice the exclusive province of the wealthy. What we want to do is open up that opportunity to everyone.
SPEAKER 21 :
All right, so walk us through the legislative process. What are you hearing from members of the Senate? Is this a provision? You know, I know they’ve been kind of going through like a cafeteria line saying, I like this, I don’t like this. What are they saying about this provision?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, I haven’t heard any opposition to it. I think that it’s something that’s broadly popular, at least within the Republican conference. As you noted earlier, it also can be used by homeschool families, and there’s many millions of homeschool families across the country that we need to support, and everywhere we can. They’ve actually been, you know, under attack in states like like California, but actually out of COVID, homeschooling became more popular than ever. So I think the Senate is going to certainly have its say on many facets of this bill. But I think this is a provision that they’ll want to protect. And indeed, what I want to see happen is them add the charter school part as well, which will provide a similar tax credit for starting up new charter schools that essentially replicate those that currently exist that are already getting great results.
SPEAKER 21 :
Congressman Kiley, we’ve just got a minute left. I know this morning the Department of Education held a hearing titled Examining the Policies and Priorities of the Department of Education. What was the top takeaway from the meeting?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, the Democrats on the committee are very interested in defending the status quo. And the status quo is one of failure. It’s one of where we’ve shoveled more and more and more money into the system. And student performance has gotten worse and worse and worse. The administration has proposed a number of reforms to reverse that trajectory. And so if the Democrats wanted to sort of disagree with the way that they’re going about
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REFORMING OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM THAT’S ONE THING BUT INSTEAD OF DOING THAT THEY SIMPLY JUST WANT TO DEFEND THE STATUS QUO WHICH TO ME IS UNACCEPTABLE BECAUSE YOU HAVE MILLIONS AND MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF KIDS ACROSS THIS COUNTRY WHO ARE NOT GETTING THE EDUCATION THEY DESERVE IF WE KEEP DEFENDING THE STATUS QUO WE’RE GOING TO KEEP GETTING THE SAME RESULTS IT IS TIME TO CHANGE THINGS CONGRESSMAN KYLIE THANKS SO MUCH FOR JOINING US ALWAYS APPRECIATE LISTENING TO YOU OF COURSE THANKS FOR HAVING ME ALL RIGHT FOLKS DON’T GO AWAY MORE WASHINGTON WATCH RIGHT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BREAK
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The Center for Biblical Worldview’s all-day workshops delves into the formation of a worldview, what it is, how it’s formed, when it’s formed, what that means to them personally and their churches and communities.
SPEAKER 22 :
My hope for people when they come to these worldview workshops is that they will come away better equipped to engage the people and the ideas that they’re living with and around. And our goal is to give people more confidence in the gospel, in the fact that what God said to us actually is true, actually is the path to happiness and human flourishing for all of us, but also more confidence in their ability to have these conversations and help lead other people to the truth.
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for Bible-believing Christians to know what God’s Word says on these issues and to learn how they can apply it to their lives. And we believe that the more Christians that we equip, that’s how we’ll change the nation.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, fam, listen, Pastor Sammy here at Lighthouse Church, and I cannot tell you how equipping, how empowering, how… incredibly educating this conference has been. And so I just want to encourage anybody that either has not been part of or is thinking about hosting this event, certainly to pastors, leaders, even CEOs for that matter. This conference is lights out. Stand behind it myself. I can’t commend it enough. We’re going to be talking about this for some time to come.
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The culture is kind of squeezing in on us as God’s people, forcing those of us with biblical views to change those views or to suppress those views. It’s forcing us to engage with issues that we’ve never had to engage with. And so what this teaches us is what those issues are, what the Bible says about those issues, and then how we can critically engage our culture on these things in a way that is committed to biblical principles.
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Visit frc.org slash worldview for more information.
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Welcome back to Washington Watch. Be sure and check out the website, TonyPerkins.com. Better yet, download the Stand Firm app. Lots of resources there for you, including access to Washington Stand. That is FRC’s news and commentary from a biblical perspective. And it’s important to have it because what we’re going to talk about here, you can see it on the Washington Stand. Earlier today, the Congressional Budget Office released its projections on how much the one big, beautiful bill would grow the federal deficit. Now, the agency, the Congressional Budget Office, is supposed to be a nonpartisan federal agency. And they claim that the bill would grow the federal deficit by $2.4 trillion. But is the CBO actually nonpartisan in practice? And How are they coming up with these numbers? And what are the implications of any potential partisan bias in the agency in their projections? Well, here with analysis on this is Mark Tapscott, who is the Washington Stan Senior Congressional Analyst. Mark, welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to be here. So let’s go back in history. Give us a one minute history of the Congressional Budget Office.
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It was started in 1974. It was intended by Congress to be the congressional equivalent of the Office of Management and Budget over in the Executive Branch and to provide scoring that would compete with, if you will, the Executive Branch projections. give Congress some independent information. Over the years, it has maintained a particular approach. It’s called static scoring, to do their projections. They don’t want to change that, even though, in the years since, we have developed a much more accurate form of projection called dynamic scoring. So, explain that. Well, with static scoring, you continually assume that the economy is going to basically stay the same. You cut taxes. We know that generally increases government revenues because people have more to spend. The economy grows. Under static scoring, you just assume that it’s going to basically continue as it is. Tax cuts don’t have an effect.
SPEAKER 21 :
that’s why democrats love so it’s almost like having something looking at it with simple interest versus compounding exactly exactly so given all the information the computer technology we have today the ai i mean when you look at trends over the years you can you could analyze to see what impact absolutely a tax cut would have in terms of growing the economy we have all that data available
SPEAKER 19 :
In 2017, when the first Trump tax cut was being debated, CBO said it would reduce government revenues. In fact, in just the two years after it took effect, it increased them very significantly. And that’s typical of what happens. And that’s what will happen again, most likely.
SPEAKER 21 :
So this is really I mean, this is not a minor issue. This is a quite significant issue. When you look at you have two people like I’m going to take, for instance, I just mentioned Elon Musk earlier, how he he now is out really saying this is a bad bill. People who voted for it did the wrong thing. And you got Trump, Mike Johnson and members of Congress saying, no, this is we’re moving in the right direction. So they’re looking at the same thing, but they see it from two different perspectives. In large part, it’s because of the CBO score.
SPEAKER 19 :
My guess would be if Elon Musk took five minutes to look at the history of static versus dynamic, he would say, of all people, my gosh, what are you people saying? Of course it’s going to have a positive impact from the tax cuts.
SPEAKER 21 :
And that’s why, in fact, I’m going to play a clip in just a moment of the House Speaker on my weekend program this week on Capitol Hill talking about that in that looking at what is going to happen to the economy with the tax cuts, we’re going to see growth, which means we’re going to have more revenue coming in, which means the deficit goes down, which means the debt ultimately comes down.
SPEAKER 19 :
Right. In CBO’s defense, I have to say, and I pointed this out in my story this morning, CBO is dependent upon Congress by congressional rule. They can only do dynamic scoring on a particular bill when they are specifically requested to do so. That could easily be taken care of with a new rule. So is it time to reevaluate how the CBO works? Absolutely. And there are calls, growing consensus outside of Congress and beginning to be picked up in Congress, to do exactly that, a top-to-bottom Doge-type audit. All right.
SPEAKER 21 :
Folks can see your piece at the Washington stand, right? Yes. We’ve got two minutes left, Mark Tapscott. Let me ask you this question. Let’s talk about the bias. We see this in government. Is there an institutional bias in the CBO?
SPEAKER 19 :
There absolutely is. And the reason is because, as I think Speaker Johnson pointed out a couple of days ago, You have predominantly folks recruited to work at CBO who come from schools, Harvard, Yale, the establishment-type elite schools. And they all come in with a particular perspective. There was a study out from the American Accountability Foundation, Tom Jones, just out that says a number of the folks who work there on the staff are Democratic contributors. And if you’ve been here in D.C. for a long time, that doesn’t surprise you.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, it’s kind of… You look at government as a whole. I mean, you look at government as a whole, most agencies, because most of career service people tend to be in that, come from that political alignment perspective.
SPEAKER 19 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 21 :
So this is I would think, you know, I know the Congress has a big to do list, but this would certainly be up there for future is to to address the issues with CBO.
SPEAKER 19 :
I mean, if they don’t do that, we’re going to continue to have misunderstandings and Democrats are going to continue to be able to say it’s a hammer. It’s a hammer. Yeah.
SPEAKER 21 :
And it divides the the conservative needs to be fixed. Yeah. Mark Tapscott, always great to see you. Thanks so much for coming in today. Super. All right, folks, and you can actually see his piece again at the Washington Stand. Again, best way to get that is to have the Stand Firm app because you’ll have it right there in the news feed and you’ll hear from Mark and all the others. All right, don’t go away. We’re back after this.
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Family Research Council is committed to advancing faith, family, and freedom from the East Coast to the West. So FRC is going to Southern California for this year’s Pray, Vote, Stand Summit, October 17th and 18th at Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills. Join us for this powerful gathering of Christians desiring cultural renewal and spiritual revival. The Pray, Vote, Stand Summit brings together Christian leaders, issue experts, and government officials for a time of prayer, inspiration, and action. Together, we will seek God’s guidance for our nation and engage in meaningful discussions on the intersection of faith, government, and culture. If the spiritual foundations and the cultural walls of our nation are to be rebuilt, we all have a role to play. May we each find our place on the wall as we build for biblical truth. Register now at PrayVoteStand.org. That’s PrayVoteStand.org.
SPEAKER 06 :
Jennifer, it’s so exciting to be here with you today talking about our new book, Embracing God’s Design. Who is actually going to benefit from reading this book in your view?
SPEAKER 18 :
There’s so many different audiences that can benefit. The first one are counselors themselves, because we have some material in there where we really address the gender dysphoria diagnosis and what is wrong with it. We have information for people who are wanting to go back to embracing God’s design for their life.
SPEAKER 06 :
This is really magical to have the therapist and the individual who suffered come together and write about why this is happening and why we’re seeing this.
SPEAKER 18 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 21 :
All right, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks so much for joining us. All right, our word for today comes from Nehemiah 9, where the people, freshly humbled by confession, rise to celebrate God’s greatness. Stand up and bless the Lord, your God, from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens the highest heavens and all their host, the earth and everything on it, the sea and all that is in them. You preserve them all, and the host of heaven worships you. Their praise identifies four unshakable truths. God is God alone. God is the creator of all things. God is the sustainer of all things. God is the one to be worshipped. Now, notice the order. First, they magnified God, his character, his power, his exclusivity. Then, throughout the rest of the chapter, they recount his faithfulness across their history. Adoration precedes reflection, and praise reframes perspective. When we fix our eyes on who God really is, we can trust what God has done and what He will do. So begin your day the same way. Before rehearsing needs or failures, stand up, heart and voice, and bless the Lord from everlasting to everlasting. To join us on our journey through the Bible, text BIBLE to 67742. Well, Senate Republicans met earlier this afternoon. In fact, I think they’re still meeting to discuss with President Trump his one big, beautiful bill kicking off what the GOP hopes will be a month long sprint that will end with the president’s signature on July the 4th. Now, there’s been a lot. That has been said over the last two weeks since it passed through the House. And they’ve got a lot to navigate through. And a key concern that’s been expressed is that the need for more cuts. Well, before Congress returned this week, I discussed some of the more nuanced elements of the bill with House Speaker Mike Johnson on our weekend program this week on Capitol Hill. And because of all this being said today, in fact, I was on the Hill earlier today meeting with the speaker and others. I’d like to share part of that discussion with you before I go to our next guest. So here’s part of that conversation from this weekend. This week, you laid out a way forward to kind of satisfy that appetite for cuts with codifying some of the the Doge recommendations.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, that’s right. And Stephen Miller in the White House and others have pointed out to some of the folks who said, why aren’t more of the Doge cuts in the reconciliation package? You have to remember how the process works. Doge was looking at discretionary savings. There are two categories of federal spending. One is mandatory spending. One is discretionary. The reconciliation package is dealing with the first category, not the latter. So it was not POSSIBLE LITERALLY UNDER THE RULES OF THE SENATE FOR US TO PUT DOJ CUTS IN LARGE MEASURE IN THE RECONCILIATION PACKAGE. SO THAT MEANS IT HAS TO BE A SEPARATE INSTRUMENT. THE WAY IT WORKS IS THAT THE WHITE HOUSE SENDS TO US A RECISIONS PACKAGE, RECENDING, BASICALLY CLAWING back money that Congress had already appropriated but was misspent in a number of ways. We’ve been waiting on those calculations. It took a while to do it. Remember, I mean, there was no playbook for what Elon Musk and Doge were doing. They didn’t have a set of procedures to follow. They had to create them as they went. So they had to qualify and then quantify, and now we’re ready to codify the changes. So I’m heartened to know that On Tuesday of this next week, the White House will send us the first of what we believe will be several rescissions packages. And this one, everybody’s heard by now, is more than $9 billion. And it goes after some of the fraud, waste and abuse. And I think that’s a really important step.
SPEAKER 21 :
I think, as the White House has noted in this first rescissions package, we’ll be looking at cuts to USAID as well as cuts to NPR and PBS.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, that’s right. And a lot of analysis has gone into this, and there’s a lot of public scrutiny, rightfully, that has been applied to this. I mean, this is one of the things that’s so revolutionary about what Doge has accomplished, what Elon accomplished with his efforts. And, you know, this week on Friday was his last day in office and in his position at Doge. But the work will go forward and continue, because what he’s done is he’s brought a spotlight— into these agencies, into these bureaucracies that we were never able to see. We got a perspective on it that Congress was never allowed because the bureaucracy was hiding so much data. I mean, Tony, we didn’t know, obviously, that Congress was funding transgender operas in Peru and all these other crazy things that were happening under USAID. Elon found it because he cracked the code. He got inside the belly of the beast with his algorithms, and he uncovered it. And we’ve got to wipe it out. And so this is the first of many steps forward to bring more accountability and efficiency and effectiveness to government spending.
SPEAKER 21 :
Elon Musk’s tenure as special government employee officially ended on Friday, and he announced his departure from the Department of Government Efficiency earlier in the week. But before he did, he did this interview last weekend with CBS.
SPEAKER 14 :
I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the Doge team is doing. I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both, my personal opinion.
SPEAKER 21 :
Mr. Speaker, can something be both big and beautiful? And, of course, I’m referring to legislation.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes, of course it can. As soon as I saw that interview several days ago, I sent a long text message to my good friend Elon to explain to him and make sure that he understands that he was looking at analysis of the bill that was not accurate, right? Everybody’s been talking about the CBO analysis in the Joint Tax Committee of our bill. CBO is historically inaccurate. It’s run by Democrats. There was an analysis that came out a few weeks ago where it showed that 84 percent of the number crunchers at the Congressional Budget Office are partisan Democrats. They’re donors to people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. They’re not going to give us a fair score. But the important thing to remember about this is that they do not use dynamic scoring, they use static scoring. In layman’s terms, all that means is they don’t give us any credit for the growth. Tony, the big beautiful bill is going to be jet fuel to the U.S. economy. It is a pro-growth economy builder. It’s going to lower tax rates, lower regulations, incentivize U.S. manufacturing again. When that happens, we know what will be the effect. We already did this in the first Trump administration, had the greatest economy in the history of the world after the first two years, because we cut taxes and cut regulations. Now we’re doing it on steroids. So the tremendous growth that will be achieved by this is being totally discounted by CBO. They’re saying it will add to the deficit. It’s not true. By our calculations, we are going to reduce the deficit because of all the growth that we stimulated. Just watch and see. The critics are going to be wrong. And I want to make sure Elon understood that. This is not a spending bill, right?
SPEAKER 21 :
Look, and I understand that we’ve had a lot of challenges over the years with legacy media, but we still have challenges even with conservative platforms. I mean, Elon Musk has a huge platform when you look at X. And, you know, business and government doesn’t. function the same way. Now, can we improve government? And I think you gave tremendous attaboys to him in the last segment in what DOGE has accomplished. But there is still an understanding that there are some aspects of government that just doesn’t work like business.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, that’s right. And we ought to endeavor to try to make government work more like a business, but it’s just simply two different animals. So we need to bring those principles to bear. We need to bring good financial stewardship. We need to restore fiscal sanity. Doge has taken us a long way in that direction, but that effort will continue. Republicans are in charge right now. We’re the fiscal… conservatives, the fiscally responsible people, and we are going to whittle down the nation’s debt and get us back on sound footing. But we’ve got to do it one step at a time. And, you know, I’m really proud of this product. And I think a lot of the analysis is completely off and it will be proven and shown to be true in the days ahead.
SPEAKER 21 :
All right. That was my conversation with House Speaker Mike Johnson over the weekend on my weekend program this week on Capitol Hill that airs on the Salem Radio Network. Well, at this very moment, as I mentioned a few moments ago, President Trump is meeting with Republican senators on the Finance Committee in an effort to rally more support for the big, beautiful bill in the Senate. Here with me now to discuss the president’s involvement in the process and where things stand, Phil Wegman, the White House correspondent for Real Clear Politics. Phil, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us today.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks for having me and keep a close eye on the Senate Finance Committee because there’s a number of Republicans, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, and Susan Collins, if I’m not mistaken, who have already signaled their displeasure with this one big, beautiful bill. I would love to be a fly on the wall of that meeting between President Trump and that coalition today.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, I don’t think you have to be a fly on the wall to hear some of the things coming out of the White House today, especially as it pertains to to Elon Musk’s new opposition to the bill and probing. And in effect, I think Axios has reported on this. A lot of his opposition is now due to the to the actual cuts that are in the bill that cut the electric vehicle subsidies.
SPEAKER 03 :
and that is not something that is surprising fiscal hawks on capitol hill right now they know that elon musk has a business to run and of course like any business he would like a subsidy that benefits his bottom line but in this case they see this as someone stepping forward and giving them a bit of breathing room because what elon musk has done by calling this one big beautiful bill an abomination is he has slowed the steady drumbeat out of White House to pass this thing as quickly as possible. Those senators that I mentioned just a second ago, with the exception of Collins, who likely opposes this bill because of changes to Medicaid, they want to see a more fiscally conservative package at the end of all of this. And if you have Elon Musk, who very much was almost in sort of a bromance, that was the word of Sean Hannity of Fox News to describe Elon Musk and Donald Trump. You have someone who’s so close to Donald Trump, a former senior White House official, now trashing the bill. Well, that gives them a bit more room to operate to try and make changes.
SPEAKER 21 :
Yeah, I think that bromance is over. There’s a breakup that’s coming there. So there’s a time here, there’s a timeline in which they’re working on So far, they’ve met the deadlines. This one, I think, is going to be a little more of a challenge. They want it on the president’s desk by the July 4th date. But there’s also a backdrop here to the fiscal cliff that’s coming with the debt ceiling. How’s that going to factor in?
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. It adds even more urgency to the work on Capitol Hill. And again, this is one of the deadlines that creates a sense of urgency that forces lawmakers to often take votes that they otherwise wouldn’t. This is the way Washington, D.C. works. If you’ve ever been inside the Capitol around the holidays, people are generally trying to get out of the the District of Columbia right before Christmas. There’s often a lot of these barriers, last minute votes. But this one, it’s serious. It’s a debt ceiling. The United States has to increase its borrowing authority. I think more than anything else, this is going to light a fire. under both Majority Leader Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson. But this is a delicate thing, right? I mean, we know what Donald Trump thinks. Donald Trump thinks that done is beautiful. He would love to see the House package passed today. Already, what we’ve seen from the White House, though, is they’re open to different changes. But again, their argument to either chamber is, at the end of the day, this has to have the votes.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, I mean, I would think that the White House is open to any type of negotiations. I mean, he is the master of negotiations. But, Phil, is it just me or it seems a little odd that. Here we have the Senate, which is typically historically not the most conservative body when it comes to fiscal issues, is actually pushing for a more stringent conservative line when it comes to the fiscal issues. I mean, as you said, the Finance Committee, watch them, because you’ve got Ron Johnson leading the charge there. And he’s not alone. He’s got enough. He’s stated publicly. He has enough to stop this bill. They’re actually trying to make it even more conservative in the cuts, which certainly I applaud. But that’s going to be a headache, I think, for the speaker trying to get that back through the House.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? Because so often you see the House of Representatives respond to public pressure. They are elected every two years. The Senate is supposed to be the cooling chamber of Democratic fervor. And in this case, what we see from a lot of these Republican senators, at least Democrats, three or four at this point, I think there’s half a dozen who have expressed qualms with the House version of the bill, is that they want to see more cuts. One issue that I think sort of exemplifies this is in order to get this bill across the finish line, House leadership had to allow for an increase in the state and local tax deduction something that Trump himself has previously called a handout to Democratic governors. This is something that primarily benefits states on the coast. That was something that the House speaker and his team had to come along on to get the votes of people like New York Representative Mike Lawler. In the Senate, though, there’s not a lot of blue state senators who are Republicans. Instead, these are guys, many of whom who might have a bit of a Tea Party resume, and they are serious, and they have told their constituents that they’re serious about getting rid of debt and deficits. And so that’s why I actually think that this Elon Musk rebuke is more significant. We can question his motivations here, but I was talking to one Senate aide who told me, more than anything, This encourages us to lock in.
SPEAKER 21 :
So I think you’re right. We have a separate conversation about what really prompted Elon to raise this. But it’s a smokescreen. It’s a cover for others to say, hey, wait a minute. Because Elon Musk has a huge platform to speak from. So a lot of people listen when he says things, might not know exactly what’s behind it. But your point on the SALT, the state and local tax, that’s a huge issue. As you’ve pointed out, that’s what had to be increased to get those blue state Republicans in the House on board the bill who weren’t really crazy about the Medicaid, you know, dialing that in when it came to the able-bodied. the Senate, that’s not there. So, you know, any tweak that is made there in the Senate, you know, it’s going to take some work to get it back through the House.
SPEAKER 03 :
Very true. And Speaker Mike Johnson has credibility when he goes to his counterpart, Leader Thune, and says, hey, this is a delicate balance. There’s only so much give and take that I can endure here because the numbers are so razor thin in the House. But this is more than just a spending and tax bill. I think that this is a referendum on what the Republican Party actually wants to be. Are they going to be that party that doubles down on building a working class coalition? Or are we going to see them sort of make those appeals to blue collar voters, but in a more Tea Party vein? We’re going to learn a lot about the nature of the Republican Party as this thing makes its way through.
SPEAKER 21 :
That’s a really good observation, Phil. I think you’re absolutely right. This is kind of a defining moment. uh phil wagman always great to see you thanks so much for taking time to come on the program today thank you sir all right phil wagman with real clear politics all right folks another reason to be praying we got a lot to pray about all right until next time i leave you with the encouraging words the apostle paul says when you’ve done everything you can do when you’ve prayed prepared and taken your stand by all means keep standing
SPEAKER 13 :
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