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Washington Watch provides a compelling dive into current events, grounding listeners in both national and international issues. The episode opens with a critical examination of the deployment of troops to Los Angeles, where protests have ignited debates about the role of military forces in addressing civil unrest. Key contributors like Joshua Phillips and General Jerry Boykin provide expert insights into the logistical and ethical considerations of these actions. The narrative progresses into a discussion on the high-stakes trade talks between the US and China, delivering nuanced perspectives on economic vulnerabilities and diplomatic strategies. Gordon Chang articulately navigates the conversation,
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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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They are not helpful. There was no reason for them to be here in the first place. If anything, it was a provocation. And so I said, if you want to see chaos in the city, then send in troops when they are not needed. There was nothing happening here. There was no mass civil unrest.
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That was Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on MSNBC responding after the Trump administration deployed troops to L.A. to keep the city from burning again. Welcome to this June 10th edition of Washington Watch. I’m your host, Tony Perkins. Thanks for tuning in. Well, coming up, we’ll get a live report from Joshua Phillips, senior investigative reporter for the Epoch Times, who is covering the latest riots in Los Angeles.
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If we didn’t get involved… Right now, Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago with all the houses that were lost. Los Angeles right now would be on fire. And we have it in great shape without playing around.
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That was President Donald Trump discussing the deployment of troops to Los Angeles. Retired Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin will join me in studio to talk about the use of active duty military to address domestic unrest. It’s rare in American history, and there may be a reason why. We’ll also hear from Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia Attorney General and former acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, on the legal and the strategic implications of U.S. troops in a U.S. city. We’ve been following the education scholarship provisions in the reconciliation bill that is now before the U.S. Senate. Well, after a recent meeting between President Trump and sponsors of the Universal School Choice Act, the proposal within the reconciliation bill may be expanding. Congressman Burgess Owen of Utah, one of the bill’s sponsors, will join us later with details. Meanwhile, the U.S. and China held trade talks in the U.K. for the second day in a row. So far, no agreement. If the talks fail and they fall apart, who has the most to lose? We’re going to talk to Asian expert Gordon Chang. And finally, the 21-Day Family Bible Challenge kicks off tomorrow, and I’ll share with you how you can get involved and walk your family through the Word of God together. But if you want to get a head start, text Matthew to 67742, and I’ll send you a link even before we talk about it. President Trump last night authorized the deployment of 2,000 more National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area. There are now roughly 4,100 Guard members with federal orders concerning these protests, in addition to local police. But the riots continue, even as more enforcement is headed to the region. The president is also sending 700, roughly 700 Marines to Los Angeles. Here to discuss this, Joshua Phillips, senior investigative reporter at the Epoch Times. Joshua, welcome to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. All right. So you’ve been on the ground. I’ve been watching some of what you’ve been reporting on. Give us the latest there on what’s happening on the streets of Los Angeles.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, so I actually just left Los Angeles. I’m in Orange County right now. I was there until about 1 p.m. today afternoon. Right now, it’s not too much. Last night, I was told it got pretty bad, but around 2 o’clock yesterday, you had roughly 3,000 people outside the federal building. Today, it was mostly journalists. You had maybe 30 protesters. They started slowly trickling in. When I left, it was maybe 75. Nothing like yesterday. You do have a National Guard presence there. They’re guarding the building. One of their main roles right now is to guard federal buildings. The entire building is just plastered with graffiti. We’ll see how things go tonight. But as of now, it’s a big shift from yesterday, from what I’m told. Yeah.
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Your sense in the organization of this effort, is this an organized effort?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes and no. Without a doubt, you do have some activist organizations working on it. One big thing that I think is not being talked about enough, this is going to lead into the protests on Saturday. There are nationwide protests being planned in all 50 states this Saturday. And for that, you have 190, 190 protests. left-wing organizations, ranging from your normal left to very, very far left. ACLU, all the way down to all the resist protest groups. That’s being planned in all 50 states. In LA alone, they have more than two dozen planned protests this Saturday.
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Now, over the weekend, the protests were violent. Did you see the same thing yesterday, or was it beginning to scale back?
SPEAKER 07 :
So yeah, I went out on the streets. I can tell you it was pretty bad. Police at that time, so at that time, you already had National Guard deploying to an extent, very small amount, 300 total. The National Guard was mainly protecting federal buildings. I personally saw they were light. You had, it was interesting. You had the main protest area. Police had that area blocked off. Even if you’re a journalist, if you were in there and they arrested a group of the protesters, you would be arrested with them. As of last night, they were more aggressive with the arrests. But what you also had is outside the main police area, there were a group of rioters and they were going around. I personally saw them communicating. I saw an individual with a radio stuffed in his backpack, communicating locations saying, go here, go there. And, um, watched the car burn, watched them set a second one on fire. It was still very chaotic. So absolutely, there was coordination on the car burnings from what I saw.
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How strong of a police presence from the LAPD?
SPEAKER 07 :
As of today, it was very strong. I think when the protests first started, you’ve heard these statements saying these were mostly peaceful. They were not, which is why this happened. Originally, they did not have enough police. Originally, they did not. Even the local police chiefs and so on, they were acknowledging this. As of now, they’re very strong. They do have very strong backing. Even when I was there this afternoon, there were protesters and journalists on the street. Police cars rolled up very quickly, said, get off the road, final warning type thing. They’re no nonsense right now, and they have a much stronger presence.
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Now, did you interview any of the protesters that were there on site?
SPEAKER 07 :
I did not. I did not interview any protesters.
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I’ve heard these reports that some of these rioters are being paid or funded by political action groups. I mean, obviously, you see they have communications equipment. Someone’s got to be funding some element of that.
SPEAKER 07 :
You do have some groups. I would say it’s a mix. I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely one way or the other. Today, for example, I did see a lot of just people there who just seemed to just not support the deportations. One individual was very loud about it, saying that his mom was an illegal immigrant, he’s an American citizen, he’s against it. He says he supports if ICE wants to deport criminal aliens, He supports it, but not everybody else. What’s being left out of that conversation is ICE currently is almost only deporting criminal aliens, except for in some isolated cases.
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So final question for you, Joshua, when you look at your interaction, what you saw of the protesters, how many of those are being driven in your estimation by the issue of immigration, the deportation and others just looking for an opportunity?
SPEAKER 07 :
In my personal observance, what you have here, as with many other protests, including the pro-Gaza ones, including BLM, you have your normal protesters who actually believe in the issue, and then you have paid people who are instigating them. With this organization, absolutely, you have unions, you have immigration activist organizations, You have actual communist organizations. Those are your paid protesters. Those are actually the more organized ones, and they also tend to be the more violent and aggressive ones. But they do tend to instigate the other crowds. Then you also have opportunists. A lot of the looters are opportunists.
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Joshua Phillip, thanks so much for joining us today. Appreciate your insights and reporting on what’s taking place there.
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My pleasure. Thank you.
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All right. I want to continue the discussion on the riots in Los Angeles. I want to bring in retired Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin, executive vice president here at the Family Research Council, spent 36 and a half years in the Army, previously served as the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, also one of the founding members of the Delta Force. All right. The reason, General, I wanted to get your thoughts on this is you and I have talked about this before. In addition to the National Guard, which that’s what they’re there for, frankly, to be used for domestic issues. But the mobilization of active duty military members is very rare in the history of our country. And the president activating 700 reportedly to go to Los Angeles. This is very unique.
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It is indeed. And I must tell you, it is. It bothers me a little bit because nobody wants to see another Kent State. I mean, that would be the absolute worst thing that could happen. And we don’t want to see any of our people get hurt. It’s not that they are any different than law enforcement in terms of their value to this nation, but at the same time, they have done the very best they could to fight the wars ever since 9-11. And the reserves and guard have as well. But I think to put them into a situation where they could potentially wind up shooting somebody or there could be some kind of incident that would bring them to the courtroom to where they would have to testify. And I don’t want to see them.
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Now, there is training for the military, but most of the training for the military is not domestic law enforcement. which is the role that they’re playing here. Now, there’s also a law that prohibits the use of U.S. military on U.S. soil.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, the Posse Comitatus. Now, you are aware that I have operated twice under posse comatose. I mean, under what is called the Insurrection Act, which is how you… Which is how you get over the posse comatose. Yeah, you get beyond the requirements there. But I will also tell you that at least in the one that… at the Branch Davidian compound in 1993. I had two men there, and those two men were there handling some clandestine listening devices and videos and that type of thing. But when they went down, when they got ready to hit the compound, they made those guys go in another room and not look And the reason was they didn’t want them to have to testify. And we had made that, we stressed that point to them before we gave them to them.
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Now, there’s the legal issue. I’m going to talk more about that with Ken Cuccinelli, former Attorney General of Virginia and Acting Deputy Director at Homeland Security. I’m going to talk to him later about the legal aspects about this. We’ve got two minutes left, General. But there’s a perception issue here, having military on the streets of America. Now, it’s one thing you can argue, and there’s probably been about a dozen times, maybe less, that has been used in the history of the country to use active duty military. to protect federal property, but on the streets of a city like Los Angeles, I mean, the perception there could be problematic.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. It’s like a military state. I mean, if you just look at the videos, it looks like a military state. That is not what we want. We want our military to be revered and respected, not feared.
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Not used against its own citizens. And then the Patriot Act back after 9-11, something I was concerned about back then, and my concerns proved to be true because you can’t – well, I might trust Donald Trump by using the military. a Democratic administration or someone else could do the same thing and the outcome be much different, as it was with the Patriot Act.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, and that’s, I mean, that’s a ridiculous statement to start with. Look at what’s happening here. And what are the Democrats doing here? Nothing except egging them on and making it worse.
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But if they have, once precedent is set, We see it used again and again. And I would not want a Democratic administration using our nation’s military on the streets of America. General, we’re out of time. Always great to have you on the program. Thanks so much for coming in. Good to be here, Tony. Well, folks, I would say this is certainly something to be praying about. And we’re going to talk more about this because there’s underlying issues here that why is it that these cities like Los Angeles keep erupting in riots? We’re going to talk about that later, but don’t go away. We’re coming back with more Washington Watch on the other side of the break. 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. Thank you.
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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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Welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks so much for joining us today. All right. Earlier today, top ranking officials from the Trump administration and the Chinese Communist Party met for a second day of trade negotiations at Lancaster House in London, a historical site that has long been a stage for international treaties. These high stakes negotiations are also happening as news broke yesterday that a third Chinese national was arrested by U.S. authorities for allegedly smuggling biological material into the country. As the world’s leading economic and military powers attempt to forge a new trade deal, what other complications may be at play here? Here to discuss all this and more, Gordon G. Chang, a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and expert on U.S.-Chinese relations. He is the author of several books, including Plan Red, China’s Project to Destroy America. You can follow him on X at Gordon G. Chang. Gordon, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much, Tony. All right. So let’s start. Let’s go back last week. President Trump and she held a phone call. And it was obviously focused on trade, which set the stage for the conversations have been taking place the last two days. What do we know about the contents of that call?
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I think probably the most important thing was that they agreed to start negotiations in London, the ones that are currently ongoing. And also, President Trump said that he was going to go to China and that Xi Jinping was going to come to the United States. So those were the two big takeaways. President Trump also said that the talks were good over the phone. And I suppose that Xi Jinping probably did not want to sour relations by saying what he really felt. But there we stand, and we’re going to find out what happens after this third day of talks in London. But the important thing, Tony, to remember is we’ve already had these talks with China in Geneva. There was a May 12th agreement, and China has already violated the May 12th agreement. So the question is, what are we talking to the Chinese about, especially when they’re attacking our agriculture by bringing in all of these blights?
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So what do you think China is after in having these conversations?
SPEAKER 17 :
They’re just trying to delay us. The more delay, the better from their perspective is what they think. And we know that because right after the May 12th agreement, they had a 90-day pause on elevated tariff rates. The Global Times, which is controlled by People’s Daily, and People’s Daily is the most authoritative publication in China, Global Times said 90 days would not be enough to negotiate a trade deal. Well, of course it’s enough if you want to have a trade deal. But the Chinese just want to, I think, just shine us on.
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I mean, this sounds very similar to what’s going on right now with Iran as the Trump administration negotiating with Iran over their nuclear plan, but it keeps dragging out Israel, getting a little nervous about that because the window of opportunity to possibly take out their nuclear facilities is slipping by. Who has the most at risk here if there’s a failure to reach a reasonable trade agreement?
SPEAKER 17 :
I think it’s the Chinese. And it’s because their economy is failing right now. And we know this from price data from February, March, April, and May. China’s in a deflationary spiral. Deflation is an economy killer. Even their exports are down. So yes, we have some vulnerabilities like rare earths. But the Chinese have greater vulnerabilities, and we should remember that as we negotiate, because what the Chinese are trying to do is to intimidate us. And almost all the time it works. I would hope that President Trump says, no, I’m not going to be intimidated by Xi Jinping.
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You talk about rare earths. How does the agreement that the U.S. signed with Ukraine factor in here to that leverage point that China has?
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, anything that we can do to get rare earths helps our bargaining position. But obviously, when you talk about Ukraine, it’s a war zone. As a practical matter, I’m not quite sure that we are going to get rare earths out of Ukraine in any reasonable timeframe. But what we need to do is we put ourselves into this position. We created this vulnerability for ourselves by not mining rare earths and by not processing them. So this is really on us.
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Now, you said their economy has the most at stake here. But from a political standpoint, if a trade agreement is not reached, We could see an increase in prices here in the United States. For a lot of products, we’ve become dependent upon with China. Could this become a political problem in the midterm if people continue to see a rise in prices, which could fuel inflation?
SPEAKER 17 :
Sure, it can be a political problem. I’m not so sure that the prices are going to increase that much because businesses have a lot of ability to adjust. But we got to remember, we have maintained really misguided trade policies for three decades. And we have maintained really misguided China policies for three decades. So as President Trump says, we’re not going to get out of this without some costs. And the issue is, do we want manufacturing in the United States? If we’re going to do that, which is absolutely critical in my view, we are going to have to bear some costs. This is going to be either we give up our sovereignty to China and say, let them rule the world, or we’re going to have to rebuild our manufacturing and we’re going to have some sacrifices along the way.
SPEAKER 18 :
Gordon, is this the time to fix this? I mean, when you look at this back and forth we’ve had with China for many years and this trade imbalance, it would appear that, as you’re right, we’ve got to take the medicine. It may not taste real good in the initial dose, but this is, if not now, when?
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes. And the longer we delay this, the deeper the hole we’re in. So right now, China is, as I mentioned, their economy is really in trouble. I believe it’s contracting. Beijing claims 5.4% growth in Q1, first quarter of this year. But that really is unrealistic when you start to think about all the underlying indicators that we see that actually point to a shrinking economy. So let’s tell Xi Jinping, your economy is shrinking and we’ll make it shrink even more if you’re going to continue to violate your trade deals with us. China violates every agreement it makes. And, you know, at some point we just got to say, President Trump’s got to say to the markets, look, we’re just not going to put up with this anymore.
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Gordon, you have about 45 seconds left. The news of a third Chinese national arrested for smuggling in these biological agents. Are these one-off cases or is there a concerted plan here?
SPEAKER 17 :
There’s a concerted plan. In 2020, Americans in all 50 states received seeds from China unsolicited. This year, Timu, the online Chinese retailer, was sending seeds unsolicited to Americans. That’s, I believe, an attempt to plant invasive species. That’s an attack on our agriculture, like this fungus that has now been brought in. That’s an attack on our agriculture, too. This is a biological weapons attack. Tony. And this is an attack on the United States of America. And I hope the Trump administration treats it with the seriousness that it deserves.
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Gordon Chang, always great to see you. Thanks for joining us, folks. Stick with us. We’re back after this.
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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.
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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 and 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 01 :
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 principle.
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Visit frc.org slash worldview for more information.
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This is Washington Watch. I’m Tony Perkins. Thanks for joining us. Check out the website, TonyPerkins.com, or get the Stand Firm app. Better opportunity. Not only will you have access to Washington Watch, you’ll have access to our news and commentary that comes to you from a biblical perspective. on the Washington Stand. And you can get my daily devotional, Stand on the Word. So go to the App Store, download the Stand Firm app, or just text APP to 67742, and I will send you a link. All right, as Congress aims to pass the big, beautiful bill in the Senate, a group of Republicans are working to expand a provision. Now, as it stands, the bill includes a $5 billion federal tax credit for people who donate to nonprofits focusing on providing scholarships and alternatives to public schooling. This is innovative. First, we talked about this before. It first came out of Arizona by former Congressman Trent Franks. probably 30 years ago, and it’s expanded across the country. Now it’s going federal. But some Republicans want to expand that provision before it actually becomes law, doubling the amount of money that’s available. And we’re waiting for Congressman Burgess Owens. Actually, the House is voting right now. He’s going to step off the floor here in just a moment to talk with us about a meeting he had with President Trump and possibly expanding this, making this program accessible to more people, which I think is absolutely critical. Because if we’re going to change education in the country, we have got to get choice. We’ve got to create competition in our education system. While we’re waiting for Congressman Burgess, I want to bring in Mark Tapscott with the Washington Stand. I was mentioning the Washington Stand earlier. He’s our congressional analyst and a senior congressional analyst. I want to bring him in here on the program. Mark, thanks so much for joining us today as we’re waiting here for Congressman Owens to join us.
SPEAKER 12 :
Interesting day today, Tony.
SPEAKER 18 :
It is. What are you working on for the stand?
SPEAKER 12 :
I came up to the studio after watching the live stream of the House Rules Committee. They’ve been debating all afternoon. various amendments and all kinds of things, some related to the rescissions package, some of them not. They recessed just before I came up here, and they’re going to reconvene after the vote that Congressman Burgess is participating in right now.
SPEAKER 18 :
So let’s talk about the rescissions package. That’s going to be on the floor probably Thursday. It was in the Rules Committee, as you mentioned. What’s that looking like at present? First off, explain what that is to our viewers and listeners and then what’s in it.
SPEAKER 12 :
It’s $9.8 billion worth of spending that has previously been authorized that because of the Doge analysis of the USAID and other parts of the government, the Trump administration and the House and Senate Republicans want to pull it back to save it because we need to save as much money as we can. It looks to me like they’re going to go with basically the package that was first sent over earlier this week. There may be some changes here and there, but the basic idea of about $9.4 billion in rescissions is going to be intact. It’s a down payment. There will be many, many more rescission packages. as this session of Congress goes forward.
SPEAKER 18 :
So what are you hearing? Any opposition or should this thing move through pretty quickly? I mean, I’m among Republicans. Obviously, Democrats are not going to vote for this. They have 45 days. Congress has 45 days to deal with this once it comes from the White House. So they have to move quickly. They can’t do like they normally do and, you know, move at a turtle’s pace. They got to get it going.
SPEAKER 12 :
To be honest, Tony, and I’ve watched, I can’t tell you how many, and sat through how many hearings. This one really looked like people, the Democrats and the Republicans both, were going through the motions, you know, making their talking points and then moving on. I think you’re right. It’s going to basically move forward and probably pass with a very narrow margin.
SPEAKER 18 :
The let’s talk a little bit. It looks like Congressman Owens is going to be tied up with these votes and we’re going to miss him here. This this is pretty innovative for the federal level to have this educational scholarship tax credit. Absolutely. Explain that a little bit to our listeners who may not have been listening last week when we talked about it.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, the basic idea is that with a tax credit, the government can encourage certain activities, in this case, encouraging it to make it easier for parents who want to ensure that their kids are getting a solid education to be able to keep money that would otherwise go to the government in tax form or taxation and use it instead to pay for tuition for their kids at a good school. And millions and millions of people, as we have talked many times here in recent decades, have become very unsatisfied with the public schools, and they’re looking for an alternative. And this is one way that the federal government could provide a tremendous boost to parents who want to do that.
SPEAKER 18 :
And Ted Cruz is handling the bill and the standalone bill in the Senate. Congressman Burgess working on that. Burgess Owens working on that as well. And in a conversation with President Trump, it looks like it might double in the Senate to be a $10 billion bill. bill which would allow more kids to have access absolutely to private education plus it includes homeschooling not just private education but about 80 percent of that private education is religious in nature which is a good thing mark tap scott thanks so much for joining us all right folks uh we’re gonna be joined by ken cucinelli former attorney general of virginia we’re gonna look at the legalities of what’s happening in los angeles next so don’t go away
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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.
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There’s so many different audiences that can benefit. The first one are counselors themselves, right? 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.
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How should Christians think about the thorny issues shaping our culture? How should Christians address deceitful ideas like transgenderism, critical theory, or assisted suicide? How can Christians navigate raising children in a broken culture, the war on gender roles, or rebuilding our once great nation? Outstanding is a podcast from The Washington Stand dedicated to these critical conversations. Outstanding seeks to tear down what our corrupt culture lifts up with an aim to take every thought and every idea captive to the obedience of Christ. Whether policies or partisan politics, whether conflict in America or conflict abroad, join us and our guests as we examine the headlines through the lens of Scripture and explore how Christians can faithfully exalt Christ in all of life. Follow Outstanding on your favorite podcast app and look for new episodes each week.
SPEAKER 18 :
Welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks so much for joining us. Our word for today comes from Malachi chapter three. You’re cursed with a curse for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring all the ties into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and try me now. In this says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven. and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts. Giving to the Lord is an act of trust, a declaration that we believe he will provide for our needs. It fosters financial discipline, but more than that, it’s an act of worship and gratitude toward the one who gives us all things. God doesn’t need our money, but he invites us to participate in his work, trading temporary currency for eternal impact. When we give faithfully, we align with his purposes and open our lives to his promised blessings. To find out more about our journey through the Bible, text BIBLE to 67742. All right, I want to return to the topic of the riots in Los Angeles and the Trump administration’s response. As we mentioned earlier, in addition to the National Guard, about a little over 4,000 National Guard members, the Trump administration last night authorized the deployment of around 700 U.S. Marines to the area. Now, most likely that’s because they’re— The first Marine division is actually not far from L.A. in Camp Pendleton. That’s where I was at. According to an official statement, their deployment is meant to aid in protecting federal personnel and property. Here to discuss this is Ken Cuccinelli, former attorney general for Virginia. He was also the acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security during the first Trump administration. He currently serves as a senior fellow for Homeland Security and Immigration for the Center for Renewing America. Ken, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us. Good to be with you, Tony, as always. All right. So a couple issues that you are kind of expert on here. Obviously, the immigration issue, what ICE is doing. You’re very much involved in that in the first Trump administration. Talk a little bit about what’s happening in terms of removing illegals from the country.
SPEAKER 10 :
So of course the excuse, and I refer to it in a diminishing way as calling it an excuse for a lot of this violence is that ICE is just doing its job and removing people from LA who are present illegally in the United States. They were already doing that. And violence began around that before President Trump deployed or even announced he would deploy the National Guard. So, you know, you’re hearing from Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass now, well, none of this was a problem until he threw the National Guard in there like it’s the gasoline on the fire. The fires were already burning in Los Angeles because of the violence that they had not quelled. And the police chief there had already talked about being overwhelmed. So the president used his authority to federalize, is the word, federalize the National Guard of California and put it under the president’s control, taking it out from under the governor’s control, and to deploy it to bring peace to the streets by backing up ICE and the other federal agents and officers who were under attack there. And then he’s moved Marines into position to back that up further.
SPEAKER 18 :
Let’s stop and talk about the National Guard first because that’s something that’s been done before.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 18 :
And the president can take – control of those state guard troops. And that’s what the guard is there for, is to deal with domestic issues. Where we come into kind of a rarity, not something that happens very often, is the next step that you were about to talk about. And that is deploying active duty Marines.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. Yes. Now, normally, if this were to happen, you’d expect it to be done under the Insurrection Act. There are a couple of other authorities. There’s Military Cooperation Act that’s available to help with planning, and they can use reconnaissance assets to help aid local law enforcement. They can provide equipment, and they can support that equipment for local law enforcement. But for direct engagement, you’d expect to see a proclamation from the president. invoking the Insurrection Act. And I want to be clear to folks, it’s called the Insurrection Act and the media loves that name because it sounds so inflammatory. But insurrection is only one of the four bases on which the president can invoke the powers found in the Insurrection Act. Others are just illegal assemblies, conspiracies, and so forth. And we clearly have that going on here where violence occurs and constitutional rights, including property rights, are impaired. And we’re way past that threshold in Los Angeles. So the president could, without any serious at least not without a successful legal challenge, not to say people won’t sue, just like the governor is sued over the National Guard, he’s going to lose that case and he would lose one under the Insurrection Act because the president has that authority to utilize active duty military. You’re right, Tony, we haven’t seen this very much. We did see it in LA back when George Bush was president in 1992 in the King riots. However, That’s a prudential or a political question. It’s not a high legal threshold for the president. If the president decides that federal resources available are insufficient to accomplish the execution of federal law, like deportations by ICE agents, then he may use the Insurrection Act to supplement those forces. And in that situation, the U.S. Marines can make arrests. They can join the ICE agents in doing their job, as can the National Guard members. So that hasn’t happened yet. But that is something the president seems in his comments to be preparing America for. And by the way, I would note, Tony, he said he was going to do this in his campaign.
SPEAKER 18 :
So let me ask you this question, Ken. If they are functioning as law enforcement, making arrests, detaining people, are they subjected to the same civil threshold of false arrest or abuse that a normal police officer working on the streets could face?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, and here’s where the fact that officers get training on that subject and Marines don’t comes into play. So typically, when I was the acting deputy, we at least talked about this. We asked for this. We didn’t get it in the first Trump administration, but we were planning through preparing people who had not engaged in this activity about how they could do it most safely and most effectively. So there are ways, of course, and you, of course, are a former Marine yourself, if there’s any such thing as a former Marine. This is more in the realm of what National Guardsmen would be trained to do typically. Nonetheless, there are MPs that every branch has and so forth that also have the training.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, but it is different. I’ve been both a Marine and a police officer, and the domestic law enforcement training is a bit different. And there is always that concern over the civil liabilities, which sometimes in the military, when you’re usually operating in a hostile environment elsewhere, it’s not a big concern. By the way, this news just coming in, a judge has denied Gavin Newsom’s request to stop Trump from using the National Guard. He filed suit a little bit earlier today. That has been turned down. Yeah, I think that’s clear cut. But I want to dwell for just a moment on the military aspect of this. I think you’re right. The only place I can see it in most recently is back in 1992. Again, in Los Angeles, a city that is very fragile and seems like it’s always burning. But here’s my concern, all right? And you and I may disagree on this, but I had concerns over the Patriot Act that George Bush passed because I was afraid that it would be used by someone who didn’t have the same standard that he had. And in fact, it was. It was misused against Donald Trump himself and his campaign. My concern here is setting a new precedent and using US military on US soil and desensitizing the American people to the presence of the military. I’m concerned about what, you know, a leftist administration could do with that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and I understand that, Tony. I was and still am concerned about the Patriot Act, and I have actually litigated to stop some of the abuses in that space. And, you know, anytime we see, for example, things that Joe Biden did that Republicans complained about, but Democrats defended, well, now when Donald Trump takes steps that look similar, the Democrats are hogtied. They were defending this before. And so now they see precedents used against them. And this can go both ways, as you wisely point out. And I think that’s a very legitimate concern. I think we’re in a situation in Los Angeles where we’ve seen days of violence. We’ve seen the president move National Guardsmen in. And it does, by the way, appear to be helping. It does appear to be bringing the level of violence down. It hasn’t brought it down to zero, which Donald Trump has called for, but it has brought it down and frankly made it easier for the LAPD to regain control to the extent they put that effort in. So I think the threat, the deterrent threat is valuable, that a threshold of ongoing violence that can’t be handled by the National Guard makes sense to me. But anytime a president does something this aggressive, the precedent can be used in other directions. You’re absolutely right.
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, I think just the threat of sending in the Marines was probably enough to to make them all go home. But, you know, there’s underlying issues here, Ken, and we don’t have time to talk about it, but it’s something that I think we would both agree that When you look at the whole fabric of society, the breakup of the family, lawlessness, and some of the elected leaders we have out there, it’s just a matter of time before cities begin to burn when you have all those factors at play.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, not only that, you have elected officials virtually encouraging people to do this. And look, remember people, violence for political purposes is the very definition of terrorism. The fact that these aren’t Muslims in Israel blowing themselves up doesn’t make it any less terrorism. It’s just lower level violence, but it’s still terrorism. And that is the point. And it’s I say funny, I mean that in an odd way, how Democrats are perfectly comfortable with their allies committing violence as long as it’s in the right political direction. As we saw in 2020, when I was responsible for handling the logistics of trying to protect federal officers and property in cities across the country that were burning, where governors, for example, Governor Brown in Oregon, wouldn’t use the National Guard. We had 340 officer injuries just in Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 2020. And Governor Brown wouldn’t bring out the National Guard. And at that time, President Trump chose not to exercise his authority as president to do so. I wish he had. I asked him to do that. I’m pleased to see him doing it now. This is not an escalation by the president. This is the use of appropriate force to stop violence. And that’s an appropriate way to do it. And I also think it’ll matter in other cities as we look at Seattle getting ready to go this route and New York and others.
SPEAKER 18 :
It’s clear that he has learned from the first administration to move quickly and to show that force. Ken Cuccinelli, always great to see you. Thanks for joining us today. Good to be with you, Tony. Well, speaking of the family and strengthening the fabric of society, that’s one of the areas that Family Research Council focuses on. Obviously, we do policy, but the spiritual fabric of a community cannot be any stronger than that of the family. So tomorrow, we actually start FRC’s 21-day Family Bible Challenge as we begin the book of Matthew. If you haven’t already joined us, I want to invite you and your family to take part in this challenge for the next three weeks. And here to share some insights about this for the next couple of minutes, Aaron Riley, FRC’s Vice President for Development and Marketing. Aaron, welcome to Washington Watch. Thanks for having me. All right, we just got about two minutes left, but share a little bit with our viewers and listeners about what people can encounter in our upcoming Bible challenge.
SPEAKER 21 :
Yes. Thankfully, the Word of God does the work of God. So anytime we’re engaging with Scripture, life change is going to happen. And so what we’ve done is we’ve taken the book of Matthew, put it into 21 days, strategically thinking about how do we engage the family. And so looking at the next generation and all the things going on in the world, we’ve put together this challenge where families are going to gather together, where we’re taking the Word of God on the level of children, teens, and adults to engage with their families.
SPEAKER 18 :
And so there’s a reading plan, shows you what you need to read every day. There are discussion questions on Sundays. It’s a day when you don’t read. You just kind of have a conversation over what you read during the course of the week. And there’s even coloring pages for the kids. This is a whole family endeavor.
SPEAKER 21 :
That’s right. Yeah, we’ve done coloring pages. We’ve even done fun little arts and crafts for kids to do as they’re listening to their parents reading, little prayer boxes and things that will help really solidify the message of the gospel on their level.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right. And folks can get access to this by texting Matthew to 67742. That’s Matthew to 67742. They’ll get a link to all of these resources. They can take the challenge and also share it with friends.
SPEAKER 21 :
That’s right. If they text Matthew to 67742, they’re going to be able to get all of the resources right there to download, print off, and have at home to do with their families.
SPEAKER 18 :
And we’ve already had thousands of people who have taken that challenge, but there’s still room. There’s still room for you.
SPEAKER 21 :
There’s still room, absolutely. Yeah, the gospels never grow old, so there’s still room to start.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right, Aaron, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate the work your team has done on putting all that together. Thank you very much. Folks, I do want to encourage you to do that. It’s great. Our team here, we’ve been reading through the Bible together through the Stand on the Word, but this is a challenge for families that haven’t been in the Word and don’t want to bite off a whole two-year reading plan. It’s just 21 days. Try it. Try it. You might like it. And you might find out what it does to your family. It may just strengthen your family, spiritually just bring a renewed vibrance to the spiritual walk of the family. And fathers, It’s up to you to lead. So I would encourage you, text Matthew to 67742. All right, that’s all for today. Until next time, I leave you with the words of the Apostle Paul, where he says, when you’ve done everything you could do, when you’ve prayed, when you’ve prepared, and when you’ve taken your stand, by all means, keep standing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Washington Watch with Tony Perkins is brought to you by Family Research Council and is entirely listener supported. Portions of the show discussing candidates are brought to you by Family Research Council Action. For more information on anything you heard today or to find out how you can partner with us in our ongoing efforts to promote faith, family, and freedom, visit TonyPerkins.com.
