On today’s program, hosted by Jody Hice: Keith Self, U.S. Representative for the 3rd District of Texas, shares what’s next in the government spending battle on Capitol Hill and sounds the alarm on U.S. military preparedness. Jason McGuire, Executive
From the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington, DC., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and soundbites into conversations with our nation’s leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Sitting in for Tony is today’s host, Jody Hice.
Well, good afternoon. welcome to this Friday edition of Washington Watch. I am your Friday host, Jody Hice, Senior Vice President here at the Family Research Council and President of FRC Action.
Such an honor to have you on board with us today. Coming up on the program today, Vice President Kamala Harris held a campaign rally in Georgia just a couple of hours ago, and she used it to continue pushing false narratives on where Republicans stand on the life issue. And as expected, she claimed that pro-life laws in Georgia led to the deaths of two women back in 2022.
And now we know that at least two women, and those are only the stories we know, here in the state of Georgia, died, died, because of a Trump abortion ban.
Wow. Well, I’ll tell you, as the Harris-Walls campaign just continues to push abortion as their primary election issue, these types of lies, particularly about the abortion pills, look, these lies have deadly consequences for pregnant mothers. I’ll be talking about that with FRC’s Mary Szoch a little bit later in the program.
I assure you, you don’t want to miss that. And this week, the House of Representatives failed to pass a six-month government funding extension bill. So what can we expect now?
Well, I’ll be speaking here in just a few moments with Texas Congressman Keith Self. And by the way, he and I will also talk about the alarm bells that are going off over our military’s lack of preparedness.
I think all of us were persuaded that the threats are more serious than they were before, and we have failed to keep pace as a nation. There is real potential for a near-term war, which would hard to imagine would not be a global war. And there is a chance we could lose such a conflict.
Wow. That was Eric Edelman, he’s vice chair of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy. He was testifying Wednesday on his commission’s findings and the recommendations that they have.
So, what is holding back our military and what can be done? We’ll be talking about that with Congressman Sealth. And in the state of New York, a badly written amendment, which would enshrine abortion in that state’s constitution, it’s leading to an inter-party fighting among Democrats.
And frankly, this could have some down ballot of impact on races for Congress. Jason McGuire, the Executive Director of the New York Family’s Foundation, will be joining me to explain what’s happening in the state of New York. And then finally, as we all know, it has been yet another very, very busy week in the news.
And FRC’s David Closson and I will be examining a biblical response to a number of stories that have dominated the news and social media this week in our Weekly Worldview Segment. So as always, we have a lot coming your way. Our website is tonyperkins.com.
And as you well know by now, there’s tons of resources available there for you. We encourage you to keep that website handy, tonyperkins.com. And also, this week only, let me underscore that again, this week only, you can have three times the impact when you partner with FRC as a partner of our Children’s First Campaign.
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All right, let’s jump into our first story for the day. We are but 10 days away now from a possible government shutdown after the House failed to pass a six month continuing resolution, also known as a CR. That failed this week for government funding, and also included in that was the SAVE Act, by the way, which is a strong election integrity bill, but it all failed.
So the Democrats now, they want a three month, what they call a clean CR that basically would allow them to come back to the table in December with a bloated omnibus bill that would pressure Congress to pass before the winter break. So can Republicans right now prevent this? Can they prevent this showdown from happening?
Well, joining me now to talk about this and much more is Congressman Keith Self. He serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee as well as the Veterans Affairs Committee. He represents the third congressional district of the great state of Texas.
Congressman Self, always an honor to have you on the program. welcome back.
Thank you, Jody. Great to be here with you. Lots to cover.
Boy, there’s a lot to deal with. All right. Let’s start with the CR.
You voted for it and has a safe act in it. And let me just personally say thank you for your vote there. But nonetheless, it did not pass this week.
So what can we expect next?
The loss of the safe act with that CR, which would have taken us into the Trump administration, condemns us to a short-term CR that will then condemn us to a very bloated omnibus in mid-December. If Trump wins, if it is a post-Trump win in December, that means it will be large. It’s also a lame duck session omnibus, which means the people who have retired, the people who lost their races, will have no skin in the game, no vested interest.
And then in Christmas time, they are going to depend on people being distracted with Christmas shopping, getting the tree up, visiting family. So those three factors right there, Jody, condemn us to an omnibus that will be the mother of all omnibuses.
Yeah, and well said. And look up in there over and over and over year after year for eight years, where I saw this type of thing happening and the worst time in the world to try to deal with any kind of spinning bill is right before Christmas. It never ends up well for the American people.
And yet again, that’s going to happen. Now, also with this and explain this, I want to make sure our viewers and listeners understand this. An omnibus in December, let’s just play, suppose Trump wins.
All right, so he wins. We have an omnibus in December. That’s going to go for an extended period of time.
So when he is sworn in, he can’t do anything to change it once that omnibus is in effect.
Yeah, they will make it as long as possible to tie Trump’s hands for as long as possible. So you’re exactly right. He will then have to use all the measures at his disposal to do what he can.
But the omnibus would then be law under Joe Biden’s signature, and his hands would be tied. Exactly. It is a great point.
Yeah, and it will be full of Democrat policies and Democrat agenda items rather than Republicans. So in that scenario, if Trump wins, he comes in and yet he’s got to continue funding Democratic agenda items. It’s just so frustrating.
If I can, Congressman, let me shift gears with you real quickly. You have been sounding the alarm of US military preparedness, and you recently hosted a defense roundtable with some defense companies. What came up during that?
What came up is basically government regulation. And let me be very clear here, Jody, before we start. I am not simply asking for more money for the defense industry.
We need, the US needs a defense industry that is more agile, that we innovate faster, much faster, that we accept more risk so that we can meet the threats of the modern world. We also used the findings of the Commission on National Security Strategy. And they had some very harsh words in their findings, such as the industrial production is grossly inadequate to provide what we need today.
It requires a fundamental change in how DOD functions. The threat is approaching wartime urgency with their production. And frankly, over the last five years, we’ve lost 17,000.
This is from the RAND Corporation. We’ve lost 17,000 defense companies. And frankly, we only have five big primes today.
And the small companies tell us that they go through the valley of death, which means they’re too small to get what they need from investors. And yet they’re too large. They cannot compete with the large companies.
It’s called the valley of death. They don’t want to go through it. So a lot of small companies either sell themselves to the large companies or they stay small.
So we are not growing the defense industry in terms of the small innovative agile companies. But we have got to cut down the bureaucracy, the red tape, in the federal government, if we’re ever going to have any chance of innovating faster, of accepting risks, so that we can design our production for the threats of the modern world. We always fight the last war, Jody.
We cannot fight the last war. We’ve got to be prepared for the 21st century war. We’ve got to be prepared fairly quickly.
That’s what I’m saying.
Great point. So let me, if I can, just give you an opportunity to go a little bit further with this in terms of painting a picture that our viewers can understand and our listeners. What, in your opinion, what might happen if we continue going down the current path that we’re on?
Well, let’s just take an example. An aircraft carrier battle group, it has 6,000 men, it has $50 billion worth of ships and submarines underneath it, and yet they can’t hide in the depths of the ocean anymore, in the vast reaches of the ocean. Everything is seen from space.
So, what we need to do is we need to get more submarines, and we need to protect our space assets and our undersea cable assets, because what will happen in the next war, it will be a different war. They will tear up the undersea cables, they will bland the satellites, and let me tell you, even today, if you’re in Israel, if you’re in northern Israel, GPS will tell you you’re in Lebanon. If you’re in southern Israel, GPS will tell you you’re in Egypt.
They are spoofing GPS in Israel today. We know they’re spoofing it in Ukraine as well, Russia and Ukraine war. So they’ll bland the satellites, tear up the undersea cables, they will take down everything that they can see with their carrier killer missiles from China, and frankly, it is going to be a cyber war by and large, a psychological war as well.
Kinetic war will follow, but this war will be different, and it’s going to have to be fought in a different way. We’re going to have to defend by being mobile and agile, because anything static, if you’re setting still, you can be hit, because you can be seen. We’ve known for decades that if you can be seen, you can be hit.
That will be an axiom in the next war.
And we know China has been making enormous strides on their presence in space, and I mean, that in itself is alarming. Just 30 seconds real quickly. Can Congress do anything about this?
What can be done real quick?
Well, we need to deter China more. We’ve got to control semiconductors more. We’ve got to strip away the NEPO obstacles to building these semiconductor foundries in the United States.
Five of them we’re trying to build. They’re being held up by NEPO requirements, environmental requirements. We need to get more critical minerals into the United States because while critical minerals are mined in many places around the world, China controls the production of critical minerals.
We need to free up Alaska. Alaska has 49 of the 50 critical minerals. Let’s mine them.
Congressman Keith Self, always an honor to have you on the program. Thank you so much for bringing your expertise and wisdom to the table today. We appreciate it.
Have a great weekend.
Thank you, Jody. Take care.
All right, friends, after the break, an abortion amendment in New York with national electoral implications. Stay tuned.
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welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to have you joining us today. I’m your Friday host, Jody Hice.
All right, yesterday, the Legacy Media Reports indicated that New York Governor Kathy Hochul is injecting more than a million dollars into an effort that would enshrine abortion rights in that state’s constitution. And according to those reports, the cash infusion is designed to bail out the struggling pro-life, or the struggling pro-amendment campaign that they’re trying to push forward. And quite frankly, there’s a lot of Democrats who are now worried that this could actually impact down ballot elections going forward.
So what are we supposed to make of all of this? Is there actually a glimmer of hope taking place in a deep blue state like New York? Well, now with all the latest is Jason McGuire.
He’s the Executive Director of New York Families Foundation and New York Families Action. Jason, welcome back to Washington Watch. Good to have you.
Hey Jody, thank you. It’s good to be with you today.
All right. So let’s start with the amendment. Probably we have a lot of folks watching and listening right now who are not familiar with what’s going on.
So tell us a little bit about the amendment. What consequences would it have in your state?
Well, Proposal 1 is a constitutional amendment. It would amend our state constitution. But in this case, it would allow abortion as a constitutional right in our state.
It’s phrased as pregnancy outcomes in Proposal 1, but we all know what that means. It also would take sexual orientation, gender identity, all of the issues regarding the LGBT agenda, and also elevate that to protect the class status in our state. Essentially, it puts the right to an abortion and the LGBT agenda on the same footing as religious liberty in our state constitution.
The real question is, what will the New York courts do with that if religious liberty has the same standing as those other so-called rights? Well, I think we all know the answer to that question. That’s why it’s so dangerous and why we’re opposing it here in New York State.
Yeah, that’s stunning. This is not, and I want folks to understand, this is not simply about abortion rights as they call it. We have a different opinion, but nonetheless, on that issue, it is written so broadly.
As you just mentioned, there are multiple problems. Now, is that how it’s being perceived by the residents and voters of New York? Do they understand really what this amendment would do?
I think most New Yorkers have no idea that there’s even a proposal on the ballot yet. That’s the real danger. Once they’re educated, they’re opposed to it.
But the danger right now is people are going to vote for it because they’re going to see the phrase the Equality Amendment or the Equal Rights Amendment, and then they’re going to assume it’s a good thing. I learned a long time ago, though, that the nicer sounding something is in New York State, whether it’s a bill or a proposal, it’s probably the worse off will be. And this is another example of that.
Yeah, that same principle generally applies in Washington, DC as well. So let me ask you, is there an unexpected, at least in your understanding an unexpected apathy, at least among liberals, to this amendment?
Well, I think one of the things, oddly enough and sadly enough in our state, playing to our favor, is it is New York. And so essentially, there is virtually unlimited abortion here in our state. It’s paid for by the state in many, many cases.
And so it does not appear to be in danger. And I think that voters know that, they understand that. And so this is being used as a wedge issue to try to turn out, you know, democratic turnout in congressional races.
But as people are looking at issues like the economy and immigration in our state, they know that our state is on the wrong track. And even many people that are middle of the road or leading Democrat are just recognizing and seeing it for what it is.
Yeah. And the governor now is coming in with at least a million dollars trying to infuse some energy, excitement and so forth. I mean, what is causing the concern?
Why would the governor be leading this movement? Why does it appear that so many liberals are just not behind this, or at least they’re scared? What’s behind all this?
Is there actually a glimmer of hope taking place in a state like New York?
Well, just remember that two years ago, a number of congressional seats were picked up here in New York, and that affected the balance of power in Washington, DC. Governor Kathy Hochul took a beating for that, for not doing enough, for not stepping up, for a state like New York not delivering for a Democratic majority. And so she doesn’t want to be caught in that trap again.
Now, bear in mind that the opposition on this issue, those that are pro proposal one, those who want the abortion rights and want all of those other things, indicated they would raise $20 million for this race. Now everybody’s running scared of the governor’s pouring $1 million in. So there certainly is hope if we can raise the funds and get the word out to really turn out the vote on election day.
So are they really worried that the national Democratic Party members, are they really worried that this could potentially affect house races in New York? As you mentioned, could this really have some potential national implications if this amendment does not go the way they hope it does?
Well, you know, I argue there would not be a speaker Mike Johnson were it not for the Congressional members here in New York. And if New York does not hang on to or even expand those number of seats here this time, there could be Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, a former New York State Assemblyman from New York, who would like to be the next Nancy Pelosi. That could happen if people are not serious about turning out and voting in November.
So where can people go to stay on top of this issue? If they want to just learn some more, they want to stay on top of it, they want to keep a pulse on it, what can people do?
Most importantly, they have to get educated, they have to be informed, then they have to engage. So you visit newyorkfamilies.org, that’s New York and families is plural, just spell it all out, newyorkfamilies.org where you can get involved, learn about this issue, find out what the issues are here in New York. If you subscribe to our email process there, we will keep you informed, tell you what’s going on and you’ll be able to vote intelligently when you cast your ballot.
So before I let you go just real quickly, how is the education process going? You said that is absolutely essential in this whole thing. How is that effort moving forward?
politico today was running a story indicating that this counteroffensive from the conservative movement, which frankly has not been as well funded as the opposition, is making inroads. As people hear about this issue, when they realize this could mean the fact that women’s sports will be affected, scholarships will be affected, that biological males will be competing against female athletes in our schools, we’ll be sharing those locker rooms, those restrooms. That’s a real concern.
And that is waking people up regardless of party affiliation. That’s just something that we want to protect our daughters and our granddaughters. And so it is having an effect.
And I think we could see a surprise if we can just engage before the election.
That is awesome. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Jason McGuire from New York Families Foundation. Great information and an honor to bring this to our audience. Have a great weekend and thank you for joining us again on Washington Watch.
Thanks, Jody.
All right. After the break, FRC’s Mary Szoch is going to be joining me to correct the record regarding news reports of two Georgia women who died after taking the abortion pills. Harris and company are blaming pro-life laws.
You don’t want to miss what’s coming straight your way after the break.
Stay tuned.
Everything we do begins as an idea. Before there can be acts of courage, there must be the belief that some things are worth sacrificing for. Before there can be marriage, there is the idea that man should not be alone.
Before there was freedom, there was the idea that individuals are created equal. It’s true that all ideas have consequences, but we are less aware that all consequences are the fruit of ideas. Before there was murder, there was hate.
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Who decides what is right and wrong? What happens when I die? Our answers to these questions explain why people see the world so differently.
Debates about abortion are really disagreements about where life gets its value. Debates over sexuality and gender and marriage are really disagreements about whether the rules are made by us or for us. What we think of as political debates are often much more than that.
They are disagreements about the purpose of our lives and the source of truth. As Christians, our goal must be to think biblically about everything. Our goal is to help you see beyond red and blue, left and right, to see the battle of ideas at the root of it all.
Our goal is to equip Christians with a biblical world view and help them advance and defend the faith in their families, communities and the public square. Cultural renewal doesn’t begin with campaigns and elections. It begins with individuals turning from lies to truth.
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Good afternoon, welcome back to this Friday edition of Washington Watch. I’m your host, Jody Hice, and so glad to have you joining us today. All right, as I mentioned at the top of the program, there’s a new claim that Vice President Harris is pushing on the campaign trail, and quite frankly, she’s doing it with the assistance of the legacy media.
But the claim is that pro-life laws in Georgia are leading to the deaths of healthy women in that state.
Republican men, from Trump down to governors to state legislatures, assured us that they were protecting life and that these Trump abortion bans would protect the mother’s life if it was ever in danger. But that’s just another lie that they’re telling you. ProPublica has been investigating how abortion bans across the country are affecting women.
And guess what? It’s killing them.
Wow. All right, that, of course, was MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Wednesday. But listen, we want to set the record straight.
An understanding of the medical details behind the deaths of these two women need to be highlighted, as well as the Georgia laws. And both of these combined tell an entirely different story than what Joy Reid is trying to put out there. So joining me now to help explain all of this is Mary Szoch.
She’s the director of the Center for Human Dignity here at the Family Research Council. Mary, welcome back to the program. It’s great to have you.
Thanks so much for having me on, Jody.
Okay, so let’s start. The story specifically of Amber Thurman has certainly become a campaign issue for Vice President Harris out there on the trail. But if you can, let’s start with, if you would, just explain the background for those who may not be aware of this particular story.
Amber Thurman was a young mom in the state of Georgia. She was about nine weeks pregnant with twins. She was unable to get a surgical abortion in Georgia because her twins had a heartbeat.
She drove to North Carolina, and there, according to ProPublica, she was 15 minutes late for her surgical abortion. And so instead, they sent her home with Mipha Pristone and Missa Prostole, the abortion drug and Missa Prostole to expel the unborn child after it’s been killed by Mipha Pristole. When she returned home, she had taken the drugs and she was experiencing horrific pain.
And we know that that occurred for four days. By the time she got to the hospital, it appeared that she was suffering from sepsis. And she did not receive a DNC when she was at the hospital.
And unfortunately, both she and her twins died. There are a couple of key facts here that people should know about this. First, Amber Thurman did not need an abortion when she got to the hospital in Georgia.
She needed a DNC procedure to clear whatever tissue was left in her uterus. At that point, her unborn children would have already been dead. They would not have been alive.
The second thing is that MIFA Pristone, the abortion drug, carries with it a complication risk of incomplete abortion. In fact, at Nine Weeks Gestation, where Amber Thurman was, about 7% of women have an incomplete abortion, which of course can lead to sepsis. This is something that it’s unclear if the abortionist, who she visited in North Carolina, shared with her.
But what is clear is that they sent her home, knowing that if she did experience these life-threatening complications, which are a hallmark of the abortion drug, that they could do nothing about it, that there was no way that they could help her. At fault in this case is the abortion business that profited off the death of her children, the FDA that removed the safety requirements for the dispensing of Mifepristone, which would have led to her unborn children’s death still, but would have saved her life perhaps, and the doctors who were at that Georgia hospital. The last group that we must keep in mind here that’s at fault is the media that’s pushing this narrative that abortion, that laws that are protecting unborn children put women’s lives at risk.
So you did not mention in all of those who hold partial responsibility in all of this, the pro-life laws of Georgia, and yet that is what the left is shouting is the responsible party behind all of this, is the pro-life laws. That’s just not true, is it?
No, there was nothing in those pro-life laws that prevented Amber Thurman from receiving care. When she got to that hospital in Georgia, she should have received a DNC. A DNC is a procedure that is sometimes used to kill an unborn child and sometimes used for other things, like clearing the uterus after a miscarriage.
It is only illegal in Georgia if it is used to intentionally kill an unborn child. This obviously would not have been the case for her. But the physicians there have an obligation to know that they are allowed to perform that DNC and the media has an obligation to stop saying that they’re not allowed to.
ProPublica said that a DNC is illegal in Georgia. That is just false information and they need to be held accountable for that.
Absolutely, even watching, I don’t know if you saw the clip of Joy Reid a little while ago, it’s just absolute insanity what the left is claiming as the responsibility here. And it has nothing to do with reality or with the facts in this case. Mary, if you can, I’d like to hold you over to the next segment.
I’ve got a few more questions for you. But I want to talk about, among other things, I’ve got a few questions for you, but I want to discuss how in the world can we effectively educate the public on all of this while we have the legacy media, pro-abortion politicians and a host of others that are coming against us. I want to get to that after the break.
If you would please hang on. I want to carry over a little bit more. All right, friends, we’ve got much more to bring your way.
This is an extremely important situation because we are standing up against the lies of the left. Stay tuned, much more coming your way right here on Washington Watch. We’ll be back on the other side of the break.
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welcome back to Washington Watch. I am your Friday host, Jody Hice. Glad to have you joining us.
And Mary Szoch is joining me right now. She’s the director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity. Mary, thank you, first of all, for staying over the break as we talk about this extremely important situation and heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking situation.
So here we have a couple of ladies who have been, who have lost their lives as well as the lives of their baby, obviously. But Amber Thurman, one of them, that Vice President Harris and the Legacy Media are pushing to promote the false ideas that Georgia pro-life laws cause their deaths and just simply is not the truth. But how can we, Mary, educate the public?
When we have pro-abortion politicians, we have a pro-abortion Legacy Media wind in our faces, pushing back against all the truth in this. What would you say when we are in this battle of trying to educate people to the truth?
Well, first we have to educate ourselves and we have to recognize that there is no state in this country where it is illegal for a procedure to be performed that saves the life of a mother, but unintentionally results in the death of an unborn child. There is no time medically when the direct killing of an unborn child is necessary to save a mother’s life, but there are instances where a procedure must be performed to save a mother’s life, where the child regrettably dies. Those are tragedies and we all regret that that is the world that we live in.
But every time that one of those procedures needs to occur, it is legal in every state and it is legal in those states protecting life. We also have to recognize that we need to have an honest discussion about maternal mortality in this country, and that an honest discussion about it includes recognizing what abortion is doing to maternal health care. We now live in a world where there are doctors who do not care whether that child lives or dies because they have performed abortions.
And so this changes the conversation around maternal mortality. We have an FDA that has approved a drug that sends 1 in 25 women who are pregnant to the emergency room following its usage. That is something that is certainly contributing to maternal mortality.
And we can’t begin to address the fact that in places like Southeast DC, there aren’t maternal wars for women who are pregnant. And if we only focus on the fact that, as Democrats say, pro-life laws are endangering women’s lives, an honest discussion about maternal mortality in this country has to include the damage that abortion is doing to maternal health care.
Mary, I just want to say thank you so much. You do an absolutely spectacular job staying on top of these issues. And what you’ve brought to the table today certainly is no exception.
It’s just, it’s amazing. We have to continue pushing back on these falsehoods and keep pushing forward with the truth. Thank you for in so many ways being on the tip of the spear on that battle.
Mary Szoch, Director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity, thank you for joining us.
Thanks so much for having me.
All right, I want to shift gears now. David Closson is going to be joining me here in just a few moments while we’re getting him on. Let me just remind you of a couple of things real quickly.
Of course, our Pray Vote Stand Summit coming up in Washington, DC., October 3rd through the 6th, is just right around the corner. Now, friends, listen, this is a gathering, a national gathering of spiritually active, of governance-engaged individuals, people just like you.
We recognize that the only way to change our country is with spiritual awakening. And so, like Isaiah, in Isaiah 64, when he cried out, Lord, rend the heavens and come down, that’s what we’re going to be doing, among other things. Registration is open right now.
We’re going to ask you to come join us as we pray for our country, as we learn how to effectively engage in government and culture, as we stand for biblical truth. You can go to our website, prayvotestand.org, prayvotestand.org for more details. Then real quickly, let me also just say by way of reminder, this week only, you have three times the impact if you want to partner with FRC as part of our Children First campaign.
And along those lines, with your gift of $30 or more, we’re going to send you a free copy of George Barna’s new book, Raising Spiritual Champions, incredible book. And so we encourage you to come on board and help out and at the same time be blessed. You can text the word CHILDREN to 677-42.
That’s CHILDREN at 677-42. And you need to do so before midnight tonight. All right.
I want to bring in David Closson here. As we approach the end of the week, there’s so many items, so many issues that are on the table. Among them, we’ve got spiritual compromise, loss of integrity, loss of character among some well-known leaders.
There have been some very hard stories related as we just finished talking about, to women who have died because of the abortion pills. The bottom line is, Christians, we don’t want to shy away from these stories, but we do need to think about them and look at them through the lens of God’s Word. And joining me yet again for our weekly Worldview segment is David Closson.
He, of course, is the director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview. David, thank you again for joining us. It’s always great to have you.
Great to be with you, Jody. Thanks for having me.
All right. So let’s get this started off with a couple of sad stories emerging of some Christian leaders who have fallen. In the Dallas area, Steve Lawson, well-known pastor, has stepped down for what’s being described as an inappropriate relationship.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add to this story? But more importantly, how do we deal with this?
Yeah, this is a really tragic story. Steve Lawson has been a theological hero for many believers. He has taught for Ligonier Ministries, which was founded by RC.
Sproul. He’s also been a dean and professor at the Master Seminary, which is led by John MacArthur. I believe it was just yesterday, his church, Trinity Baptist Church in Dallas, put out a statement that said he admitted to an inappropriate relationship that he had had with a woman.
Again, really just tragic, super unfortunate to hear news like this. It is encouraging to see that it appears. Dr. Lawson confessed he brought this to the tension of the elders.
One of the reasons he’s not being excommunicated from his church is that he is pursuing personal repentance. The statement according to the church. But definitely a warning, not just for ministry leaders and pastors, but for all of us who are following the Lord.
Absolutely. David, at the end of the day, there is never a good outcome with sin. We have to, all of us, all of us have to be very much aware of this and very much mindful of what sin does.
It destroys our lives. So what would you say? How does this and other similar incidences remind us of the horror, the danger of sin, and in this case, as it relates to ministry more broadly?
Let me just give you two verses as I thought about this, Jody. The first would be 1 Peter 5, 8, where Peter says, Be sober minded, be watchful. And then he reminds us, Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to destroy.
The devil is real. The temptation of sin is real. None of us, Jody, are so spiritual, so mature in our faith that we’re immune from the attacks of the enemy.
One of my seminary professors, Don Whitney, one of my favorite seminary professors at Southern Seminary, Jody, made all of the seminary students that would take his classes memorize 1st Timothy 4.16 which says keep a close watch on yourself and on your teaching. And that verse goes on to say persist in this for by doing so you will save yourself and your hearers. But I’ve never forgotten that warning.
Keep a close watch on yourself and on your teaching. And I think whenever a story like this hits the news, Jody, especially those of us who have teaching and preaching responsibilities, we need to remember that the scripture tells us that, again, those who aspire to teaching offices have a higher responsibility, a higher accountability. And so we’ve got to keep a watch on ourselves and on our teaching.
Absolutely. And the accountability is huge. And it seems as though most of the time when these individuals fall, there is a lack of accountability somewhere in their lives.
And the truth is within all of us is the capacity to fall. And we need to, exactly what you just said, guard ourselves as well as our teaching. So one other question before I shift to another topic, but on this, what would you say to someone who has benefited from Pastor Lawson’s ministry or someone in another situation, another ministry where the ministry leader has fallen?
What do you say those who have benefited in some way, how would you counsel them as they get this negative news about someone they trusted and admired?
Yeah, and hasn’t that happened to all of us, Jody, at some point? If we follow the Lord long enough, someone that we admire in the ministry, these stories come up. I would say this, Jody, the Bible is trustworthy even when the preacher is fallible.
God’s Word, the high view of God that Steve Lawson has heritled for decades, that’s still true. We know 2 Timothy 3, 16 says that all scriptures breathe out by God. That’s a message Steve has always held up, a high view of God’s Word, a high view of the doctrines of grace.
Even when the messenger is flawed, even when the messenger sends and sends grievously, the message itself is still true. God’s Word is the standard, not a herald of God’s Word.
Great way of putting it. If I can, David, I’d like to shift gears. I don’t know if you saw the last segment that I had with Mary Szoch, but we were talking about 2 women in Georgia who have died after having a chemical abortion.
Kamala Harris has mentioned one of the women, Amber Thurman, while she’s been on the campaign trail. She’s basically saying that the pro-life laws of Georgia are to blame for this death. In fact, she posted on X that a young mother from Georgia should be alive today, raising her son and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school.
This is exactly what we feared when Roe V. Wadewood struck down. In more than 20 states, she says, Trump abortion bans prevent doctors from providing basic medical care.
All right.
This is certainly not all accurate, but give me your thoughts on both this tragic story and how the left is twisting the facts in it all.
Yeah, the story itself is tragic and it’s awful. And Amber should still be alive today, Jody. What’s kind of worth noting is that this story actually, Amber passed away two years ago.
It was August of 2022. Why are we talking about this now, two years later? Well, this is political opportunism at its finest, you could say, or at its lowest.
The fact is that this got brought up the other night in Oprah, Winfrey, Kamala Harris town hall, and Kamala Harris has been campaigning on this. And Jody, I hate this. Again, we just, but we got to, as Christians, one of the things, Jody, that’s important for us is we need to be clear-eyed.
We need to speak the truth. And the fact is, is that in this campaign, ever since really Kamala Harris has taken over the top of the Democratic ticket, the one issue it seems that she hasn’t flip-flopped on, the one issue that she’s been clear about is abortion. And again, she sees this as an opportunity.
Jody, she flew down to Georgia today to give a speech and to really run on this issue. She thinks that she can win on this issue politically. And again, as Christians, we ought to take just a step back and realize the moral horror of the fact that one of the major candidates is running on abortion, which again is the intentional killing of innocent children.
Yeah, it really appears as though the left being led now by Kamala Harris are more concerned about saving abortion than they are about saving babies. They had rather babies die than abortion die is the way it comes across. And now the new frontier are these abortion pills.
Can you remind our viewers of why these pills are so dangerous and so unregulated?
The word you just used, Jody, is the key piece right there. The fact is that the reason we have this two-pill regimen, known as chemical abortion pills, Mephepristone and Misoprostol, is because the Clinton administration back in 2000 rushed these through. In the closing months of the Clinton administration, they passed, the FDA allowed these pills.
Now what’s interesting, Jody, is these pills were regulated. There were a lot of safeguards in place. But actually in 2016, it was the Obama administration that walked back many of the safeguards that had been in place.
It was again, President Obama’s, when he was president, the FDA decided to increase the maximal gestation age that women can use them from 49 days to 70 days. They reduced the number of in-person visits that were required to receive these pills. They allowed non-doctors to prescribe these pills.
They eliminated the requirement to even report non-fatal adverse events related to the drug. And the Biden administration, so we can call it the Biden-Harris administration, Jody, they in April of 2019 approved a generic version of Mifepristone. And then citing the COVID-19 pandemic allowed Mifepristone to be dispensed through the mail where you don’t even have to see a doctor.
And so in the case we’re talking about right now, Amber never needed to be examined by a doctor. She could just receive these pills. And so it really is the wild, wild west.
And what Democrats, I think we need to realize, more than, I think it was over 50 percent last year of abortions that took place, were these chemical abortion pills. And so increasingly, surgical abortions were seen less and less of them. But they’re being replaced by more and more chemical abortions, these two pill regimens.
And so why do we have the situation? Well, we can point to the Clinton administration, the Obama administration, now the Biden administration, making it much easier to receive these pills.
And behind it all is the embracing of a culture of death, contrary to God’s Word. And it’s just, it’s amazing. And we’ve got so many referendums coming up on ballots in various states throughout the country, here in this coming election.
David Closson, always an honor to have you. Thank you so much for taking time yet again to share with us your input and Biblical perspective on the important issues of the day.
Always a joy, Jody. Thank you.
You bet. All right, friends, that wraps up yet another week and another edition of Washington Watch. Hope you have a fantastic weekend, and we’ll be here faithfully again next week, keeping you current on what’s happening from a Biblical perspective.
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.
