On today’s program: Blake Moore, U.S. Representative for the 1st District of Utah, comments on his election to House leadership in the 119th Congress and previews the agenda for next year. John Hart, Open The Books CEO, exposes how the Biden-Harris
SPEAKER 15 :
From the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and soundbites into conversations with our nation’s leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview, Washington Watch with Tony Perkins starts now.
SPEAKER 05 :
We expect a level of cooperation from the Democrats to work with us to get these folks installed. And obviously, we’re going to look at explore all options to make sure that they get moved and that they get moved quickly.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome to Washington Watch, and thanks for tuning in. That was Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who was elected yesterday as the next GOP leader in the Senate. He was addressing a question on President Trump’s call for recess appointments. We’ll discuss it with Andy McCarthy, a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a former chief assistant U.S. attorney. One of the first orders of business will be government funding.
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Government funding is scheduled to run out on December the 20th. Both sides must work together to prevent a shutdown before then. Nobody wants to hear the words Christmas time shutdown a few weeks from now. I can’t think of something the American people would want less during the holidays.
SPEAKER 07 :
That was a not so happy Democrat Senate leader, Chuck Schumer. We’re going to be speaking with Congressman Blake Moore, the new vice chair of the House Republican Conference, about this and much more. What’s to come in the lame duck session of Congress and the 119th Congress. Yesterday we discussed with Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma how the Biden administration is refusing to contract with faith-based groups working to reduce recidivism in the federal prison system. Now this may be due in part to a focus on advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI. A newly released report from Open the Books reveals that within the within just the Department of Health and Human Services, that’s just one department, the Biden administration has spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars advancing DEI, hiring hundreds of federal workers to implement this agenda. John Hart, the CEO of Open the Books, will join us to discuss the details. And finally, Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, will join me to discuss this week’s news and how Bible-believing Christians should approach government engagement in the days ahead. You know, one thing I often hear from people, they ask me, Tony, what can I do to help? Well, you know what my answer is? Pray, vote, stand. All right, we voted. Now we need to continue to stand for biblical values and we need to pray, especially now. Join us for Operation Prayer Shield as we ask God to protect our nation and Israel during this time of transition. We’re also praying for the incoming administration that there will be godly men and women filling key roles. If you’d like to join with thousands of other believers in praying, text SHIELD to 67742. That’s S-H-I-E-L-D, SHIELD, to 67742. You’ll receive weekly alerts, daily prayer points, and more. Again, text SHIELD to 67742. Republicans in the House of Representatives yesterday locked in their selections for their conference’s leadership for the 119th Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson won the GOP nomination to retain the gavel, doing so by unanimous voice vote. Others on the House GOP leadership team will be my good friend. Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana also. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Conference Chair Lisa McClain. NRCC Chair Richard Hudson and Conference Policy Chair Kevin Hearn, formerly of the Republican Study Committee, and Conference Vice Chair Blake Moore of Utah, and Conference Secretary Aaron Hochen of Indiana. So what might we expect to see in the House coming in January? And what can we expect in this lame duck session of Congress? Joining me now to discuss this and more is Congressman Blake Moore, who serves on the House Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. He represents the first congressional district of Utah. Congressman Moore, welcome to Washington Watch and congratulations on your election as conference vice chair.
SPEAKER 14 :
Thank you, Tony. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s the post that Mike had, Mike Johnson, before being elevated speaker.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, that’s what my team always reminds me. Hopefully I don’t have the same fate as him, and I can stay doing my job there, and he continues on and foreseeable. He’s done an amazing job. He’s been able to keep this conference moving in the right direction. We’re really excited about the election results. Thanks for highlighting the leadership elections. But last week and just seeing the mandate across the country that we want conservative leadership to move things in a different direction in our country.
SPEAKER 07 :
Blake, there are some housekeeping things that have to be taken care of, obviously, to organize for the next Congress coming in, and that was taking place today in part. There were conversations about the rules, and there will be a rule package voted on in January. I was talking with the majority leader earlier today. Give us a sense of the mood inside there as members are talking.
SPEAKER 14 :
We just had a unanimous vote, unanimous voice vote for our speaker. A lot of still hard questions for him to make sure we’re still moving in the direction that we want to go. Today’s rules package will be a lot of debate and we’ll ultimately put it to a vote and we’ll see you know, kind of where things land. But this process that we did two years ago, I remember Speaker McCarthy, former Speaker McCarthy, he did a masterful job of getting the conference together. We have disagreements on how we think some of these procedures should go. And we’re going to debate it out and move on to the next piece. And then, you know, then we have the rest of the lame duck and getting then a speaker elected and moving forward.
SPEAKER 07 :
Also yesterday, President Trump, President-elect Trump came and visited with you and spoke to the Republican conference. What can you tell us about that gathering?
SPEAKER 14 :
I guess maybe his title could actually be officially President-elect President Trump. He is still a President Trump because he’s been, yeah, that’s, I’ve never thought of that. He had a great message. It was just like, look, we had a big, strong win across the country. Work together. Let’s get the agenda moving in the right direction. And it was neat to see Elon Musk. He’s larger than life. And this is what we’ve needed, right? We weren’t, in President Trump’s first term, we created one of the strongest economic engines, which is what the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was. Congressional Republicans had been working on that for a decade. President Trump came. It was the right moment. We had the House, the White House, and Senate, and we moved on it, and our country had a strong economic growth period, and we’re still benefiting from that bill. Next year, And this candidly should have been the only thing that was discussed on the campaign trail for the last year. It could have been, we have a tax bill that expires next year, and we need to make sure that we’re moving forward. So he was talking a mixture of policy and galvanizing all the new voters that we have in our party and moving this to what we want to accomplish. And this is going to be a neat time. SENATE, THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WE ARE A SEPARATE BODY THAN THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH. WE HAVE A SEPARATION OF POWER. BUT WHEN WE ALIGN ON POLICY, THERE’S NO TELLING WHAT WE CAN ACCOMPLISH. AND I THINK THERE’S A LOT THAT WE CAN DO THAT WITH A NEW ADMINISTRATION.
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And Congressman, you have to be very much aligned even with one another as it looks like top number, the House, the Republicans could come in with 221 seats maybe at the top.
SPEAKER 14 :
One of my closest friends is on the fringe of that. I’m still going to say 222 and manifest that this continues to happen. It’s going to be very tight.
SPEAKER 07 :
That will be great if that happens. But we already have seen the president kind of plucking some members out. We have Elise Stefanik, who will be at the United Nations. We have Mike Waltz, who will be in the White House. And then yesterday, we’ve already had the resignation of Matt Gaetz as he’s been tapped for attorney general. So you’re not going to have much of a margin to work with.
SPEAKER 14 :
You know, you can see the trepidation on Speaker Johnson’s face when he’s like, we have a lot of great people over here, President. Please don’t take any more right now. So, yeah, we’ll have to get some of these special elections done as soon as possible. And we’re not going to be haphazard or irresponsible with with this really tight window to navigate, Elise Stefanik needs to be over in that position. So I’m thrilled, and that was a very sensational. And Mike Waltz, like, couldn’t be a better national security advisor. His is different because he does not need Senate approval. So we can try to make sure that we stay in the majority. They’ll be very tight. And, you know, sicknesses or illnesses or people missing votes, we got to recognize that. So we’ll be responsible with it.
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You’ve been dealing with that for the last year. And so going into a very aggressive agenda, let’s talk a little bit about that agenda. You mentioned this. I think top of order is going to be the tax package. Is that going to be one of the first that the House tackles?
SPEAKER 14 :
So legislatively, think of what we did last term. Our HR1 was about energy and unleashing American potential. Our HR2 was about border security and making sure that we secure our border to be able to safeguard our nation and our homeland. And then that’s the only time you have a chance to then embrace a broader immigration reform that also needs to take place. But we’ve got to secure the border. So those will be things that those are legislative items that we’ve already done. We want to get those redone as soon as possible, but President Trump can also take some action on the executive front to undo some of the harmful policies that President Biden put in place. So that’ll be like first order. Then you have a very, very important tax reform bill, extension of what we had done in 2017, making permanent where we can. That will be a very, very… tough bill to get done. And it’s going to take us some time. But we’re going to be primarily working on that. That’s my role on Ways and Means Committee. And you can see just a clear need. If we don’t get this done, it will be a $4.3 trillion tax increase on American workers and families. And as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, we’re committed to not let that happen. So that will be First major legislative priority that we haven’t already done in this term. We didn’t have a Senate. Chuck Schumer, we gave him some really strong legislation. He didn’t even take it up. He didn’t even try to take a few pieces from it, maybe try to work on that and say, okay, we can agree on this part of this bill. Let’s at least try to… He didn’t do any of that. He just was dead on arrival. He’s not serious about governing. He’s not serious about actually creating the things that ultimately led to a big loss for Democrats. They didn’t respect people’s voice on the border. They created $5 trillion net new dollars of spending that created inflation. And we’ve got the solutions for that. And now we’ve got a Senate that can actually move on some of the good legislation we’ve done in the House.
SPEAKER 07 :
So, Congressman Moore, just so our folks, viewers and listeners know, when legislation passes the House and you go into a new Congress, you have to redo it. But this is ground you’ve already plowed, so it shouldn’t be that difficult to get the energy bill through, to get the border bill through, because you’ve debated it, you’ve looked at it, you’ve vetted it, and it’s just a matter of pushing it back through again and now having a Senate that will work with you.
SPEAKER 14 :
The key on this piece with the Senate is this bill would still have to pass with bipartisan support, but it’s not Chuck Schumer that gets to drive it and leverage it. It would be John Thune, and he is going to do the yeoman’s work of making sure people, we’re going to send him a bill, And he’s going to go get it done and find a way to get it over the finish line and send it back to us. It won’t be the exact same bill, but it will be a significant improvement in the process to have someone like him over a Senator Schumer that is not serious about doing this important work.
SPEAKER 07 :
Just less than a minute left, Congressman Moore. What do we expect to see in the next few weeks in this lame duck session?
SPEAKER 14 :
Right. So we’ve got a lot of really good bipartisan legislation that we did on defense, health care, that in the appropriations bills. So I can’t predict what will get taken up necessarily. You’re going to have an administration that is calculus is completely changed. President Biden, to what extent he’s wanting to get something accomplished before Democrats lose LOSE THE SENATE AND THE WHITE HOUSE, HE MIGHT BE MOTIVATED TO DO SOME OF THESE GOOD BILLS THAT WE’VE ACTUALLY BUILT UP AND WE’VE GOT DONE. SO I HOPE WE CAN GET A HEALTH CARE BILL PASSED. THERE’S SOME TAX FIXES THAT WE HAVE TO DO. YOU NEED AN END OF YEAR SORT OF BILL TO GET THAT DONE. APPROPRIATIONS. That’s going to be a tricky one that I don’t exactly have the read on how we’re going to play that. But we want to find as many savings as possible. But also, we don’t want to burden President Trump with all of this by handing it to him on his desk on day one. Let’s get done what we can and get it off the plate so he can focus on all the key things that we need to focus on.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, looks like you guys are going to be busy for a while. Congressman Blake Moore.
SPEAKER 14 :
And we welcome it. We hate sometimes the opposition when Senator Schumer wouldn’t take up any of our stuff. We want to be busy.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now you’ve got a clear path forward. Congressman, good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Folks, stick with us. We’re back with more after this.
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Let’s not be discouraged. Don’t lose heart. Don’t lose the faith. Stand now strong because the Lord has given us the great privilege of living in a time when our choices matter, when our lives matter, when our courage matters. So let’s stand together and save this great country. God bless the United States of America.
SPEAKER 01 :
The American Republic has a freedom like no other. It has roots in the scriptures far more than any other heritage. And if we as followers of Jesus and conservatives don’t defend it, who will?
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Neutrality is not an option. There are many Christians who believe that if we just keep our heads down, if we just don’t say the wrong thing, that somehow we will come out of this unscathed. You’re naive if you think that, because what they want from us is not our silence. What they want from us is our submission.
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Part of the dilemma of Christianity in our generation is that we’ve relied a little too much on human wisdom and human reasoning, human strength, human resource, and we’ve relied too little on the power of God and God’s ability to open doors that we can’t open and do things that we couldn’t even hope to begin to do.
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This may not be an easy task, but we are living in a moment of challenge, but also a great opportunity. And we know always that we are not alone, that his spirit empowers us and protects us, and that he can do the unimaginable. Dobbs, after all, was never supposed to happen.
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Father, we thank you. You have entrusted us with this moment in history, and I pray that we would be found faithful, and that as a result of our faithfulness to you, that thousands, millions would come into the kingdom as they would experience the forgiveness of sin and the new life that is found only in Jesus Christ. Amen.
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Download the new Stand Firm app for Apple and Android phones today and join a wonderful community of fellow believers. We’ve created a special place for you to access news from a biblical perspective, read and listen to daily devotionals, pray for current events and more. Share the Stand Firm app with your friends, family and church members and stand firm everywhere you go.
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Welcome back to Washington Watch. Join us for Operation Prayer Shield. Text SHIELD to 67742 and join with thousands of other believers across the country praying for our country right now. We’re in a very, very dangerous time. We’ve been talking about this on the program as we’re kind of in a vacuum of leadership. Our allies like Israel, we need to be praying for God’s shield of protection. So text the word SHIELD to 67742. All right. Always love to pull back. the curtain on government to see, you know, just how crazy the left is. Well, earlier this week, the nonprofit government watchdog group opened the books, released a new report exposing the expansive extent of the Biden-Harris administration’s whole-of-government DEI effort just at the Department of Health and Human Services. Now, this goes all across the government, but they went, did a deep dive at the Department of Health and Human Services. The magnitude and cost of the administration’s woke agenda, is staggering just in this one department. So how has this administration been putting our tax dollars to work? Well, here to break it all down is John Hart, CEO of Open the Books. John, welcome to Washington Watch. Thanks for joining us. You bet. Thanks for having me, Tony. So let’s start with what prompted you to look into the Department of Health and Human Services to see just how deeply rooted this agenda of DEI was.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, Tony, as you know, this is a problem all over the federal bureaucracy. You know, we’re in an age where we’ve really lost our foundational understanding of this question of identity. You know, the founders wrote the Declaration of Independence that our rights are endowed to us by a creator. They’re not dependent on the king, the state, our race, our ethnicity. And we’ve moved so far away from that, we’re really institutionalizing another form of discrimination through this woke DEI framework. And it’s a hyper-racial sensitivity that actually makes people less sensitive towards other people of different races. I think it’s really a racist ideology in many respects. So what we found at HHS is that there are 294 employees just at HHS focused on advancing this DEI agenda.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s their sole focus is 294 employees just to advance DEI.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. Right. Again, this hyper racial focus that has nothing to do with with health. And when you step back and think about, you know, it’s worth looking at. I’m glad Elon Musk and Vivek and President Trump are working together with this Department of Government Efficiency, because we need to look at every agency at every level and ask. are these programs advancing the central mission of the agency? And does the agency’s mission even make sense? And so HHS really ought to be focused on things like improving health outcomes. There’s a research component. And it’s worth asking is, are the dollars we’re spending on DEI employees doing anything to help healthcare make, or rather help make healthcare more affordable or accessible or transparent to low-income Americans? And I think the answer to that’s probably no. It doesn’t advance that primary focus.
SPEAKER 07 :
But, John, that’s not all that you found. I mean, you also found that over at HHS there are employees that are focused just on the health equity. That’s right. And that’s another $30 million a year just in the salaries alone. I mean, what is health equity? Don’t we want everyone to have health?
SPEAKER 09 :
Of course, yeah. Well, again, it’s $30 million on health equity. And again, it gets to this really just kind of perversion of what the founder’s vision of identity is, is that our identity doesn’t come from our race. It comes from natural law or nature’s God. That’s what America was built on, this concept. And so when you add on these other identities and these sort of equity concepts, you’re not actually advancing people’s human dignity. And the way I think of it is there’s every human being has worth and dignity by being a child of God. So there’s no there are no amount. of acronyms, of plus symbols, of letters you can add to a human being that gives them more dignity. And so, in fact, every acronym could be a subtraction because it takes us away from the value that we all have as children of God. And that ideology is just so pervasive throughout the federal government.
SPEAKER 07 :
It also takes us away from even our nation’s motto of out of the many, one. We’re separating, dividing America through these identity politics. And I think this last election shows us that a majority of Americans want to move away from this.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And that’s a fundamental teaching that Jesus, you know, in Christ, there’s no Jew or Gentile. And we’re making our culture so hyper-focused on that, as Thomas Sowell observed, is that racism isn’t dead. It’s on life support, but it’s being kept alive by ideologies like DEI.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s a useful tool for those on the left to keep people divided and keep American Americans apart. Let’s talk just a few more. We’ve got a couple minutes left. What type of salaries are we talking about for these DEI hires. I mean with these like low level thirty thousand forty thousand dollars a year.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, I mean, there were 182 of these workers made at least six figures. One collected $221,000. So again, we’re not talking about low-level employees. We’re talking about very, very well-paid, well-compensated people where your tax dollars are going to fund this ideology. And again, back to the point I made at the beginning, Tony, is that we live in a world of finite resources. You know, families have to make hard decisions every day when they sit down and make a choice between healthcare, groceries, sending your kid to college, donating to a charity or your church. And every dollar we spend or the government takes from us to spend on things like DEI is a dollar that we can’t spend on something that’s more productive.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. And that actually turns over in the economy as well and has a multiplying effect. Exactly. When it’s spent in the private sector. We just got about a minute left, John. What was the most outrageous of the DEI spending choices that our government made that you uncovered?
SPEAKER 09 :
I think, you know, probably one of the more outrageous things is that there was an event where they had Ibram Kendi, who’s a very well-known kind of DEI ideologue. He wrote the book How to Be an Anti-Racist. NIH used federal money to do an event with him, and they tried to scrub it from their site. And we went back and filed Freedom of Information Act requests to get to the bottom of that. and and that that just illustrates sort of the brazen nature of this is that you know we live in a free society tony that i think you and i would agree that let’s let’s have an open debate on all these ideas let people argue it out in the marketplace but we don’t need to be spending federal funds advancing one ideology over another particularly when again all the money we spend on on this ibram kendi seminar is a dollar that can’t be used to fight cancer, can’t be used to go after heart disease and all the other things that are just common sense priorities.
SPEAKER 07 :
Which goes back to what you said earlier, the core mission of the agency, which is what our government should be doing. John Hart, thank you so much for joining us. Great to talk with you today.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you, Tony. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, folks, don’t go away. On the other side of the break, Andy McCarthy joins us to talk about the proposal for recess appointments in the next administration. Don’t go away.
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Everything we do begins as an idea. Before there can be acts of courage, there must be the belief that some things are worth sacrificing for. Before there can be marriage, there is the idea that man should not be alone. Before there was freedom, there was the idea that individuals are created equal. It’s true that all ideas have consequences, but we’re less aware that all consequences are the fruit of ideas. Before there was murder, there was hate. Before there was a Holocaust, there was the belief by some people that other people are undesirable. Our beliefs determine our behavior, and our beliefs about life’s biggest questions determine our world meaning. Where did I come from? 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 worldview and help them advance and defend the faith in their families, communities, and the public square. Cultural renewal doesn’t begin with campaigns and elections. It begins with individuals turning from lies to truth. But that won’t happen if people can’t recognize a lie and don’t believe truth exists. We want to help you see the spiritual war behind the political war, the truth claims behind the press release, and the forest from the trees.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome back to Washington Watch. Good to have you with us. Again, let me invite you to join us for Prayer Shield, praying for our nation, praying for the incoming administration, praying that we’ve got good leaders leading us forward. Text the word SHIELD to 67742. That’s SHIELD to 67742 to join with thousands of others praying for our country. It’s a very, very dangerous time. All right. Ahead of yesterday’s Senate leadership elections, President-elect Donald Trump stated on social media that any Republican seeking the position of party leader must agree to recess appointments. That’s an alternative method of appointing officials that can be found in Article 2, Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. the republicans have a majority in the senate recess appointments usually when you can’t get your nominations through and with the rules change it just requires 50 plus one unless i’m missing something and so i wanted to bring an expert on to talk about this and explain what’s being proposed and that expert is andy mccarthy senior fellow at national review institute and former assistant u.s attorney for the southern district of new york he joins us by phone andy welcome back to washington watch
SPEAKER 06 :
Tony great to be with you.
SPEAKER 07 :
So Andy help me understand this because you know I know the rules have been changed in the Senate. So where nominations could get through at 50 51. And so that usually the recess appointment is used when they’re being blocked. If you’ve got the majority party and you’ve got all those votes you would think that you could get it through with your party support. Am I missing something.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, you’re missing nothing, Tony. The only reason to do this would be to try to carve a path for somebody who was not qualified for the job. Obviously, anyone who President Trump wants who is qualified for the job is going to get support. I think not only support from all of the Republicans, and of course, let’s remember, J.D. Vance will be the vice president, so he’ll be there to break any ties. But I don’t think that would even be necessary. But he’d probably get support from, you know, somewhere between 5 and 15 Democrats, depending on who the nominee is. So there’s no problem getting qualified nominees through, and there’s no— There’s no good reason to scheme for a way to get out from under the Constitution’s requirement of Senate vetting before a nominee can be approved to take a high-level position.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, so what exactly is being proposed in terms of what the president-elect has suggested with a recess appointment? Walk us through how that works.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, so far, I don’t want to get us too far ahead of anything because I’m not accusing the administration of having done anything underhanded at this point. I think that President Trump is… He’s simply making a bad judgment if he thinks that he needs recess appointments. But the idea that has been floated by some is that there’s a provision in the Constitution that basically says if the House and Senate can’t agree on when Congress is going to be in session, that the president can direct them to be in session at a particular time. and that that provision which has never been used before for this purpose would be exploited to allow President Trump to manufacture a disagreement between the two chambers about when they’d sit. He would then direct that there be a 10-day recess, and during that period of time, he would try to get through any recess appointments that he’d want to get. I don’t think that’s going to work. I sure hope they don’t do something like this. Constitutionally speaking, I don’t believe the president can direct the Senate not to be in session. So they have ways of convening where they do a little bit of business for a few minutes at the beginning of the day, which shows that they’re in session.
SPEAKER 07 :
And they’ve been doing that. I mean, I think going back to Obama, that’s been the way they’ve been doing things. So would it be a stretch for me to say, Andy, that this would result in a lot of litigation?
SPEAKER 06 :
It sure would, and it would be very bad for the country because, you know, let’s take any important position in the government. If the appointment, Tony, was invalid, that means any action taken by that official, and some of these actions could be very consequential, would be subject to challenging lawsuits. So, you know, the head of a big executive agency who makes, you know, any number of decisions per day, you could get a bunch of lawsuits challenging the validity of those decisions because the person was not.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s a mess. That would be a mess. Sure is. I mean, I have to say, you know, I’ve been pretty impressed with the appointments that the president has made up until this announcement yesterday. I just it came out around the same time as the suggestion of Matt Gaetz as the attorney general. And there was kind of some eye rolling in the Senate. And I wonder if it’s connected to that.
SPEAKER 06 :
I certainly think that if the president anticipated that he was going to make some appointments, at least one, maybe others, that were going to be very controversial, that somebody in the transition camp has to be thinking about, well, how are we going to get those people confirmed? But, you know, to your point. Given how easy it should be for the president to, under the current rules, to get a good nominee, even a passable nominee confirmed, I think they would be better spending their energy on other stuff.
SPEAKER 07 :
Andy, 30 seconds left, but we’ve found in the past that when you change the rules, they never go back. And so what we have to do is not just change them for today, but look at the effect they’ll have 10 years down the road. Am I right?
SPEAKER 06 :
You’re absolutely right. And on that score, I would just point out Justice Scalia, writing about recess appointments probably 10 years ago, said that this particular provision is an anachronism that we don’t even need anymore. So to change the rules to accommodate something we don’t even need anymore is not prudent.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, we’ve got to protect the rules. I mean, it’s how our system works. Andy, always great to talk with you. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you, Tony. All right, Andy McCarthy. All right, don’t go anywhere. Dr. Al Mohler joins me next for a conversation on how the church should be engaging going forward. Don’t go away. Hello, I’m Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council here in Washington, D.C. Behind me is one of the most recognizable buildings in all the world, the U.S. Capitol. What does it stand for? Well, most people say government. But do you know the Bible talks about four institutions of government? Do you know what they are? And do we have a republic or a democracy? Well, what do you say? Also, what about this thing, separation of church and state? Does that mean Christians shouldn’t be involved in government? Guess what? We address those issues and more in our new God and Government course. I invite you to join us to see what the historical record and the Bible has to say about government. Join us for God and Government.
SPEAKER 13 :
The world is hurting, streets are filled with crime, families are broken, sin is celebrated, and God is mocked. Everywhere we look, the wages of our sin are on full display. As Christians, we know that surrender to God’s will is the solution to our biggest problems, but not everyone agrees. Even in church, we hear people say the most important thing is to be tolerant, that we shouldn’t impose a morality on other people, and that loving our neighbor means celebrating what they do. but you can’t do that it’s not that you don’t love your neighbor you do but you care about god’s opinion more than your neighbor’s opinion and this makes you different in fact sometimes it makes you feel alone like you are the only one but there is good news you are not alone not even close research has found that there are 59 million american adults who are a lot like you There are millions of people around the country who are born again, deeply committed to practicing their faith, and believe the Bible is the reliable word of God. But that’s not all. They’re also engaged in our government. They’re voters. They’re more likely to be involved in their community, and they’re making a difference in elections. The problem is that a lot of them feel alone, too. We want to change that. FRC wants to connect these 59 million Americans to speak the truth together. no matter the cost. If you want to learn more about this group and what it means to be a spiritually active, governance-engaged conservative, or if you want to find out if you are one of these sage cons yourself, go to frc.org slash sagecon and take the quiz to find out. The world is hurting, and we have the solution. We can’t do it alone, but we can do it if we work together. That’s what we’re working toward every day. Join us. Go to FRC.org slash S-A-G-E-C-O-N, SageCon, to learn more. That’s S-A-G-E-C-O-N, SageCon, to learn more.
SPEAKER 07 :
This is Washington Watch. I’m Tony Perkins. Good to have you with us on this Thursday. Again, I invite you to join us for Prayer Shield, praying for our nation, praying for Israel, praying for the incoming administration, praying for the leaders in Congress during this lame duck session of Congress. There’s a lot to pray for. You know, I say pray, vote, stand. We voted. We’ve got to continue to stand for biblical truth, but we need to pray. And we need to pray for those in authority. Scripture tells us to do that. But we’re going to help you between now and January the 20th with focused prayer through Operation Prayer Shield. So simply text the word SHIELD to 67742. That’s SHIELD to 67742. And join thousands of other Christians across this country praying right now. Our word for today comes from Hosea chapter 4. Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land. There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. Swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraint with bloodshed upon bloodshed. Here is God bringing a charge against them, an indictment. No truth or mercy, no knowledge of God, corruption of speech, deceit, murder, theft, sexual immorality. But then you look at verse 6 and you see where the root cause is. It is this, my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you from being priest for me. Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children. You see, rejecting the word of God, the law, there was no mercy for the vulnerable and defenseless. Can there truly be justice and mercy, which we have many clamoring for today, without truth? No, it’s not possible. We must have truth as the foundation of our republic. For more about our journey through the Bible, text the word Bible to 67742. All right. Well, since the election, there has been a lot of activity every day. We’re seeing news here in our nation’s capital. We have appointments. The president’s nominating individuals for cabinet positions. We’ve got the new Congress selecting their leaders. We have, as we were talking about earlier, I think we’re going to find a lot more of what this previous or the present administration has been doing, like the DEI and all of their woke policies and the millions of dollars that have been spent on that. We’re going to see more and more of that. I actually think that was at the center of this election, two contrasting worldviews. So what does that mean going forward? How should we as Christians continue to engage in a way, in a way that honors God, that is in concert with the teaching of Scripture? Well, joining me now to talk about this is Dr. Albert Moeller, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the host of two podcasts, The Briefing and Thinking in Public. He also serves as the editor of world opinions. Dr. Moeller, welcome back to Washington Watch. It’s always great to see you. Tony, it’s great to see you. And while was there a lot going on every day, every day, there’s plenty, not an absence of anything to talk about. But I first before we dive into some of the specifics, I want to get your thoughts on the election and this season that we’re in as a country.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you know, it’s an overwhelming statement by the American people. And I think, quite frankly, just absolutely astounding the political class. The fact that Donald Trump won not only in the Electoral College clearly, but won the popular vote. The fact that Republicans gained control of the Senate and will hold control of the House. This is an unprecedented opportunity. And I just have to, with you, pray that our elected leaders will be good stewards of this opportunity. Because I’m not sure when in our lifetimes we may see this again. And so there’s just a lot invested in this moment. And obviously it’s going to be a thrill a minute when you think about what’s at stake with the new administration coming in. Frankly, the appointees to the president’s cabinet and beyond big legislative initiatives. We got a lot on the table.
SPEAKER 07 :
And I don’t think the urgency of the moment is lost on President-elect Trump as he has been rolling out these nominations, which most of them have been pretty good. I’ve been impressed with a lot of them, especially our friend Mike Huckabee as the ambassador to Israel. First evangelical Christian to serve in that role. That’s exciting to me, given the times in which we’re living. Right. But the president wants to get these nominations through. And just yesterday made a statement that he’s looking to possibly use a recess appointment. And I was talking about this earlier in the program with Andy McCarthy that he’s got, you know, possibly 53 senators and Republicans that that is he only needs 51 to get something through. So the recess appointment shouldn’t be needed if you get the right people. The rules going forward and the urgency in balancing the two. How should we be looking at that?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you know, Tony, like you, I am a Christian conservative. And both of those words are absolutely crucial. Christian comes first. Conservative comes second. But to be a conservative, especially in our context, is to believe that there is invaluable wisdom in our constitutional order. And that when you look at the power of a president to appoint a cabinet, that’s absolutely clear. But it’s also absolutely clear that the Senate has the responsibility of advice and consent. And, you know, it’s very easy for those who are very happy with the Trump election and count me very, very happy. that the Republican ticket won. You look at this, you have some people who say, well, let’s just cut the fast track. And, you know, sometimes in a political exigency, that would turn out to be important. And you basically pointed this out. For instance, if he had an opposing party majority in the Senate, he doesn’t. He has his own party’s majority in the Senate. And honestly, I think our constitutional order needs to be honored. And so in the main, with very few exceptions, we need to go through the normal confirmation process. And by the way, you know, this president is our president elect former president. It’s an unusual time to say all that about one man. But, you know, he he is not. hesitant to say in advance that he intends to disrupt the rules. You need to save the exception as an exception, because the president may need that exception at some point. And I think we would all see it when that comes.
SPEAKER 07 :
As a Christian conservative, as a constitutionalist, as one who’s held office and had to work in the minority, the rules are important. I mean, think about this a minute. I’m not a huge sports fan. I used to be, but not that much anymore. But can you imagine a football game with no rules? I mean, it just wouldn’t work. I think that’s called the seventh grade. Well, actually, sometimes you wonder. Yeah, it is. The rules play an important function because I’ve been in this arena for 35 years, and I’ve lost more battles than I’ve won when it comes to legislative policy ideas. But I knew that there would be tomorrow, and I would have to work harder. I would have to build a coalition. Right. And move this through. If you blow up the rules or you bend the rules, then you really bring antagonism, anger, and it not only disrupts the system, but it could destroy the system.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and as you know, as you reap, so shall you, excuse me, as you sow, so shall you reap. Right. And so just imagine the alternative. I just want Christians to think about this. Let’s suppose there were a Kamala Harris administration and that administration moved towards recess appointments. We ended up with AOC and worse on a cabinet with absolutely no break from the Senate. We don’t want that. Let’s remind ourselves of that.
SPEAKER 07 :
And that’s a really, really good point because back during, I’m trying to think, I’ve been here so long, I’m trying to remember what administration this was. It may have been, I don’t think it was the Trump administration. Before that, it may have been all the way back to the Bush administration where they just wanted to eliminate the, and it’s been discussed now by the Democrats, that was the filibuster so that they could get things through. And a lot of conservatives were for that because in the short term it would have helped advance judicial nominees and different things that they were working on at the time. Of course, those rules have been changed on nominees. But I said, no, no, because just think what happens if those rules are changed in four years, who’s going to be in control? And we would have the Equality Act. We would have abortion on demand until birth as the law of the entire country. So you’ve got to you’ve got to think through the long term. As you said, when you change the rules now, the same rules are going to apply in the future.
SPEAKER 08 :
And I believe this is part of the founders vision. When you look at the Senate often referred to just in history as you know the cooling saucer. So the House the House more popular votes fast and can get things done in a different way. The Senate tends to be a slower operation by constitutional intention. And you know once the political system in the United States coalesced around two parties the filibuster is actually a continuation of that constitutional logic I would argue. And as you say, you know, the problem is if you get rid of it, then as a country, we’re going to go back and forth between conservative and liberal administrations as if we have two completely different governments.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and we are kind of doing that right now. And I think the Senate is kind of one of the anchors. But, you know, one of the first changes was the 17th Amendment that allowed for direct election of the senators. Prior to then, they were selected by the legislature, which was a kind of a firewall from, you know, public pressure, direct election. And I know that’s almost That’s almost hate speech in the ears of some today to say that public pressure. But it was to allow things to settle so that we didn’t have this radical change back and forth from government. It was somewhat of an insulation. But it’s like a ping pong match now. where we go from one to the other with each incoming administration. And that really changes how the world can view America. They really can’t trust where we’re going to be.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely. And you know, just in practical terms, as we tie this to moral principle, it’s one thing if the president gets to the position where he can’t get his appointees through and has to do something extraordinary. But with that Republican majority in the Senate, we should seek to go through the normal process, if nothing else, to show the other party how it’s actually done right. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. I mean, even though it will be harder, may take longer, it is a restoration of those founding principles that keeps a republic. Now, I also, I would argue that the left has been moving us in this direction toward a democracy. They use the term democracy. Absolutely. These are policies that are in keeping with a democracy, which means you have people directly involved. And there’s a big difference between a republic and a democracy.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely. And, you know, our constitutional republic was put together with a logic that is based on the Christian worldview to avoid the concentration of power because that will lead to the concentration of sin. And so unless we have not one, you know. autocratic leader. We have three branches of government. They all have to work in a certain symmetry. And I think we also need to understand that there’s a the left. As you say, you said it exactly right. They want direct democracy. That means they hate the Electoral College. It means they also hate the Senate. Right. You know, you’ll hear liberals say, look, it’s not fair. California’s got 40 plus million people. You know, you have Wyoming, a fraction of that population. They both have two U.S. senators. Well, you know, that’s a part of the greatness of our constitutional logic. Otherwise, Wyoming disappears as a political reality.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and the Republic. I mean, we are going on nearly 250 years of this great experiment, and it’s because of the wisdom, I believe, inspired wisdom of the founders and the structure that they put in place. So, Dr. Mueller, we just have a few minutes left, you know. Yeah. How as Christians should we be approaching this moment in time where like like you said you’re excited. I’m elated with what we saw last week in terms of what the American people did and the potential we have going forward. But how do we seize this moment.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s a great question. I think there’s a temptation on the part of even the Christians who did vote. And thankfully, I honestly believe the vast majority of church-going evangelical Christians did vote. And I think the temptation now is to kind of sit back and say, well, we did our part. Well, that’s not where this ends. We need political momentum because of our Christian convictions. And that means staying up on these issues, putting pressure where we need to put pressure. And quite frankly, you know, continuing to articulate the convictions that bring us into this in the first place. And so, you know, there’s a temptation on the part of the American people, particularly on the part of the winning party.
SPEAKER 07 :
to step back and say well that job’s done but as you know majorities are lost as fast as they are won yeah vigilance eternal vigilance vigilance is necessary to stay involved but also i we have to be measuring both parties according to the same standard of truth. And there’s a way to be, you know, when our side, if you say, well, you know, we’ve got to say, I’m a Republican, all right, I’m a conservative. And that’s almost, I’ve always, I don’t know that I’ve ever voted for a Democrat, maybe once or twice in Louisiana, back when they had the old Democrats. Right. But we need to hold both parties accountable to the same standard. We can’t hold one to a standard and say, well, that’s our guys. They’re just trying to get down the road. We have to return to a foundation of moral truth because this conservatism unanchored to morality and truth ultimately gets us to the same place as the path of the progressives.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, Tony, I think about this often. I’ve been at this for nearly 40 years and you too. And that means that our words are recorded going back for decades. And I feel that it is a matter of character that my argument must be consistent in a straight line regardless of which party is in power in the White House or in Congress. I have to make my arguments in a straight line. And so that means that we can’t now all of a sudden change our tune on the linkage between character and conviction. We can’t all of a sudden change our tune about how we read the Constitution and the separation of powers. We’ve got to maintain, for Christian character’s sake, also for constitutional consistency’s sake. We’ve got to maintain a straight argument. We have to hold our side even more accountable to those principles than the other side, which is why, by the way, we’re on this side.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right. That’s right, because this is the side that values truth, recognizes that truth, and wants to conserve it, protect it, and restore it. Dr. Al Mohler, always great to see you, my friend. Thanks so much for taking time to join me today.
SPEAKER 08 :
Always good to be with you, Tony. God bless you.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. Dr. Al Mohler. Pray, vote, stand. And as Dr. Mohler said, our responsibility is not over when the election ceases and the votes are counted. And even though they’re still being counted in some places, we have to continue. to be involved. And you can help by praying right now. Pray. Join with Operation Prayer Shield. We’re already seeing the effects of this as the president is picking some really good people for his cabinet. So we have some prayer points for you. We’ll be sending them out each day. Text the word SHIELD to 67742. That’s SHIELD to 67742 and join with thousands of others in praying at this moment. That’s all the time we have today, folks. Thanks for being with us. Until next time, I leave you with the encouraging words of the Apostle Paul, who says, you’ve done everything you can do when you’ve prayed, when you’ve prepared, and when you’ve taken your stand. By all means, keep standing.
SPEAKER 15 :
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.
