Walker Wildmon: Religious freedom is about people of faith being able to
Jeff Chamblee We inform.
Walker Wildmon Religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions, no matter where they are.
Jeff Chamblee We quit.
Rick Green Sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.
Walker Wildmon We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character.
Jeff Chamblee This is at the Core on American Family Radio.
Walker Wildmon Welcome to the Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on the program. Walker Wildmon. Here at the Core is the name of the show. You can subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, whether it's Apple device, Android, Spotify, Amazon, however you get your content, your podcast content, you can check that out by just typing in the name of the program, click the subscribe button, and it will be queued up in your inbox in your library each and every day.
Walker: Proverbs chapter seven is where we have been this week
Well, let's turn our attention to scripture, and then I will talk about some other housekeeping items before we move into the stories of the week and of the day. Proverbs chapter seven is where we have been this week, and we're wrapping it up today with our final reading of our Proverbs chapter seven, but pretty lengthy. Chapter 27 verses. And I'll summarize it for us for the sake of time, the vast majority, probably 80 to 90% of the, scripture of this chapter is telling the story of a young man who. And the reason. How do we know he's young? Because he's being referred to as son by the writer. But it's telling the story of this young man being lured in by this adulterous woman. and so there's a lot to unpack here. But what I've been highlighting and what I think is applicable to our lives is that, the first thing is that we need to be very careful not to be lured into situations where, not only temptation, but sin abounds. We need to be very careful as believers, not to put ourselves in situations where temptation and sin is prevalent. That's the first truth. The second truth is that sin leads to death. Sin leads to death. Well, what do you mean, Walker? Does sin lead to. To physical death every time? Well, no, but it leads to eternal death, which is the ultimate capital D death for the believer to pass on to eternity, to heaven, to, his or her eternal state is to defy death, which is what Jesus did by dying on the cross. We just celebrated Easter. Jesus rose from the dead. He was the eternal sacrifice. He was the propitiation for our sin. He offers us eternal life. It's the only way to eternal life in heaven with the Father, with the Son, with the Holy Spirit, and with all of the believers, with all of the saints. And so the only way, to defy death, is to believe in Jesus for eternal salvation. But my point in mentioning that is that the end of the chapter here, chapter seven, the final verses, say that this sin leads to Sheol, which is death, hell, eternal hell. And as believers, we need to stray far, far away from sin, from temptation, seek righteous lives. And if we don't, if we do choose the path of sin and of temptation and of, in this case adultery, it leads to death. And that's what the writer here in Proverbs chapter seven is addressing.
I quoted some deportation numbers that were way off the charts this week
All right, let's talk illegal, immigration. I, actually misspoke the other day, which doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I quoted some deportation numbers and I was way off the charts. And so this is, correction before I get the emails on the phone calls, maybe a little bit too late by the way, or maybe nobody caught it because they're not paying attention. So you should pay attention to stuff you listen to. But on a serious note, the deportation, numbers I mentioned on Wednesday of this week were way off. And I'm not even going to repeat them because it's not necessary. Here's the deportation numbers by President, let's just say over the last four, five, six presidents, the George Bush, H.W. the first Bush deported 141,000 illegal immigrants. Bill Clinton deported 900,000. I'm rounding up 900,000 illegal immigrants. George W. Bush, Bush two deported 2 million illegal immigrants. And lastly, well, not lastly, second to last, Barack Obama. Listen to this folks. This is rather shocking. Barack Obama deported 3 million illegal immigrants over the course of an eight year period. Now why did Obama deport more than Bush? Well, probably because Obama had more laxed immigration policy. He had more laxed border policy, which meant more people came in, thus more people had to be deported. So that's probably the explanation there. So before you go to praising Barack Obama, President Obama for his record number of deportations, it's likely due because he let a record number of illegals in the country through his, his his lawless borders, border policies. And Donald Trump. Now these numbers are not up to date. So during the first, let's say 24 months of President Trump, he had deported 551,000 illegal immigrants, which is not very good to be honest. If we're being honest. If we're comparing the presidential administrations now, as I mentioned, the numbers are incomplete. Even for the first term of President Trump. These numbers are still not up to date. Just because this source doesn't have the latest numbers. They're probably somewhere. This is from the Cato Institute. All that. All that to say that deportations, have been a common practice for presidential administrations for a long time. These numbers go back to Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge. These names sound familiar, don't they? FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon. These numbers go back. Deportation has been a common, routine practice by the executive branch for a long, long time. And here we are in 2025, and you would think by reading the headlines and by reading these rulings from these rogue judges, you would think that deportations are just this foreign, far off. Nobody does this lawlessness practice. And as I mentioned, you know, previously, it's baffling to me that an administration like, let's say Biden can, can sit idly by While millions over 10 million illegals pour into our country through the border. And he's even flying them in, by the way. That happened. There were flights of illegals into our country. They even made it easy, right? They created the CBP1 app so that your entry into our country illegally could be streamlined. When did it become a role of government to make criminal activity streamlined and efficient? That sounds like organized crime to me. But, no, our tax dollars went toward creating a mobile application. Who knows how much money we spent? If it's anything like the Obamacare website, that didn't work. It was hundreds of millions that was spent on that for a website to not work. And now these judges, some of these lower court judges are acting. And even the Supreme Court, I mean, they put a freeze, they put a halt on. They, they. This happened earlier last week. But the Supreme Court jumped over a circuit court, like a Fifth Circuit, et cetera. And it was actually, in this case, the Fifth Circuit. The Supreme Court jumped over the Fifth Circuit and weighed in on a lower district court opinion without allowing the Fifth Circuit anytime to rule on it. And they did it to do what? What was the end result? They barred President Trump from deporting foreign terrorist gang members, illegal immigrants that were in our country being held and detained in Texas. This was the definition in the judicial world of extraordinary. I mean, this, this hardly ever happens. I'm not going to say it never happens, but it hardly ever happens where the Supreme Court weighs in before the proper jurisdictions have weighed in. So we had A lower district court judge say, no, no, President, President Trump can't deport illegal immigrants. And then, then the fifth Circuit doesn't even have time to weigh in, which is actually a pretty conservative circuit, which is probably why left wing Scottish decided to, because we can't let the conservatives win here. And they put a halt seven to two, by the way. So you had Barrett, you had Kavanaugh, you had Gorsuch, all ruling in favor of keeping the illegal immigrant gang members here in our country. Let me remind you, President Obama deported 3 million illegal immigrants. President Trump is nowhere near those numbers. And the, the, the people that they're trying to deport are the, the worst of the worst. They're the gang bangers, they're the leaders, they're the executives in the car. We haven't even gotten down to anybody else. The Trump administration hasn't even been allowed to get into deport, dating, deporting anybody else. And so what you have to think about here is if the Trump administration can't deport, according to some judge or the Supreme Court because they're not right on everything, if the, if, if the Trump administration can't deport for designated foreign terrorists, cartel gang members, worst of the worst, convicted of the most heinous crimes domestically on our soil, non citizens, by the way, then how are we ever going to engage in any sustainable level of deportations to prevent and, and, and, and patch the carnage that Biden created? Do you see what happens here? This is like a cycle of abuse that our country is submitted to. And the only one keeping the abuse going and the cycle of human trafficking and smuggling and sex trafficking going is the judges and the, so Biden lets 10 million in and Trump wants to send a hundred back. And the courts say, no, no, no, you can't send them back. This is the definition of lawlessness. And I think the executive branch really, and they, they've done a pretty good job on this. So this is no shade on Trump, but the executive branch is really, really going to have to look in the options, look into their options of defying the judiciary. And I say that very hesitant. I don't say that lightly because I understand the ramifications. It's either that or the Supreme Court grow a backbone. So, everybody out there that cringes at the idea of the executive branch disregarding the judicial rulings of either lower district or the Supreme Court, anybody who cringes at that and says, oh, that's a constitutional crisis, folks, we are currently in a constitutional crisis, so we are here. So if you want to address it, let's address it now. And if you want to avoid getting to the place that nobody wants to, to go where the executive branch ignores the judicial branch, then the Supreme Court needs to grow a backbone and start reigning in these out of control, rogue, unconstitutional judges that are exceeding their jurisdiction. This is all on the Supreme Court. We're looking at the Supreme Court and we're looking at them saying, hey guys, let's do this the right way, let's do this the legal way, let's do it the constitutional way. And you can correct your own branch of government like you're supposed to do. Or we can go for option number two, which isn't good for anybody.
Jeff Chamblee The Core Podcasts are available @afr.net now back to, At the Core on American Family Radio.
American Family Radio has several events coming up later this year
Walker Wildmon Welcome, back to the program. Walker Wildmon here with you on American Family Radio. This is our second segment underway now. Glad to have you with us on the program. A few events that I want to mention before we jump to our guest is we've got several, events coming up later this year. The first one and the most pressing is our Activate Summit coming up this summer, June 12th through the 14th. You can go over to activate activate.afa.net to check it out. Activate Summit 2025. we have a, ah, few spots available. We have a little bit of capacity left, not much. So go ahead and check that out [email protected] and if you want to go with us on a spiritual heritage tour, we have a litany of options at our, at our website, whether it's Washington D.C. Williamsburg, Boston and even foreign tours or overseas tours. Greece and Israel. Greece is obviously footsteps of Paul. Israel is the land of the Bible. Both of those tours are in 2026, early 2026. You can go over to wildmangroup.com check those out and we would love to have you go with us on a spiritual heritage, tour [email protected] well, I do want to introduce our next guest.
Katy Talento is executive director of the alliance of healthcare sharing ministries
Katy Talento is with us. She's executive director at the alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries. Katy's been a guest of the program before. Katy, welcome back.
Speaker D Thanks so much for having me. Great to be here.
Walker Wildmon Well, Katy, we actually partner with various, healthcare sharing ministries. There's a handful out there in the market, that are faith based, nonprofit based and are very, very effective at their work. And so I'm familiar with the model and familiar with how it works and how what your organization does as far as representing those groups. But there's been surprisingly, when you look at the way healthcare sharing works, it seems like who can be against it, right? When you look at it, when you study up on it, how effective it is. But you guys have experienced not only pushback, but different states that are trying to basically over regulate or come after the health care sharing model, which is a very proven model. So tell us what you've been dealing with specifically in the state of Colorado with the new law on the books there and what you're litigating.
Katy Talento Yeah, thanks. So Colorado was sort of ground zero for an attempt to try to regulate us into oblivion. And essentially what's happened there is a few years ago a really, burdensome, extensive, exhaustive reporting requirements scheme was put into place in law there. They have a democratic super majority in the state legislature. So even though there are lots of good, normal Americans in Colorado, they are not doing a great job at electing a good normal, legislature there. So, they passed this law. We threatened to sue at the time, as you know, this was unconstitutional. Continuous monitoring of religious groups, which is, you know, the 10th Circuit there in Colorado and other federal courts have, including the supreme Court have long, you know, prohibited and you know, ruled as unconstitutional regulatory schemes. But that's what they enacted. And so as we had threatened, we, we did have to sue, Colorado for infringing the religious liberty and the freedom of association and freedom of speech, rights of health care sharing ministries and their members. so what they really require is we want to see everything that's going on under your hood. We want you to tell us everything about all your internal workings, your internal org charts, all the financial information about how you share who you're contracted with. We have to turn over our contracts with all the third parties that help us administer our sharing programs, including doctors, who work with our members and hospital systems. This is craziness and it's not, you know, it's very normal for insurance regulators to think this way because they regulate insurance companies very, very heavily. But we are not insurance. We're not. Our memberships are not insurance policies. Our ministries are not insurance companies and our programs are nothing like insurance except that they are a solution for the problem of high cost medical bills. but we're more like a homeschool co op for, for health care. so what we're suing over really is when you start asking a religious organization, think about it, if it were a church and some of Our ministries are churches or associations of churches. If you start asking a church, hey, nice, Sunday collection you got there. What did you spend that on? How much does the pastor make? You know, like, who, who donated there? So, you know, it starts to chill, you know, associational rights. It starts to chill religious exercise rights. And, and Colorado has sort of a long and lurid reputation of doing this and flagrantly violating freedom of religion. Ah, rights. Like the Jack Phillips, the baker that didn't want to, make a pro gay marriage cake. they are notorious for this. They literally took Jack to court again after the, after they lost in the Supreme Court, they're back to court again. So, they don't learn. And what has come out recently, you know, we've been in litigation with them for over a year now, but what's come out recently in discovery as part of this litigation is, you know, we get to ask each other questions about, like, show us emails. And, and we've seen that the commissioner of insurance, Michael Conway, who is the named defendant in our case, actually was conspiring with the John Oliver show for over a year for how best to smear religious people and healthcare sharing ministries. He's sort of a known anti religious bigot and they were helping him because they were trying to delegitimize us. you know, insurance regulators, they see everything through an insurance lens. They think everybody should be in the aca, the Affordable Care act marketplace. They don't want anyone else finding some alternative to insurance products where you're forced to subsidize abortion and gender surgeries and all kinds of things that violate our religious conscience. So they don't like it when people have an exit ramp out of their schemes. And, that's how they view healthcare sharing.
Walker Wildmon That's, that's the thing. This is really twofold. Clearly there's a lot of folks, and specifically officials in Colorado that simply don't like healthcare sharing ministries and organizations because the vast majority of them are faith based and actually have convictions and don't want to pay for abortions and don't want to pay for cross sex hormone treatments and fill in the blank. And so there's that angle. There's just this insistence that you must be pagan, you must adopt our ways, you must have no moral convictions. There's that angle and then there's also the angle and these two really go hand in hand of, well, everything's got to be regulated, and everything's got to be like an insurance provider, which is not what healthcare sharing is per se. And so then there's the regulatory side of it. And it just sounds like they just threw everything at you guys. I mean they threw the books at these healthcare sharing organizations and ministries so that they could basically regulate you out of existence. And if not regulate you out of existence, regulate these organizations into not being faith based organizations and instead being just another insurance provider in the marketplace of broken insurance providers.
Katy Talento Well, that's right. I mean, regular to your point, regulators got to regulate, you know, if there's some universe, some small space in the universe that is, not under their thumb, that is an offense to them, it cannot be tolerated. so there's, there's that just, that's true of all regulators. but yeah, in Colorado it's particularly bad. And in Colorado, the state does require that all insurance companies do, all insurance policies must cover abortions, they must cover gender mutilations. so there's nowhere for Christians in Colorado to go except healthcare sharing ministry. And that's why we're being targeted. So, you know, we're the escape hatch and they can't have that.
You've been in court for roughly a year challenging Colorado's anti-LGBT law
Walker Wildmon What is, so you've been in court, you said for roughly a year. What does this look like? I'm familiar with litigation. in this case it's civil litigation. But, this stuff takes time. So what are you guys looking at? What's the next step? You mentioned discovery. What step of the process are you in? In?
Katy Talento Right. So the first thing that we did was we filed our lawsuit in the federal district court there in Denver. And and then immediately we filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin this law from being effective. Because if you're not compliant with the law, you can be fined daily. Like crushing, crippling fines and all that wonderful money that our, sweet members are, are, you know, squirreling away in order to provide for other members. Medical needs would then, you know, get put into lawyer fees and litigation and compliance costs and so, penalties issued by the state. So we needed a preliminary injunction to stop the enforcement of this rule. Fortunately, the state agreed to stop the voluntarily to stop enforcing the rule last year while we filed our preliminary injunction motion. We lost the preliminary injunction motion in a, I would argue, unfair and misguided ruling by the federal district court judge. and we appealed that to the 10th Circuit. now the 10th Circuit is, has been wrong before in the past when they, you know, they kind of, they ruled wrongly on Jack Phillips and his cake baking. and that's why he had to appeal to the Supreme Court. But, you know, I do think that I'm confident that the 10th Circuit is going to see the reasonableness of our, of our pleadings. And so they initially denied our emergency on, preliminary injunction. And because of that, that law is now effective. So we are now, you know, at risk of being deemed out of compliance with that law for not having turned over everything about us to, to the state. And so, but meanwhile, while those motions were pending, we're still just litigating the merits at that federal district level. And so that's why we were engaged in discovery and depositions and, and finding things out about, like, kind of the internal conversations about us among the regulators at the division. So it was very interesting to see how they, how they were answering. You know, one thing they said was, the commissioner was asking his staff to, like, come up with reasons to justify this law. Like, we got to look into our records and see if people have complained about these ministries because, you know, we got, we want, we want to justify our law after the fact. Post hoc. you know, that's not how religious burdening is supposed to work when, you know, if you're going to burden religious exercise of American citizens, you actually have to have a compelling state interest in order to do so. And you have to achieve that compelling state interest using the least restrictive means possible. So you can't manufacture a compelling interest after the fact, after you've already, you know, imposed the burden as a means of justifying yourself in court. but it appears that that may be what they were up to. we'll have to see what the courts say.
Katy Talento: The left is coming after everybody. I mean, this is exhibit eight
Walker Wildmon Yeah, this is, for anybody who's either on the fence, which I don't know at this in 2025, how anybody can be on the. But anybody who is, unsure of the aggressiveness of the left and the Marxist and the God haters. This is exhibit eight. I mean, here you have health care sharing ministries that are operating very effectively, serving their core mission purposes in the state of Colorado and everywhere else in the country. And Colorado's just gotta step in and fix something that isn't broken. And while we're at it, we're just gonna make it so ridiculous that these organizations can't operate anymore. And if they do, they can't have any convictions, and they've basically gotta become just another insurance provider, even though they're not in, the marketplace. I mean, this is like, who was being damaged, who was being harmed? The answer is nobody. Nobody was being harmed. But my point in, and Jack Phillips is another good case. My point is that you can't just kind of sit on the sidelines and expect to go unscathed untouched. The left is coming after everybody. And this is exhibit A. I mean, who can say we don't like health care sharing ministries. We think they're mean people. They're, they're harming people, which is just flat out untrue. The left is coming for everybody. Everybody, Katy, is going to have to bow the knee if we don't fight back.
Katy Talento I think that's right. And also, you know, the, the opponents of religious liberty are taking aid and comfort from Colorado's actions. So Colorado style bills almost word for word have popped up in Oregon, in Vermont, in New York this year. So we are having to play whack a mole trying to beat these back. And they don't care that we're suing in federal court some other state. You know, they're just putting own, you know, legal expenses at Jeopardy. you know, let, let's, let's do this in our state too. And some of the hostility we've heard from some of these legislators in, in these other states. I, I won't name the state where we heard it. It was just a few weeks ago in an open hearing, there was a regulator testifying, the insurance regulator testifying, saying if, if I could, I would ban these entities. I would kick them out of our. You know, and that's exactly, you know, they kind of said the quiet part out loud. They, they don't, they cannot tolerate dissent and they do wish that we would just violate our conscience and pay for abortions and pay for gender mutilations.
Walker Wildmon Yep. Because they want their agenda funded and they want it funded by even unwilling participants. And just like they do with the taxpayer dollars right now. Hey, Katie, tell our folks, more about your website, how they can read more about your work.
Katy Talento Yeah, so you can reach [email protected] that's alliance of Healthcare SharingMinistries.org you can follow me at Katy Talento on, X and at LinkedIn.
Walker Wildmon All right, Katy. Hey, thanks so much for coming on the program.
Katy Talento Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Walker Wildmon Absolutely.
Katy Talento: IRS targeting conservative groups is unprecedented
That's Katy Talento, executive director of the, Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, ahcsm, Alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries. We'll link to her website all in the show notes over @ afr.net Folks, if you ever, doubted the aggressive nature of the Marxist and the left in our country, there you have it. That's a prime example of someone or some organization, or in this case various ministries and organizations operating for the good of others, operating for the good of believers and Christians around the country, operating a non profit and the state, the government and others come in and say, no, we've got to mess this up. We've got to regulate you, we've got to make you pay for stuff you don't believe in. We've got to basically gut your organization and your purpose because we just don't like you, we don't like your ideology, we don't like your belief system and you're not allowed to have any religious convictions and operate a non profit in America. This is what they would do if they could. This is what they would do to everyone. This is what they would do to American Family Association, American, Family Radio, every single nonprofit faith based ministry in the country. This is what they would do if they could. They would shut us down. And we've seen these efforts through the Southern Poverty Law center by intentionally, actively misleading the public about who we are, the organization that we are, what we believe in. We've seen the IRS under Obama target conservative groups, liberty based groups. So this is more than just a fight for who's going to be in control on our side, folks. This is a fight for survival. This is a fight for survival and that's what makes this fight unique. And this is why we must stay engaged and diligent and active. We'll be back in a few.
Speaker D At.
Jeff Chamblee The Core Podcast are [email protected] now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.
Chris Woodward: Alleged illegal immigrant was living in New Mexico judge's home
Walker Wildmon Welcome back to the Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on the program. AFR.net is the website. You can listen live to the show or you can catch past episodes under the podcast tab. We're also live streaming the video each day over on Facebook, at the Core page on Facebook and over on stream.aca.net Chris Woodward's back with us. Chris, welcome.
Chris Woodward Hey, thank you very much.
Walker Wildmon The judicial branch just doesn't carry a good look right now and there's about 100 reasons why. But over in New Mexico is probably reason number one why we need to be very concerned about America's judiciary.
Chris Woodward Yes, this is if, if people are not familiar with what I'm about to share, it's be, it's beheaded. It's because, a lot of news outlets have not yet, have not reported this story is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, there's a judge by the name of Joel Cano. He was a magistrate judge in Dona Ana county, if I pronounce that correctly, since 2011. And he submitted his resignation. The resignation came after the arrest of a guy named Christian Ortego Lopez, a 23 year old Venezuelan national who was taken into custody at a loss Cruces residence owned by Cano and his wife. This guy that was arrested, the Hispanic gentleman, is also a alleged TDA member who was living at the judge's home. And according to various news reports, which include court records, the gang member, alleged gang member was also, quote, allowed to hold and sometimes shoot various firearms owned by the judge and members of his family.
Walker Wildmon All right, so in layman terms, a alleged TDA trend gang, member, illegal immigrant, non citizen.
Walker Wildmon In New Mexico, was residing in the home of a judge.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Walker Wildmon When he was arrested.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Walker Wildmon Can we use the word harbored? Yeah. And that's the word used in a lot of these articles.
Chris Woodward Yes. Yeah.
Walker Wildmon So the judge's wife apparently was close to this, illegal immigrant gang member and had invited him over or something. Basically they were just, he just was shacked up in the house and went and he was there. He was at the judge's residence when he was arrested. So this wasn't like they just saw him go by there one day and they were, they were acquaintances. No. They arrested him while he was in the home of the judge.
Chris Woodward Yes. I mean it almost sounds like a Babylon Bee type story where it's just, it's made up, it's well written, it's humorous, it's meant to kind of go make you chuckle. But this actually happened. And sadly not every news outlet has reported on this. And that leaves you kind of scratching your head. Why in the world would you not report this? Like remove everything you want to think about, illegal immigration and deportation or whatever else you have. A judge.
Walker Wildmon Yes.
Chris Woodward with an illegal immigrant who might have been in a gang, a violent gang living in his home and eating dinner with them and handling fire, taking.
Walker Wildmon Pictures for a social media, celebrating holidays.
Chris Woodward Like Christmas for a news outlet that, that pounds itself on the chest and says, you know, we're here to hold people accountable. They sure failed at this one.
Walker Wildmon Yeah. Yeah. This is shocking. Shocking but not surprising because this level of corruption is out there. It's out there. It's a little more common than we would like to believe. Chris, these various rulings you mentioned coming into the studio, how every judge under the sun has just taken their chance to Shoot down what President Trump is trying to do. And this is going to have to stop. And this is why I think it's important that we, that we retain control of Washington D.C. for more than four years. I'm talking 8, 12, 13, 16. Because the amount of time it's going to take to get rid of and replace these unconstitutional judges that are ruling unconstitutionally is going to take some time.
Chris Woodward Yes, it will. and you know, given the way the Supreme Court has frowned on some Trump agenda policies and actions, it remains to be seen whether or not the High Court is actually going to squelch, these lower court judges.
Judge blocks Trump administration from denying or conditioning funds to sanctuary jurisdictions
yesterday, for people that didn't, pay that much attention to news yesterday, there were at least three rulings that were against Trump and, or things his administration is doing. For example, in New Hampshire, federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama blocks Trump administration directives that threaten to cut federal funding for public schools with DEI programs. In another one out of San Francisco, a federal judge in California barred the Trump administration from denying or conditioning the use of federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, claiming that portions of President Donald Trump's executive orders were unconstitutional. Translation. Trump said, you can't have federal funds if you're a sanctuary city, and a federal judge said you can't do that. And then another one, a judge, blocks the Trump administration from immediately enacting certain changes to how federal elections are run, including adding a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form.
Walker Wildmon So, Chris, this is, here's the thing. There's two. There's multiple problems going on here. The first problem is that our government is way too big. And I'll say that even with President Trump in place. All right? And this isn't President Trump's fault. This, we're talking problems that go back a hundred years, 70 to 100 years ago. The government is way too big. And why that is important here is because the Congress passes a, let's say, $7 trillion spending package for a 12 month period. And in there is all kinds of money. And in most cases, Congress gives the executive branch the discretion on how to allocate the funding. Right. And so the reason I think much of what President Trump is doing is legal and constitutional is because Congress gave the Executive Branch the purse and said, spend it how you'd like for the vast majority of cases. Now, there are some instances where Congress does specifically allocate funds to specific projects, to specific purposes. And if that's the case, then the Executive branch is merely facilitating the programs. Right. But there's a lot of this money and most of what President Trump is doing is left up to the executive branch to allocate and to approve and disapprove who gets the money. So this goes back to Congress giving the executive branch discretion. But if they've given them discretion, judges can't jump in and say, no, you don't have discretion. That's Congress's job.
Chris Woodward Right. And one has to wonder where, you know, obviously it paled in comparison to what this president has been trying to do since he entered office three some odd months ago. but you know, deportations did exist under Biden and Obama. And I don't recall doing many if any stories about federal judges throwing a hissy fit over those presidents wanting to do things.
Walker Wildmon Yes, to your point, I cover the numbers on the first segment. George W. Bush, Bush II did over 2 million deportations in an eight year period. Obama did over 3 million. Yes, in eight year period. President Trump did just shy of 2 million in a four year period. And the and right now he's hardly able to do any because the judges keep stymying him.
Chris Woodward Right. And you know, the fact that media outlets have not really pointed that out with their vast resources and large networks, with millions of people listening, I mean, like, why isn't this, why was it not a problem just a few years ago or even last year, but all of a sudden in the spring of 2025 when another executive, chief executive is basically using the same authority that the predecessor had for some reason it's wrong now when it was fined six months ago. It makes no sense.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, you're right. And I told, you know, I mentioned in the first segment that if President Trump can't deport because a judge says so, a, a, a foreign terrorist gang member that has a rap sheet longer than anybody's resume and they're non citizens. These are not that. We're not talking American citizen. We're talking people who have no legal status here and they have pending deportation orders.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Walker Wildmon By judges, by immigration judges. Then if he can't, deport, you say Democrat. If he can't deport. I wish we could deport the Democrats. But if he can't deport those people, then how are we ever gonna get to anybody else? Like the 10 million that came in under Biden.
Chris Woodward Yeah, I mean, it's impossible. Government, is too big and because it's too big, it'll take forever and eternity plus then some, for this stuff to even go through a court system. And Democrats talking about Senator Chris Van Hollen for a second from Maryland. You know, he's concerned about, quote, due process when it comes to Garcia. The illegal immigrant that Trump sent to El Salvador.
Walker Wildmon Yes. Who is an El Salvador citizen.
Chris Woodward Yes. So a lot of people, including Chris Van Hollen in Maryland, are concerned about, quote, due process. But also in Maryland, there is a case. I talked to this kid's attorney. There is a case in Maryland where a high school student wanted flags, in the school classrooms at his public school. Apparently, there is a Maryland state law that requires the American flag be in classrooms. And when he realized this, he went to the school and said, we should have flags in every classroom. They sent him to the Board of Education. Long story short, this kid got suspended, and his attorney is claiming he was not given due process. Why in the world is Chris Van Hollen not in the news complaining about this kid not getting due process?
Walker Wildmon Right.
Chris Woodward But he's worried about an illegal immigrant who. Who may have assaulted his wife and has been found in cars that were used in, crimes or for illegal purposes. All these things. He's. They. They don't care about the people that live here and pay taxes. They care about the other people who shouldn't be here and have been living here on our dime doing illegal things.
Walker Wildmon Exactly. And the January Six victims, meaning the January 6th people that were locked up without due process for four years, mind you, where was the senator then?
Chris Woodward Right.
Walker Wildmon And you talk about a, due process violation. Those were American citizens that were held without trial for four years. And I don't remember one US Senator with the exception maybe of some. Some Congressional House Freedom Caucus guys and gals. Nobody really raised a finger about the January Sixers that were locked up for four years without a trial. And nobody was concerned about that, Chris, because the politics didn't line up.
Chris Woodward Right.
Walker Wildmon Right.
Chris Woodward You know, if you're somebody who a, campaign hires to help get elected, and you're not already starting to use. You're not already starting to come up with these talking points. He cared about due process for this guy, but not that. Lady, you're failing at your job. Right. Yeah.
Walker Wildmon It's low hanging, and you have plenty.
Chris Woodward Of time to do it because, you know, starting next year, you're in the throes of primary season, which leads to the midterms.
Chris: Republicans will use immigration as a midterm election issue against Democrats
And this, presumably, will be a midterm election issue that Republicans, I think, will try to use against Democrats.
Walker Wildmon Yeah.
Chris Woodward But we'll see.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, we're going to have to retain control. Chris of Washington, D.C. for a long time in order to, to we're basically gotta wait the clock out on these folks because you can't go do if we keep doing this back and forth where every four years we give somebody like Biden the reins to do the 10 million illegals in the country thing and then Trump can't deport anybody because he's hung up in court. I mean this is a losing game here. And so I'm not trying to be pessimistic or you know, fatalistic, but I'm really actually should be energizing folks here. This is the importance of conservatives controlling the levers of power for a long time to get real long term meaningful things done. We're just going to have to wait the clock out on some of these folks.
Chris Woodward Right. I mean, to really make the difference, that we hope to see. I mean it's going to take a good, decade. And by that I'm talking like two presidential terms and, and some more continuity, really consistency, I should say, in the legislative branch. We can't, we can't turn around every four years and say we're going to stop using oil and start going after unicorn juice.
Walker Wildmon Right.
Chris Woodward And all these things that Democrats.
Walker Wildmon And we're going to impeach Trump again.
Chris Woodward Right. Because that's what he shocked. I would not be shocked if he does that.
Walker Wildmon Democrats get the House in the midterms next year, they impeach Trump, they'll do it seven times over. He'll be hung up doing trials over in the Senate. I mean this is, this is their circus.
Chris Woodward Well, and you know, a lot of people are kind of laughing at this and saying, I hope you go in this direction. But AOC clearly has her eyes set on a higher office, maybe a center, maybe the senator. But some people are starting to wonder whether or not she's actually going to throw her hat in the ring for 2028. And there is already a marketing push behind her where you can find these videos on X. Yeah. now I'll come back to social media in a minute. But she's drawing large crowds and they're all smiling. Now granted, they're probably paid by George Soros to be there. Okay. But the common man doesn't really think about these things.
Walker Wildmon They know how to bust a man. So she's, she's the voice of it.
Chris Woodward She's the voice, you know, she's, it's all, you know, she's, she's smiling and waving. She's fighting the oligarchy. She cares about you. She's m Drawing these large crowds. She will be age eligible for perhaps president by 2028. All these things. Now I mentioned social media because that was a tool that Obama used greatly to get elected in 2008. It's the reason he got the nomination over Hillary Clinton who thought she was a she win just based on her last name.
Walker Wildmon Right.
Chris Woodward so there is clearly a push for radical change on the Democratic side of things and they're going to use Donald Trump as a reason why they should be voted in.
Walker Wildmon And I think that's why, I think that's why conservatives can retain power for 8 to 12 to 16 years. Because I said this right after the election, the Democrats have lost their weight. And I'm not saying they haven't really had their way because you go back to their founding. I mean they're Democrats of the party of the KKK, they're the party of Jim Crow. They've got a terrible history. Talk about rap sheets. Democrats have a terrible rap sheet of the stuff they've supported over the years. And Biden's actually parroted some of those racist talking points.
Chris Woodward Kamala called him out for being racist throughout his career.
Walker Wildmon But, but Democrats only know left, they only know how to turn left and that's why they're, they're, they have a US senator flying to El Salvador to lobby for an MS.13 member. Right. So I think that's a loser at the ballot box.
Chris Woodward It should be.
Walker Wildmon Now. What shenanigans do they have up their sleeve between now and then? I don't know. But folks, we got a, this is a generational fight and if you think we can, we can fix what's going on in Washington in a four year period. Boy, have you not been paying attention. Chris, thanks.
Chris Woodward Thank you.
Last year preborn helped rescue over 67,000 babies from abortion
Walker Wildmon All right folks, we'll see you next time.
Jeff Chamblee Because m of listeners like you preborn helped to rescue over 67,000 babies. Your $28 to sponsor one ultrasound doubled a baby's chance at ah, life. Your tax deductible gift saves lives. Please join us in this life saving mission. To donate go to preborn.com afr here now is your show host, Walker Wildmon.
Walker Wildmon Will you take a moment and celebrate life with me. Last year preborn helped rescue over 67,000 babies from abortion. Hi, this is Walker Wildmon and I want to thank you for your partnership. Think about what you did. 67,000 babies are taking their first breath now because of you. Your $28 sponsored one ultrasound that was given to a woman as she was deciding about the future of her child. Once she saw her precious baby for the first time and heard their sweet heartbeat, her baby's chance at life doubled. But Preborn' s mission is not only to rescue babies lives, but also lead women to Christ. Last year, Preborn Network Clinic saw over 8,900 women receive salvation. Your help is crucial to continue their life saving work.
Jeff Chamblee Your caring tax deductible donation saves lives. So please be generous. To donate go to preborn.com/afr that's preborn.com/afr or dial #250 and say the keyword baby. That's #250. B A B Y. Your love can save a life.
Jeff Chamblee The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.
Walker Wildmon: Religious freedom is about people of faith being able to
Jeff Chamblee We inform.
Walker Wildmon Religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions, no matter where they are.
Jeff Chamblee We quit.
Rick Green Sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.
Walker Wildmon We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character.
Jeff Chamblee This is at the Core on American Family Radio.
Walker Wildmon Welcome to the Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on the program. Walker Wildmon. Here at the Core is the name of the show. You can subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, whether it's Apple device, Android, Spotify, Amazon, however you get your content, your podcast content, you can check that out by just typing in the name of the program, click the subscribe button, and it will be queued up in your inbox in your library each and every day.
Walker: Proverbs chapter seven is where we have been this week
Well, let's turn our attention to scripture, and then I will talk about some other housekeeping items before we move into the stories of the week and of the day. Proverbs chapter seven is where we have been this week, and we're wrapping it up today with our final reading of our Proverbs chapter seven, but pretty lengthy. Chapter 27 verses. And I'll summarize it for us for the sake of time, the vast majority, probably 80 to 90% of the, scripture of this chapter is telling the story of a young man who. And the reason. How do we know he's young? Because he's being referred to as son by the writer. But it's telling the story of this young man being lured in by this adulterous woman. and so there's a lot to unpack here. But what I've been highlighting and what I think is applicable to our lives is that, the first thing is that we need to be very careful not to be lured into situations where, not only temptation, but sin abounds. We need to be very careful as believers, not to put ourselves in situations where temptation and sin is prevalent. That's the first truth. The second truth is that sin leads to death. Sin leads to death. Well, what do you mean, Walker? Does sin lead to. To physical death every time? Well, no, but it leads to eternal death, which is the ultimate capital D death for the believer to pass on to eternity, to heaven, to, his or her eternal state is to defy death, which is what Jesus did by dying on the cross. We just celebrated Easter. Jesus rose from the dead. He was the eternal sacrifice. He was the propitiation for our sin. He offers us eternal life. It's the only way to eternal life in heaven with the Father, with the Son, with the Holy Spirit, and with all of the believers, with all of the saints. And so the only way, to defy death, is to believe in Jesus for eternal salvation. But my point in mentioning that is that the end of the chapter here, chapter seven, the final verses, say that this sin leads to Sheol, which is death, hell, eternal hell. And as believers, we need to stray far, far away from sin, from temptation, seek righteous lives. And if we don't, if we do choose the path of sin and of temptation and of, in this case adultery, it leads to death. And that's what the writer here in Proverbs chapter seven is addressing.
I quoted some deportation numbers that were way off the charts this week
All right, let's talk illegal, immigration. I, actually misspoke the other day, which doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I quoted some deportation numbers and I was way off the charts. And so this is, correction before I get the emails on the phone calls, maybe a little bit too late by the way, or maybe nobody caught it because they're not paying attention. So you should pay attention to stuff you listen to. But on a serious note, the deportation, numbers I mentioned on Wednesday of this week were way off. And I'm not even going to repeat them because it's not necessary. Here's the deportation numbers by President, let's just say over the last four, five, six presidents, the George Bush, H.W. the first Bush deported 141,000 illegal immigrants. Bill Clinton deported 900,000. I'm rounding up 900,000 illegal immigrants. George W. Bush, Bush two deported 2 million illegal immigrants. And lastly, well, not lastly, second to last, Barack Obama. Listen to this folks. This is rather shocking. Barack Obama deported 3 million illegal immigrants over the course of an eight year period. Now why did Obama deport more than Bush? Well, probably because Obama had more laxed immigration policy. He had more laxed border policy, which meant more people came in, thus more people had to be deported. So that's probably the explanation there. So before you go to praising Barack Obama, President Obama for his record number of deportations, it's likely due because he let a record number of illegals in the country through his, his his lawless borders, border policies. And Donald Trump. Now these numbers are not up to date. So during the first, let's say 24 months of President Trump, he had deported 551,000 illegal immigrants, which is not very good to be honest. If we're being honest. If we're comparing the presidential administrations now, as I mentioned, the numbers are incomplete. Even for the first term of President Trump. These numbers are still not up to date. Just because this source doesn't have the latest numbers. They're probably somewhere. This is from the Cato Institute. All that. All that to say that deportations, have been a common practice for presidential administrations for a long time. These numbers go back to Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge. These names sound familiar, don't they? FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon. These numbers go back. Deportation has been a common, routine practice by the executive branch for a long, long time. And here we are in 2025, and you would think by reading the headlines and by reading these rulings from these rogue judges, you would think that deportations are just this foreign, far off. Nobody does this lawlessness practice. And as I mentioned, you know, previously, it's baffling to me that an administration like, let's say Biden can, can sit idly by While millions over 10 million illegals pour into our country through the border. And he's even flying them in, by the way. That happened. There were flights of illegals into our country. They even made it easy, right? They created the CBP1 app so that your entry into our country illegally could be streamlined. When did it become a role of government to make criminal activity streamlined and efficient? That sounds like organized crime to me. But, no, our tax dollars went toward creating a mobile application. Who knows how much money we spent? If it's anything like the Obamacare website, that didn't work. It was hundreds of millions that was spent on that for a website to not work. And now these judges, some of these lower court judges are acting. And even the Supreme Court, I mean, they put a freeze, they put a halt on. They, they. This happened earlier last week. But the Supreme Court jumped over a circuit court, like a Fifth Circuit, et cetera. And it was actually, in this case, the Fifth Circuit. The Supreme Court jumped over the Fifth Circuit and weighed in on a lower district court opinion without allowing the Fifth Circuit anytime to rule on it. And they did it to do what? What was the end result? They barred President Trump from deporting foreign terrorist gang members, illegal immigrants that were in our country being held and detained in Texas. This was the definition in the judicial world of extraordinary. I mean, this, this hardly ever happens. I'm not going to say it never happens, but it hardly ever happens where the Supreme Court weighs in before the proper jurisdictions have weighed in. So we had A lower district court judge say, no, no, President, President Trump can't deport illegal immigrants. And then, then the fifth Circuit doesn't even have time to weigh in, which is actually a pretty conservative circuit, which is probably why left wing Scottish decided to, because we can't let the conservatives win here. And they put a halt seven to two, by the way. So you had Barrett, you had Kavanaugh, you had Gorsuch, all ruling in favor of keeping the illegal immigrant gang members here in our country. Let me remind you, President Obama deported 3 million illegal immigrants. President Trump is nowhere near those numbers. And the, the, the people that they're trying to deport are the, the worst of the worst. They're the gang bangers, they're the leaders, they're the executives in the car. We haven't even gotten down to anybody else. The Trump administration hasn't even been allowed to get into deport, dating, deporting anybody else. And so what you have to think about here is if the Trump administration can't deport, according to some judge or the Supreme Court because they're not right on everything, if the, if, if the Trump administration can't deport for designated foreign terrorists, cartel gang members, worst of the worst, convicted of the most heinous crimes domestically on our soil, non citizens, by the way, then how are we ever going to engage in any sustainable level of deportations to prevent and, and, and, and patch the carnage that Biden created? Do you see what happens here? This is like a cycle of abuse that our country is submitted to. And the only one keeping the abuse going and the cycle of human trafficking and smuggling and sex trafficking going is the judges and the, so Biden lets 10 million in and Trump wants to send a hundred back. And the courts say, no, no, no, you can't send them back. This is the definition of lawlessness. And I think the executive branch really, and they, they've done a pretty good job on this. So this is no shade on Trump, but the executive branch is really, really going to have to look in the options, look into their options of defying the judiciary. And I say that very hesitant. I don't say that lightly because I understand the ramifications. It's either that or the Supreme Court grow a backbone. So, everybody out there that cringes at the idea of the executive branch disregarding the judicial rulings of either lower district or the Supreme Court, anybody who cringes at that and says, oh, that's a constitutional crisis, folks, we are currently in a constitutional crisis, so we are here. So if you want to address it, let's address it now. And if you want to avoid getting to the place that nobody wants to, to go where the executive branch ignores the judicial branch, then the Supreme Court needs to grow a backbone and start reigning in these out of control, rogue, unconstitutional judges that are exceeding their jurisdiction. This is all on the Supreme Court. We're looking at the Supreme Court and we're looking at them saying, hey guys, let's do this the right way, let's do this the legal way, let's do it the constitutional way. And you can correct your own branch of government like you're supposed to do. Or we can go for option number two, which isn't good for anybody.
Jeff Chamblee The Core Podcasts are available @afr.net now back to, At the Core on American Family Radio.
American Family Radio has several events coming up later this year
Walker Wildmon Welcome, back to the program. Walker Wildmon here with you on American Family Radio. This is our second segment underway now. Glad to have you with us on the program. A few events that I want to mention before we jump to our guest is we've got several, events coming up later this year. The first one and the most pressing is our Activate Summit coming up this summer, June 12th through the 14th. You can go over to activate activate.afa.net to check it out. Activate Summit 2025. we have a, ah, few spots available. We have a little bit of capacity left, not much. So go ahead and check that out [email protected] and if you want to go with us on a spiritual heritage tour, we have a litany of options at our, at our website, whether it's Washington D.C. Williamsburg, Boston and even foreign tours or overseas tours. Greece and Israel. Greece is obviously footsteps of Paul. Israel is the land of the Bible. Both of those tours are in 2026, early 2026. You can go over to wildmangroup.com check those out and we would love to have you go with us on a spiritual heritage, tour [email protected] well, I do want to introduce our next guest.
Katy Talento is executive director of the alliance of healthcare sharing ministries
Katy Talento is with us. She's executive director at the alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries. Katy's been a guest of the program before. Katy, welcome back.
Speaker D Thanks so much for having me. Great to be here.
Walker Wildmon Well, Katy, we actually partner with various, healthcare sharing ministries. There's a handful out there in the market, that are faith based, nonprofit based and are very, very effective at their work. And so I'm familiar with the model and familiar with how it works and how what your organization does as far as representing those groups. But there's been surprisingly, when you look at the way healthcare sharing works, it seems like who can be against it, right? When you look at it, when you study up on it, how effective it is. But you guys have experienced not only pushback, but different states that are trying to basically over regulate or come after the health care sharing model, which is a very proven model. So tell us what you've been dealing with specifically in the state of Colorado with the new law on the books there and what you're litigating.
Katy Talento Yeah, thanks. So Colorado was sort of ground zero for an attempt to try to regulate us into oblivion. And essentially what's happened there is a few years ago a really, burdensome, extensive, exhaustive reporting requirements scheme was put into place in law there. They have a democratic super majority in the state legislature. So even though there are lots of good, normal Americans in Colorado, they are not doing a great job at electing a good normal, legislature there. So, they passed this law. We threatened to sue at the time, as you know, this was unconstitutional. Continuous monitoring of religious groups, which is, you know, the 10th Circuit there in Colorado and other federal courts have, including the supreme Court have long, you know, prohibited and you know, ruled as unconstitutional regulatory schemes. But that's what they enacted. And so as we had threatened, we, we did have to sue, Colorado for infringing the religious liberty and the freedom of association and freedom of speech, rights of health care sharing ministries and their members. so what they really require is we want to see everything that's going on under your hood. We want you to tell us everything about all your internal workings, your internal org charts, all the financial information about how you share who you're contracted with. We have to turn over our contracts with all the third parties that help us administer our sharing programs, including doctors, who work with our members and hospital systems. This is craziness and it's not, you know, it's very normal for insurance regulators to think this way because they regulate insurance companies very, very heavily. But we are not insurance. We're not. Our memberships are not insurance policies. Our ministries are not insurance companies and our programs are nothing like insurance except that they are a solution for the problem of high cost medical bills. but we're more like a homeschool co op for, for health care. so what we're suing over really is when you start asking a religious organization, think about it, if it were a church and some of Our ministries are churches or associations of churches. If you start asking a church, hey, nice, Sunday collection you got there. What did you spend that on? How much does the pastor make? You know, like, who, who donated there? So, you know, it starts to chill, you know, associational rights. It starts to chill religious exercise rights. And, and Colorado has sort of a long and lurid reputation of doing this and flagrantly violating freedom of religion. Ah, rights. Like the Jack Phillips, the baker that didn't want to, make a pro gay marriage cake. they are notorious for this. They literally took Jack to court again after the, after they lost in the Supreme Court, they're back to court again. So, they don't learn. And what has come out recently, you know, we've been in litigation with them for over a year now, but what's come out recently in discovery as part of this litigation is, you know, we get to ask each other questions about, like, show us emails. And, and we've seen that the commissioner of insurance, Michael Conway, who is the named defendant in our case, actually was conspiring with the John Oliver show for over a year for how best to smear religious people and healthcare sharing ministries. He's sort of a known anti religious bigot and they were helping him because they were trying to delegitimize us. you know, insurance regulators, they see everything through an insurance lens. They think everybody should be in the aca, the Affordable Care act marketplace. They don't want anyone else finding some alternative to insurance products where you're forced to subsidize abortion and gender surgeries and all kinds of things that violate our religious conscience. So they don't like it when people have an exit ramp out of their schemes. And, that's how they view healthcare sharing.
Walker Wildmon That's, that's the thing. This is really twofold. Clearly there's a lot of folks, and specifically officials in Colorado that simply don't like healthcare sharing ministries and organizations because the vast majority of them are faith based and actually have convictions and don't want to pay for abortions and don't want to pay for cross sex hormone treatments and fill in the blank. And so there's that angle. There's just this insistence that you must be pagan, you must adopt our ways, you must have no moral convictions. There's that angle and then there's also the angle and these two really go hand in hand of, well, everything's got to be regulated, and everything's got to be like an insurance provider, which is not what healthcare sharing is per se. And so then there's the regulatory side of it. And it just sounds like they just threw everything at you guys. I mean they threw the books at these healthcare sharing organizations and ministries so that they could basically regulate you out of existence. And if not regulate you out of existence, regulate these organizations into not being faith based organizations and instead being just another insurance provider in the marketplace of broken insurance providers.
Katy Talento Well, that's right. I mean, regular to your point, regulators got to regulate, you know, if there's some universe, some small space in the universe that is, not under their thumb, that is an offense to them, it cannot be tolerated. so there's, there's that just, that's true of all regulators. but yeah, in Colorado it's particularly bad. And in Colorado, the state does require that all insurance companies do, all insurance policies must cover abortions, they must cover gender mutilations. so there's nowhere for Christians in Colorado to go except healthcare sharing ministry. And that's why we're being targeted. So, you know, we're the escape hatch and they can't have that.
You've been in court for roughly a year challenging Colorado's anti-LGBT law
Walker Wildmon What is, so you've been in court, you said for roughly a year. What does this look like? I'm familiar with litigation. in this case it's civil litigation. But, this stuff takes time. So what are you guys looking at? What's the next step? You mentioned discovery. What step of the process are you in? In?
Katy Talento Right. So the first thing that we did was we filed our lawsuit in the federal district court there in Denver. And and then immediately we filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin this law from being effective. Because if you're not compliant with the law, you can be fined daily. Like crushing, crippling fines and all that wonderful money that our, sweet members are, are, you know, squirreling away in order to provide for other members. Medical needs would then, you know, get put into lawyer fees and litigation and compliance costs and so, penalties issued by the state. So we needed a preliminary injunction to stop the enforcement of this rule. Fortunately, the state agreed to stop the voluntarily to stop enforcing the rule last year while we filed our preliminary injunction motion. We lost the preliminary injunction motion in a, I would argue, unfair and misguided ruling by the federal district court judge. and we appealed that to the 10th Circuit. now the 10th Circuit is, has been wrong before in the past when they, you know, they kind of, they ruled wrongly on Jack Phillips and his cake baking. and that's why he had to appeal to the Supreme Court. But, you know, I do think that I'm confident that the 10th Circuit is going to see the reasonableness of our, of our pleadings. And so they initially denied our emergency on, preliminary injunction. And because of that, that law is now effective. So we are now, you know, at risk of being deemed out of compliance with that law for not having turned over everything about us to, to the state. And so, but meanwhile, while those motions were pending, we're still just litigating the merits at that federal district level. And so that's why we were engaged in discovery and depositions and, and finding things out about, like, kind of the internal conversations about us among the regulators at the division. So it was very interesting to see how they, how they were answering. You know, one thing they said was, the commissioner was asking his staff to, like, come up with reasons to justify this law. Like, we got to look into our records and see if people have complained about these ministries because, you know, we got, we want, we want to justify our law after the fact. Post hoc. you know, that's not how religious burdening is supposed to work when, you know, if you're going to burden religious exercise of American citizens, you actually have to have a compelling state interest in order to do so. And you have to achieve that compelling state interest using the least restrictive means possible. So you can't manufacture a compelling interest after the fact, after you've already, you know, imposed the burden as a means of justifying yourself in court. but it appears that that may be what they were up to. we'll have to see what the courts say.
Katy Talento: The left is coming after everybody. I mean, this is exhibit eight
Walker Wildmon Yeah, this is, for anybody who's either on the fence, which I don't know at this in 2025, how anybody can be on the. But anybody who is, unsure of the aggressiveness of the left and the Marxist and the God haters. This is exhibit eight. I mean, here you have health care sharing ministries that are operating very effectively, serving their core mission purposes in the state of Colorado and everywhere else in the country. And Colorado's just gotta step in and fix something that isn't broken. And while we're at it, we're just gonna make it so ridiculous that these organizations can't operate anymore. And if they do, they can't have any convictions, and they've basically gotta become just another insurance provider, even though they're not in, the marketplace. I mean, this is like, who was being damaged, who was being harmed? The answer is nobody. Nobody was being harmed. But my point in, and Jack Phillips is another good case. My point is that you can't just kind of sit on the sidelines and expect to go unscathed untouched. The left is coming after everybody. And this is exhibit A. I mean, who can say we don't like health care sharing ministries. We think they're mean people. They're, they're harming people, which is just flat out untrue. The left is coming for everybody. Everybody, Katy, is going to have to bow the knee if we don't fight back.
Katy Talento I think that's right. And also, you know, the, the opponents of religious liberty are taking aid and comfort from Colorado's actions. So Colorado style bills almost word for word have popped up in Oregon, in Vermont, in New York this year. So we are having to play whack a mole trying to beat these back. And they don't care that we're suing in federal court some other state. You know, they're just putting own, you know, legal expenses at Jeopardy. you know, let, let's, let's do this in our state too. And some of the hostility we've heard from some of these legislators in, in these other states. I, I won't name the state where we heard it. It was just a few weeks ago in an open hearing, there was a regulator testifying, the insurance regulator testifying, saying if, if I could, I would ban these entities. I would kick them out of our. You know, and that's exactly, you know, they kind of said the quiet part out loud. They, they don't, they cannot tolerate dissent and they do wish that we would just violate our conscience and pay for abortions and pay for gender mutilations.
Walker Wildmon Yep. Because they want their agenda funded and they want it funded by even unwilling participants. And just like they do with the taxpayer dollars right now. Hey, Katie, tell our folks, more about your website, how they can read more about your work.
Katy Talento Yeah, so you can reach [email protected] that's alliance of Healthcare SharingMinistries.org you can follow me at Katy Talento on, X and at LinkedIn.
Walker Wildmon All right, Katy. Hey, thanks so much for coming on the program.
Katy Talento Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Walker Wildmon Absolutely.
Katy Talento: IRS targeting conservative groups is unprecedented
That's Katy Talento, executive director of the, Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, ahcsm, Alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries. We'll link to her website all in the show notes over @ afr.net Folks, if you ever, doubted the aggressive nature of the Marxist and the left in our country, there you have it. That's a prime example of someone or some organization, or in this case various ministries and organizations operating for the good of others, operating for the good of believers and Christians around the country, operating a non profit and the state, the government and others come in and say, no, we've got to mess this up. We've got to regulate you, we've got to make you pay for stuff you don't believe in. We've got to basically gut your organization and your purpose because we just don't like you, we don't like your ideology, we don't like your belief system and you're not allowed to have any religious convictions and operate a non profit in America. This is what they would do if they could. This is what they would do to everyone. This is what they would do to American Family Association, American, Family Radio, every single nonprofit faith based ministry in the country. This is what they would do if they could. They would shut us down. And we've seen these efforts through the Southern Poverty Law center by intentionally, actively misleading the public about who we are, the organization that we are, what we believe in. We've seen the IRS under Obama target conservative groups, liberty based groups. So this is more than just a fight for who's going to be in control on our side, folks. This is a fight for survival. This is a fight for survival and that's what makes this fight unique. And this is why we must stay engaged and diligent and active. We'll be back in a few.
Speaker D At.
Jeff Chamblee The Core Podcast are [email protected] now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.
Chris Woodward: Alleged illegal immigrant was living in New Mexico judge's home
Walker Wildmon Welcome back to the Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on the program. AFR.net is the website. You can listen live to the show or you can catch past episodes under the podcast tab. We're also live streaming the video each day over on Facebook, at the Core page on Facebook and over on stream.aca.net Chris Woodward's back with us. Chris, welcome.
Chris Woodward Hey, thank you very much.
Walker Wildmon The judicial branch just doesn't carry a good look right now and there's about 100 reasons why. But over in New Mexico is probably reason number one why we need to be very concerned about America's judiciary.
Chris Woodward Yes, this is if, if people are not familiar with what I'm about to share, it's be, it's beheaded. It's because, a lot of news outlets have not yet, have not reported this story is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, there's a judge by the name of Joel Cano. He was a magistrate judge in Dona Ana county, if I pronounce that correctly, since 2011. And he submitted his resignation. The resignation came after the arrest of a guy named Christian Ortego Lopez, a 23 year old Venezuelan national who was taken into custody at a loss Cruces residence owned by Cano and his wife. This guy that was arrested, the Hispanic gentleman, is also a alleged TDA member who was living at the judge's home. And according to various news reports, which include court records, the gang member, alleged gang member was also, quote, allowed to hold and sometimes shoot various firearms owned by the judge and members of his family.
Walker Wildmon All right, so in layman terms, a alleged TDA trend gang, member, illegal immigrant, non citizen.
Walker Wildmon In New Mexico, was residing in the home of a judge.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Walker Wildmon When he was arrested.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Walker Wildmon Can we use the word harbored? Yeah. And that's the word used in a lot of these articles.
Chris Woodward Yes. Yeah.
Walker Wildmon So the judge's wife apparently was close to this, illegal immigrant gang member and had invited him over or something. Basically they were just, he just was shacked up in the house and went and he was there. He was at the judge's residence when he was arrested. So this wasn't like they just saw him go by there one day and they were, they were acquaintances. No. They arrested him while he was in the home of the judge.
Chris Woodward Yes. I mean it almost sounds like a Babylon Bee type story where it's just, it's made up, it's well written, it's humorous, it's meant to kind of go make you chuckle. But this actually happened. And sadly not every news outlet has reported on this. And that leaves you kind of scratching your head. Why in the world would you not report this? Like remove everything you want to think about, illegal immigration and deportation or whatever else you have. A judge.
Walker Wildmon Yes.
Chris Woodward with an illegal immigrant who might have been in a gang, a violent gang living in his home and eating dinner with them and handling fire, taking.
Walker Wildmon Pictures for a social media, celebrating holidays.
Chris Woodward Like Christmas for a news outlet that, that pounds itself on the chest and says, you know, we're here to hold people accountable. They sure failed at this one.
Walker Wildmon Yeah. Yeah. This is shocking. Shocking but not surprising because this level of corruption is out there. It's out there. It's a little more common than we would like to believe. Chris, these various rulings you mentioned coming into the studio, how every judge under the sun has just taken their chance to Shoot down what President Trump is trying to do. And this is going to have to stop. And this is why I think it's important that we, that we retain control of Washington D.C. for more than four years. I'm talking 8, 12, 13, 16. Because the amount of time it's going to take to get rid of and replace these unconstitutional judges that are ruling unconstitutionally is going to take some time.
Chris Woodward Yes, it will. and you know, given the way the Supreme Court has frowned on some Trump agenda policies and actions, it remains to be seen whether or not the High Court is actually going to squelch, these lower court judges.
Judge blocks Trump administration from denying or conditioning funds to sanctuary jurisdictions
yesterday, for people that didn't, pay that much attention to news yesterday, there were at least three rulings that were against Trump and, or things his administration is doing. For example, in New Hampshire, federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama blocks Trump administration directives that threaten to cut federal funding for public schools with DEI programs. In another one out of San Francisco, a federal judge in California barred the Trump administration from denying or conditioning the use of federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, claiming that portions of President Donald Trump's executive orders were unconstitutional. Translation. Trump said, you can't have federal funds if you're a sanctuary city, and a federal judge said you can't do that. And then another one, a judge, blocks the Trump administration from immediately enacting certain changes to how federal elections are run, including adding a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form.
Walker Wildmon So, Chris, this is, here's the thing. There's two. There's multiple problems going on here. The first problem is that our government is way too big. And I'll say that even with President Trump in place. All right? And this isn't President Trump's fault. This, we're talking problems that go back a hundred years, 70 to 100 years ago. The government is way too big. And why that is important here is because the Congress passes a, let's say, $7 trillion spending package for a 12 month period. And in there is all kinds of money. And in most cases, Congress gives the executive branch the discretion on how to allocate the funding. Right. And so the reason I think much of what President Trump is doing is legal and constitutional is because Congress gave the Executive Branch the purse and said, spend it how you'd like for the vast majority of cases. Now, there are some instances where Congress does specifically allocate funds to specific projects, to specific purposes. And if that's the case, then the Executive branch is merely facilitating the programs. Right. But there's a lot of this money and most of what President Trump is doing is left up to the executive branch to allocate and to approve and disapprove who gets the money. So this goes back to Congress giving the executive branch discretion. But if they've given them discretion, judges can't jump in and say, no, you don't have discretion. That's Congress's job.
Chris Woodward Right. And one has to wonder where, you know, obviously it paled in comparison to what this president has been trying to do since he entered office three some odd months ago. but you know, deportations did exist under Biden and Obama. And I don't recall doing many if any stories about federal judges throwing a hissy fit over those presidents wanting to do things.
Walker Wildmon Yes, to your point, I cover the numbers on the first segment. George W. Bush, Bush II did over 2 million deportations in an eight year period. Obama did over 3 million. Yes, in eight year period. President Trump did just shy of 2 million in a four year period. And the and right now he's hardly able to do any because the judges keep stymying him.
Chris Woodward Right. And you know, the fact that media outlets have not really pointed that out with their vast resources and large networks, with millions of people listening, I mean, like, why isn't this, why was it not a problem just a few years ago or even last year, but all of a sudden in the spring of 2025 when another executive, chief executive is basically using the same authority that the predecessor had for some reason it's wrong now when it was fined six months ago. It makes no sense.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, you're right. And I told, you know, I mentioned in the first segment that if President Trump can't deport because a judge says so, a, a, a foreign terrorist gang member that has a rap sheet longer than anybody's resume and they're non citizens. These are not that. We're not talking American citizen. We're talking people who have no legal status here and they have pending deportation orders.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Walker Wildmon By judges, by immigration judges. Then if he can't, deport, you say Democrat. If he can't deport. I wish we could deport the Democrats. But if he can't deport those people, then how are we ever gonna get to anybody else? Like the 10 million that came in under Biden.
Chris Woodward Yeah, I mean, it's impossible. Government, is too big and because it's too big, it'll take forever and eternity plus then some, for this stuff to even go through a court system. And Democrats talking about Senator Chris Van Hollen for a second from Maryland. You know, he's concerned about, quote, due process when it comes to Garcia. The illegal immigrant that Trump sent to El Salvador.
Walker Wildmon Yes. Who is an El Salvador citizen.
Chris Woodward Yes. So a lot of people, including Chris Van Hollen in Maryland, are concerned about, quote, due process. But also in Maryland, there is a case. I talked to this kid's attorney. There is a case in Maryland where a high school student wanted flags, in the school classrooms at his public school. Apparently, there is a Maryland state law that requires the American flag be in classrooms. And when he realized this, he went to the school and said, we should have flags in every classroom. They sent him to the Board of Education. Long story short, this kid got suspended, and his attorney is claiming he was not given due process. Why in the world is Chris Van Hollen not in the news complaining about this kid not getting due process?
Walker Wildmon Right.
Chris Woodward But he's worried about an illegal immigrant who. Who may have assaulted his wife and has been found in cars that were used in, crimes or for illegal purposes. All these things. He's. They. They don't care about the people that live here and pay taxes. They care about the other people who shouldn't be here and have been living here on our dime doing illegal things.
Walker Wildmon Exactly. And the January Six victims, meaning the January 6th people that were locked up without due process for four years, mind you, where was the senator then?
Chris Woodward Right.
Walker Wildmon And you talk about a, due process violation. Those were American citizens that were held without trial for four years. And I don't remember one US Senator with the exception maybe of some. Some Congressional House Freedom Caucus guys and gals. Nobody really raised a finger about the January Sixers that were locked up for four years without a trial. And nobody was concerned about that, Chris, because the politics didn't line up.
Chris Woodward Right.
Walker Wildmon Right.
Chris Woodward You know, if you're somebody who a, campaign hires to help get elected, and you're not already starting to use. You're not already starting to come up with these talking points. He cared about due process for this guy, but not that. Lady, you're failing at your job. Right. Yeah.
Walker Wildmon It's low hanging, and you have plenty.
Chris Woodward Of time to do it because, you know, starting next year, you're in the throes of primary season, which leads to the midterms.
Chris: Republicans will use immigration as a midterm election issue against Democrats
And this, presumably, will be a midterm election issue that Republicans, I think, will try to use against Democrats.
Walker Wildmon Yeah.
Chris Woodward But we'll see.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, we're going to have to retain control. Chris of Washington, D.C. for a long time in order to, to we're basically gotta wait the clock out on these folks because you can't go do if we keep doing this back and forth where every four years we give somebody like Biden the reins to do the 10 million illegals in the country thing and then Trump can't deport anybody because he's hung up in court. I mean this is a losing game here. And so I'm not trying to be pessimistic or you know, fatalistic, but I'm really actually should be energizing folks here. This is the importance of conservatives controlling the levers of power for a long time to get real long term meaningful things done. We're just going to have to wait the clock out on some of these folks.
Chris Woodward Right. I mean, to really make the difference, that we hope to see. I mean it's going to take a good, decade. And by that I'm talking like two presidential terms and, and some more continuity, really consistency, I should say, in the legislative branch. We can't, we can't turn around every four years and say we're going to stop using oil and start going after unicorn juice.
Walker Wildmon Right.
Chris Woodward And all these things that Democrats.
Walker Wildmon And we're going to impeach Trump again.
Chris Woodward Right. Because that's what he shocked. I would not be shocked if he does that.
Walker Wildmon Democrats get the House in the midterms next year, they impeach Trump, they'll do it seven times over. He'll be hung up doing trials over in the Senate. I mean this is, this is their circus.
Chris Woodward Well, and you know, a lot of people are kind of laughing at this and saying, I hope you go in this direction. But AOC clearly has her eyes set on a higher office, maybe a center, maybe the senator. But some people are starting to wonder whether or not she's actually going to throw her hat in the ring for 2028. And there is already a marketing push behind her where you can find these videos on X. Yeah. now I'll come back to social media in a minute. But she's drawing large crowds and they're all smiling. Now granted, they're probably paid by George Soros to be there. Okay. But the common man doesn't really think about these things.
Walker Wildmon They know how to bust a man. So she's, she's the voice of it.
Chris Woodward She's the voice, you know, she's, it's all, you know, she's, she's smiling and waving. She's fighting the oligarchy. She cares about you. She's m Drawing these large crowds. She will be age eligible for perhaps president by 2028. All these things. Now I mentioned social media because that was a tool that Obama used greatly to get elected in 2008. It's the reason he got the nomination over Hillary Clinton who thought she was a she win just based on her last name.
Walker Wildmon Right.
Chris Woodward so there is clearly a push for radical change on the Democratic side of things and they're going to use Donald Trump as a reason why they should be voted in.
Walker Wildmon And I think that's why, I think that's why conservatives can retain power for 8 to 12 to 16 years. Because I said this right after the election, the Democrats have lost their weight. And I'm not saying they haven't really had their way because you go back to their founding. I mean they're Democrats of the party of the KKK, they're the party of Jim Crow. They've got a terrible history. Talk about rap sheets. Democrats have a terrible rap sheet of the stuff they've supported over the years. And Biden's actually parroted some of those racist talking points.
Chris Woodward Kamala called him out for being racist throughout his career.
Walker Wildmon But, but Democrats only know left, they only know how to turn left and that's why they're, they're, they have a US senator flying to El Salvador to lobby for an MS.13 member. Right. So I think that's a loser at the ballot box.
Chris Woodward It should be.
Walker Wildmon Now. What shenanigans do they have up their sleeve between now and then? I don't know. But folks, we got a, this is a generational fight and if you think we can, we can fix what's going on in Washington in a four year period. Boy, have you not been paying attention. Chris, thanks.
Chris Woodward Thank you.
Last year preborn helped rescue over 67,000 babies from abortion
Walker Wildmon All right folks, we'll see you next time.
Jeff Chamblee Because m of listeners like you preborn helped to rescue over 67,000 babies. Your $28 to sponsor one ultrasound doubled a baby's chance at ah, life. Your tax deductible gift saves lives. Please join us in this life saving mission. To donate go to preborn.com afr here now is your show host, Walker Wildmon.
Walker Wildmon Will you take a moment and celebrate life with me. Last year preborn helped rescue over 67,000 babies from abortion. Hi, this is Walker Wildmon and I want to thank you for your partnership. Think about what you did. 67,000 babies are taking their first breath now because of you. Your $28 sponsored one ultrasound that was given to a woman as she was deciding about the future of her child. Once she saw her precious baby for the first time and heard their sweet heartbeat, her baby's chance at life doubled. But Preborn' s mission is not only to rescue babies lives, but also lead women to Christ. Last year, Preborn Network Clinic saw over 8,900 women receive salvation. Your help is crucial to continue their life saving work.
Jeff Chamblee Your caring tax deductible donation saves lives. So please be generous. To donate go to preborn.com/afr that's preborn.com/afr or dial #250 and say the keyword baby. That's #250. B A B Y. Your love can save a life.
Jeff Chamblee The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.
Walker delves into the implications of recent deportation statistics, highlighting the contrasting approaches of past administrations and the challenges faced by the current executive branch in enforcing immigration laws.
Additionally, the episode features a thought-provoking discussion with Katy Talento, Executive Director of the Alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries. Katy shares insights on the legal battles her organization is facing in Colorado, where state regulations threaten the existence of faith-based healthcare sharing models. The conversation underscores the broader implications of government overreach and the necessity for vigilance in protecting religious liberties.
https://www.cato.org/blog/deportation-rates-historical-perspective
https://activate.afa.net/summit
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