Preborn Network offers counseling, prayer and a free ultrasound to pregnant women
>> Walker Wildmon: When a woman experiences an unplanned pregnancy, she often feels alone and afraid. So many times her first response is to seek out an abortion. But because of the generosity of listeners like you, that search may lead her to a PreBorn Network clinic. Preborn offers God's love and compassion to hurting women and then provides a free ultrasound to introduce them to the life growing inside of them. The this combination brings the ultimate miracle of life to life and doubles a baby's chance at life, which is why preborn saw over 67,000 babies rescued last year alone. Meet Maddie. Maddie was in a tough situation and she wasn't sure who the father was. But after receiving counseling, prayer, and a free ultrasound at a PreBorn Network clinic, everything changed. Maddie discovered she had twins and found the strength she needed to choose life.
>> Maddie: After my first visit here, and I ended up finding out that I was pregnant with twins, And I was a little unsure in the beginning because I just had a very rough situation going on, not knowing, you know, just between two different fathers. I ended up deciding that I was going to have my twins because my, sister and her husband, you know, just prayed for me and pretty much told me that I can do this. I am strong. I was prayed for over these ladies here, and it was just overall an amazing experience that helped me decide that I was willing and I was able to go through this by the grace of God. I ended up, having them when I was seven months. Yeah.
>> Maddie: So this is Analia and this is Alicia. Analia means means by the grace of God and Elysium means gift of God. I, you know, I'm super grateful that I came here because I would not have probably had them. And, yeah, I'm super grateful for this facility.
>> Walker Wildmon: Your tax deductible donation of $28 sponsors one ultrasound. How many babies can you save? Please donate your best gift today. Just dial #250 and say the keyword baby. That's #250 baby. Or, go to preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr. We inform Religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions, no matter where they are. We equip sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech. We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance. Character, and character hope.
>> Jeff Chamblee: This is at the Core on American Family Radio.
Walker Wildmon: John chapter six is where we have been this week
Welcome to the Core here on American Family Radio. Walker Wildmon here. Glad to be with you. On this brand new edition of the program, John six. John chapter six is where we have been this week, and we'll wrap it up here. John chapter six. Jesus says, most assuredly in verse 26 here in John chapter six, I say to you, seek me. You seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures for everlasting life. Life which the Son of man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. That's John chapter 6, verse 27 and verse 26 as well.
Walker: Steve Cleary is founder of Revelation Media
Well, I want to jump to our guest that we have on the line with us now. Our good friend Steve Cleary is with us. Steve is founder of, Revelation Media and has partnered with AFA on multiple projects, and we've partnered with him on multiple projects, including Pilgrim's Progress. Steve's with us now to talk about some of his work he's got going on recently. Hey, Steve. Welcome to the program.
>> Steve Cleary: Thanks, Walker. Glad to be here.
Walker: Steve, you've partnered with afa on several projects
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, Steve, I'm not sure there's many projects you're not involved in, but the most notable one that we partnered with you on was Pilgrim's Progress. This goes back a couple years ago. but, since then, you've worked on several other projects, including the Ibible app, which is essentially an animated visual, version of the Bible. and you can probably explain it better than me, but tell our audience a little bit about your kind of the inception of Ibible, what caused you to go down this path, and then how it's been developed since then.
>> Steve Cleary: thanks, Walker. Well, and obviously I appreciate the partnership we've always had with, afa. It's been great. And afr. When we did Pilgrim's Progress, you know, I originally thought you make a Christian movie, you know, you sell it to a distributor and everybody goes away happy, and, you know, you have a film that reaches the masses. And I realize that's often not the case. it's a very difficult industry, the movie film, industry. At least it was when we started working on the Pilgrim's Progress. The studios are much more open to Christian films now, but they were not then. And we also found is that movies didn't often reach overseas as much as I would like them to. So people talked about being media missionaries, but I thought, well, to do that, you need to go around the world. so we really prayed about it and thought about it. We decided to remove it from a for profit space and put the film in a non profit space. we released it over six years, about six and a half years ago now, to a limited run on theaters. obviously you guys helped. The theaters were sold out. And then shortly after Covid hit. And it was interesting because we had pastors calling us saying, you know, can my church members watch the Pilgrim's Progress at home? The kids are driving them crazy, everybody's on lockdown. And they said, we'll pay you for it. And I'm like, no, no. I said, you don't have to do that. We want to be a service to the church. And we put Pilgrim's Progress online for free. And it just lit up. I mean, I think we had 500,000 viewers like in a month or two, and it was going around the world. We received a grant to put the pilgrim's progress into 25 languages, which were now over 30 languages. And we started putting it on YouTube. And it just, I think we've, I think We've had almost 40 million views of the Pilgrim's Progress film since that time. And I think it sends a message, right? I mean you think of, you think of for those people, remember the Jesus film. Of course they're still distributing, but that came out, like 50 years ago. We look at the chosen today and we look at the success of the Pilgrim's Progress and we realize the benefit of visual media. And it was during that time I felt God called me to do the same thing with the Bible. So Pilgrim's Progress became kind of a front runner. But it was overwhelming. Right? How do you, I mean, doing a 110 minute film versus doing the Bible. So we stepped out in faith. We started, we call it Ibible. We started making seven minute episodes of the biblical narrative. We started in Genesis. We're now doing the life. We jumped forward to the life of Christ. we put the episodes out there. We've been translating them in different languages. We've had millions and millions of views and we continue to be widely viewed around the world. And I think it really goes back to the hunger for audio visual media. And I think that's really, I mean, outside of God's leading and Holy Spirit faith, that's really what's behind it is we have to reach people in different media forms.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, this, I didn't realize, Steve. Obviously there's been a long, I mean, ever since the printing press, there's been this effort by the church to interpret or to rather, translate the Bible. Into native languages. Hundreds, if not probably thousands, actually.
>> Steve Cleary: Thousands.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, yeah, thousands. Native languages all around the world. And that's obviously still a work in progress. It's a very noble cause. But in the era of audio visual, I didn't realize how much of a need and how effective it is to deliver the bible visually for some of these people groups where you can actually do it more efficiently and quicker than maybe translating the entirety of scripture.
There's still need to translate Bible into thousands of native languages
so talk a bit about that niche in evangelism around the world as opposed to the traditional translation, because obviously there's still a need to translate the word of God into these thousands of native languages. But oftentimes, for a quicker turnaround and an easier conversion, you can translate the bible into these visual stories, that you're doing through the ibible. So just talk about how the I Bible is serving a lot of these people groups that are otherwise can't even read in some cases.
>> Steve Cleary: Oh, yeah. I mean, Walker, that's the perfect question. And honestly, I wish more people were talking about it. So here are some. Here's. I'll give you some of the bad news, and I'll give you some of the good news. people are translating the Bible. there's a lot of effort, and it's. And it's tremendous. the Bible is being translated into so many more languages. There are 3,500 written languages. There are 7,159 total native languages. So as you said earlier, there's, thousands of these languages. Here's the bad news, here's the challenge. The emphasis has been on translating and printing. And the Bible is printed in 700 languages. The new Testament is printed in over a thousand languages. But understand this, only 351 languages are taught in schools. I have been with people numerous times, even in the last few months, who said, we received the bible for a people group printed in their language, and they cannot read it. The Bible said in storage. And so we have to change our thinking. Yes, do the translation, but it needs to go into audio video. I was just with the missionary leader in from northern Nigeria. he said for 20 years they tried to reach the Fulani. These are the very people persecuting Christians in northern Nigeria. And he said, with a printed Bible, but they couldn't read it. They don't read their own language. It's a spoken language. But when they, when they put it in audio, they said they saw hundreds come to Christ. And then they want to do video, and they're asking us for, our video content. So I want to stick to the Bible translation. We don't want to do. We're not called to do Bible stories. We actually use an authorized translation of scripture. We send it to the top theologians to, to review. So we know it's scripture, but we want to put it in an audio visual form. That is the only way we will reach these unreached people groups. We have already printed Bibles in every language that people read. So that work, we can check that box. We need to continue translations and then move to audio and visual and even the languages people do read. Surveys say 70 to 80% of people prefer audio and video over, over print. And yes, we want to engage. And I'm not even going to talk about the younger generation because everyone listening already knows their kids and grandkids are not reading like we used to read. They're on their phones, they're watching videos, right?
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, they are, they're doing videos and they're doing. Surprisingly, they're leaning into long form podcast. now some of that could be kind of passive listening as you're doing an activity. Right. They're cutting on these one and two hour podcasts. but nonetheless, yeah, the younger generation and actually at this point some of the older generation, they're on their smartphone and that's where you're going to have the most impact, broadly speaking.
The ibible app is completely free and includes resources for every episode
and so the ibible app. And another thing, Steve, talk about how it's on the native app stores because if you've got a mobile device, which who doesn't at this point, especially into the developed world, the Ibible app is broadly available in the app store.
>> Steve Cleary: It is, it's completely free. We've released an initial of five languages. We're about to load another six languages. we're really after the translation as fast as we can do it. We're on schedule to produce another 12 languages next year. So go to the iOS, the Apple store if you have an Apple and you'll find us under ibible by Revelation media. You can do the same thing in the Google Play store. Or if you don't want an app, you can simply just go to ibible app uh.com you can watch online. And so our content is free and included with that, are resources for every single episode we produce. So if you're a Sunday school teacher or you just want to have some content for family devotions and I would, I would, I always challenge families. You know, family devotions unfortunately is kind of a lost, a lost event in homes today. The kids are so busy. But what if you could watch a seven minute video? I'll give you the questions to ask, or you can come up with your own questions. And I guarantee you, your preteens, teenage children, will engage in scripture because now they've engaged in video, now they're curious with the questions. This really started with my son when I did some of the first episodes of bi Bible. He watched it. I said, what did you think? And he goes, I really like it. You know, he's not going to read the Bible. He's one of those millennials that does everything on his phone. But he said, dad, what was the serpent doing in the garden to begin with? And I'm like, man, that's a really good question. That's probably too hard of a question for me to answer. But we ended up talking about the Bible and God and ultimately our relationship with go for the next 30 minutes. And what parent doesn't want that with their children? And he was truly engaged, but it was the episode that got him curious. And so we get questions, we give family devotions, we get prayers. And so yes, use the Ibible app. it's completely free and I, I think you'll have a really good experience with it, especially if you do it with your kids.
>> Walker Wildmon: Amen.
Steve Cleary with Revelation Media talks about I Bible and Pilgrim's Progress
Hey Steve, we got about a minute left. Tell our folks the URL where they can check out all about I Bible and and how they can download it.
>> Steve Cleary: Go to I Bible. it's not a.comi.bible on your computer browser or go to the App store or go to the Google Play store and simply search ibible. If you search Ibible on Google you'll also find us and fortunately we have enough, presence and people using our content now that we show up pretty, pretty, pretty well in the search engines.
>> Walker Wildmon: Excellent, excellent. Steve Cleary with Revelation Media IBL Pilgrim's Progress. Just two of the primary projects of many that Steve has worked on. Hey Steve, thanks so much for coming on the program.
>> Steve Cleary: Thanks Walker, appreciate it.
Ibible by Revelation Media is very good. And, when you're on iOS on Apple, ibible is the number one result
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. That's Steve Cleary. And when you're on iOS on Apple, ibible is the number one result there. Ibible by Revelation Media. And if you're on Android, Google, Google Play, just type in ibible and it should be probably the top three to five results I would suspect, by Revelation Media. Very, very good. I've actually seen some of these, animations and stories if you will, of starting with Genesis was one of the first ones that Steve and his team did. It's fascinating but we have to continue sharing the gospel through all means possible. And audio visual is one of those options that the Lord has blessed us with. So we got to use it for the advantage of God and for the advancement of the gospel. All right folks, two segments left. Stick around. At the Core Podcast are [email protected] now back to, at the Core on American Family Radio.
Second segment features Andrew Brimberg on lowering healthcare costs
Welcome, back to the second segment of the program. In the first segment we talked to Steve Cleary of Revelation Media about Pilgrim's Progress. And now he's got Pilgrim's Progress 2 out. And then we also talked about the Ibible app, which is a very, very good, audio visual, translation of the scripture and telling the true historical, stories of the scripture starting in Genesis. So that's the Ibible app that you can find on your app store. Moving on to our next guest. Andrew, Bremberg is with us. Andrew is a former assistant to the President at the White House and Director of Domestic Policy Council as well with President Trump. And he's currently a, policy consultant still serving in the D.C. area. And he's with us now to talk about lowering healthcare costs, which has been a topic of this program in the past. Andrew Bremberg, thanks so much for coming on the program.
>> Andrew Bremberg: Thanks for having me.
Andrew Bremberg: Obamacare subsidies and skyrocketing health care premiums raise questions
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, Andrew, I've broached this topic several times, especially recently in the, with the entire topic of Obamacare subsidies and skyrocketing health care premiums, health insurance premiums rather. give us, give us, with your background and your experience on this matter, give us some of the backgrounder and the context that gets us to where we are today. I mean how long has this health insurance and health care, which are two different things that are related, how long has this pricing been a problem and what are some of the key things that have led to where we are today?
>> Andrew Bremberg: Yeah, well, thanks for having me. obviously the cost of healthcare has been going up for a very long time, for decades, unfortunately. And Americans, workers and employers have struggled to keep up with those rising costs. Costs. If you go back about 15 years ago, this was the idea behind Obamacare, the so called Affordable Care Net Act. The point of it then was to remedy this issue that you had rising health care costs. President Obama had promised to bend the cost curve down, and help other people afford insurance that hadn't been covered, hadn't been able to get insurance. But it was supposed to do both those things, help more people get insurance that didn't have it and bend the Cost curve down, lower the cost of care for those with insurance. And unfortunately as we've seen over the last four years, it has failed miserably, at that part. And we've run into this now if people go back and see about coverage expansions under Obamacare, I'm sure you've covered. Lots of people have been talking about the Obamacare exchanges and subsidies. We had this whole fight in Washington over certain subsidies. The exchange market is actually very small, in our country today that exchange market had stayed around 10 to 12 million enrollees for several years. Then under the Biden administration they passed enhanced subsidies during COVID and afterwards to kind of juice that market, get to get more subsidies in there. And it got all the way up to about 24 million. But of course in the United States we have, we're a country of 330 million. You get a lot of people that get health care through Medicare or Medicaid. But the biggest chunk of Americans get our health care through employer sponsored health care. That's somewhere between 160, 180 million Americans are covered by employer sponsored plans. And those plans over the last 15 years have been absolutely wrecked by rising health care costs where premiums have been going up double digits multiple years in a row. And unfortunately, you know, that is directly as a result of some of the changes made by Obamacare and the lack of reforms to really fix our healthcare system.
>> Walker Wildmon: I can attest to the premium spikes because we transitioned to a high deductible plan back about three years ago and it was a good move overall. the high deductible plan really forces the folks in the plan to really pay attention to where they're spending their healthcare money, and their claims and what doctors are charging. It makes you ask a lot of good questions. and then we implemented a health, ah, savings account in line with that to help offset some of the out of pocket expenses. But nonetheless, I mean just this year alone we're looking at a 45% increase. we've got 140.
>> Andrew Bremberg: 45%?
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, 45%. And so, and this is, this is on the heels of, you know, an occasional 10 to 15% hike over the last three years. And so my point in bringing that up is we, we know this firsthand and there's, there's companies all around this country that you're talking about that are having to figure out how to cover these costs. And most of them probably pass the majority of these, these premium hikes on to their to their, employees, make the employees cover all of the, the hikes, which then hits the American people. what's going on here? What's driving this? Because, I mean, the, the health care obviously is a, is expensive and the insurers are covering all of these health care costs and then they're having to cover their, you know, themselves. so they're just passing all these costs, are getting passed on, and ultimately lands on you and me. That's right. What's going on fundamentally with healthcare in America where it is so expensive.
>> Andrew Bremberg: Right. And I can really boil it down.
There is no transparency to the actual prices that employers or workers pay for health care
I want to come back to your example of your own healthcare because, this helps elucidate part of the problem. So the real problem we have in our healthcare system is that we don't have a market economy or market forces at all. There is no price transparency. So in every sector of our economy, when we go to buy something, we can see and shop and compare prices. We can compare based on prices and quality or distance or all sorts of factors, whether it's getting your car fixed, purchasing a car, making any large purchases. No one would sign up for a large purchase without knowing in advance what the price is and potentially shopping around or going to different places to get that cost. So in health care, that is virtually unheard of. And there is no transparency to the actual prices that employers or workers pay for their health care. Coming back to your example, like many places have gone to high deductible plans where you compare them with an hsa, which is great. It's a tax advantage way to help save for health care costs. and I've been at this a long time. I was around when we created HSAs and have worked in the health care space, and we thought that that was going to be the kind of revolutionary tool that would empower consumers. You know, patients would also now be consumers and help drive down those health care costs. But the real problem we've seen is that even with some, with patients having, you, know, you know, skin in the game and real exposure with these higher deductibles, they can't see the prices. So great, you have the deductible, you have this hsa, but if you can't see that the cost of an MRI at one facility is $300 and the cost of an MRI at another facility is $3,000, you can't actually shop and use that downward pressure. And this is something that's both critical for individual patients as consumers themselves, but also critical for so many millions of Americans that are covered by larger employer plans that self insure, where the employer isn't buying the insurance product per se, but the employer is using these insurance carriers to help manage claims, but actually bears the cost of all those claims themselves. And that's where having employers have access to price transparent information can help drive down the cost. I mean, I just say, is there any sector of our economy where you have no clue what anything costs? You have to sign on a, sign on a blank sheet check saying, I agree to pay whatever you charge me. Eventually, yeah.
>> Walker Wildmon: To your point, yeah, you go, you go get a burger. You don't go into the burger joint and like close your eyes and go, just give me whatever. You know, you look at the menu and you're like, okay, I can get, you know, I can get a double, you know, I can get a Mac double for now. It's like nine or ten bucks. but yeah, everything you do in this consumer based economy, you have a general idea of what you're going to have to pay for it.
Sometimes people say healthcare is like buying a hamburger
>> Andrew Bremberg: That'S a great analogy, but I want to take on one objection that comes up because sometimes you'll hear people say, well, but you know, but as you know, healthcare is not like buying a hamburger, right? It's, it's much more complicated expertise, all these things going into it, which, which is true, it's not like buying a hamburger. But it's not that dissimilar from buying, you know, a car or maintaining a car or things where, you know, I'll, I'll be, I'll be honest. I'm not a car expert. Right. So if I need to get my car checked out, I bring it into a mechanic. I, I, I don't know all the ins and outs of what's wrong with my car. I trust my mechanic to tell me information about the car and say, all right, well, you're bringing it in. I'm going to check your brakes. And the cost of checking your brakes is going to be this. And then when they find something out, they come and say, hey, we looked at things. You also needed a safety check, you needed to get your oil change. You need to get these other things. These things are going to cost this much. Do you want me to do it? I didn't drop off the car, sign a, sign a blank check and come back and say, oh, you owe us $30,000 and say, for what? But that's exactly what happens to millions of Americans every day in our country. We're, when they go to the hospital, they don't know what they're signing up for. And these hospitals and insurance companies are actually now required to post their prices. I want to come around to that. That's something that President Trump got started in his first term and we're taking up again. He's taking up again in his second term.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
The Trump administration is working on improving price transparency for healthcare providers
And so let's talk about that price transparency. I'm not going to say names, but where we live, there's a major regional medical provider, one of the largest in the state. And they, they do have a price transparency tool, like an estimator, if you will. Yep.
>> Walker Wildmon: But you talk about overly complicated. I mean, it used to be where you had to know the specific codes, the procedure codes, which. There's thousands of these codes out there. The nurses don't even know all the codes. and you had to. You had to basically be an. Be an insider expert, like billing person within the medical industry to know these codes. And every hospital system is different on the codes. And, so you couldn't really get a price because you don't know the codes. And so now they've got it to where you don't just have to have the codes. You can kind of search by procedure. But under every procedure, you mentioned MRI, there's like 30 different types of MRI you can get. It's overly complicated. I just want. I just want like a ballpark figure. Like, give me a range of, like, hey, here's the cheapest it could be and the highest it could be. And if you want to get more granular, then you have to provide more information.
>> Andrew Bremberg: let me pull that thread, because I bet when you've gotten healthcare afterwards, you know, a month or two months later, you get what's called an explanation of benefits in the mail, where they come in, they explain all your benefits and what it ended up costing you, and they tell you all that price information, you know, two months later. Right. Wouldn't it be nice to have that before you went in, as opposed to getting it, you know, later? And here's the irony. That's actually federal law today. So one of the last laws President Trump signed in 2020, December of 2020, included a series of laws called the no Surprises act that was meant to help address this issue, stop all the surprise billing, and make sure patients could actually see prices before they get careful. And that law required that if you scheduled care in advance, you would be able to get what's called an advanced explanation of benefits on your phone, in the mail, Email, however, sent to you before you showed up for care. So you would know what that price was. if it didn't match up with your expectations, you could, you know, cancel that appointment or go shop around and find something else before you, you know, signed on the line and actually went in for care. And that law was supposed to go into effect almost four years ago in 2022. The Biden administration sat on it, did virtually nothing to implement that, and we today still are unprotected. Even though Congress passed and the President signed that law, it's not happened. And that's why we're excited that the Trump administration, now that they're back, are going to get that done.
>> Walker Wildmon: So, okay, so that's what, that's what the Trump administration's working on. What's the implementation timeline on this? I mean, surely this doesn't have to go through the rulemaking process. What, what kind of implementation it does. Okay, that's unfortunate, but explain that.
>> Andrew Bremberg: It is, it is. You know, when Congress passes these laws, a lot of times all the government, federal agencies have to implement them and they have to go through a rulemaking process, which would have been great had the Biden administration done it, you know, a year or two into their tenure. but m. As we saw, unfortunately, they did nothing. So this is where, the, the Trump administration needs to be working on this right now to get this done as fast as possible. And they're also working on, changing and tightening the regulations that they've already done this year to make it clear, that hospitals need to do a better job posting those prices. you're right. Those tools aren't the most user friendly. But look, once you put the data out there, you can get app developers and people, companies and, other players in the market can really suck in that data. And, and then create the kind of user friendly tools that patients actually want to use because, you know, I don't. Pay for that code.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, I would pay for that, Andrew.
>> Andrew Bremberg: Absolutely. Absolutely. So once those hospitals are forced to actually provide that data, you know, that President Trump in the first term made them do it and they started doing it. But of course, then for four years, the Biden administration never enforced that rule.
>> Walker Wildmon: Right.
>> Andrew Bremberg: So that what they basically did is they kind of publish these files, you know, terabytes in size with a bunch of junk in them. So thankfully, President Trump's back now. His administration has redone the rules on that already that have required the hospitals to put real dollar amounts in those files starting next year. So that's right around the corner. They're Doing the same thing with insurance companies. In the first term, the president required insurance companies to show all their negotiated rates. I know I'm going to sound like a broken record at this point. The Biden administration didn't enforce it for four years. so now the Trump administration is getting ready to do that right now. And these are real meaningful opportunities. I mean, when we're talking about affordability, the biggest crisis Americans face is healthcare, because the costs keep going up year over year. As you said, double digits, you know, 40% for premiums. That's outrageous. And there's nothing being done to bring it down. But we all know, particularly as conservatives like we know government, single payer is not the solution to this. The same thing that brings us all the innovation and everything we enjoy in our country, market, free markets, market forces. That's what brings costs down, quality goes up.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Andrew Bremberg: Competition goes up, but costs come down in every sector.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. If, to your point, Andrew, if a private company, and I'm sure this will happen, if a private company tapped into all this data and connected it to an app, I would pay a monthly subscription, to, and I would offer it to employees, too, to be able to search within 30 miles of my radius. what's the most affordable MRI or fill in the blank on the procedure and basically shop around, this area to get the best price. I mean, then there's so much savings that could happen there.
>> Andrew Bremberg: That's right. And then when you're a large employer, a lot of your listener, I'm sure a lot of your large, a lot of your listeners listen to work for large employers, they pay for this. They would pay that service easily because it helps lower the cost for their, their workers and themselves.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. Hey, Andrew, thanks so much for coming on the program. We appreciate you.
>> Andrew Bremberg: Thanks so much for having me.
>> Walker Wildmon: All right. Andrew Bremberg, former assistant to the president under Trump 1.0, also was the director of Domestic Policy there with President Trump and is now working on, multiple policy items, including health care. We'll be back in a few. At the Core podcast are [email protected] now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.
American Family Radio welcomes back Chris Woodward for this week's podcast
Welcome back to the Core here on American Family Radio. Walker Wildmon here. We would greatly appreciate it. For those of you who listen to subscribe to the podcast, you can go to your podcast store, our library and just type in the name of the program at the core and click the subscribe or the follow button and the latest episode will be queued up in your library each and every day. Chris Woodward is back with us. And Chris, welcome back.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah, we're gonna make this segment great again.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes. Yeah, we're gonna make it great again. And then we're gonna see each other in three weeks, right? Yeah. Because of the Christmas season and the new year season. But, it's good we're having the show today, Chris, because there's a lot to talk about in the news.
Chris Bell: You got inflation and jobs report both this week
let's talk first about the, inflation. You got inflation and jobs report both this week. That, came in. Jobs came in decent. inflation came in pretty good. But the inflation was down well below expectations, right?
>> Chris Woodward: Yes, it was down. And it continues to show that inflation is going down under President Trump, during his time in office. He's been in office less than a year still. but as he pointed out, or tried to point out in his White House, speech on Wednesday night, things are down because of his, policies. And if you will continue to be patient and, let him do his thing through deregulation and through congressional actions, things will continue to get better as we get into springtime, which is exactly the same time that Walker and I have been saying Americans will really or should really start to see some relief, with this economy.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, some kind of critics, if you will, for lack of a better word, are saying that, hold up on the bragging about the inflation being down, that, number one, the government was shut down for, I think, a month or so. And, there's some missing data from some of the regions of the country in the jobs, in the inflation numbers. So I don't know if all of that's true, but, nonetheless, Chris, I think in January, February, we should get a good consistent read as to whether this inflation dropping is a sustainable trend.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah, that's a fair point. And really, with any government report, the next month's report is the one that tells you whether or not what you were told in the last few weeks was accurate. Because with things like the jobs report, which was better than expected, you find out, whether or not they added to that or took from it by the next month's report, generally at the end of the report. But I do tend to think that inflation is continuing to go down, though, just because it has been going down. Even before the government shutdown, we were seeing some relief in the way of inflation. So odds are, it is continuing to go down. Maybe it wasn't gangbusters like we were told this week, but definitely is going down. And if they Continue to go after more oil and gas, which they are, energy. Because that impacts inflation. It will make inflation even better, for us in the coming months.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
Let's talk about energy prices ahead of midterm elections
let's talk. you just mentioned energy prices. ah, gasoline. Wow. I talked about getting in under $2 a gallon within the first few weeks of the presidency. I said that was, I thought that was attainable, and I think it's a good goal. And I actually played some clips of some energy executives that said that'll never happen. They said, quote, this one energy executive was on Fox Business, and he said, quote, oil will Never go below $85 a barrel ever again. That's what he said. And we're at $55 now, so, boy, was he wrong. but we legit could see Chris, now. I think the summer prices would go back up just because of travel, but between now and then, you very well could see gasoline still hover around $2 a gallon.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah. And, you know, here where we live, so in some regions, yeah, here where we live, we praise God, pay below average prices. So we're already seeing prices, in the neighborhood of like, 2, 215, 225, which is much cheaper than the national average. Basically. The Southeast and, the red states in the Midwest, that still believe in and use oil, and gas are the ones paying the cheaper prices, in terms of the national average, which is 289 right now, down from 307 this time last month. and down from where it was this, time last year.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Chris Woodward: Bottom line, these are the cheapest gas prices since the first few months of the Biden administration. when Joe Biden entered office. gas was super cheap then because we were still enjoying Trump's policies that had not been reversed yet by Joe Biden. And when he put in his boondoggle policies, that's when things started to go back up. And we're just now seeing relief on that. But again, it impacts everybody because you're paying gas to get to and from work or your kid's ballet lesson, your son's soccer practice, all these other things. And then, oh, by the way, the stuff you're buying from a store got to that store based on gas, diesel is still up there. the national average for diesel is 363, which is more than it was this time last year. But Energy Secretary Chris Wright has made TV appearances in recent days talking about the need for, getting more diesel onto the market. And that's why I Think, the Energy Secretary position, this may have been when the history books are written on the Donald Trump's on his return to office. I think the energy pick will have been one of his best things because, Chris Wright, for those not aware, has a energy sector background. He's not a former governor. He's not somebody that this guy just lost.
>> Walker Wildmon: He's actually run energy companies.
>> Chris Woodward: Yes. So he can look the guy from Exxon in the face and go, look at me. Yeah, we all know how you operate. We know what the Saudis are doing. Work with us. We're going to help you out. That's much better than Jennifer Granholm.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, no, I agree completely. And, Chris, the one hurdle that the Trump administration is going to have to overcome is the data center energy hurdle. That is really, it's ultimately currently hurting consumer energy prices. We could have home energy prices down as well, pretty drastically if it weren't for these massive AI data centers being built. But I think that can be resolved as well through multiple means. But it's going to take some aggressive action. And, Chris, the midterms, I think here's what Americans need. Here's how they need to view this. Economically, I'm speaking, we're trending in the right direction. Yeah, yeah, we're trending in the right direction. There's no doubt about it. do we want to go back to Biden? Policies of trillions and trillions in deficit spending, stimulus money, you know, up to your eyeballs, and inflation running double digits? Do we want that? Do you want to pay $5 a gallon for gas again, yes or no? And so if we think that we're gonna, punish Trump in the midterms, I'm talking about voters, broadly speaking, because the economic fix didn't happen fast enough. What's the alternative? I mean, do we really think the Democrats are gonna fix this? So there just needs to be a reality check for voters out there that, number one, President Trump is moving things in the right direction, although it's taking some time. But what's the alternative? I mean, are we really going to give, like, Hakeem Jeffries and in 2028, Gavin, Newsom, like, the keys to the White House and think that they're going to magically fix all of this? I just think that the Trump economy is the only viable path towards prosperity and sustainability.
>> Chris Woodward: Yes. Now, some people, pollsters, are still out there saying, well, Americans, they're still holding, you know, the affordability issue against President Trump. They don't See prices coming down, they don't really see or hear anything in the way of energy, drilling and production and stuff like that.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Chris Woodward: This again is why I think, and this is such a low hanging fruit of a, I'm not making a scapegoat out of them. I really think TV news is to blame, specifically cable TV news is to blame because they have spent a lot of time covering on Trump's efforts to like, end foreign wars.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Chris Woodward: And they're not bringing Chris Wright on to talk about what we're doing in Alaska or some other part of the country to open up more oil.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, and to your point, Chris, what the media is not going to talk about is what you and I talked about extensively during the early days of the Trump administration. That is the fact that if you try to do the right thing and lower deficit spending, which is what the Trump administration is currently working on, Kevan Hassett said the other day about a $600 billion deficit reduction year over year, heading into this year is what the Trump administration is set to achieve. that we talked about how that could actually hurt gdp. You m start lowering deficit spending, basically the drug that fuels the economy. You talk about lowering GDP and nobody likes that. So the fact that the Trump administration is kind of doing this balancing act of cutting spending, lowering the federal payroll, bringing in billions in tariff revenue and giving Americans an extended tax break, doing all of this without the whole train falling apart is a pretty impressive act. And I think Americans don't need to forget how kind of a sensitive situation this whole thing was coming in.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah, I think the White House, and maybe they're planning to do, to do this as part of Trump's nationwide tour to talk about how his policies have helped make America more affordable again. maybe they plan on doing this, but they really need to bring on legislators, members of the House, members of the Senate, bureaucrats, what have you to explain to people, why it is that these policies they passed, that they enacted, signed into executive order, all these things, they need to explain how these things impacted you for the better and how going back to the alternative of having Democrats back in charge will only make it worse. It will make all this stuff go away.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes.
>> Chris Woodward: And they need to, instead of, they need to do a better job of explaining to people you're benefiting this way because of things we voted on, things we voted for, they voted against it. Don't put them back into office.
President Trump gets to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair in May
Yeah, the charts this week. I loved the fact that the administration kept popping up charts and visual aids during his speech because it showed people in graphs what prices were like under Joe Biden. And then next to that is what prices are like now, less than a year into Trump's administration. And he went on to effectively communicate, I think, give me six more months, and we're gonna have these things even better. And there is truth to that because, again, we're going after more of our oil and gas and we're cutting spending. People don't realize this, but when you look at the jobs numbers, every month, pretty much Joe Biden was in office, we were adding or creating government jobs. Since Trump's entered office, the federal government has been cutting jobs. And that's important to taxpayers, whether they know it or not, because you're propping up somebody else's job when they're supposed to be there helping you. And what they're spending is not helping you.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, the, President Trump gets to replace Jerome Powell in May of 26.
>> Chris Woodward: It's not me, it's right around.
>> Walker Wildmon: You're not gonna be the guy.
>> Chris Woodward: They've not come.
>> Walker Wildmon: That's not what Poly Market is saying. Yeah, yeah, you're in the top.
>> Chris Woodward: It's the other Woodward.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, yeah. I think you're getting about 1%, bets. So you're saying there's a chance on the markets? Yeah. no, seriously, Chris. Jerome Powell's term ends in May. President Trump gets his pick. This is a big deal. I think there's no doubt that whoever President Trump picks is going to continue pushing rates down. How much further down? I'm not sure. Maybe a point. But nonetheless, it's going to be for small businesses and consumers and for corporations, for everyone. It's going to be a pretty favorable rate environment, heading into the middle and late, next year, which I think could help continue fueling this economy. Yeah.
>> Chris Woodward: Talk about big picks. This one could be definitely one that kind of sets his legacy, if that's the term to use here. I would. I mean, obviously he's going to pick a guy or a lady, that's going to be in favor of cutting rates, because that's been your whole opposition towards Jerome Powell.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes. now he's got to get the rest of the board on. The board of governors on board, no pun intended, with the continued rate cuts. True, but I'm not sure that's going to be a problem. I mean, clearly the Fed, remember, the Fed is made up for our audience of Board of Governors. I forgot the exact count. I think it's over 20. but they all vote every month on whether they're going to lower rates. And so you have to get obviously over 50%. But nonetheless, I don't think that's going to be a problem because the labor market has been weakening and consumers need a break.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah.
Are we seeing more accurate jobs numbers now, which President Trump called for
Speaking of the labor market, maybe after the start of the year when people are working again on a regular 40 hour a week basis, I'm going to try to start figuring out whether or not we're seeing accurate numbers with the jobs reports compared to what we saw under Biden or even Trump's first term in office. And I say that based on the fact that we got a better than expected 64,000 jobs in November. Expectations were somewhere around 40 to 45,000. And people are going, oh, that's a really low number compared to what it used to be. My question is, are we seeing more accurate counting now, which is what Trump called for?
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes. Well, two things I need to correct myself. There's seven board members, seven members of the board. Federal, Federal Board of Governors. and that includes the chairman. Yes. but to your point, Chris, let's remember, audience, and this is why you need to be careful where you get your information from. President Trump has deported nearly 700,000 illegal immigrants in the last 11 months. And he has, caused the self deportation of over 2 million. All right, that's in the jobs numbers.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah, it is.
>> Walker Wildmon: Okay. That's in the jobs numbers. And so we have, we have deported over, whether, whether self deported or forced deportation, over two and a half million illegal workers from our country's job force and from our country's workforce. And we're still getting net positive jobs numbers. I mean, that, that is a big deal. Yes, that is a big deal. So, you know, 40, 50,000 jobs added. with AI on the rise and with hundreds of thousands of federal employees being laid off, m. These are 100% private sector jobs. Yeah.
>> Chris Woodward: Which is what you want. And the reason I'm saying I need somebody to tell me that in a story is because people like Jerome Powell always go, I don't know if I want to cut rates. The jobs market is not doing really well right now. We only got 64,000 jobs.
>> Walker Wildmon: Right.
>> Chris Woodward: Last month.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Chris Woodward: And I need that.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. I do think, I do think the, the Fed needs to be careful not to lower rates too much. and get into this kind of.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah. We're not going back to 100%.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. Artificially low environment. that's just not necessary. You just don't need that. so we'll continue to track that. And, 100%. By the way, Chris, interesting stat. 100% of new jobs have gone to native born Americans. So foreigners aren't stealing our jobs anymore. All right, folks, we'll see you next time.
>> Steve Cleary: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
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