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>> : 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 here on the program. Walker Wildmon here. AFR.net is our website. That's our URL. You can listen to the radio network live, both talk and music [email protected] and you can also get the podcast there at afr.net you can download the American Family Radio app as well on your smartphone, on your tablet device. It's free. Takes just a couple minutes. Well, our Share a Thon our twice a year Share a Thon is coming up next week. It's our spring Share a Thon and we're going to be asking you to come alongside the ministry of American Family Radio and help financially support us. That's what's going to be going on next week. In preparation for that, we're in our final stages of preparing listener testimonies, listener stories. And so if you've been blessed by American Family Radio over the years and you would, please share how the Lord has blessed you through American Family Radio. We would love to hear from you. So I'm going to give out the number and you can call in. It takes just about a minute or two. You can leave a brief listener story or listener testimony about how the Lord has used American Family radio in your life. 8778-768893-87787-68893. You can call in. Takes about 60 to one, hundred and twenty seconds, one to two minutes to leave your listener story. 877-876-8893. Also, coming up in July we have our Activate Summit. Our annual Activate Summit is coming up July 16th through the 18th here in Tupelo, Mississippi. And registration is now open for our Activate Summit. You can go to afa.net/summit afa.net/summit and we hope to see you guys and ladies this summer at our Activate Summit. We're going to have a great lineup, great time of fellowship and learning the scripture and how to apply it to our lives.
This is Easter week, and we're in John chapter 20
Speaking of the Scripture, we're in John chapter 20. And for those of you who've been listening to the program know, obviously we go through a chapter of the Bible each week. We at least pick a passage within a, chapter. And we've been going through the Book of John. And I would love to tell you that I'm so much of a planner that I planned this passage to fall during Easter, but I would be misleading you, but because I did not plan it this way. But we started to go through John roughly 20 weeks ago. And now we're in John 20 looking at verses 11, through 13. And this entire chapter is about the empty tomb. And this is Holy week. This is Easter week. Good Friday's coming up. Resurrection Sunday's coming up. Lets look at verses 11 through 13. But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white sitting one at the head, the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain. Then they said to her, woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him. And of course, in verse 14, when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there and did not know that it was Jesus. And of course we could go on more, with the Easter story there. But the point here is that Jesus, in fact, as the Messiah, was risen from the dead and is risen from the dead. That's a biblical and historical fact that Jesus defeated death and was raised from the dead after three days in the tomb and is now seated at the right hand of the Father. And I posted this weekend on social media that Jesus is the expected Messiah. Jesus is the expected Messiah. The First Testament and the Second Testament come together for a complete canon of scripture that tell the full story about God's plan for humanity and about how Jesus is that expected Messiah that was prophesied countless times over the course of thousands of years. Throughout the Old Testament, Jesus was prophesied. The Son of Man came and took our place, and, took, our place on, the cross, for our sins. And so it's Easter week, and I pray that you will remember that and remember that we serve a risen Savior. That's John chapter 20. looking at a few verses there in John chapter 20.
This partial government shutdown mainly has to do with the Department of Homeland Security
Well, jumping right into the topics of the day, I want to make sure we get to this, government. This partial government shutdown mainly has to do with the Department of Homeland Security. And I told you guys how I felt about it last week. I mean, this is just inexcusable. Where we are, where our elected officials can't do basic functions like appropriations and making sure the government has the money necessary to operate. and as far as what the actual negotiations are about and what the objectives are about this government, partial government shutdown. If you're confused, then I don't blame you because the Democrats are all over the map on exactly what they're wanting out of this negotiation. Of course, Republicans are weak, not very good on the messaging side of things. And so, in essence, the Democrats are wanting all kinds of stuff here. I've seen posts about them wanting amnesty for illegal immigrants. They want to defund ice. They want to control and micromanage how Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates on a daily basis. Which, that's actually against the Constitution because that's the job of the administrative branch or the executive branch, rather. And then you have, fights, over, you know, how much money ICE gets or how much money Border Patrol gets. so there's all kinds of talking points out there as far as what the Democrats are wanting out of this. But the fact of the matter is that we're over four weeks of the government being shut down, the Department of Homeland Security not having funding to pay their employees, and now you have average everyday workers missing paychecks. Especially with TSA. You've got lions stretching four, five, six hours now at airports. I mean, this is just a disaster. And the responsibility initially, rests solely on the shoulders of the Democrats. But at this point, I'm blaming the Republicans, and of course, I'll explain why. But to give the Democrats their fair share of criticism. Listen to this exchange. This is Jonathan Karl on ABC, clashing with Democrat US Senator Van Hollen, Senator VanHollen on the Sunday show about what exactly is this government shutdown about? Listen to the mass confusion. Clip one.
>> : I mean, I guess what's confusing here is you have fought and blocked the funding for the Department of Homeland Security because you object, as you just outlined, to what ICE has been doing and you wanted to force changes. And yet the only thing that has been assured throughout all of this is that ICE already has the money. Because, as you said, $75 billion passed in the budget bill last year. So you're holding up, the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security because you object to ICE and you want changes to ice. But, but through it all, ICE continues to have the money.
>> : John, we're not holding up all of the money for all the Department of Homeland Security. That's just a false statement. We have said repeatedly. Well, you repeatedly, we should fund TSA, we should fund FEMA, we should fund the Coast Guard. We are not prepared to give ICE another $10 billion on top of the monies they already have and are using in many of these lawless operations. We're not going to give them another $10 billion unless they make funds fighting
>> : over that $10 billion. You're holding accountable for the killing of American citizens and fighting over that additional $10 billion. You are, you are holding up the rest of the Department of.
>> : We're not holding it up. I mean, you're saying, John, we're not holding it up. We have now voted 10 times, but you're holding up.
>> : Unless it doesn't include money for ice. That's just the fact.
>> : Unless it doesn't include money for ice. A very reformed ice, that's which.
>> : Which already has the money.
>> : Why not, why not fund TSA now? That's what we've said.
This is Democrats talking to Democrats on a Democrat controlled network, ABC
>> Walker Wildmon: All right, folks, if you just got, if you just feel like I just wasted 60 seconds of your life, you were exactly right and I apologize. But I wanted to play that because this is ABC, okay? ABC is in the bag of the Democrat Party. They're, they're in the back pocket of the Democrat Party. All right? Jonathan Karl is a left wing hack, all right? Lifelong Democrat. Okay? So, so this is Democrats talking to Democrats on a Democrat controlled network, ABC. And they can't even get the talking points right. They can't even agree on what they're supposed to agree to.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is fully funded until 2029
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, folks, let me just break the news to you because there's a lot of confusion out there. Washington loves to make things overly confusing and I'm a simple person. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is fully funded until 2029. Yes, you just heard me correct. ICE is funded fully via $75 billion until 2029. How, you ask, how on earth is that possible, Walker? I thought we were arguing about whether ICE was going to be funded or not. Well, I thought so too. The reconciliation, which I don't know why they call these modes of legislation, these ridiculously confusing and convoluted names. Who on earth came up with reconciliation? What on this earth. But whatever you want to call it, the quote, one big beautiful bill that they did last year, which I don't know where the version two is, because we now, we need it right now. President Trump and the Republicans fully funded ice through 2029. I actually didn't realize that. I didn't realize that you could fund an agency, a department that far out. I thought this was on a 12 month rotating basis, but here we are. My question I have. So the Democrats don't know what they're arguing about. They just want to shut the thing down because it makes Trump look bad. That's a fact. And there you have the Democrat senator. He doesn't even know why they're shutting it down because ICE is already funded. So this is not a negotiation about whether ICE is going to be funded. They're already funded, folks, through 2029. This is after President Trump's term. This is next presidential term. And so the question I have, and Bobby and I, we're gonna work to get somebody on, maybe somebody from like Heritage or something, to break this down for us, but maybe we'll call Mike Johnson's office. Why on earth did the Republicans not just fund the entirety of government for the whole four years of Trump's term? If you can fund ICE for five years or four years out to 2029, then why not fund the whole thing? Fund everything, the whole Trump term. We won't ever have to negotiate budgets with the Democrats ever again until the next election. Of course, I don't know the answer to that question. Maybe there's something out there, maybe there's some, you know, secret rule that we don't know about, about how Congress operates. But you're telling me that ICE got funded until 2029, but everything else did. That makes completely no sense to me. I'm good with them being funded out to 2029, but let's fund the whole thing. Let's fund Everybody out to 2029, the military, DHS. We don't need to fund the Department of Education, because it shouldn't be there. But all the other constitutionally obligated agencies fund them until 2029. And we won't have to talk to Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries ever again under this administration. I mean, this is just absolutely bizarre. And here we are and President Trump saying, oh, I can, I can sign an executive order and get TSA paid. I think that's a bad, I think that's a bad way to go. Because now we're saying, well, we don't need the Democrats. So either we need the Democrats to fund the government or we don't. At the end of the day, if you ask, well, what is the solution? The solution in the immediate term, this is a no brainer is for, for John Thune and Lindsey Graham and the rest of them to get back to D.C. get off a vacation, get back to Washington D.C. and do the thing that our founding fathers originally envisioned, and that is you pass a full appropriation bill for each agency with a simple majority. You need 51 votes to pass a piece of legislation to fund the agencies in the Senate. You send it over to the House, the House approves it and it goes to President Trump's desk. The time for this 60 vote thing is gone, folks. We've got a whole agency of government shut down for a month because the Democrats don't know what they're doing.
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American Family Radio welcomes Brian Montgomery to talk about Internet safety for teens
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to the Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us for this segment. Well, we're going to talk about a very important topic, a very sensitive topic. as we've addressed this on the program for a long time now, and that is protecting minors, protecting children, and specifically in the area, in the, arena of the Internet and the World Wide Web and all these different apps and tablets and smartphones all over the place, we have to really go above and beyond to protect our children from the harms that are out there on the Internet. Well, Brian Montgomery is with us now. Brian is, the father of Walker Montgomery, who, tragically, fell victim to teen suicide. And Brian's been working day and night, to, address this, issue of, predators on the Internet and the vulnerabilities that teens have while on the Internet and on these. These tablets and smart devices. Brian, welcome to the program.
>> Brian Montgomery: Thanks for having me. We, we appreciate the opportunity to continue to work to try to help families, you know, prevent the same tragedy we had to go through. But thank you for. Thank you for letting us come on.
Brian Montgomery's son Walker committed suicide after being targeted online
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, Brian, I'm obviously familiar with your story because I've been in this arena for some time now. But for those who aren't familiar with what happened to your son, give us the story. Give us the backgrounder.
>> Brian Montgomery: Yeah, so we're, just kind of an average family. I have four kids. two boys, two girls. married my wife Courtney. High school sweethearts. man just come from very humble background. Built a business, built a family. my wife and I have been Christians, been saved since we were both kids. Had, our families in church and involved and had all the boxes checked, so to speak, you know. And December M. First of 2022, our son Walker went, to bed. mentally, physically, psychologically healthy. no major problems at all in our life at that point in time. I mean, people just like everybody else, you know, I mean, just everybody has problems, but from a standpoint of any kind of issues that you could have spotted from the outside or even from the inside just wasn't there. And, we woke up to the morning of December 1st, found, our son Walker had committed suicide overnight. I mean, we were devastated, as you can imagine. He, was 16 years old. Our oldest son, M. he has an older sister, Caroline, and then a younger brother, Bennett, and a younger sister Sarah. but we woke up that morning to that tragedy. And just at that point, we had no idea. I mean, nothing made sense. And, there were, like I said, no, signs or no issues and nothing to see because there wasn't anything there to see. And what we later found out is that he was approached around midnight, by someone pretending to be a teen girl that coerced, him into having a sexual encounter over the video portal of Instagram. And, they recorded that and then started extorting him for money, threatening, to send that out. eventually they started, sending what looked like the video. It was a video of Walker in a very sexually compromising situation. And they threatened to send it to his mom. And Walker told him that he was going to commit suicide. And their their comment back was go ahead because if you don't send us the money, you're already dead anyway. And later that morning, sometime between, we think around last contact was around 3 o' clock in the morning, sometime between 3 and when we found him at 6, Walker had taken his own life. So that was the launching point of where God led us down this road of I view it now as our mission to spread awareness and tell others about our story, for the sole purpose of preventing families of having to go through with this, go through what we have, but at the same time try to put some meaningful measures in place, whether it's legislatively or regulatory issues to try to protect kids and families.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well that's very sad. I can't imagine as a young father having to go through that and know that it was preventable had your son not been targeted online and put in a vulnerable situation like that.
Brian Montgomery: Design of social media platforms inherently has harmful effects
Brian, talk about these platforms, I know you mentioned Instagram. talk about these platforms and how dangerous they are primarily because of the lack of regulation and the lack of, of regulation specifically from the sites themselves to verify the age of the people using the sites.
>> Brian Montgomery: Yeah, there's, there's several aspects here. You know, age verification is obviously one of those. but you know, when you look at the, at the, at the industry as a whole, I mean the very nature of their industry is, is to addict. I mean that's, that's at its core. I mean that's, that's at the core of, of their product is to, is to gain your attention, hold your attention, maximize your attention over some period of time. And the more time here's this is the reality. The more time that they can hold you, the more money they make. and so the design, I mean from from the aspect of, of how the industry is operated, the design inherently has harmful effects. Especially, I mean to all of us to be honest, but especially to minors, is where we're focused. Obviously. you know, there's kind of two aspects of this industry that's, that's problematic. One is they're under the protection of section 230. So section 230 basically was a regulatory item that was put in place to protect communications companies. you think about if you and I are on an AT and T line and there's a crime committed, it was intended to Protect A and T from lawsuits. Well, what hasn't changed is that law is not, you know, that that has not been updated.
>> Walker Wildmon: Right.
>> Brian Montgomery: in. In 25 years, 30 years, whatever the time limit there is. And so it didn't anticipate a tech industry that would manipulate this system and not just be. It's not. It's not as simple as just communication between two people. It's really more around the design features of, like, within Walker situation. Specifically, it offered Walker up on a plate to this guy. It identified him, showed him his weaknesses. The, algorithm would have attracted Walker to these kinds of accounts. There's a variety of ways that this system, the design features of the system, created an unsafe environment for particularly Walker, but also, you know, untold numbers of kids out there in the world today.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, let's talk about. And then I do want to talk about this Keeping Kids Safe, online act that's currently in the Mississippi legislature. But before we do, talk about, you just alluded to this really impenetrable barrier that prevents victims, true victims, from suing civilly, these technology companies, because they've been hiding behind this section 231.
Meta lost a $6 million judgment against them over teen suicide
but talk about the. This recent case where meta lost a $6 million judgment, against them because of a teen suicide.
>> Brian Montgomery: Yeah. So there's two different. Two different pieces of, two different topics there. One is the case in California, where families sued because of the negligence of, Meta. And that. That's really kind of, without getting into the details of that case, the concept there is not, suing them because they allowed some communications to occur on their system. It's really around the design flaws of that system. And the jury recognized that Meta, number one, was notified of those, you know, harmful outcomes, potential harmful outcomes, but not only were notified, but. But did not make any meaningful changes. And so, that's. That's, you know, this. The suit that. That particular suit that was just. These two suits were ruled on within. Within a day of one another. The other one was NewSong Mexico, where the attorney general there sued Meta and won a $374 million judgment because of the same. The same exact. From what I understand, the same exact, type of criteria. And so what the general public is coming around to and the legal system is coming around to something we've been saying for multiple years now, is that it's not about what the two people. You know, the litigation and the need for regulation is not just simply about preventing people from saying what they want to say across Communication lines. It's more about identifying the design features of this tech and how it has harmful effects. I mean, we put it into context. If this was a pharmaceutical that had known negative effects that, that they were not. Not willing to acknowledge or rectify, then we would regulate them. And as with pharmaceuticals, they're heavily regulated versus, technology. You know, it's not regulated at all at this point.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, to your point, these platforms are highly addictive. And there's been study after study that proves it, what it does to your brain, the endorphins that it releases. I mean, these platforms are designed intentionally to keep you coming back. And, so there's that angle. but then there's also just the sheer negligence. I mean, there's the design to keep you in, and then when you're in, the pure negligence to prevent very harmful content from reaching these minors. so it's really twofold there. They get you in, by the algorithms being very addictive, and then they do nothing to protect you once you're in the platform.
Keeping Kids Safe Online Act is currently pressing before the Mississippi legislature
Brian, I want to talk about this Keeping Kids Safe Online Act. We've been trying to work on legislation around the country in various states to protect children online, but specifically in Mississippi. This is currently pressing before the Mississippi legislature. Tell us about this Keeping Kids Online. Keeping, Kids Safe Online Act.
>> Brian Montgomery: Yeah, that's. So there's a couple of different things happening. So this in Mississippi is, proposed as a. There are some additional features. So to take you back a little bit, we passed two laws in Mississippi, that have Walker's name on them. One of them is called Walker's Law, which applies criminal penalties, for sextortion, which is the term used for the. For the scheme that happened to Walker. so we passed that. That was fairly straightforward because there were already criminal, charges that you can be charged with for doing this to someone. but the second thing we did was the Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act. And that particular piece of legislation, applied a duty of care to tech companies. and it. And it spelled out, okay, these are the responsibilities that you as a tech company have to, protect kids when they're on your system. And part of that was age verification. Part of that was having a parent's permission to be on there. So that piece of legislation passed in Mississippi, it was immediately challenged by the tech lobby. And so these guys that tech pays to fight their legal battles, challenge it in court. and then it was overturned momentarily. And then the Fifth Circuit said, no, it's a valid It's a valid law. so they overturned that. And so, now, currently. And then the Supreme Court said that there's no reason for them to hear that particular, challenge. but we're still being sued and challenged by NetChoice, which is the. Which is the group that is the, like I said, the legal instrument for tech. so they're still in court fighting over that today. Walker's, law is in effect in Mississippi, and it is a standing law. this. This new legis. Piece of legislation is kind of filling some gaps. I guess the best way to put it is to fill in some gaps that we feel that may have been, not covered in Walker's legislation. And so we're optimistically, looking that that would get passed, and then we could maybe have a. But. But at the end of the day, the whole purpose is to protect kids, keep them from being contacted by adults who are trying to manipulate and harm them. At the end of the day, that's what we're about.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brian, we appreciate you coming on. We appreciate your courage to, after years, nearly four years, to continue fighting this battle, to keep children online, safe. And we appreciate you m. Coming on and continuing to work with our team on this.
Brian Montgomery speaks on the Kids Online Safety Act, which passed the Senate
>> Brian Montgomery: Yeah, I don't know if we have time, but I would like to speak to the national legislation we're working on, which is the Kids Online Safety Act. That is a piece of federal legislation that would do some similar things. But, that fight has been ongoing as well for multiple years. It passed the Senate with an overwhelming 91 to 3, majority in the U.S. senate, which, if you could. You know how many things have passed at that kind of a bipartisan support. And we can't get, our conservative, leaders in the House to bring it up for a vote. They propose their own version, which is missing a duty of care, which will do very little to protect kids, but it's good for the tech lobby. So that's. That's where what we're up against, you know, and as conservatives, I'm a conservative, I'm a Christian, proud of both of those. but whenever we get corrupted by money and politics, some people don't make the right decisions. So we're calling on our legislators and in the federal system to step in here and help us.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brian, I appreciate you coming on and thank you for your work, brother.
>> Brian Montgomery: Thank you. Appreciate y'. All.
Brian Montgomery's son Walker committed suicide because of a predator on Instagram
>> Walker Wildmon: All right, well, that's, Brian Montgomery, father to, Walker Montgomery, who tragically died via Suicide because of a predator on Instagram, threatening, and extorting him on Instagram. And Walker, committed suicide that same evening. That same night. And it's preventable. This kind of stuff is preventable. But we have these liability protections, these erroneous liability protections built in. These are 40 year old outdated laws that have been adopted to protect tech companies in the era of the Internet. And so it's the wild west out there. It's the wild west out there. And I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not a big fan of trial lawyers. I think maybe there's a time and a place for civil litigation. but with this instance folks, there is zero, absolutely zero accountability on the civil side of things for these companies. And they're making money. I have zero sympathy. They're making money hand over fist to the tune of billions of dollars, Tens of billions of dollars. And if you combine the entire sector, it's over a trillion dol annually that these guys are making. And they can't make sure that 50 year old sexual predators aren't chatting with 13 year old little girls. Are you kidding me? We have artificial intelligence. They've got us geofenced, tracked, tagged, built in the algorithm. They know everything we like to eat, they know where we like to shop, they know where we drive every day. We are in the, in this era of mass surveillance on the consumer and marketing side with all these sophisticated technologies. And you can't tell me we can't keep a 50 year old sexual predator, convicted pedophile from chatting online with a 13 year old girl. No, of course, of course you can institute security measures and safety measures. It's just the fact that it hasn't been a priority. But what we're doing with this legislation is we're making it a priority with these companies. We'll be back. Abortion moves fast. And right now in our communities, women are being pressured to make irreversible decisions. And in moments of fear and panic, they're told to act quickly or risk losing support. Many feel they have no other option. But because of you, they do. At preborn network clinics, a woman receives what the abortion industry will never offer. Compassion without pressure, clarity about the life growing inside her. Real support to welcome her baby and the hope of the gospel she's given a free ultrasound and space to breathe. And more than 80% of the time when a mother sees her baby on a preborn ultrasound, she chooses life. This March, preborn is believing to save 6,800 babies, but it will take 124 partners saying yes every day. Here's my ask. Pause your busy day just for a moment and become a yes right now. Just $28 provides one ultrasound. $140 helps five mothers, and every dollar helps save babies and share hope. To donate, dial £250 and say the keyword baby. That's £250 baby. Or visit preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr
>> : this is at the Core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.
You can always subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to the corps here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on this edition. Last segment now underway. Thank you for listening to the program. You can always subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts by just typing in the name of the show at the core and click the follow or the subscribe button and the latest episode will be ready to go in your library each and every day. And of course, we have the video up, @stream.afa.net and on all the major social platforms with the live video of the program up each and every day. Well, as you, you, those of you been listening to the program for last month or so, I talk almost every day at some degree about the Iran situation. It's just a lot at play there. And at this point it affects everyone's daily life from fuel prices on the rise to, economic instability coming from this through trade and just a lot of unknowns as we head into the midterm. So I think people need to be kept up to speed on what's going on. not to mention, all of us are interested in preventing the mistakes of the past and specifically getting, entangled in a decade long, entrenched war in the Middle east. Again, costing our country hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars. That's a mistake obviously that most of us should want to avoid again. So that's why this is an important topic. That's why I continue to m bring it up. And hopefully we're not going into something like that, the mistakes of the past. But if we don't talk about it, then before you know it, we'll sleepwalk right into it and then we'll turn around. Just like I said with the Ukraine situation, we'll turn around five years later and we're still in it. And we're still in it. Now we're hitting trillions of dollars and, American lives. And we just need to avoid that if at all possible.
One of the things that I've been frustrated with is inconsistent messaging on Iran
Well, Those of you who also listen to this program for a lengthier period of time. I'm talking years now. Know that I'm clearly a fan of President Trump. I mean, I don't know. I've only broken with President Trump maybe a handful of times. So this is not, known as the show that's anti Trump. Never. Trump criticized Trump at every turn. but on this Iran situation, I'm growing more skeptical as the days go by. And early on, I gave President Trump the benefit of the doubt. He does have a good track record on these type of decisions. He typically comes out, in the good. On a lot of these decisions, I think Venezuela went seamlessly smooth, almost unbelievably smooth, how Venezuela went. Now we've got our embassy back open in Venezuela. We're basically, assisting the government in running operations in Venezuela where oil is coming into the US Through Texas, through Corpus Christi. So things are going pretty well down there. And we've. We've kicked Hezbollah out, we've kicked China out of Venezuela. so President Trump has a pretty good track record on these types of deals. But this Iran thing just seems like a whole other animal. One of the things that I've been frustrated with is the inconsistent messaging. All right, remember we were told, in June of 25 that. That Iran's nuclear capabilities were, quote, obliterated. That was President Trump. President Trump said on countless occasions, including with. Including Hegseth and others, that Iran's nuclear capabilities have been, quote, unquote, obliterated. All right, now I get it. President Trump is. Is prone to hyperbole. He uses very large and bombastic language, and he uses very definite, terms that actually, in fact, aren't definite, but it is what it is. But telling us, the American people, that Iran's nuclear capabilities have been obliterated, that's a big deal. This is not like a campaign speech where you talk about how great the economy is, the best economy ever. The ramifications of that are small, like whether it's the best economy ever or ever, or whether there's been a, you know, a better economy in the past. Whatever. It's inconsequential in the grand scheme of life. But when you tell the American people that Iran's nuclear capabilities have been, quote, unquote obliterated, that carries with it a lot of weight. This is a very big deal. All right, that was in June of 25. Not set back, quote, unquote obliterated. Set back decades, we were told. But now we're in there. We're in Iran because we're supposed to be stopping their nuclear ambitions. But June of 25th was supposed to happen as well. So I haven't gotten a clear message on what happened here. Now, some of the administration officials have said, well, they were trying to resurrect their nuclear, program. Well, okay, so, so we set them back a decade through the June 2025 bombings. And they're trying to resurrect the program. Well, how long is that going to take? And then Wit cough said they could have a nuclear warhead on the tip of an ICBM in 10 days. So we set them back a decade. But you're telling me they can, they can go nuclear in 10 days. So, total mixed messaging here on what, what exactly is going on? Now, I can tell you what I think is going on. And what I think's going on is while the bombing in June might have been somewhat effective at damaging some of their nuclear sites, it probably didn't do a decade's worth of damage. Somebody's misleading us here. Nonetheless, let's fast forward to last week, March 23rd. This is going to be President Trump heading, out of Washington, D.C. to Texas and then later on to Mar a Lago. But this is President Trump telling us last week on the 23rd that essentially the Iran war is won. It's over. CLIP 2 We've won this.
>> Donald Trump: This war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news. I mean, the NewSong York Times. You read the NewSong York Times, it's like, we're not winning a war where they have no navy and they have no air force, and they have no nothing, and we literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country. They can't do a thing about it. For instance, if I want to take down that power plant, that very big, powerful power plant, they can't do a thing about it. It's like, take me. That's all they can do. And yet, if you read the NewSong York Times or if you watch ABC Fake News or NBC Fake News, you'd say it's a close battle. It's not a close battle.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, there's President Trump starting out the clip saying, hey, look, this is one. I mean, Iran's military capacity has been completely obliterated. this war is effectively won. Well, okay, that's good to hear. And I really don't doubt him. I do think Iran's military capacity has been severely. I mean, I think they have been decimated Militarily, they're still firing off maybe a dozen missiles a day, and I think that will continue to dwindle. So I think President Trump there is telling the truth in that. We've done severe damage to their military capacity. But yet the bombing continues. All right, the bombing continues, and we're surging assets over there. All right, so we're saying it's one, we're saying it's over, but we're surging thousands of troops and special forces over there, and we have been for the last two weeks. This is going to be. Clip three. This is President Trump also last week saying, you know, if these negotiations don't go well, we'll just keep bombing. We'll bomb them into oblivion. Clip 3 They're going to have to
>> Donald Trump: get themselves better public relations people. we have had very, very strong talks. We'll see where they lead. We have points of. Major points of agreement. I would say almost all points of agreement. perhaps that hasn't been conveyed. The communication, as you know, has been blown to pieces. They're unable to talk to each other. But we've had very strong talks.
President Trump says talks with Iran are going perfectly
Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner had them. they went, I would say, perfectly. I would say that if they carry through with that, it'll end that problem, that conflict, and I think it'll end it very, very substantially. we have very much in mind our partners in the Middle East. We've had great relationships with a lot of them, as you know, a lot of them were surprisingly hit. And, I was surprised to see it, and so was everyone else. But we have, they're very much in mind in the discussions. So the discussions took place yesterday. They went into yesterday evening. they want very much to make a deal. We'd like to make a deal, too. We're going to get together today, by probably phone, because it's very hard to find a country. It's very hard for them to get out, I guess. But, we'll at some point, point, very, very soon meet. We're doing a five day period. We'll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we're going to end up with, settling this. Otherwise we just keep bombing our little hearts out.
>> Walker Wildmon: So that was last week. Once again, both of those clips from the 23rd. Okay, both of those clips are on March 23rd. All right, that was a week ago. Trump, President Trump said there. Once again, I know he's prone to hyperbole. He does this every day of the week. So we're not surprised here, but we're talking about the gravity of this subject. You have to be very careful with your words. President Trump says the talks with Iran are going, quote, unquote, perfectly. He went on to say they've agreed to virtually every one of our 15 point plan. That was a week ago. Now, just this morning, President Trump puts out this post. The United States of America is in serious discussions with a new and more reasonable regime to end our military operations in Iran. Great progress has been made. If for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which is probably, which it probably will be, or if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately open for business, we will conclude our lovely, quote, unquote stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and carg islands and possibly all desalination plants which we have purposefully not yet touched. This will be in retribution for our many soldiers and others that Iran has butchered and killed over the old regime's 47 years reign of terror. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Every week President Trump claims we're close to Iran deal
All right, so here's where you're losing me. Okay? Every week for the last three weeks, by the way, the first week, President Trump said they're begging for a deal. They're at the table begging for a deal. That was week one. Every single week. And I've got all of this is documented. If you follow the White House, you see this. Every single week since this war started, week two, three and four, President Trump has claimed that we're, quote, unquote, close to a deal. We're, quote, unquote, negotiating. They're at the table begging for a deal. That every week, multiple times each week, President Trump states to the media that we're, quote, working on a deal with Iran. Simultaneously, simultaneously, dozens of military aircraft are leaving, leaving the US with boots with Marines, Special Forces, 82nd Airborne. We are surging thousands of soldiers to the Iranian region, to that area. Meanwhile, we're on the precipice of one of the greatest deals of the last decade according to President Trump. Let me play this last clip. This is Megyn Kelly, not necessarily a fan, but this proves a point here. Let's listen to clip 4.
>> Megyn Kelly: As this thing goes south, we need to know exactly who talked him into it and what representations were made to convince the President that this was a good idea. Who, who specifically? The names we know are Bibi Netanyahu, first and foremost, Lindsey Graham, equally to blame. We know from the Wall Street Journal report that Mark Thiessen of Fox News and General Jack Keane were major advocates of the war. Okay, like those guys. But they were. They appear to have been very wrong. that this was a good idea and we could keep going. Mark Levin chief among them. He says now, oh, I wasn't me every night. Every night on Fox News out there urging the President to do this. And then he had a meeting with him in June where we know. He denies it now, we know he pushed him for this. Ben. Ben Shapiro was out on his show every day pushing this war. Like, there were very prominent activists on the right who were practically frothing at the mouth for this thing. And now that it's not only going poorly, but the president's poll numbers are in a precipitous free fall, we'd love to see some accountability.
On the right, there's this immunity to blaming Trump
>> Walker Wildmon: Who? No, who promised him what the reason
>> Walker Wildmon: I played that clip is, folks, I'm so tired of this game of blame everybody but Trump. I'm so tired of it. Now, this is mainly a problem on the right. This is a problem in the conservative movement. The left has no problem blaming Trump, clearly. But on the right, there's this immunity to Trump that we can blame everybody around Trump, but we can never blame Trump himself. And I guess it's this fear of isolation, because the fact of the matter is, folks, if you do criticize Trump, this is how it works. You are iced out. I know it. I know it for a fact. If you criticize President Trump publicly, you are iced out of the White House. No White House visits, no White House meetings, no phone calls with the White House. Nada. And that trickles down to the agencies. So if you want to get anything done, don't criticize Trump. All right? That's. This is how this works. It's politics. But to. To combat what Megyn Kelly's getting at here and Tucker Carlsen doing the same thing. They want to blame everybody but President Trump. And I'm not saying that Megyn Kelly's wrong, like Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, blah, blah, blah. If you want to say they've been pushing us into war through their. Through their, you know, narrative building and whatever, okay? But the fact of the matter is, President Trump is a grown man. He's been doing this a long time. Time. Whatever decisions he's making, it's on him. You can't blame Mark Levan, Ben Shapiro, Pete Hegseth, and blame everybody around President Trump. But President Trump never has to square the blame. No, we don't do this with anybody else. President Trump's the commander in chief, the president of the United States. He makes the final decisions. If you don't like the decision that you can criticize President Trump. But we ought to be having these discussions, and we ought to be having them frankly, because American lives are on the line.
>> : The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_the_committee_-_walker.pdf
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https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_the_committee_-_walker.pdf
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