Walker Wildmon: Welcome to At the Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on this edition of At the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green, your hosts each week on the program. We usually rotate hosting the program each and every day here on American Family Radio.
Walker Wildmon: Let's turn our attention to Scripture. This week we've been in Acts chapter 22. Here we have the second recounting of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. I looked at different commentaries and historical perspectives regarding the length of time between each recounting of Paul's conversion. Earlier in the book of Acts, you have the first recounting, and then here we're in Acts chapter 22 with another recounting of the same conversion story. In Acts chapter 26, you have the story again.
Walker Wildmon: It's just amazing to me how God providentially authored the Bible through different writers, obviously inspired by the Holy Spirit, and how it all comes together perfectly, including multiple recountings of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. There's a lot of evidence backing up the authenticity of the Bible, the credibility of Scripture, and its inerrancy. This consistent recounting of God's story and God's intervention in Paul's life is just one of hundreds of reasons why the Bible can be trusted. Acts chapter 22, verses 6 through 11.
Walker Wildmon: We have the midterm election coming up just around the corner. We're coming up on the 30-day mark for the midterm election. If you're not registered, you should be registered. If you're not planning to vote, you should be planning to vote.
Walker Wildmon: I tell people, you know, there's this talking point out there that this is the most important election of my lifetime, or the most important election ever in U.S. history. That's somewhat hyperbolic, but all elections are important. We can't operate under this mindset that we have to artificially hype everything up to get people's attention, like they do with clickbait on the internet, like the news media does with headlines that are outlandish and half true or half false.
Walker Wildmon: The fact of the matter is that our diligence in being good stewards of what God has entrusted to us needs to be persistent. We need to be persistently good stewards of that which God has entrusted us with. We shouldn't have to come up with some novel selling point or sales pitch to get people to vote every election cycle. This is Civics 101. We ought to be doing this because it's the right thing to do.
Walker Wildmon: Whether this is the most important election of my lifetime doesn't matter. We ought to be voting every single opportunity we have, and we ought to be voting for people who share our values. That's what we should do in November, just like we should do every November, or every time there's an election in which we're able to engage.
Walker Wildmon: I do these interviews all the time, and there's this kind of mindset that everybody everywhere else in the world is just like America. Everywhere else in the world is just like America. We all operate under the same system of government, and that is just not true.
Walker Wildmon: The number of places, especially throughout human history, where the people get to choose their leaders is actually few and far between. Thankfully, with the coming of America 250 years ago, representative democracy has spread and is a little more frequent than it has been in previous eras of world history. Nonetheless, this liberty that we have in America to choose our leaders and vote our leaders in and out of office is a very special thing that we have and should not be taken for granted.
Walker Wildmon: That's why not voting is a shame. It's an utter shame that people just don't engage in civics. There's the age-old talking point: Politics is dirty. It's just a dirty business. We're not going to make any difference in Washington. They've been doing the same stuff for who knows how long. My voice doesn't matter, and elections are rigged. They can give you every reason under the sun why you shouldn't vote.
Walker Wildmon: But all it boils down to is excuse-making. It really boils down to wanting to deflect from the fact that they're being poor stewards of their citizenship. That's what all these excuses are ultimately about, because half of the excuses aren't true, and the other half aren't viable. They're just not viable excuses.
Walker Wildmon: I hope that gets you off the couch. I hope that gets you to the ballot box in November. We are living at this point in history because God has appointed us for this time in history, and we have the ability to affect change through civics, through government, and through elected leaders. We can do that to advance righteousness and combat evil.
Walker Wildmon: God himself instituted civil government, one of the three institutions he created and ordained: the family, the church, and civil government. Government should be used as a tool, as a force for good, to advance righteousness and punish evil throughout the world.
Walker Wildmon: To disengage from that is to disengage from one of God's three institutions that he ordained and created. There is no biblical case you can make that disengaging and leaving one of God's three institutions up to the pagans to run is in any way virtuous, right, or just.
Walker Wildmon: I have pretty much debunked every single reason why you should not vote in November. If you don't vote, it's completely on you. You cannot say you didn't hear the reasons why you should vote. So go over to iVotoguide.com, make sure you show up at the ballot box in November, and let's be a force for good when it comes to civic engagement and promoting righteousness in government.
Walker Wildmon: We're going to be going to Greece and Italy in the spring. We're going to be going to Greece and Italy on back-to-back trips. You can check out those itineraries, pricing, and registration at tours.afa.net. All of our 2027 trips are open for registration right now.
Walker Wildmon: One clip I want to play before I wrap up this segment is what Attorney General Todd Blanche is doing with these really unethical judges, in this case in Minnesota, where these judges are colluding with the media while they're also actively hearing cases on the very same subjects that they're talking to the media about. In the judicial realm and in judicial ethics, that's a big no-no. Here's Attorney General Todd Blanche talking about the action he's taking to combat these activist, out-of-control judges.
Todd Blanche: Today, we're also announcing that just a few minutes ago, the Department of Justice filed a judicial misconduct complaint with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals against all but one district court judge in the District of Minnesota for violating various judicial canons.
Todd Blanche: These judges talked to the media, or at least to The New York Times, about cases, some of which are ongoing, in a manner that the Department views as a clear violation of their ethical duties.
Todd Blanche: Specifically, the former chief judge spoke on the record to The New York Times about the immigration surge late last year and early this year in Minneapolis. His comments, along with the picture he appeared to pose for, were included in a September 17, 2026, article in The New York Times. According to that article, the judge sat for a 90-minute interview with The New York Times.
Todd Blanche: According to the article, six other members of Minnesota's federal bench also agreed to speak to The New York Times about last winter's efforts in Minneapolis. It included six of the seven judges who held active status in Minnesota, at least as of last winter.
Todd Blanche: During this 90-minute interview, the judge apparently told the reporter that the Trump administration has a disregard for court orders, and continued to give his view that this disregard clogged his courthouse to a near standstill, contributing to rising tensions in the protest-filled city of Minneapolis.
Todd Blanche: This judge also told The New York Times that his impression was that most, if not all, of the noncompliance was due to incompetence, not conscious defiance of orders, and that the lack of resources led to a result that should have been anticipated and that threatened the foundations of the legal system.
Walker Wildmon: There you have it. That's Attorney General Todd Blanche announcing that the DOJ has formally filed ethics complaints with the circuit court about district court judges who are coordinating with the media in regard to the very rulings and cases that they are hearing.
Walker Wildmon: This is a very rare occurrence, where you have judges on the record, not anonymously, talking to journalists about their reasoning and rationale when it comes to cases and rulings on which they have yet to even rule, cases for which they're actively writing opinions. That's a very concerning case.
Walker Wildmon: The reason I brought that up is obviously to highlight how these Democrat-appointed judges are acting, but also to point out the good job, the excellent job, that Todd Blanche is doing as attorney general. These are things that Pam Bondi never did. She should have done them. But between pursuing the abortion pill providers, Mifepristone, going after these judges, and defending the Trump administration's immigration enforcement agenda, all these different things that Todd Blanche is doing are phenomenal.
Walker Wildmon: I can't say enough good things about him and the fact that he's carrying out the very promises that were made during the last election cycle, which is a refreshing look and feel in our nation's capital.
Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to At the Core here on American Family Radio. We're glad to have you with us for the second segment. We also have a watch-live feature over at AFR.net. I want to introduce our next guest and talk about this phenomenal book that's out now. Dan Chung is with us. He's co-founder of Crossing Borders, a former Associated Press journalist in South Korea, and the author of A Hard Freedom: The Dreams and Trauma of North Korean Refugees. Hey, Dan, welcome to the program.
Dan Chung: Thanks for having me, Walker.
Walker Wildmon: Dan, obviously your story is extensive, and it would take us a long time to go through your whole story. But for the sake of our audience, and to set up a little bit of background on who you are and why you wrote the book, tell us about your career and a little bit about your backstory.
Dan Chung: I was born in South Korea, and I immigrated here to America legally in the '70s. I grew up in America, and it wasn't until after college that I learned about North Korea. I went to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and my parents didn't really talk about the country very much. I think they thought that was the old country and that we would leave the old problems back at home.
Dan Chung: My friend took a missions trip in 2001 to northeast China, and he told me these horrific stories about the North Korean people that he met there. I couldn't sleep after that. I knew there was something inside me that told me I had to do something.
Walker Wildmon: People who've lived in America their whole lives, and whose parents are natives here as well, don't get these perspectives unless they travel, read history books, or read news reports. They don't have the firsthand experience. The torture, abuse, and lack of human rights in North Korea are very sad and tragic.
Walker Wildmon: Tell us about how the government was set up and some of the history there. These human rights abuses have been in place virtually since the end of, and ultimately before, the war between North and South. It's a brutal place to live for multiple reasons. Tell us a little bit about how the country works, how the government works, and why things are so oppressive.
Dan Chung: There are no freedoms in North Korea. There is no freedom of speech, and there is no freedom of movement. Even to go to the next town over, you have to check in with a government office in your town and then check in with the town that you're going to.
Dan Chung: There is no freedom of thought. There is actually a government crime called wrong thinking, where you can be sent to a prison camp comparable to Nazi Germany's concentration camps.
Dan Chung: North Korea got this way in 1945, after the end of World War II. It was the Korean Peninsula before that, and then Soviet and U.S. powers divided the world into their spheres of influence. They put in a man named Kim Il-sung, who immediately started to persecute Christians.
Dan Chung: To this day, North Koreans cannot worship or even utter the name Jesus Christ. They tell their children from a very early age, "If you hear your parents say Jesus Christ or Bible, report them immediately." Their parents will then be sent to one of their worst prison camps, where very little is known because no one has escaped. We know a lot about the other prison camps.
Dan Chung: According to many organizations, North Korea is the number one persecuting nation of Christians in the world. Parents can't even share their faith with their own children without fear of being tortured for the rest of their lives.
Walker Wildmon: At what point in your adulthood or early career did you decide to start working on this issue of North Korea and refugees?
Dan Chung: I was in my early 20s when my friend Mike went over to China on his missions trip. In 2003, two years later, he moved out there permanently. We knew that we had to do something, and Mike took the very courageous step of actually going out and doing something about it.
Walker Wildmon: What is the ideology, religion, or lack thereof that drives this? Evil exists in the world, and that's very evident before our eyes. But what's the driving force that allows a regime to be so consistently repressive? They are unendingly oppressive, day in and day out, every year. What's driving the regime?
Dan Chung: It's like a cult. From the very beginning, the founder, Kim Il-sung, named himself a god, and all of the propaganda behind that supported the claim. When he died, they named him eternal president of North Korea, even though he died in 1994. His son, and then his grandson, Kim Jong-un, took on that same mythical moniker.
Dan Chung: Every week, you have to go to a sort of confession session. Every neighborhood is organized into these small groups. This is not like a church. The whole country has to show up in these groups and confess any errant thoughts that they've had against the government. It sounds like the worst small group ever.
Dan Chung: You have to keep pristine pictures of the three leaders in your homes. If there's any dust on them, you'll be punished. In a fire, if you don't go back to save those pictures, you will be imprisoned. It is complete mind control that they have over their people.
Dan Chung: No outside media was ever allowed into the country, although starting with the famine in the 1990s, outside media started to leak in. Until the late 1990s, the country could say anything, and without any contrary information, people believed it. To this day, people still believe it.
Dan Chung: There are legendary stories, like Kim Jong-il, the second leader, scoring eight holes-in-one on his first round of golf. He found a unicorn lair. They literally claim that Kim Jong-il invented the cheeseburger. I don't know where they're getting this.
Walker Wildmon: When you have that kind of control, I guess you can just make up whatever you want.
Walker Wildmon: In your book, you talk about the role of faith through the healing and recovery process of these refugees, which is a critical component for true healing. Talk about that and how you address it in your book.
Dan Chung: Think about these men I've been talking about. They are the opposite of Jesus Christ. The supposed deities offer no grace. If you mess up, not only will you be punished, but every descendant that you ever have after you will be punished for that. There is zero grace, and there's no way for you to make up for your sins.
Dan Chung: Then you contrast that with Jesus Christ, the man who died for them and gave himself up for them. After escaping North Korea, you have to go into China, which is where we operate today, to even hear the name Jesus Christ for the most part.
Dan Chung: You would think that these people would be done with organized religion. I certainly might be. Yet they hear about this man who gave himself for them, and many of them welcome this message with open arms.
Walker Wildmon: We're talking to Dan Chung, executive director of Crossing Borders and author of A Hard Freedom: The Dreams and Trauma of North Korean Refugees. You mentioned operating out of China. Does the Chinese government know that you operate there? Is this an acceptable thing, or do you have to be covert? I know in China you have to be kind of covert when it comes to the church.
Dan Chung: In China, we still operate. Unfortunately, I cannot share publicly how we operate, but we do operate, and we have to do so very carefully.
Dan Chung: It's not just the Kim leadership that has become paranoid and self-absorbed because of the fear of losing power. When you reach that level of control over a government, you become paranoid. Any dictator becomes this way. Xi Jinping in China is starting to become this way.
Dan Chung: For example, many churches have had to take down their crosses and put his picture in their place. It seems like it's starting all over again in China. It's like the same song, but in a different key.
Walker Wildmon: This is why we have to be careful. The United States has to be careful about whom we partner with, whom we condone, and how we address these issues. I understand that, in a diplomatic and pragmatic sense, we have to be able to talk to every country, even ones we don't agree with or like.
Walker Wildmon: But the ideologies and belief systems, or the lack thereof, in China and North Korea and other places are horrific on every level from a human rights standpoint. We don't need to ignore that under the guise of working together or reaching consensus.
Walker Wildmon: Is there any type of revolutionary movement in North Korea? Is there ever any possibility of overthrowing the government, or is that just a lost cause from a practical standpoint?
Dan Chung: God can do anything. I don't see any way that people could revolt. If you remember the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, they called it the Facebook revolution, where people could quickly organize protests on Facebook and then quickly leave.
Dan Chung: In North Korea, you can't do that. Everything is being monitored. They don't really have the internet as we know it today. There's no way for people who have these feelings or thoughts to revolt, or even to organize in any meaningful way.
Dan Chung: I think the most underground, subversive thing that they can do is worship Jesus Christ. That is actually happening en masse now. According to Voice of the Martyrs, the church is exploding in North Korea. I don't know how they're doing it, frankly, but it's hard to get rid of us pesky little Christians.
Walker Wildmon: You're exactly right. God, through the Holy Spirit, does miraculous things. Ultimately, from a spiritual sense, the Lord can't be bound. Obviously, humans can put up barriers and make it more physically difficult for believers, but God can move how he wants to move. It sounds like that's what he's doing in North Korea.
Walker Wildmon: Give us some tips on what Christians in America, and in the West more broadly, can do, pray, or partner with. I know your organization does a lot of good work. What can we do to pray for and support these Christians and persecuted individuals in North Korea?
Dan Chung: I think the best way is to pray. That sounds very trite, like a Christmas card, but it is absolutely true. We have been praying for North Korea. Christians in South Korea have been praying for North Korea for a very long time. Right now, we are seeing the Holy Spirit move in his wisdom. To pray would be the best thing you can do.
Dan Chung: You can also support the work of helping refugees who have been damaged by this regime find the love of Jesus Christ. You can find us on our website, crossingbordersnk.org.
Walker Wildmon: We've been talking to Dan Chung, co-founder of Crossing Borders. He's also a former journalist and has written a book called A Hard Freedom: The Dreams and Trauma of North Korean Refugees. That website is crossingbordersnk.org. There you can find the book and all the information about the organization. Dan, God bless you, brother. I appreciate you writing this book, putting forth the time on it, and covering this very hard topic.
Dan Chung: Thanks, Walker. Thanks for having me on.
Walker Wildmon: That's Dan Chung, executive director of Crossing Borders. We'll link to his book in the show notes. It was an excellent interview and a story that those of us here in America need to hear. We need to know what people, and specifically Christians, are dealing with in these very repressed countries all around the world.
Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to At the Core here on American Family Radio. Walker Wildmon here with you on this last segment. Chris Woodward is with us. Chris, welcome back.
Chris Woodward: Thank you very much.
Walker Wildmon: Chris, before we jump into the news of the week, talk a little bit about economics and what's going on.
Chris Woodward: I would like to call this discussion "Great Numbers."
Walker Wildmon: Okay, numbers. Great numbers.
Chris Woodward: The third estimate on second-quarter GDP was well above expectations, coming in at 2.2%. MarketWatch thought we would see somewhere around 1.5%, which is an okay number. But the fact that we broke 2%, and it's the third estimate, is great.
Chris Woodward: For people who don't follow GDP, the bigger the number, the better the economy. When you have a better-than-expected number, that's great. To have a number well above what you were thought or said to be getting is fantastic.
Chris Woodward: Another great number was the ADP National Employment Report. We got 90,000, again another better-than-expected number. MarketWatch thought we would see somewhere in the neighborhood of 68,000. National employment is looking good from the payroll processor known as ADP.
Chris Woodward: The other number would be consumer confidence. For September, it came in at 81.9. That was below expectations of 89. Within that range, it's not a terrible number. People are still concerned about things like rising cost of living, fuel prices, and geopolitical turmoil. You have Democrats and Republicans mad at their own party. All that kind of stuff is wreaking havoc with some consumer numbers.
Chris Woodward: One of the things that some news outlets and their talking-head experts talked about was anxiety over job security. I don't buy that, based on the fact that layoffs have been really low. The Associated Press, of all news outlets, has talked about how people feel good in this job market. If the AP says something positive about the job market during a Republican presidency, take it as fact.
Walker Wildmon: I'm not sure the consumer confidence data is even reliable anymore. Here's why I say that. The media bent, obviously, and the saying "If it bleeds, it leads" is in fact true. The headlines that are the most apocalyptic and provocative usually perform the best, whether they're true or false. It doesn't really matter.
Walker Wildmon: This is a very negative media cycle that we've been in for the past 10 years or so. Some people are always going to find something to complain about: affordability, a $20 burrito, $4 gas, or whatever. There's always something to moan and groan about. I think that affects the consumer confidence number. I just don't know how reliable or how true it is, or whether you really can move the needle on it.
Chris Woodward: I totally agree with you there. I think one reason why people are the way they are is because generally speaking, from about 10 in the morning up until midafternoon, cable TV brings on people who are paid to like something or hate something. They bicker back and forth, and that's what they use to engage with people and get them hooked.
Chris Woodward: Then they put on a big, "News alert: Consumer confidence is below expectations," and all these kinds of things. Maybe inadvertently, it causes people to have a negative outlook on things.
Walker Wildmon: I've read some of that. Don't get me wrong, not everything is rainbows and butterflies. It hasn't been, and it never will be, except in heaven. But there is some economic data that is rather positive for the administration and Republicans that they need to talk about.
Walker Wildmon: The first thing I saw this week was the growth in wealth with the bottom 50%. The bottom 50% of income earners have more than doubled their wealth, or have grown their wealth by more than 100%, since 2020. When you get up to the 25th percentile or the top 1%, the growth is drastically less, more like 30% to 50% instead of doubling.
Walker Wildmon: Basically, the middle to lower class has actually been gaining wealth. A lot of it is assets, some of it may be home values, and some of it may be retirement accounts, but there has been substantial wealth growth over the last five to seven years that shouldn't be discounted.
Walker Wildmon: Real wage growth under this Trump administration over the last 18 to 24 months has also been substantial, with wage growth outpacing inflation. There are some good numbers out there. You just have to cherry-pick them to find them.
Chris Woodward: How you explained it is what the Trump administration, now that it's on a nationwide economic tour to get out the vote ahead of the midterms, needs to tell people. It is great that you did things like no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, but the bulk of the American workforce is not tipped and does not get overtime because they're salaried.
Chris Woodward: Those talking points, while factually accurate, don't impact those people. If you're going to brag about no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, you need to segue and brag about the things you've done for other people.
Walker Wildmon: That's exactly right. I'm still a believer in the fact that, number one, we are largely past the Iran conflict. That doesn't mean we won't bomb every once in a while or get into a spat, but I think we're largely past the Iran conflict.
Walker Wildmon: I think energy prices are only set to improve from here. We've got to work out this diesel issue, and Russia has to open up its exports. But basically, my point is that we've been through what I believe is the hardest part of this Iran conflict, inflation, energy prices, and so forth.
Walker Wildmon: I think the last two years of the Trump administration are going to move in a really good direction economically, setting up the 2028 election cycle for whoever it may be, Vance or Rubio, to be able to talk about these economic gains. But we're talking about 2027 here, and voters may not factor that in when they go to the ballot box.
Chris Woodward: I've talked to a couple of people about what to do about diesel. I haven't done the story yet, but I've been trying to put one together. Some of the people I've talked to have said that, at minimum, it is a refinery issue. We need to have more refineries to handle and process things like diesel fuel.
Chris Woodward: If Trump came out tomorrow and announced a big refinery being built somewhere in the United States, similar to the steel announcement this week in the Midwest, that wouldn't solve tomorrow's problems. It wouldn't bring prices down. But having more things like that would prevent the issues we've gone through over the last six months.
Chris Woodward: If there should be geopolitical tension somewhere, and in a lost and dying world like the one we live in, you're always going to have conflict between people groups. We need to put those things in place. We don't just need to say we're going to do some stuff. We need to build those kinds of things to help a president, whoever it may be five or ten years from now.
Walker Wildmon: We're operating under what I believe is the new normal: increased instability in the global markets and on the geopolitical side of things. The Venezuela situation that we quickly took care of, the Iran conflict, and the Russia-Ukraine war are all examples. I think these things are baked in.
Walker Wildmon: Unfortunately, it seems as though there is always going to be some conflict going on that distracts people and distracts the markets. If we can show economic resilience, that's a good sign for the future, because we can weather any storm.
Walker Wildmon: When you look at what we've done over the last two years under the Trump administration from a geopolitical and foreign policy standpoint, this is big stuff. We went into Venezuela in a three-hour window, arrested the dictator, extradited him to New York, and ensured that the vice president peacefully took over. Now we've got oil assets on the ground in Venezuela shipping oil into Houston, Texas. That's a big deal. We've basically got our own people running the Venezuelan government now.
Walker Wildmon: With Iran, they've been obliterated militarily. Are they still a problem? Absolutely. Are they still a threat? Absolutely. But largely speaking, they've been neutered from any ability to project power.
Walker Wildmon: We've done all of this with no major apocalyptic fallout that all the analysts would have predicted. They said that if you went to war with Iran, we would see $17-a-gallon gasoline, the world would burn, and we would have Great Depression 2.0. That just hasn't happened yet. GDP numbers are now being revised upward.
Walker Wildmon: Chris, this headline came out today: U.S. jobless claims fall to the lowe
Walker Wildmon: Welcome to At the Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on this edition of At the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green, your hosts each week on the program. We usually rotate hosting the program each and every day here on American Family Radio.
Walker Wildmon: Let's turn our attention to Scripture. This week we've been in Acts chapter 22. Here we have the second recounting of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. I looked at different commentaries and historical perspectives regarding the length of time between each recounting of Paul's conversion. Earlier in the book of Acts, you have the first recounting, and then here we're in Acts chapter 22 with another recounting of the same conversion story. In Acts chapter 26, you have the story again.
Walker Wildmon: It's just amazing to me how God providentially authored the Bible through different writers, obviously inspired by the Holy Spirit, and how it all comes together perfectly, including multiple recountings of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. There's a lot of evidence backing up the authenticity of the Bible, the credibility of Scripture, and its inerrancy. This consistent recounting of God's story and God's intervention in Paul's life is just one of hundreds of reasons why the Bible can be trusted. Acts chapter 22, verses 6 through 11.
Walker Wildmon: We have the midterm election coming up just around the corner. We're coming up on the 30-day mark for the midterm election. If you're not registered, you should be registered. If you're not planning to vote, you should be planning to vote.
Walker Wildmon: I tell people, you know, there's this talking point out there that this is the most important election of my lifetime, or the most important election ever in U.S. history. That's somewhat hyperbolic, but all elections are important. We can't operate under this mindset that we have to artificially hype everything up to get people's attention, like they do with clickbait on the internet, like the news media does with headlines that are outlandish and half true or half false.
Walker Wildmon: The fact of the matter is that our diligence in being good stewards of what God has entrusted to us needs to be persistent. We need to be persistently good stewards of that which God has entrusted us with. We shouldn't have to come up with some novel selling point or sales pitch to get people to vote every election cycle. This is Civics 101. We ought to be doing this because it's the right thing to do.
Walker Wildmon: Whether this is the most important election of my lifetime doesn't matter. We ought to be voting every single opportunity we have, and we ought to be voting for people who share our values. That's what we should do in November, just like we should do every November, or every time there's an election in which we're able to engage.
Walker Wildmon: I do these interviews all the time, and there's this kind of mindset that everybody everywhere else in the world is just like America. Everywhere else in the world is just like America. We all operate under the same system of government, and that is just not true.
Walker Wildmon: The number of places, especially throughout human history, where the people get to choose their leaders is actually few and far between. Thankfully, with the coming of America 250 years ago, representative democracy has spread and is a little more frequent than it has been in previous eras of world history. Nonetheless, this liberty that we have in America to choose our leaders and vote our leaders in and out of office is a very special thing that we have and should not be taken for granted.
Walker Wildmon: That's why not voting is a shame. It's an utter shame that people just don't engage in civics. There's the age-old talking point: Politics is dirty. It's just a dirty business. We're not going to make any difference in Washington. They've been doing the same stuff for who knows how long. My voice doesn't matter, and elections are rigged. They can give you every reason under the sun why you shouldn't vote.
Walker Wildmon: But all it boils down to is excuse-making. It really boils down to wanting to deflect from the fact that they're being poor stewards of their citizenship. That's what all these excuses are ultimately about, because half of the excuses aren't true, and the other half aren't viable. They're just not viable excuses.
Walker Wildmon: I hope that gets you off the couch. I hope that gets you to the ballot box in November. We are living at this point in history because God has appointed us for this time in history, and we have the ability to affect change through civics, through government, and through elected leaders. We can do that to advance righteousness and combat evil.
Walker Wildmon: God himself instituted civil government, one of the three institutions he created and ordained: the family, the church, and civil government. Government should be used as a tool, as a force for good, to advance righteousness and punish evil throughout the world.
Walker Wildmon: To disengage from that is to disengage from one of God's three institutions that he ordained and created. There is no biblical case you can make that disengaging and leaving one of God's three institutions up to the pagans to run is in any way virtuous, right, or just.
Walker Wildmon: I have pretty much debunked every single reason why you should not vote in November. If you don't vote, it's completely on you. You cannot say you didn't hear the reasons why you should vote. So go over to iVotoguide.com, make sure you show up at the ballot box in November, and let's be a force for good when it comes to civic engagement and promoting righteousness in government.
Walker Wildmon: We're going to be going to Greece and Italy in the spring. We're going to be going to Greece and Italy on back-to-back trips. You can check out those itineraries, pricing, and registration at tours.afa.net. All of our 2027 trips are open for registration right now.
Walker Wildmon: One clip I want to play before I wrap up this segment is what Attorney General Todd Blanche is doing with these really unethical judges, in this case in Minnesota, where these judges are colluding with the media while they're also actively hearing cases on the very same subjects that they're talking to the media about. In the judicial realm and in judicial ethics, that's a big no-no. Here's Attorney General Todd Blanche talking about the action he's taking to combat these activist, out-of-control judges.
Todd Blanche: Today, we're also announcing that just a few minutes ago, the Department of Justice filed a judicial misconduct complaint with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals against all but one district court judge in the District of Minnesota for violating various judicial canons.
Todd Blanche: These judges talked to the media, or at least to The New York Times, about cases, some of which are ongoing, in a manner that the Department views as a clear violation of their ethical duties.
Todd Blanche: Specifically, the former chief judge spoke on the record to The New York Times about the immigration surge late last year and early this year in Minneapolis. His comments, along with the picture he appeared to pose for, were included in a September 17, 2026, article in The New York Times. According to that article, the judge sat for a 90-minute interview with The New York Times.
Todd Blanche: According to the article, six other members of Minnesota's federal bench also agreed to speak to The New York Times about last winter's efforts in Minneapolis. It included six of the seven judges who held active status in Minnesota, at least as of last winter.
Todd Blanche: During this 90-minute interview, the judge apparently told the reporter that the Trump administration has a disregard for court orders, and continued to give his view that this disregard clogged his courthouse to a near standstill, contributing to rising tensions in the protest-filled city of Minneapolis.
Todd Blanche: This judge also told The New York Times that his impression was that most, if not all, of the noncompliance was due to incompetence, not conscious defiance of orders, and that the lack of resources led to a result that should have been anticipated and that threatened the foundations of the legal system.
Walker Wildmon: There you have it. That's Attorney General Todd Blanche announcing that the DOJ has formally filed ethics complaints with the circuit court about district court judges who are coordinating with the media in regard to the very rulings and cases that they are hearing.
Walker Wildmon: This is a very rare occurrence, where you have judges on the record, not anonymously, talking to journalists about their reasoning and rationale when it comes to cases and rulings on which they have yet to even rule, cases for which they're actively writing opinions. That's a very concerning case.
Walker Wildmon: The reason I brought that up is obviously to highlight how these Democrat-appointed judges are acting, but also to point out the good job, the excellent job, that Todd Blanche is doing as attorney general. These are things that Pam Bondi never did. She should have done them. But between pursuing the abortion pill providers, Mifepristone, going after these judges, and defending the Trump administration's immigration enforcement agenda, all these different things that Todd Blanche is doing are phenomenal.
Walker Wildmon: I can't say enough good things about him and the fact that he's carrying out the very promises that were made during the last election cycle, which is a refreshing look and feel in our nation's capital.
Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to At the Core here on American Family Radio. We're glad to have you with us for the second segment. We also have a watch-live feature over at AFR.net. I want to introduce our next guest and talk about this phenomenal book that's out now. Dan Chung is with us. He's co-founder of Crossing Borders, a former Associated Press journalist in South Korea, and the author of A Hard Freedom: The Dreams and Trauma of North Korean Refugees. Hey, Dan, welcome to the program.
Dan Chung: Thanks for having me, Walker.
Walker Wildmon: Dan, obviously your story is extensive, and it would take us a long time to go through your whole story. But for the sake of our audience, and to set up a little bit of background on who you are and why you wrote the book, tell us about your career and a little bit about your backstory.
Dan Chung: I was born in South Korea, and I immigrated here to America legally in the '70s. I grew up in America, and it wasn't until after college that I learned about North Korea. I went to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and my parents didn't really talk about the country very much. I think they thought that was the old country and that we would leave the old problems back at home.
Dan Chung: My friend took a missions trip in 2001 to northeast China, and he told me these horrific stories about the North Korean people that he met there. I couldn't sleep after that. I knew there was something inside me that told me I had to do something.
Walker Wildmon: People who've lived in America their whole lives, and whose parents are natives here as well, don't get these perspectives unless they travel, read history books, or read news reports. They don't have the firsthand experience. The torture, abuse, and lack of human rights in North Korea are very sad and tragic.
Walker Wildmon: Tell us about how the government was set up and some of the history there. These human rights abuses have been in place virtually since the end of, and ultimately before, the war between North and South. It's a brutal place to live for multiple reasons. Tell us a little bit about how the country works, how the government works, and why things are so oppressive.
Dan Chung: There are no freedoms in North Korea. There is no freedom of speech, and there is no freedom of movement. Even to go to the next town over, you have to check in with a government office in your town and then check in with the town that you're going to.
Dan Chung: There is no freedom of thought. There is actually a government crime called wrong thinking, where you can be sent to a prison camp comparable to Nazi Germany's concentration camps.
Dan Chung: North Korea got this way in 1945, after the end of World War II. It was the Korean Peninsula before that, and then Soviet and U.S. powers divided the world into their spheres of influence. They put in a man named Kim Il-sung, who immediately started to persecute Christians.
Dan Chung: To this day, North Koreans cannot worship or even utter the name Jesus Christ. They tell their children from a very early age, "If you hear your parents say Jesus Christ or Bible, report them immediately." Their parents will then be sent to one of their worst prison camps, where very little is known because no one has escaped. We know a lot about the other prison camps.
Dan Chung: According to many organizations, North Korea is the number one persecuting nation of Christians in the world. Parents can't even share their faith with their own children without fear of being tortured for the rest of their lives.
Walker Wildmon: At what point in your adulthood or early career did you decide to start working on this issue of North Korea and refugees?
Dan Chung: I was in my early 20s when my friend Mike went over to China on his missions trip. In 2003, two years later, he moved out there permanently. We knew that we had to do something, and Mike took the very courageous step of actually going out and doing something about it.
Walker Wildmon: What is the ideology, religion, or lack thereof that drives this? Evil exists in the world, and that's very evident before our eyes. But what's the driving force that allows a regime to be so consistently repressive? They are unendingly oppressive, day in and day out, every year. What's driving the regime?
Dan Chung: It's like a cult. From the very beginning, the founder, Kim Il-sung, named himself a god, and all of the propaganda behind that supported the claim. When he died, they named him eternal president of North Korea, even though he died in 1994. His son, and then his grandson, Kim Jong-un, took on that same mythical moniker.
Dan Chung: Every week, you have to go to a sort of confession session. Every neighborhood is organized into these small groups. This is not like a church. The whole country has to show up in these groups and confess any errant thoughts that they've had against the government. It sounds like the worst small group ever.
Dan Chung: You have to keep pristine pictures of the three leaders in your homes. If there's any dust on them, you'll be punished. In a fire, if you don't go back to save those pictures, you will be imprisoned. It is complete mind control that they have over their people.
Dan Chung: No outside media was ever allowed into the country, although starting with the famine in the 1990s, outside media started to leak in. Until the late 1990s, the country could say anything, and without any contrary information, people believed it. To this day, people still believe it.
Dan Chung: There are legendary stories, like Kim Jong-il, the second leader, scoring eight holes-in-one on his first round of golf. He found a unicorn lair. They literally claim that Kim Jong-il invented the cheeseburger. I don't know where they're getting this.
Walker Wildmon: When you have that kind of control, I guess you can just make up whatever you want.
Walker Wildmon: In your book, you talk about the role of faith through the healing and recovery process of these refugees, which is a critical component for true healing. Talk about that and how you address it in your book.
Dan Chung: Think about these men I've been talking about. They are the opposite of Jesus Christ. The supposed deities offer no grace. If you mess up, not only will you be punished, but every descendant that you ever have after you will be punished for that. There is zero grace, and there's no way for you to make up for your sins.
Dan Chung: Then you contrast that with Jesus Christ, the man who died for them and gave himself up for them. After escaping North Korea, you have to go into China, which is where we operate today, to even hear the name Jesus Christ for the most part.
Dan Chung: You would think that these people would be done with organized religion. I certainly might be. Yet they hear about this man who gave himself for them, and many of them welcome this message with open arms.
Walker Wildmon: We're talking to Dan Chung, executive director of Crossing Borders and author of A Hard Freedom: The Dreams and Trauma of North Korean Refugees. You mentioned operating out of China. Does the Chinese government know that you operate there? Is this an acceptable thing, or do you have to be covert? I know in China you have to be kind of covert when it comes to the church.
Dan Chung: In China, we still operate. Unfortunately, I cannot share publicly how we operate, but we do operate, and we have to do so very carefully.
Dan Chung: It's not just the Kim leadership that has become paranoid and self-absorbed because of the fear of losing power. When you reach that level of control over a government, you become paranoid. Any dictator becomes this way. Xi Jinping in China is starting to become this way.
Dan Chung: For example, many churches have had to take down their crosses and put his picture in their place. It seems like it's starting all over again in China. It's like the same song, but in a different key.
Walker Wildmon: This is why we have to be careful. The United States has to be careful about whom we partner with, whom we condone, and how we address these issues. I understand that, in a diplomatic and pragmatic sense, we have to be able to talk to every country, even ones we don't agree with or like.
Walker Wildmon: But the ideologies and belief systems, or the lack thereof, in China and North Korea and other places are horrific on every level from a human rights standpoint. We don't need to ignore that under the guise of working together or reaching consensus.
Walker Wildmon: Is there any type of revolutionary movement in North Korea? Is there ever any possibility of overthrowing the government, or is that just a lost cause from a practical standpoint?
Dan Chung: God can do anything. I don't see any way that people could revolt. If you remember the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, they called it the Facebook revolution, where people could quickly organize protests on Facebook and then quickly leave.
Dan Chung: In North Korea, you can't do that. Everything is being monitored. They don't really have the internet as we know it today. There's no way for people who have these feelings or thoughts to revolt, or even to organize in any meaningful way.
Dan Chung: I think the most underground, subversive thing that they can do is worship Jesus Christ. That is actually happening en masse now. According to Voice of the Martyrs, the church is exploding in North Korea. I don't know how they're doing it, frankly, but it's hard to get rid of us pesky little Christians.
Walker Wildmon: You're exactly right. God, through the Holy Spirit, does miraculous things. Ultimately, from a spiritual sense, the Lord can't be bound. Obviously, humans can put up barriers and make it more physically difficult for believers, but God can move how he wants to move. It sounds like that's what he's doing in North Korea.
Walker Wildmon: Give us some tips on what Christians in America, and in the West more broadly, can do, pray, or partner with. I know your organization does a lot of good work. What can we do to pray for and support these Christians and persecuted individuals in North Korea?
Dan Chung: I think the best way is to pray. That sounds very trite, like a Christmas card, but it is absolutely true. We have been praying for North Korea. Christians in South Korea have been praying for North Korea for a very long time. Right now, we are seeing the Holy Spirit move in his wisdom. To pray would be the best thing you can do.
Dan Chung: You can also support the work of helping refugees who have been damaged by this regime find the love of Jesus Christ. You can find us on our website, crossingbordersnk.org.
Walker Wildmon: We've been talking to Dan Chung, co-founder of Crossing Borders. He's also a former journalist and has written a book called A Hard Freedom: The Dreams and Trauma of North Korean Refugees. That website is crossingbordersnk.org. There you can find the book and all the information about the organization. Dan, God bless you, brother. I appreciate you writing this book, putting forth the time on it, and covering this very hard topic.
Dan Chung: Thanks, Walker. Thanks for having me on.
Walker Wildmon: That's Dan Chung, executive director of Crossing Borders. We'll link to his book in the show notes. It was an excellent interview and a story that those of us here in America need to hear. We need to know what people, and specifically Christians, are dealing with in these very repressed countries all around the world.
Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to At the Core here on American Family Radio. Walker Wildmon here with you on this last segment. Chris Woodward is with us. Chris, welcome back.
Chris Woodward: Thank you very much.
Walker Wildmon: Chris, before we jump into the news of the week, talk a little bit about economics and what's going on.
Chris Woodward: I would like to call this discussion "Great Numbers."
Walker Wildmon: Okay, numbers. Great numbers.
Chris Woodward: The third estimate on second-quarter GDP was well above expectations, coming in at 2.2%. MarketWatch thought we would see somewhere around 1.5%, which is an okay number. But the fact that we broke 2%, and it's the third estimate, is great.
Chris Woodward: For people who don't follow GDP, the bigger the number, the better the economy. When you have a better-than-expected number, that's great. To have a number well above what you were thought or said to be getting is fantastic.
Chris Woodward: Another great number was the ADP National Employment Report. We got 90,000, again another better-than-expected number. MarketWatch thought we would see somewhere in the neighborhood of 68,000. National employment is looking good from the payroll processor known as ADP.
Chris Woodward: The other number would be consumer confidence. For September, it came in at 81.9. That was below expectations of 89. Within that range, it's not a terrible number. People are still concerned about things like rising cost of living, fuel prices, and geopolitical turmoil. You have Democrats and Republicans mad at their own party. All that kind of stuff is wreaking havoc with some consumer numbers.
Chris Woodward: One of the things that some news outlets and their talking-head experts talked about was anxiety over job security. I don't buy that, based on the fact that layoffs have been really low. The Associated Press, of all news outlets, has talked about how people feel good in this job market. If the AP says something positive about the job market during a Republican presidency, take it as fact.
Walker Wildmon: I'm not sure the consumer confidence data is even reliable anymore. Here's why I say that. The media bent, obviously, and the saying "If it bleeds, it leads" is in fact true. The headlines that are the most apocalyptic and provocative usually perform the best, whether they're true or false. It doesn't really matter.
Walker Wildmon: This is a very negative media cycle that we've been in for the past 10 years or so. Some people are always going to find something to complain about: affordability, a $20 burrito, $4 gas, or whatever. There's always something to moan and groan about. I think that affects the consumer confidence number. I just don't know how reliable or how true it is, or whether you really can move the needle on it.
Chris Woodward: I totally agree with you there. I think one reason why people are the way they are is because generally speaking, from about 10 in the morning up until midafternoon, cable TV brings on people who are paid to like something or hate something. They bicker back and forth, and that's what they use to engage with people and get them hooked.
Chris Woodward: Then they put on a big, "News alert: Consumer confidence is below expectations," and all these kinds of things. Maybe inadvertently, it causes people to have a negative outlook on things.
Walker Wildmon: I've read some of that. Don't get me wrong, not everything is rainbows and butterflies. It hasn't been, and it never will be, except in heaven. But there is some economic data that is rather positive for the administration and Republicans that they need to talk about.
Walker Wildmon: The first thing I saw this week was the growth in wealth with the bottom 50%. The bottom 50% of income earners have more than doubled their wealth, or have grown their wealth by more than 100%, since 2020. When you get up to the 25th percentile or the top 1%, the growth is drastically less, more like 30% to 50% instead of doubling.
Walker Wildmon: Basically, the middle to lower class has actually been gaining wealth. A lot of it is assets, some of it may be home values, and some of it may be retirement accounts, but there has been substantial wealth growth over the last five to seven years that shouldn't be discounted.
Walker Wildmon: Real wage growth under this Trump administration over the last 18 to 24 months has also been substantial, with wage growth outpacing inflation. There are some good numbers out there. You just have to cherry-pick them to find them.
Chris Woodward: How you explained it is what the Trump administration, now that it's on a nationwide economic tour to get out the vote ahead of the midterms, needs to tell people. It is great that you did things like no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, but the bulk of the American workforce is not tipped and does not get overtime because they're salaried.
Chris Woodward: Those talking points, while factually accurate, don't impact those people. If you're going to brag about no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, you need to segue and brag about the things you've done for other people.
Walker Wildmon: That's exactly right. I'm still a believer in the fact that, number one, we are largely past the Iran conflict. That doesn't mean we won't bomb every once in a while or get into a spat, but I think we're largely past the Iran conflict.
Walker Wildmon: I think energy prices are only set to improve from here. We've got to work out this diesel issue, and Russia has to open up its exports. But basically, my point is that we've been through what I believe is the hardest part of this Iran conflict, inflation, energy prices, and so forth.
Walker Wildmon: I think the last two years of the Trump administration are going to move in a really good direction economically, setting up the 2028 election cycle for whoever it may be, Vance or Rubio, to be able to talk about these economic gains. But we're talking about 2027 here, and voters may not factor that in when they go to the ballot box.
Chris Woodward: I've talked to a couple of people about what to do about diesel. I haven't done the story yet, but I've been trying to put one together. Some of the people I've talked to have said that, at minimum, it is a refinery issue. We need to have more refineries to handle and process things like diesel fuel.
Chris Woodward: If Trump came out tomorrow and announced a big refinery being built somewhere in the United States, similar to the steel announcement this week in the Midwest, that wouldn't solve tomorrow's problems. It wouldn't bring prices down. But having more things like that would prevent the issues we've gone through over the last six months.
Chris Woodward: If there should be geopolitical tension somewhere, and in a lost and dying world like the one we live in, you're always going to have conflict between people groups. We need to put those things in place. We don't just need to say we're going to do some stuff. We need to build those kinds of things to help a president, whoever it may be five or ten years from now.
Walker Wildmon: We're operating under what I believe is the new normal: increased instability in the global markets and on the geopolitical side of things. The Venezuela situation that we quickly took care of, the Iran conflict, and the Russia-Ukraine war are all examples. I think these things are baked in.
Walker Wildmon: Unfortunately, it seems as though there is always going to be some conflict going on that distracts people and distracts the markets. If we can show economic resilience, that's a good sign for the future, because we can weather any storm.
Walker Wildmon: When you look at what we've done over the last two years under the Trump administration from a geopolitical and foreign policy standpoint, this is big stuff. We went into Venezuela in a three-hour window, arrested the dictator, extradited him to New York, and ensured that the vice president peacefully took over. Now we've got oil assets on the ground in Venezuela shipping oil into Houston, Texas. That's a big deal. We've basically got our own people running the Venezuelan government now.
Walker Wildmon: With Iran, they've been obliterated militarily. Are they still a problem? Absolutely. Are they still a threat? Absolutely. But largely speaking, they've been neutered from any ability to project power.
Walker Wildmon: We've done all of this with no major apocalyptic fallout that all the analysts would have predicted. They said that if you went to war with Iran, we would see $17-a-gallon gasoline, the world would burn, and we would have Great Depression 2.0. That just hasn't happened yet. GDP numbers are now being revised upward.
Walker Wildmon: Chris, this headline came out today: U.S. jobless claims fall to the lowe
Walker Wildmon examines why Christians should remain engaged in civic life, including the coming midterm election, and discusses the Justice Department’s ethics complaints against Minnesota federal judges over media interviews about active cases. He also considers the credibility of Scripture through repeated accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts.
Dan Chung, co-founder and executive director of Crossing Borders, a former Associated Press journalist in South Korea, and author of A Hard Freedom, explains North Korea’s totalitarian control, persecution of Christians, refugee trauma, and the healing found through faith in Jesus Christ.
Chris Woodward then reviews GDP, jobs, wages, manufacturing, diesel, geopolitical risks, and the national debt, including proposals discussed by Ross Marchand of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
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