Walker Wildmon: American Family Radio celebrates religious freedom with Activate Summit
>> Walker Wildmon: We inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions, no matter where they are.
>> Jeff Chamblee: We equip
>> Rick Green: Sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.
>> Brother Don Wildmon: We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character.
>> Jeff Chamblee: This is At the Core on American Family Radio.
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome to The Core here on American Family Radio. Walker Wildmon here with you on today's edition of the program. You're listening to American Family Radio. Our website is afr.net and we have the AFR app. Wherever you listen, to podcast or download apps, you can go, to your local app store, on your device and download the AFR app. It's free. And you can not only listen live, but get past episodes there on the AFR app. And, Bobby, we had a great weekend with our Activate Summit, of which you helped out with you and Denise as well. It's a good time. Good time bringing up the kids. Yes. Yeah. So Bobby and Denise helped out with our youth track, ages 6 to 12. 12, yep. Ages 6 to 12. And we had the Biggins. That's right. And then the teens were in the main session with the parents and the grandparents. So, we had about 500 folks come in, both adults and children, for our first ever ACTIVATE Summit. And that summit is built around our Activate curriculum, which you can find out more about [email protected] Very well received, Great feedback. And, y' all come join us next year. Absolutely.
Our Ten Commandments Speech Challenge is targeted to youth ages 7 to 17
Another thing I want to mention is our Ten Commandments Speech Challenge that's going on this month. So we've got about two weeks left of this challenge. And the, commandment that we are asking young folks to recite is the first commandment. Thou shall have no other gods before me, or you shall have no other gods before me, depending on what, version you're looking at. And this is targeted to youth, ages 7 to 17. Three to five minutes roughly is the speech length that we recommend. Siblings, parents can help out with writing the speech, recording the speech, etc. All that you need to know about this Ten Commandments challenge. The speech challenge is over at afr.net Ten Commandments. And 10 is spelled out afr. Afr.net Ten Commandments. And you can read more there, learn how to upload the video. And everyone who participates will get a Ten Commandments T shirt, bookmark and a coupon code to use in the AFA Resource Center. So it's A great summer project. And more importantly, memorizing the word of God is of utmost importance. Proverbs chapter 14 is where we are this week. Reading chapter, verse seven out of chapter 14. Leave the presence of a fool or you will not discern words of knowledge. Leave the presence of a fool or you will not discern words of knowledge. Then you fast forward over into the New Testament and you have the passage that talks about how bad company corrupts good character. So this is a consistent theme throughout the scripture and that is that lingering in the presence of ungodly people will have consequence. Lingering in the presence of ungodly people will have consequence. And there's wisdom and discernment that is involved. When the question is, well, how much time do I spend around the unbeliever? Well, you're going to have to use wisdom and discernment there. There's no magical number. But, when the unbeliever begins to drag down your faith and your testimony, that's bad news. And that's the point that the scripture here is talking about is when we begin to be, corrupted and polluted by, the world and by the unbelievers, that's when it becomes a problem. And so we need a witness to the unbeliever. We need to disciple new believers. We need to seek to share the truth of God's word, to everyone. But we also need to be careful about who we surround ourselves with, what types of influences we we have in our life. Because our goal is, number one, to honor God, but number two, to uphold our testimony, ah, with the church and amongst the population in the world. So That's Proverbs chapter 14, verse 7. A lot there, but that's the scripture for you.
The Iranian and Israeli conflict continues to escalate
Jumping into some of the stories I want to get to this segment. The Iranian and Israeli conflict just continues to escalate. And I keep seeing these headlines about, about, you know, this is teetering on war and, and we're, you know, days away from full scale war. I don't know how this is not war. You know, I don't know what else can happen. For you to look at it and go, okay, that qualifies as war. Israel and Iran are launching ballistic missiles at each other into population centers. And so I don't know why these headlines keep coming out about, this might lead to war or a war might break out. Folks. The war has broken out. All right? And just to bring this down to simple terms, as far as why this is ongoing, there's the spiritual aspect, which we could spend a lot of time on, but that's not the purpose of this segment. The practical aspect from Israeli, from Israeli's viewpoint, is Iranian nuclear bomb development. All right? And that has been a concern for decades now of the US And Israel. And so Iran has been developing nuclear weapons, according to the US And Israeli intelligence. And Iran has even admitted to developing nuclear weapons. Now, had they gotten to the point where nuclear weapons were developed? Not that I'm aware of, and Israel's not claiming such, but they were on the edge, on the precipice of having a nuclear weapon. And we're going to play a clip with, some, some sources there, so we're not just making stuff up. But I came across this headline the other day, and if you, if you're looking at this, there's, there's some people are split on this whole situation and how to view it and should the US be involved, etc. The way I view it is it's a pretty complicated situation, meaning I understand both sides. There's this side of many people in America that are weary of war. We're tired of war. We've been doing war for 30 years. It's time to stop the wars. Let's take a break. We don't always have to be in a conflict around the world. I understand that position. And that's a very plausible, position to hold. It's a very practical position to hold. It's a very, virtuous position to hold, as far as looking out for America, what's in our best interest. And there's also the fact that Iran has been wreaking havoc around the world for decades, and not just against Israel, but against the US as well. And there's the biblical, mandate, to support Israel, to pray for Israel. And there's even just the, practical US response to Iran wreaking havoc around the world for decades. I mean, Hamas is funded by Iran. Hezbollah is funded by Iran. Many of the proxy forces that have attacked U.S. troops over the recent decades are funded by Iran. And Iran said the other day, Iran said. This is. According to LA Times. Iran says a US Nuclear deal isn't imminent. This is before the, the latest, iteration of the war between Iran and Israel. Listen to this. Iran says a US Nuclear deal isn't imminent. So they're, they're, they're rejecting any type of negotiation on behalf of the US And Israel. And they say further that their enrichment program must continue. Talking about enriching Uranium for a nuclear weapon. This is directly out of Dubai. Senior Iranian officials on Thursday dismissed speculation about an imminent nuclear deal with the US So they're basically saying, hey, we're not negotiating with the U.S. furthermore, they said that any agreement must fully lift sanctions and allow the country's nuclear program to continue. They said that, that it's, it's Iran's responsibility to uphold their nuclear rights, including enrichment. That's what the country's foreign minister wrote, back last week before Israel attacked Iran in this latest string of attacks. And so when you, when we talk about this, you have to understand how radical Iran is here. All right? Iran is run by radical Muslims, okay? And we've seen what radical Muslims do. That is 9, 11. That, is October 7th. And I could go down a long laundry list of what the radical Muslims do when they're in charge. But let's play this clip from, let's play first the Trey Yings clip. This is going to be clip three about why Israel attacked Iran.
>> Speaker D: So when we step back without getting too deep into the weeds, Iran is currently enriching uranium at 60% purity. This is very close to weapons grade material and it makes the breakout time for a nuclear weapon a matter of weeks. And that is one of three reasons the Israelis said they launched this operation overnight. We saw a lot of American assets headed toward the Middle east. And it's an indication that President Trump wants to have the option on the table if he decides to launch strikes directly into Iran. At this point, we don't have any reporting that indicates the Americans will do so. The Iranians again, have not, not targeted key US Interests in the region. But last night, as you saw that ballistic missile attack here in the heart of Tel Aviv just blocks away, we're talking about a five minute walk is the US Embassy branch. And according to the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, that branch was slightly damaged in the attack.
>> Walker Wildmon: Here, where people have, hesitation with us Full involvement in this war. Now, the US Is already supporting Israel and we have been for decades. All right, since they're, since their reinstitution, if you will, as the state of Israel, the US has been, has been fully supporting them all the way around. All right? We are their chief ally and we're currently intercepting ballistic missiles that are on the way to Israel. So the US Military is currently helping Israel. Now, we're not actively bombing Iran, but we are fully integrated into the IDF and we are defending Israel. So that is as that is a fact today. All right. Where people are having trouble with their position on this is no one wants the US to fully commit to a decades long war in the Middle east again. And, and, and what happens to Iran here is still yet to be seen. So if you run the Ayatollah off, who takes control, who fills the vacuum and where you run into risk is when you destabilize an entire region, that's where major problems occur. That is Syria is when you completely destabilize an entire region. And that's the risk here.
President Trump gave Iran two months to come to the negotiating table
Let's play a clip here of President Trump saying that now all of a sudden Iran wants to come to the table. Clip 2 have you heard any signals. Or seen any messages from intermediaries that Iran wishes to de. Escalate the conflict?
>> Donald Trump: Yeah. What have you heard? What have you heard from the Iranians?
>> Donald Trump: They'd like to talk, but they should have done that before. I had 60 days and they had 60 days. And on the 61st day I said, we don't have a deal, they have to make a deal. And it's painful for both parties, but I'd say Iran is, ah, not winning this war and they should talk and they should talk immediately before it's too late.
>> Walker Wildmon: So President Trump gave Iran two months, gave him 60 days, and on the 61st day, Israel launched their attack. And so Iran has become irrational. I don't know if they ever were rational, but they are definitely today acting very irrational from a geopolitical vantage point because when President Trump says, hey, let's go to the negotiating table, President Trump is known for making deals, but the Iranians are so set on having a nuke that they brushed off President Trump and they said, no thanks, we're not coming to the negotiating table. And they kick the can down the road. And this is what they do, I. E. Hamas, Hezbollah, this is what radical Islam does. This is what radical Islam does. These folks are so irrational, they're so erratic, they're so driven by their false ideology and religion that they, that they are not rational. They're not rational actors on the world stage. And so you can't deal with these people under normal circumstances. And that's why we are where we are today. And so I have absolutely zero sympathy for Iran. And I'm still the, the jury is still out in my mind on how much the US Gets involved here. I think we need to be very careful. I think Israel can probably do what it needs to do to accomplish their objectives without the US Sending troops and aircraft into Iranian territory to attack, Iran. So that's where we are today. We'll continue to track this and update you on the latest developments. We'll be back in a few minutes.
>> Jeff Chamblee: The month of June has been hijacked by the anti Christian culture to show their pride in something God calls an abomination. When you support afr, you help us continue to stand for godly values and provide the resources for you to stay in the know about the enemy's tactics. To say thank you for your gift this month we'll give you the booklet Inside the LGBTQ push of the 1990s. To help strengthen your convictions. Just go to afr.netoffers afr.net Offers. At the Core Podcasts are available at afr.net now back to At the Core on American Family Radio.
Oklahoma State Senator Kendal Sacchieri sponsored legislation regarding federal education guidance
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome, back to The Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you back with us on this second segment of the program. We, have with us now Oklahoma State Senator of District 43 within the state of Oklahoma to talk about one of her, bills that she sponsored and regarding transparency and accountability, between the Oklahoma Education Department and the US Department of Education. State Senator, welcome to the program.
>> Kendal Sacchieri: Thank you for having me.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. So set this up for us. This, legislation, house, Bill 2151 out of the state of Oklahoma that has to do with federal, disclosures, and the Department of Education as it was, relates to state education in Oklahoma. Give us a little background to here, set this up for us.
>> Kendal Sacchieri: So, yeah, I was a co author in the Senate for Representative Hall. He approached me on it to carry it for him in the Senate. And then it, I don't have kids yet in school. they're still too young. But it kind of hit me. Yeah, we don't actually publish this in Oklahoma and keep it accessible for parents. so as soon as he presented the bill language, ah, to me I was like, absolutely, I want to run this. I really liked the part as you kind of already addressed on it. It's requiring guidance disclosures to be on, OSD's website. And I like the part in the language of 2151 that if there's a recension done, so if the federal government then pulls something back, a switch of administration or whatever, that those rescissions can still stay up on our website at the state level. So we know if a school is still implementing something that we are questioning, why are you still doing this? That it has been rescinded and that the schools need to be knocking it off.
>> Walker Wildmon: This, to give an example of these guidance documents, the most notorious one, at least in the last, let's say 10 years, maybe a little longer than that, is the, I believe it was the Obama administration in their final months, they sent out the guidance to schools about transgenderism and boys being able to go in girls bathrooms. That was a notorious letter. Obviously many states wholly rejected it. but that's the type of guidance, if I'm not mistaken, that comes from the federal Department of Education, that many states view it as, oh, we've got to do this. Or at least school districts read those letters and they think, oh my, Washington says so we've got to do. Is that not kind of how this plays out? And a good example?
>> Kendal Sacchieri: Nope, it's a fantastic example. And by the way, their, their new rule to clarify all those Title 9 issues that they, they wanted to, to put guidance on was like a 15. It was like 1500 pages long or something like that.
>> Walker Wildmon: Wow.
>> Kendal Sacchieri: Ah, so, yeah, no, that, that was a, ah, that's a great example right there.
>> Walker Wildmon: And so the goal with this legislation, which by the way, passed, in, in last month and has the governor signed this yet?
>> Kendal Sacchieri: Yep.
>> Walker Wildmon: Okay.
>> Kendal Sacchieri: Signed into law.
>> Walker Wildmon: Excellent, excellent. So this is law in Oklahoma. The, the goal here, if I'm not m. Mistaken, is to make it easy for parents and anyone who is involved in education in Oklahoma. And I think other states need to replicate this to have like this one stop shop for this, these guidances that just come in. And some administrations do more than others from the federal level. But prior to this bill that now has law in Oklahoma that you helped sponsor, parents, and others had to just kind of scour the web and go to multiple different places to figure out what's going on here. Is that correct?
>> Kendal Sacchieri: I believe so. That's what I said. from my initial, response to you was I don't have kids in school yet, so I haven't really fought any of those battles. But I would assume, yes, that it was a grasp in the dark if a parent saw something happening at their local school district and wondering what all of a sudden is creating this new rule amongst, my school district.
It's really a bypass of the law on guidance documents
>> Walker Wildmon: I want to ask you about the premise behind guidance documents because the different districts read them differently, meaning some districts probably just read them and then throw them away. Other districts read them and probably take them very seriously and maybe even act upon them and implement different policies based on what the federal government says. But what are these. What are these guidance documents mean? Are they the force of law? Are they recommendations? Are they just opinions? I mean, what, what are these guidance documents from a practical standpoint?
>> Kendal Sacchieri: Yeah, they're definitely not, a force of law in any means. It's really a bypass of the law. if you did it in the process of creating at least rules. rules does have a process, and the public has to comment on any proposed rules. so this kind of bypasses that part when you don't want to deal with the public's comments on the rules that you're trying to possibly, sneak through. Maybe not nefarious at all, but either way, it kind of just gets rid of the public and the eyes, and it goes directly to Franklin from agency to that jurisdiction, and says, okay, so, you know, it would be best in your interest if you just do this. Okay. Or we may have to start auditing you a little bit more or putting a little pressure on if you're not going to go along with this. And most school districts in this case would probably just say, yep, and move on.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, that's exactly right. And, so this is very good. This is very good for transparency. It's very good for those involved in education in Oklahoma, and I think other states, need to replicate this at all.
Oklahoma State Senator Kendall Shaqeri sponsored legislation that became law
Last question. Once again, we're talking to Oklahoma State Senator Kendall shaqeri from district 43 on one of her pieces of legislation that she sponsored, that is now law in Oklahoma. Did you get much pushback on this or did you get bipartisan support? What was the vote breakdown like?
>> Kendal Sacchieri: not a lot of bipartisan. it was. It was pretty much down party lines on most of it. But, compared to some of the other things I ran, not a lot. I mean, there's not a lot you can say, right? This is coming straight from M. Federal to your State Department. I mean, there was maybe a few questions on anything that could get you to maybe stop pursuing this legislation. Like, well, can our. Can our State Department website handle this? are you sure you're giving them enough time? those are pretty much the common questions. Whenever maybe the opposing side doesn't really like the idea, but there's not much else you can say.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, yeah. When they start, overwhelmingly, yeah. When they start debating, you know, can our website handle this? That's when, you know, they don't really have a strong argument against it. They're wanting to get into the nitty gritty of the process and not the fundamental purpose of the legislation, Senator, thanks so much for coming on the program. We appreciate your efforts on this legislation. We think it's very important and that other states should follow suit.
>> Kendal Sacchieri: My absolute pleasure, thank you very much.
Oklahoma State Senator Kendal Sacchieri authored House Bill 2151
>> Walker Wildmon: All right, thank you very much. That's Oklahoma State Senator Kendal Sacchieri of District 43 on House Bill 2151 that ended up making it over to the Senate, passed the Senate, and the governor, Governor Stitt signed the bill not too long ago and now it's law in Oklahoma. I think other states should follow suit but because you got these Democrat administrations, I.e. biden, Obama, et cetera and they're just pumping these guidance letters into these school districts and these school areas. Whatever type of jurisdiction you're dealing with depends on the state. But oftentimes the state education department doesn't know what's going on here. I mean these guidance letters are getting sent directly to the schools. It's hard to keep up with what y' all schools are being sent to. Are they being sent to everyone or just certain states or certain districts? And so this legislation in Oklahoma creates basically a database, a one stop shop for all federal guidance documents from the Department of Education coming into the state of Oklahoma. They all have to be listed on the website and parents and school boards and school administrators and teachers, everybody has to have the access to, to view these guidance documents. And as, as the Senator mentioned there, even when there's recensions when documents are pulled back, all of these updates have to be kept on the website so that people know what's going on. So this is, this is a home run for transparency and Oklahoma did a good job on this topic.
Israel's attack on Iran has reportedly decapitated the Iranian military
all right, the the back to the topic that I was talking about earlier in the show in the first segment when it regards, when it regards Israel and Iran, the main lingering question at this point is where do we go from here? Because Iran has, has essentially in many regards decapitated the Iranian military, the Iran Revolutionary Guard. they've been basically decapitated for the most part. Top generals have been taken out, top missile defense sites have been taken out. The air defense systems are basically non existent at this point. In Iran you've got Israeli aircraft flying freely over the Iranian capital of Tehran. And so Israel's been hit, they've been hit hard. And Israel's taking shots too. I mean there's been several ballistic missiles that have landed in Israel. You've got some I believe over a dozen or more fatalities in Israel from the civilian standpoint. And President Trump has made it clear that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. That's been President Trump's viewpoint. He's been willing to negotiate, but Iran has been stubborn and unwilling to come to the negotiating table. Up until recently, when they have expressed, interest in what they're calling a ceasefire or a, some kind of deal between Israel and Iran. There's no doubt that the purpose, the Israeli objective of ending Iranians nuclear development, there's no doubt that that's a moral and virtuous assignment. There's no doubt that that objective is a good objective for all parties involved, including Israel, Iran and the rest of the region. Because remember, the Iranian leaders and the Iranian people, this is not all the same here. Meaning just, just as, in, in Gaza, you've got a lot of the population that don't want to be under Hamas control. Now, are there some of the population that support, support Hamas? Of course there is. But you go to Iran and you go to the ground. And in large part the Iranian people aren't for this Ayatollah, radical Islam, death to America, death to Israel propaganda. And so there's that disconnect. But the objective that Israel is trying to accomplish here by taking out Iranian nuclear program is a good objective. The question is, what is the fallout? What is the fallout? And as I mentioned earlier, this is yet to be seen, but I think the major concern should BE From a U.S. perspective, the major concern at this point should be what does a destabilized Iran look like? All right, and you could say, well, they were destabilized before because they were wanting to launch nukes into Israel and kill Jews. And then I would not disagree with that. But when you don't have a central authority, that is the Iranian government that is intact, what happens to the region? Because we've seen this in maybe a little bit of a smaller scale. Iran's a much bigger player compared to maybe your Iraq and your Syria. But we've seen, when you destabilize a region that we've seen in the past in the Middle east, it's not good. That's how you get groups like isis, that's how you got ISIS and other proxies in the region. And so that's really the main concern I have with this, attack against Iran is does it get to a point where the entire Iranian government falls and then who fills the vacuum? Or do you just have kind of the wild, wild west and then who comes in after, the government and tries to bring some type of order. Is it a proxy group? Is it an ISIS like group? Who knows? But to me that's the risk, that you run here. But when you look long term, past maybe some short term, instability, when you look long term at the benefits of taking out an Iranian nuclear program and possibly toppling the Iranian government, long term it could lead to historic levels of peace. And the reason I say that is because let's remember much of the instability in the region is because of Iran. All right? Look at Hamas, look at Hezbollah, look at some of the proxy groups in Iraq. Much of the instability in the region, if not all, is funded by and provoked by Iran. And so if you take that away, what does the region look like? Well, it could be very peaceful because let's remember that President Trump struck the Abraham Accords, the deal between majority Muslim nations surrounding Israel and Israel, a historic peace deal. And the Israelis and the Jordanians, the Israelis and the Egyptians, the Israelis and Saudi Arabia, many of these nations, these Muslim majority nations have been relatively peaceful with Israel for decades now. You've got some history there with, you know, different wars throughout Israel's history where, at one point they were at war with Jordan and Egypt. But at this, you know, in recent modern history there, there is already a very serious and stable peace agreement between some of these nations around Israel. With the exception of your, of your Lebanon, and with the exception of Gaza, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others, there's already a lot of peace going on there. There's military cooperation going on. There's commercial flights going back and forth between those nations. And so basically what I'm getting at is Iran is the outlier here. Iran is the outlier. They've been funding a lot of chaos. They've been sowing the seeds of chaos, they've been funding the terrorism. And if that's no longer a problem, you've got a real prospect here of serious peace. You've got a real prospect of serious peace. But there's risk involved either way. If Russia gets involved, China gets involved, and Iran somehow gets taken over by their proxies, then this could go a whole different direction where it's not quite positive, it's not stabilizing, it's actually worse off than where we were before. And so that's always the risk that you have to weigh out when we get in, when the US Gets involved, it gets involved in these regional conflicts. What does the other side look like? That's the lingering Question here, that we don't know yet. We just have to see how this plays out. We'll be back in a few minutes.
>> Jeff Chamblee: This is At the Core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.
American Family Radio has several events coming up this year and in 2026
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to the Quarry here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on today's edition of the show. As a reminder, we've got a couple events coming up the rest of the year, and then we've got one event in early 2026 that I'll mention as well. But the first one is the weekend with AFA. This is going on October 2 through 4. And of, this year, of course, here in Tupelo, Mississippi, we're going to have a great time at the Kingfisher Lodge and Event Center. And here in Tupelo, we'll be having a reception at our headquarters. So if you haven't seen our new building, you'll be able to come by and Visit here. That's 10-2-4 in Tupelo, Mississippi, the city of our national headquarters. We're going to have a great time. Speakers like Tim Barton, Jerry Boyer, Jenna Ellis and others will be coming into town as well. So we're going to have a great time of fellowship and, uplifting and inspiring each other October 2nd through the 4th, here in Tupelo. So if you want to check that out, just go over to afa.netforward/events. Afa.netforward/events. One other thing I want to mention is our tour of Greece coming up in 2026. In March of 2026, we're going to be doing the Footsteps of Paul Tor in Greece and going to Corinth and Thessalonica and other areas in Greece where the Apostle Paul ministered, witnessed and lived out his faith there in Greece. So that's an exciting trip. First time over in Greece for, my brother and I, we're going to be leading the tour and so we hope to see some of you there. Wildmangroup.com is that URL I want to introduce our next guest.
Stefano Gennarini is the Vice President for Legal Studies
Stefano Gennarini is the Vice President for Legal Studies at the center for Family and Human Rights, and he represents the center for Family and Human Rights at the United nations, advising on policy, and international law. And he's with us now. Stefano, welcome to the program.
>> Stefano Gennarini: Thanks for having me.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, give us a little background, Stefano, of your work. Ah, at CFAM and at the UN and then we'll jump into some of the, latest ongoings and some of the policy talk.
>> Stefano Gennarini: So CFAM is a 501C3. We are a non profit organization and the work we do at the United nations is primarily to instruct UN diplomats about the state of play in family policy and international law when it comes to life and family issues. We also publicize the debate of what's happening at the United nations with regard to life and family issues. Many times people aren't even aware what's actually happening at the United Nations. And we've been here at the UN for almost 30 years reporting every week on what happens at the United Nations. and then we also have our own original research department in which we break down the research and publications of the United nations, which we then publish and use for congressional staff. we present it here at the United Nations. we also present it to other like minded organizations that they can use it.
>> Walker Wildmon: The United nations, gets it makes the headlines pretty frequently and it seems as though every time we're reading news about the UN it's because there's a conflict where the US has to veto a resolution or things like that. But I understand the difference between what actually happens day in, day out at the UN and of course what the media covers. Is the UN still largely in sync with US foreign policy or does it seem to be persistently a conflict between UN viewpoint of the different member nations and then US policy? What's it like there? Is it mostly productive? Or does it seem like the UN and the member nations are just constantly butting up against countering US current policy?
>> Stefano Gennarini: That's a great question and you make some great points. I'll give you the short answer first. the UN is increasingly butting heads with the Trump administration. and that's because the Trump administration is simply gutting a lot of the US aid, US international aid establishment, which ran a lot of programs through and by the UN alongside the European Union countries. and I'll explain how that works in just a second. But I think what's really important to understand is that the United nations works all year round on a whole host of issues. Right, you brought up the fact that we only seem to pay attention to what happens at the UN when there's a conflict, when there's a Security Council issue. But there are actually over 350 resolutions adopted by the General assembly every year on a whole range of development, economic, environmental, social issues. and these resolutions are like a form almost of administrative law that countries keep adopting every year the same resolutions in order to fund and give UN agencies a mandate to run programs on the ground in countries all around the world. So the United nations has an incredible influence beyond simply security debates, especially in poorer countries where just a little bit of money gives you a lot of influence. And so the way the United nations has been used by the US State Department and US interests is simply to run programs that we wanted. So for the last 15 years we've been doing WOKE programming, promoting WOKE programming all around the world. Environmental, lgbt, dei, gender, ideology, all of this stuff. We've been running programs whenever it's any kind of program has these four or five components. All US USAID programming have these components. And they're usually programs that have to do less with actually helping people on the ground, providing life saving support, but they're more about building political constituencies on the ground, capacity building they call it. So you're essentially training NGOs, training a whole army of lawyers and activists to create a political constituency that is friendly to the United States, to the United nations and to the United States European Union. Right now what has happened is the US Government has been, has stopped all the funding through usaid. So all that funding that was going to all this WOKE programming, this environmental programming has all of a sudden stopped. And so the US is definitely at odds with the UN establishment and the European Union establishment. More importantly, because it's right now the big conflict geopolitically for control of the United nations is really between the United States and the European Union. And very few people understand it. People, people talk about China's influence at the United Nations. They talk about, you know, the brics and other countries trying to have influence at the United Nations. But in reality what we are seeing is that more and more the European Union is emerging as a strategic rival to the European, to the United States, and less and less as a partner.
>> Walker Wildmon: The. Once again we're talking to Stefano ah Generini with the center for Family and Human Rights and he works directly with the, at the UN to keep folk, keep everyone updated on the topics that we're talking about, including family policy, life policy. the, the US was a founding member of the un. The UN headquarters is up in New York. the annual meeting is there. So when did you, when did the U.S. lose its, its clout if you will, or at least lose its, its influence to, to dominate the un machine if you will. Or did we, and I know different administrations have different priorities, but basically is the UN still an American centric type agency and organization? I know there's member nations, but are we still at the helm or are we having these other nations? You mentioned the eu? Are we having these other nations come in and basically bully their way around? That is creating a major problem for.
>> Stefano Gennarini: The US So the, the United States, I wouldn't say, is one of the founding members, one of many. It really is the founding member of the United Nations. I mean, if the United States didn't want the United nations, it would have never started. It's been funding the United, nations over 30% of the budget for the last 80 years. and so, we can't understate how important the US has been historically to the United Nations. But increasingly the voice of the United States has become more marginal. And the reason for that is twofold. Firstly, because, the world is becoming, a multipolar world again. So we've lived in the last 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, in a unipolar world where the United States was the uncontested world power. Until 1990. We lived in a bipolar world where we had the Soviet Union and the United States and they were, sort of rivals that the entire, everybody on earth had to take sides with one or the other or even countries that didn't want to take sides. They had to be very neutral on issues. So that when what, what that resulted is in, at the United nations, it resulted in the United nations having to be neutral on a lot of issues because the United nations couldn't claim to be either on the Russian or on the US side. But what happened in the last 20 years with a unipolar world is that the United nations became an implement of American power in the world. And so it became, you start seeing a whole bunch of neocolonial, emphasis. The same people who are running the Promote democracy through the State Department were running the promote democracy and the WOKE agenda. Eventually, that same democracy agenda is what transmuted into the WOKE agenda, the environmental agenda. They were the same people running, the State Department and the United nations and the European Union. Some of the foreign policy analysts believe that in many ways the European Union was a project of the United States in order to remove the sovereignty of EU countries. I mean, I mean, there's, there's maybe there is a mastermind at the State Department who did this, but the fact is now the European Union and the United nations are a conglomerate that is promoting this US WOKE imperialism without the emperor anymore. and so it's a very interesting thing because, to me, the most interesting aspect is the conflict between the EU and the US for influence, because the EU is openly insulting the Trump administration, openly goading the Trump administration to abandon the field in the United nations to say, okay, withdraw, take away the funding. We will outlive you. We're going to wait for the next Democrat to come into the United nations and he's just going to refund us. And what will have happened is that the European Union will now have more influence because countries now see the European Union as a stable partner and they see them as more influential in the context of UN programming. And so therefore it diminishes the US Voice even more. So there's a whole host of factors here, but, that's why it's so important for the US to be strategic and to have partners in reforming the un I don't think the UN is a bad institution. You know, just think of the fact that the State of Israel wouldn't exist if the United nations resolution hadn't been adopted 79 years ago. Right. there's a lot of good things that the UN has done. It had it played as a buffer zone that avoided conflict during the Cold War. Right now it's still a buffer zone between the US and India in many ways, sorry, in China. And so we need to evaluate what are the good things that the UN does and sort of prop those up and just, but just, we have to totally refocus, our engagement with multilateral organizations. But do it in a strategic way and not do it alone. Because when we built the UN we didn't build it alone. And you have to have other countries that will partner with you. And I think there's a lot of countries willing to partner with, with the US on a range of issues. so, including respect, for sovereignty, promotion of a, ah, pro life, pro family agenda, abandoning the whole woke gender ideology madness. more and more countries are embracing this. And so I'm hoping that we can really, do some good in these Trump years.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, absolutely.
Stefano Gennarini: EU and NATO overlap significantly
And to your point about really the EU thumbing their nose at the US in recent years, and this has probably been going on longer than recent years, but at least one example is this Russia, Ukraine war, where President Trump has a different objective and a different way that he thinks he wants to end this conflict. but you've got EU and NATO members and they're two different organizations, but there's a lot of overlap between the two member nations. just thumbing their nose at President Trump and saying, you know, we'll go at this alone. We'll partner with Ukraine on this war. You know, we don't need the US So there's a lot of that resistance there, with the EU and it's really becoming, you know, a competitor in a sense. And President Trump's trying to get the trade deal done with the EU member countries. So there's a lot going on there and there's not as much harmony as there once was. To your point, Stefano, once again, we've been talking to Stefano Gennarini. Tell us your website how folks can read more about your work.
>> Stefano Gennarini: c-fam.org and we publish reports every week on what's happening at the United nations, sometimes in real time.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. Hey, thanks so much for coming on the program.
>> Stefano Gennarini: Thanks for having me.
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>> Walker Wildmon: All right. That C- fam F A M M um.org CFAM thanks so much for joining us today and as always appreciate our listening audience and we enjoyed being with, those who came to our ACTIVATE summit this past weekend and we'll see you next time. If we learned anything from this election, it's how important it is for us to fight, fight, fight. We also learned how desperately the left wants to fight to take babies lives. Which is why everyday PreBorn Ministries fights for the babies. Preborn's network of clinics are positioned in the highest abortion areas. Fighting for mothers deciding between life and death of their child. Preborn welcomes these women with God's love and offers them a free ultrasound to introduce their precious baby and hear the beautiful heartbeat. This amazing encounter gives her baby a fighting chance and the majority of the time she will choose life. Would you join PreBorn in the fight for life? One ultrasound is just $28 and $140 will sponsor five ultrasounds. Babies are worth fighting for. To donate, dial pound 250 on your cell phone and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 and say the keyword baby. Or you can visit preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr all, gifts are tax deductible and PreBorn has a four star charity rating. Fight, fight, fight for the babies.
>> Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.
