Christian religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out convictions
>> 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.
>> Rick Green: 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 hope.
>> Jeff Chamblee: This is At the Core on American Family Radio.
You can download the American Family Radio app for free on several devices
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome to the core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us today on the program. Walker Wildmon here hosting the show today. AFR.net is our URL. You can check us out on the web AFR.net you can download the AFR app on your device, your Apple device, or your Android device. You can download the AFR app. We're also on Roku as well. So a couple different areas and locations where you can find the AFR app. It's free, no gimmicks, no tricks. And while you're on the app, you can listen to this show both live and past episodes, all archived there on the AFR app and at afr.net we do have the video up at stream.afa.net and on the Cors Facebook page so you can watch the video of the program as well.
A wise son accepts his father's discipline, but a scoffer does not listen
Each and every day, let's turn our attention to the scripture. Proverbs chapter 13 is where we are this week. Verse one, a, wise son accepts his father's discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. A wise son accepts his father's discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. You notice how the word used to describe the son shifts from a son to a scoffer. And in the latter part of verse one, the writer here doesn't even have enough respect for the son to call him a son again. Instead, he immediately shifts the term to a scoffer. when a son does not listen to his father's discipline, does not heed his father, his father's instruction. That's Proverbs chapter 13, verse one.
There are two trips that we still have seats for in 2026
Well, our Boston trip, our Boston tour in the fall is already full and we're several months out and we're taking two buses to Boston for a spiritual heritage tour in the Boston area. but there are two trips that we still have seats for, and that is Israel and Greece, 2026. The Greece trip is brand new. This will be our first trip over there covering the footsteps of Paul in Greece and Athens, Thessalonica, Corinth and other places. We'll be trekking the footsteps of Paul. That's we won't be literally trekking. We'll be in a motorcoach. But you get the idea. It sounded good. And, those trips are back to back in Greece and Israel. Those trips are back to back. So we're going to Israel first and then over to Greece. And it's, going to be a great time of fellowship and exploring the place, the places of the Bible, both in Israel and Greece. So if you want to check out those dates, that's in March 2026, wildmangroup.com you can check out the URL wildmangroup.com and check out those trips to Israel and Greece in 2026. And if you missed out on Boston, well, Lord willing, there will be next year. There will be, next year when you can go with us to Boston.
The Federal Reserve says interest rates don't cause inflation, the rates contribute
All right, well, let's jump into some of our headlines for the day that I want to talk about the first topic I wanted to cover, and we'll talk about this the majority of the show today, and that is the economy. President Trump was handed an absolute dumpster fire, brought to you by Biden Inc. And the previous Congress. They spent more money than we had. They printed trillions. And they continued their horrible economic policies of regulation after regulation after regulation. They, they bashed fossil fuels, which is our primary energy supplier in America, our energy supply. And they told us how terrible capitalism is and so on and so forth. And so. And then the inflation that Briden brought about, also added to the dumpster fire. And so that was the, the, that was what President Trump walked into. And remember all the numbers we've been seeing in recent years with the employment numbers and the GDP numbers and all these numbers that they tried to make look positive, it was all fake. It was all fabricated. And what I mean by that was it was all artificially brought about, all right? Because the government inserted trillions of dollars in printed money at the Treasury Department into the economy. And we got, quote, unquote, growth that wasn't true growth. It wasn't true growth because when you pull the government out of it, it all falls apart. All right? So that was the Biden scheme. Not to mention they kept revising their BLS numbers, the labor numbers. They kept revising them down literally every month for like a year, all right? They would say, oh, we added 200,000 jobs. And then next, the next month they would say, actually, it was only 100,000. All right? And they kept revising them down and revising them down month after month. I don't know how that's not a scandal, but apparently it wasn't a big enough scandal that they can't get their numbers right. So President Trump inherited a dumpster fire, and the deficit spending, is fueling it. I've said all along, and I'll continue to say this until, I'm blue in the face. I think that's the saying that the interest rates didn't cause inflation. The rates did not cause inflation. But the Federal Reserve disagrees with me. And the Federal Reserve says, they claim that the rates control inflation, the rates contribute to inflation. And that's why now they're saying, oh, we can't lower rates because inflation might spike back again. So they're, they're, they're, they're insinuating and inferring that the Fed and their set rates controls inflation. Otherwise you wouldn't say, well, we've got to keep rates because inflation might go up again. All right, they are, they are claiming to have the power and the authority to affect inflation. And I don't think they do. I don't think they do. I think the 10 trillion. The 7 to 10 trillion, depending on what numbers you look at. And I know that's a big difference. Seven to ten trillion that was, was, printed in the last five years since COVID That is why we have inflation. When you insert 7 to 10 trillion dollars into an economy over five years, you get inflation. Why? Well, this is basic economics, folks. This is not complicated stuff. You don't have to go to Harvard to figure this stuff out. The 7, roughly 7. At least 7 trillion. Bessit says 10, but let's just go with 7. When you insert $7 trillion into the economy, you create demand, right? Because all of this cash, this new cash, is just flowing around the economy, and everybody's got a little extra money, right? They were mailing checks to everybody and their third cousin, even if you didn't need it. Now, tell me how that made sense. Let's mail checks to everybody, even though not everybody needs it. And we already had a unemployment safety net and a welfare safety net. Why we m needed to mail checks to everybody, I have no idea. But we mailed checks to everybody. Everybody had a little extra cash, and by now we blew. We've blown through it. Everybody's blown through their excess savings. We're back to where we were pre Covid, but now we got a ton of debt on top of it. But the $7 trillion in excess monies that were printed is why we had inflation, all right? It caused demand for goods and services to go up and to outpace the supply side. And Economy 101 teaches that when demand for goods and services outpaces supply, businesses raise prices. Why do they raise prices? Well, because they can't keep up with the demand and they've got to slow it down. And they know people are willing to pay the price because clearly they've got the money, otherwise the demand would not be as hot as it is. That's inflation, all right. And I would. And some would say, well, you know, the artificially low interest rates also contributed. Well, maybe, maybe a little bit. But I'm telling you, the $7 trillion was the problem. That was the problem. And so I, say I give this whole spiel to say that the Fed holding rates higher than the modern historical average. I'm talking over the last 20 to 30 years. Holding them higher isn't helping inflation go down. It's not. And how I know that is because of the difference between Biden and Trump numbers. And President Trump has brought about a consistent lowering of inflation expectations to. Now we're in the mid to low 2% on inflation. I'm talking about the averages, especially with core. And the Fed hasn't touched interest rates since December. And so I think inflation can come down, and it doesn't matter what the Fed does. I think the only reason we still have this lingering inflation, to the degree that it is, is is because Congress still hasn't figured out how to stop printing money. And so they're still pumping the economy with the trillions in deficit spending that is propping up that supply, that. That demand on goods and services. And part of that is, is was the scheme of Biden to make his economy look as hot as it's ever been. but once again, it was all built on the back of deficit spending. And so this is why President Trump is correct to urge Jerome Powell to lower rates. Now, I don't think the.01% artificially low rates are healthy under any circumstance that they did during COVID They jacked the rates down unnecessarily. They jack the rates down, to these artificially low numbers. I don't think that's good either. So I think there's an extreme end on both of these. But Powell keeping interest rates where they are today, stubbornly so, is going to cost America a lot of money because we're about to refinance America's debt. Not all of it, but a lot of it. Trillions.
Jerome Powell was lowering rates before Trump got in office
And America's debt is up for basically refinancing where we're going to have hundreds of billions of dollars in added interest cost, if not trillions. I'll have to look at the numbers in added interest cost, because Jerome Powell will not lower rates just a little bit. And what makes this all the more frustrating, and this is why President Trump is furious about this and is because Jerome Powell was lowering rates before Trump got in. Powell started. And of course, the Board of Governors as well. They, the Fed started lowering rates in September. What's, what's so special about September was right before the election. Powell started lowering rates right before the election. And then President Trump gets in there, and all of a sudden Jerome Powell says, oh, we don't need to lower rates. We don't wait. As a matter of fact, we don't even know when we're going to lower rates. And so now we've gone, what, six months now of, flat rates, when the Fed did three rates in a row, three rate cuts in a row. They did September, they took a break in October, they did November and December. And then President Trump gets sworn in, and all of a sudden, Jerome Powell changes his mind. Well, we don't need a lower rate. Well, what, what have you been doing the last three meetings? Lowering rates and Trump sworn in. We've got trillions in debt. We're about to have to refinance. And all of a sudden, the Fed has this epiphany that we need to stop lowering rates. All the while, inflation is coming down. And there's the saying out there, make it make sense. Make it make sense. And this is why people think that Jerome Powell is political. And he's not doing anything to help dispel the theory that he is political. 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 podcast 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.
Walker Wildmon: Treasury Secretary Bessent discusses deficit on American Family Radio
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to The Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on today's program on this edition of The Core I'm Walker Wildmon. You can subscribe to the podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can subscribe. Just type in the name of the program at the core and you can subscribe to the show there. Well, back into our economic talk. We've got a couple clips here. I played a clip of Jamie Dimon, jp, Morgan Chase CEO, talking about deficit spending. The problem with it, how it's just eating away at our economy and consumer spending, consumer discretionary spending and wages, etc. And the long term impact of that. And I failed to play a clip of the Secretary, the Treasury Secretary Besant on responding to diamond because he was questioned directly about what do you say to what Jamie Dimon is warning about on the deficit over the next few years? And this was Besant's response.
>> Scott Bessent: J.P. morgan's diamond, also predicted a debt market crisis. Cracks in the bond market was what he said. You are considering easing some regulations. You've said for the big banks. How do you avoid that bond market crisis? He's predicting, spreading and really causing concern, particularly with all of the worries about American debt right now.
>> Scott Bessent: So again, I've known Jamie a long time and for his entire career he's made predictions like this. Fortunately, none of them have come true. That's why he's a banker, a great banker. He tries to look around the corner. One of the reasons I'm sitting here talking to you today and not at home watching your show is that I was concerned about the level of debt. So the, the deficit this year is going to be lower than the deficit last year and in two years it will be lower again. We are going to bring the deficit down slowly. we didn't get here in one year. We didn't get here in one year. And this has been a long process. So the goal is to bring it down over the next four years, leave the country in great shape in 2028.
>> Scott Bessent: You know that the speaker of the House estimates this is going to add 4 to 5 trillion dollars over the next 10 year. And there's that debt limit increase.
>> Scott Bessent: Well, again, Margaret, that's CBO scoring.
>> Scott Bessent: That's the speaker of the House.
>> Scott Bessent: no, no, no.
>> Scott Bessent: He said it last Sunday on this program.
>> Scott Bessent: He said that's the CBO scoring. Let me tell you.
>> Scott Bessent: That sounds right.
>> Scott Bessent: Let me tell you what's not included in there, what can't be scored. So we're taking in substantial tariff income right now. So there are estimates that that could be another 2 trillion.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Scott Bessent: That we are the pushing through savings. So you know, my estimate is that could be up to another 100 billion a year. So over the 10 year window, that could be a trillion. President has a prescription drug plan with the pharmaceutical companies that could substantially push down costs for prescription drugs and that could be another trillion. So there's the four.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes. And that gets into mandatory spending, which is a big deal. If you can reduce mandatory spending. That's wish list land. because of these entitlement programs. I mean, if you can get prescription costs down, that means the government, through Medicare, is paying less for prescription drugs for those on the program. Ah, that's hundreds of billions in savings over the course of 10 years, if not a trillion. so that's a big deal. And what he's talking about, and he's right, is that the Congressional Budget Office, their scoring protocol is in many ways laughable. It is. And they've got their reasons for how they score things, but there's so much that they're not factoring in and they operate under zero assumptions. And sometimes that's the problem. But they're not looking into the future and factoring in the next four years of presidential policies, that are going to help this situation. I think Besant's right. I think the deficit will continue to come down. I think that the deficit. When I say deficit, folks, I'm not talking about the debt. Now, the two are related. I'm talking about the amount of money the government has to print. And in this, in 2025, they're changing numbers on my Excel sheet, and I'm not exaggerating. they're changing numbers and probably a Treasury database, they're adding zeros. Right. and so it's not literally printing cash, but the, I think the deficit, the deficit will continue to drop. I think the amount of money that the government needs and has to print because it doesn't have it in revenues over the next few years with President Trump, I do think it's going to go down. I think it could probably go below a trillion for a year. And remember, we hit a peak of 2.7 trillion in 21. And I got one word for that, Covid. Then, FY22. The deficit. FY22, the deficit was 1.3 trillion. The FY23 deficit, 1. 7 trillion. FY24 deficit, 1.8 trillion. So you see, we've been trending in the $1.5 to $2 trillion deficit range year over year since Biden was sworn in. And, this year is projected to be 1.3, which is an improvement over last year. And to the Treasury Secretary's point, you add in hundreds of billions in tariff revenue, you decrease some discretionary spending, you grow the economy through AI and energy production, you could get the deficit below a trillion and then you could go from there. And once again this is going to need, this is going to require consistent leadership. Right. So we can't afford our country can't. These, these plans don't work. If you get a Hakeem Jeffries House of representatives in 2027, I'm talking about in January, it would be 26 elections but they're sworn in in January of 27. You can't. This, this plan begins to have cracks when the, the crazy Democrats, they have a say. When they have a say, everything falls apart or at least everything starts to have problems. Okay? And this is why passing this bill, this reconciliation bill with Republican only votes is so very important.
Cutting deficit spending is a very big deal
And as I've said, I think that, I think the savings needs to be more. I think they need to get to 200 billion annually in savings over a 10 year period. That would get you at 2 trillion in savings, in reduced spending over the next 10 years. I think that's going to make a lot of your holdouts happy. I think it's going to make your Ron Johnson's and your Rand Paul's and others happy. They could probably get it to 250 and 300 billion a year in savings if they were a little more aggressive. I think that's what it's going to take. But reducing the deficit spending is a very, very big deal. And ah, and everybody you read, including Elon Musk, even JP diamond and others, they're all focused on reducing this deficit spending because that is the major crack in America's economy is this bloated deficit spending. It is hurting everything else and it is also causing inflation. All right, let's move to some other clips.
May inflation was below expectations, CNBC report says
Speaking of inflation, we have the May numbers that came in just this morning on cpi. I think PPI comes out tomorrow, which is the CPI is from the consumer level and I think PPI is from the producer level. Those are the two differences there. But let's listen to this NBC, this CNBC report calling the inflation report quote, welcome news. Clip 2 There's no way to look. At these numbers and say they're not welcome news.
>> Walker Wildmon: I mean a downside surprise to core, core goods is where people were looking. For potentially tariff effects. And maybe except for isolated areas that Steve mentioned, you're not quite Getting that.
>> Walker Wildmon: so I think it's all, it's all netbet. All right, they have it. That's the, brief CNBC clip. But they call it welcome news. They call it welcome news. And, the reason it's welcome news is because it was below expectations. Now, once again, these inflation numbers are still not anything to get, get excited about, to get giddy about, right? I mean, running over 2% inflation year over year without a lot of growth is going to eat away at America's wages. This is a fundamental problem with inflation. And this is, once again, the fundamental problem with modern monetary theory and the debt model is when inflation begins to creep up on growth, specifically from a middle class standpoint, wage growth, then it begins becoming what was maybe, a boon, ends up becoming a negative, and it ends up hurting people. This is a fundamental problem with inflation is it eats away at America's wages and specifically the middle class. The. But let's remember where we've come from. All right? Let's remember where we've come from. We came from 9 to 10% inflation under Biden to now President Trump has it at about 2.4%. That's a big deal. Now, there are some, there are still some lingering categories out there that are higher than 2.4% on average. But President Trump has been able, through his energy policy, through his deregulatory policy, to bring, inflation to really a steady rate. And don't get me wrong, the White House wants to, wants to see this come down more 2.4%. Long term is still not good. It's got to get below 2%. But considering the circumstances and considering the massive amounts of money that our government has put into the economy in recent years, President, Trump's doing a pretty good job with the 2.2.4% number. And remember Jerome Powell, he's the one that said 2%. He came up with this 2% goal, and we're at 2.4. And so, so is Powell going to wait until we're at 1.9 to lower rates? I, think President Trump can actually get it below 2. I think he can. I think it's going to take a little bit longer and government's going to have to stop printing so much money. But I think, I think Trump can get it below 2%. I think he will probably get it below 2% in the next 12 months. And that's gonna really put Jerome Powell in a bind because President Trump will play the clip on repeat of, Jerome Powell saying, basically, we will lower rates or we will consider our job accomplished when we get inflation at 2% or below 2%. That'll be interesting to watch.
The inflation fear mongering as a result of the tariffs has not come to fruition
The last thing I want to play here, the last clip on the economy I want to play is remember just not long ago, what a month or two ago we were that we had the liberation day in April and the whole tariff debate and a lot of the economists were losing their mind on the tariffs. And this is apocalyptic and we're going to have a great depression and your, your iPhone's going to triple in cost. You're going to have to pay $4,000 for an iPhone because of these tariffs on China. I mean it was just 247 they were beating the drum of apocalyptic economic scenario that the world will never be the same. I mean it was just on and on and on. And their fear mongering just hasn't bore out. I mean it just has not come to fruition. And this is a businessman, a business owner here talking about this. Louis Navalier talking about the inflation boogeyman that hasn't materialized. Clip 3.
>> Louis Navellier: Lower energy prices have been a godsend. And that's why, consumer inflation's at more than a four year low. We'll get PPI tomorrow. That's at a five year low. You know, that's been severely deflationary in the last two months. And hopefully the Fed will start following the data instead of inventing this inflation bogeyman that hasn't m materialized.
>> Walker Wildmon: So the inflation boogeyman that hasn't materialized. That's so very good. now this month the economist that predicted the doom, now their talking point is, well, wait till next month, right? Wait till the companies, wait till they exhaust their inventory and they have to import new inventory and then that's going to show up on the inflation report, they say. And it may, it may not. I don't think it will, but we'll see. But right now, as of today, the inflation fear mongering as a result of the tariffs has not come to fruition. It just has not. And as a matter of fact, month over month, inflation actually dropped. Well, it actually went up by 0.1, but relatively flat. No drastic increase in inflation month over month with the tariff, many of these tariffs already in place.
Walker Wildman: President Trump announced a trade deal with China today
Then this is on top of today. President Trump announcing a trade deal with China, which is kind of big news and shame on me for not mentioning that, but President Trump's team has reached a trade deal with China that will be formally signed by Xi and Trump in the coming weeks. M. And China is the big, the big deal here. This is the big trade deal that all of the economists were worried about. What's going to happen with China? Well, you get a trade deal with China done, then that settles this whole debate about what's going to happen with China. All this so called uncertainty with the markets. And this is where I just don't, I just don't understand how these, these people on television, how they make it to the place where they're, they're, they're anchoring and, and doing interviews for national multi billion dollar news corporations and they get things so wrong. This is why people are tuning out the legacy media outlets is because they're so wrong so often. And it's one thing to have like an ex, ex, you know, Twitter economist that gets it wrong because they don't know what they're talking about or they're just trying to get clicks. But when you have all of these economists going on, and all these market analysts going on your CNBCs of the world and talking about these tariffs as if they're going to be in place forever, there's never going to be a trade deal. We're going to have 145% tariff on all Chinese goods forever. There will be no relief, there will be no trade deal. And then they, they, they're, they're, they're playing out this doom and gloom scenario that they've gotta know is not gonna come to pass. Did they not think that Trump wanted a deal with China and that he was gonna get a deal with China? Like they had to have known that, that President Trump is the deal maker. He's going to get a deal with China. We're not going to sustain 150% tariffs on China goods for any significant time frame. They had to have known this is how it was going to play out. We'll be back in a few. As we celebrate the many pro life victories going forth, we rejoice. Preborn's network of clinics has a unique opportunity to advance even further without political persecution. What does this look like? PreBorn is the greatest threat to the abortion industry. By rescuing on average 200 babies lives a day, they are putting a serious dent into the abortion holocaust. But there are still thousands of babies who are slain daily and preborn's goal is to rescue them all. With the help of the pro life community, meaning you, we can save so many more. Please join us in saving all these precious lives. The ultrasound is a game changer. Once a mother hears the precious heartbeat, she is twice as likely to choose life. If you consider yourself pro life, we need your help. One ultrasound is just $28. Five ultrasounds are $140. $5,000 sponsors ultrasounds for the entire preborn network for an entire day. How many lives can you save? Every child is a beautiful gift from God. Please join the calls to donate securely. Please please dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250. Say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr this is At
>> Jeff Chamblee: the Core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.
The primary reason I believe tariffs will not increase inflation is by front loading inventory
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to the core. Glad to have you all us on this last segment of today's program, putting a bow on this economic talk and the tariff talk and the interest rate talk and everything else talk. The primary reason I believe we will not see a significant increase in the inflation numbers over the next few months as a result of the tariffs is primarily for this reason, and I've talked about this before, the major players, the major companies, the major corporations, that is your Walmarts of the world, they knew this was coming. They knew this was coming. They've been planning for this since November of 2024. To think that your Walmarts of the world, for lack of a better term, do not have economist and import export tariff experts that plan for these type situations, to think that they don't have the foresight and the wisdom to plan for a Trump tariff debate is to be woefully naive about the capacity for these companies to predict into the future. They even said it as much. You can find clips of major retail CEOs talking about how they front loaded inventory before Trump was even sworn in. They front loaded inventory from China before President Trump was sworn into office. For that reason. They basically prepared for the tariff debate, for the tariff war. And by doing so, that enabled them to pause exports from m your China during the tariff window. When the US And China and the US and others are arguing about what the tariff rate's gonna be and what the terms of trade are gonna be. That enabled your major retailers to pause exports during that window and rely on existing backlogged inventory. And then when your trade deals are struck or your compromises are made, then they pick back up their exports and they avoid your drastic 150%, even though 150% really isn't that drastic when you look at some of the historical uses of tariffs. But that's how Your major corporations can be insulated from the tariff debate is by front loading inventory. And that's what many of these companies did. And you can find clips of their CEOs talking about, hey, we, front loaded inventory because we saw this coming, we knew this was going to happen. Front loaded inventory. And then we paused exports and avoided the tariff rate during the, debate. Now, there's going to be some exceptions out there of companies that didn't plan, but your major players, they plan for this. And that's why I don't think inflation is going to be hit that much, if at all, because of some of these brief tariffs that were in place for 15, 20, 30 days.
Let's go to Los Angeles. This has been an utter fiasco
All right, let's change subjects. Let's go to Los Angeles. This has been an utter fiasco, going on in Los Angeles. Let's remember how we got here, all right? Because here we are a week removed from the beginning of these riots and the beginning of the vandalism and the assaulting federal officers. And many people forget. How on earth did this come about, right? Did this just organically occur? How this happened is because Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under the direction of Tom Holman, under the direction of President Trump, they were doing their jobs in Los Angeles and removing dangerous illegal alien criminals off the streets. And when they were conducting these raids in Los Angeles late last week, rioters and looters and protesters showed up at the federal buildings, specifically the ICE facilities within Los Angeles. And it quickly began to spiral out of control. And when the federal government requested the aid of the lapd, guess how long it took the Los Angeles Police Department to show up? Two hours. So we went from dozens to hundreds to over a thousand protesters and rioters at the Federal Building in Los Angeles over the course of two hours because the LAPD was so incompetent that they couldn't show up. This, this idea that the Los Angeles Police Department can't show up to an emergency call by federal law enforcement aid for two hours is scandalous. Who told the LAPD to withhold aid and assistance from, from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for two hours? This is like our domestic Benghazi, if you remember that fiasco under Obama where we held back going in to rescue our ambassador and other special operatives. Hillary Clinton was a part of the scandal. This is our domestic Benghazi. And so because the LAPD refused to show up over a two hour window, this whole thing escalated and got out of control. Because you have incompetence leadership, incompetent leadership at the city level. And at the state level, with the mayor and the governor, and you had Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents that were being assaulted, attempted murder, damage to property, impeding on law enforcement activities, all happening in Los Angeles. That's why President Trump had to send in assistance. And when I look at this, here's my. I fall on two sides of the fence, depending on what day of the week it is. And then I'll tell you what side I've landed on today. When I initially saw what was going on in Los Angeles and how President Trump was sending in reinforcements, I thought to myself, you know, is this President Trump's mess to clean up? Is Los Angeles President Trump's mess to clean up? And the reality is, it's not. This is a Democrat stronghold, has been for decades. They have run the city into the ground. It is the land of the haves and the have nots, and illegal immigrants, in this instance, are running the city. How do I know that? Because they were arrested over 300, 300 of them as part of the riots. And so if I'm looking, I'm looking at this from a practical political responsibility vantage point, and I'm thinking, if I'm Trump, I just take my hands off. We'll pull out of Los Angeles, and the gang bangers and the rapists and the murderers of MS.13 and others, they can run your city. And if you guys want to do anything about it, I mean, you guys can pick your leaders, y' all can change your leadership, you can go a different direction. But I didn't create the mess, thus I'm not coming in to fix it. All right? That's my cynical, pragmatic side. But then I'll look at it and go, this is an injustice. This is an injustice. Because not all Los Angeles citizens voted for this. All right? That's the first thing. Not everybody signed up for this chaos. Secondly, we've got noble, virtuous law enforcement, federal officials that are trying to do their job and protect the homeland, and they're being accosted, assaulted, attempted murder, can't do their jobs, Molotov cocktails being thrown at them, people jumping on their vehicles. And that's unacceptable. That's unacceptable. Because if you don't do anything about that, then the anarchy wins and President Trump is obstructed from fulfilling his constitutional mandate to protect the homeland from enemies both foreign and domestic. Does that sound familiar? And this really has little to do with the campaign promise. And I understand the talking points of the White House and the talking points of others about How President Trump is just following through on his campaign promise. But this is way more important than a campaign promise. This is about the fundamental ability of the executive branch to command and control our federal immigration. And if ICE backs out, if CBP backs out, if the FBI backs out of LA because they've got a bunch of corrupt leadership, then they win. The corrupt leadership wins, the criminals win, the gangs win, the cartels win. And that's not good for anybody. That's not good for anyone. And so that's this dilemma that I'm going through. But I think President Trump is right in sending in reinforcements, whether it's Marine battalions or whether it's, I mean, Marine elements, whether it's the National Guard, whether it's more FBI, whatever it is. I think President Trump has to use the strong arm here because we've seen this play out before with the 2020 Summer of Love. That wasn't a summer of love. George Floyd, burn it all down riots, where President Trump took a more passive approach, tried to let the governors fix the issues, and they didn't. And cities burned as a result. And when you look at the polling on this, President Trump's approval numbers keep going up. This is what's absolutely wild, and it contradicts the media narrative, because you would think President Trump sending in the National Guard, President Trump sending in Marine units, President Trump sending in more federal officials, federal resources is going to look, look, look too strong. It's going to look overplayed, bad optics and all of this, that the media tells you that, like, he's a dictator and we don't need the military in our streets. And they give all these kind of talking points about how this is going to be so bad for President Trump. And meanwhile, his numbers keep going up, his numbers keep going up. And I also predicted after they lost the election in November, that they didn't have the ability to rein themselves in. They did not have the ability to rein themselves in. And this is exhibit A. Gavin Newsom is defending the rioters and the looters. Gavin Newsom refused to send in the National Guard when President Trump talked to him. The LAPD refused to show up for two hours to help ice. And then I've got. There's information now about how when the LAP did show up, they were woefully unprepared. Let's listen to this clip. This is Aaron Cohen, he's former Israeli special ops, talking about the dangerous tactical failure of the Los Angeles mayor and leadership that happened that led to this fiasco. Clip 4.
Leadership failure put LAPD and LASD officers in risk
So, Sean, where do I start with this? I've been texting back and forth with law enforcement on the ground, for the last couple of days. Sean, I've been a reserve law enforcement officer for 17 years. And the leadership failure put these officers in risk. And that's the personal problem I have here. There was no unified command structure. Bass was micromanaging field decisions from city hall, which breaks protocol. You had incident Commander Sean waiting on political clearance before moving teams. And that kind of interference delays reactions and gets cops killed. And in that dynamic crowd, seconds matter. Then you had curfews that were called too late. And by the time LASD and LAPD were authorized to clear the streets, the agitators had already taken control of the crowd. And they used these peaceful protesters as human shields while they're going back and forth, pelting these guys, launching fireworks, rocks. And officers walked into an environment, an ambush. that was already where the threat had already built. And by the time the momentum had started, they were getting over, overtaken. Then the rules of engagement were politically restricted. No crowd dispersal tools, no forward posture. Officers had to take hits before they were even allowed to push back. You can't send cops into a volatile crowd with shields and batons and no ability to control the temple. Tactical failure. Extremely dangerous.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, this is the Democrats. January 6th, as a matter of fact. It's worse. It's worse because there was actual violence here. There was actual assaulting law enforcement. And when you listen to the rioters. Let's listen to this clip before we wrap it up. This is about a 30 second clip, and there's some bleeps here because there was some profanity that we had to cover up. But this is a rioter admitting that their goal is to, quote, burn it all down. Let's listen. I gotta ask. What's the point of doing that at this point? Like, what's the point of tagging? I'm just asking. No, I wanted to know because you know Old Vera Street. Your thoughts?
>> Walker Wildmon: Get them the out of our city. If they don't stop, we're gonna continue. We'll burn it all down.
>> Speaker C: I know, but vandalism, what does it do? We burn it all down. You don't understand. Stupid.
>> Speaker C: No, I'm not trying to be stupid. Well, how come M. No, but how come. How come. How come they're destroying the Mexican properties? The Mexican property across the way at Olvera Street? I didn't do that. This is their problem. Well, you should tell people to stop. Destroying never touched a small business ever. Okay? Never. Only government property. Thank you, sir.
>> Walker Wildmon: well, there you have it. I think the FBI needs to investigate that clip. Why? Because this individual said, I haven't touched private property property. I've only touched, quote, federal property. Oh, really? Please tell us about this. Please tell us about which federal property you've, quote, unquote, touched. That's a task for the FBI. We'll see you next time.
>> Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.