American Family Radio is raising funds to help preborn save 38,000 babies
>> Walker Wildmon: I want you to picture this. Her name is Kayla. She is 17, alone, terrified and pregnant, Sitting in a clinic, tears blurring, thinking abortion is her only option until she was offered a free ultrasound, paid for by a hero just like you. The moment Kayla heard her baby's heartbeat, the decision was made. And today, her little baby boy, Gabriel, is thriving because preborn walked with Kayla every step of the way. Now multiply that by 38,000. That's how many babies preborn has helped save just this year. And along with saving the babies, mothers are being counseled with practical and spiritual advice to make motherhood possible. But here's the most important thing you will hear today. The goal is to save 70,000 by the end of the year. And they can't do it without us. Every $28 provides that ultrasound that changes everything. Will you be the reason the next Kayla chooses life? The reason Gabriel fulfills his destiny. To donate, dial £250 and say the keyword baby. That's £250, baby. Or donate [email protected] afr that's preborn.com afr we inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions no matter where they are.
>> Richard Harris: We equip
>> Rick Green: Sacred honor is the courage to speak truth to live out your free speech.
>> Bro Don Wildmon: We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance. Character, and character hope.
>> Richard Harris: This is At The Core on American Family Radio.
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome, to The Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on this edition, this brand new edition of the program here on afr. I'm Walker Wildmon. Rick Green and I host the show each week. And, we're glad to have you with us on the program. As a reminder, we would love for you to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. So go to your podcast store and type in the name of the program at The Core and you can click the subscribe or the follow button and, we will cue the podcast up in your inbox in your library each and every day. And that's a convenient way for you to listen to the program.
Proverbs chapter 24 talks about how bad company corrupts good character
Alright, well, our scripture for the week, we've been in Proverbs, chapter 24, looking at verses 1 and 2. Do not be envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, for their minds devise violence and their lips talk of trouble. Alright? And this bodes well, with the passage out of first Corinthians talking about, how bad company corrupts good character. And this, fits well with that teaching. And so we don't need to want our desire to be like or be with evil men. We should flee from it, because of the sin and the evil and wickedness that follows when you surround yourself with other evil men. So that's Proverbs chapter 24, verse 1 and 2. And it just drives home the fact that it does matter who we surround ourselves with. You know, some people, some believers are naive to think that they can spend vast amounts of their time around sinners and unbelievers and, those who don't profess Christ and that that's not going to affect them at all. that's just not true. It's just not true. We have to surround ourselves with godly people. That's Proverbs 24, verses one and two.
An event with afa is coming up in October, registration closing soon
All right, an event we have coming up in October, which registration is actually going to close here in the next few weeks. But the first weekend of October, October, this is the weekend with afa, October two through four. We're going to be here in Tupelo, Mississippi. We're going to have a couple days of, retreat, a couple days of fellowship and encouragement here in, Tupelo, Mississippi. So if you want to join us, it's called a weekend with AFA, October 2nd through the 4th. Of course, this is coming up pretty quickly, under a month now. You're going to want to go ahead and register right now if you do want to come, but you can go to afa.netforward/weekend, afa.netweekend to find out more information. And probably this is the last week, to go ahead and register. At least I would operate under that assumption with it being so close, afa.netforward/weekend to check it out. That's October 2nd through the 4th coming up here in just a couple weeks.
Marco Rubio: President Trump strikes Mexican cartels trying to smuggle drugs
All right, let's jump into the news of the week. There's a lot we could talk about. We could talk, about what's going on in Israel with the continued hostage situation in Gaza. We've got President Trump clamping down on violent crime in Washington, D.C. using his powers as chief executive of a federal city and this threat to deploy federal resources to other cities, which is being discussed right now, including Chicago and other places. New Orleans is now on the target list. And, in a related topic, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, commented on President Trump striking via, military action, the cartels that were attempting to Smuggle in, enough, ah, fentanyl and other illicit drugs to kill millions of, of American citizens. These were cartels coming from Venezuela. They've been designated as a foreign terrorist organization. President Trump took decisive military action, struck the cartel, killed, 11 cartel members that were trying to smuggle, thousands of pounds of drugs into the U.S. that would kill, overdose, kill, up to 20 million Americans. And Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, very eloquently and rightly described the, threat of these cartels, which, these cartels, some people don't view them as much of a threat. Folks. They are. They're responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in America every single year from overdoses. Let's listen to clip three.
>> Marco Rubio: We cannot continue to just treat these guys as local street gangs. They have weaponry that looks like we're terrorists, in some cases, armies. Have they control territory. In many cases, those cartels extend from the Maduro regime in Venezuela, which is not a legitimate government. We don't recognize the Maduro regime as legitimate. It is a criminal enterprise all the way to the various different, cartels that operate in Mexico. And in between, you find them in Ecuador, you find them in Guatemala, you find TDA and what people would call street gangs, but actually operating as criminal enterprises, but very well organized ones. So what it changes is it gives us legal authorities to target them in ways you can't do if they're just a bunch of criminals. It's no longer a law enforcement issue. It becomes a national security.
Marco Rubio says President Trump should consider military action against Mexican drug cartels
>> Walker Wildmon: All right, well, there you have it. That's Secretary of State, Marco Rubio talking about the strike against the cartels and the threat of the cartels. This is a serious threat. This isn't to be taken lightly because we have the direct overdose deaths, which is over 100,000 annually. Then you have, on top of that, just the sheer carnage that these drugs have on individuals and families. The sheer carnage meaning, divorce, abuse, neglect, employment issues, which affects one's livelihood. you have the foster system being affected with this. You have fatalities of, infants. I just saw a recent report, where you had an infant fatality that because of exposure to fentanyl. And so the carnage here is broad. The carnage is deep. And it doesn't take anyone but about 60 seconds to understand the gravity of these illicit drugs, these illegal drugs. And so the cartels are smuggling them into the homeland, and Americans are suffering because of it. All right? And so President Trump took decisive action, and this is what it's like this is what it is like to have your priorities in order, all right? Because we can go over to Iran, we can go over to the Middle east, we can pick a fight with somebody. We can probably justify a fight with somebody in a far, far away land. We can talk about how bad the Russia, Ukraine war is, of which it is a humanitarian crisis, but in our own backyard, these cartels are running the show. And this has been going on for decades. And the administrations have deployed law enforcement resources towards this, but never military resources towards this, at least not at any scale. But when you look at the scale of the crisis, it totally justifies military deployment against these cartels. These cartels are effectively serving as not just criminal enterprises. In many cases, they're serving as a form of a foreign militia. These guys are well armed, they've got well, integrated networks. They've got many of these, Central and South American, governments captive, meaning through blackmail, through corruption, through, you know, payoffs, kickbacks, whatever you want to call it. And this is the problem. This is the story of Mexico. I mean, as beautiful as Mexico is and as much potential as it has, the fact of the matter is their government is deeply corrupt. All right? Deeply corrupt. Major issue. Why? Partly because of the cartels. All right? A lot of the government, including the president of Mexico, they're virtually, maybe not all, but the vast majority of the elected officials in Mexico are corrupt in some manner, right? Or they turn a blind eye because they don't want have the cartel coming to their house at night. And so it's a major issue. And that's in our own backyard. And then this, of course, bleeds into the homeland, the bleeds into the United States. And when you have porous borders, it, makes the matters 10 times worse. So President Trump took action. This is what's needed to protect the homeland. And you have to send a signal to these cartels that we're not doing it anymore. We're not turning a blind eye. We're not going easy on you. We're not just going to send the cops after you, which the law enforcement has limited resources. When you're dealing with foreign terrorist organization, foreign cartels, what's a local police department? What's the FBI gonna do when the cartels are running their operations out of Venezuela and Mexico? What are you gonna do? That's a sovereign territory, so you have to bring in the military, and that's what they're doing. And I think we need to escalate it. I think we need to escalate it to, eventually just cut off the flow of drugs into the homeland. That's just what you're going to have to do. And I don't doubt that the cartels are going to put up a fight. I mean, when you look at the billions of dollars at stake, there's no doubt the cartels are going to put up a fight. Who knows what that looks like? But it's justified. That's my point, is the action is justified, the threat is real, and the cartels have been getting away with this for decades. And it's time that comes to an end. And it's a viable, valid use of our military.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fought back against Democrats at Senate hearing this week
All right? Protecting the homeland, protecting threats right on our doorstep. All right, let's shift gears. Let's talk a little bit about the CDC, Department of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. He, was at a hearing in the Senate this week. I believe it was in the Finance Committee, talking about, probably talking about the budget for hhs. But then, you know, they don't talk about what they're there to talk about. They talk about other things. And boy, these Democrat senators just were trying to rail, RFK Jr. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Who's the secretary of Health and Human Services, trying to accuse him of undermining America's health, undermining the institutions like the Centers for Disease Control. And they were just trying to give him the hardest time. And what I love about RFK Jr. In this instant is he fought back. I mean, he fought back like a bulldog. He wasn't having it. they were at sometimes getting in these shouting matches. And I just, I'm just glad that RFK Jr took on the Democrats because they were playing dirty, they were playing unfair, they were mischaracterizing his, statements and his actions.
The Centers for Disease Control has overseen rapid decline in American children's health
And so let's start this off with the first clip. And the first clip Here is clip four. And this is RFK Jr. It's only about 15 seconds. Talking about how the Centers for Disease Control has overseen the last 30 to 40 years a rapid decline in the health and well being of America's children. Let's listen to clip four. We are the sickest country in the world. That's why we have to fire people at cdc. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy. Thank you. And I need to fire some of those people to make sure this doesn't happen again. There you have it. So RFK Jr saying, look, the CDC has been, quote, over all of this. When it comes to childhood Vaccinations, looking after the health and well being of children, recommending different treatments and shots. And they're overseeing, they've overseen since the 1940s and since then, the worst decline in America's health in our existence. Things are getting worse. And they've been getting worse since the CDC started. And so this is not like, you know, everything's going great, everybody's happy. Childhood obesity is at record lows, you know, age expectancy, life expectancy is at record highs. Everything's great. And here RFK Jr. Is coming in and just messing up the whole party. No, no, no, no, no. It's the opposite. Everything's bad, everything's trending in the wrong direction. The CDC has become an arm of the pharmaceutical industry. That's a phone fact. And RFK Jr. Talks about this. We'll get to that maybe later. But this, this whole notion that the CDC is perfect, done everything up to par, everything's going great, America is as healthy as it's ever been. No, it's the opposite. Things are going terribly. Americans picked up on it and said, we've got to have change. They elected Donald Trump. Donald Trump pledged to partner with RFK Jr. He's at, ah, HHS now as secretary and he is doing some good stuff, including, by the way, let me, let me note, they've got a report coming out probably in the next 30 days or less on the connection between childhood vaccines and autism. This is a big deal, big scale scandal, by the way. This has been covered up. Meanwhile, you've got President Trump telling Pfizer and others, hey, you better show me the data on these Covid jabs. I want to see it. We'll be back in a few.
>> Richard Harris: At The Core podcast are [email protected] now back to at The Core on American Family Radio.
Walker Wildmon: Richard Harris says Senate bill will reduce deficit significantly
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to the program. Walker Wildmon here on this edition of The Core Well, we've got a guest with us this segment to talk about the one big beautiful bill, which is actually what it's called according to the legislative text that President Trump and the Republicans in the House and the Senate passed recently as of, let's say a couple months ago. And a lot is in this bill. You, you've got reforms to the tax code, you've got funding for the border and border security, you have, Pell grant reform, opening that up to different, types of skilled labor and trade schools, which is excellent. Just a lot going on in this legislation, including the defunding of abortion providers through Medicaid reimbursements, Very big win for the pro life community. And so Richard Harris is on with us now, executive director of Truth and Liberty, to talk about some of the things that are in this bill. So, Richard, welcome to the program.
>> Richard Harris: Hey, great to be with you, Walker.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, Richard, let's, break this down because if you, if you listen to the media and even some Republicans, you would hear that, oh, this is going to add $4 trillion to our deficit, to our debt over the next 10 years, which I'm thinking, we're adding like multi trillion a year. So 4 trillion over 10 years doesn't really sound, that big of a deal. But nonetheless, you get kind of these negative talking points that basically this is a bad bill. That's kind of the messaging you've gotten from the Democrats and some in the media. but tell us what's in it, because this is a very transformative piece of legislation for multiple reasons.
>> Richard Harris: Yeah, absolutely. It is a big bill. So say so. That's a big question. But I'll start off just by, by saying, yeah, anytime you have the Democrats, supposedly complaining about increasing the deficit, you can rest assured it's a smokescreen, that there's something else they're really worried about. so the, the, the Congressional Budget Office, when they scored this legislation, they predicted it would increase the national, debt by 2, uh.7 trillion over 10 years. But their numbers were wonky, walk, Walker, for several reasons. the first one is because they were counting, they estimated a $3.7 trillion loss in revenue, because of Trump's tax cuts. Well, those tax cuts have already been in effect since 2017. So we're talking about existing tax rates that are all, all this bill did was make them permanent. In other words, take, away the sunset provision. So to count that as a loss in revenue is just, you know, not really accurate. Is maintaining the cuts that, nearly every American enjoyed. you know, trillions of dollars were given back to hardworking Americans in 2017 with Trump's tax cuts, and it made that permanent. So it's not fair to count that as a loss, first of all. Second of all, ah, the, the CBO predicted that the economy would only grow by 1.8%. Well, the average over the last 10 years is 2.2%. So they're undercutting it that way. And then they did not include revenue from Trump's tariffs. After they scored this bill, they came out with a separate report and said, oh, yeah, if those tariffs stay in place, they're going to probably raise. I, think the number was, three trillion. Approximately. When you add all those things together, it looks like Trump's people were right. We're pretty close to right. This thing will actually cut the deficit by approximately 4 to 6 trillion dollars over 10 years. So for that reason alone, I love this bill. It's definitely a massive step in the right direction. But to talk about winners and losers, this, is where it gets kind of fun. The first thing is the losers, brother. the losers. You know, it's difficult to swallow. but let me share with you. First of all, it's going to be people that are on welfare that are able to work. All right? So Trump imposes work requirements on people that are, getting their health care expenses paid by the taxpayers. In other words, Medicaid. he's also m kicking illegal immigrants off of Medicaid. and, like you said in your opening, he defunds Planned Parenthood. In other words, we're not going to use our taxpayer funded health, care to reimburse a company that kills babies in the womb. and then you've got inefficient, state governments. There's going to be a penalty for those who have an error rate in administering Medicaid benefits. More than 6% costs are going to be shifted to them. And so these are losers as well as, wind, solar and electric vehicle, boondoggles that were handed out under the Green New Deal. Those are all canceled. And then we've got deadbeat college students. So those people who went to college on government funded student loans and don't want to pay them back. And Biden said, that's great with me, since you all vote Democrat, well, that's over too. So all of those are the losers and don't know where you sit. Well, I do, but to me, that's not a very sympathetic crowd of losers. No, but the winner. The winners, brother, are phenomenal. Basically, and I'm not overstating this, it's almost all Americans, first off, the 2017 tax cuts being made permanent. Almost every taxpayer in America received a benefit from that. But he also focuses in on those who are hardest hit by Biden's inflation. You know, at one point in the Biden administration, we were suffering under 20% inflation. People couldn't afford to buy groceries for their families. Overtime is no longer going to be taxed. neither are tip earners, income from tips over $25,000. And then he's also as you mentioned funding the border wall. Lower income Social Security recipients are going to receive an additional 4, a $4,000 deduction in their income taxes. So the elderly and Social Security recipients, parents get an increased child tax credit, new car buyers, you buy an American car, you're going to be able to deduct that interest as well as many other groups including The greatest thing I love about this is he's rewarding people for having children now, not punished them for it but newborns. Under this bill will have an automatically available savings account created by the federal government that parents can put into for that child's future and also scholarships. he's created a special incentive program for private charities to donate towards scholarship funds that will enable parents to send their kids to schools of their choice. He's also opening up, making it easier to explore for oil and gas on federal lands and offshore. Also timber harvesting, AI development, building the golden dome and as you said the border wall. So in my judgment this bill is almost a miracle the things that it accomplishes while simultaneously reducing the federal deficit.
>> Walker Wildmon: That's right. And to your point early on about the, you know, the tariff revenue and how that could offset a lot of these, these new expenditures, not existing expenditures but new expenditures in reality if things go well once again things have to line up pretty well for all this to work out. and you have to also assume continuity of government meaning like minded administrations ongoing for the next 5 to 10 years which is possible with JD Vance but nonetheless, my point is, is that theoretically there is a likelihood here that you could have all of these new expenses completely offset by tariff revenue. You could have basically this as a break even bill where it pays for itself through the tariff revenue over the course of that 10 year period. But furthermore either way it goes the border wall in and of itself and then we'll talk about some of the other things you mentioned. Getting the entire border wall funded is like a conservative victory that none of us could have even imagined because we were fighting for like to get three miles under Trump 1.0 with Mitch McConnell in the Senate and, and Paul Ryan. I mean we couldn't even get three miles. It was like we were just having to pull teeth to get just a couple miles of border wall. This bill funds the whole thing like this. And this isn't something that can be rescinded assuming we get it built in the next three and a half years. It is what it is. I mean they would have to Bulldoze it down, which wouldn't put it past them. But the Democrats can't stop this. The wall will be built over the next four years.
>> Richard Harris: Yeah, fantastic. You know, the Trump has already closed the border with you know, by just enforcing the laws that we have effectively. But to erect a border wall is going to provide security for America, for years and years to come. And why anyone in their right mind would be opposed to that is a little bit beyond me given the scope and magnitude of the problem that we're facing today with illegal immigration. But the Democrats are, and you know, because of the they stand to gain from illegal immigration politically. but yeah, fantastic development. Something that took far too long to accomplish, but thank the Lord it has been.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely.
Walker: Planned Parenthood relies on Medicaid reimbursements for most of its services
Talk a little bit about the defunding of abortion providers through Medicaid reimbursements. This is about seven, $800 million industry. specifically I'm talking the Medicaid reimbursement to abortion providers. Talk about that provision because that was a major, it's a 12 month application so we'll have to look at renewing it. But either way, 12 for 12 months, Planned Parenthood and others aren't going to be able to apply for Medicaid reimbursements.
>> Richard Harris: Yeah, that's right. So under federal law, federal dollars cannot be spent directly on abortion. already however, the federal government's been sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood, for so called other health care related services provided to women. But Planned Parenthood's records show, Walker, you've seen these numbers, that it's actually a very small percentage of their services are non abortion related and most of those services are only given to women, who come in for the primary service, which is abortion. Furthermore, all of those non abortion related services are readily available at community health centers at no cost to women all over the country. In fact there's like five to seven times more community health centers than there are Planned Parenthood clinics. So we don't have to worry about you know, underprivileged women not being able to get access to you know, rudimentary women's health care. It is not a problem in this country. So this is good news because we know that they say, well that goes to, doesn't go to abortion. But you know, what if I give you a $500 million for this part of your business, all that does is free up your cash to spend on abortion and abortion promotion and you know, LGBT indoctrination services and destroying marriages and everything else. You, you know, you do. So it's high time that this happened. And yeah, we should rejoice over this because in the bottom line of it is it means babies, lives saved. And I think we're up to 48 Planned Parenthoods, closed across the nation. Nation already. So this is definitely good.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. And you have to think, yes, it's a 12 month application, but if we can, if we can make it to where, to your point, we've already got dozens shutting down of these, these abortion facilities, especially in conservative states because we're just not having it. And there's no, they can't operate, they can't legally operate. And, and it actually proves a point that they're. The majority of what they are doing is actually abortion, especially from a m. Monetary standpoint. Because otherwise why shut down? Right. If you've got all this other stuff you're offering. but no, they're primarily relying on abortion for their revenue. but if you can shut them down. My point is, is that even if you only shut them down for a year and then they can start reapplying for Medicaid, you've majorly disrupted their business operations. You've majorly disrupted their operations, to such a degree that, that getting back off the ground and setting back up shop in these communities can be very challenging for them financially and legally. and so I think that, my point is, is that the effect here is going to go beyond 12 months. I mean this is a big, big deal to cut these abortion providers off from Medicaid. And then the last thing that I wanted to mention was the, I think the child, correct me if I'm wrong, I think the child tax credit bumped up to 2,500 permanently, as opposed to 2,000. and then you have the the child savings account, which is, if that's invested in the stock market, it's going to grow over the course of their minor years and into a pretty good nest egg.
>> Richard Harris: Yeah, that's, that's absolutely right. So what you see Trump, doing this is a very pro family bill when you think about it. It's promoting, families having children and those children having a future. And it's discouraging, you know, this destructive philosophy that's invaded our culture that children are a burden. And so, you know, I think it deserves a lot of support and praise for that reason. So I really appreciate you pointing those things out. Those are great points all.
>> Walker Wildmon: right.
Walker: Richard Harris with Truth and Liberty, thanks for joining us
We've had on with us, Richard Harris with, Truth and Liberty. Hey, Richard, tell our folks, your website a little bit about your show and how they can check out all the work that you do.
>> Richard Harris: Oh, thank you, Walker. Yeah. so our website is truthandliberty.net. it's all one word, Truthand Liberty. And, yeah, you can go there and find our resources page. you can watch all of our programs and, learn about our events. We've got a conference coming up next week that's going to be phenomenal. Charlie Kirk will be with us. He's going to be the keynote on Thursday night next week. have Pastor Lorenzo Sewell. I'll be speaking as will Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and, a D transitioner named Lauren Perry Small. We're going to have a candidate form amongst Colorado candidates for governor. It's going to be awesome. yeah, so check us out there. My show airs, Walker, on our website as well as on all of our social media platforms. YouTube, Facebook, and so forth. And then also on the, television network of Andrew Wommack Ministries. It's called Gospel Truth Network, or gtn.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, tell Lauren I said hello. She was featured in our documentary "In His Image" about God's design for gender and sexuality. So, good lineup you got there at your conference, at your event. And thanks, so much for coming on the program, Richard.
>> Richard Harris: Thanks for having me. It's been an honor. Appreciate it.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely.
Richard Harris: Congressional Budget Office doesn't factor in impact of immigration legislation
That's Richard Harris with Truth and Liberty, talking about the one big, beautiful bill and all of the winners and losers. And when you break it down like he did, it's a pretty, Pretty solid piece of legislation. Pretty solid piece of legislation that has the potential to really set our country off on a good track. You know, another thing that's not factored into this legislation is the drastic reduction in, services and monies required to fund illegal immigration. Because when you have the burden which gets into the hundreds of billions of dollars of the burden that illegal immigrants are on our system, from the hospitals to the fire departments to the police departments to our schools, is hundreds of billions of dollars annually that you and I are paying to house these illegal immigrants and provide all these government services for them. That's not even mentioning Medicaid, Social Security, and all these other benefits, snap that they're applying for, which also get into the billions. But Congressional Budget Office doesn't. They don't even factor that in. Well, that's. That's unrelated. No, it's not. that's a net effect of this legislation. And so you continue, and this is the importance of mass deportations. You continue the mass deportations. You are drastically reducing the burden, the financial and otherwise burden on America's systems, and you're freeing those systems up that are in, intended for American citizens, for American taxpayers. And so the, the, the benefits here, folks, to closing our border and deporting illegal immigrants. The, benefits here are massive financial and otherwise. We'll be back in a few.
>> Richard Harris: At The Core podcasts are [email protected] now back to at The Core on American Family Radio.
Chris Woodward: ADP reports 54,000 jobs added in August
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to The Core here on American Family Radio. Walker Wildmon here, Chris Woodward in with us as he is each week, to bring us the news of the week from American Family News, afn.net is the URL. Hey, Chris, welcome back.
>> Chris Woodward: Thank you very much.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, Chris, there's some, economic numbers coming out just as we're doing the program, on this, prerecorded Thursday afternoon, that is, tell us some of those numbers that we were getting. These are employment numbers from adp.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah, ADP is a payroll processor. So who better to know things like how many jobs were created than people hired to do payroll for a number of companies across these United States of America? we got 54,000 jobs added in August. 54,000 jobs added in August. experts, thought we'd see somewhere in the, neighborhood of 75,000, which is nothing to write home about. But a lot of people are going with the headline number disappointing ADP number only 54,000. We thought we'd see 75, that kind of thing. I noticed in a lot of the news articles about this, there is a comment from ADP's chief economist, Neila Richardson, who said, quote, this year started with strong job growth, but that momentum has been whipsawed by uncertainty. A variety of things could explain the hiring slowdown, including labor shortages, skittish consumers and AI disruptions. I would add something. it is possible that we are seeing more accurate numbers under this administration compared to the previous guy named Joe Biden.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes, because the revisions that we saw under Biden's, Bureau of Labor Statistics, bls, which is separate from adp, but they usually track close together. they had revisions to over a million one year, where they revised, ah, hundreds of thousands, like 100,000amonth on average. They were revising them down nonetheless. Chris, this doesn't surprise me. Assuming ADP's numbers are accurate and even assuming this trend continues for the next couple of months. I don't think it will, but we'll just see. We've had record, in modern history, record level interest rates, both on the commercial side and on the mortgage side. And you've had Bidenomics, which was a disaster. I mean, the amount of, wealth that Americans lost under Biden can't be forgotten. And so with that being said, and I've said this before, I don't think the recovery is just like, oh, snap a finger, Trump gets in there and boom, everything's back to normal. Right? No, there's no president can come in that quickly, even with a Congress and, quote, fix what Biden did over the course of four years. What Biden did was an absolute disaster. And so I think we could, I think things could be a little sluggish for a little while. I said two to four years for a recovery. And when I say a recovery, I'm talking about getting back to where we were pre Covid. Right. Mortgage rates, 3%, 3 and a half, you know, GDP 3, 4%. Who knows? We'll see. employment pretty steady. I just think it's going to take a little time. So these numbers really don't surprise me.
>> Chris Woodward: No, they really don't. I mean, we talked when he took office or was about to reenter office. We talked about how really under the rosiest, outlooks, you weren't going to see real change or improvement until maybe spring of 2026, which would not be a bad thing because you've got people running for reelection or running, for Congress and the Senate come 2026. So it will take some time. One thing that I noticed today was there was an article, it was in the CNN Money section and it said Trump vowed to lower energy prices. they're not down. Well, okay, he did say that, and they're not down. You can write your article however you want to, but where was that? I'm going to hold your feet to the fire under Joe Biden. Joe Biden said he had a plan. Elect me, I'll get in there and make America, America again. And all these things back in 2020. And clearly his policies caused, many people to face, starvation because they couldn't afford food at the grocery store unless they swiped a credit card and put more debt on themselves than they were, you know, already carrying. So even the media doesn't help here because they're holding Trump to a standard they didn't do. His predecessor, who is responsible for some of the things Trump's trying to fix.
>> Walker Wildmon: Right? Yeah. I completely agree. And, and I do think this is going to take some time. Now the, the article you mentioned, and once again, a lot of these things that we read are kind of market analysts speculating on, ah, what's leading to, for example, only, I think, was it 70,000 jobs added or 50, 54,000? 54,000 as opposed to like expecting 70, 75. they're trying to speculate as to what's leading to this kind of cool jobs report is not negative, but it's not smoking hot either. A.I. was mentioned. I don't know, Chris, if A.I. this, ah, quickly would begin to show on the jobs report.
>> Chris Woodward: I don't think.
>> Walker Wildmon: I, think we're talking years before you've got. Now I know some of the tech companies have started laying off to the tune of hundreds, some companies and even thousands. but I think they're just cutting overhead. I don't think it's because they've got AI that can do the job. So I'm not so sure this quickly we're talking 12 to 24 months into the whole AI revolution that you're going to start seeing that affect jobs reports. I may be wrong, but I just think it's a little too soon for that.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah, I do too. I mean, what are you defining as AI? I mean, AI technically existed before it became a household term. We just didn't call it AI. So if you're talking about we got rid of the person that came up with our, our website's daily poll and replaced that person with ChatGPT. It's a bit of a stretch to say that AI is taking over and things like that. There were good things in this ADP report. For example, leisure and hospitality contributed the most by adding 50,000 jobs. Construction was in second place. You want construction to be up and for construction jobs to be out there because as we've talked about on this show, Dan Celia said this for years, construction was one thing he always looked for. Because if you're not, you're not growing unless you're building things. And because you're building things, things are being made and other people are making money doing things for the construction workers. So construction was doing well in the previous month, according to adp.
President Trump is upset about elevated interest rates because it affects businesses
>> Walker Wildmon: You know, Chris, I think another thing that needs to be considered here, once again, we're talking about the jobs report from adp, which is a private payroll company, but they've got pretty good numbers. They're the largest in the country from payroll standpoint, the elevated interest rates, I think this is One reason President Trump is just upset that Jerome Powell is sitting on his hands at the Federal Reserve, refusing to budge on interest rates because that affects lending for businesses.
>> Chris Woodward: It does.
>> Walker Wildmon: And then it affects. Ends up affecting growth and hiring for businesses.
>> Chris Woodward: It does.
>> Walker Wildmon: And so I think President Trump understands here that, hey, these high interest rates, this doesn't just have to do with mortgages. This is across the board. Businesses aren't able to lend, aren't able to borrow at a lower rate, and it's starting to affect the economy.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah, I mean, Jerome Powell does not care about my opinion, but I would say at this point, just go ahead and do it.
>> Walker Wildmon: Right?
>> Chris Woodward: I mean, what else are you doing?
>> Walker Wildmon: 25 basis points, right? 50 basis points.
>> Chris Woodward: It's not going to kill the economy. Just like all these things Trump has done since he reentered office have not killed the economy. So all these things that you were concerned about, including tariffs, it's not the doom and gloom that we were told. So what's it going to hurt if you just go, you know what? Let's try it?
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, and inflation popped back up to 3% or over 3%, one of the measures, and we've still got elevated interest rates. So I thought Jerome Powell was in control of interest rates because that's what he claimed.
>> Chris Woodward: That's true.
>> Walker Wildmon: He claims that the Fed lowers inflation by raising interest rates. But here we are with raised interest rates for the last two years, and now we've got, inflation popping its head back up. Now, I don't think it's going to stay up. I think it's going to go back down. But nonetheless, it just proves that he doesn't have a magic wand that just, he just waves the wand and inflation goes down, and then he can lower rates. It's way more complicated than that. And you've got the President's policies at play, you've got congressional spending at play, you've got tariff policy at play. There's a lot of moving parts that affects inflation. It's not just what Jerome Powell says. but I think he's going to have to come down. And the ironic thing, Chris, is it's looking like he's going to lower interest rates with inflation elevated.
>> Chris Woodward: Sure. Yeah.
>> Walker Wildmon: After he spent two years telling us, I can't lower rates because inflation's still elevated.
>> Chris Woodward: That's very true. You know, I realize that Donald Trump has had some, business ventures that did not work well. Maybe they were just gimmicky. but he knows what he's doing. He's worked for Years with a lot of people, including unions, and to do all kinds of things.
>> Walker Wildmon: And he's got a team, very, very experienced team around him.
>> Chris Woodward: So what I'm trying to say is, like, I think the guy probably knows a little bit of what he's talking about here. He's not somebody that, was a community organizer who just ran in the right circles with enough billionaires to tell him which direction to move. He knows what he's talking about.
>> Walker Wildmon: That's right, exactly.
Chris Woodward: Energy does affect inflation as well
Chris, let's talk a little bit about energy. we've talked about, you know, nuclear. We've talked about, the refinery capacity and how energy does. Does affect inflation as well. So tell us a little about some of the reports you got on that.
>> Chris Woodward: Yes, energy impacts inflation, because the cheaper energy is, the less of a concern. Inflation is basically. It's the poor man's explanation of it there. so you want energy prices to be lower and not sky high like they were under President Biden and his, energy policies, which turned out to be disastrous. this week, a Midwest refinery flooding caused a jump at the pump. That's according to Triple A, which says today's national average for a gallon of regular is $3.20. The good news is that's not, up that much from it was this time last month, and it's cheaper than it was this time last year. But that, again, is one of the things that media was pointing to, is that, oh, Trump said he was going to do this, and gas is going up. One thing that the president needs to do, and perhaps he's had this conversation with the energy secretary or the Interior Secretary, but we need to do more refineries. the country is growing. There are people coming here. There's people moving all throughout the country to take jobs or whatever. And you need more refinery capacity to not have to worry about things like flooding in the Midwest or a hurricane in the Southeast. All these kinds of things that we experience on a yearly basis that caused, you know, temporary, price spikes. So it would be a good idea if people would listen to this program and take our suggestions that we need to have more refineries. And I think the President has maybe hinted at that in the past.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. And to your point, Chris, this is not something that you're looking five years down the road going, well, we're just not going to need fossil fuels anymore. Right. We're going to be all nuclear or we're going to be all, on batteries and solar and wind or however you want to you know, position that the reality is, and nobody's disputing this, is that we're going to be on fossil fuels for as long as we can think.
>> Chris Woodward: Sure.
>> Walker Wildmon: I mean, there's no sign, even if you start adopting alternative fuel sources, you're still not going to move completely off of fossil fuels. So that's complete fantasy land. My point is, is that it isn't as if like in five years fossil fuels are going to be irrelevant and we don't need the capacity, et cetera. Investing in refining capacity is like a 50 to 100 year project. As far as the payoff, it's going to pay off and it's going to be needed for decades to come.
>> Chris Woodward: People don't realize this, but a lot of stuff that we use and wear and whatnot, a lot of things in our daily lives are petroleum based products.
>> Walker Wildmon: That's right.
>> Chris Woodward: This pen, the shirts that we wear. Yeah. There's all kinds of things that petroleum things, petroleum products go into. So it's, we're not talking about necessarily even fuel in a tank. But, you know, that's one thing to think about that will help pay off the expansion. and also too, at a time when China is still saying we're going to take over Taiwan, Russia clearly doesn't, see an end in sight for its war with Ukraine. And then you throw in Iran and all these other countries, you need to make sure you have some resources to go after.
>> Walker Wildmon: And even Chris, even if our consumption leveled off because of fuel efficiency and adopting nuclear. Even if our consumption plateaued. Right. For a decade, which I don't think it will, even if it did, worst case scenario, the, consumption of fossil fuels flatlines. You've got all these other countries to your point that need it.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah, yeah.
>> Walker Wildmon: People in Africa aren't driving Teslas. Right. They're driving.
>> Chris Woodward: News alert.
>> Walker Wildmon: They're driving, they're driving diesel burning and gasoline burning trucks. Right. So, and Mexico, Canada. So not everybody's, you know, in this advanced economic status where we can look at, you know, driving our cars off of batteries. So my point is, is we could export, even if we flatline our consumption domestically, we could export billions of dollars in energy to the rest of the world.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah. And they would happily take it because you need, you need fossil fuels to have a growing economy. Part of the reason we are the country that we are is because of fossil fuels.
>> Walker Wildmon: And right now, for example, we're telling India how you can't buy your fossil fuels, you can't buy your coal and your, and your gas and your whatever, diesel from Russia. Right. Because big bad Russia, they say.
>> Chris Woodward: Right.
>> Walker Wildmon: which I get it. Right. The president's trying to leverage and to get Putin to the table. But, but India is over here going, well, who do you want us to buy it from? Right. It's Russia's the major player. It's the US And Russia. They're the major players in the energy production market. China is nowhere to be found in this market. And, so where do we've got to have energy? Right. So they're going to Russia. We're saying, no, you can't go to Russia. And they're going, well, where do I go? and we don't have enough capacity to export the amount that they need. So it's. We could solve a lot of problems with more refining capacity.
>> Chris Woodward: Sure, yeah. When India says, where, where should I go? Texas would like a word. Yeah, they, yeah. Or, or Louisiana.
>> Walker Wildmon: But, but then you get, then you start affecting domestic prices. Yeah, right. If we're having to export a bunch, and then it's supply and demand. Right. And so Trump doesn't want energy prices to go up. So. But we need to get to a point, to your point, where Texas and Louisiana, all these, US States can.
>> Chris Woodward: Export, and we need to stay doing that and not turn around every four years with some other president.
>> Walker Wildmon: Some. Yeah. Green New Deal.
>> Chris Woodward: Yeah.
Chris Woodward: Never in a million years are we carrying that kind of weight on batteries
And then we have like, this is. People may have forgotten about this, but Energy Secretary Granholm, under Biden, she made comments one time that she dreamed of a day in which we would have, tanks and other things in our military that were electric.
>> Walker Wildmon: Give me a break. Never in a million years are we going to be carrying that kind of weight on batteries.
>> Chris Woodward: Right.
>> Walker Wildmon: I can't even keep my laptop up without plugging it in every three hours. Goodness. and you got to charge your Tesla every 200 miles. yeah. And charge it for eight hours. Don't get me started on all that. folks, thanks for joining the program. Chris. Appreciate you coming on afn.net is their way website. Check out their news source from a Christian perspective. Subscribe to the newsletter. We'll see you next time.
>> Jeff Chamblee: M the views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
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