American Family Radio thanks its sponsor, Preborn

>> Walker Wildmon: We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without your help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby or visit 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.

>> Jeff Chamblee: We equip

>> Rick Green: Sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.

>> Don Wildmon: We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character. This is at the core on American Family Radio.

Walker Wildmon: The show is hosted by Rick Green and myself

Welcome to The Core here on American Family Radio. I'm, Walker Wildmon. Glad to be with you on this brand new edition of today's program and this week's episode here on American Family Radio. Once again, I'm Walker Wildmon. The show is hosted each week by Rick Greene and myself. We're your host each week here on the program. I'm with you on most Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, Rick as our host on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And, once again, you're listening to the American Family Radio Network. We, publish the show in the form of a podcast each and every afternoon. As soon as the show wraps up within an hour or so, we have the show queued up ready to go in the podcast store. So if you want to subscribe to the show in your podcast library, we would greatly appreciate that. Obviously, the more people that subscribe, the better the listenership is and the more people, tune in to the program and the podcast. And so make sure you subscribe to the at the Core podcast wherever you listen to podcast. Also, we have the video up each day on all of our social media handles and our very own video platform, AFA Stream. You can simply type in stream.afa.net stream.afa.net to create a free account and watch, this program, all of the other AFR shows, along with all of the AFA produced video content. We have a huge library of content, hundreds of videos [email protected] and you can create a free account there.

Acts chapter six is where we are this week

Well, Acts chapter six is where we are this week and it's good to be back in the chair. I was on vacation last week and I got plenty of sun, although I tried to not get sunburned. And we vacationed with my family down in Florida and just had a good time of relaxation. But it's good to be back and good to be doing the work of the Lord. And that's how our work should be. You know, God created work, to be fruitful, to be beneficial, to be productive. And work is a creation of God. And so we ought to if our heart is in the right place, we ought to desire to work and desire to be productive. That's the way the Lord intended it.

Acts chapter six addresses the need to care for widows

Acts chapter six is where we are this week. Looking at the first four to five verses here. Now in those days when the number of disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said it is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may ah, appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Verse 5. And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. And Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon Parmenas I didn't practice these by the way, before the show. Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles. And when they had prayed and they laid hands on them, then the word of God spread and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And great many of the priests were obedient to the, the faith. That's through verse seven actually. So one through seven in chapter six here in Acts. But here we have the early church and the disciples coming to a seemingly speedy resolution on the studying and the preaching of the Word and the actual carrying out of biblical responsibility here of caring for widows. And so there's a lot that we could take away from this. Number One is that the early church was eager to be unified and to seek resolutions that were honorable to God. That's what they did here. M. but secondly it shows the priority of serving the widow. That's ah, a biblical mandate that we see throughout the NewSong Testament. And the early church did not neglect and were quick to address this need of serving widows when it was brought up here in Acts chapter six. there's a lot we could talk about today. We are going to have a guest on to talk about a Brand new film coming out, this month. we'll be talking to Kyle justice with Compel Media in the last segment about the founders movie. There's also other films they've produced, but we're going to primarily be talking about the founders movie. but nonetheless, in the meantime, let's talk through some of the news that has been developing over the weekend. And, over the last few weeks.

There will be no Iran deal in a traditional sense

The Iran situation just continues to be in limbo and depending on what hour of the day it is, will depend on the headline regarding Iran. But to sum it all up, we've been at a standstill on Iran for the last several weeks, if not month or so, where the heavy military campaign has subsided, although we are still carrying out targeted military strikes, on occasion. But the ceasefire has pretty much fallen apart. We've seen the US resume strikes of obviously Iran's being an aggressor to their launching missiles and drones, not only at ships but also at Arab nations in the region. And so the ceasefire is surely but slowly falling apart and I'm rather surprised it held together as long as it did. but nonetheless, my position for the last several weeks has been and continues to be that there will be no Iran deal in a traditional sense. All right. And this is not, this is really what I'm going to say is not really a controversial opinion. If you look at things objectively here. The reason I say there will be no Iran deal, it's not because I don't want there to be Iran deal or I want the president and the United States to fail in any circumstance. Absolutely not. But I'm just looking at Iran and how their position ideologically and their worldview and their sheer irrational behavior. I'm just not sure that they're a party that can be struck a deal, that can strike a deal with the United States, any type of sensible deal that benefits both nations. I just don't think Iranian leadership has that capacity and I'm not sure that their populace is supportive of that either. I think, yes, there are, quote, freedom loving people in Iran. Absolutely there are. And there's also a relatively large number of Christians, probably to the tune of close to a million or more. But remember, the Nation has between 90 and 100 million people. And so this notion that there are, there are tens of millions of Iranians that are just waiting to break free and fight some kind of revolutionary war against the regime, that's just not true. That's not the case. And so, there's still a large number, Clearly a majority of Iranians that sympathize with the radical mullahs and sympathize with the regime that's in place today. and they've been able to hold control, relatively speaking, and power for the last several months throughout all of this chaos and uncertainty. The regime is still in place. Now there's new people because we've taken out multiple layers. But Iran has been able to keep some level of, the regime that is some level of control enough to be in charge of Iran to this day. but I don't think there's going to be a deal. And I think a lot of people, especially in the White House and people that talk on TV about this, they're going to have to completely alter their mindset on this because all of the talk from nearly everyone that has addressed and spoken to the Iran issue has spoken about it in traditional conflict resolution terms, traditional negotiating terms, traditional military terms. But let me just tell you, if you're not looking at this going well, this is very non traditional. This is unorthodox. That's because it is. This is a very, very unique and challenging situation where you have a group of people in charge of a country that don't want to deal, they don't want to deal, they don't want to have peace, they don't want to get along with people in the region. No, they're bent on death and destruction. That is their ideology, that is their so called religion. And so when you're dealing with people like this, this traditional mindset of how to approach this foreign policy, diplomatic and military conflict, it just doesn't work. I mean, all of this stuff that we teach in our war colleges and our diplomatic classes and everything, all of that stuff goes out the window when you're dealing with people that aren't even interested in their own survival. They're not even interested in their own preservation. And so let's listen to this latest development and then going into the next segment, we'll continue this to give a little more context.

Iranian state media reports that Iranian negotiators will stop exchanging messages with US negotiators

But nonetheless, as of this morning, Iran, per official channels, has said that we're completely done, at least for now, with negotiations with Iran. They're completely leaving the table. This is a clip. one. This is going to be a Fox Report this morning. Let's listen.

>> Fox News Journalist: This is a major development. Iranian state media reports that Iranian negotiators will stop exchanging messages with American negotiators who are trying to reach a deal to end the war. This comes amid Iranian opposition to the Israeli strikes that are taking place against Iran's largest proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. And as Israeli ground forces advance in, in southern Lebanon, and Israel's prime minister announced today that strikes will take place against the Lebanese capital of Beirut, the Iranians are now directly connecting the possibility of an agreement with the United States to the cease fire between Israel and Hezbollah that at this moment has completely collapsed, with Israel striking different parts of southern Lebanon and Hezbollah continuing rocket and drone attacks over the border. Border. And we even heard today from Iran's foreign minister, who spoke publicly about this issue, saying the ceasefire between Iran and the US Is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon. So, again, the Iranians trying to tie these two issues together. And we wait now to see how the United States and Israel will respond.

>> Walker Wildmon: folks, we've been at a standstill for months now, for over a month minimum, and probably getting closer to two now. And the fact of the matter is, there's just no evidence of progress here. All right? There's just no evidence of progress. I mean, President Trump, and I'm trying to be as nice as I can be without being snarky or unnecessarily provocative here, but, folks, there's just no deal here. There's no deal here to date, and there's no hope of a deal to date. And I'm not sure what President Trump and the White House are trying to do with their optimistic messaging. but it's just not tethered to reality. Okay? President Trump, says even within an hour after the Iran says, we're done talking this morning, President Trump says first he tells CNBC he doesn't care whether or not Iran wants to negotiate. And then he follows that up within an hour later, saying that Iran is begging to negotiate. And we've got Iranian officials publicly stating on the record this is not. According to anonymous sources, the Iranian officials have said repeatedly, we're not negotiating with the U.S. we're done. We're over it. We're not negotiating with the U.S. so, President Trump has been able to kind of keep this together, because there are many people that want a deal, and they're optimistic for a deal and for Iran to give up their nukes. But Iran is telling us, they're telling us they're not going to do it, they're not going to do it. And so the essence of this is at some point, and I think the point is now, the US has to decide what do we do now? All right, we're dealing with a party in this situation that doesn't want to work with us under any circumstance. They don't want to work with us, of course, unless we give them the kitchen sink. But, what do you do in that situation where this is not traditional, like, hey, let's apply economic pressure and then they'll give in like that? Maybe that works with other countries. Maybe it's worked for the last 50, 100 years in these diplomatic and military conflicts, but. But with these folks, it just doesn't work. So when the traditional playbook doesn't work, what do you do? That's the million dollar question. America was founded as a nation under God, but the US Supreme Court has broken our national relationship with God. Many court rulings have contributed, but three stand out. In 1962, the court removed prayer from public schools. In 1963, the court removed Bible reading from public schools. And lastly, in 1980, the court removed the Ten Commandments from America's classrooms. The Supreme Court broke our relationship with God. And any restoration of that relationship must include the Supreme Court. And a vacancy on the Supreme Court could soon be coming. So please support AFA Action's urgent legal work to help President Trump select and the US Senate confirm godly constitutional justices for the Supreme Court. We put thousands of hours of research into potential nominees. We use our networks of the Trump administration and the U.S. senate to promote the good nominees and oppose the bad ones. AFA Action needs the resources of supporters like you to help maximize our efforts. So please visit afaaction.net to learn more and donate today.

American Family Association announces two tours coming up in 2027

>> Tim Wildmon: Hello, everyone. I'm Tim Wildmon, president of American Family association and American Family Radio. Hey. We are announcing two tours coming up in 2027. March of 2027, we're going to Greece and we're going to Italy. The Greece tour we call the Footsteps of Paul. And you're going to follow the footsteps of St. Paul in the, country of Greece. And then the, Italian tour, the tour of Italy, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome. We're calling the Make Lasagna Great Again tour. And these are coming up in March of 2027. And if you want to read all about them, the itinerary, the cost, everything you need to know about these tours coming up in March of Greece and Italy, go to tours.afa.net that's t o u r s.afa.net we're going to have a lot of fun, a lot of good fellowship, and see some of the most historic and iconic sites in the world

>> Jeff Chamblee: at the Core Podcast are [email protected] now back to at the core 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 edition. Well, the Iran, war is what we've been talking about the last segment, most of the last segment, and just continuing my, my, position that there will be no deal with Iran. And, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I just think that that's how it's going to be. And I think that the President and the White House and the entire administration needs to pivot to there will be no deal. And the deal is that the US Is going to do whatever it has to do, military and otherwise, to ensure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon and just leave it open ended. And by the way, and we're going to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to militarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Whether you like it or not, Iran. And so we're in charge. We're setting the terms and the tempo, and we're in charge. And of course we've got to carry through with that. But to me, that's the deal. That's the deal, assuming we can carry it out. And I just would be surprised if we couldn't carry that out, on our own, considering the type of military dominance we've displayed over the last, let's say four to five months, including Venezuela, by the way. but, I want to play a couple clips here, and these are people that I traditionally agree with, I agree with their sentiments here, but I just don't think it's realistic. I just don't think at this point this is a wise approach. And what I'm talking about is the folks that are saying we've got to finish the job with Iran, we've got to unleash the military on Iran, we've got to crush their economy. Look, all of these things sound very good. They sound morally virtuous in some regards of, of punishing an evil regime. Okay? But as far as what is the outcome you're getting from it, folks, I just don't think there's anything we can do to Iran to make their leaders capitulate. I don't care whether we're talking about bombing power plants, water plants, oil rigs, oil infrastructure. I don't think there's anything we can do. This is my opinion, to make Iran come crawling to the table saying we want to deal, we want to deal. Whatever the US Says, we'll do. I just don't think there's any circumstance in which that happens. And if that's the case, then everything that we're saying, it doesn't add up, it doesn't make sense, and it's not going to lead to anything beneficial for the US this is going to be. Clip 3. This is well respected retired General Keith Kellogg, who has, by the way, worked in the Trump administration for several years and advised, the vice president in the previous term, on military strategy, etc. But nonetheless, this is well respected General Keith Kellogg talking about, making Iran's economy suffer as a strategy. Clip 3.

>> Gen Keith Kellogg (Ret.): I, look, I'm count me as a hardliner on this one, but I think what you have to do is you don't invade Iran, but you can take key strategic targets like Kharg island because you, what you want to do is economically crush them. And that's what they're making some hard calls about, is this government will fall if you keep pushing the economic piece. And then when you, basically control their economics, you get that way. And right now, by opening up the Strait of Hormuz, you allow them breathing space economically. They're going to rebuild their combat forces.

>> Walker Wildmon: All right, well, that's Keith Kellogg, on, I think he was on Newsmax talking about bringing, economic pressure via, destroying a lot of their infrastructure and leading to the collapse of the regime and the government. once again, once again, if you had a party, and when I say party, I'm talking about like a negotiating party, right? The Iranians are one party in this negotiation. If you had a party that succumbed to, self interest, self preservation, traditionally normal human instincts, right? Like, I would rather live than die. I would rather, you know, flourish than living, in Third World conditions, then if that were the case, then I would say absolutely. I mean, you just apply enough economic pressure, Iranians are going to give in, they're going to come to the table, we're going to have a deal, everybody's going to be happy. But that's not what we're dealing with. And I just don't know how long we're going to do this until we all look at each other and go, hey, guys, this isn't working. These are not normal people here, all right? This isn't a real estate transaction where one party wants to sell, one party wants to buy. And it's just a matter of what number do we land on. This is not a business deal here. These are ideologues. They are deeply entrenched and they are suicidal. they have a very much martyrdom syndrome and they want to go down in a blaze of glory. These are the same, Muslims that do suicide vests, they do suicide bombs, they kill themselves because they think according to their false religion that that's a virtuous thing to do. And so, when General Kellogg's talking about bombing Iran and destroying their economic infrastructure, and then that's going to lead to the downfall of the Iranian government. Okay, that very well could happen. I mean, you could militarily strike Iran enough to where their entire government just falls. The question is, then what? Then what? Because you've got rogue Islamists out controlling the Strait of Hormuz that are completely disconnected from the main IRGC command control. I mean, you've basically got jihadis running drones and ballistic missiles along the shores of Iran targeting, commercial shipping vessels. So if the Iranian government falls, how does that fix the Strait of Hormuz problem or the enrichment problem, the nuclear dust that they have over there? It doesn't. We're still at this place where the straits got to be reopened and we've got to retrieve the enriched uranium. let's listen to Pompeo here once again. These are well respected people, especially in the conservative circles, and I've generally, generally liked Pompeo for a long time. But just listen to how this is being talked about. It's the same thing over and over again, using traditional, like hundreds, centuries old war techniques and diplomatic techniques to bring about change. But we're dealing with people who don't want change. This is going to be Clip four. Let's listen.

>> Mike Pompeo: Americans shouldn't tire of winning, right? President Trump's talked about that, we should achieve and continue down the path to achieve the very victory that President Trump has laid the foundations for. We've put an enormous amount of pain on their economy. We've taken down their ballistic missile capabilities. Hamas and Hezbollah are on their back foot as well. We need to continue this effort to make sure that the all the hard work and the loss of American lives that has happened is worthy of the outcome. And that means an Iranian regime that no longer threatens the region no longer threatens Israel.

All options on the table that involve continued kinetic warfare with Iran lead to nowhere

>> Walker Wildmon: All right, so, so there you have it. That's former secretary Mike  Pompeo basically saying, hey, let's keep this thing going, let's push in harder, militarily and otherwise. Well, what he's saying sounds good. Just if you just listen to it at a glance, you're like, yeah, yeah, let's go. This sounds great, but to what end? And what does victory look like? Are we trying to topple the regime here? are we trying to just take out their military? Because if we're just trying to take out their military, we've in large part done that. Not completely, but we've largely done that. And so, it's just what you're going to find out is that all of these options on the table that involve continued kinetic warfare with Iran, they all honestly lead to nowhere. They lead to nowhere because, remember, we've bombed them into oblivion. We dropped thousands of bombs over the course of weeks on Iran, and their, quote, leaders are as hardlined as they've ever been. I mean, they're as dug in, from a negotiating standpoint as they've ever been. And so, I just think at some point, and I don't know who's advising the President on this, obviously Secretary Rubio is, and Secretary, Hexseth with the War Department. But there's got to be something, another option on the table here, because we are just exhausting this. We're negotiating. We're negotiating. We're negotiating. Iran's want to deal. Iran wants a deal. No, are, ah, we going to do this six months? Are we going to do this 12 months? How long are we going to sit here and tell ourselves that Iran wants a deal when Iran doesn't want to deal with. All right, and what other option is on the table here? Because there's got to be something. I mean, you cannot, as a, as a military superpower and economic superpower, the biggest and best in the world, you cannot go into a conflict like this without a game plan that involves Iran not coming to the table. Like this has to have been gamed out. There has to be options in the playbook. What do we do if Iran doesn't want a deal? And how do we do we execute it and wrap it up? Because we can't just linger with, with 10,000, 20,000 forces, just linger in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman for, for seven years just waiting on an Iran deal. And so I'm just, I'm getting a little, a little worn out, a little impatient with this, this fairytale land narrative that the Iranian mullahs are going to fly to Pakistan and meet with President Trump and sign some glory deal where they give us everything that we want and they no longer seek to be an Islamic regime that wreaks havoc on the region and the world. I just don't see that happening. I absolutely do not see that happening. I Think the Iranians would rather see the regime fall, chaos ensue in Iran and the region than to strike a deal with who they call the Great Satan. They call, Israel the little Satan, and the US Is the Great Satan. How do you cut a deal with that? And the fact of the matter is, you don't. Now, once again, I could be completely wrong. We, could turn around in a month from now, and President Trump has done some master deal that we're all applauding him for. Very well could happen. But, but we're on three months of this. And by the way, it isn't as if previous administrations haven't tried this, all right? President Obama sent them billions in cash and we got nothing out of it. We got this, this flimsy piece of paper called the Iran deal that was unenforceable. It was a joke. You know, the inspectors lost track of the enriched uranium. Complete and utter joke. We sent them billions of dollars completely. The Iranians completely didn't stick to any of it. and President Trump, by the way, tried some of this in the first administration. And so, when you factor all of that in, your three month timeline on this gets stretched out to something the US has been dealing with for decades, for decades, with absolutely no behavioral change at all on behalf of the Iranians. And so this is the equivalent, just to give an analogy here, an example. I mean, this is the equivalent of someone, whether it's a family member or business partner or someone that you're just wanting to get along with. You desire to get along with them, you want what's in their best interest and your best interest, and you're just willing to bend over backwards and, and do whatever you can just to, get along and be amicable and be happy, and everybody's going to have a good life. And the other party just doesn't want to have anything to do with it. I mean, they are just bent on no contact, no relationship. You're the worst person ever. I don't want to have anything to do with you. Don't talk to me. I'm not coming to the table, we're not negotiating. I don't care what you're going to give me. There will be no deal here. And that is what Iran has been saying for a long, long time. There will be no deal here. And what is the plan? If that's the case, which it clearly is, then what do we do where the US can say, all right, our job is done, we did what we had to do, we did the right Thing we prevented Iran from having a nuclear weapon. And we're done now. We're done. And I don't know what this looks like, but there's people that got elected to fix these problems, namely President Trump and Secretary Rubio and others. And this is their job. they launched this campaign, Operation Epic Fury, and now they have to figure out how to wrap it up. How do you wrap it up? What does it look like? Because I can tell you this, I can tell you this. American consumers and American voters paying four to five dollars a gallon, for gasoline, they'll do that for a couple months. To be patriots, they'll do it. But you tell me we're gonna do that for six months, we're gonna do that for 12 months, we're gonna do that For 18 months while Iran's not even at the table, they're not gonna go for that. And it doesn't matter what kind of moral argument you make, what kind of virtuous argument you make, how much you want to guilt, you should be willing to pay higher gas prices to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon. but the fact of the matter is that's going to fall on absolute deaf ears if American voters do not see some end in sight. This whole fiasco in the Middle east requires the American people understanding what we're doing, why we're doing it, and then saying, look, this is just for, this is just for a couple months. We're going to do what we got to do. It's the right thing to do. Obviously, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, and then we're going to push through to the other side of this. But with the straight of Hormuz completely shuttered, with Iran still having the nuclear dust, and now Iran's not even at the table anymore, what does this look like? What is the end in sight? And I think the White House owes us that. I think the State Department owes us that. What is the, end outcome here? And what do we do if Iran is not even at the table? I think the American people are owed that. We'll be back in a few.

The Ministry of Preborn helps rescue babies from abortion through ultrasound donations

In many ways, abortion was on the ballot this past election. And there's reason for concern. There are many counties, cities and states who have radicalized abortion. And thousands of tiny babies will continue to lose their lives every day. Which is why the Ministry of PreBorn is on the front lines for at risk babies and mothers with unplanned pregnancies. Preborn sponsors clinics positioned in the highest abortion areas in the country. By providing them with resources that they need to rescue babies, PreBorn continues to expand their life affirming care. Their end of year goal is to equip 10 more clinics with ultrasound machines. These life saving machines cost $15,000 each, more than most clinics can afford. When a woman meets her baby on ultrasound, she is twice as likely to choose life. And when she comes to a preborn clinic, she will also be embraced with God's love. $28 sponsors one ultrasound. And now through a match, your gift is doubled. How many babies can you save? Please donate. Just dial pound250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 and say the keyword baby. Or you can go to preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr all gifts are tax deductible and preborn has ah, a four star charity rating.

>> Jeff Chamblee: This is at the core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.

Kyle and Shawn Justice are twin brothers heading up Compel Media and Justice Pictures

Welcome, welcome back to The Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on the program. Well, I told you we had some guests coming on to talk about a excellent production that has been put out. in commemoration and celebration of America's 250th anniversary. We have with us now Kyle and Shawn justice, brothers and heading up Compel Media. They're with us now to talk about the first founders movie, that's out, as of this year, as of 2026 and just in time for the 250th anniversary of America. Kyle and Shawn Justice. Thanks guys for coming on the program.

>> Kyle Justice: Really appreciate you being here. Yeah, absolutely. To be here.

>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely.

>> Kyle Justice: We're actually twins, not just brothers.

>> Walker Wildmon: Oh, twins. I've got, I got a set of twins. That's excellent. yeah, I was gonna, I'm sure you guys have spoken over each other quite a few times in your career and your life. but I'll let you guys address this as you would like. But tell us, well, one of you, Kyle or Shawn tell us a little bit about your organization. And you guys have been in filmmaking for a long time, so give us a little background about yourselves.

>> Kyle Justice: Well, we started, our dad, his hobby was filmmaking and we were 11 years old. We started doing animations together, kind of inspired by Star wars. And we went to a high school that had full television, television studios and you know, it was just, it was just amazing. And then, you know, in our late teens we kind of divided, going different directions. I worked for Moody Bible Institute. For a while, international family entertainment, and. And then started Compel Media in 1999. And Shawn I've always wanted to work together on projects. We kind of have our own separate companies, but, you know, Shawn you can share more about, you know, how you got started.

>> Shawn Justice: Yeah, just out of high school, Kyle and I actually had a production company called Four Star Productions with another partner. And then he went off to Moody. I ended up starting Justice Productions and doing mostly corporate and then, but always had the calling and the vision to do narrative feature films. And so I started justice pictures in 1999 and released my first film called Going the Distance. And, and it was a, very strong pro abstinence message, just through example. And then I did multiple films, after that. And you know, Kyle and I have been best friends since, well, since we shared a room together, you could say. And always, done stuff together. And when we parted ways, we always talked about doing stuff. We've done a little stuff here and there, but the Founders is the first big project. I've been continuing to do films, but my. I've really gone into, generative AI filmmaking tools and just been fascinated by what you can do. And as an indie filmmaker, it makes a huge difference in not compromising your vision, but actually being able to program out and bring your vision to life as you see it. So it's very, very good.

>> Kyle Justice: The amazing thing is, you know, my background is also I got into producing lots of television programming for big networks like espn, National Geographic. I've been Emmy nominated, done a lot of documentaries. So this is kind of a culmination of Shaun's experience. In my experience and especially around the 250, being able to bring these, people from, you know, 250 years ago back to life to tell their stories, from their writings and from history. And it's exciting. It's an amazing tool to bring history to life.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.

Kyle and Shawn Justice produced The Founders movie, which we're about to talk about

And this is, what we're talking about here is we're talking to Kyle and Shawn justice, who produced the Founders movie, which we're about to talk about now. But this two, hundred fiftieth anniversary birthday of America is an excellent opportunity, as you alluded to, to bring the revolutionary era back to life and, and really look through the eyes of the Founding Fathers. Why did they do what they do? What motivated them? because there's a real lack of true deep understanding of what motivated our Founding Fathers in the Founding era, not just to come here, but to also gain Independence from Great Britain. and it's a very just cause that they fought for. And I think our founders get a lot of criticism, undue criticism for why they did what they did and how they went about it. but when you truly understand the motivation here, it's a very righteous and virtuous thing that they did. But let's jump straight into the founders movies.

Kyle: We worked with the White House to produce this hour and a half film

So Kyle, we'll start with you. Tell us, when did this vision of this movie come to life or when did it birth rather?

>> Kyle Justice: Yeah, I've always had strong interest in the founders and their writings and such. we, I've just finished producing and it just came out yesterday in fact, called By Don's Early Light. It's a film that, that traces that we worked with the White House to produce this hour and a half film. And it's about the anti Christian bias in the government and how Trump established a task force to come and eradicate that out of the government, especially under the Biden administration. And during that process of getting the distribution together, Salem Media, big, you know, multi million dollar company that has Salem now, working with a gentleman there who heads up the network. And he said hey, what do you think about a film that you know, interviews the founders? And I'm like, hm, hm, let me think about that. And started to put that ideas together. Came to Shawn and because we've been working on some AI projects independently and it's like Shawn what do you think about this? It's like we, we kind of came up with the whole concept and developed the, the trailer and so it's, that's, we're looking forward to you know, getting this going and you know, finishing the project and then not just a film feature, ah, film, but we want to turn it into a television series because there's so much content to tell. And so we're excited to be working on this.

>> Walker Wildmon: So this is, obviously hasn't come out yet, but it's going to come out. Do you guys think that you can get it out in 2026? What's the general timeline here?

>> Shawn Justice: Well, the beautiful thing about Generative AI and being able to bring these characters to life is we can do it very quickly. We don't have to pull a bunch of actors together. and on the trailer, people will be able to see that these look like real people that we're talking to. And all the material that we're using for the scripts that we're writing, that's taken from their writings. Their sayings, their speeches. so even though it may be them and it's not just them verbatim talking, we wanted to add kind of a real tentative, element to it where, you know, they're thinking about what they did and how they talked. And so it really brings it to life. And you get into, I don't say the emotion of it, but you really feel what they feel. And in the process of that, and of course the cutaway shots and all of the historical scenes, you know, we can have 300, you know, British infantrymen, you know, approaching, on the. The, the army. And it's just amazing the, the scope of what we can do that really brings it to life. as opposed to hiring, you know, 10, you know, recreation actors to. Okay, guys, we get. We need 10 guys coming here can have that. And it just. It's beautiful that how it's all. All turning out. And like I said that you can see it in the trailer. but we're excited. It's. It's like I said, you don't have to compromise your vision on what you see. and, and bring in an excitement to that time period and just what our founders went through.

Kyle: What kind of timeline are you guys going to cover here

>> Walker Wildmon: What. Kyle, what, what kind of timeline are you guys going to cover here? during, obviously during the founding era, but like, how early are you going to start in the. In the 17, you know, mid to late 1700s. And then how, like, what kind of time span are you looking at?

>> Kyle Justice: No, you raised a great question because, you know, you have the Declaration being done in 1776, but a lot of context went into getting to that point. and so, you know, Richard and I talked about. Okay, so when. When these interviews are happening with the founders, when. When is this, you know, is it, you know, 1789 or, you know, enough time has passed? And so a lot of the, the interviews they'll be recollecting back, you know, to. Yeah. When this happened and then we cut away to those times. So, you know, there's definitely a foundation of, of, you know, Christianity that was growing at that time in the nation. Bill Federer, I'm not sure if you featured or talked to him much, but he's, One of the historians has written about this, you know, and he says in our by duns. Or there's this quote, beautiful, that says that, you know, why didn't our Constitution, you know, hold in other countries? Why did. Was it. Was it so well birthed here in this country because of the Christian foundation that we have. And so we want to touch on that. And, and, but also the battles and the emotions of like, different people wanting different things as they were discussing this. The, the whole battle that Jefferson went through when he was writing the Declaration, you know, the, the ideas about slavery and why wasn't that included? And you know, so there's a lot of context, but you can't cover that in 90 minutes per se. And all the battles and then the Constitutional Congress coming up with the Bill of Rights. there's a lot there.

>> Walker Wildmon: Oh yeah.

>> Kyle Justice: You know, so there's a thread that we want to tell. And like I said, 90 minutes, I think 120 minutes somewhere in there. But obviously we're going to have to jump into more episodes after that. And that's kind of a new model, as it were, with some of the entertainment is there's a film first and then there's subsequent episodes that follow.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.

Kyle: There's a lot of content that could be told using AI

Shawn have you guys talked at all with Steven McDowell? I know you mentioned Bill Federer, but have you Talked to Steven McDowell at all yet? does that name ring a bell, Kyle?

>> Shawn Justice: Do you, not.

>> Kyle Justice: No.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. The reason I mentioned that, and I'm totally putting you guys on the spot, but this is live radio. But, you guys, since this is still being produced and obviously there's gonna be episodes following, I would encourage you to talk to Steven McDowell. The only reason I mentioned his name, he is Mr. George Washington expert, like all things George Washington. And he, and I was thinking, as you were, as Kyle was talking about, maybe some of time M frames and the founders like, recollecting in the past and kind of looking back on their decision making and things, there's a few times in George Washington's life that really stand out. when he's eating dinner at his home at Mount Vernon, obviously there's the famous painting of him praying, kneeled down praying. And then there's, times where he would pray with the troops or he would, he would forbid them from using profanity, when they were, on duty, so to speak. And so there's just a couple of those things of George Washington's life that somebody like Stephen McDowell does a great job recollecting. And if you guys could depict that, it would be phenomenal. And you probably already have or you're already looking at that.

>> Kyle Justice: Yeah, there, there's, there's a lot of content, a lot of story, a lot of things that we could tell and we don't want to miss any. But you only have so much time. But, you know, I could see episodes where it's just focused on Washington and some of his memories, you know, about the different battles and the wars and you know, his, his consternation. But the idea that, okay, we didn't win this battle, but we survived, you know, we. For the next time. And how God, you know, led him, in different ways and through his prayers and so on. So there's, there's so much amazing storytelling. But this tool as Generative AI, we can bring this to life. You know, we can go, oh, that's what it was. I mean, you look like the chosen. And there's so many elements that, that you've never even thought of. Like, wow, that's kind of cool. I never thought of it like that. And so with the story of Jesus, and this is the founders, how we can use AI to do that.

Sean, what kind of release, uh, strategy are you guys looking at here

>> Walker Wildmon: Shawn what kind of release, strategy are you guys looking at here? Is this primarily going to be online? Are you looking at partnering with some distribution channels? what are you guys planning on there?

>> Shawn Justice: Yeah, I mean, Kyle can speak to this more, but I, think primarily we're going to be releasing through, Salem now. but we have a lot of other contacts that we develop over the years, with various, entities like Amazon and others that we'll be able to roll it out over time. so we're excited and I can't remember my answer to your actual question to me earlier, but because of how we're doing this through, generating all the scenes and interviews, we will be able to put it out this year. it's not like we have to schedule a set or wait for weather or whatever. We can create that just through, our fingertips, basically.

Kyle Justice: Generative AI can help you tell short stories

>> Walker Wildmon: Well, Kyle, what is this generative? We got about two minutes left. is this Generative AI? Ah, I've seen some of these short videos, but the ones I'm looking at are like 15 seconds. what kind of softwares are out there that are able to help you put together something of this length?

>> Kyle Justice: Yeah, there are a lot of. There's a big competition of companies trying to vie for this technology to tell these stories. you know, Shawn you know, he's been doing, he's kind of on the front line exploring a lot of this stuff. But m. You know, there's, there's two or three that are pretty key. and again, you bring up a good point. You can't tell huge long stories. and that's why one of the reasons why we feel like we can immediately work on these, this kind of docudrama where you have interviews and you're cutting these big narrative stories. Full AI isn't quite ready for that, but it's getting close.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, it's.

>> Shawn Justice: Yeah.

>> Walker Wildmon: So go ahead, Shawn. We got about one. I was gonna say.

>> Shawn Justice: Yeah, there's, there's a lot of, tools out there. I mean, when I do a, normal feature film with practically it's all made up of small, quick little shots. And that's how you use AI even though you have a 15 second limit right now. you, you look at our trailer for the Founders, and it tells a story, but we're telling it with short shots or coverage or what. That's kind of the term we use for cutaway shots. Coverage. So, yeah, so there's, there's a lot of ways that we can do it. And it's very powerful tools and they're just getting better. Acceleratingly getting better.

>> Walker Wildmon: Excellent. Hey, Kyle Justice. Shawn justice compel. media. Thank you guys for coming on. the founders movie.com. that's the URL. The founders movie. 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.

https://thefoundersmovie.com/  

https://bydawnsearlylightfilm.com/  

https://www.awesomesciencemedia.com/   

https://www.compelmedia.com/kylesbio

https://justicepictures.com/

https://ivoterguide.com/

https://tours.afa.net/

https://afr.net/podcasts/at-the-core/

https://www.patriotacademy.com/donate

https://tours.afa.net/

https://afafoundation.net/  1-800-326-4543 ext. 345

https://preborn.com/

https://afaaction.net/

https://afn.net/