Jenna Ellis: When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound it's divine connection

Jenna Ellis: 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 she can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside her. One ultrasound is just $28 and to donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com afr Jenna Ellis in the morning on American Family Radio.

Jenna Ellis: I love talking about the things of God. Because of truth and the biblical worldview, the U.S. constitution obligates our government to preserve and protect the rights that our founders recognize come from God our creator, not our government. I believe that scripture in the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raised up each of you and God has allowed us to be brought here to this specific moment in time. This is Jenna Ellis in the Morning.

Questions remain about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's health following hospitalization

Jenna Ellis: Good morning. It is Tuesday, July 28, and there are a lot of questions on Capitol Hill and elsewhere still surrounding, Mitch McConnell, Senator Mitch McConnell's health status. He released yet another photo, but not a video. Not really anything that would indicate to reasonable people that we aren't being hoodwinked by, just some photos that are potentially AI. And the question remains if he's really just in the hospital, but he hasn't been cleared to leave the rehab facility after a fall led to his hospitalization, which is the CNN headline, then why not just do even a phone interview or something that would give the public, ah, really a better assurance that he is still at, at least lucid, he's still with us and they're not just actually waiting out this August 3rd deadline. So for more on this, let's go to, Matthew Williams, who goes by the Prudentialist. You can follow him on X. He's a writer and commentator. And Matthew. So, you know, I think that this is one of those instances where we really need to criticize the GOP because I actually agree with Kentucky Democrat, Governor Andy Beshear that, that McConnell really needs to let not just the American people, but especially the people of Kentucky, his seat belongs to them, that he's still functional enough to actively hold a Senate seat.

Matthew Williams: Yeah. Good morning, Jenna. And I do agree with both you as well as the governor and the governor had made it very clear, like, either disclose more information or resign. And I mean, this is something that we've seen happen countless times before in the Senate, considering that the Senate here is just more or less an elderly home. Lest we forget that the staffers and many of the Democratic Party had tried to hide the quickly failing health of Dianne Feinstein as well as her death. I mean, they tried to get her to vote, you know, just hours before she had passed away. So I think, you know, releasing proof of life with a photo that looks eerily suspicious to similar photos in the past, there's a lot of specific speculation and discussion whether or not they're trying to hold out on proof of life until after the August 3rd special election deadline to force the governor to, appoint someone rather than to have an election. And it's all very, you know, there's not a lot of information out there on this very issue. And I think that it behooves McConnell's, office and it behooves the people of Kentucky, as well as just Republicans in general, to demand better from the longest serving leader of the Senate majority and to make sure that people understand that, listen, I get it. Health happens. You have a very stressful job. But if you're not up to the task, you need to resign. I have been told my entire life that politics is about those who show up. And if he's not healthy enough to show up, if he's not well enough to continue on, then he probably should step down and make sure that someone who is young, capable and ready to serve the people of Kentucky is, ready and present.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. And this lack of a public appearance and the fact that his office chose to release yet another photograph and a written statement rather than a video appearance has fueled very unnecessary speculation and it's limited information. We did get a statement apparently from the office of the attending physician, and maybe that's a little bit more trustworthy since these people are licensed and may have more consequences beyond, political office. But the broader point, and to your point, I mean, this isn't just about McConnell, Feinstein, the Democrats have had issues, the same thing when they're playing politics with, the lives and the service to the American people. And the Constitution doesn't really provide a mechanism for declaring a senator or those in federal office medically unable to serve. And that itself might have, political issues. I mean, of course the Democrats have been saying for a long time that, you know, Trump is, is unfit to serve, but they don't really provide a coherent, objective definition of that. So, of course that itself would be politicized. But this, to me is becoming a recurring institutional problem.

Matthew Williams: I do agree with you wholeheartedly that it is an institutional problem. I mean, there are countless times where it's not just the health of somebody, but it's, you know, declaring a leave of absence or just not letting anyone know where you are. I mean, this would be a much different case if Mitch McConnell were 20 or even 15 years younger. And, you know, if it were like a Mark Stanford situation where he's going up the Appalachian Trail all the way down to Patagonia, this would be a completely different story. But this is with regards to his medical health and whether or not he is physically and mentally capable of continuing to serve out the remainder of his term. You're absolutely right that this has been politicized because we don't have those safegu, legally on the federal level to determine the, you know, medical or mental acuity, for this position. I know that we've countlessly seen, you know, throughout the Trump years, whether or not he's healthy enough to serve. I do agree with him, what he brought up during the 2024 election, that we should be having mental tests that are in place to make sure that you're not non compos mentis when it comes to serving high office and serving the American people. Because, you know, Senator Mitch M. McConnell, regardless of where his mental faculties are, he has the ability to access incredibly classified information and make decisions, or at least his office can, based off of highly classified information, to determine the lives of all of us here in the United States and around the globe, considering that they vote on War Powers policy, sanctions and the rest. So I think that it's very true that our concerns about our senators health has become incredibly politicized. But at the end of the day, if we want our representatives and our senators to actually represent the people, it's going to require us to demand a lot more than what we're getting, which is photos and statements. Because if you go on X right now and just look up Mitch McConnell, you're going to get a million different AI videos, a million different forms of speculation. And all of this is doing is creating a cloud of misinformation and just all sorts of rational, irrational speculation that tells us that we have no idea what's going on, there is no legal means of recourse on this issue. And we're left just yelling at the TV like our parents and grandparents did, just with memes and AI videos.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah. And it's very frustrating that as much as the public is demanding this on both sides, I mean, this has kind of become, ironically, one of the few nonpartisan issues out there. There's not, much that anyone can actively, force his office to provide that is beyond what. What they already have. And this goes to a bigger issue of, you know, what a lot of us, and especially Trump has long called the deep state. Because when you have, the, the, the people and his staffers in his office that are basically, controlling all of this and choosing to release statements, and we're not even sure if it's McConnell himself or, we weren't sure, you know, whether it was, Feinstein herself who's submitting votes. Some of these things. It makes you wonder how much power the unelected staff members who, Now some are calling, some on Capitol Hill are calling for, you know, background checks and some of some other, standards for these government staffers, how much power they really have that's beyond the actual elected member of Congress or Senate. Because the people have this perception, of course, Matthew, that this is the one person in office. We elected this person to go in, and his staff, you know, helps, but it's. But the actual elected is the decision maker. But we've seen, and I've seen even in my time in D.C. how so much happens, I mean, even in presidential administrations as well, that decisions were being made all the time that weren't even run by the president. And obviously some of that has to happen on some scale with delegated authority. But the problem becomes when these unelected bureaucrats start making decisions for the office, when they're really not authorized to do so, or they shouldn't be. And so looking ahead, do you think that Congress will actually reform how it handles some of this, or is this just kind of another controversy that'll fade until the next similar case?

Matthew Williams: I'm more inclined to lean that this is going to be a controversy that we will see again with a future senator somewhere down the line. asking Congress to reform itself is like asking an alcoholic to stop drinking. It's just not going to happen without external pressure either from the people or a different branch of government. I mean, this is, I think, the same issue that you brought up about. You know, there's a countless cavalcade of unelected officials, lobbyists and staffers. And we know that D.C. as a revolving door between Capitol Hill, Wallnua street and K Street for lobbyists and ways in which you can make money. And I mean, let us not forget that, you know, our friends over in California famously voted to make sure that they can still do insider trading and things like that. So I think it's the same sort of issue we see when it comes to term limits as well is that, yes, we can absolutely impose an amendment or whatever to have term limits on congressmen and senators, but that's not going to stop the unelected bureaucracy and those that have been playing roles in Senate staff and House staff for years. Because if you're a new person, those are trusted individuals that know what they're doing, or at least they seem to be trustworthy because they've been there so long. And so the likelihood of, you know, Congress reforming itself, whether it be on the age and mental acuity issue or whether or not it's just about the power that we delegate to. To staffers and schedulers. I mean, you've worked on D.C. i constantly deal with my congressman all the time. It's just the scheduler is the most important person that, you know, you have outside of the actual voting power of the representative or senator themselves. And so when we look at this issue, Jenna, I think it behooves the American people to understand that, yes, your representatives can be there for years on end, but personnel is policy. And we really need to be taking a closer look at the names and faces of chiefs of staff, schedulers, and those that are at their side, because those are the ones that wield just as much power, if not more power, over our elected representatives.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, yeah. And it's. It's a huge concern, and both sides seem to be taking advantage of the deep state. And to your point, maybe it's time for an intervention in Congress, by the people. But I want to turn to another headline before I let you go.

Senator Rand Paul released Anthony Fauci's private diaries ahead of hearing

Matthew Williams. So, Senator Rand Paul released over, 1,000 pages of Anthony Fauci's private diaries from December, 2019 to December 2022. And he did this, a couple of days ago, ahead of Fauci, testifying tomorrow, before a key Senate hearing. And some of these diary entries are just absolutely wild. And RFK Jr has claimed that the diary show what we all knew, that Fauci was much more interested in his own celebrity, his own popularity, his own, you know, demigod like, status. I am the science over actually, taking his job seriously. And RFK also claims that the diaries show that Fauci suffered a pulmonary, infarction five months after his Moderna shot, yet publicly minimized vaccine side effects. and he also privately estimated this, according to a summary of the diaries. he privately estimated Covid's fatality rate at, 0.2 to 0.3% far below the figure he later testified to publicly. So there's a lot of contradictions here. And there are a lot of people, I think, including Senator Rand Paul, that believe that Foushee should be held accountable for how he handled the entire COVID pandemic. But, what do you make of, this revelation?

Matthew Williams: Well, I think, like what Secretary Kennedy and what Senator Paul had said is that it confirms more or less everything that we knew when the guy came on. And, I mean, you know, Fauci has had a long career in public health in which he has gotten more people killed than he has saved. You know, back in 2020, when all this is playing out, Jenna, I knew we were in trouble when Trump brought him on, because this was the guy that was a big part in relation to the research in the AIDS pandemic back in the 1980s. And I was like, oh, we're really in trouble. This is a concern for a guy that was interested in bathhouses, and he's not really interested in public health. So to see all of this play out with the diary and to say that this virus was more deadly, and then, of course, to hide any potential vaccine side effects and to downplay it, it's really important that as the years pass, we do not forget the radical transformation of the security states, how people had turned into school marms and into their own forms of the secret police, over, you know, lockdowns, masking, and vaccine requirements. And, of course, we knew that if you were under 35, that there were unintended side effects for something that was so rushed, when it came to, you know, heart health. And it's still very much disappointing, weighted for anyone under the age of 30. So I think it's really important for us to not forget, and this is a great time in any way, shape or form, to use the power of the Senate hearing, to use the power of Congress to hold him in contempt or to arrest him, because, you know, he's going to probably, you know, end his earthly travail, probably surrounded by friends and family, smiling, knowing that he did well. And I think that that's really the big takeaway from all this, is that unless we hold him accountable, the people that had unleashed untold misery and economic destruction on the American middle class will continue. And so this diary is just the smoking gun of what we already knew, Jenna. And so I certainly hope that some kind of justice can be extracted, because if not, all that this diary is going to be is Fauci saying neener, neener, and laughing all the way to the bank into the grave knowing that he got away with it while millions of Americans died and suffered.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, really well said. And this is just yet another example of an unelected bureaucrat that wielded a ton of power, during the COVID pandemic. And this is one of those instances where we can rightly, question what President Trump was doing. And to say, okay, if you are only appointing this one person and not really looking at any other opinions, I mean, we know now, the new NIH director, Jay Bhattacharya, was telling him contemporaneously during, July of 2020, that, you know, this wasn't as severe as Covid or as, ah, Fauci was making. Covid out to be, had, you know, alternatives in terms of some of the interventions. You know, all of this, it really makes, the question of whether public confidence can be restored in if, if Americans believe that Fauci did wrong but. And isn't actually held accountable. But then also how the pandemic permanently expanded the acceptance of emergency executive authority and how these types of health decisions are being made. And it seems like even though we're only six years past Covid, I mean, this is very, very, very recent history, somehow we have amnesia that, okay, this wasn't actually as bad as we all literally lived through. And we, we need to take some of these hearings really seriously. I'm glad that, people like Senator Rand Paul are still pressing this issue because it really should prompt more reform around some of these questions. do you think that anything besides, you know, some maybe clash in some good media clips will actually come out of this hearing?

Matthew Williams: I mean, only time will tell on that question, Jenna, but, I mean, we've got six years of hearings and clips and to sort of tell us probably not much is going to come out of it other than confirming what we already knew. It seems to be very tragically the American political tradition after something terrible happens to us, that our government officials will have these hearings and try to clear things up. And then it basically just becomes, well, we did it and what are you going to do about it? And I think that that's really the tragedy of all this, because the American medical institutions, whether it be, you know, the National Institutes of Health, the hhs, or just, you, know, doctors around the country, had near priestly authority to where most people would look at them almost as if they would look at the inerrancy of the Bible. And so, heaven forbid, we have another real pandemic somewhere down the line of the future where it is deadly the damage because of public trusts erosion in our own institutions would mean that millions more would actually suffer the consequences because our institutions have been irreparably damaged by Covid and by the politicization of everything. And so, I mean, lest we forget, you know, monoclonal antibody treatments, this very effective way to deal with COVID was given out in certain parts of the country on the basis of race, where white Americans were at the end of the line, where you were putting millions of old people on ventilators to basically send them to an early grave. And children's, learning acuities, and their ability to understand what was going on in the world was severely retarded by lockdowns and digital learning. And those consequences will be felt for generations to come. So I want more than clips. You should want more than clips. And your listeners certainly want more than clips and spectacle because again, if, you know, we don't get something more than just some nice sizzle reels for Senator Rand Paul or those that are going to be on the Senate select committee hearing, then again, you know, Anthony Foushee gets to walk away smiling with his riches, knowing that he got away with some of the greatest amount of mass deaths of Americans in US History. So I certainly hope that we get more than that. But I'm not that optimistic.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, unfortunately. But let's hope that Senator Rand Paul's push will at least yield some results. But Matthew Williams, really appreciated. Again, you can follow him at the Prudential list on X. And we will be right back with more. America's 250th birthday. It's a great excuse to have some extra cake and ice cream, but we can help your celebration go well beyond that. Show your patriotism with America 250 apparel that will become a memento of this special year. We also have special episodes on AFA Stream to help underscore that America is a Christian nation and help you find God in the Constitution. Find all of this and more in one place. Afa.net topics250 welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.

York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani wants government run grocery stores

Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. Well, how much of your daily life should be run by the government? This is the question now that is coming out after NewSong, York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani has said that government run grocery stores will sell meat and other basics at 30% off. The mayor who made affordability a key component of his campaign said the stores would save the average shopper about $1,000 annually. This is what he had to say at the press conference.

Zohran Mamdani: Here's how it will work. Once a month, our five city run grocery stores will set prices for this core set of goods at 30% below typical retail prices. No exceptions, no gimmicks. The savings will last for the entire month. That means no weekly fluctuations nor sticker shock at the checkout line.

Jenna Ellis: All right, so this is obviously raising a lot of questions about, the, you know, milk lines and, correlations to the Soviet Union, to Mao's China, to Venezuela, and centralized control over food distribution that became a defining feature of communist systems. And the real question isn't whether groceries should be affordable, it's how they become affordable. Do we want lower prices by encouraging competition, reducing regulations, or having better regulations, expanding supply and letting the free market work? Or do we want to have taxpayers subsidize government owned businesses that compete directly against private stores? I mean, look at how well that has worked for government run institutions like education. Not really. Great.

Ryan Helfenbein says a government run grocery store is a bad idea

So let's welcome in Rhyen Helfenbein, who's the vice President of Communications and public engagement at Liberty University. And, Rhyen, you know, history has shown this is a really bad idea.

Ryan Helfenbein: it is a bad idea. It has been tried before, and Jenna, it has always come up lacking. I'll just tell you that when government tries to actually get into business, imagine the government trying to run a Chick fil A. it will have cost overruns, there'll be gross mismanagement, they're going to run out of food. There will be high crime. and of course there will be empty shopping carts. You know, there will be people going home with empty bags and not with a chicken sandwich. The problem is, is that when government tries to run something, it doesn't want to use the same incentives that the regular grocery stores or, regular commercial businesses would use. And that is having a profit motive. When you eliminate the profit motive, there's no longer an incentive, to perform. Well. one of the classic, cases going back into the 1950s when we had Richard, Nixon as our vice president to President Eisenhower, there was this whole discussion called the Kitchen Table talks, with, the premier of Russia, who was his name was Khrushchev, and Nixon, was sitting in a mock up of an American styled kitchen and it had all of the modern conveniences. And Khrushchev said that this is just a propaganda piece. There's no way that the west is that rich. nobody has a refrigerator or a stove or a Toaster oven, that most Americans don't have those kinds of amenities. And in fact it was true in the 1950s that we did, right after the World War II, there was a huge boom, to our economy. And of course we had lots of kids at that time, the baby boomers. But the whole talk was about the east versus west and the organizing principles behind capitalism versus Communism. And the Soviet planning cycle took seven years to produce things. This is something that even Ronald Reagan used to joke about in the 1980s. It would take, you know, you would order a car on a Tuesday, one year and seven years later that car would be ready for you. But you had to pay that money up front. in the Reagan joke, in the classic Reagan joke, when somebody was purchasing a car, they asked him what day of the week that they wanted it to be ordered on or be delivered on. And he said, well, you know, I don't know, I've got a plumber coming on this particular day seven years from now. And the whole joke was basically how the Soviet Union was so terrible, in their economy at delivering on goods and services. So I look at what Mamdani is doing and of course he's trying to deliver on some kind of hope and change when it comes to socialism. But NewSong York in the five boroughs has thousands of grocery stores. Five grocery stores are not going to make a Hildebeens of a difference. But in addition, if you're lowering prices 30% under what other stores are paying or rather, offering their goods and services for if it's 30% below, you're going to have empty shelves, assuming people go and flock there in order to purchase them. And then you're going to have to keep those, those shelves stocked. I don't think this is going to make a meaningful difference. But I will say, Jenna, game on when it comes to socialism versus capitalism. Because at the end of the day I do not believe that a government run grocery store, just like a government run pandemic that we just talked about, is going to is actually going to be effective and we will see how horrible this whole idea is.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, and it's really interesting that we're seeing kind of this experiment in real time and with only five grocery stores as well. And so you know, initially there might be kind of a run on supply as you mentioned, and the groceries if, if they're sold at 30% below the market price, I mean someone ultimately is going to pay for that difference. And it shouldn't be the taxpayer. And so this is all under, you know, kind of this banner of affordability. But we've seen in any other government run co, opting of, of actual services that the free market provides. The free market always provides it better. And I was just talking to one of my producers, Devin, before the show and we were ranting about how annoying the the postal service is and how you know, FedEx and UPS and the private industry just provide so much better service because when you go to stand in line at the post office, they don't care. They're not customer driven, they don't care if you come back. I mean it's the same thing as the dmv. It's the same conversations that we've had historically, over single, single payer health care and how if it's government run healthcare then you're going to be waiting in line for a doctor for years and years and years. And how, I mean already the medical industry in America is, is terrible. and there have been solutions on both sides of the aisle to try to get that resolved. But single payer health care is, is not the solution at all. But what the left is driving at in a lot of these different areas of the business, they're trying to view them as a public utility rather than private goods and services. they're saying health care is a right. And now basically what Mamdani is suggesting as well is that food is becoming viewed as a public utility rather than a private good. How dangerous is that concept?

Ryan Helfenbein: Well, it's, it's absolutely dangerous because again this kind of goes back to, to Christopher Caldwell's book the Age of Entitlement. Something that the 1960s did under Lyndon Baines Johnson, is that it fundamentally changed how we viewed government. You remember Jon F. Kennedy saying, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. You know, the civil rights passage of 1964 and then later the Great Society and the War on Poverty fundamentally shifted all of those expectations from what can we do for our country? To what can our country do for us. And we've kind of been living in the shadow of that for quite some time. That the government is not just there to protect our inalienable rights articulated and enumerated in the Constitution, but instead that the government is to provide us with all of these amenities in life. That everything is kind of like as you mentioned, as you describe, a public utility, a public good, you know, the Medicaid and Medicare act, was passed in the 1960s. all of these things were happening, that changed our expectation. If you all of a sudden turn goods, you know, food, for example, food comes from where it's sourced from where, it's sourced from farmers. some of that's locally, some of that's internationally. But all of a sudden, just like in the case of health care, you're requiring somebody else to provide a good or service with an expectation that you're going to pay a certain ah, price. And in many cases, as Rand Paul has argued and others, it is a form of indentured servitude. It's a form of slavery. You, the people that provide those services no longer have a say in the matter. they're going to have to sell those things to you and sell to you at a certain price. In the case of NewSong York City, they don't have the scale, they don't have the wherewithal. Mamdani is kind of locked in in his own city. He's going to have to buy the same products, for the same prices that other grocery stores and massive chains across the country that have bargaining power and leverage the same prices that they do. He is just going to put it on the taxpayer to pay up the difference. but there is a danger with this expectation, Jenna, as you mentioned, of all of a sudden saying no, the government must provide me with all of my basic amenities, basic daily needs. it is an expectation that most Americans historically have never had. and it certainly, I see this as an unconstitutional way of going about and doing it.

Jenna Ellis: absolutely. And you know, one of the hallmarks of communist economies was state ownership of not just the actual product or service, but major sectors of production and, and distribution. And so it seems like a proposal like this represents movement along that spectrum and a push, towards seizing the means of production, even if only incrementally. And so while this is kind of an experiment that hopefully will show the broader voting public, why communism fails, it's also a huge red flag suggesting that if a lot of these socialists that are being put up for as candidates for elected office by the Democratic Party, if they get into office, there will be more thinking along the lines of Zoran Mandani, instead of recognizing the, the principles of capitalism and creating different kinds of solutions, that actually serve Americans interests and private property interests, and production interests and profit interests, instead of, you know, this push toward Communism.

Ryan Helfenbein: Yes, yes. And I'll say this going back to your example of the United States Postal Service, you know, there's a lot of different services that we've had for a long time and they employ you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans and, and they have a pension and they have a standardized way of paying. And I'm not saying that those things have not provided good jobs for people in the past. But the reality is, is that when it comes to what historically they were created or designed to do, United States Postal Service was the only thing available at a particular time in US History when we had the Pony Express and those types of things. It's been outmoded by the private sector and by the free market and at the end of the day, profit motive and free market capitalism has actually provided a higher standard, better standard of living and ultimately even better for employees of those companies. and so the inefficiencies that the government produces actually produces a gap in our economy. And at the end of the day too, when those two things, one government is competing on a certain standard where they're actually able to pull in from an endless supply of money in order to overcome any shortfalls, they're not competing on the same basis as a private company would be as the private sector. And so there is an unfair advantage. And yet even with that unfair advantage, they still don't do it the same way. FedEx US, UPS and there's others, they operate entirely different and they produce a better quality service and outcome not only for their employees but also for their customer. That's what's missing in this whole equation is just an honest discussion about empirical data that is overwhelmingly obvious that we've been doing this for 250 years as a nation, government run anything is never going to be as good as private citizens who are entering into contracts with one another, freely. That's what we need in this economy.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. And to your earlier point Rhyen, I mean America's constitutional system assumes economic freedom and the political, that political freedom, you know, reinforce one another. And the Constitution also strongly protects private property. we have laws and rules against monopolies which is, which suggests that if the government were to enter a private business enterprise and become basically the only offering of a good or a service, they wouldn't, the government wouldn't let you know, one free market individual company ever just be the sole offering. And that's why you know, we have Some of those, those laws, and you know, it's the government entering private markets, indirectly can undermine private property by making it harder for businesses, to compete.

Ryan Helfenbein: Government ownership can change relationship between citizens and industry

And so do you think there's a point, and we only have about two minutes left, is there a point where government ownership or industry becomes so expansive that it changes that relationship dynamic between citizens and a legitimate state government?

Ryan Helfenbein: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think in the case of NewSong York City and these five potential grocery stores, it won't reach the scale where it makes that kind of impact, but it'll certainly impact local stores. But. But, yeah, they can encroach upon something that is completely tyrannical, in which case it forces people out of business. And this was the whole thing about single payer and Obamacare and insurance and how it was taking, it was taking on the medical industry in such a way that it was going to fundamentally change the cost and drive them up. it was not prohibiting inflation. In fact, it was only encouraging inflation because there was no real commercial competition if everyone is forced onto this kind of insurance. And so, yeah, there's a danger here for sure. I, think, Jenna, the biggest danger with Mandani is not his success. It will be the failure, the failure it costs the taxpayers in NewSong York City. The failure of people leaving, the failure of high crime, the failure of empty shopping carts at these grocery stores.

Jenna Ellis: Well said. And it's going to be very interesting to see if this, especially the younger generation or the Democrat voters, actually recognize this, the threat to American prosperity and the American dream. But Rhyen Helfenbein, you're gonna stick with us through the break for another topic coming right after this.

Preborn Network offers free ultrasounds to women facing unplanned pregnancies

It's been four years since the overturning of Roe versus Wade, but tragically, abortions have continued to rise. Today, the abortion pill accounts for more than 60% of all abortions. And last year alone, over 1.1 million babies lost their lives. That's why the work of PreBorn Network clinics is more urgent than ever. Every day, mothers facing unplanned pregnancies walk through preborn's doors, searching for hope. Instead of pressure and fear, they're met with love. Through a free ultrasound, mothers meet their baby for the very first time. It was like the beginning of my healing journey.

Ryan Helfenbein: They do an ultrasound.

Jenna Ellis: And, that's when everything changed.

Ryan Helfenbein: Because when I saw my baby and when I heard her heartbeat, that was it.

Jenna Ellis: Just $28 sponsors one ultrasound. $140 helps rescue five babies. To donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250, baby. Or visit preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr

Ryan Helfenbein: welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.

Minnesota woman who used racial slur on playground convicted of disorderly conduct

Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. Well, a Minnesota woman who is caught on video last year repeatedly using a racial slur during a confrontation at a playground has now been convicted of disorderly conduct. So this has ignited a social media debate and a familiar constitutional debate of, where's the line between protected free speech, even speech that is offensive or hateful, and speech that can be punished under the law? Is there such a thing as, quote, unquote, hate speech as a legal category in America? Or does and should the First Amendment protect even reprehensible expression? Well, let's discuss with Rhyen Helfenbein, who's the Vice President of Communications and Public engagement at Liberty University and remains with us. So, Rhyen, you know, there's been a lot of, public outrage, and I think rightly so, over, this woman's conviction. And it just shows that blue states like Minnesota are trying to erode some of the principles of free speech. And the hallmark of which has always been that. I may disagree, vehemently with what you were saying, but I will defend to the death. You're right to say it.

Ryan Helfenbein: Yeah. I mean, this is. I love. You know, Allen Dershowitz has always been kind of that, that loyal Democrat. I think he's now actually a Republican who, would say that all the time. And many others have repeated and echoed that, going back, you know, decades. And, the reality is we're coming upon, fast, upon an era in which the new morality, the new blasphemy code, that, you know, blasphemy laws were struck back in the 1950s, were struck down when the motion picture industry wanted to challenge them, and make kind of new art and new film that would bring up subject matter, that at that time was, being censored out. And so blasphemy laws were struck down in America. And those blasphemy laws were there for a reason. I think largely in order to preserve the constitutional order, to recognize that when we invoke our inalienable rights and our Bill of Rights, we have to swear by someone, whose authority, ultimately, God. God is the sovereign. In America, it is the consent of the governed. But God has vested his power with the people. And when you blaspheme and you blaspheme the holy name of God, you, are actually doing something that is detrimental to society. And detrimental to the Constitution. So that's what we had for 150 plus years. Fast forward. The new speech laws and blasphemy laws have more to do with a kind of implicit bias, a racial construction. it has more to do with the stratification, of, you know, different, classes, rich or poor, black or white. And so the new blasphemy codes, do not have anything to do with God. It has more to do with people. And there's a, There's a subjective element that is introduced in all of this. And the real code that was being violated in Minnesota had more to do with language that could be perceived as arousing violence, the kind of speech that would lead to someone fighting. And that really has to do with a law that is put in place that if you were saying something that was threatening somebody else's life and you arouse them to fight you, in defense of their life, or fight you because you were provoking them, in such a way that all of a sudden, yeah, they're going to throw a fist at you. In the case of Shiloh, her speech is reprehensible. Make no mistake. As Christians, we recognize that, we don't defend, what she said. but the reality is that, she said something, that people say all the time in popular culture. They say it online all the time in popular culture. we have a commercial industry of music and entertainment where that word is used all the time. But the subjectivity enters in because in this particular system that we've created, and it is a monster, it is completely subjective. If somebody of a certain pigment of skin can say that they're actually afforded certain element of sin, they can say that word all the time, all they want. And there is no legal repercussion, there is no censorship. But in the case of Shiloh, she says that word with a, with a camera shoved in her face. Actually, what gives somebody the right to do that? there is a form of intimidation when it comes to that. And she is picking up her child, she is walking away, and she says the word, and again, do not defend the word. I'm not saying that. But the reality is, should she face that kind of legal consequence for what she said? And it is a dangerous thing, I'll just tell you. you look at this case, the judge, I think repeatedly, from what I hear, I was not in the courtroom, but from the post I see online, the judge was actually instructing the jury on implicit bias on the subjectivity I'm talking about that it does matter, the color of her skin. It does matter that she was a woman. It does matter, that she is, representing a certain class in society. It matters that, the guy holding the camera is a Somalian. It matters that, you know, there is a Somali community, that would be enraged if, they had a different kind of verdict, if she didn't face a certain kind of consequence. And in the case, and don't need to remind any of our listeners, but I will. In the case of Derek Chauvin, the same kind of, situation involving a police officer, with George Floyd, toxicology reports, showed that. That there was fentanyl in his system, that he actually had overdosed on a drug, that, the medical examiner, revealed that this death was not strangulation. it was not that he was killed because a knee was put on his neck or something like that. in the case of what Derek was doing, there is a police maneuver, that is something he was doing. We can debate whether, that should be done. We absolutely can. But he was doing something that was typical, in the protocol of law enforcement. And this is something that they're trained to do. but Derek Chauvin is now in jail largely because a jury pool, a jury that was informed, a jury that was pressured, and an expectation in Minnesota that this is the kind of justice standard that must be enforced. That same kind of jury pool and not the same people, but the same kind of population is now rendering a verdict in this case. And I want to be clear, you know, 90 days in jail with State, it's a probationary thing, it's a thousand dollar fine. But what it communicates to the rest of the nation is that there's certain kind of speech, only if it comes from certain people will be enforced. But it's a selective enforcement. It will not. That standard is not universally applied. That is the problem. that is a leftist notion of justice. It is not a. It is not in the tradition of our country. And we have a real problem in America if we continue to apply this critical theory kind of, lens to all of justice. and so I think there's a lot of people that have a right to be enraged.

Jenna Ellis: Absolutely. Because, and this is the problem with hate crimes overall and suggesting that there should be some steeper penalties for the motive when it's, a white person, allegedly perpetuating a crime on a black person, for example, or even, a man against a woman, or we start to stratify, these classes of oppressors versus oppressed and say that somehow, when you fall into those categories of classic Marxism, then the penalties should be steeper instead of recognizing that the act itself, regardless of who perpetuates it, should carry the same penalty or the same protections under the Constitution for any individual as anyone else. And the Supreme Court's definition of fighting words came from a 1942 case where they said words, by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. But under modern first, Amendment law, the doctrine has been interpreted very, very, very narrowly. And so this isn't just, insults or things, that we might think are vulgar. You know, this has been, a very key distinction that the United States does not currently and shouldn't have a general hate speech exception to the First Amendment. And the question isn't whether the speech is hateful. The question is whether it would fall into one of the narrow and historically recognized exceptions, such as true threats, you know, things that are actual incitement of violence. I mean, we've had that conversation, of course, you know, surrounding, President Trump and the whole January 6th, issue. And I think he was, he was, in that sense, rightly acquitted of, quote, unquote, incitement, when, when he was at the U.S. senate. I mean, these are things that are really critical moving forward to understanding our First Amendment jurisprudence, protection of the Constitution. And I think, Rhyen, you're right that people should be upset at how this judge and this blue state is handling it. So we're already out of time, but really appreciate it. You can follow Rhyen Helfenbein at Rhelfenbein on X. And as always, you can reach me and my team. Jennaafr.net.

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