Guest Neil Mammen Discusses Tariffs

Documentary proves Bible reliability as source of real truth

Tim Wildmon Some would say truth is relative and to the world.

Christopher Woodward That's right.

Speaker C What the world considers to be truth.

Christopher Woodward Fluctuates depending on the narrative they're trying to promote. Of course, we know truth is found in Scripture, and it never changes. The documentary, the God who Speaks, proves the Bible's reliability as the source of real truth and reinforces our belief in it as our firm foundation.

Speaker C Watch it [email protected] that's stream.aca.net.

Tim Wildman hosts Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network

Christopher Woodward Welcome to.

Speaker C Today'S Issues, offering a Christian response to.

Tim Wildmon The issues of the day.

Speaker C Here's your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.

Tim Wildmon Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening to AFR, on this Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Hope you're having a good day. if you're having a good day, just wait. It can. Things can always turn the other way, can't they? How's that? How's that for an optimum? How's that for an optimistic view on the day?

Wesley Wildmon Cup is half empty.

Tim Wildmon All right. Gracious Wesley Wildmon. Good morning. Good morning, Captain Optimistic.

Wesley Wildmon I actually am. I'm, I'm actually accused all the time of. Come on, stop. Wesley kept being so positive.

Tim Wildmon Right?

Tim Wildmon Well, yeah, that's good. All right. Christopher Woodward. Good morning, Chris.

Christopher Woodward Good morning.

Tim Wildmon And who's this fella from Kansas City? Ray Pritchard. Where you been?

Tim Wildmon Well, I've been. I've been everywhere, Tim. I was in Columbus, Ohio. My wife and I did gone for 10 days to funeral of a dear friend in Columbus, Ohio. Then Missoula, Montana, to spend Easter with our kids, our Montana crew, and then to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to speak at a banquet for Word of Life. So we've just been jetting around the country and glad to be home for a few days.

Tim Wildmon Now, the part of that trip you had to go to Columbus for a funeral, and then Montana. How do you get from Columbus, Ohio, to Montana?

Tim Wildmon You know, it's one of those things, if you want to get to Missoula, Montana, you probably shouldn't start in Columbus, Ohio, you know?

Tim Wildmon Yeah, that's a long way.

Tim Wildmon You got to hop, skip, and jump.

Tim Wildmon You flew, though, right?

Tim Wildmon Yes. Yes, we did. There's no way we could have made it driving. And it was tougher to get from Missoula to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is the airport closest to Lancaster. So we were puddle jumping across the country and close calls. We, we, we hit O'Hare with 19 minutes to go between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. So we were doing the O.J. simpson thing, running through the, running through the airport, knocking people down.

Christopher Woodward I heard you had a barely, recruit you.

Tim Wildmon Marlene was out ahead of me. I was running to catch up with her, so we barely made it.

Tim Wildmon well, now that would have been fun to see a couple 70 year olds, let me tell you. O'Hare Airport.

Christopher Woodward Excuse me. Bless your heart.

Tim Wildmon Sorry, sorry. Whole lot of sorry.

Tim Wildmon Right. All right, well, anyway, we're glad you're back home in Kansas City safe and sound and, and ready to go.

Raymond: We have a lot to talk about with Neil Mammon

All right, so a lot to talk about today at the bottom of the hour. Neil Mammon, our, friend Neil Mammon, he's an author and he's a Christian teacher. He will be, with us. He's also written a long piece on tariffs.

Wesley Wildmon you're not kidding though.

Tim Wildmon I'm not kidding. You know, people look to us for tariff talk here.

Wesley Wildmon They do.

Tim Wildmon It's a part of our show and if they don't get it, they get slapped. People complain like you wouldn't believe the email.

Wesley Wildmon We get slapped.

Tim Wildmon Yes, we, with an email. We get slapped with emails because we didn't slap people with tariff talk. So in all seriousness, the tariff, tariffs that President Trump has initiated to try to rectify the, what he calls the trade imbalances around the world, we're going to. Neil has written a long piece on this and we're going to explain it to our listeners like we're third graders.

Tim Wildmon Okay. That's what I want him to do. so I don't want to get it. I don't want to do a deep dive. I don't want to get where our eyes glaze over. You start talking terrorists after about two minutes, people say so.

Wesley Wildmon Which is why we're having them on. We're not making them read it.

Tim Wildmon Right, that's right. We're going to, going to, we're going to get him to explain why this is good for our country.

Wesley Wildmon Okay.

Tim Wildmon Because a lot of people are saying, no, it ain't. Okay, so we'll see what we'll see about that. So we'll talk to him now.

Wesley Wildmon Did you read the article?

Speaker C Where did.

Tim Wildmon I did read the article. I read the whole article. It's like, it's like a ten minute read.

Tim Wildmon Or something like that. I read the whole thing is very good. And, that's how we, yes, that's how we got this interview. Of course, I've known Neil forever.

Wesley Wildmon You didn't just read the headline. Okay.

Tim Wildmon No, I Read the article. Neil Mammon, will be on with us to discuss that. Give us a good word from the, Bible, Ray.

If you want God's blessing, build your life on the Word of God

Tim Wildmon Okay, Today, this morning, my wife and I do our Bible listening, audio Bible listening. And today we were in Deuteronomy 16, 17 and 18. And you might just say to yourself, what could you possibly run into in the book of Deuteronomy? But this is the, this, the joy of just listening. Because every chapter's got something new. And Deuteronomy, chapter 17, God is most. God, through Moses is saying to his people, you want a king? Go ahead, pick a king. But when you pick a king, and he gives several things, when Israel was to pick a king, he says, number one, get. Get somebody. Get one of your own people. Don't get a foreigner as king. Get one of your people. Okay, that's good. Then he says, get a king who, is not going to go back to Egypt to try to get more horses. Just get a king who's satisfied with what we already have. Then he says he must not take many wives for himself. That's good. Must not accumulate for himself large amounts of silver and gold. And I stop here and say that to me is the. Can I say the funny part of it? Look, kings since the beginning of time have made themselves rich, right, with silver or gold. But God said in Deuteronomy 17, get, get a king whose heart is more for the people than it is about making himself rich. I think that's great advice. So here's the key. At the end of Deuteronomy 17, Tim, this kind of blew my mind. God said, when you're picking a king, tell him this. He is to sit down and write out my law. He is to write it out himself. He is to do it in the presence of the Levitical priest and the law of God, which he is to write out by hand. And, you know, today you could go to Grok or GPT and say, give, me a copy of the Law of God, and it would just pop up on your computer screen. Wesley, can you imagine if you or I had to write out the law of God from Exodus or Leviticus or Deuteronomy? We'd be doing that for days. It's really the whole point that the king should take time to write out the law of God, because then it says, then he will be close to it. It'll be close to his heart. And it says, his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen, and he will not turn aside to the left or Right. So that his sons may reign after him. In other words, the end of all this is the key to God's blessing, is to take God's word, put it in your heart, friends. Build your life on the Word of God. Keep it close to you. Keep it close to your heart. Because when the Word of God is the foundation of your life, you'll have a successful marriage, m. You'll have a God blessed family, you'll have a God blessed church, you'll have a God blessed city. And ultimately, you'll have a God blessed, blessed nation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. My friends, if we're going to see Reformation revival in America, we've got to turn back to the Word of God. That's something that we've been saying at AFR from the very beginning. It doesn't just start at the top. Let it start with you and me. If you want God's blessing, build your life on the Word of God. And maybe, Wesley, it'd be a good idea to sit down and just write out longhand. I do so much on the computer these days, I hardly. My handwriting. I can hardly read it myself. But there is something to be said for writing out the Word of God so that you know what it says. Make it the foundation of your life and you will be blessed.

Wesley Wildmon In college, I had, I did that a couple of times. There was a couple of the smaller books in the New Testament that I would write out in my journal, just word for word. I remember doing that at times. Also, too. The Word of God also, over time, helps you. It gives you wisdom in areas that may not be specifically clear in Scripture. But God has a way of wanting to. How you to respond in a situation. Because not every question is answered in Scripture in the way that we need to. But yet there's principles and there's tendencies and there's direction that God wants you to go. If you're close to God's Word, he'll. He'll teach you. That makes sense. can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Tim Wildmon It makes perfect sense that, you know, some, of our friends may, may hear this and say, well, what do you want me to do? Write up the book of Leviticus? I don't know that I would start there. Okay, maybe do exactly what Wesley did. Take Galatians or take Ephesians and take a moment and you don't have to do it all at once, but write it. and I'm not saying type it out, I'm saying write it out longhand there's something about writing the word of God out that brings it close to your heart. When it's part of your heart, you'll have the wisdom you need for the hard, tough decisions of life.

Tim Wildmon Amen. Amen.

Jude says being close to God's word helps you make good decisions

All right, well, we will. You know, I've never done that before. So how many books did you write out?

Wesley Wildmon 3. I remember doing John vividly.

Tim Wildmon Jude, you started with John.

Wesley Wildmon I started with John. And John was obviously, it was much longer than the epistles. I did. Galatians. Yeah. The Gospel of John.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Wesley Wildmon Yep, I wrote it out, word for word. But, yeah, there's. There's wisdom. There's so many decisions that we have to make every day, you know, and being close to God's word and remembering the principles and the teachings of God's word helps you make good decisions each and every day.

President Donald Trump appeared to have been a factor in Canadian elections yesterday

All right, Chris, what's. What's leading the news this morning?

Christopher Woodward Well, I want to begin with news from across the border where yesterday, Canada's Liberal Party won the country's parliamentary elections. with Prime Minister Mark Carney keeping his seat against a challenge from the Conservative Party and their leader, whose name is Pierre Poliev. President Donald Trump appeared to have been a factor in the Canadians Canadian elections. And I say that because people that were doing exit polls, and even interviewed by news media going into voting, had talked about how they were concerned with U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods and what that is going to mean for their businesses and their citizens. some people also took exception to what may have been jokes by President Trump, his offer for Canada to become the 51st state. So, long story short, Canadians went to the, polls yesterday and decided to remain a Liberal country. I've got some audio from Mark Carney, the Liberal guy that won. he's pledging to fight back against President Donald Trump's policies. Clip. Whatever. There we go.

Speaker C President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us.

Tim Wildmon That will never, that will never, ever happen.

Wesley Wildmon The system of open global trade anchored.

Speaker C By the United States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second.

Wesley Wildmon World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for a.

Speaker C Country for decades, is over.

Christopher Woodward Now. Even the Canadian, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poiliev, when he conceded the race, he too pledged to, Donald Trump's policies. So Donald Trump did not get the Canadian leader that he wanted to in Canada.

Tim Wildmon Well, you know anything about that race, about the situation there? Fred's not here to talk to us.

Tim Wildmon I wish Fred was Here to help m. Help pronounce that fella's name.

Christopher Woodward Pierre Polyev.

Tim Wildmon Okay. That's the guy. Pierre. I think he made a big mistake. back come. How do you, how do you run as a conservative in Canada at the same time throwing aspersions on President Trump? that just alienated his own base. Because isn't it correct to say, Chris, that say four or five months ago, this Pierre Poliev, he was the big favorite, right?

Christopher Woodward Yes.

Tim Wildmon He was going to win and somehow got washed away. I think he would have been smarter to say, to speak out in favor of President Trump, because I think he, in effect, whatever. If there are maga Canadians, he turned them off completely.

Christopher Woodward Yeah. You know, you talk about how he had a lead three, four, five months ago. That was when Donald Trump was preparing to enter the White House.

Speaker C Ah.

Christopher Woodward And then, of course, he entered the White House in late January. People do really believe that, Trump threatening tariffs on Canadian goods was the factor here. And a lot of people didn't like the fact that he was inviting them to become the 51st state.

Tim Wildmon That would be like, tell me this.

Christopher Woodward Telling Texas, hey, come back to Mexico, Tell me this.

Tim Wildmon again, much of Donald Trump's, the president's, rhetoric is, he says things sometimes just for shock value. Maybe you could say, that's how he's always been. But did he say again yesterday, something about the 51st state?

Christopher Woodward Yes. Fox was running stories yesterday, and at least one of them quoted the president as saying, hey, when you vote today, consider becoming the 51st state.

Tim Wildmon That. That's offensive. That's what I'm saying. I think. Right, I understand your point, but I think this other fellow, this liberal guy, it was a, it was going to be a close race. I don't know what the final talley was in Canada, but I think this other guy.

Wesley Wildmon That was my question is probably.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, this guy got probably this liberal guy, probably exploited. when you say we're going to make Canada our 51st state, if you say that one time, it's a throwaway line that's, you know, maybe funny, but if you keep saying that over and over again, it's offensive to the Canadian people. I don't care what political stripe they are, because they got national pride like everybody else, and they don't want to be considered America's little brother. You know what I'm saying?

Christopher Woodward Yeah.

Tim Wildmon So I don't think that's helpful to keep saying we're going to make Canada our 51st, state. So. But Anyway, so they. They voted for who they voted for, and we'll see how that goes. He's no different than Trudeau, is he, really?

Christopher Woodward No, he's a liberal. I mean, he's going to be. But.

Tim Wildmon But Canada is basically, in many ways Socialist.

Christopher Woodward It is, yeah.

Tim Wildmon I mean, they have nationalized, like, Western Europe.

Christopher Woodward They love taxes, there. We don't.

Wesley Wildmon They don't have a First Amendment like we do.

Christopher Woodward No.

Wesley Wildmon That's all.

Christopher Woodward Yeah. You could actually, like, you know, a broadcaster could be pulled, from the airwaves if he said something about.

Tim Wildmon All right, so.

Wesley Wildmon So that.

Tim Wildmon So President Trump's offer stands. So Canada wants to be our 51st state. They need to hurry up, make up their mind. Or have they?

Christopher Woodward I think they made it up yesterday.

Mark Carney says Canadian PM will visit White House at some point

Tim Wildmon Yeah, for the moment. For the moment they've made it up.

Christopher Woodward Yeah. So, I mean, you know, and it's not uncommon for the Canadian PM to pay a visit to the White House from time to time. So it's gonna happen. Yeah. At some point. That's gonna be an awkward meeting between Mark Carney and Donald Trump.

President Donald J. Trump is celebrating his first 100 days in office today

Tim Wildmon All right, go ahead. Next story.

Christopher Woodward In other news.

Tim Wildmon In other news, speaking of Donald.

Christopher Woodward Trump, President Donald J. Trump is celebrating his first 100 days in office today.

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Christopher Woodward And, you know, they have a party.

Tim Wildmon At the White House.

Christopher Woodward They're having a big party at the White House. we've done stories and heard about how they have signs of illegal immigrants that have been.

Tim Wildmon Village People are going to be playing.

Christopher Woodward I'm not sure that I'll Google that, during the break.

Tim Wildmon 100 day celebration.

Christopher Woodward Yes. Just to give you an idea of how busy he has been in the first 100 days, I just saw this graphic pop up on Fox News Channel a few moments ago. 142 executive orders in his first 100 days.

Wesley Wildmon 100. 180.

Christopher Woodward 142.

Wesley Wildmon 140.

Tim Wildmon I'm not a fan of.

Wesley Wildmon It's too late. Just let it go.

Tim Wildmon But the Democrats started this.

Wesley Wildmon That's right.

Tim Wildmon Remember Obama saying, I'm tired of dealing with the Congress. I have a phone and a pen. You remember that, Ray?

Tim Wildmon Sure.

Tim Wildmon This goes. That's when all this started. The executive orders I'm talking about.

Tim Wildmon Has he done more than Obama did?

Christopher Woodward I believe so.

Wesley Wildmon Oh, yeah. Ah, yeah.

Christopher Woodward to give you an idea, just on how this administration has, cracked down on illegal immigration, this is something Tim found, and emailed us last night. Trump nabs 30,000 illegal immigrants, 1100 gang members in 100 days. They interviewed Fox, interviewed an ex FBI agent as saying crime will go down. I would think so. When you look at these numbers, it's.

Wesley Wildmon Still got a long ways to go, but, at least they're on track to get a lot of it done in the first two years. As far as the immigration. Illegal immigration.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, yeah.

Christopher Woodward now, even with Trump's, statistical evidence showing that he is doing something about illegal immigration and deporting people, there are still Democrats and Joe Biden supporters that are claiming that Biden deported more people than Donald Trump did. Now, even if that's somewhat true, you're looking at four years of data versus 100 days. I mean, obviously, the numbers are going to be impacted there. But one person that does not believe Biden did anything, about illegal immigration is border czar Tom Homan. I've got some audio from him, in whatever clip this is. Brent.

Tim Wildmon No, it's not true. ICE arrests in the interior about three times higher than the Biden administration was. But they were counting border removals with.

Tim Wildmon ICE removals, and of course, they had.

Tim Wildmon A lot of border removals that 10.5 million people come to the border. I looked at the numbers the other day. Under Biden administration, we averaged about, you know, 10, 11,000 a day. The high points some days at 15,000. You know what the number was yesterday?

Tim Wildmon 178.

Tim Wildmon 178 across two, thousand miles of border. Well, well, listen, you know, when you're the President of the United States, Donald Trump, whoever the president is, but in this case, President Trump, you get graded, right, by. On various and sundry topics that you are charged with, having the answers to.

Wesley Wildmon Right.

Tim Wildmon As, as, the leader of our country, and on the issue of illegal immigration and shutting it down and doing something about all the invasion, the gang members that are here and the cartels and their influence and the fentanyl and all this, you, got to give Trump five stars. I don't see how you don't. And unless you're a far lefty who wants these people to stay here.

Wesley Wildmon Right, sure.

Tim Wildmon You know what I'm saying? And you don't want to have any borders. But the vast majority of people, I think are gonna, gonna give Trump high marks on, on that particular issue.

Wesley Wildmon Yeah. And he's coming at it from all angles. He's doing it from an executive order. He's doing it with the borders are, he's doing it by working with other countries. he's. He's also doing it by, he's trying to set up Policies in a way that also self deports people. Yeah, too. So, I mean, if you're.

Tim Wildmon And he's going to crack down on these sanctuary cities.

Wesley Wildmon That's coming up next. Yep. So he's, he's, like you said, he's a five star when it comes to that. And, and he's doing it very swiftly and very aggressively because for someone that voted for him, we didn't vote for him to get in the White House and then put together a plan and then go through the process.

Tim Wildmon He hit the ground running.

Wesley Wildmon Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Running back to Mexico.

Wesley Wildmon Exactly. Which is why we have seen his, poll numbers be.

Tim Wildmon So now they're going down though. Did you know this?

Wesley Wildmon as of when last few.

Tim Wildmon His poll numbers are down. President Trump's now, of course, he probably.

The judiciary system probably has a lower favorability rating right now than Donald Trump

Wesley Wildmon But he's got room though. He's got room to get to Biden though. But Biden got down to 30, didn't he? 33.

Tim Wildmon I don't know. Well, that's when he was awake. But I'm not sure.

Christopher Woodward I would say the judiciary system probably has a lower favorability rating right now than Donald Trump based on the umpteen rulings against.

President Trump has offered relief to automakers on his tariffs

Tim Wildmon All right, you're listening to Today. Today's Issues, next story.

Christopher Woodward Chris, well, let's, let's mention this.

Tim Wildmon What do you got over.

Christopher Woodward You talked about. Yeah, I wanted to, I wanted to see how much time we have talking about tariffs. yeah, President Trump has offered, some relief to automakers on his tariffs. He's going to be in Michigan today, matter of fact. Governor Gretchen Whitmer might be there in attendance. That'll be Seat. will she be.

Tim Wildmon She be covering her face with her. With her binder?

Christopher Woodward Remains to be seen. We'll have to tune in and watch. but Donald Trump will sign an executive order today to relax some of that, 25% tariffs on autos and auto parts. The White House said a significant reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers.

Tim Wildmon Okay, maybe, we talked to this about, again, try to talk to tariffs without people turning their radio off. That's the challenge we have here. That's a challenge that it's just, it's just hard to understand. And Ray, it's just, I don't know, I don't know.

Tim Wildmon We just all start shaking our head.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Just like, what's your next. What can we talk about the weather or something?

President Trump to sign executive order to relax some tariffs on auto industry

So, so, so President Trump is going to Michigan.

Tim Wildmon To sign an executive order to relax some of the tariffs on the auto Industry to help them. Yes, but what was the reason for putting the tariffs in in the first place?

Christopher Woodward To help the auto industry and the workers.

Tim Wildmon So anyway, I don't, I don't quite understand what, why you did it in the first place and what caused the relief. What caused him to reverse.

Wesley Wildmon is he reversing or. I'm not.

Christopher Woodward He's going to ease some of the restrictions or to tear.

Wesley Wildmon Probably should have saved this one for Neil.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, you're probably right. But you got one minute, Chris.

Dow Jones up 245; National 8 up 8; S P10 up

Christopher Woodward Related news, the Dow is up 245, the National 8 and the S P10. So it's positive territory right now doing part two.

Tim Wildmon So Dow Jones is, is.

Wesley Wildmon He's happy about it still to this day. that's far. But never looked at the Dow.

Christopher Woodward It's still open for several hours.

Tim Wildmon Dow Jones Industrial. Wesley, I think that's what. Is that what it's called? Right.

The Philadelphia Eagles visited the White House yesterday

Wesley Wildmon Is there anything in sports we can cover for the last 30 seconds?

Tim Wildmon the Eagles visited the White House yesterday.

Tim Wildmon Some of the Eagles.

Tim Wildmon Some of the Eagles did. Some of them went to the White House.

Christopher Woodward There were a few players short of a tush push.

Tim Wildmon That's good. Some were not there.

Tim Wildmon A few players short of a tush.

Wesley Wildmon Hey, think about the quarterback, because that's what they call it when they do the quarterback sneak. And he was the one there.

Tim Wildmon Jalen was.

Wesley Wildmon Jalen was out there.

Tim Wildmon He was somewhere else.

Christopher Woodward There's actually some, speculation that they made the NFL may get rid of that.

Tim Wildmon The tush push.

Wesley Wildmon Oh, my word.

Tim Wildmon For those who don't know and probably don't care, it's. It's more exciting than parents in football. In the NFL. The Philadelphia Eagles, who are the super bowl champions. They.

Tim Wildmon That's right.

Tim Wildmon They developed this play where their quarterback, Jalen Hurts, takes the snap and then about three guys get behind him and push his tush.

Tim Wildmon Until. Until he gets his yard or a very close unit.

Christopher Woodward Those guys, whatever they need.

Tim Wildmon it looks like rugby.

Wesley Wildmon Yeah, that's right.

Tim Wildmon Nobody can stop them. Nobody.

Tim Wildmon All right, we are going to be back and I promise people more tariffs. We're going to have tariff talk.

Wesley Wildmon No, Neil's gonna have to. We're gonna listen.

Tim Wildmon But we. In all seriousness, I'm gonna. He's going to try to explain this to us like we're third grade. Because this is going to be a big story for the next few months in our country and around the world. We'll be back.

Ed Vitagliano Will you take a moment and celebrate life with me.

Last year Preborn helped to rescue over 67,000 babies from abortion

Last year Preborn helped to rescue over 67,000 babies from abortion. Hi This is Ed Vitagliano and I want to thank you for your partnership. Think about what you did. 67,000 babies are taking their first breath now because of you. Your $28 sponsored one ultrasound that was given to a woman as she was deciding about the future of her child. Once she saw her precious baby for the first time and heard their sweet heartbeat, her baby's chance at life doubled. But preborn's mission is not only to rescue babies lives, but also to lead women to Christ. Last year Preborn network clinics saw 8,900 women resident receive salvation. Your help is crucial to continue their life saving work. Your caring tax deductible donation saves lives. So please be generous. To donate go to preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr or dial 250 and say the key word baby. That's £250, baby. Your love can save a life.

Speaker C This is today's Issues. Email your comments to commentsfr.net Past broadcast of today's issues are available for listening and viewing in the [email protected] now back to more of today's issues.

Neil Mammon joins us with Tariff Talk on American Family Radio

Tim Wildmon Welcome back to Tariff Talk on American Family Radio. You know that you people just can't get enough of that.

Wesley Wildmon So, let's just hope we don't really genuinely lose people because I'm setting.

Tim Wildmon It up so we're about to get. Sometimes you need to have an education.

Tim Wildmon And that's what we're about to have.

Wesley Wildmon So you say.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. All right. Tim. Tim, Wesley, Chris and Ray. And now a good friend. at least for now, he's a good friend. If he gets boring, he won't be.

Wesley Wildmon He'll be an average friend.

Tim Wildmon An average friend. Neil Mammon joins us. Good morning, Neil.

Speaker C Hi. I'll try not to be boring. For sure.

Tim Wildmon Where are you? What whale?

Speaker C I'm in Idaho, the great state of Idaho.

Tim Wildmon Okay. so you on, you're on speakerphone or what?

Speaker C I am. Can you not hear me clear enough?

Tim Wildmon Yeah, we can hear you, but you sound like you're in a whale. Like, like, like Timmy was, you know, and Lassie had to warn. Remember that Timmy's in a whale again.

Speaker C when I get closer.

Tim Wildmon Okay, that'll work better. you sound like you're.

Speaker C We can switch on the break. I can call from my hand.

Tim Wildmon We'll see how this works.

Neil Blumenthal wrote a long piece on the tariffs and why they're important

Okay. so Neil, you wrote a long piece which is. Was. I read the Whole thing. It was very interesting on, the tariffs and why we, why President Trump has initiated this and what's going on and what's, what might happen, what might not happen, and, and so forth and so on. And I told our listeners that you would make this interesting and also that you would talk to us, at least me, like I'm a third grader, because people need to, I think, have an understanding. This is a very serious, we're having fun with it. This is extreme. This is an extremely serious moment in our country's economic history. What President Trump is trying to do and the reasons he's trying to do, what he's trying to do and whether it's going to work or not, do people have the patience to say and on all these things.

A tariff is just a tax on imports. So, for instance,

So I'm just going to give you the floor, and please tell us, about tariffs and what's going on here.

Speaker C Great. So, as you probably know, a tariff is just a tax on imports. So, for instance, if you want to buy that new BMW that's made in Germany, it gets shipped over here, let's say that BMW costs you 80 grand and the tariff is 10%. You're going to pay 88 grand to get it into the country. And then of course, the dealer markups or whatever it is, so it's all priced into that. So it's a fee that you pay. The dealer doesn't pay it, the manufacturer doesn't pay it. You pay it. Even though the person importing it pays it up front, it's going to get passed on to you. Because all companies have to make a certain amount of profit, and that profit is based on how much they pay. So if they, let's say you buy a suitcase for 20 bucks or not 20 bucks, say 50 bucks, the manufacturer of the suitcase sold it for a quarter of that. So they sold it for 12 and a half bucks. sorry, it cost 12 and a half bucks for the manufacturer. The guy who bought it paid 25. He charges you 50. So if you up that 50 to 60, if you up $10 on that original price, it's going to look like $40 to you. So tariffs can make 400% more. It can really add up quickly. So here's the thing, here's why they're bad, though. Now, a lot of people think, well, this is good because then it allows American manufacturers to compete with foreign manufacturers. But the problem is, do you really want government to have all that control? Because then government can say, hey, I'm going to let my friends, import Things for less. Well, my friend is in the car business, so we'll make the tariffs and cars less. But the guys I don't like are in the wheat business. So I'm going to make the tariffs for wheat really high, right? So the government is now manipulating this. And who are these wonderful angels in government that always have our best interest and heart and not their own personal, selfish, greedy ambitions?

Tim Wildmon Right?

Speaker C So you don't want some VC pencil pusher to decide who wins or loses, because the people who win are going to be the cronies. The people who lose are going to be the small mom and pop, stores and the little guy who can't afford to send a lobbyist to pitch their things. So as you can see, the tariffs end up having a cost to Americans that are controlled by people we don't really trust and we don't want them to trust. So that's the bad part of the tariffs. and also tariffs create what we call a false economy, right? Let's say you go to a farmer's market and you see a nice bar of healthy, organic chemical free soap for $8. You say, hey, I can make that for $2. Well, you go home and you spend an hour making the soap. Great. And it costs you only $2. You save six bucks. But that was an hour of your time you were focusing on something you didn't need to do. Maybe you shouldn't be focusing on, the soap. You should be focusing on something bigger, like you're building a house or something, right? So that's a false economy. You shouldn't waste your time on stuff that you can buy for cheaper. So these are the issues that with tariffs are. So what you want to do is you want to, make sure that tariffs are used. They're used only for a short time because they're very dangerous. We don't want them used, for a long time. There are some exceptions to tariffs, right? Let's say we're doing some high tech military stuff or we're doing high tech technology. We don't want to tariff. We don't want, these things to go out to other countries. We want them to be able to be, developed here in private with confidentiality. And we want to keep our trade secret. So tariffs for things like that may make sense. Tariffs for food production, may make sense. Why? Because you always want food production to be local. You don't want tariffs, you don't want a country. You don't want to be importing your food production from another country. But other than that, in general, you want to get stuff the cheapest you can get it. Okay, so that's where tariffs are bad and good. Hopefully that makes sense. Here's where the problem comes. The problem is we're not playing on an even playing field. Ideally, there should be no tariffs anywhere except for those key things where we want to protect our intellectual property. The problem is everybody's been putting tariffs on us because the United States is such a great production house. They've been putting tariffs on our stuff, and they've been making their stuff cheaper. So here's where I, said tariffs are bad. Here's where tariffs can be used in the proper way. President Trump can use tariffs to negotiate, other people and scare them into not putting tariffs in our. So when President Trump first came in, his first term in 2020, he stopped NAFTA. NAFTA was a disaster. He went in because NAFTA was like, no tariffs. And yet we were the only ones playing the game fair. Everybody else was cheating on it. So he tried to stop it. Biden came in in 2024. and. Sorry, in 20, 20, sorry. And messed it all up. So now that Trump has returned, he has said, hey, I'm going to put tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Well, Mexico immediately backed off and said, no, no, no, let's negotiate. same thing with Japan. Japan had put tariffs on American beef and wheat, and now Japan's like, oh, wait, when you put tariffs on our stuff, we don't want to lose all that income. So now Japan has said, okay, let's negotiate. So what Trump has really done is he started negotiating with partners. Take India, for instance. they used to, slap 100% tariff on American goods. Trump calls them out, they start negotiating. Biden comes in, ignores it. The tariffs go back in India. Now Trump is back, and India is like, oh, no, that was a mistake. We didn't really want to have tariffs on you. We're going to remove tariffs.

President Trump is pushing China to remove its tariffs on American goods

And so now India is thinking, let's remove all tariffs, and maybe you guys will ship some of your manufacturing to us. And so now we come to the big guy at China. China is where we get all our stuff because it's a cheap market. things are cheap. And they've been stealing our intellectual property and copying our goods and shipping them to us. And so when Trump said, look, this has got to stop, and they've been charging us tariffs, anything we sent to them had a huge tariff on it. So Trump said, you, guys need to remove your tariffs. They said no. So Trump said, okay, we're going to give you 125% tariff. They said, well, really? But we're going to tariff your stuff even higher. So there was a little game going on, and that's where we're at right now. But here's the thing. I am praying and I'm hoping that China realizes they can't do this. Why? Because India wants the business that China gets from us. Taiwan wants. Sorry, Thailand wants the business. Cambodia wants a business. Vietnam wants the business. So it's like we're telling China, look, if you are going to tariff us, we've got all these other countries that are quite happy to take over all that manufacturing that you've been doing for us. And, so I think eventually China is going to have to blink. and I'm praying that that happens sooner rather than later, because the stock market has taken a hit. So the goal is let's get China back to the negotiating table. And I think Trump's the art of the deal. He has done a great job with the other countries. Now let's see what happens in China. And on a personal thing, I think it's going to be. It's going to have to happen this way. He's going to have to go to China and say, look, I know you want to save face. So let's come up with a story where I will say, yes, I gave in here. And you'll say, well, we gave in a little, but not much. And then you can still be the big hero in China. but we'll negotiate this. Otherwise I think China is going to go downhill because China's economy is really in trouble. They've got all these line speculation deals. They've spent so much money on their military, they don't have enough of a population. The, population is now going to shrink because they had only one child policy. So I think they're in a place where they need to negotiate.

Tim Wildmon Talking to Neil Mammon, and he's written, a lengthy piece, but an excellent piece on tariffs and what President Trump is trying to accomplish and the reason he's doing what he's doing. And, all the issues surrounding this, which is a big story internationally now, probably the number one story in the news internationally, and it's affecting countries around the world and ours. And so, we put this on our Today's Issues Facebook page. We put a link to Neal's article, on this that you can read for yourself. It's excellent helping it. You understand this. so check that out. Also, Neil, what is your, what is your website or so forth?

Speaker C well, you can right now it's maman.substack.com but you can go to vac.org I don't have it up there, but we'll have a [email protected].

Tim Wildmon All right.

Speaker C And also I want to push our website, MyChurch Finder. This is where if you are looking for a good church, we want you to go to my church Finder and look it up. And if you go to a good church, we want you to go to my Church Finder and invite your pastor to fill out the My Church Finder form so we can find good churches in America and not go to all the woke churches.

Chris: Neil says Vietnam could be where China is in the future

Tim Wildmon Ray, did you have a question for Neil?

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Neil, first of all, thank you for, for, what? For the detailed answer you just gave and for this article. It's fascinating. And you know, one thing you slipped in there in the article that I thought was. And correct me if I'm wrong, you talked about China, obviously the midst of big elephant in the room here, but you said something about Vietnam. And as I, as I read you went over these, the different countries, it seems to me like early on Vietnam is an early winner in the tariff wars because they're benefiting from the controversy we're having with China. Is that a proper way to read that?

Speaker C Yeah, absolutely. I mean, here's another country that, is abandoning classical communism because it doesn't work and going to free market fascism, if you will. And that's what China is. I mean, if you look at China, they're not a communist country because if you go to China and ask the people, what does the government provide you? Nothing. It's just fascist control. Right. so it's really a capitalistic society at the lower level and a fascist control at the top level. and Vietnam is something like that too. So as a result of this, there's a lot of free, or I shouldn't say free, but cheap. And so Vietnam says, look, we've been, you know, we were under communist rule. We were. Now we're still under communist rule, but we could be where China is in the future, by allowing our manufacturing to go out there. And Vietnam is a beautiful country to visit, and things costs are very low there. And so what they're trying to do is they're trying to bring up their economy and manufacturing. So, yeah, absolutely. They're competing 100% India and Vietnam for that matter.

Tim Wildmon Well, also, Vietnam has the best fingernails in the world. I mean, they even, they export them over.

Tim Wildmon Here, the nail salons.

Tim Wildmon Nail salons are dominated by Vietnamese people. not for long.

Speaker C Not for long, though.

Tim Wildmon Who's coming for them?

Speaker C there'll be a different minority coming up for most of the Vietnamese. And this is very classical in, Silicon Valley. the first generation came and they worked in the nail salon, but all their kids went to college and are engineers. So all the. I know a lot of, I was just talking to a hairdresser, back in, when I was still in California, and she was telling me about her son who's getting his medical degree and the other daughter who's got an engineering degree. Right. So I don't think we'll see too many Vietnamese, nail workers because they, they've been investing their kids and hey, there's good money.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, but there's some good money in that business, let me tell you.

Speaker C well, yeah, if you have a whole chain of them. Yeah, absolutely.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. What are you going to say, Chris?

Christopher Woodward Yeah, I have a question. so, you know, there are a lot of people in the United states that have four years. Even before Rossboro in 1992 and NAFTA and all that stuff, a lot of Americans have said we need to just start making more of our stuff again. There was a time in America after World War II in which we did make a lot of our stuff, but in the decades that followed, a lot of stuff moved offshore. What advantage, what advantage do Americans have by us making things overseas, including in countries that we don't get along with?

Speaker C Well, the key thing is, as long as you're not giving your trade secret. The advantage, as I said, is this false economy. We should not be making soap when we should be. Maybe we should be spending our time building houses or we should not be making soap that we can buy for $6 when we should be building, robots. Right. So really is where are we going to focus on it? But as I said, there are exceptions. The exception is military, high technology and food. Right. Because food production, we don't want anything. Let's say tomorrow there's a huge world war and nothing can be shipped because the shipping lanes are destroyed and the airplane, flights are stopped. what does it take to make America self sufficient? Those are the things we don't want to go out. but everything else, I would say you, should get the cheapest so that way we can focus on other things. Now, again, we don't want to say, well, we have automobile workers here, so therefore, we got to keep the automobile industry alive. That would be like saying, well, we have buggy whip makers, so we definitely want to keep the horse carriage business alive.

Christopher Woodward Right.

Speaker C You've got to move the technology because, otherwise, what will happen is you'll wake up one day and you'll find out that you're behind, on the global scale. It's an international market. You got to realize that. So you've got to be moving up. And what you really want to do is you want to be selling people stuff that they can't make themselves, and buying stuff that anybody could. Well, in my article, I say, look, if it's a couch, buy it. You don't. There's no couch technology going on. Unless there is couch technology, in which case then you can be that boutique shop that makes an amazing couch that everybody want. You know, the Gucci couch kind of thing.

Tim Wildmon let me, by the way, if you can read this piece that Neil wrote on tariffs, it's a primer, basically, to help you understand what this, is all about. At, you go to our Today's Issues Facebook page, and we posted it there. So just to, put this on the lowest shelf possible, I'm just gonna put it down on the floor.

Neil Cavuto: There could be unintended consequences from President Trump's tariffs

Okay. For us to understand what we have, you have trade between nations around the world that the United States engages in and countries around the world. Let's say you start off at zero, just an even trade. Okay? Free. You got a free market. We got a free market. What happened was, over the decades, countries around the world have put tariffs on products that America sends to them. A 5% or 10% or 15%. Tariffs being basically taxation. Okay, correct me where I'm wrong here, Neil. And that's how you're right. that has slowly, over the decades, cross crept up, and Americans haven't really noticed it because we're pretty successful, and by the world standards, we're the wealthiest country and so forth. But now people are saying it's cost us a lot of jobs. but now President Trump back. I don't want to get down the job part, but I want to say. But President Trump now is saying, wait a minute. you're doing this to our companies who are shipping to you, but we're not doing anything reciprocal to tear up your products coming into the United States. And we're about to do that now to even the trade the playing field. Have I Got that right?

Speaker C Absolutely. It's the, art of the deal.

Tim Wildmon Okay? Now, however, that could all be true, and it is true, but the way I've just described it, and Donald Trump, has been talking about this for 40 years. I mean, he. For as long as I can remember, he's been talking about. He would call it unfair. We've been done wrong and all this, countries around the world by these tariffs. But, however, even so, when you try to do a correction with. And the magnitude that Trump's trying to do it are a, you know, get even, and you shock the world's economy, and the stock market goes crazy up and down, down and up, and, and people are uncertain about what's going to happen, and you make enemies of the world. Okay? I mean, there are many countries right now who are, don't, like us because of the tariffs that President Trump has initiated. there are. What I'm saying is there are unintended consequences from, quote, doing the right thing. Okay. As President Trump, is doing with. Trying to do, by correcting the unevenness of what I mentioned earlier in this, description. So, that's a risk that President Trump, and also the Republican Party is running right now. This thing. By this thing, I mean President Trump's tariff and negotiating and these trade deals and everything that needs to sort itself out in a positive way for Trump and the United States by what, by July, by August? I mean, when does this thing need to turn around or is it turning around now?

Speaker C it really depends, you know, because China is hard to read, but it really depends on.

Tim Wildmon Are we playing chicken? Are we playing chicken with China right now? Are we both driving?

Speaker C Pretty much, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And they've got more to lose.

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Speaker C And here's what I think will happen. I'm not a prophet in any sense of the way, but here's what I think could happen, I should say, is that Vietnam and India will announce. Make some big announcements about moving the iPhones there and moving Tesla there. and China is going to then go, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. And come back to the table.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Speaker C My guess.

Neil Mammon: I want Ghana to become the 53rd state

Tim Wildmon Okay, One other question I have. Then we can let you go. Unless these gentlemen here have, So Canada's 52nd state. Greenland. No, no, Canada's 51st. Right. We're going to. And then we're going to get Greenland, 52nd. China. You think maybe China is eligible to be the 53rd state or no?

Speaker C Well, they may go bankrupt shortly, and then. But I think, I don't think Z is going to give up that. I'll tell you what. I want Ghana to become the 53rd state.

Tim Wildmon Ghana. Ghana.

Speaker C I was born in Ghana. And if it does become the 53rd state, I can run for president.

Tim Wildmon I got you. I got you. Okay. All right.

Speaker C One more thing, one more thing. Let me add, by the way, I am, I did an article on there about good, Friday and why, how God, so I have other stuff on that substack. Good, Friday and how God, organized and what Jesus did leading up to Good Friday, to make sure that they crucified him. It's an interesting article. And then I also talk about how there's another article talks about how the Jews claim that the Messiah was never supposed to be divine. And I go through and I show from the Old Testament that no, he was supposed to be divine. And I explained all that. So if people are interested in that connection we have there. And then the other article I have on there is how we're losing our 10th amendment, how it's become just a paper.

Tim Wildmon Okay, Neil Mammon, our guest. Neil, that substack is available where mom.

Speaker C and substack.com. but I think once you go to the article from your website.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Speaker C You'll be able to find the right.

Tim Wildmon So go to our Today's Issues Facebook page and click on the article and All right, Neil, take care my friend. See ya.

Speaker C thank you very much.

Tim Wildmon Okay, bye bye. From Neil there in a well in Idaho. Joining us. what do you think about all that, Ray? That's pretty interesting.

Tim Wildmon I thought, you know the best part and you were asking him about at the end, he said it's a short term, it's a short term thing. There's a quote in the article that he said which we didn't really get to get. The quote that terrorists like medicine, medicine is good take for the right reason for a short period of time. Right. But you don't intend to take the medicine forever.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Tim Wildmon it will be good if four months from now or eight months from now we get things worked out because this stuff with China, this are really big deal the, the the trade back and forth. Tim, we need to get that straightened out with China one way or the other. And it wouldn't surprise me if what Neil said is exactly right. That the Trump. I wouldn't even be surprised if Trump ends up going to China, chatting it over Z and comes up saying look, we're going to say we gave a lot. You're going to say you gave a little, but here's the deal. And end up with this trade war because it doesn't benefit us to have tariffs of what, 145% on China. Things we import from China.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. We may be, we may be President Trump and our argument on this may be correct and right and fair.

Tim Wildmon But I said, I use the term unintended consequences is still going to be, if. For. Right. For the short term, it's going to be painful.

Tim Wildmon And I think that that's not yet hit us. It's, that's going to hit our shores in about a month to six weeks or eight weeks. Because I was reading, I was reading where our farmers now don't. They're a lot of their, soybean and pork.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Tim Wildmon That maybe other products that China bought, the orders have been canceled.

Tim Wildmon And so there's a lot of panic among. Well, that affects trucks.

Tim Wildmon That affects, shipping, that affects jobs.

Christopher Woodward I mean, many of those farmers live in states that voted for Trump.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just saying, and then President Trump warned, you know, a few months ago, hey, this is going to.

Wesley Wildmon Be painful up front, but it's worth it. It's easy to even the playing field.

Tim Wildmon It's easy for you to say if you're not in the soybean business, you know what I'm saying? And you're going, wait a minute, I can't pay my workers, whatever. I'm just saying that, that, that is what's at play right now. That's a, a playing out.

Wesley Wildmon There's a timeline that has to happen.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Tim Wildmon we'll be back momentarily with more of today's issues on American Family Radio.

Speaker C The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.