Today's Issues features Tim Wildman, president of the American Family Association

Ed Vitagliano Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.

Tim Wildmon Hey, welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. As you know, last week we reported that Steve Paisley Jordal has gone off with his wife on a cruise, to Alaska. That I'm not telling anything he didn't already tell the world.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Tim Wildmon So they're cruising up to Alaska and back, right, Ed?

Ed Vitagliano I think so. I think this is a round trip.

Tim Wildmon Round trip.

Ed Vitagliano Hoping this is a round trip.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. So, filling in for, Steve is our good friend Paris and colleague. Paris offered. Good morning, Parish.

Tim Wildmon Tim. How are you doing?

Tim Wildmon Well, do you have a good weekend?

Tim Wildmon I did, man, it was fast.

Tim Wildmon You watch any college football?

Tim Wildmon I got in trouble watching college football.

Tim Wildmon Oh, you did? My wife already week one trouble said.

Tim Wildmon I watched Week zero. My wife said I watched too much of it.

Tim Wildmon Right. Well, you know how they are.

Ed Vitagliano Well, just then, Paris, you just set the record straight right here on national radio, and you just tell everybody who's boss at your house.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, you turn the. Yeah, no, she said turn the TV off.

Tim Wildmon There is a boss.

Tim Wildmon You have a problem.

Ed Vitagliano You have a problem.

Tim Wildmon You understand? You're sitting here watching, some. Two small schools play on TV, right? At 10 o'. Clock.

Ed Vitagliano Kansas State.

Tim Wildmon Well, they're not small schools.

Ed Vitagliano No, I know they were the first.

Tim Wildmon Iowa State and Kansas State played over in Dublin, Ireland, right?

Ed Vitagliano Yes, that's right.

Tim Wildmon Did you know I watched, a replay of that game? I didn't watch that game live. The, Irish need to do a better job of painting, the field. You could barely see the hash marks or the lines on the field.

Tim Wildmon And I kept having flashbacks to, my. My former life, sitting in press boxes and trying to chart the ball play by play. And I just thought I would be losing my mind. Yeah, I mean, just got to give up.

Tim Wildmon Literally. You could. If you watch it on tv, you could barely see the hash marks. Evidently, the Irish, they're not used to marking a football field, American football field. But then they had a. The, Understand, it was a deluge, a rain deluge, prior to the game, which made it. Or maybe during the first part of the game, which made it. Maybe made that. Maybe made the lines wash away.

Ed Vitagliano Well, that's not what I heard, Tim. I heard that they did a great job painting the field.

Tim Wildmon Uh-huh.

Ed Vitagliano But overnight, leprechauns came and messed with the field.

Tim Wildmon Well, that can. They're prone to do that, especially in that part of the World.

Ed Vitagliano Very mischievous leprechauns.

Tim Wildmon You got unicorns that are roaming around.

Ed Vitagliano They'll trample on it.

Tim Wildmon They're trampling. So you got problems that are unique to Ireland.

Ed Vitagliano Yes. the little people.

Tim Wildmon All right. What do you mean by that?

Ed Vitagliano That's what they call. That's what they call them.

Tim Wildmon What?

Ed Vitagliano Don't you remember them? Don't you remember the old Disney movie, Darby o' Gill and the Little People? You remember that? And it was the little fairy creatures in Ireland.

Tim Wildmon Ireland, okay. Oh, Tarbyn's from, Leprechauns are little.

Ed Vitagliano They are. That's right. They're the m. Very mischievous little people. which references.

Tim Wildmon That's actually a stereotype that's very hurtful about.

Ed Vitagliano For leprechauns.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Yes. To be m. Because all of them aren't mischievous.

Ed Vitagliano Well, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what I'll do.

All of you leprechauns that are offended, if you've been offended

All of you leprechauns that are out there in our listening audience, if you've been offended, you go ahead and email me and I'll try to make things right.

Tim Wildmon Do that, because don't email me.

Ed Vitagliano I'll send you some Lucky Charms.

Tim Wildmon Well, there we go again. See, that's just.

Ed Vitagliano That's just wrong.

Tim Wildmon That's gratuitous.

Ed Vitagliano Yes.

Tim Wildmon All right, Paris, what's your first story?

Tim Johnson: President Trump is considering sending National Guard to Chicago and other cities

Tim Wildmon Well, Tim, the first story is, Trump and will he or won't he go into Chicago? I believe you guys were discussing this a little bit, earlier. I heard on Fox News before I came in here that he says, I may or I may not.

Tim Wildmon Well, talk about President Trump. Yes. Okay, so just to review, and most people know this, President Trump initiated a. Basically make America's capital safe, our capital being Washington, D.C. and he's brought in the National Guard, from around the country and to aid the, Washington, D.C. metro Police and to help patrol and make safe our nation's capital. And it is working. It's not any surprise. You got more cops, you got less crime. That's just the way it is. okay, so by cops, I mean also by extension, the National Guardsmen that are there serving in our law enforcement capacity now. So that made people think, well, if it can work in Washington, D.C. why can't it work in other cities? American cities that are crime ridden, you.

Tim Wildmon Know, and the data suggests that maybe, maybe Chicago needs a little help in this area. I mean, they lead the nation in homicides.

Tim Wildmon Do they?

Tim Wildmon 573 in 2020.

Tim Wildmon Straight up.

Tim Wildmon The number per Capita, straight up the number. Now, if you want to talk per capita, Jackson, Mississippi says, hold my sweet tea, you know.

Tim Wildmon Oh, yeah.

Tim Wildmon At 78 per 100,000 Jackson, Mississippi leaves.

Tim Wildmon Is more dangerous per capita.

Ed Vitagliano Yes.

Tim Wildmon And then Memphis is not far behind.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Memphis, Tennessee, unfortunately, was cited the other day by the FBI, I think, as the most dangerous city in America. so, the violent crime in these cities, out of control. However, I would issue a cautionary tale here to tell maybe is not the right word, but, to caution. Just caution. Yeah. to President Trump and his team. Ed, you mentioned before the break, okay, Washington, D.C. is a unique situation. It's a federal city, it's a district. But President Trump, you, doubted whether he has the constitutional authority to start sending the Federal Guard. I don't think he's going to do it. I think he's just talking out loud. But, to send in the National Guardsmen to, Chicago or Baltimore, anywhere.

Ed Vitagliano I don't, I don't think he has a bad idea authority to, to do that. I think that governors, usually, the governor of a state usually requests the, you know, the, the, the help of the federal government and, you know, in disaster areas. the National Guard generally is not trained to do law enforcement.

Tim Wildmon They are trying to do law and order, though. They, they keep order when you have a national or a state emergency, and.

Ed Vitagliano That may free up the Washington D.C. district police to do their job. I am looking at a CNN article because President Trump was, live. We couldn't hear what he was saying because we're on air, but, it says President Donald Trump signed an executive order today that the administration says will task Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth with establishing, quote, specialized units in the National Guard that will be, quote, specifically trained and equipped to deal with public order issues. So, we'll have to wait to see if that gets fleshed out and we get more details into what that means. I generally don't like the idea of federal troops, of a federal police force. And if they are going to be doing arrests in some of these cities, I don't think I like it. I'm just going to tell you it.

Tim Wildmon Need to be the FBI then, or some other federal agency that's already in existence.

Ed Vitagliano If it's federal laws broken, if it's just city ordinances or state laws that should be. This is, this is, this is a question of federalism in my mind. And if Chicago's Mayor, Brandon Johnson and the city council want to ruin that city, you get what you vote for in Chicago.

Tim Wildmon I agree.

Ed Vitagliano And you don't send in the federal.

Tim Wildmon Save upon themselves.

Ed Vitagliano Yes.

Tim Wildmon Parrish.

Tim Ferriss: Is this just Trump talking out loud about Chicago policing

Tim Wildmon All right, well, I'm wondering, Tim, you hit on this earlier. Is this just Trump, talking out loud to bring attention to the problem, to create awareness, to make people think outside the box for solutions?

Tim Wildmon Well, if somebody's get in my opinion, and, ah, I agree with Ed here, somebody's giving him bad advice if they're telling him it's a good idea to create, some kind of a, federal force, law enforcement out of National Guardsmen from around the country and send them into various cities, like you've done here in Washington, D.C. as we said, is a. Washington, D.C. is a set aside. It's a, it's a, it's a federal city. It's not. So that's different. It's different legally, constitutionally, in every other way. So bad idea. If this is what the idea is, that is to create a force made out of National Guardsmen that would be sent into cities, just for the purpose of general policing is. I don't, I don't agree with that.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Tim Wildmon now, unless you had something like, but in this case, it would be like the governor, the governor needs to call out the governor. Illinois needs to call out the National Guard to help in Chicago. He would have the authority to do so. and you know what I'm saying.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Tim Wildmon So, anyway, we'll see what happens.

Ed Vitagliano Now, the reason we don't know much about what President Trump is proposing other than this, CNN said, rather than what CNN said, is because this was just, it was just on our, on the news feed that we have, and there was a live video and that's when he was announcing this.

Tim Wildmon So likes to troll, though. Trump likes to troll. And this could be trolling, you know what I'm saying? I need to quit saying that so much. But you understand what I believe.

Ed Vitagliano Yes.

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Ed Vitagliano in other words, that he doesn't really intend to do this.

Tim Wildmon He just wants to get a. He likes getting their rise out of the left.

Ed Vitagliano He wants to see their head spin.

Tim Wildmon He wants to own the libs. Right, right. And so. And so that's part of it.

Ed Vitagliano He wants the women on the View to go ballistic.

Tim Wildmon Yes, yes.

Ed Vitagliano So he can say, calm down.

Tim Wildmon Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

A New York State appeals court throws out the 527 million dollar civil fraud penalty

All right, next story, Paris.

Tim Wildmon All right. A New York State appeals court has thrown out the 527 million dollar civil fraud penalty imposed.

Tim Wildmon I wasn't going to pay it anyway. Oh.

Tim Wildmon Against Donald Trump oh, okay.

Tim Wildmon All right, My bad. I thought they was talking about me, and I just don't have the. I don't have the kind of money. Not.

Ed Vitagliano Not laying around.

Tim Wildmon Not laying. Not laying around. So. So President Trump, this is a big deal. Is this the one where Attorney General James of the State of New York went after Trump on.

Tim Wildmon Yes. Issued on August 21, 2025. They. They, threw that out, found.

Tim Wildmon That it was excessive business fraud, what they accused him m of. And it was demonstrated during that trial that basically this was politically motivated, by the Attorney general. In fact, she said when she was running for office that she was going to go after Trump. Right?

Tim Wildmon Yes, yes.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Now, ah, Trump on, Truth Social over the weekend said, total victory, all caps.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, well, it was.

Tim Wildmon That means it's really a total victory.

Tim Wildmon It was overturned by not a federal. A state appellate court in New York. Right. Yep. So that's a big deal because they're probably all liberals, and yet they.

Tim Wildmon They say. Even.

Tim Wildmon They said even. They said this was. Didn't they say it was politically, motivated?

Tim Wildmon They said, the ruling is excessive and likely violates constitutional protections against severe punishment.

Ed Vitagliano The. The Eighth Amendment forbids excessive. That's called the excessive fines clause. and so it ensures that fines and forfeitures in criminal cases are not grossly disproportionate to the offense committed, which this clearly was. Now, this. This ruling does not vacate the original decision ruling against President Trump, which, goes back to, Was it 2022?

Tim Wildmon so at least three. Two or three years. Yeah. Ah, because I remember him sitting in that courtroom watching them on tv.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Go ahead. What does it do? So it doesn't overturn that.

Tim Wildmon It leaves in place the underlying finding that Trump engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth and property values over a decade to secure favorable loan and insurance.

Ed Vitagliano Terms, which I thought was ridiculous. So myself, the ruling.

Tim Wildmon That's one of those things to me, you know how you can say, well, you can find something on everybody.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon That you know that you've done technically or, And that sounds like, to me, this is what this was. She was going after him for political reasons when you would normally go after people on these kinds of charges.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Tim Wildmon Especially if you have a, if you have a situation where the. A businessman here, she's saying you, exaggerated your net worth in order to obtain loans from banks. Right?

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Okay. So I'm thinking to myself, isn't that really between the bank and the person borrowing? Because isn't that the bank's job to do due diligence on whether they're going to be paid back by person borrowing millions of dollars?

Ed Vitagliano And, and listen, I think it, yes. And I also think that evaluating the worth of properties that you might put up for the loan, is probably just not a number that everyone agrees on. If you say, I think this property is worth this.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Ed Vitagliano And here's. I have these.

Tim Wildmon That's why the bank does their job.

Ed Vitagliano Yes, exactly.

Tim Wildmon Bank says, okay, you're going to borrow $10, and you say you have property that's worth 15. We're going to go check it out. Yeah, we're going to go look at the property, we're going to compare it to other properties around the area, the comps, as they say, and they're going to figure out whether what you're saying is, you're going to borrow this money. Are we going to be able to get our money back? And the banks didn't have a problem loaning President Trump then Donald Trump, the, I guess the businessman in New York, money.

Ed Vitagliano And they said in the trial we would have been happy to do more work.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, I think it was a German bank. He had always. He always paid all these, loans back. Now, he did have some bankruptcies along the way in his 40 years, 50 years.

Tim Wildmon That this was politically motivated by Letitia James going against Trump. Well, Trump now in office, is going after Letitia James.

Tim Wildmon Really? That's surprising.

Tim Wildmon It isn't it. Isn't it, though?

The FBI is going after John Bolton like the FBI went after Donald Trump

Tim Wildmon Yeah, I mean, that's, not like him.

Tim Wildmon It's forgiven. Forget with Donald Trump.

Tim Wildmon No, it ain't. Get revenge. So this John Bolton, this.

Ed Vitagliano That's true.

Tim Wildmon That's going after John. The FBI is going after John Bolton like the FBI went after Donald Trump. is that right?

Ed Vitagliano In fairness, this is the Justice Department. Okay. Not the FBI, which is politically separate from President Trump. but maybe not. Not really.

Tim Wildmon I don't know why. Listen, I'm just. I'm just spouting off. I don't know why they're going after John Bolton. I'm sure there's a technical legal reason. I'm just saying it appears like, you know, John Bolton got on Trump's bad side. Yeah, it appears like Trump's.

Tim Wildmon Well, he's got something against the Doobie Brothers, obviously. Right. Wrong. Bolton.

Tim Wildmon Oh, Michael Bolton.

Tim Wildmon I'm sorry. I got the Boltons mixed up.

Tim Wildmon I think you got the whole sing groups. Yeah, totally.

Tim Wildmon It's not about the Doobie Brothers.

Tim Wildmon You need to stay with news was.

Ed Vitagliano Michael Bolton on the Doobie Brothers.

Tim Wildmon yeah. Michael McDonald was Michael Mc. Got your Michaels.

Tim Wildmon I got everything mixed up.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano I thought Michael Bolton was Michael McDonald, the lead singer for Kiss.

Tim Wildmon Michael. I didn't rabbit trail this. Y' all did.

Ed Vitagliano No, Parish, Paris did.

Tim Wildmon He tried to.

Ed Vitagliano He's fitting right in.

Tim Wildmon He tried to.

Did the FBI search John Bolton's home? Yes, they did

Anyway, I don't know what the actual, situation is with John Bolton, the former national national Security Advisor. Right.

Ed Vitagliano His, his home got, Didn't the FBI search his home?

Tim Wildmon I thought you said Justice Department. Justice Department, I don't know. Yes, they did. They raided his home and took boxes of stuff. John Bolton, who's basically known for his mustache more than anything. Am I right? he. You know, the interesting thing about John Bolton, and I won't go. He was a, beloved conservative for many years. Yeah, I know. I had a lot of friends who are mutual friends of his. And then he went to work for President Trump. He was on TV a lot. President Trump likes to hire people who've been on Fox News in particular, and he hired him. And they didn't. They didn't. They didn't jail. Okay, right. President Trump and John, Bolton, he.

Ed Vitagliano Was national, security advisor.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, that's what I said for, For Trump.

Ed Vitagliano Okay, all right.

Tim Wildmon No, just a minute ago I said the same. But you were looking it up at the time. Yes, ignoring what I said, but I understand.

Ed Vitagliano I thought you had asked the question, was he,

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Ed Vitagliano But, true. I was not listening. so my wife says a lot. So what? So there's no, no, idea of why his,

Tim Wildmon John Bolton.

Ed Vitagliano John Bolton's,

Tim Wildmon Yeah, because he took Trump.

Ed Vitagliano I mean, in other words, what, what they, what, they're. I don't know.

Tim Wildmon I don't know. They got some reason.

Ed Vitagliano Okay.

Tim Wildmon And I, and I'm just joking around here. I should probably not even. Lest my home be raided. I don't even know. I'm just saying it, it appears if you don't have any, Anything, you just appears like he's being, pounced on because he was crossways with Trump.

Ed Vitagliano Okay.

Tim Wildmon This was the left would this.

Ed Vitagliano And this comes from SMSs, MSNBC. So you can trust this, you can.

Tim Wildmon Trust this, that this is part of.

Ed Vitagliano An investigation and you have to have search warrants to go into some home. You do that. That. That requires judicial approval, as this article says, whether Bolton leaked sensitive national security information to the press in order to damage Trump.

Tim Wildmon Well, that would have been. That must have been when he Left.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, so. So that would be the pretext apparently for this investigation.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

American tourist using find my phone to track down pickpockets in Italy

Next story, Parish we got about five minutes ago. Parrish offered with us today. Doing a great job bringing the news last week, filling in for Steve Paisley Jordan.

Tim Wildmon Next story. A United States mom visiting, in Vienna, tracks down Indiana. Excuse me. Visiting in Venice, tracks down pickpockets. I saw this story by using the Find my phone, find my Apple device using that app, track down pickpockets to get back passport, credit cards, that sort of thing. And caught up with pickpockets and they were arrested.

Ed Vitagliano So this woman's a superhero.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano This is like something out of Batman where she went to the bat cave and found out where her AirPods were. That's our presumption is here that the find my app on her phone was able to locate the air. The

Tim Wildmon Thanks some AirPods maybe, but obviously along.

Ed Vitagliano With the credit cards.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano And then she grabbed the girl, I guess what the girl pickpocket might have been part of a little team. By the hair and pulled her back.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, the little girl was screaming, waited.

Tim Wildmon To police to get there. How was the girl? Like she was teenager, right? Teenager. Teenager. Anyway, so is an American tourist in Venice, Italy.

Tim Wildmon Yes.

Tim Wildmon Get pickpocketed and the mom finds out through her app where the where her stuff is and goes and finds the young. The person. It happened to be a young girl. I say young girl. Looked to me like me, maybe 14, 15, 16 years old.

Tim Wildmon Yes.

Tim Wildmon And she grabbed her by the hair and holds her there. A couple of girls. The police get there.

Ed Vitagliano They usually pickpockets. Usually. I have no personal knowledge of this. They usually operate in pairs or groups.

Tim Wildmon And this, this was more than one. Doesn't say how many. It was more than one girl.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Pickpockets, they are usually, you know, work together because a lot of them and you know, you go to any major city in America or tourist site where you're going to be walking around out in the open, they're going to warn you against pickpockets. Especially somewhere like Venice, Italy.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Tim Wildmon Where you are in close proximity to humans.

Ed Vitagliano A lot of tourists.

Tim Wildmon A lot. Yeah, a lot. Walking here, there and the other, you're bumping up against people. And so pickpockets are very prevalent.

Ed Vitagliano And now I have heard, especially in the larger cities in Italy, Rome, they say you go to Rome, watch out for pickpockets. And there's all kinds of advice on.

Tim Wildmon I thought you were going to say do like the Romans I was going to say that would be. They need to.

Tim Wildmon Huh?

Ed Vitagliano They're pillaging the Romans.

Tim Wildmon They have a history.

Ed Vitagliano They're pillaging the tourists.

Tim Wildmon Rome, beautiful city, but again, I say beautiful in there. The art in their way and the history and things that you see. But, yeah, you have to be careful. Have you ever been pick a bucketed parish?

Tim Wildmon I've never been pick a pocketed.

Tim Wildmon Have you ever played pickleball?

Tim Wildmon I have not. Not done that.

Tim Wildmon You ever had, anything to do with pickles?

Tim Wildmon Like, on a hamburger?

Tim Wildmon Like, morning? I'm saying. That's what I'm talking about. Have you ever been. Seriously, have you ever been.

Ed Vitagliano No.

Tim Wildmon The victim of a pickpocket?

Ed Vitagliano No. I avoid people. the only way I could probably get pickpocketed is at church because I'm not around big crowds.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Has that ever. Have you ever. That ever happened to you at church?

Ed Vitagliano No, not that I know of. My wife and I would like to go. I'd like to go to, you know, to Greece or to Italy, and I've never been. I'm half Italian, half Greek. I'd like to go, but only if, you know, there's not a lot of people. You think I could do that? Just get rid of.

Tim Wildmon Well, there are.

Parrish: I like big crowds. The number of people here in this studio is about what

There are some things called off seasons for tourists, so maybe you could go when there's less people in. In those places.

Ed Vitagliano The number of people here in this studio is about what I'm comfortable with.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Ed Vitagliano I like big crowds.

Tim Wildmon And I've never. I've never attempted to pick back at you.

Ed Vitagliano No. I can assure you, I can say the people here have been very good about that.

Tim Wildmon Yes. Thank you, Parrish.

Tim Wildmon Glad to be here.

Tim Wildmon All right. I like pickles on my hamburgers, too.

Ed Vitagliano Me, too.

Tim Wildmon Back. I complain if there's not pickles available to. You complain if there's not dill pickles available for my hamburger. I do.

Ed Vitagliano I have a dill.

Tim Wildmon I have a visceral reaction.

Ed Vitagliano Can't be. Sweet pickles, dude.

Tim Wildmon Sweet pickles on hamburger.

Ed Vitagliano Dill pickles.

Tim Wildmon That's un American.

Ed Vitagliano You got that right.

Tim Wildmon We will see you back here tomorrow, everybody. Have a great day. It.