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

Tim Wildmon Okay, raise your hand, out there if you had thoughts of if you could ever get to a spammer or a scammer that you would do bodily harm to that person.

Ed Vitagliano Oh, man. Oh, man. Huh?

Tim Wildmon Baby. You know what I'm saying?

Ed Vitagliano The ungodly thoughts I've had.

Tim Wildmon good morning, Steve Jordan.

Steve Jordahl Good morning, everybody.

Tim Wildmon Steve Paisley Jordan wearing his flamingo shirt.

Ed Vitagliano His rainbow flamingo.

Tim Wildmon Pretty cool shirt.

Ed Vitagliano I like it. I like that.

Tim Wildmon Okay, so, Steve.

Steve Jordahl Yes.

Tim Wildmon My wife Allison, she got out this shirt that I'm wearing now.

Steve Jordahl Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Wildmon This morning she bought it at Sports Academy. I give them a free ad.

Steve Jordahl Yep.

Ed Vitagliano Academy Sports.

Tim Wildmon I didn't pick out this shirt.

Steve Jordahl That's right.

Tim Wildmon Although, like it. She picked it out for me. She said, I picked this out specifically so you could one up Steve.

Steve Jordahl Did she? You did too. That's nice.

Ed Vitagliano So, it looks like Miami Vice.

Tim Wildmon That's what you said. I look like Don Johnson. I got the. Wait, that's right, you didn't. I do have the four day beard going on.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Like Don Johnson.

Ed Vitagliano Yes, he was known for that.

Tim Wildmon So. And Steve's got the pink fl. Well, the flamingos, they're multicolored. He's a multicultural kind of guy. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Steve Jordahl Flamingos had lsd.

Tim Wildmon which we don't encourage.

Ed Vitagliano No, we don't.

Tim Wildmon Because you take lsd, you start seeing.

Steve Jordahl Flamingos just like those.

Tim Wildmon You know what I'm saying?

Ed Vitagliano My understanding is flamingos are actually pretty mean birds.

Tim Wildmon Are they really?

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, like, you get too close to them, they'll bite you.

Steve Jordahl These haven't done me any harm.

Tim Wildmon That describes every animal on the planet. That's true.

Steve Jordahl That's true.

Ed Vitagliano What a nice little squirrel. My.

Tim Wildmon Thank God.

Ed: The mosquitoes are biting in northeast Mississippi right now

I tell you what we're experiencing here in, in our area, the northeast Mississippi area, and this is probably true a lot of the south right now, at least, is the mosquitoes.

Ed Vitagliano Yes.

Tim Wildmon Because that's so much rain.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Wesley Wildmon Skeeters.

Tim Wildmon The skeeters. Anyway, they, they, they, they, they, they're swarmers now. Ah. They attack.

Ed Vitagliano They own the outside.

Tim Wildmon You swatting one if you. And then two more are getting you.

Ed Vitagliano From the backside, his brothers, his brothers and cousins come looking for you.

Tim Wildmon Yes. Yes.

Wesley Wildmon Now, Ed, you know a lot about flamingos. Tell us a little bit about mosquitoes. Go ahead.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, Skeeters are, they're the baby human existence in a lot of places.

Tim Wildmon I tell you, I know Texas, is they say everything's bigger in Texas, but I put our mosquitoes in Mississippi. Up against anybody.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, anybody's mosquitoes.

Tim Wildmon Anybody's mosquitoes. so anyway, do you use the, Do you. When you're outside, you use the spray?

Ed Vitagliano Just curious. No.

Tim Wildmon You know, you're a real man.

Ed Vitagliano No, no, no, I stay. I. I'll sit on, the porch until the mosquitoes come out, and then I go. Yes, sir. I'm going inside.

Steve Jordahl Yeah, I don't, I don't. I don't like sprays. I don't. 10. I don't tend to get bit a lot. I'm sure that they.

Tim Wildmon They know you're from California.

Steve Jordahl California. So I. Hey, I'm giving away a dog this morning.

Ed Vitagliano That was seriously. That was an abrupt.

Steve Jordahl It was, well, change of topic.

Jeffrey Epstein says it's between mosquitoes and now ticks

Tim Wildmon What does this have to do with Jeffrey Epstein? I want to know.

Steve Jordahl It has to do with mosquitoes and now ticks.

Wesley Wildmon Oh.

Tim Wildmon Oh, yeah. Allison found a tick. the ticks are out, too.

Steve Jordahl It was a bad morning, I'm telling you.

Tim Wildmon So it's like the African jungle here right now. It really is between ticks and mosquitoes and.

Ed Vitagliano it's almost like the world is fallen.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, it's like a. I don't know. If you have to choose between. If you have to choose between a mosquito and a rhino, I guess you still stay with the mosquito.

Ed Vitagliano Still say with the mosquito. Although malaria kills more people around the world than rhinos, than any. Almost anything else.

Tim Wildmon That's what I needed to hear.

Ed Vitagliano Yes.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano Well, we don't have malaria.

Tim Wildmon Malaria. Hey, you know, a serious note. My dad did get, encephalitis from mosquito.

Ed Vitagliano I mean, it's bad business.

Steve Jordahl We used to have to take malaria shots every six months when I lived in Africa.

Tim Wildmon Oh, for that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a serious thing.

Steve Paisley discusses attacks on ICE agents on American Family Radio

All right. You're listening to today's issues on American Family Radio. Tim, Ed, Wesley, and now Steve Paisley. George joins us. Steve, what's your first story?

Steve Jordahl I'd like to talk about the attack on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials that we're seeing around this country. we had a level up, ah, in this, as they say in the gaming world. The bad guys have started organizing. a couple days ago, we saw a lone gunman take out, try to take out some ice. officials on the border, Texas, at a border crossing. He didn't, he was stopped. They shot him and killed him the next day. 10 antifa types. I don't know. They haven't identified what Gang they're from, but they look like the antifa type organized and have been charged with attempted murder after they, at, in an organized fashion, went after ICE agents down in Texas. And it is like I say, it's like a leveling up. they are now organizing in RICO style, gang style, and they are starting to put together a organized resistance to the Trump administration, A violent organized resistance to the Trump administration. And it's interesting, Caroline Levitt was talking about this from the White House podium, the other day, talking about the dangers that they are, our ICE agents are getting, cut three.

Jeff Chamblee The American public witnessed an open border, illegal alien invasion for four years. And they said enough is enough. The vast majority of this country supports deporting illegal criminals from our communities. This administration is all hands on deck in doing that to remove public safety threats from our communities, to protect our nation, our homeland and our citizens. And they face now a 700% increase in violence from radical left lunatics. And we're not going to tolerate that.

Steve Jordahl And what are we hearing from Democrats? Crickets.

Wesley Wildmon Yeah.

Steve Jordahl Or we're hearing them ratchet up the, the, the threats. Cut 1.

Ed Vitagliano Donald Trump's modern day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They're in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons.

Speaker F This is Gestapo like behavior.

Tim Wildmon Folks getting snatched off the street by secret police who are wearing masks.

Steve Jordahl And you compare them to those nondescript thugs who grabbed that, that student, that graduated student. It does look like a Gestapo operation.

Tim Wildmon Okay. Can I say something?

Steve Jordahl Sure. It's your show.

Tim Wildmon Well, I don't know what a gestapo. They're talking about the SS working for Hitler's, Nazi Germany. Right. And that the Gestapo reference, the Gestapo.

Ed Vitagliano Was the secret police.

Tim Wildmon Secret police which did sweep people off from their home.

Ed Vitagliano They were, disappear them.

Tim Wildmon They're basically, doing the bidding of the Nazis and terrorizing their communities. So anybody they thought was a spy or anybody thought was disloyal to the furor would be, the SS or the Gestapo, would visit their home. Have I got this right? Basically, secret police.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Okay, what's going on in our country now with the homeland, security guys, ice, ice.

Steve Jordahl Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Tim Wildmon Number one, tell me when, physical police work ever looks easy on the eyes.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Tim Wildmon So to speak. Okay. It's, it's always when you see a, video or of a cop.

Wesley Wildmon I'm talking about one when they're enforcing the law.

Tim Wildmon And they're enforcing the law and they have to get aggressive with somebody. there's a part of you that always watches a video going, is that really necessary? Can't they just ask them nicely to, you know. You know, I know that's naive and that's stupid, but that's a thought we all have. And I mean like, nice. I mean, you go, couldn't this have been avoided if you, if a cop had done this or done that? Now let me just say this first, secondly, most of the time videos are picked up where the people, who want you to believe one way or another have taken the video and sliced and diced it, okay? It's kind of like you go to the, you go to the grocery store and you're there to pick up a few items and you walk around the bread, you go down, start going down the bread aisle and there's this mother just wearing out a three year old with it with her hand on his rump or something like that, you know what I'm saying? And you go, that's awful. That, that child doesn't deserve that. You know what I'm saying, right? That sweet little child. Can't you just talk to him and put him in time out in the basket or something like, okay, what they don't show you is the 20 minutes that kids been pitching a fit, right? And, and, and talking mama ignoring or talking back to or being a smart aleck, you know what I'm saying? The frustration level. So, and then, so you make a.

Ed Vitagliano Judgment based on your, where the video starts.

Tim Wildmon Where the video starts. And a lot of these people on the political left here who are wanting to exploit this, they're taking videos of ICE arresting people. And no, it doesn't look good, okay? but they don't tell you that the people they're arresting there, what the rap sheet is, right? Or why they're wanted. in Los Angeles, remember that started all that stuff about six weeks ago in Los Angeles. Well, they had a search warrant they were going to execute, right? They had a search warrant from a judge because they were going to pick up a bad dude. And the bad, I think the bad dude ran from them or something. And, and then people started defending the bad dude because they didn't want ICE there, right, Quote, terrorizing their community. Did you see what I'm saying?

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon So, also the reason that, so it, yes, it does look like the Gestapo when you watch the videos. But, they don't, they don't tell you. They, they don't tell you that these, ICE officers are being doxed and they're. So they're having to wear a mask. They don't want to wear a mask, but they have to wear masks to cover up their identity because they're being doxed and they and their families lives are being threatened. Does that make sense?

Ed Vitagliano Yes.

Tim Wildmon So that, that's the reason.

California politicians are openly hostile to the federal government

So the left here, the Democrats are saying, oh, this is Gestapo and they need to take off the mask and quit terrorizing people.

Steve Jordahl So you know, and everybody knows that that's why they're wearing the masks. Our Democrat lawmakers in Congress have introduced a measure which will go nowhere because Republicans control the legislature. But to make. To require them to take off their masks to put their families at risk. Our Democrat lawmakers in Washington want them to take off their masks and want to put risk. Yes. there's a lawsuit that the ACLU has fired filed against ice and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, has joined in this lawsuit. There's a U.S. ah, attorney for Central California. His name is Bill, Isile. And he has something to say about that. Cut to.

Speaker F Yeah, let me be very clear what's going on here. You have the politicians in California who are being openly hostile to the federal government. We are doing our job. We are enforcing federal immigration laws as written by Congress. If Karen Bass didn't like the law, she should have changed it when she was in Congress. But instead, what she's doing is she's signaling to the public that it's okay to stand up to federal agents, to obstruct them, to impede them, and yes, in some cases to attack them. So we are not going to be dissuaded. This is why the military is here. It's so critical that we have the military protecting our agents. And to Ms. Bass, we will not be intimidated and we will not be deterred from accomplishing our mission.

Wesley Wildmon This problem solved. If the ICE agents just say that they feel as if they have a little bit of COVID and then the.

Tim Wildmon That's a good point.

Ed Vitagliano They have to wear a mask.

Tim Wildmon We don't want to spread Covid. It's going around in our ranks there now.

Wesley Wildmon We know the Republicans and most conservatives would be like, yeah, I get it. But then. And just from an argument standpoint, the left is going to have a hard time with that one because they were.

Ed Vitagliano So we're just trying to follow the science.

Tim Wildmon you were making a point earlier this morning though, in the meeting about mask when the left, didn't care Whether people.

Steve Jordahl Well, yeah, I don't know if I was making that point, but the point that was made was that when antifa wears masks, and they're in the middle of their committing of crimes and their violence, nobody, none of the Democrats call for them to be de. Masked. Don't take those things off, you know, but they don't and I can't emphasize enough the Democrat Party, we kind of say, oh, they're appealing to the, the outer 10% fringe of their base and oh, isn't that nice? Because they're going to lose the 90% and that'll help Republicans win elections and conservatives and, and that's all well and good, but that 10% is now fomenting violence and killing or trying to kill ICE agents. And it's not a funny political look at the Democrats just, you know, destroying themselves again. That's not it anymore. There is violence going on.

88 jurisdictions, 23 states and 65 cities will raise minimum wage by 2025

Tim Wildmon Next story.

Steve Jordahl All right, well, not only do we have left leaning people that are a little, ignorant about the violence, we have economists that don't know what they're talking about either. So cities around the country are increasing their minimum wage. And this isn't just red cities in the state or blue cities and states. Alaska for example, is pumping up its minimum wage from $11.73 to $13 an hour.

Tim Wildmon Where is that?

Steve Jordahl Alaska. It's going to reach $15 an hour. That's a state. Oh, state, state minimum wage in Alaska. In Oregon they're raising.

Ed Vitagliano Was a funny exchange. Just Tim M. Tim was asking if there's a city and he said no, Alaska is a state. I it just hit me as people.

Steve Jordahl In Oregon, they are, raising the minimum wage. In Florida, they're actually raising the minimum wage. In total, 88 jurisdictions, 23 states and 65 cities and counties will raise the minimum wage by the end of 2025. All right, so what they're thinking is we give these people that are working these minimum wage jobs, not a living wage. We're going to try to give them a living wage. So let's go ahead and make they give them 15, $16 an hour. Oh, wouldn't that be nice? Because now they will be able to afford maybe some more rent and everything. What do they not factor into this equation? Wesley?

Tim Wildmon No, I don't know.

Steve Jordahl They don't factor in that the people that pay the 15, $16 an hour have to get the money somewhere. So they got to charge you more when you walk into Dollar General or Target or whatever to buy your shampoo they got to charge you more because they have to pay their employees more. That's called inflation.

Wesley Wildmon I do know the answer to that part. That is called inflation.

Ed Vitagliano Listen, this, this is, the, the basic problem is that a lot of young people are having a hard time getting life on track in terms of. They pay, astronomical amounts for rent. It, you know, there's still, you know, some of them are still paying off college loans. It doesn't look like they're gonna be able to buy a house. And politicians are wanting to appeal to them. So they are saying, well, hey, we'll help you out. We will raise the minimum wage. Because politicians oftentimes don't care what the consequences are as long as they get voted back into office. This is a foolish, attempt to solve the economic problems, and it's just going to make the problems worse.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, I do, like the fact that this is being handled on a state level though. The federal government.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon So if the state of Florida, because M. The more local a decision is, the more responsive the people, the elected officials will be to their decisions. So, you know, people, of Florida want to give a minimum wage increase, you know, that's up to them. I do understand the principle you're talking about though, Steve, because when you raise mandatory, pay, the businesses, they have to raise that money to m. To pay those. The increase. And where are they going to get it from? They're going to get it from the customers, which makes prices go up for everybody.

Ed Vitagliano I'll say one, one additional problem is that corporations and mom and pop stores handle this differently. Mom and pop stores, some of them are going to go out of business because their margins are already so small they can't afford to pay it. the, the increase in the minimum wage and they're going to lose customers if they raise their prices who are going to go to the big box stores, for example, to try to save money on what they're buying. So on the one hand, you're going to put small businesses out of business. And the corporations, I'll tell you, the way they might wind up handling it is they'll say, fine, we're not going to use people at all.

Tim Wildmon We're not going to pay robots.

Ed Vitagliano We're going to, we're going to do robots and then we're going to get rid of these jobs because then we don't have to pay anybody after the initial, the investment comes off our taxes.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Tim Wildmon One question.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Here. will McDonald's improve use a. Ah. And I Like, I had one of their quarter pounders the other day and it was really good. McDonald's, I'm talking about, it's an American institution. So I have nothing against McDonald's, except, except this, I hold this against the. And I've heard it. I want to know, are they going to have a robot tell me that the ice cream machine is broke? Because that will be the ultimate insult.

Ed Vitagliano Think to our intelligence and will the robot tell you that the ice cream machine is broke with a bad attitude?

Tim Wildmon Robot with a bad attitude.

Ed Vitagliano Because I get the bad attitude stuff a lot. Doesn't matter how much they raise the minimum wage. I tell people and not, I'm just, I'M not talking about McDonald's, I'm just talking in general. At fast food places, you just, you get people interacting with you who just don't care.

Wesley Wildmon Yeah, well, and if the robot has a conscious. Unlike some of the, employees, they'll tell you the truth and they'll say, we're cleaning. You've already cleaned it. That's what they, the ones that have been honest with me, I've been less frustrated. But I, a lot of times I'll go and they'll say, hey, we actually, we just cleaned it and we closed in an hour. Now I disagree with all that, right? But, but I can drive away without being mad because he told me the truth. I just want somebody to be broke for six months.

Ed Vitagliano I just want someone at McDonald's to say this, you know what? I know the ice cream's good, but cleaning it is really hard and we don't want to do it. So we just tell people it's broken so we don't have to mess with it.

Steve Jordahl If a robot tells me that the ice cream machine was down, that's when I say, ice cream machine, heal thyself, kill thyself.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, it should be a self cleaning ice cream machine.

Steve Jordahl A robot can clean the machine as easy as it can tell me that it's down.

Ed Vitagliano Right?

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Ah, everybody ought to have to work in a fast food place for.

Steve Jordahl I was going to say, when I was young, minimum wage jobs were so I could afford gas. I could get kind of a work ethic going. I got the, you know, get the resume going. It was for. It wasn't supposed to be a living wage.

Boomer: McDonald's was never meant for me to make a Career

I go to school, then I get a job as a plumber or I go to college and then I get the job that I'm living off of. But McDonald's was never meant for me to make a Career out of.

Ed Vitagliano Okay, Boomer.

Wesley Wildmon Hey, I'm about to show how much time we got left. Do you got something else? Because I'm about to show how far right I am. If we keep going, I can.

Steve Jordahl Yeah, I can go.

Steve McDowell: Minimum wage is not true capitalism

You want some. You want some good news?

Ed Vitagliano Actually, how long, how quickly can you do it so that Steve can still give us some good news?

Wesley Wildmon I just want to know is. Is minimum wage? I haven't had to think about this in a while. A force minimum wage. Is that even like true capitalism? Like forcing a company to pay a certain amount?

Ed Vitagliano No, no, it's not the free market.

Steve Jordahl The history is that, child labor laws were. Kids were being abused.

Wesley Wildmon Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Capitalism is, Is a great economic system, has done the most for the world. But my dad always said. Your grandfather always said capitalism undergirded by Christian principles.

Wesley Wildmon That's right. That's what Steven McDowell would say has.

Tim Wildmon Provided the most, wealth in the world history with the most responsibility and the most care and compassion. Go ahead, Steve.

If you're flying, you no longer have to take your shoes off

All right.

Steve Jordahl Are you guys traveling? in the coming weeks you get.

Tim Wildmon a few weeks, yeah.

Steve Jordahl Good news. If you're flying, you no longer have to take your shoes off at the airport.

Tim Wildmon That's why I pay for TSA prescription.

Steve Jordahl Well, now, now you get no advantage from that. I have that as well.

Tim Wildmon I know this is going to be weird because I always look over at the people in the regular line and say, I ain't taking off my shoes. But you have to.

Ed Vitagliano But you still have to take your belt and stuff, right?

Wesley Wildmon well, I think they.

Steve Jordahl They Christian who announces, says that the technology is catching up, to the point where they don't make you take off your shoes. And she didn't say this, but I think they can tell the difference between a belt and a gun.

Tim Wildmon Well, I always wondered. I do have the TSA pre screen, which I pay for. You go through a shorter line, so it's your expedited. Although more and more people are doing that, so it's not so much of an advantage anymore. However, I've always wondered if, in my line, I don't have to take off my shoes, but in the, in the regular line, they do. And I'm going, what's the difference between the people.

Steve Jordahl You've been screened. Your background has been checked by tsa.

Tim Wildmon I know, but I could show up with some bad. I could be.

Ed Vitagliano He could become radicalized.

Steve Jordahl That number can be revoked, by the way. Yeah, but after I have tsa, my wife doesn't. This puts me in a very bad position.

Tim Wildmon Well, you need to give that to her for her birthday or something.

Steve Jordahl We got to get her to a place where she can apply for it.

Wesley Wildmon Yeah.

Tim Wildmon You need to help her, Right?

Ed Vitagliano That's right, man.

Tim Wildmon So when you get to the line, you look at each other and you go, honey, it's nice.

Ed Vitagliano Wow. I generally get away with that.

Tim Wildmon I'll be waiting on you.

Steve Jordahl I generally don't use the TSA number unless we're late and I have to get to the gate or I'm going to do something.

Tim Wildmon Honey, I'm going to go on the gate. I'll see you in an hour.

Ed Vitagliano I'll see you. We'll meet at Starbucks, right?

Tim Wildmon All right. thank you for listening. Thank you, Steve.

Ed Vitagliano My pleasure, Ed. Huh?

Tim Wildmon Wesley. Wesley. Far right. Wildmon.

Ed Vitagliano Radically right.

Tim Wildmon Radically right.

Wesley Wildmon I'm gonna radicalize you and you're gonna lose your tsa.

Tim Wildmon my thanks to Fred Jackson, Abraham Hamilton, and our producer, Brent Creeley. We'll see you tomorrow, everybody.