Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Ed Vitagliano

Steve Jordahl Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Ed Vitagliano.

Ed Vitagliano And welcome back to Today's Issues. It is Monday, June 16th. Ed Vitagliano sitting in for Tim Wildmon M. This week I'm joined in studio by Fred Jackson. By the way, our thanks to Chris Woodward who has now gone back to his desk to do his real job. And Steve Paisley Jordal.

Steve Jordahl This is our real job.

Ed Vitagliano It is his usual, his typical daily work. All right, Steve, welcome to the program.

Steve Jordahl Thank you. Good to be here.

Brent crude: I enjoyed the Activate Summit very much

I, must, straight off tell everybody that I so enjoyed the Activate Summit over the weekend. Got to talk to a lot of our listeners. we have some of the best, sweetest, kindest and smartest people on the planet that listen and support afr. it was good to meet all of you and thank you, for coming and thank you AFA for putting on the, the summit. It was great.

Ed Vitagliano It was really, really good. I enjoyed it like you did. And I just enjoy getting out of the office and spending time with some of the employees here, not in our typical, setting and getting to meet, like you said, a lot of people who listen to AFR support AFA and man, they're, there's, they're hungry. Yeah, they want to learn. And there were some good speakers, who helped, do that. So next one will be next June, folks, but we do have other things going on. there is an AFA retreat, scheduled for sometime. I think it's in October.

Steve Jordahl Yeah, you're leading it, I'm thinking. Right?

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, no, let's see. I need to, Okay, I'm trying to find the events. That's it.

Steve Jordahl discuss among yourselves while we.

Fred Jackson October the second through the fourth.

Ed Vitagliano Thank you. Weekend with AFA. That's what it's called. Brent crude. Thank you. That's October 2nd. That is going to be here in Tupelo at our headquarters. Oh, and so looking forward to.

Steve Jordahl Meeting you all then too.

Ed Vitagliano Yep. So folks, sign up and then October at the end of October 30th through the 31st, AFA at the Ark. And so folks, you can sign up for that as well. Go to, No. Is that sold out? Oh, wow. All right, well, AFA at the, the Ark is full. Sorry. but anyway, if you want to check on events on a regular basis, afa.net and if you look up at the top, there is a little drop down menu that says events. Check that out.

Steve Jordahl They might find room for you at The Ark. If you happen to bring a male and a female animal that you want to bring. All right, hey, I would like to clean up a couple things. Not clean up, but add to a couple things you guys said that, we're talking about in the first hour. Go for it.

Israel tricked Iranian air force commanders into gathering at underground facility, officials say

Because I think, with regard to the Israel, Iran, conflict, I want to talk about the Mossad and how ingenious and incredible they are. M. So first of all, they. I'm reading here from, ynet News, and he said Israeli security officials told Fox News on Friday that Israel was able to eliminate Iran's top air force commanders by tricking them into gathering at an underground facility that was subsequently targeted in a persistent strike. Listen to this. Quote, unquote. We carried out specific activities to help us learn more about them, and then we used that information to influence their behavior. We knew this would lead them to meet, but more importantly, we knew how to keep them there. So they're studying these people, and every time this kind of alarm goes off, they all meet at this one spot. Every time we do this, they meet. And if we keep feeding them this information update, they'll stay there until our rockets can get there. Just like fourth level stuff.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. Listen, there. There are at times intelligence breakdowns for the Mossad. is one. Is one of those. But, they are perhaps the best in the business.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano As they say when it comes to intelligence infiltration and taking out their enemies. And Iran's getting a lesson in that.

Steve Jordahl They also set up, drone bases inside Iran next to the places where they were launching the rockets.

Ed Vitagliano Well, you remember the, after with Hezbollah with the pages? yeah. Those. Weren't those produced by an Iranian company?

Fred Jackson No. Well, it was.

Ed Vitagliano It was a shell company.

Fred Jackson It was a shell company, but it was Iranian.

Steve Jordahl Created by Israel company inside of Israel in Iran.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Steve Jordahl so, but, so they also. So they smuggled, parts in, of the. What they call these quadcopter drones rigged with explosives. They smuggled them in suitcases, trucking trucks, shipping containers, as well as munitions that could be filed from unmanned platforms. They took their inspiration, actually, from, Ukraine. Ukraine. I don't know who took theirs from who. This would take a lot of planning. Probably they would have to plan this before the Iran.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Steve Jordahl Thing. I, mean, the Ukraine thing went off, but, they set up near. Is around air defense emplacements, and, they started attacking these places just.

Ed Vitagliano And the drones were used to what they call lays. Put a laser right on a target some cases.

Steve Jordahl They were. I think there were some kamikaze drones as well. But yeah, they, when they, when they point a laser, the missile that's being fired from locks onto it, locks onto that point on the building. And that's how they can. I was hearing, I was listening to something this morning where they targeted one nuclear, scientist. They had the exact size missile they needed, and they knew exactly where his bedroom was, and they sent it through the wall and it exploded and killed him in his bedroom and hardly harmed the rest of the house, much less the rest of the building, the apartment.

Fred Jackson Can you imagine if you are in Iranian leadership and you've survived so far?

Ed Vitagliano Yep.

Fred Jackson And you get a phone call and, your wife wants you to stop at the supermarket on the way home, You've got to be thinking.

Ed Vitagliano No, listen, that kind of technology is scary. It's not only the technology that's scary, but the fact that Israel knows how to use it.

Fred Jackson Yes.

Steve Jordahl Babylon B is saying here. Do you have experience in nuclear engineering? Check out these exciting new job openings in Iran.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. And the welcome wagon will greet you as soon as you check in.

U.S. Army to hold 250th anniversary parade on Donald Trump's birthday

Steve Jordahl All right. Hey, the other thing I wanted to talk about was this, no Kings, demonstration. Demonstration and, and the parade that they were kind of. Because that's the kind of the impetus they thought. Donald Trump wants a parade to.

Ed Vitagliano Himself on his birthday like King Kim Jong Un does.

Steve Jordahl Right?

Ed Vitagliano You know, saber rattle.

Fred Jackson Yeah.

Steve Jordahl Right. Well, it turns out that the U.S. army is granted a permit for the parade in 2024. During the Biden administration, the army filed permit application in June of 2024 to celebrate the 250th anniversary with the parade on the National Mall in D.C. the parade ultimately took place on June 14, 2025.

Fred Jackson Yeah.

Steve Jordahl listen, so this was, this is Joe Biden's desire.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Steve Jordahl Or the army's desire.

Ed Vitagliano And the news media, the mainstream news media continues to. To get egg on its face because they have been going ballistic about this. And had nothing to do with Trump. No, no, I say had nothing to do with Trump. The planning of it had nothing to do with Trump. He. But when he became president, he is going to honor the US Military, the Army. And Fred, you said you watched.

Fred Jackson Some of the, yeah, it was very impressive. What, what they did was, they create elements of the parade reflected the various periods, in the 250 year history of our army. And so you had a group of 20 or 30 soldiers dressed in the periods that they were representing, down through the years. And it was really something, it was an education because they had a narrator taking you through. What you're seeing is this, this is how they, uniforms that they wore during this period of time. they had horses for a certain period of time. I mean, it was a history lesson over about a three hour period of what the army has meant to this country over the last 250 years. And you know, it was exciting to see young people, men and women who are in uniform right now. They, they were excited about. Just happened to fall, the 250th anniversary happened to fall on Donald Trump's birthday. And of course the left tried to make a big deal of that. Look what he's doing to celebrate his birthday. I think it's the way the Lord works that it just didn't come off the way the left was talking about it all. It was a great celebration. The fireworks display, the whole thing. Lee Greenwood, did he sing? He sang. You know, it was it was the kind of thing that I wouldn't have mind being there to witness it personally. it was just an exciting time.

Steve Jordahl The mainstream media and the left was expecting a North Korean show, like you said and everything. It was interesting. They didn't get it. And even MSNBC had to acknowledge that they didn't get it. Let's listen to cut 10.

Speaker D One thing I will say, I want to go back to you, Allie, that again, when we talk about this sort of, tension in the country and sometimes, you know, you and I have both been at Trump rallies, those can be, you know, very tense. A, kind of, I would say like kind of a dark, malevolent energy sometimes in them. Not always, but it doesn't seem like that's the energy on the, on the Mall today, which I think is a good sign, right, that you're, you're, you're.

Speaker E Really correct about that, Chris. And it's something we, you know, we were, we were watching for. I'm just sort of surprised by the number of people who we're at the front of the parade watching, cheering, and then we come and ask to take a selfie. Yeah, this is a very different, this is a very different mood here. it's, people seem to be going out of their way to, to say that they're here to celebrate the Army's 250th birthday. Now, it's not dark, it's not tense. it's not amped up. Yes, it's different. It's a, it's different from from covering a Trump rally.

Steve Jordahl And that is msnbc.

Ed Vitagliano Well, I will give them kudos for that report, being honest about that. you know, but, Fred, I just got to say, I'm not really sure what he. What he meant by dark and malevolent energy at a, at a Trump rally. I mean, they must really think Donald Trump is Darth Vader.

Fred Jackson Well, they do.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Fred Jackson Yeah. I think that's the problem. They. They hate Donald Trump, but what they hate is that he wants to make America great again. Yeah, you know, that's.

Ed Vitagliano And they don't. Generally. They don't like America.

Fred Jackson No. you have the Marxist element that is, let's face it, very strong in this country. A lot of it coming through our university system, our mainstream media. People all buy into this. That the country now is on the wrong course. No, Donald Trump is trying to m. Take us back to when the country was great again. And they're fighting that. That's the bottom line in all of this. But this parade has the MSNBC commentator noted it wasn't dark. You know, it wasn't, North Korean ish. in it. It wasn't Beijing ish at all. It was a celebration of the history of our U.S. army and what it has meant for maintaining the freedoms that we enjoy today.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. The freedom to do a no Kings protest.

Steve Jordahl Yes.

Ed Vitagliano in cities and communities around the country.

Fred Jackson You know, the left has to start learning a lesson here. The left is outside the mainstream of this country still.

Steve Jordahl They won't. They won't take that lesson.

Randy Weingarten stepping down from Democratic National Committee over labor issues

Fred Jackson But if they. If they don't, they're going to keep losing elections. You know, here's what's really interesting. and maybe you have this in your stack of story. Randy Weingarten, announced, apparently the Federation of Teachers. Yes.

Ed Vitagliano Union.

Fred Jackson Yes. Who, by the way, helped organize the no Kings events on the weekend. All right. She announced that she's stepping down from her role in the dnc, Democratic National Committee, because they're not doing the things that they want her to do. Well, here's the thing. I think the American people have seen where the left wants to take this country. And listen to what I'm saying. Perhaps the four years of Joe Biden actually turned out to be a good thing because we really saw where the left wants to take this country. Joe Biden orchestrated an invasion of this country.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Fred Jackson He orchestrated an invasion of this country, and look what it did. I mean, we don't have to go down the horrible list of the crimes being committed by some of the People who have come into this country. We don't have to talk about the fentanyl and the deaths of our young people that Joe Biden played a role in. You know, there's some talk now of auto pins and stuff. You know, how much was he involved? But his administration certainly is guilty of all of this. By the way, whatever happened to Alejandro, mayorkas, I haven't seen his face on television in a long time. No wonder. Why.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Fred Jackson So I think, in a way, and we saw what happened in the election, we had huge numbers, black voters who turned to Republicans, we had huge numbers of Hispanic people who turned to, to President Trump and not, not a.

Ed Vitagliano Small amount of young people and not.

Fred Jackson A small young people. I remember some of the stories. Remember when these people across the country, into the country illegally ended up in Chicago.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Fred Jackson And the Chicago mayor started spending millions of dollars to keep them. You had Democrats protesting against. Yes. Across the country. So I think in a strange way, sometimes it takes that pendulum shift so far that people say, wait a minute, that's not what I want. And it comes back to your point.

Steve Jordahl I think also the four year break, for Donald Trump, let him reset his. If he was gonna continue, he was given some bad advice. He didn't know Washington when he first got there in 2016, wasn't, a politician. Wasn't a politician. He had some people in his cabinet that worked against him and kind of well, he learned in those four years he had a clean break and he was able to start again. And it would have been a whole lot harder to try to clean that out in the middle and change course. Well, that break gave him a whole clean start and he was able to go, the no Kings protest, which, by the way, the rest of us celebrate every Fourth of July. that's true. I would like to, Our president is one of a kind. We, we have one of a kind. This was posted on Donald J. Trump's Truth Social account. A huge thank you all caps to all the no Kings protestors. Yesterday I was very concerned a king was trying to take my place. But thanks to all your tireless efforts, I am still your president. Great job, all.

Ed Vitagliano listen, I'm still your president. All caps. A huge thank you all caps. Listen, he is the master troller. He's the troller in chief. Because, you know, some people reading this, their heads spun off. Not that they're going to miss it, you know, but. Did I say that out loud?

Steve Jordahl Yes, you did that.

Tim Walls blames Israel for war between Iran and Israel over the weekend

Ed Vitagliano All right.

Steve Jordahl yeah, we, we dodged A bullet in, the. In November of 2024, when we reelected President Trump for a second term, because the alternative was going to be. You ruled. You will recall Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Well, a lot of people kind of wonder what that would have been like. Kamala, Harris might have made Joe Biden look smart by comparison, but Tim Walls is out there, and he was talking, over the weekend about the war between Iran and Israel. And he's blaming Israel for this, by the way. He's blaming Israel for this war. And I want you to hear exactly what he had to say. Cut 13.

Speaker F I'm sure there's great strategic thinkers in the Trump administration that have now. Have now said, how is this going to. You know, a tweet from the president today said, I told him, I told them they should have done something. And, here we are. Yeah, here we are. With the Middle east back on fire in a way that is now expanded, with. I don't. Iran has to retaliate in their mind, I'm sure. And now who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some type of agreement in this? Who holds the moral authority? Who holds the ability to do that? Because we are not seen as a neutral actor, and we maybe never were. I don't want to tell anybody that. Now I ask who that is, and I mean consistently, over and over again. We're going to have to face the reality it might be the Chinese.

Fred Jackson Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano Oh, Fred, let me just tell you, he mentioned moral authority. The Chinese have no moral authority. No, not, not from people who are fair minded. you can just ask the Uyghurs, you know, Muslims in the western part of China. Okay. All the, civil rights and human rights violations that come through China, and they're not even. And the communist Chinese are not even finished. you know, we may have to ask the Taiwanese what they think of the Chinese. So for Tim Walls to say the China, the communist Chinese have moral authority is, Is lunacy. But to, to, listen, I understand. I, I was. I saw a lot of. From conservatives on X over the weekends. Over the weekend, a lot of people very concerned about the fact that Israel, quote, unquote, started this, okay. By attacking Iran. But what you have to take into consideration is the fact that Iran, according to Benjamin Netanyahu, they were close to having nine enough uranium, enriched uranium for nine nuclear weapons.

Fred Jackson Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano which they promised to use to, to obliterate the little Satan, Israel. That's what they call them. And who knows what they would have done to us with those nuclear weapons.

Steve Jordahl Because they're also doing ICBMs, little ballistic missiles.

Ed Vitagliano Right. So, do you. Who thinks that Israel has to wait until they launch a nuke, at Tel Aviv? This is, this is craziness. But I guarantee, had Harris and Walls won, Iran would have gotten a nuclear weapon, no question. Multiple nuclear weapons. And then it's a whole new day we live in.

Fred Jackson Well, I, mean, remember what Barack Obama did?

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Fred Jackson sending what, hundreds of millions of dollars back to the Iranians in the night. In the night.

Ed Vitagliano Pallets of cash.

Fred Jackson Pallets of cash. so we know where their heads were. Where did Tim Wall spend his honeymoon?

Steve Jordahl Oh, that would have been, I believe, Cuba. Right? Yeah.

Fred Jackson Or Beijing or something like that.

Steve Jordahl No, it was China.

Ed Vitagliano It's China.

Fred Jackson Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah. Tim Walls never met a comrade I didn't like. You know, come on, this guy has no credibility whatsoever. and, and by the way, to your point, Ed, Israel publicly. Iran has said for years, we want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Iran hasn't said we want to negotiate with Israel. We want to wipe them off the face of the earth. And by the way, we'd like to take out the United States, too. Are you going to wait until they develop a nuclear weapon so that they can attempt to accomplish that?

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Fred Jackson No. You're going to take action, which is what Israel is doing to stop this. They are a radical, radical, radical Islamic regime to. That runs Tehran right now.

Ed Vitagliano And by the way, their ideology, their take on Islam is that a huge war has to happen in order for their version of. Yeah, the imam. The, the, the. With the seventh imam.

Fred Jackson Yes.

Ed Vitagliano for him to show up. So they have a religious zealotry.

Fred Jackson Yes.

Ed Vitagliano To start a world war. And listen, you're the, you're more up on this, Fred, than I am. Was it the, the Six Day War or the Yom, Kippur War, where Israel was being surrounded by troops, and they.

Israel had to attack first because they were being surrounded, remember

And Israel had to attack first, remember?

Fred Jackson Yes.

Ed Vitagliano Was that 73?

Fred Jackson I think that was 73. Yes.

Ed Vitagliano They were being surrounded.

Fred Jackson They had to take the initiative.

Ed Vitagliano They had to take the initiative because you can't wait until the countries cross the border.

Fred Jackson Yeah. No other country would be expected like most in the world expect Israel just sit back and take this.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Fred Jackson Come on. Look at, look at the reaction of most of the mainstream of the world to October 7, 2023.

Ed Vitagliano Well, and let's talk about. Just, let me just toss this in on Ukraine. The Russians mass at the border?

Fred Jackson Yes.

Ed Vitagliano No, it's just. We're just doing, maneuvers. And then they crossed.

Fred Jackson Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano And then look what happens. So.

Steve Jordahl All right, hey, let's end here. the Major League Baseball is, for some reason, celebrating Pride Month. It's June, and in fact, I saw a picture with, I think it was New York Mets. I might be wrong, but they were during the national anthem. They had a pride flag up on the, screen of their stadium. But not everybody's playing along. Kudos to Clayton Kershaw, pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who, although he had to wear the cap, with the rainbow LA on it.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Steve Jordahl He did put next to it. He wrote in a scripture reference, Genesis 9, 12, 16, which is God's description of his promise to m. the real rainbow with a rainbow. That didn't go over well with a lot of, the gay pride people. But, well, that's too bad, because.

Ed Vitagliano They'Re not going to cancel Clayton Kershaw.

Steve Jordahl No.

Ed Vitagliano He is too valuable to the Dodgers.

Fred Jackson Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano So listen, it does my heart good to see, quote, unquote, celebrities, whether they be athletes or in Hollywood or whatever, who will take a stand and stand for their faith in a way that is not ugly or disrespectful, but is still a firm promotion of what the Bible teaches.

Fred Jackson Amen.

More great programming is directly ahead on American Family Radio

Ed Vitagliano All right, thanks, gentlemen, Folks, that is all the time we have for this edition of Today's Issues. More great programming is directly ahead on American Family Radio. My thanks to all who have helped us here today. Fred Jackson and Chris Woodward and Steve Jordahl and Brent Creely, our producer. Thank you for listening, folks. And again, stay tuned. More great stuff coming ahead on American Family Radio.