>> 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. Tim. I'm Tim Wildmon with Ed Battagliano. And joining us now in studio is our own Steve Paisley Jordal.

Steve Jordahl Good morning and afternoon, everybody.

Tim Wildmon Rocking that purple page.

Ed Vitagliano I told him this morning, I like it purple.

Tim Wildmon Paisley purple. Yes, Steve doing his best prints there. The artist formerly known as. So guys, I'm thinking, I need a job that I can fail at, which I can be paid millions of dollars to get fired from. I'm thinking that's.

Ed Vitagliano You mean coaching LSU? That what you mean?

Tim Wildmon Well, coasting college football, Division 1 college football, period. Not just LSU.

Steve Jordahl I don't know about you, but if I was coaching it, I'd be feeling big time.

Tim Wildmon So these, I think that's going to stop. What we're talking about is these enormous contract buyouts that these coaches are getting. And I don't blame them. They're just, they're getting all they can. What are you going to do? Say no? Right. When a school offers them a, contract that they get all their money that they were going to get if they get fired.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. So if they fail.

Tim Wildmon If they fail, they fail. Then they don't have to work. And for the. You know what I'm saying? It's the most bizarre setup I've ever heard of in terms of an employment, employer situation. But, but these schools, so, these a m, Lot of big schools now firing their coaches in the middle of the year, their football coaches, and then, then having to pay them off, having to pay their contracts off.

Steve Jordahl What was the line in Moneyball where the guy, they brought in a high paid veteran and everything and, and he said, I don't have to listen to you.

Tim Wildmon I'm.

Steve Jordahl I know what I'm doing. He says, let me tell you where you're at. The Yankees are paying us so that you don't have to play for them.

Ed Vitagliano I, forget the player's name. It was, Justice. David Justice.

Steve Jordahl David Justice.

Ed Vitagliano listen, we're talking, we'll get into something probably a little more newsworthy, folks, but Brian Kelly, who left Notre Dame, okay, that's my favorite team.

Tim Wildmon Scorned you.

Ed Vitagliano It scorns.

Tim Wildmon Scorned the fan, right?

Ed Vitagliano And I rooted for his epic failure at LSU each and every Saturday.

Tim Wildmon That's what sports does to people, makes them lose their Christianity.

Ed Vitagliano Probably a nice guy, but it didn't matter. but his record at LSU is 34 and 14. That's not, that's not abysmal.

Tim Wildmon no, but that's not.

Ed Vitagliano But that's not lsu. It's also in the sec, the pressure on these coaches. So to your point. Yeah, you get offered whatever $60 million or whatever they offered him initially. You get offered it, you say yes, because chances are, I think that the.

Tim Wildmon problem is with the schools and their athletic administrations, whoever, whoever decides to give a contract like that. But what happens is you say, well, why would you do something like that? What happens is it's so highly competitive that if school A, offers, offers a coach a certain amount, of money, then school B needs to keep up. They feel like. So they got to get a coach also that's high profile and a winner and can move, their program to the top of the country. So it's just.

Steve Jordahl I can't.

Tim Wildmon It's gotten crazy out of hand.

Steve Jordahl I can't imagine that a college would pay a coach so much that it loses money even if it wins a national champion. I think this talks to how much a school makes if it wins a national championship.

Ed Vitagliano Lsu, if I'm not mistaken, they also have to pay another former coach, oh.

Tim Wildmon Ed Ogeron, who won a national championship.

Ed Vitagliano So they're in there, they told.

Tim Wildmon Him m. They told him, you're being fired and, we're going to pay you so much money if you go quietly, ah, at Ogeron. And he said, hey, just show me which door you want me to go out. How do you know that was the rumor story anyway?

Steve Jordahl Yeah, I don't know how you know how. What Ed Orgeron said, you can never understand.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, he had a thick Cajun accent. He fit LSU like a T. He did. Ultimately, he didn't win enough. He won Chip. And two years later he's gone.

Steve Jordahl Nick Saban won a national championship at LSU too.

Tim Wildmon He did.

Ed Vitagliano Yes, he did. Before going on to dominate at Alabama.

Steve Jordahl Alabama before getting out of the game. Because nil and transfer portals and everything. And I think that's the reason. That's another reason why coaches, they have to pay coaches so much to put up with all this stuff.

Ed Vitagliano Anyway, folks, we thank you. For those who are listening who don't like football or don't like college football, thank you for letting us have our moment.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Don't like college football.

Ed Vitagliano I'm sure there's some out there. Listen, I had them, I had them when I pastored people who didn't like football, who Would say, people who like football are idolaters.

How much did they pay you when they fired you from that church

And I'd. And I would say, you show me what you like.

Tim Wildmon Right. And anyway, I know I'm not.

Ed Vitagliano I'm not sensitive.

Steve Jordahl How much did they have to pay you when they fired you from that church? Is what I. Yeah.

Tim Wildmon What was your contract? What did it call for when you got fired?

Ed Vitagliano Listen, this, I have a non. Non disclosure.

Tim Wildmon Ok. Okay. You reached an agreement. Okay.

Ed Vitagliano You will get.

Tim Wildmon You will give the lawnmower back to the church, right?

Ed Vitagliano No, we have. One of our elders used to mow the grass. I. Listen, it was.

Tim Wildmon Tell that story that you haven't told in a long time because we used to talk about how. How. Well, the pastors have, In the old days, the pastors had to live in parsonages because I grew up in a parsonage till I was 13 or 14. And my dad said he, was a Methodist and they had parsonage. But he said, you know what? Talking to the church, the new church, he said, I'm gonna have. I'm gonna buy my own house.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon I don't, know. No disrespect, but, I don't want to live in a rented house.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, you gotta have your. Because at some point you retire.

Tim Wildmon That's what my dad. My dad said, one day I'm gonna.

Ed Vitagliano Retire and gotta have somewhere to live.

Tim Wildmon Gotta have somewhere to live. And so, plus, I don't want my family living in the parsonage, that the church owns all the time anyway. So he had that approach, but that was novel. That would have been back in the mid-70s. And if you told the church you didn't want to live in their parsonage, a lot of the parishioners took offense to that.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon You know what I'm saying? So,

Steve was interim pastor when he borrowed lawnmower from church member

But you were telling me about what happened to you. You were serving the church, right?

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. the only. I was an interim pastor. This is. This is my wife's home church. Okay. So down in central Mississippi.

Tim Wildmon Let's don't give any names, though.

Ed Vitagliano No, I'm not.

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Ed Vitagliano Because I'm there. and so this is the one and only time we lived in a parsonage, because I was interim and I was. I was telling Tim about how people at the church considered the parsonage, even if you're living in it, to be theirs. And I walked out on a Saturday morning, and there was someone from the church getting the hose off the faucet. And I said, hey, brother, what are you doing Said, I'm borrowing the hose. I said, why? He said, I pay tithes. I'll bring it back.

Tim Wildmon I can't believe he said that.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, that's, That's.

Tim Wildmon Would you stand there stunned, even for an Italian?

Ed Vitagliano It's like, I can't call the cops. It's technically not my hose.

Tim Wildmon So he took the hoe. Did he bring it back?

Ed Vitagliano He did, yeah.

Tim Wildmon First I thought I had it in my mind he had taken long. He borrowed the lawnmower.

Ed Vitagliano No, I had my. I had my own lawnmower. now, if he'd come in and try to take George Foreman Grill, we might have had more than words.

Steve Jordahl Okay. First church I ever took as a music pastor out of seminary. we lived in the parsonage, and they still charge us rent.

Ed Vitagliano Ooh, that was brutal.

Tim Wildmon Oh, also, they had some of these parsonages, had, furniture that was, you know, the 60s. Yeah. Broken down.

Steve Jordahl I don't remember the furniture being.

Tim Wildmon That bad, but you might need to be where they need to be. Thankful, brother. Yes. Church is providing for you.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. They was the old joke that deacons or elders, whatever, they, opened their business meeting by, Lord, you keep the pastor humble. We'll keep them poor. My wife informed me after that time, short time. A year in, or, maybe a year and a half in the parsonage, my wife informed me, no more parsonages. I'm with the Ed to the ends of the earth.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Ed Vitagliano As long as we don't wind up in a parsonage.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Jordahl So I'll still be married to you, but we'll be living separately.

Tim Wildmon What did y' all do when you were on the mission field, Steve?

Steve Jordahl We, we had a house that we rented. Yeah, it was, Madagascar. The, the main city. Madagascar was fairly, modern. Fairly modern. I mean, for. It'd be like living in Mexico City or something. We had a, it was a livable place.

Ed Vitagliano You know, I, I. This is what my wife always tells me. I probably shouldn't have been that specific, talking about where the church was located.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Ed Vitagliano Because those folks are dear friends of mine. Some of them will be lifelong friends. Friends. They weren't the ones that came to get the hose.

Tim Wildmon And he brought their fault back. I give it to him.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon he brought those back. Did he hook it back up?

Ed Vitagliano You know, you remember that we're talking way back in the.

Tim Wildmon You know, you need to leave it where you bring it back to where you found it.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon You know, that's.

Ed Vitagliano I Don't remember.

Tim Wildmon Girl Scouts.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Isn't that the Girl Scout?

Ed Vitagliano I was never a Girl Scout, although I'm, I, I imagine there are some boys who are currently Girl Scouts.

Tim Wildmon I don't think that's Girl Scout,

Ed Vitagliano Model, if you borrow it.

Tim Wildmon No, I don't think that's. I think that's just to know an old, saying. Yeah, whatever.

One of those scouts. Say that. Um, it's one of the scouting people

All right. You're listening to Today's issues on American Family Radio. You know, leave it better than you found it. Yes, that principle.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Tim Wildmon it's one of the scouting people.

Ed Vitagliano One of those scouts. One of those scouting.

Tim Wildmon Say that. All right.

BBC caught doctoring video of Donald Trump to make him look violent

All right, Steve, what's your first, news story for us there?

Steve Jordahl There has been a shake up at the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC. BBC, its, director general and editor in chief, and its CEO Deborah Turnis, the CEO, Jim, Tim Davey, the editor in chief have both resigned after the BBC was caught doctoring some video of Donald Trump during January 6th where they made it sound like he was encouraging his people to fight, fight, fight, as opposed to what he actually said. I'm, going to play you a little, a short little clip. It has what they. The first is what the BBC played and the second is what actually was happens. Cut 17.

Ed Vitagliano We're going to walk down to the Capitol and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We're going to walk down to the Capitol and we're going to cheer on our, brave senators and congressmen and women.

Steve Jordahl He also said that we're going to go peacefully and legally protest.

Tim Wildmon That's disgusting. Yeah, the BBC, they may be the largest news agency in the world. I don't know. Reuters is there and maybe, maybe the Associated Press, but pardon me, you got up, you have bb The BBC now, they're obviously they dominate Britain, but, still their new services worldwide. And they did. That was a documentary they did.

Steve Jordahl It was.

Tim Wildmon And they intentionally spliced together President Trump's word to make him look like he. Well, you heard it to make him seem, like he was saying go to the Capitol and fight.

Steve Jordahl Right.

Tim Wildmon When he, when he didn't say that at all, he said the second one you played, which was the Acura.

Steve Jordahl Now I, I don't know if the fact that Donald Trump is threatening to sue the BBC for a billion dollars anything to do with this.

Ed Vitagliano He's been pretty successful.

Steve Jordahl They also, have cited coverage of, the transgender issue and coverage of the Gaza war, of mishandling.

Tim Wildmon No, they're Lefties. The BBC. They're lefties. it's hard to find any big news agencies anymore that aren't left, leaning on issues. but, Well, I'm glad. I'm glad at least somebody had to pay the price. So a couple people were fired for doing that?

Steve Jordahl Well, no, they resigned. They resigned. They say they left, voluntarily.

Ed Vitagliano Well, now this, I think you mentioned her. Deborah Turness. She's the CEO of BBC News. She also resigned along with Tim Davey. but she said, I want to quote, I want to be absolutely clear. Recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong. So she resigned, but still defended BBC News, saying that they're not institutionally biased. But in this particular case, I guess the offense was so egregious, I think they are probably institutionally biased. But once you're in that echo chamber, you don't know your bias because everyone around you has the same view. viewpoints. yeah, but I hadn't thought about this, Steve, but your point about Trump suing them may very well be a part of this spate of resignations.

Steve Jordahl He has fared well, as you guys say in those suits, here, at least on this side of the pipe.

Ed Vitagliano Well, I mean, look, the fact that they absolutely, cut up his speech to make it look like he was advocating violence, or allegedly advocating violence, is proof that this was. That feels like they were intent on making him look as bad as possible.

Steve Jordahl Yeah. Feel like.

Tim Wildmon Next story, Steve.

A lot of Democrats say they're going to kill filibuster if they get chance

Steve Jordahl All right, in the wake of the, end of the. Of the government shutdown, a lot of Democrats, a lot of Republic Democrats are saying that they're going to kill the filibuster if they get the chance. And Republicans are saying maybe we should do it first. Here's the battle. I want to play something from James Carville, who is, talking about fixing the Supreme Court. And, to do this, they'd have to nuke the filibuster. Listen to what he has to say is coming. Cut 16.

Speaker D I'm going to tell you what's going to happen. A Democrat is going to be elected in 2028. You know that. I know that. It's going to be a Democratic House, going to be a Democratic senator. The Democratic president is going to announce a special transition advisory committee on the reform of the Supreme Court that we could have. Our third branch of government has lost faith and trusted American people, and they're going to recommend that the number of Supreme Court justices go from 9 to 13. That's going to happen. People, that's going to happen to you. And a Democratic Senate and House is going to pass it and the Democratic president is going to sign it because they have to do an intervention so we can have a Supreme Court that the American people trust again. So just keep that in the back of your mind. And I would bet a lot of money that that's what's going to happen. A lot.

Ed Vitagliano Okay, now explain who he was.

Steve Jordahl James Carville was Democrat strategist.

Ed Vitagliano And he was in the Clinton administration.

Steve Jordahl During the Clinton admin. Married to conservative Marilyn, M. Marley Matlin. But I don't know if she's.

Tim Wildmon Well, he, he, he doesn't have a good track record of predictions recently. If you look back at some of the things he's. He's predicted would happen.

Steve Jordahl Could be. Do you doubt that the Democrats would nuke, the filibuster if they had the chance?

Tim Wildmon okay.

Ed Vitagliano I think so. Go ahead.

Tim Wildmon This is when, this is when people throw things at me, my own teammates, they turn against me. Some of our listeners will turn against me because they'll say, what, are you thinking? Yeah, I'm not so sure because the Democrats had a chance last time. Now, would the vast majority of senators vote to do away with the filibuster on the Democrat side? Yes. But you may have enough. Joe Manchin's. There only takes a handful of them to disagree, as we've seen Fetterman. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know. But both sides, Republicans and Democrats. Okay. I'm not talking about the ideas of the parties right now. I'm talking about the process. But both sides want to ditch the filibuster when it's preventing them from instituting their, their policy. okay. And then when the, when the roles are reversed, then they're in support of the filibuster because they, it's the only tool they have to prevent, prevent the imposition of the other team's policy. Okay. Does that make sense?

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Tim Wildmon So it. You just rank hypocrites, both of them, when, when they flip this. Not all of them. There are some senators who are principled on keeping or getting rid of the filibuster. I understand the wisdom. There is some, some wisdom in the filibuster for this reason. It keeps the, it keeps a simple majority from just ramming through any kind of crazy, nutty policy that you want to institute that affects the whole country.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Tim Wildmon Okay. On the other hand, and Tim. Tim 2.0 seems to favor this. And that is, listen, it should be the will of the majority. You shouldn't have to have a, quote, super majority to pass legislation, because that isn't the way the Constitution was set up in the first place. So you just deal with the consequences of a country that's deeply divided, and that's how it is. The filibuster policy, again, was not in the Constitution. It was put in there by the Senate itself to keep, to keep the. Where you would have to at least show some 60. 60 votes, I think it is originally with 66, 60, but at least you have to have 50 and then plus 10. So you have to have some support, theoretically, from the other party, at least some minimal support to get legislation passed. That's the idea.

Ed Vitagliano I would be in favor of the filibuster if it was a real filibuster. In other words, where you had to talk.

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Ed Vitagliano And everyone else was captive in the Senate. And now what they do is they just announce, all right, we're doing filibuster, let's all go have lunch. Right. So the filibuster from Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Ed Vitagliano Where the Senate had to sit there and listen.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Ed Vitagliano Okay. That, to me is valuable, but it's valuable in part because it prevents the Senate from just saying, we're never going to vote for what your bill is.

Speaker D Right.

Ed Vitagliano And, well, like with the shutdown. Okay. So I would be in favor of the filibuster if they actually had to speak and then they couldn't, then they had to vote.

Tim Wildmon Okay. This has been a real problem for, I think it was President Bush, George W. Bush, and then for Obama, Remember, Obama, got so frustrated he couldn't get anything passed. Remember he did this speech where he said, well, I'll tell you what, I have a phone and a pen.

Because Congress is dysfunctional, presidents start signing executive orders

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Meaning I'll just sign executive orders.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon And after that, then Biden did the auto pin, you know, and now Trump just has probably shattered a record of executive orders. So the presidency, the president, whoever's been president, Democrat or Republican, has gotten very frustrated with the log jam because our country's 50. 50.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Right. That's just the way it is. But, so they. They get frustrated, and then they start just signing executive orders because Congress is.

Ed Vitagliano Dysfunctional, because they can't get anything done.

Tim Wildmon But that's because the boaters. Well, it's 50. 50 across the country.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. We could. We could talk about, and I don't want to. The beaten path here in terms of members of Congress their only job, their most important job is getting re elected. But because Congress is dysfunctional with these huge spending, you know, omnibus spending bills, all that kind of, what are they called, omnibus spending where you don't have a bill on transportation.

Tim Wildmon Right, right.

Steve Jordahl Bill.

Tim Wildmon Throw m them all in there together.

Ed Vitagliano Throw them all in there together. Everyone's protected. We're going to vote for everything. and because Congress is dysfunctional for a number of reasons, that's kind of warped the executive branch.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano Where the now presidents to get anything done, have to do it by executive order.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano It's not a good. The system is broken. I don't know how to get it fixed.

Tim Wildmon Okay. We're counting on you.

Ed Vitagliano Well, I'll come up with something.

Tim Wildmon Come up with something, please.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Steve: Russell Brand converted from the devil to Christ on Alex Jones interview

Tim Wildmon All right, Steve, we got, we got a minute to go.

Steve Jordahl All right. I think, I think. Do we have time to play the Alex or the Russell Brand? This Russell Brand was on with Alex Jones and decided to present the gospel before they got kind of crazy on the interview. But let's listen to that cut 15.

Ed Vitagliano You sound and look way more powerful than you were before. So I'm saying, do you. How is it moving from the devil, which you weren't consciously serving, but moving to Christ? What is the difference?

Speaker E Ecclesiastes for in much wisdom is much grief and he that increase of knowledge, increase of sorrow.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Speaker E Right. It's painful. Painful to wake up. It's not just joyful. The embrace of Christ and the love of the lamb, there is also a great pain in it. Can I do this thing first? Because you, a year ago Alex said like, you know, like you were with the devil. Right. And like, you know, that sounds very vivid to people and like that's not what it's like. Like it's not like I was attending satanic ceremonies.

Tim Wildmon No, but you just slip into it.

Speaker E It's self. The word there is self. If you are worshiping yourself, the devil has you. You can only. Obviously you can only avoid the devil by rem.

Ed Vitagliano That's pretty good preaching there.

Tim Wildmon That was Russell Brand. he's a former comedian and social commentator and. And what? Actor?

Ed Vitagliano Maybe.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Anyway, he evidently, you know, when some of these celebrities, have quote, conversions, you wonder are they doing it for a, particular reason? But he sounds like he's a genuine convert.

Steve Jordahl He's taking it to the, to the lengths, most people.

Ed Vitagliano Very smart man. Yeah, very smart.

Tim Wildmon You said that about me, haven't you?

Ed Vitagliano I have. You're a very smart man, too.

Tim Wildmon Thank you. All right. and I can, You know, same is true of you.

Ed Vitagliano Oh, well, thank you.

Tim Wildmon And Steve.

Steve Jordahl Thank you.

Ed Vitagliano And Brent.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Everybody's a winner here.

Ed Vitagliano Kohle Greene.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano Smart man.

Tim Wildmon Everybody gets a trophy. All right, we are out.

Ed Vitagliano don't forget, it's Hernando Cortex's day.

Tim Wildmon Look up. Look him up. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Everybody. Have a great afternoon.