The loss of a child through abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth affects families emotionally
Tim Wildmon The loss of a child through abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth affects the emotional health of families. Feelings of anger, sadness and regret can be overwhelming. There is hope and healing in the aftermath of a reproductive loss. Call the International Helpline at 866-482-life- to talk with someone who has been where you are and healed. To help others.
Fred Jackson You.
Tim Wildmon Your call is confidential, 866-482-LIFE.
Ed Vitagliano Welcome to today's Issues, offering a Christian response to the issues of the day. Here's your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.
Tim Wildman welcomes Fred Jackson to Today's Issues on AFR
Tim Wildmon All right, welcome everybody, to Today's Issue Issues on the American Family Radio Network for this Monday, October 20, 2025. Thanks for listening to AFR and to this program we call Today's Issues. I'm, Tim Wildmon, and joining me in studio is Ed Vitagliano. Good morning, Ed.
Ed Vitagliano Good, morning, Tim.
Tim Wildmon Fred Jackson.
Fred Jackson Hi there, Tim.
Tim Wildmon Man, fellas, a lot going on in this world since I went to Boston.
Ed Vitagliano Yes, please.
Tim Wildmon Even in the springtime, please come to Boston. And I went with, about a hundred of our other folks, who support us. a lot of our supporters were with us in our Boston historical tour last week and, met a lot of great folks. Wesley and Walker led the tour, and that's my two sons. And then, Stephen McDowell and Tim Barton, Timothy Barton from Wall Builders. So it was so popular that we. They had to shut it off to two months ago was sold out. So they're going to go again next year, next September.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, okay. All right.
Tim Wildmon So, and I told him, you need to recruit. And that's ads all stomping ground. Boston.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, as long as I have to take care of the tour.
Tim Wildmon No, you just got to show up and eat.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, then I'm recruit me. I volunteer.
Tim Wildmon Show up and eat and get on the bus and ride around. That's all you got to do. but, yeah, went to, Now, how many did you grow up in Boston or Nashua or both?
Ed Vitagliano No, but, well, I was born in Melrose, Mass. Massachusetts. So you have Boston, you know, the actual city. And of course, it's surrounded the great Boston area. I was born in Melrose, and my childhood was in Peabody and Wakefield, Mass. And then, we, my dad moved the family across the state line to Nashua, New Hampshire. And that's where I spent the rest.
Tim Wildmon That's only half an hour from Boston, right? Yeah, from the Boston area.
Ed Vitagliano It's, it's, it's not, not far. And then I, of course, went to Boston College.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano and so I say the Boston area. When someone says, that's where I grew up. I no longer say New England because. And this is a true story, because I was teaching high, school history, way back in the 80s at a Christian school. First day of class, 11th graders, they said, where are you from? You have like an accent. And I said, I'm from New England. And the kid sitting in the front row said, cool, you're from Europe. And I said, oh, it's going to be a tough class. No, I'm not from Europe. New.
Tim Wildmon Well, you know, of course, Fred, you're from, further north. Further north. But now if you get, if, if you come in contact with a native Bostonian who's lived there for a long, long time, like we did at the restaurant. We went to one of the restaurants. Well, yeah, several times. We had this. But, you have to watch their lips move in order to understand what they're saying because, you know, they have a unique. A very unique Bostonians have a very unique.
Ed Vitagliano Not just the accent, it's. It's the words. So what you would call, for example, I'm sure you and Fred, Right, Call like a water fountain. We called it a bubbler.
Tim Wildmon Right?
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, it was a water bubbler is what we call it. So with the accent, it's bubbler.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano And. And it's just.
Tim Wildmon It's a, it's a unique thing. It's a unique, Unique, language,
Ed Vitagliano Yes, language unto itself.
Tim Wildmon Part of the English language family tree. Just. But it's, it's a, it's a unique. Anyway, we had a great time. If you want information on, next year's Boston, tour, including the Freedom Trail, and also went, to Concord and Lexington and went to, where the Mayflower landed.
Ed Vitagliano How about the Constitution?
Tim Wildmon the Constitution.
Ed Vitagliano The ship.
Tim Wildmon The usa. Yes. Went there. So a lot of great things to see in the Boston area. If you've never done that, wanted to go. Ah, I think they're going in September. So check it out. W I L. Here's a website to check it out. Wildmon Group.com. wildman. Wildmon. M Group.com is the website for the Boston tour. And the other tours will be going on in 2026.
President Trump accuses Colombian leader of sending drugs to the United States
All right, Fred, what is happening in this here world?
Fred Jackson Well, let's pretend for a moment that, it's a nightly newscast. And here are the headlines for today. the ceasefire in Gaza is holding. Again, no one knows for sure how Vladimir Zelinsky The Ukrainian leader says his meeting with Trump was positive, despite some tense moments. And last but not least, President Trump calls the leader of Colombia a lunatic. Those are, those are tonight's headlines.
Tim Wildmon Headlines. Oh me. He, Trump did call, another foreign leader a lunatic.
Fred Jackson Yeah, I'm shocked by that.
Ed Vitagliano Okay, well, is this the Colombian president?
Tim Wildmon Yes, Trump, Trump most of the time holds his tongue.
Ed Vitagliano This is unusual.
Fred Jackson Not lately.
Tim Wildmon So, what did I start, Start with that one. What is that about?
Fred Jackson That is all about that. Trump is accusing the Colombian leader of basically much, like Venezuela, sending dangerous drugs to the United States. And he, Trump basically at one point, this weekend, I'm not sure he has a lot of extra time in the weekend. And he just bursts, he says, you know, unless we can they agreed to stop this growing bad drugs, et cetera, et cetera, ship the United States, we'll go down there. And I'm paraphrasing a little bit here, we're going to just burn those fields. So when he's through with Maduro in Venezuela, he's going to take on Colombia or perhaps simultaneously.
Tim Wildmon Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Burn, quote, burn those fields. Okay.
Fred Jackson Where the drugs are growing.
Tim Wildmon Burn those fields. what, what he's talking about literal, fields in the country of Colombia where they're growing these, that, what is that what he's saying?
Fred Jackson Yeah. Trump caught here's besides a lunatic. He called him an illegal drug leader.
Fred Jackson and to back up his point, President Trump's point, he says he will slash assistance to Colombia. Apparently we have been giving foreign, ah, aid to Colombia and he says we're not going to do that anymore.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. And what do you think about this diplomacy we got going on here?
Ed Vitagliano Well, first of all, I don't, I don't mind tough talk with these foreign leaders, especially in our own hemisphere. I think my personal opinion, although guess how many presidential campaigns I've run and won? Zero. Okay, so President Trump has certainly, you know, I would say he has his approach. He's not taking advice from me. I think you do this kind of thing behind the scenes.
Fred: I'm not crazy about the idea of the US Military getting involved
All right, you, you talk to Gustavo Petro. I just like saying it.
Tim Wildmon This is the President of Colombia. It's first I've heard of him. What's his name?
Ed Vitagliano Gustavo Petro.
Tim Wildmon Gestapo.
Ed Vitagliano No, no, no, no. Gustavo. G U S T A V O. Gustavo.
Tim Wildmon Okay.
Ed Vitagliano Petro. P E T R O.
Tim Wildmon Like gas.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. Petrol? Yeah, yeah. Or. Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Gustavo Petro is the President of Colombia and this is who Trump's got in his, crosshairs.
Ed Vitagliano Right? Yes.
Fred Jackson Yep.
Ed Vitagliano So to me, you call up, you call all old Gustavo.
Tim Wildmon I call him up and you say.
Ed Vitagliano You tell him you're gon crack down on the drug cartels.
Tim Wildmon I don't think crack's a word you want to use, but go ahead.
Ed Vitagliano Okay.
Tim Wildmon Change the word.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. Slap them around a little bit. And let me tell you, these, these drug cartels are rooted in deeply into some of these countries. Colombia would probably be one of them. Venezuela and others had a lot of corruption in some of these Central and South American countries. Police, you know, are on the payroll for the drug cartels. Mayors get murdered if they don't cooperate. So you're basically looking at tearing your country apart because drugs pay the bills in these big countries. But you don't. My personal opinion, you don't conduct some of this foreign policy out in public unless you've already done it privately. Maybe he has, but, yeah, I think.
Tim Wildmon With President Trump, private diplomacy is. Yeah, but, I think for the most part, that ship assailed.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon he's. He, he usually posts for better, for worse. He's going to put it on true social.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. You know, I, I'm, I'm not sure I'm crazy either about the idea of the US Military getting involved, which they would have to. I've already said on the air, I don't like them blowing up these boats that, you know, in my mind, if we're sure these are drug runners, this. I'm talking about the videos we see of these boats. then you arrest them when they get into U.S. waters. And I'm, I'm worried that the military is going to hit someone who's not actually involved.
Tim Wildmon Because we are blowing up boats.
Ed Vitagliano Yes.
Tim Wildmon People we're using. Our United States military is blowing up boats in the Gulf of Mexico.
Ed Vitagliano Gulf of America.
Tim Wildmon Oh, my bad.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon That Gulf out there.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon There. There is. Is blow. And, the lower Caribbean. So.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. So. And so if we get the military involved, we could get dragged.
Tim Wildmon We're involved. You mean in Colombia, though, on the ground?
Ed Vitagliano Yes, on the ground. Even. Even in Venezuela. You know, we, we ran some. I don't know they. Fred, were they B52s or B2 bombers off the B. Off the coast?
Fred Jackson B52s from a, base in Louisiana. And we kind of flew right up to the point of, Venezuela. Venezuelan airspace.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Fred Jackson Kind of like.
Tim Wildmon Why do you do that?
Fred Jackson Well, kind of like what the Russians do to us.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Fred Jackson Up in Alaska, you know, it's just.
Ed Vitagliano Prove we can do it if we want to.
Fred Jackson You show them the bottom of your airplane, and it's a show of might. It's, it's a muscle thing.
Fred: Petro told American soldiers to disobey Trump orders at United Nations
But this all started, by the way. Pedro, was at the United Nations a few weeks ago when all the world leaders were giving their speeches. And, what ticked President Trump, quite a bit was that, while he was there, Petro gave a speech in which he told American soldiers to disobey Trump's orders. And he was talking about, the Trump administration going after illegals, etc.
Tim Wildmon Etc.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, I'm no fan of Petro or Maduro. and these are, these are not good people. And they don't like us. They don't like Trump. And part of me wants to say, go ahead, then. You know, you want to. You want to kick a tiger in the hindquarters, you better have a plan for dealing with his teeth.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano As an old Tom Can Clancy line, one of his books. But the problem is, I don't want US Troops being put in danger.
Tim Wildmon I seriously doubt Trump would send, troops on the ground.
Fred Jackson Well, there was a story last week, though, of, with regards to Venezuela, CIA operatives, I think, the way it was described in Venezuela.
Tim Wildmon Oh, yeah, I'm sure that probably goes on. Probably goes on everywhere around the world. Yeah. Everybody's spying on everybody.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Aren't they?
Fred Jackson Yep.
Tim Wildmon All right. You're listening to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks, for listening, Tim, Ed and, and Fred and Steve Paisley. Jordan will be with us next hour. What's your next story, Fred?
The Gaza ceasefire is holding at this moment, according to Israeli media
Fred Jackson Well, it's about 20 after 2 in the afternoon in Israel, and at this moment, the Gaza ceasefire is holding. In fact, this morning, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived there to try to shore up things, make them a little bit more secure. This is what they had to say before they headed there. Cut number two.
Tim Wildmon Hamas right now is doing exactly what you would expect a terrorist organization to.
Ed Vitagliano Do, which is to try to reconstitute.
Tim Wildmon And take back their positions. Right. The success or failure of this will be if Israel and this international mechanism is able to create a viable alternative. But is it remotely possible that American troops go in to.
Ed Vitagliano Highly unlikely. We're going to have a weapons buyback program. This is all linked to amnesty and disavowing violence.
Tim Wildmon if Hamas people want to stay.
Fred Jackson There, we are well on top of it.
Ed Vitagliano But who is that, that last voice?
Fred Jackson Steve Witkoff.
Ed Vitagliano Okay. He sounded Kind of like Trump in.
Fred Jackson That, I guess, maybe if you hang around.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, but if you're around somebody long enough, like Fred saying there.
Ed Vitagliano Yes.
Fred Jackson And if this ceasefire holds, the next step in this 20 point agreement is that Hamas must disarm. And I tell you what, if, if I was a betting man, Hamas disarming. We know what they've been doing over the last several days. They've been executing Palestinians who they feel have been unloyal to them, just in the streets, in Rafah in particular. And two Israeli soldiers were killed, in the last 48 hours. But there is a piece there for the moment. Now, President Trump was asked about all of this. This is what he had to say about what's going on in Gaza right now.
Tim Wildmon Cut three.
Donald Trump We're going to have to see what's happening. We want to make sure that it's going to be very peaceful with Hamas. and as you know, they've been quite rambunctious. They've been doing, some shooting and we think maybe the leadership isn't involved in that. You know, some rebels within.
Ed Vitagliano Is the ceasefire still in place?
Fred Jackson So there you have it.
Tim Wildmon All right, help me, fellers, help me out here.
President Trump and his team initiated 20 point plan for Gaza negotiations
M. Okay, let me ask a question about this. You may or may not have the answer to it. First of all, President Trump and his administration and his team there deserve great credit for their, initiating this 20 point plan and for getting both parties, Israel and the, Hamas, to agree to the terms and conditions. I know that Jared Kushner, his son in law and what, Marco, Rubio and others, I don't forget there was another gentleman who was on the ground during the negotiations representing the Trump administration. I don't, can't recall his name. But anyway, in Egypt, so they got all this worked out. but getting something worked out in an agreement and then following through with it completely is, two different things. Now the first step has been followed through with for the most part, and that is freeing of the hostages. Those hostages that were alive, 20 of them. 20, 20 were, were, were freed. Yes. Okay, then the bodies of the deceased, some of them were returned, but not all of them. Right. By, by, by Hamas to Israel. I don't even know if they can, who knows if somebody's been passed away for a year or something like that, their bodies decomposed, their, their, who knows where they are? I mean, how do you even guarantee you're going to get them back? You know what I'm, you know, the other thing, so, but the big, big thing was getting the hostages back that were alive, and that's been, done. The other thing is with, Hamas and Israel is who's, who's going to, who governs Gaza. Now if Hamas is supposed to lay down their weapons and they've been running Gaza as the. As basically a gang runs a neighborhood, ah, they got guns and they know where you live. And if you don't do what they say or if you question their authority, you know, they're gonna, you're gonna end out on the street getting executed like those people did last week. So who's going to, in. Who's gonna govern, Gaza? Who's going to enforce their, no weapons? Who's going to. Who. Who is. Who are you supposed to talk to to initiate? Maybe all these things have been already explained and I just missed them. But do you guys understand, you guys know where that, big second stage is supposed to go?
Fred Jackson There, we were told a commission, international commission, representatives from various countries, Arab countries.
Tim Wildmon Muslim countries are also all over. a little convention there.
Fred Jackson Former, former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain is supposed to pay a, major role in that. But, Trump, the United States will be involved, apparently in helping to rebuild Gaza. Now the question is, the Palestinian leadership in the west bank, they want a part in this. I'm not clear whether they have been given a part in this. So, Hamas and the thing with Hamas, unlike our US Soldiers, Hamas doesn't wear uniforms. How do you know that? You have dealt with all the leadership of Hamas.
Tim Wildmon You don't know.
Fred Jackson They can grab a weapon anytime.
Tim Wildmon so it's, Listen, there are probably secretly millions of the. Well, there's 2 million. There's 2 million Gazans. Slash Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Okay. And probably if you could search, I don't know. But they're war torn, they're beleaguered, they're exhausted. They have to be. Their homes are in ruins, their businesses are in ruins. they're. Because of the war, because Israel had to fire on them to keep them from doing more terrorist acts. but I don't know. Anyway, maybe there's just a lot of things that have been explained that I don't haven't heard. But you're talking about, when you say rebuild, you're talking about five to 10 years. Oh, yeah, of, of, of, what do you do with all this rubble? Where do you get the heavy equipment to get rid of all that? And where do you put it? I Mean, have you seen this?
Fred Jackson Have you seen.
Tim Wildmon Oh yeah, seeing this. This is miles and miles and miles of, places that are uninhabitable anymore. It looks like something out of, you know, one of those futuristic apocalyptic movies. So I don't know, unless the best thing to happen would be for the people of Gaza to have a vote and to vote in a leadership that's not, does not include Hamas, which they could start over with and have some kind of a, you know, a hope for the future. Because right now with Hamas being still in charge and still having weapons, and I don't think they're giving up their weapons, I think it's probably going to turn into a gang fight, with various factions of Hamas, in the streets, as they were, as it were, if you can see the streets, fighting each other out for who's going to be the top leadership there. So.
Ed Vitagliano Well, and we do need to remember that the, Israeli Defense Force, the idf, will be keeping the peace. So they're not, in other words, they're not leaving, and abandoning Gaza and Gaza, you know, the Gaza Strip or Gaza City until, until this peace plan moves along. So there'll be this multinational force which what I've read is just about 200 people, like the International Red Cross is also there to help with supplies that they oversaw the, the transfer of hostages. So I guess that's why it's a 20, 20 point peace plan. You got to hit your, you hit your steps. And the next one, as Fred said, is the key. Hamas has to throw their weapons down.
Tim Wildmon Was it, Am I the only one who thought that, the celebrations were just a little bit premature?
Fred Jackson Oh, I agree with you 100%.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. I mean, Trump took a victory lap.
Tim Wildmon Before the, before the clock ran out.
Fred Jackson Yes.
Ed Vitagliano Well, I mean, I don't disagree with what you guys are saying simply because we've all, we've all grown up watching the Middle east and saying. And makes you cynical because you go, peace in the Middle East? I hardly think so. On the other hand, I would say even if it doesn't survive, he did get, at least for a while, a ceasefire there. And maybe that's something to build on.
Tim Wildmon As I said, I give them all the credit.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon I'm just saying, seeing the more prudent thing to do, prudent thing to do in this situation, given the volatility, is to not, not proclaim victory. Peace. We've got the first peace in 3,000 years. Is that what Trump said?
Ed Vitagliano Oh, yeah, yeah.
Tim Wildmon He's a little over the top.
Ed Vitagliano Maybe he was seeing.
Fred Rothenberg: 20 steps is a long way away
He was seeing this as a done deal.
Tim Wildmon Yes.
Ed Vitagliano And 20 steps is a long way away.
Tim Wildmon That's what I'm saying. why don't you just say, okay, yeah, when we get past step 10, then I'll go to Israel and we'll celebrate. But until then, it's, it's trust, but verify type situation. Instead, they just, you know, went to Israel and went to Egypt and just had a meeting with. And those are. Anyway, that's just me. like Fred, we're just a little skeptical of celebration before we get to point number two.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Tim Wildmon Okay. Out of 20.
Fred Jackson Yeah. And I look at the West Bank. The west bank is.
Tim Wildmon We need to define this for people because they don't know. I think the average person doesn't know the difference. When we say west bank, that's a news term that's often used. there's a difference between the west bank, which is also a place where many Arabs live.
Fred Jackson Yes.
Tim Wildmon which is part of Israel. But it is Israel. But it's called the west bank of the Jordan.
Fred Jackson Yes.
Tim Wildmon And the Gaza Strip. They're the same. They're both Arab peoples, but they're different. governance. Go ahead.
Fred Jackson Yes, different governance. But the west bank establishment run by the Palestinians now includes, like, Bethlehem, Jericho, those areas.
Tim Wildmon Yes.
Fred Jackson But they've existed. They're still getting money from the United States, but they're terrorists there, too. And they. And they. They come into Jerusalem. And so we have to kind of try to remember they don't think the way that we do here.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, but the Israelis are pretty well locked down that, Fred. Yeah, they pretty well locked down that people coming over from the west bank to do terrorist activities in Jerusalem. We'll be back momentarily with more of today's issues.
Preborn Network helps women choose life through a free ultrasound
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Tim Wildmon Thriving families, a powerful military and a strong economy are the three pillars needed to rebuild our country.
Ed Vitagliano Psalm 11:3 asks, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? In the video three Steps to Rebuilding.
Tim Wildmon America, Walker Wildmon addresses that question. If our military is not serviced, so to speak, it's not going to be ready to perform and it ultimately becomes ineffective.
This is Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network
Ed Vitagliano Find three steps to rebuilding America and much more at stream.aca.net the Lord looks.
Tim Wildmon Down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand any who seek God.
Ed Vitagliano Psalm 14:2American Family Radio.
Tim Wildmon This is Today's Issues.
Ed Vitagliano Email your comments to commentsfrd. Past broadcast of today's Issues are available for listening and viewing in the [email protected] now back to more of today's issues.
Tim Wildmon Hey welcome back everybody to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Tim, Ed and Fred, we thank you for listening to afr.
So this federal uh, government shutdown is now in its third week
So this federal government shutdown.
Tim Wildmon It's been going on how long now?
Fred Jackson Week three.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Fred Jackson Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Okay. is it starting to impact the everyday person out there yet, Fred?
Fred Jackson Well it depends. it's, it's unfolding over time. Who doesn't get money? you know there's EBT.
Tim Wildmon Cards holders may start, they not getting money.
Fred Jackson They may start to not get their money.
Tim Wildmon You'll see some riots. You probably will if that happens.
Fred Jackson the big thing and transportation, Secretary Sean Duffy was on Fox this morning. Air traffic controllers now in the last pay period they got half a paycheck. We are told now in this, this period coming up they're not going to get anything. Now they are regarded as essential workers, but there have been places already where these ATC guys do not show up for work. Sean Duffy talked about this this morning. It's cut number seven.
Ed Vitagliano Brent yes. First off I want to say thanks to all of the air traffic controllers who show up to work. they're doing great work. They got a partial paycheck a week ago Tuesday. Their next paycheck comes a week from Tuesday. And in that paycheck there will be no dollars. They don't get paid. and so I think what you might see is more disruptions in travel as more of them look to say, how do I. How do I bridge the gap between the truck that's not coming and putting food on my table? And we've heard they're taking Uber jobs. they're, doing doordash, figuring out ways to, keep their families afloat. I mean, this is a very real problem, Ainslie. And again, a lot of them are paycheck to paycheck, so I hope we don't see more disruptions. But as this gets closer to payday, I think you could see more of that through the airspace.
Tim Wildmon Well, that's not very reassuring.
Fred Jackson Absolutely not.
Tim Wildmon If the last people we need to, you know, take off is, excuse the pun, there is air traffic controllers. Because, I mean, I'm not in any way suggesting that anything would be intentionally dangerous that they would do. I'm just saying that our country doesn't. Can't afford for the air traffic controllers to be. Not being paid and then find other jobs. And, you know, who knows? Are they. Are they. Are they working, eight hours at another job and then trying to come in and do something like that, you know, which would require their full physical and mental attention. You know what I'm saying? I guess that's what I'm trying to get across. We can't afford for that to happen now. Ah, these government. Federal government shutdowns are usually over by now.
Fred Jackson Yes.
Tim Wildmon And surely it'll come to an end in the next week.
The biggest sticking point here is over health care costs and Obamacare
Well, Ed, I've been. Have you been part of the negotiations?
Ed Vitagliano I've been. I've been in the negotiations, and I'm telling you, they're. They're not going well.
Tim Wildmon You talk about Italians starting ocean people. Listen, am I right? That's the history of.
Ed Vitagliano You're right. If you want to go with ethnic stereotypes, yeah, sure.
Tim Wildmon I'm trying to give you. We're gonna throw your people and you.
Ed Vitagliano know, to the Atlantic Ocean.
Fred Jackson That's never happened before.
Ed Vitagliano Cement, overshoes, all. So to me, Fred, you correct me if I'm wrong. The biggest sticking point here is that the. It's over health care costs and Obamacare. The premiums are set to go up, and the federal government has to reinstate the subsidies. Yes, that the federal government pays so people can go on Obamacare. Obamacare is actually very expensive. It's a very expensive form of health insurance. So the subsidies coming from the federal. Federal government are the only way that a Lot of families can maintain their health insurance through Obamacare. The Democrats have wanted to include illegal immigrants in this. The Republicans say, no way. And the Republicans have always said their goal was to eliminate Obamacare. I don't think that's going to happen at this point. So to me, that's where the sticking point is. The Republicans are saying, no, we are not going to have the government subsidies for illegal immigrants. Have I got that right?
Fred Jackson Yeah. No. And what the Republicans are saying, okay, let's get the government back to work, and then we can negotiate on the new fees for Obamacare. You're right about the Republicans. definitely don't, do not want health care dollars going to illegal immigrants. All right, so that, that is the big issue. the House speaker, and the majority Senate leader are both saying, let's, let's get the government open again. We'll sit down and we'll negotiate with you. and so far, the Democrats are not willing to do this.
Ed Vitagliano Well, and so I was reading, the, House Minority Whip, Catherine Clark, she's from Massachuset, Massachusetts. And her, her argument here is that this is the one battle where we have leverage.
Fred Jackson Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano So the Republicans are saying, let's get the government open. We can start negotiations. Democrats are saying, no, keeping the government shut down is our only point of leverage to get you to come and agree with us.
Fred Jackson Well, the other, the other thing that's talked about in the background, and some Republicans have said there's still the option of getting rid of the filibuster, which means you'd only have to have 50, and, you know, just a few senators. So far, I believe five Democrat senators are needed, and they have been, willing to budge. That's where we are.
Fred Winder: I think shutdown will be over in the next week
We know we're talking about air traffic controllers, and I just would invite our audience. There is an app called Flight Awareness. You probably have heard of it. Yeah, those. I'm showing the guys here.
Tim Wildmon Okay, listen, looking Fred, showing us in studios flightaware.com right.
Fred Jackson This is just the East Coast.
Tim Wildmon Those are all the airplanes in the air right now.
Fred Jackson ATC is managing air traffic control.
Tim Wildmon Oh, wow.
Fred Jackson And you know, you can scary zoom in on New York and Washington and Boston, and there's bad weather that makes it all the more complicated. So when Sean Duffy talks about concerns about air traffic controllers, some of them having to go out and find Uber jobs, he said, yeah, to put food on the table, that puts a lot of pressure. And I tell you what, you know, Democrats, of course, Democrats have the mainstream media still on their side. The mainstream media is painting the Republicans as the bad guys in this and will continue to do so. The other sidebar story to this is that Chuck Schumer took a lot of heat when he caved there back several months ago, on a continuing resolution. So now many people say he's facing a primary next year. AOC Would like his job. That's the top.
Tim Wildmon She going to go after his, Senate seat?
Fred Jackson Yes, yes.
Tim Wildmon AOC B. Schumer in New York.
Fred Jackson Huh?
Ed Vitagliano Yes.
Tim Wildmon That's what I think.
Ed Vitagliano Schumer loses that. That race.
Tim Wildmon Do you really?
Ed Vitagliano I do.
Tim Wildmon Let me ask you this question. so what about Social Security?
Fred Jackson Social Security, as far as I know, is still okay. Medicare, all of those things.
Tim Wildmon So those things are untouchable?
Fred Jackson Yes.
Tim Wildmon Okay. At this point, what about pay for our, military?
Fred Jackson now, what. What President Trump has said and he has ordered. There are pockets of money all over the government. He has said, I will see to it that our military people are paid.
Tim Wildmon Okay. Of course, I think everybody expects us to be over in the next week, don't you think?
Fred Jackson I thought it'd be over.
Ed Vitagliano I thought it would be over by now, too. Yeah.
Tim Wildmon I think it'd be over in the next week, though. They'll get something worked out. but. And then you go, why do we go through three weeks of shutdown? If you were going to do this.
Ed Vitagliano If you.
Tim Wildmon If you were going to do what? You do this in the first place.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. You want to see if the other side will blink?
Tim Wildmon I think that nobody's blinking right now, no. Although there was a man named Anthony. Anthony blink upon a time, who was Secretary of State for, Joe Biden. Joe Auto. Penn. Biden.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Did. Did, Was that real, that picture that Trump put out about the, photographs in the White House on the wall, the portraits of the presidents.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, with the, the auto.
Tim Wildmon It had Biden. Yeah. For Biden's portrait in the White House, it had a picture of the auto pin.
Fred Jackson Is it.
Tim Wildmon Is that. Was that real? Is that,
Ed Vitagliano I don't. I don't know.
Fred Jackson I photoshopped.
Ed Vitagliano I assumed it was real, but I'm getting fooled left and right on images and stuff. When it's AI, the deep fakes are getting. Oh, and apparently it's related to how old you are, because a lot of young people I see on social media say, how. How can boomers not realize that's AI. And I'm going, I don't know. It's moving picture. It looked real to me. And. And they all spotting this stuff right there.
Tim Wildmon Ed, you know, you mentioned me making the eth. Stereotypes about Italian people. I think right there, you were trying to say that. That dumb people have a Southern accent. Okay, let me. That's what you were doing.
Ed Vitagliano Very sensitive to this.
Fred Jackson Wind back the tape.
Ed Vitagliano Let me. Let me change this.
You can be dumb and live up north, too, right
Let me change this.
Tim Wildmon Hey.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, it looks like a real picture of me. You know what I mean?
Tim Wildmon Okay. Okay. You can be dumb and live up north, too, right? Is that what you're saying?
Ed Vitagliano That's right. That's right.
Fred Jackson Oh, thanks for that.
Tim Wildmon And the further you go, the dumber you are.
Ed Vitagliano You cross that, you cross that, line into our 51st state.
Fred Keef: President Trump is telling Ukraine to give up some territory
Tim Wildmon All right, Fred, what's the next story? Fred, you're just bringing such happy news to everybody today with all these, rumors and war and wars, stories.
Fred Jackson All right, you want happy news?
Tim Wildmon We're going to attack Colombia, Venezuela. Who else we're going after?
Fred Jackson Well, maybe we kind of teased, Ukraine's story. We perhaps should get back to that.
Tim Wildmon Oh, good.
Fred Jackson There was a nasty meeting between President Trump and.
Ed Vitagliano Is this the good news you were promised?
Tim Wildmon Yes, this is the good news.
Fred Jackson The good news, however, no. Florida. Zelensky this morning released a statement, and he's a little bit happy.
Tim Wildmon Okay. All right.
Fred Jackson he says his meeting with US President Donald Trump last week was positive, highlighting what he sees as continued American interest in economic deals with Keef. All right, so here we are. Let's. Let's remember, you know, for all this got started, remember the heated meeting between Zelinsky and Trump way back. Way back when?
Ed Vitagliano Which.
Tim Wildmon January?
Fred Jackson February.
Ed Vitagliano This is like a bad couple you see out at dinner all the time. Yes.
Fred Jackson So a nasty meeting, and then they kind of made up. And then, Trump had his meeting with Putin in Alaska, and they were buddies for a few minutes. And then Putin basically said continued bombing the very next day. So Trump was very upset with him over that. And then about 10 days ago, President, Trump, said, you know, to Ukraine, hey, why don't you guys, you know, we'll work with you, and you can take up. You can keep all your original territory. Remember that? because he was mad at Putin.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Fred Jackson But now in the last few days, we have President Trump saying something else to Zelensky. Cut number four.
Donald Trump No, we never discussed it. We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines. You have a battle line right now. The rest is very tough to negotiate. Go home, stop killing people, and be done. Let it Be cut the way it is. It's cut up right now. I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia. I said cut and stop at the battle line. Go home, stop fighting, stop killing people.
Fred Jackson So he is telling Volodymyr, Zelensky, just give up Donetsk, and Luansk, which I think is in the southeastern portion of Ukraine, in the eastern.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Fred Jackson And some people are saying Trump is now telling Zelensky to do that because Trump has a meeting coming up with Putin again in Hungary.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Fred Jackson So, I mean, this, there are no solid lines yet. This story keeps moving around back and forth. Trump keeps moving and changing his position over and over again.
Ed Vitagliano This region in the east and southeast of Ukraine is highly industrial, has a lot of minerals. It also produces, a lot of the, wheat and other agriculture. It's very difficult for Ukraine just to surrender that. Well, I say surrender it. Just give up trying to get it. And now there had been, Zelensky had wanted Tomahawk cruise missiles, from what I'm reading. By the way, great article on American Family News afn.net about this story. You should check out afn.net but President Trump is not, at this point going to give the cruise missiles to Ukraine. I guess Zelensky explained it as saying, I guess the president wants to wait until he meets with Putin. Is Zelensky going to meet also in Budapest? This is just Trump and Putin. I didn't realize now that the president said 78% of Ukraine has been taken by Russia. I didn't realize it was that much. But listen, what happened?
Tim Wildmon Our minerals deal. We're supposed to. Yeah, our minerals deal where they give us minerals, we support them. I'm talking about Ukraine. I'm not saying I'm in favor of that. I don't know. I'm just saying remember that a few months ago, that's all Trump said. You give us, you give us mineral rights, we're going to be with you. And they don't hear anything about that anymore.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, that's. There's no mineral.
Tim Wildmon You didn't reach our Ted?
Fred Jackson No.
Ed Vitagliano Well, I'm just saying there's no mineral deal if Russian troops are sitting over the minerals. And that's, That's. We were never going to send troops or get involved in this war. we were going to send ammunition, and supplies, but I don't think even Trump's doing. that's been a kind of a sticking point between Republicans and Democrats, too, and between Europe and the United States they wanted us to.
Fred Kaplan: I don't see where President Trump has leverage in Ukraine crisis
Tim Wildmon Here's. I'm, I'm, at the place almost where I wish President Trump would say, you know, I wash my hands of this. this is an unfortunate situation between Ukraine and Russia. Unfortunate with. Is a mild word to use here. what, millions have been killed. Right. Am I right? Almost. When you include, both sides. Many of the Russian soldiers are being sent into war against their own will. They don't support this either. You know, it's. It's Putin's war, basically. So. But, But I don't see where President Trump, without having the leverage of using assets owned and operated by the United States of America, both financial and, and, or military, I don't, I don't see how he's a player in this. I really don't. Because, he's not going to give Zelensky anything. And he, he just keeps. He just keeps meeting, meeting after meeting after meeting with, and phone call after phone call with Putin to no avail. So I don't know what the point is to continue. I don't know. I don't. Where are we trying to get to? Except for Trump selling. Zelensky needs to give up half his country right now.
Ed Vitagliano By the way, I did look up, the Russian control of Ukraine.
Tim Wildmon Okay.
Ed Vitagliano And total territory, of the Ukraine, of Ukraine, Russia controls 18 to 20%. But in these important eastern, southeastern regions, Luhansk, they go by oblasts, kind of like we would say region or province. the donets, oblast. Zapper is. I can't pronounce that one.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, those.
Ed Vitagliano Those are all in the 70 percentiles, and 99 of Luhansk. So I think that's what President Trump was talking about. Those regions that the Russians control, they control 70 to 90% of those areas. So when President Trump, says Ukraine should just give up on those, he has a point. Because Ukraine's not getting them back unless Russia were to completely withdraw, and they're not doing it.
Tim Wildmon Okay. But here's, here's the one part of this I'm missing with President Trump. what is his. What is he using as leverage with Vladimir Putin?
Ed Vitagliano I don't think he's using anything for leverage. He did toss out. This is, this is how the Tomahawk cross. Tomahawk cruise missiles came out. President Trump said he was on a phone call, Fred. I think it was. He said, I was on a phone call with Putin, and I told Vladimir, well, maybe I'll give the Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. So he May be just saying, listen, if you, if you don't stop right now, I'll give the Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine to fight back with, which could start World War iii. That's my take on that. You give Ukraine Tomahawk, cruise missiles, they'll hit Moscow and St. Petersburg with them because they've seen their cities obliterated. And once you, once you do that, you risk Russia hitting, places in Europe outside of Ukraine. I think that's, that's the only.
Tim Wildmon I'm, I think it just appears to me that President Trump has used up his, usefulness in this because, he's been trying for a year now, right, to get something done. And I think Vladimir Putin knows that Trump has no cards to play.
Ed Vitagliano Well, he does have, Trump does have cards to play. He's just not going to play him. Trump.
Tim Wildmon What's the difference?
Ed Vitagliano Trump? Well, Trump could say, if you don't stop talking to Putin, we'll get involved. We.
Tim Wildmon Why have you done that yet?
Ed Vitagliano Well, because he doesn't want U. S. Troops involved. He doesn't want to risk a wider war in Europe, and Putin knows it.
Tim Wildmon So I think you're proving my point.
Ed Vitagliano Although, although you, the point is, does Trump have cards to play? He does, but to your point, he's not going to play him because he, Putin knows that. And Putin knows that.
Fred Jackson That.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano And, and, and Putin also knows Ukraine's not pushing them out. So Putin and, and the rest of Europe's not getting involved. So Putin is saying, you guys keep telling me to. They've already said, Russia's already said. Their, the defense minister has said there is no way we're allowing a pro Western government in Ukraine. We either will own all of it or we'll have a puppet government in Ukraine. That's, that's our goal.
Tim Wildmon Okay.
Ed Vitagliano And, and nobody's going to stop them from doing it.
Tim Wildmon Nothing's going to stop us. Now.
Ed Vitagliano That's, it's, it's. Again, to your point, President Trump should, should not have said, I can get this done in 24 hours during the election. And he is involved trying to appeal to Putin's better nature. I don't think the man has a better nature. And so he is wasting his time. Zelensky does not want to surrender.
Tim Wildmon It's kind of that territory. It is kind of sad, though. You know, in a way, the Zelinsky has, they've been. I know people say, well, the landscape and Ukraine is corrupt. Well, okay, I'll give you that.
Brad Zelinsky: Venezuela and Colombia have fought back against Russian invasion
But I would say to 95% of the world is, yeah, okay. But I would just say this. They've done all they can do to fight back against Russian invasion. Right, right. Of their country, of their sovereign country. And they got some help initially from the United States, money and from Europe. But there, I think Zelinsky knows that's why he has his handout. Because if he doesn't get any more help from Europe or the United States, especially militarily, then it's over. Right. His country will be swallowed up by Russia.
Ed Vitagliano Right. And we were talking about, in the first segment about what Trump's saying to Venezuela and Colombia, okay, you're on our doorstep, your drugs are coming into our country, so clean it up or else. And I am not excusing what Russia did. Their mentality is the same. Their mentality has been we are not going to have NATO on our doorstep, and we will take Ukraine to guarantee that.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano So what I'm saying is it's. It's nice to think that Putin will go, oh, okay, well, my bad. But Trump's not doing it when it comes to Venezuela and Colombia.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano You protect your people and your. Your national interests.
Tim Wildmon Brad, what's the next story?
Former jewelry thief Larry Lawton says this looks like an amateur job
Fred Jackson Well, let's finish up, I think.
Ed Vitagliano Good news.
Fred Jackson Everybody has heard of the Louvre. Big museum. Yes, I've been there in France. There you go.
Tim Wildmon The Mona Lisa. She's still smiling.
Fred Jackson Yes, well, an unknown number of people parading as workers. I, don't know. Workers on the street, they had yellow jackets on. You know, we see workers. They. They had a cherry picker machine. They're up on the second floor. This is, I think, early this morning, yesterday morning. And they got into the Louvre through upper windows there. They're able to break in there. And they went down and they stole a bunch of precious jewels, crowns, all of this sort of thing. Dozens and dozens of precious diamonds. And they got away. Apparently they tried to set the place on fire. There was one guy kind of left behind, but he did manage to escape. He was seen trying to.
Tim Wildmon It was a. That sounds. Ed, you said that sound like Ocean's Eleven or something.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, it sounded like a movie with George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
Fred Jackson Former jewelry thief Larry Lawton was on Fox this morning saying, looked like an amateur job to him. Cut number 16.
Speaker F It had to be an inside job or inside information. How do they know how thick the glass was? Whether there's an alarm on there? There could have been. They have shock, glass things. Now there's a bunch of ways. This is either semi amateur because they drop jewelry. They already got the motorcycles caught. So it's really giving a lot of mixed vibes right now. Obviously, you should have your fence set up before you do a robbery. In any robbery, that's number one, obviously, in these kind of jewels that have to be broken down because it's too much of a signature piece. But then again, insurance companies for big items like this will give out a reward with no questions asked. And so what they'll do is wait and they see where the investigation. It's not coming any. They'll put up a million dollars for this. Maybe it's worth 3 million. And you could do it to, like, a very rich, eccentric person who wants a signature piece.
Ed Vitagliano So that's why I said, I don't have to use a Southern accent if I want to make someone sound.
Tim Wildmon That guy was a definitely New York.
Ed Vitagliano Hey, you know how the. The law enforcement blew this? These guys were dressed up to look like government or construction workers.
Tim Wildmon Yes, they were.
Ed Vitagliano If they didn't have a bunch of guys standing around holding shovels, obviously that's not. Not. They should have seen right through that.
Tim Wildmon Yes. You think somebody was in a pickup smoking a cigarette?
Ed Vitagliano Ah, the law enforcement should have seen right through it. Wait a second.
Tim Wildmon Is that what you call a caper?
Ed Vitagliano That's a caper.
Tim Wildmon Okay. That's what I mean. I've been waiting to use that word for, like, five years.
Ed Vitagliano So as soon as that guy started talking with that. That new New York accent, I look over at the.
Tim Wildmon You forget about it. Forget about it. We'll be back.
Ed Vitagliano Back when I used to rob people.
Tim Wildmon The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
The loss of a child through abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth affects families emotionally
Tim Wildmon The loss of a child through abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth affects the emotional health of families. Feelings of anger, sadness and regret can be overwhelming. There is hope and healing in the aftermath of a reproductive loss. Call the International Helpline at 866-482-life- to talk with someone who has been where you are and healed. To help others.
Fred Jackson You.
Tim Wildmon Your call is confidential, 866-482-LIFE.
Ed Vitagliano Welcome to today's Issues, offering a Christian response to the issues of the day. Here's your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.
Tim Wildman welcomes Fred Jackson to Today's Issues on AFR
Tim Wildmon All right, welcome everybody, to Today's Issue Issues on the American Family Radio Network for this Monday, October 20, 2025. Thanks for listening to AFR and to this program we call Today's Issues. I'm, Tim Wildmon, and joining me in studio is Ed Vitagliano. Good morning, Ed.
Ed Vitagliano Good, morning, Tim.
Tim Wildmon Fred Jackson.
Fred Jackson Hi there, Tim.
Tim Wildmon Man, fellas, a lot going on in this world since I went to Boston.
Ed Vitagliano Yes, please.
Tim Wildmon Even in the springtime, please come to Boston. And I went with, about a hundred of our other folks, who support us. a lot of our supporters were with us in our Boston historical tour last week and, met a lot of great folks. Wesley and Walker led the tour, and that's my two sons. And then, Stephen McDowell and Tim Barton, Timothy Barton from Wall Builders. So it was so popular that we. They had to shut it off to two months ago was sold out. So they're going to go again next year, next September.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, okay. All right.
Tim Wildmon So, and I told him, you need to recruit. And that's ads all stomping ground. Boston.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, as long as I have to take care of the tour.
Tim Wildmon No, you just got to show up and eat.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, then I'm recruit me. I volunteer.
Tim Wildmon Show up and eat and get on the bus and ride around. That's all you got to do. but, yeah, went to, Now, how many did you grow up in Boston or Nashua or both?
Ed Vitagliano No, but, well, I was born in Melrose, Mass. Massachusetts. So you have Boston, you know, the actual city. And of course, it's surrounded the great Boston area. I was born in Melrose, and my childhood was in Peabody and Wakefield, Mass. And then, we, my dad moved the family across the state line to Nashua, New Hampshire. And that's where I spent the rest.
Tim Wildmon That's only half an hour from Boston, right? Yeah, from the Boston area.
Ed Vitagliano It's, it's, it's not, not far. And then I, of course, went to Boston College.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano and so I say the Boston area. When someone says, that's where I grew up. I no longer say New England because. And this is a true story, because I was teaching high, school history, way back in the 80s at a Christian school. First day of class, 11th graders, they said, where are you from? You have like an accent. And I said, I'm from New England. And the kid sitting in the front row said, cool, you're from Europe. And I said, oh, it's going to be a tough class. No, I'm not from Europe. New.
Tim Wildmon Well, you know, of course, Fred, you're from, further north. Further north. But now if you get, if, if you come in contact with a native Bostonian who's lived there for a long, long time, like we did at the restaurant. We went to one of the restaurants. Well, yeah, several times. We had this. But, you have to watch their lips move in order to understand what they're saying because, you know, they have a unique. A very unique Bostonians have a very unique.
Ed Vitagliano Not just the accent, it's. It's the words. So what you would call, for example, I'm sure you and Fred, Right, Call like a water fountain. We called it a bubbler.
Tim Wildmon Right?
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, it was a water bubbler is what we call it. So with the accent, it's bubbler.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano And. And it's just.
Tim Wildmon It's a, it's a unique thing. It's a unique, Unique, language,
Ed Vitagliano Yes, language unto itself.
Tim Wildmon Part of the English language family tree. Just. But it's, it's a, it's a unique. Anyway, we had a great time. If you want information on, next year's Boston, tour, including the Freedom Trail, and also went, to Concord and Lexington and went to, where the Mayflower landed.
Ed Vitagliano How about the Constitution?
Tim Wildmon the Constitution.
Ed Vitagliano The ship.
Tim Wildmon The usa. Yes. Went there. So a lot of great things to see in the Boston area. If you've never done that, wanted to go. Ah, I think they're going in September. So check it out. W I L. Here's a website to check it out. Wildmon Group.com. wildman. Wildmon. M Group.com is the website for the Boston tour. And the other tours will be going on in 2026.
President Trump accuses Colombian leader of sending drugs to the United States
All right, Fred, what is happening in this here world?
Fred Jackson Well, let's pretend for a moment that, it's a nightly newscast. And here are the headlines for today. the ceasefire in Gaza is holding. Again, no one knows for sure how Vladimir Zelinsky The Ukrainian leader says his meeting with Trump was positive, despite some tense moments. And last but not least, President Trump calls the leader of Colombia a lunatic. Those are, those are tonight's headlines.
Tim Wildmon Headlines. Oh me. He, Trump did call, another foreign leader a lunatic.
Fred Jackson Yeah, I'm shocked by that.
Ed Vitagliano Okay, well, is this the Colombian president?
Tim Wildmon Yes, Trump, Trump most of the time holds his tongue.
Ed Vitagliano This is unusual.
Fred Jackson Not lately.
Tim Wildmon So, what did I start, Start with that one. What is that about?
Fred Jackson That is all about that. Trump is accusing the Colombian leader of basically much, like Venezuela, sending dangerous drugs to the United States. And he, Trump basically at one point, this weekend, I'm not sure he has a lot of extra time in the weekend. And he just bursts, he says, you know, unless we can they agreed to stop this growing bad drugs, et cetera, et cetera, ship the United States, we'll go down there. And I'm paraphrasing a little bit here, we're going to just burn those fields. So when he's through with Maduro in Venezuela, he's going to take on Colombia or perhaps simultaneously.
Tim Wildmon Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Burn, quote, burn those fields. Okay.
Fred Jackson Where the drugs are growing.
Tim Wildmon Burn those fields. what, what he's talking about literal, fields in the country of Colombia where they're growing these, that, what is that what he's saying?
Fred Jackson Yeah. Trump caught here's besides a lunatic. He called him an illegal drug leader.
Fred Jackson and to back up his point, President Trump's point, he says he will slash assistance to Colombia. Apparently we have been giving foreign, ah, aid to Colombia and he says we're not going to do that anymore.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. And what do you think about this diplomacy we got going on here?
Ed Vitagliano Well, first of all, I don't, I don't mind tough talk with these foreign leaders, especially in our own hemisphere. I think my personal opinion, although guess how many presidential campaigns I've run and won? Zero. Okay, so President Trump has certainly, you know, I would say he has his approach. He's not taking advice from me. I think you do this kind of thing behind the scenes.
Fred: I'm not crazy about the idea of the US Military getting involved
All right, you, you talk to Gustavo Petro. I just like saying it.
Tim Wildmon This is the President of Colombia. It's first I've heard of him. What's his name?
Ed Vitagliano Gustavo Petro.
Tim Wildmon Gestapo.
Ed Vitagliano No, no, no, no. Gustavo. G U S T A V O. Gustavo.
Tim Wildmon Okay.
Ed Vitagliano Petro. P E T R O.
Tim Wildmon Like gas.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. Petrol? Yeah, yeah. Or. Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Gustavo Petro is the President of Colombia and this is who Trump's got in his, crosshairs.
Ed Vitagliano Right? Yes.
Fred Jackson Yep.
Ed Vitagliano So to me, you call up, you call all old Gustavo.
Tim Wildmon I call him up and you say.
Ed Vitagliano You tell him you're gon crack down on the drug cartels.
Tim Wildmon I don't think crack's a word you want to use, but go ahead.
Ed Vitagliano Okay.
Tim Wildmon Change the word.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. Slap them around a little bit. And let me tell you, these, these drug cartels are rooted in deeply into some of these countries. Colombia would probably be one of them. Venezuela and others had a lot of corruption in some of these Central and South American countries. Police, you know, are on the payroll for the drug cartels. Mayors get murdered if they don't cooperate. So you're basically looking at tearing your country apart because drugs pay the bills in these big countries. But you don't. My personal opinion, you don't conduct some of this foreign policy out in public unless you've already done it privately. Maybe he has, but, yeah, I think.
Tim Wildmon With President Trump, private diplomacy is. Yeah, but, I think for the most part, that ship assailed.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon he's. He, he usually posts for better, for worse. He's going to put it on true social.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. You know, I, I'm, I'm not sure I'm crazy either about the idea of the US Military getting involved, which they would have to. I've already said on the air, I don't like them blowing up these boats that, you know, in my mind, if we're sure these are drug runners, this. I'm talking about the videos we see of these boats. then you arrest them when they get into U.S. waters. And I'm, I'm worried that the military is going to hit someone who's not actually involved.
Tim Wildmon Because we are blowing up boats.
Ed Vitagliano Yes.
Tim Wildmon People we're using. Our United States military is blowing up boats in the Gulf of Mexico.
Ed Vitagliano Gulf of America.
Tim Wildmon Oh, my bad.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon That Gulf out there.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon There. There is. Is blow. And, the lower Caribbean. So.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. So. And so if we get the military involved, we could get dragged.
Tim Wildmon We're involved. You mean in Colombia, though, on the ground?
Ed Vitagliano Yes, on the ground. Even. Even in Venezuela. You know, we, we ran some. I don't know they. Fred, were they B52s or B2 bombers off the B. Off the coast?
Fred Jackson B52s from a, base in Louisiana. And we kind of flew right up to the point of, Venezuela. Venezuelan airspace.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Fred Jackson Kind of like.
Tim Wildmon Why do you do that?
Fred Jackson Well, kind of like what the Russians do to us.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Fred Jackson Up in Alaska, you know, it's just.
Ed Vitagliano Prove we can do it if we want to.
Fred Jackson You show them the bottom of your airplane, and it's a show of might. It's, it's a muscle thing.
Fred: Petro told American soldiers to disobey Trump orders at United Nations
But this all started, by the way. Pedro, was at the United Nations a few weeks ago when all the world leaders were giving their speeches. And, what ticked President Trump, quite a bit was that, while he was there, Petro gave a speech in which he told American soldiers to disobey Trump's orders. And he was talking about, the Trump administration going after illegals, etc.
Tim Wildmon Etc.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, I'm no fan of Petro or Maduro. and these are, these are not good people. And they don't like us. They don't like Trump. And part of me wants to say, go ahead, then. You know, you want to. You want to kick a tiger in the hindquarters, you better have a plan for dealing with his teeth.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano As an old Tom Can Clancy line, one of his books. But the problem is, I don't want US Troops being put in danger.
Tim Wildmon I seriously doubt Trump would send, troops on the ground.
Fred Jackson Well, there was a story last week, though, of, with regards to Venezuela, CIA operatives, I think, the way it was described in Venezuela.
Tim Wildmon Oh, yeah, I'm sure that probably goes on. Probably goes on everywhere around the world. Yeah. Everybody's spying on everybody.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Aren't they?
Fred Jackson Yep.
Tim Wildmon All right. You're listening to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks, for listening, Tim, Ed and, and Fred and Steve Paisley. Jordan will be with us next hour. What's your next story, Fred?
The Gaza ceasefire is holding at this moment, according to Israeli media
Fred Jackson Well, it's about 20 after 2 in the afternoon in Israel, and at this moment, the Gaza ceasefire is holding. In fact, this morning, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived there to try to shore up things, make them a little bit more secure. This is what they had to say before they headed there. Cut number two.
Tim Wildmon Hamas right now is doing exactly what you would expect a terrorist organization to.
Ed Vitagliano Do, which is to try to reconstitute.
Tim Wildmon And take back their positions. Right. The success or failure of this will be if Israel and this international mechanism is able to create a viable alternative. But is it remotely possible that American troops go in to.
Ed Vitagliano Highly unlikely. We're going to have a weapons buyback program. This is all linked to amnesty and disavowing violence.
Tim Wildmon if Hamas people want to stay.
Fred Jackson There, we are well on top of it.
Ed Vitagliano But who is that, that last voice?
Fred Jackson Steve Witkoff.
Ed Vitagliano Okay. He sounded Kind of like Trump in.
Fred Jackson That, I guess, maybe if you hang around.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, but if you're around somebody long enough, like Fred saying there.
Ed Vitagliano Yes.
Fred Jackson And if this ceasefire holds, the next step in this 20 point agreement is that Hamas must disarm. And I tell you what, if, if I was a betting man, Hamas disarming. We know what they've been doing over the last several days. They've been executing Palestinians who they feel have been unloyal to them, just in the streets, in Rafah in particular. And two Israeli soldiers were killed, in the last 48 hours. But there is a piece there for the moment. Now, President Trump was asked about all of this. This is what he had to say about what's going on in Gaza right now.
Tim Wildmon Cut three.
Donald Trump We're going to have to see what's happening. We want to make sure that it's going to be very peaceful with Hamas. and as you know, they've been quite rambunctious. They've been doing, some shooting and we think maybe the leadership isn't involved in that. You know, some rebels within.
Ed Vitagliano Is the ceasefire still in place?
Fred Jackson So there you have it.
Tim Wildmon All right, help me, fellers, help me out here.
President Trump and his team initiated 20 point plan for Gaza negotiations
M. Okay, let me ask a question about this. You may or may not have the answer to it. First of all, President Trump and his administration and his team there deserve great credit for their, initiating this 20 point plan and for getting both parties, Israel and the, Hamas, to agree to the terms and conditions. I know that Jared Kushner, his son in law and what, Marco, Rubio and others, I don't forget there was another gentleman who was on the ground during the negotiations representing the Trump administration. I don't, can't recall his name. But anyway, in Egypt, so they got all this worked out. but getting something worked out in an agreement and then following through with it completely is, two different things. Now the first step has been followed through with for the most part, and that is freeing of the hostages. Those hostages that were alive, 20 of them. 20, 20 were, were, were freed. Yes. Okay, then the bodies of the deceased, some of them were returned, but not all of them. Right. By, by, by Hamas to Israel. I don't even know if they can, who knows if somebody's been passed away for a year or something like that, their bodies decomposed, their, their, who knows where they are? I mean, how do you even guarantee you're going to get them back? You know what I'm, you know, the other thing, so, but the big, big thing was getting the hostages back that were alive, and that's been, done. The other thing is with, Hamas and Israel is who's, who's going to, who governs Gaza. Now if Hamas is supposed to lay down their weapons and they've been running Gaza as the. As basically a gang runs a neighborhood, ah, they got guns and they know where you live. And if you don't do what they say or if you question their authority, you know, they're gonna, you're gonna end out on the street getting executed like those people did last week. So who's going to, in. Who's gonna govern, Gaza? Who's going to enforce their, no weapons? Who's going to. Who. Who is. Who are you supposed to talk to to initiate? Maybe all these things have been already explained and I just missed them. But do you guys understand, you guys know where that, big second stage is supposed to go?
Fred Jackson There, we were told a commission, international commission, representatives from various countries, Arab countries.
Tim Wildmon Muslim countries are also all over. a little convention there.
Fred Jackson Former, former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain is supposed to pay a, major role in that. But, Trump, the United States will be involved, apparently in helping to rebuild Gaza. Now the question is, the Palestinian leadership in the west bank, they want a part in this. I'm not clear whether they have been given a part in this. So, Hamas and the thing with Hamas, unlike our US Soldiers, Hamas doesn't wear uniforms. How do you know that? You have dealt with all the leadership of Hamas.
Tim Wildmon You don't know.
Fred Jackson They can grab a weapon anytime.
Tim Wildmon so it's, Listen, there are probably secretly millions of the. Well, there's 2 million. There's 2 million Gazans. Slash Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Okay. And probably if you could search, I don't know. But they're war torn, they're beleaguered, they're exhausted. They have to be. Their homes are in ruins, their businesses are in ruins. they're. Because of the war, because Israel had to fire on them to keep them from doing more terrorist acts. but I don't know. Anyway, maybe there's just a lot of things that have been explained that I don't haven't heard. But you're talking about, when you say rebuild, you're talking about five to 10 years. Oh, yeah, of, of, of, what do you do with all this rubble? Where do you get the heavy equipment to get rid of all that? And where do you put it? I Mean, have you seen this?
Fred Jackson Have you seen.
Tim Wildmon Oh yeah, seeing this. This is miles and miles and miles of, places that are uninhabitable anymore. It looks like something out of, you know, one of those futuristic apocalyptic movies. So I don't know, unless the best thing to happen would be for the people of Gaza to have a vote and to vote in a leadership that's not, does not include Hamas, which they could start over with and have some kind of a, you know, a hope for the future. Because right now with Hamas being still in charge and still having weapons, and I don't think they're giving up their weapons, I think it's probably going to turn into a gang fight, with various factions of Hamas, in the streets, as they were, as it were, if you can see the streets, fighting each other out for who's going to be the top leadership there. So.
Ed Vitagliano Well, and we do need to remember that the, Israeli Defense Force, the idf, will be keeping the peace. So they're not, in other words, they're not leaving, and abandoning Gaza and Gaza, you know, the Gaza Strip or Gaza City until, until this peace plan moves along. So there'll be this multinational force which what I've read is just about 200 people, like the International Red Cross is also there to help with supplies that they oversaw the, the transfer of hostages. So I guess that's why it's a 20, 20 point peace plan. You got to hit your, you hit your steps. And the next one, as Fred said, is the key. Hamas has to throw their weapons down.
Tim Wildmon Was it, Am I the only one who thought that, the celebrations were just a little bit premature?
Fred Jackson Oh, I agree with you 100%.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. I mean, Trump took a victory lap.
Tim Wildmon Before the, before the clock ran out.
Fred Jackson Yes.
Ed Vitagliano Well, I mean, I don't disagree with what you guys are saying simply because we've all, we've all grown up watching the Middle east and saying. And makes you cynical because you go, peace in the Middle East? I hardly think so. On the other hand, I would say even if it doesn't survive, he did get, at least for a while, a ceasefire there. And maybe that's something to build on.
Tim Wildmon As I said, I give them all the credit.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon I'm just saying, seeing the more prudent thing to do, prudent thing to do in this situation, given the volatility, is to not, not proclaim victory. Peace. We've got the first peace in 3,000 years. Is that what Trump said?
Ed Vitagliano Oh, yeah, yeah.
Tim Wildmon He's a little over the top.
Ed Vitagliano Maybe he was seeing.
Fred Rothenberg: 20 steps is a long way away
He was seeing this as a done deal.
Tim Wildmon Yes.
Ed Vitagliano And 20 steps is a long way away.
Tim Wildmon That's what I'm saying. why don't you just say, okay, yeah, when we get past step 10, then I'll go to Israel and we'll celebrate. But until then, it's, it's trust, but verify type situation. Instead, they just, you know, went to Israel and went to Egypt and just had a meeting with. And those are. Anyway, that's just me. like Fred, we're just a little skeptical of celebration before we get to point number two.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Tim Wildmon Okay. Out of 20.
Fred Jackson Yeah. And I look at the West Bank. The west bank is.
Tim Wildmon We need to define this for people because they don't know. I think the average person doesn't know the difference. When we say west bank, that's a news term that's often used. there's a difference between the west bank, which is also a place where many Arabs live.
Fred Jackson Yes.
Tim Wildmon which is part of Israel. But it is Israel. But it's called the west bank of the Jordan.
Fred Jackson Yes.
Tim Wildmon And the Gaza Strip. They're the same. They're both Arab peoples, but they're different. governance. Go ahead.
Fred Jackson Yes, different governance. But the west bank establishment run by the Palestinians now includes, like, Bethlehem, Jericho, those areas.
Tim Wildmon Yes.
Fred Jackson But they've existed. They're still getting money from the United States, but they're terrorists there, too. And they. And they. They come into Jerusalem. And so we have to kind of try to remember they don't think the way that we do here.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, but the Israelis are pretty well locked down that, Fred. Yeah, they pretty well locked down that people coming over from the west bank to do terrorist activities in Jerusalem. We'll be back momentarily with more of today's issues.
Preborn Network helps women choose life through a free ultrasound
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Tim Wildmon Thriving families, a powerful military and a strong economy are the three pillars needed to rebuild our country.
Ed Vitagliano Psalm 11:3 asks, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? In the video three Steps to Rebuilding.
Tim Wildmon America, Walker Wildmon addresses that question. If our military is not serviced, so to speak, it's not going to be ready to perform and it ultimately becomes ineffective.
This is Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network
Ed Vitagliano Find three steps to rebuilding America and much more at stream.aca.net the Lord looks.
Tim Wildmon Down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand any who seek God.
Ed Vitagliano Psalm 14:2American Family Radio.
Tim Wildmon This is Today's Issues.
Ed Vitagliano Email your comments to commentsfrd. Past broadcast of today's Issues are available for listening and viewing in the [email protected] now back to more of today's issues.
Tim Wildmon Hey welcome back everybody to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Tim, Ed and Fred, we thank you for listening to afr.
So this federal uh, government shutdown is now in its third week
So this federal government shutdown.
Tim Wildmon It's been going on how long now?
Fred Jackson Week three.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Fred Jackson Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Okay. is it starting to impact the everyday person out there yet, Fred?
Fred Jackson Well it depends. it's, it's unfolding over time. Who doesn't get money? you know there's EBT.
Tim Wildmon Cards holders may start, they not getting money.
Fred Jackson They may start to not get their money.
Tim Wildmon You'll see some riots. You probably will if that happens.
Fred Jackson the big thing and transportation, Secretary Sean Duffy was on Fox this morning. Air traffic controllers now in the last pay period they got half a paycheck. We are told now in this, this period coming up they're not going to get anything. Now they are regarded as essential workers, but there have been places already where these ATC guys do not show up for work. Sean Duffy talked about this this morning. It's cut number seven.
Ed Vitagliano Brent yes. First off I want to say thanks to all of the air traffic controllers who show up to work. they're doing great work. They got a partial paycheck a week ago Tuesday. Their next paycheck comes a week from Tuesday. And in that paycheck there will be no dollars. They don't get paid. and so I think what you might see is more disruptions in travel as more of them look to say, how do I. How do I bridge the gap between the truck that's not coming and putting food on my table? And we've heard they're taking Uber jobs. they're, doing doordash, figuring out ways to, keep their families afloat. I mean, this is a very real problem, Ainslie. And again, a lot of them are paycheck to paycheck, so I hope we don't see more disruptions. But as this gets closer to payday, I think you could see more of that through the airspace.
Tim Wildmon Well, that's not very reassuring.
Fred Jackson Absolutely not.
Tim Wildmon If the last people we need to, you know, take off is, excuse the pun, there is air traffic controllers. Because, I mean, I'm not in any way suggesting that anything would be intentionally dangerous that they would do. I'm just saying that our country doesn't. Can't afford for the air traffic controllers to be. Not being paid and then find other jobs. And, you know, who knows? Are they. Are they. Are they working, eight hours at another job and then trying to come in and do something like that, you know, which would require their full physical and mental attention. You know what I'm saying? I guess that's what I'm trying to get across. We can't afford for that to happen now. Ah, these government. Federal government shutdowns are usually over by now.
Fred Jackson Yes.
Tim Wildmon And surely it'll come to an end in the next week.
The biggest sticking point here is over health care costs and Obamacare
Well, Ed, I've been. Have you been part of the negotiations?
Ed Vitagliano I've been. I've been in the negotiations, and I'm telling you, they're. They're not going well.
Tim Wildmon You talk about Italians starting ocean people. Listen, am I right? That's the history of.
Ed Vitagliano You're right. If you want to go with ethnic stereotypes, yeah, sure.
Tim Wildmon I'm trying to give you. We're gonna throw your people and you.
Ed Vitagliano know, to the Atlantic Ocean.
Fred Jackson That's never happened before.
Ed Vitagliano Cement, overshoes, all. So to me, Fred, you correct me if I'm wrong. The biggest sticking point here is that the. It's over health care costs and Obamacare. The premiums are set to go up, and the federal government has to reinstate the subsidies. Yes, that the federal government pays so people can go on Obamacare. Obamacare is actually very expensive. It's a very expensive form of health insurance. So the subsidies coming from the federal. Federal government are the only way that a Lot of families can maintain their health insurance through Obamacare. The Democrats have wanted to include illegal immigrants in this. The Republicans say, no way. And the Republicans have always said their goal was to eliminate Obamacare. I don't think that's going to happen at this point. So to me, that's where the sticking point is. The Republicans are saying, no, we are not going to have the government subsidies for illegal immigrants. Have I got that right?
Fred Jackson Yeah. No. And what the Republicans are saying, okay, let's get the government back to work, and then we can negotiate on the new fees for Obamacare. You're right about the Republicans. definitely don't, do not want health care dollars going to illegal immigrants. All right, so that, that is the big issue. the House speaker, and the majority Senate leader are both saying, let's, let's get the government open again. We'll sit down and we'll negotiate with you. and so far, the Democrats are not willing to do this.
Ed Vitagliano Well, and so I was reading, the, House Minority Whip, Catherine Clark, she's from Massachuset, Massachusetts. And her, her argument here is that this is the one battle where we have leverage.
Fred Jackson Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano So the Republicans are saying, let's get the government open. We can start negotiations. Democrats are saying, no, keeping the government shut down is our only point of leverage to get you to come and agree with us.
Fred Jackson Well, the other, the other thing that's talked about in the background, and some Republicans have said there's still the option of getting rid of the filibuster, which means you'd only have to have 50, and, you know, just a few senators. So far, I believe five Democrat senators are needed, and they have been, willing to budge. That's where we are.
Fred Winder: I think shutdown will be over in the next week
We know we're talking about air traffic controllers, and I just would invite our audience. There is an app called Flight Awareness. You probably have heard of it. Yeah, those. I'm showing the guys here.
Tim Wildmon Okay, listen, looking Fred, showing us in studios flightaware.com right.
Fred Jackson This is just the East Coast.
Tim Wildmon Those are all the airplanes in the air right now.
Fred Jackson ATC is managing air traffic control.
Tim Wildmon Oh, wow.
Fred Jackson And you know, you can scary zoom in on New York and Washington and Boston, and there's bad weather that makes it all the more complicated. So when Sean Duffy talks about concerns about air traffic controllers, some of them having to go out and find Uber jobs, he said, yeah, to put food on the table, that puts a lot of pressure. And I tell you what, you know, Democrats, of course, Democrats have the mainstream media still on their side. The mainstream media is painting the Republicans as the bad guys in this and will continue to do so. The other sidebar story to this is that Chuck Schumer took a lot of heat when he caved there back several months ago, on a continuing resolution. So now many people say he's facing a primary next year. AOC Would like his job. That's the top.
Tim Wildmon She going to go after his, Senate seat?
Fred Jackson Yes, yes.
Tim Wildmon AOC B. Schumer in New York.
Fred Jackson Huh?
Ed Vitagliano Yes.
Tim Wildmon That's what I think.
Ed Vitagliano Schumer loses that. That race.
Tim Wildmon Do you really?
Ed Vitagliano I do.
Tim Wildmon Let me ask you this question. so what about Social Security?
Fred Jackson Social Security, as far as I know, is still okay. Medicare, all of those things.
Tim Wildmon So those things are untouchable?
Fred Jackson Yes.
Tim Wildmon Okay. At this point, what about pay for our, military?
Fred Jackson now, what. What President Trump has said and he has ordered. There are pockets of money all over the government. He has said, I will see to it that our military people are paid.
Tim Wildmon Okay. Of course, I think everybody expects us to be over in the next week, don't you think?
Fred Jackson I thought it'd be over.
Ed Vitagliano I thought it would be over by now, too. Yeah.
Tim Wildmon I think it'd be over in the next week, though. They'll get something worked out. but. And then you go, why do we go through three weeks of shutdown? If you were going to do this.
Ed Vitagliano If you.
Tim Wildmon If you were going to do what? You do this in the first place.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. You want to see if the other side will blink?
Tim Wildmon I think that nobody's blinking right now, no. Although there was a man named Anthony. Anthony blink upon a time, who was Secretary of State for, Joe Biden. Joe Auto. Penn. Biden.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Did. Did, Was that real, that picture that Trump put out about the, photographs in the White House on the wall, the portraits of the presidents.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, with the, the auto.
Tim Wildmon It had Biden. Yeah. For Biden's portrait in the White House, it had a picture of the auto pin.
Fred Jackson Is it.
Tim Wildmon Is that. Was that real? Is that,
Ed Vitagliano I don't. I don't know.
Fred Jackson I photoshopped.
Ed Vitagliano I assumed it was real, but I'm getting fooled left and right on images and stuff. When it's AI, the deep fakes are getting. Oh, and apparently it's related to how old you are, because a lot of young people I see on social media say, how. How can boomers not realize that's AI. And I'm going, I don't know. It's moving picture. It looked real to me. And. And they all spotting this stuff right there.
Tim Wildmon Ed, you know, you mentioned me making the eth. Stereotypes about Italian people. I think right there, you were trying to say that. That dumb people have a Southern accent. Okay, let me. That's what you were doing.
Ed Vitagliano Very sensitive to this.
Fred Jackson Wind back the tape.
Ed Vitagliano Let me. Let me change this.
You can be dumb and live up north, too, right
Let me change this.
Tim Wildmon Hey.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, it looks like a real picture of me. You know what I mean?
Tim Wildmon Okay. Okay. You can be dumb and live up north, too, right? Is that what you're saying?
Ed Vitagliano That's right. That's right.
Fred Jackson Oh, thanks for that.
Tim Wildmon And the further you go, the dumber you are.
Ed Vitagliano You cross that, you cross that, line into our 51st state.
Fred Keef: President Trump is telling Ukraine to give up some territory
Tim Wildmon All right, Fred, what's the next story? Fred, you're just bringing such happy news to everybody today with all these, rumors and war and wars, stories.
Fred Jackson All right, you want happy news?
Tim Wildmon We're going to attack Colombia, Venezuela. Who else we're going after?
Fred Jackson Well, maybe we kind of teased, Ukraine's story. We perhaps should get back to that.
Tim Wildmon Oh, good.
Fred Jackson There was a nasty meeting between President Trump and.
Ed Vitagliano Is this the good news you were promised?
Tim Wildmon Yes, this is the good news.
Fred Jackson The good news, however, no. Florida. Zelensky this morning released a statement, and he's a little bit happy.
Tim Wildmon Okay. All right.
Fred Jackson he says his meeting with US President Donald Trump last week was positive, highlighting what he sees as continued American interest in economic deals with Keef. All right, so here we are. Let's. Let's remember, you know, for all this got started, remember the heated meeting between Zelinsky and Trump way back. Way back when?
Ed Vitagliano Which.
Tim Wildmon January?
Fred Jackson February.
Ed Vitagliano This is like a bad couple you see out at dinner all the time. Yes.
Fred Jackson So a nasty meeting, and then they kind of made up. And then, Trump had his meeting with Putin in Alaska, and they were buddies for a few minutes. And then Putin basically said continued bombing the very next day. So Trump was very upset with him over that. And then about 10 days ago, President, Trump, said, you know, to Ukraine, hey, why don't you guys, you know, we'll work with you, and you can take up. You can keep all your original territory. Remember that? because he was mad at Putin.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Fred Jackson But now in the last few days, we have President Trump saying something else to Zelensky. Cut number four.
Donald Trump No, we never discussed it. We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines. You have a battle line right now. The rest is very tough to negotiate. Go home, stop killing people, and be done. Let it Be cut the way it is. It's cut up right now. I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia. I said cut and stop at the battle line. Go home, stop fighting, stop killing people.
Fred Jackson So he is telling Volodymyr, Zelensky, just give up Donetsk, and Luansk, which I think is in the southeastern portion of Ukraine, in the eastern.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Fred Jackson And some people are saying Trump is now telling Zelensky to do that because Trump has a meeting coming up with Putin again in Hungary.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Fred Jackson So, I mean, this, there are no solid lines yet. This story keeps moving around back and forth. Trump keeps moving and changing his position over and over again.
Ed Vitagliano This region in the east and southeast of Ukraine is highly industrial, has a lot of minerals. It also produces, a lot of the, wheat and other agriculture. It's very difficult for Ukraine just to surrender that. Well, I say surrender it. Just give up trying to get it. And now there had been, Zelensky had wanted Tomahawk cruise missiles, from what I'm reading. By the way, great article on American Family News afn.net about this story. You should check out afn.net but President Trump is not, at this point going to give the cruise missiles to Ukraine. I guess Zelensky explained it as saying, I guess the president wants to wait until he meets with Putin. Is Zelensky going to meet also in Budapest? This is just Trump and Putin. I didn't realize now that the president said 78% of Ukraine has been taken by Russia. I didn't realize it was that much. But listen, what happened?
Tim Wildmon Our minerals deal. We're supposed to. Yeah, our minerals deal where they give us minerals, we support them. I'm talking about Ukraine. I'm not saying I'm in favor of that. I don't know. I'm just saying remember that a few months ago, that's all Trump said. You give us, you give us mineral rights, we're going to be with you. And they don't hear anything about that anymore.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, that's. There's no mineral.
Tim Wildmon You didn't reach our Ted?
Fred Jackson No.
Ed Vitagliano Well, I'm just saying there's no mineral deal if Russian troops are sitting over the minerals. And that's, That's. We were never going to send troops or get involved in this war. we were going to send ammunition, and supplies, but I don't think even Trump's doing. that's been a kind of a sticking point between Republicans and Democrats, too, and between Europe and the United States they wanted us to.
Fred Kaplan: I don't see where President Trump has leverage in Ukraine crisis
Tim Wildmon Here's. I'm, I'm, at the place almost where I wish President Trump would say, you know, I wash my hands of this. this is an unfortunate situation between Ukraine and Russia. Unfortunate with. Is a mild word to use here. what, millions have been killed. Right. Am I right? Almost. When you include, both sides. Many of the Russian soldiers are being sent into war against their own will. They don't support this either. You know, it's. It's Putin's war, basically. So. But, But I don't see where President Trump, without having the leverage of using assets owned and operated by the United States of America, both financial and, and, or military, I don't, I don't see how he's a player in this. I really don't. Because, he's not going to give Zelensky anything. And he, he just keeps. He just keeps meeting, meeting after meeting after meeting with, and phone call after phone call with Putin to no avail. So I don't know what the point is to continue. I don't know. I don't. Where are we trying to get to? Except for Trump selling. Zelensky needs to give up half his country right now.
Ed Vitagliano By the way, I did look up, the Russian control of Ukraine.
Tim Wildmon Okay.
Ed Vitagliano And total territory, of the Ukraine, of Ukraine, Russia controls 18 to 20%. But in these important eastern, southeastern regions, Luhansk, they go by oblasts, kind of like we would say region or province. the donets, oblast. Zapper is. I can't pronounce that one.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, those.
Ed Vitagliano Those are all in the 70 percentiles, and 99 of Luhansk. So I think that's what President Trump was talking about. Those regions that the Russians control, they control 70 to 90% of those areas. So when President Trump, says Ukraine should just give up on those, he has a point. Because Ukraine's not getting them back unless Russia were to completely withdraw, and they're not doing it.
Tim Wildmon Okay. But here's, here's the one part of this I'm missing with President Trump. what is his. What is he using as leverage with Vladimir Putin?
Ed Vitagliano I don't think he's using anything for leverage. He did toss out. This is, this is how the Tomahawk cross. Tomahawk cruise missiles came out. President Trump said he was on a phone call, Fred. I think it was. He said, I was on a phone call with Putin, and I told Vladimir, well, maybe I'll give the Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. So he May be just saying, listen, if you, if you don't stop right now, I'll give the Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine to fight back with, which could start World War iii. That's my take on that. You give Ukraine Tomahawk, cruise missiles, they'll hit Moscow and St. Petersburg with them because they've seen their cities obliterated. And once you, once you do that, you risk Russia hitting, places in Europe outside of Ukraine. I think that's, that's the only.
Tim Wildmon I'm, I think it just appears to me that President Trump has used up his, usefulness in this because, he's been trying for a year now, right, to get something done. And I think Vladimir Putin knows that Trump has no cards to play.
Ed Vitagliano Well, he does have, Trump does have cards to play. He's just not going to play him. Trump.
Tim Wildmon What's the difference?
Ed Vitagliano Trump? Well, Trump could say, if you don't stop talking to Putin, we'll get involved. We.
Tim Wildmon Why have you done that yet?
Ed Vitagliano Well, because he doesn't want U. S. Troops involved. He doesn't want to risk a wider war in Europe, and Putin knows it.
Tim Wildmon So I think you're proving my point.
Ed Vitagliano Although, although you, the point is, does Trump have cards to play? He does, but to your point, he's not going to play him because he, Putin knows that. And Putin knows that.
Fred Jackson That.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano And, and, and Putin also knows Ukraine's not pushing them out. So Putin and, and the rest of Europe's not getting involved. So Putin is saying, you guys keep telling me to. They've already said, Russia's already said. Their, the defense minister has said there is no way we're allowing a pro Western government in Ukraine. We either will own all of it or we'll have a puppet government in Ukraine. That's, that's our goal.
Tim Wildmon Okay.
Ed Vitagliano And, and nobody's going to stop them from doing it.
Tim Wildmon Nothing's going to stop us. Now.
Ed Vitagliano That's, it's, it's. Again, to your point, President Trump should, should not have said, I can get this done in 24 hours during the election. And he is involved trying to appeal to Putin's better nature. I don't think the man has a better nature. And so he is wasting his time. Zelensky does not want to surrender.
Tim Wildmon It's kind of that territory. It is kind of sad, though. You know, in a way, the Zelinsky has, they've been. I know people say, well, the landscape and Ukraine is corrupt. Well, okay, I'll give you that.
Brad Zelinsky: Venezuela and Colombia have fought back against Russian invasion
But I would say to 95% of the world is, yeah, okay. But I would just say this. They've done all they can do to fight back against Russian invasion. Right, right. Of their country, of their sovereign country. And they got some help initially from the United States, money and from Europe. But there, I think Zelinsky knows that's why he has his handout. Because if he doesn't get any more help from Europe or the United States, especially militarily, then it's over. Right. His country will be swallowed up by Russia.
Ed Vitagliano Right. And we were talking about, in the first segment about what Trump's saying to Venezuela and Colombia, okay, you're on our doorstep, your drugs are coming into our country, so clean it up or else. And I am not excusing what Russia did. Their mentality is the same. Their mentality has been we are not going to have NATO on our doorstep, and we will take Ukraine to guarantee that.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano So what I'm saying is it's. It's nice to think that Putin will go, oh, okay, well, my bad. But Trump's not doing it when it comes to Venezuela and Colombia.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano You protect your people and your. Your national interests.
Tim Wildmon Brad, what's the next story?
Former jewelry thief Larry Lawton says this looks like an amateur job
Fred Jackson Well, let's finish up, I think.
Ed Vitagliano Good news.
Fred Jackson Everybody has heard of the Louvre. Big museum. Yes, I've been there in France. There you go.
Tim Wildmon The Mona Lisa. She's still smiling.
Fred Jackson Yes, well, an unknown number of people parading as workers. I, don't know. Workers on the street, they had yellow jackets on. You know, we see workers. They. They had a cherry picker machine. They're up on the second floor. This is, I think, early this morning, yesterday morning. And they got into the Louvre through upper windows there. They're able to break in there. And they went down and they stole a bunch of precious jewels, crowns, all of this sort of thing. Dozens and dozens of precious diamonds. And they got away. Apparently they tried to set the place on fire. There was one guy kind of left behind, but he did manage to escape. He was seen trying to.
Tim Wildmon It was a. That sounds. Ed, you said that sound like Ocean's Eleven or something.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, it sounded like a movie with George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
Fred Jackson Former jewelry thief Larry Lawton was on Fox this morning saying, looked like an amateur job to him. Cut number 16.
Speaker F It had to be an inside job or inside information. How do they know how thick the glass was? Whether there's an alarm on there? There could have been. They have shock, glass things. Now there's a bunch of ways. This is either semi amateur because they drop jewelry. They already got the motorcycles caught. So it's really giving a lot of mixed vibes right now. Obviously, you should have your fence set up before you do a robbery. In any robbery, that's number one, obviously, in these kind of jewels that have to be broken down because it's too much of a signature piece. But then again, insurance companies for big items like this will give out a reward with no questions asked. And so what they'll do is wait and they see where the investigation. It's not coming any. They'll put up a million dollars for this. Maybe it's worth 3 million. And you could do it to, like, a very rich, eccentric person who wants a signature piece.
Ed Vitagliano So that's why I said, I don't have to use a Southern accent if I want to make someone sound.
Tim Wildmon That guy was a definitely New York.
Ed Vitagliano Hey, you know how the. The law enforcement blew this? These guys were dressed up to look like government or construction workers.
Tim Wildmon Yes, they were.
Ed Vitagliano If they didn't have a bunch of guys standing around holding shovels, obviously that's not. Not. They should have seen right through that.
Tim Wildmon Yes. You think somebody was in a pickup smoking a cigarette?
Ed Vitagliano Ah, the law enforcement should have seen right through it. Wait a second.
Tim Wildmon Is that what you call a caper?
Ed Vitagliano That's a caper.
Tim Wildmon Okay. That's what I mean. I've been waiting to use that word for, like, five years.
Ed Vitagliano So as soon as that guy started talking with that. That new New York accent, I look over at the.
Tim Wildmon You forget about it. Forget about it. We'll be back.
Ed Vitagliano Back when I used to rob people.
Tim Wildmon The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Tim and Ed talk with Fred on top news headlines of the day including a discussion on the latest with Hamas and Israel ceasefire. They also discuss the latest with the government shutdown.
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