Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Tim Wildman

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

Tim Wildmon Hey, welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Tim. Ed. Ray. Ray's in studio with us today. He's, Are you halfway between Kansas City and Tampa?

Tim Wildmon It's pretty close. Pretty close.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, pretty close. But, Ray Pritchard, who's on with us Tuesdays and Thursdays, usually from remote. He's, he's in town from the command bunker.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, yeah, he's, he's on with us. Unless he's doing his little Bible teaching.

Tim Wildmon Bible thingy.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, yeah.

Steve Jordahl Oh, no, I recognized him.

Tim Wildmon Right?

Tim Wildmon You see Steve Paisley Jordan.

Steve Jordahl Hey, everybody.

Tim Wildmon Steve.

Tim Wildmon Genuine Paisley today.

Ed Vitagliano It's the real deal.

Tim Wildmon Yes.

Tim Wildmon Yep. I haven't worn paisley in forever. I'm glad you're keeping it alive.

Steve Jordahl I am doing my best.

Ed Vitagliano He is. He is personally keeping it alive.

Steve Jordahl That's right.

Tim Wildmon I wore paisley as a child, I think a few times.

Ed Vitagliano What are you saying?

Tim Wildmon My mom made me.

Ed Vitagliano But I do remember back in the 70s when that was a big thing. Paisley.

Tim Wildmon Steve is right.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, he does.

Tim Wildmon Rocking it.

Tim Wildmon Steve's keeping it alive.

Ed Vitagliano I, am keeping it alive.

Tim Wildmon Staying alive. Staying alive. We just lost half our list. Next year they go, what Bee Gees were not. That's right.

Tim Wildmon Not even close.

Ed Vitagliano Anti bg.

Tim Wildmon Go Steve.

Steve Castle: I watched the NBA finals last night

Steve Jordahl All right. Hey, any of you guys, interested, in basketball? Watching the NBA finals last night.

Tim Wildmon Okay, let me set this up real quickly. I do not watch the NBA during the regular season. Okay. I don't, but I do, I love basketball. watching basketball. Always have. And I do tune in for the finals of the NBA.

Tim Wildmon Okay. Even though it's not Larry Bird versus Magic Johnson, which was whenever it was peak. Will never be. That'll never be another day like that again. That was Showtime versus, the Celtics.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Tim Wildmon But, so, the, the, I watched the. I'm watching the Knicks and the Spurs.

Steve Jordahl Right?

Tim Wildmon Okay. Knicks won the best out of seven. Knicks won the first two games. They go back to NewSong York. Spurs win game three last night. Yeah, I tune in over there and I tune in about halfway through the second quarter, and the spurs are just beating the.

Tim Wildmon It's over.

Tim Wildmon It's over. Everybody, even the announcers are going, it's over.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Tim Wildmon And they're like, up, 29 or 31 and a half. It's, it's like, this is. How is this even happening? Well, I clicked off. I know better than to do that. I Turned to another TV show that Alison. I wanted to watch.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon And forgot about the ball game. And then I come to work this morning and. Steve, what happened?

Steve Jordahl Well, cut 19 happened.

Tim Wildmon Oh, him to operate at the top 101.

Steve Jordahl Brumson gets it, fires up a three shot. No good. The tip, it's gone. It's gone. It's gone. With 1.2 remaining, Knicks take the lead. No timeouts left.

Ed Vitagliano They have to get it in.

Steve Jordahl Harper lobs it inside. Castle hasn't lost it. That's it. It's over. The greatest comeback in NBA playoff history. The Knicks pull off the miracle comeback. Yeah. So 20 down, 29 points and that when you heard him say the Knicks take the lead, it was the first lead that they'd had. I don't know if they had one or two points at the very, very beginning.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Steve Jordahl The very. They didn't come back until the very, very end.

Ed Vitagliano How do you. Listen, if you're a San Antonio fan, this is going to be a collapse you'll never forget. If they wind up losing the series, which now they're down to the Knicks 3 to 1.

Steve Jordahl It'd be hard tonight. Whenever the next game is. I think it's tomorrow.

Ed Vitagliano If this is going to. This will be, this will haunt San Antonio fans for the rest of their lives. let me just, Let me just. I don't watch the NBA ever.

Tim Wildmon You've been there, hadn't you, as a Red Sox fan?

Ed Vitagliano So let me switch to hockey.

Tim Wildmon Please do.

Steve Jordahl Saturday is the, is the next game.

Ed Vitagliano 2013, game seven, between the Bruins and their arch enemies, the Toronto Maple Leafs in Boston. With 10 minutes left in the game, the Maple leafs go up four to one.

Tim Wildmon And in hockey, that's a 30 point basketball.

Ed Vitagliano That's right.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Ed Vitagliano And the Bruins came back and beat them in overtime. And if I am having a down day and I go like after the show, go to, you know, we're talking about YouTube that. I'll go to my, to eat lunch and put YouTube. Not only will I watch the gameplay of that, but there is a video of these fans in an apartment, Toronto fans. And they have a camera watching them from the, from the their tv. And they're going ballistic when they're up on the Bruins in Boston 4 to 1. And then it shows them as the, as the Bruins get closer and closer and closer. I'm just telling you that that makes me so happy.

Tim Wildmon Other people suffering.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Dad's happiness.

The Knicks only scored for an NBA team in the third and fourth quarter

Tim Wildmon So how do you. How did they blow? What what happened? Did they blow it or that.

Tim Wildmon No, they blew it. Well, the Knicks did come back, but I was. Steve's told me the box score, and the Knicks only scored for an NBA team. Listen to this. Like 14 points in both of those quarters, the third and the fourth quarter. Excuse, that's. And they got a 7 4, Ghazal. That, is going to be the next greatest thing. and I forget Wemby.

Steve Jordahl I think it's Wemby Victor and they

Tim Wildmon call him Wimby, but he's a phenomenal athlete.

Steve Jordahl They scored 14 points in the third quarter and 16 points. that's like a WNBA game. Of course, that's probably a lot of points for the wnba.

Tim Wildmon Or, or they threw the game. Oh, I'm not saying they did. I'm saying.

Ed Vitagliano Or some people. Some people throwing it out there. Some people say.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, so, no, I don't believe they threw the game. I'm just kidding. Go.

Ray: UK has a podcaster who is an avowed agnostic

Next story.

Steve Jordahl All right, the UK has a podcaster. His name is Steven Bartlett. He's the biggest podcaster in the uk. He's kind of the.

Tim Wildmon How much does he weigh?

Ed Vitagliano Not that kind of two stones.

Tim Wildmon Oh, I'm sorry, I don't know how

Ed Vitagliano much is talking about English. This Diary of a CEO.

Steve Jordahl I don't know.

Tim Wildmon I completely misunderstood. You meant big, as in popularity.

Steve Jordahl Popular. Very popular. His name is Steven Bartlett and he is kind of the UK's Joe Rogan. Right.

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Steve Jordahl So. And he's an avowed agnostic.

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Steve Jordahl He's very open about his lack of faith.

Tim Wildmon You need to be avowed if you're an agnostic.

Steve Jordahl You do.

Ed Vitagliano It is Diary of a CEO. It's a very good podcast.

Steve Jordahl Anyway, he was talking, he was talking with a guy named Jon, Lennox, who's a mathematician from Oxford and a Christian.

Ed Vitagliano He's outstanding.

Steve Jordahl And I want you to listen to, an observation that, this podcaster, makes that, he makes, because I think it's. Steven Bartlett has talked to Christians and he's talked to non Christians. But this is very, very interesting. And I, I love this. Ray, I'd love to get your thoughts about this. Cut 20.

Speaker E In a world with so many challenges, what can we do to restore hope and trigger engagement,

Ed Vitagliano give people a real basis for hope that transcends this world. And, the only place I know where to find that is in Christ and in Christianity.

Speaker E Jon, thank you. one of the most compelling arguments for, God that you've presented and your way of seeing the world and being is not actually Necessarily anything you've written in your books, or not necessarily anything you've said, it is actually you. And, you have a certain peace and contentment that I rarely see in people that I interview, but I often see and I've almost always seen in the Christians that I've interviewed. And this is a interesting phenomenon for me. I interviewed Wesley Huff recently. Do you know Wesley Huff?

Ed Vitagliano Yes. Yeah, he was the same Canadian. Yeah, Wesley's a bright cookie.

Speaker E Yeah, he was very much. He gave me the same feeling as you. Just like. Feels like a really happy person. Very sort of content rounded. Well, there are many of us.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Speaker E But it seems to be a trend that, you know, a lot of the Christian apologists that I've interviewed have that anchoring that so many of us are looking for.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, I. I watched some of that, at lunch this week. I don't know when this was, when this podcast occurred, but it's. It's making its. Its way around social media. So I watched part of this interview between. Jon Lennox is a treasure. Now he's in his 80s. I hope God gives him another 10 years at least. He is a profound thinker for the Christian faith, an apologist. And this young man, Steven Bartlett. He's an honest searcher, Ray. And those are the ones who, you know, Jesus says in, I think it's Matthew 11, that God hides the truth from the wise and intelligent, the proud, I think, but he reveals it to those who are humble.

Tim Wildmon You know, there's the story in the Gospels where I think it's one of the Pharisees who comes to Jesus and they're having a talk, and Jesus asks him a question, and the man gives an answer. And Jesus says, you're not far from the kingdom.

Ed Vitagliano Right. Amen.

Tim Wildmon You Listen to him, Mr. Bartlett. He's not far from the kingdom. And what has brought him near is not so much what we would call an apologetic argument, the ultimate apologetic of a life changed by the power of Jesus Christ. Because we can make our arguments, people can answer our arguments. They have no answer for a life of joy and hope and peace that's been transformed by Jesus Christ. I think if more Christians lived out their faith that way, showed their joy, there'd be more. There'd be more people coming closer to the kingdom that way.

Podcast phenomenon has taken root in modern society because you can share

Ed Vitagliano Do you think something's. You think something's happening in our country? I've been kind of astonished that Wesley Huff, you. Have you heard of him?

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano Oh, yeah. Like, he is a smart cookie. There are people that God seems to be raising up. And I see them on podcasts. It's just an interesting phenomenon, this podcast phenomenon that, has really taken root in modern society because you can share these things. You can share links to this. It pops up on X and YouTube and Instagram, these short clips, and then it draws people in. But I see people who are like Steven Bartlett, who have not probably darkened the door of a church, but they are connecting with and intersecting with Christians.

Tim Wildmon And.

Ed Vitagliano And it's like Athens. It's like the. What was it? The areopagus, where people met to discuss.

Tim Wildmon Right. Where it was. Anybody from anywhere could come and you could bring your ideas. It was like an Internet discussion board for the ancient world.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Okay. Wesley Huff has been on with Joe Rogan, the Gospel there. And Joe Rogan has. I mean, Joe Rogan's podcast, I guess, is the number one, or what's one

Steve Jordahl of them, at least in the United States. It's huge.

Tim Wildmon It's huge.

Steve Jordahl And I listen to him regularly.

Tim Wildmon Millions of people listen to him, and he is clearly number one. He likes Wesley Huff. They have a great time talking. But Wesley Huff doesn't back off from the gospel a bit. But he does it in a winsome, cheerful way.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, respectful.

Tim Wildmon Kind of reminds me of, what Mike Huckabee used to say. I'm a conservative, but I'm not mad about it.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, okay.

Tim Wildmon That's a great line. You see, it's a good thing to be a Christian and not be angry about it, just to be happy in the Lord. And I think a guy like Joe Rogan is clearly, at least considering the claims of Christ. There's more people like that out there than we suspect.

Ed Vitagliano That's right.

Steve Jordahl I need to put this out, for those. Anybody who wants to check out Joe Rogan. It can be incredible. Probably foul and grass.

Tim Wildmon We're not recommending people not recommend. We're not.

Steve Jordahl Joe Rogan podcast. I got. I gotta say, he. It. A lot of it depends on who he's interviewing. he'll interview, like, physicists and everything, and that can get very interesting. And usually it's pretty clean, but often he has his comedian friends on, and you never know.

Tim Wildmon Okay, let me say it this way. If you mean his. His podcasts are there. Look up the ones where Wesley Huff has been on with Joe Rogan. You'll, You, You'll. You'll see a guy skilled in the Bible, with the winsome personality, interacting with a man who's actually interested in what he's doing.

Ed Vitagliano And he's good At Apologetics.

Tim Wildmon Yes.

Ed Vitagliano He, he, he knows his stuff.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Ed Vitagliano He's heard probably all the questions and the challenging ones and has good answers for that. It's very, very informative. But it's not for kids. the Joe Rogan's not.

Tim Wildmon You're listening to Today's Issues. That's the name of this show on the American Family Radio Network. Tim, Ed Ray and Steve. And we appreciate you listening. Go ahead, Steve.

Justice Department sues Cleveland Clinic for doing gender reassignment surgeries on minors

Steve Jordahl All right. so in Cleveland, Ohio, there is a medical unit, called the Cleveland Clinic. And it was doing gender reassignment surgeries. It was playing with kids, it was cutting healthy body parts off kids. It was putting kids, young people on gender, on like, different, pediatric medicines and everything to try to change, as if you could change your gender. Well, it was already illegal in Ohio, so the Justice Department, brought a suit against them and they won. And I want you to hear this because the Cleveland Clinic has agreed to stop doing any gender, medicine on young kids. And it has also pledged $2 million as part of this agreement. This isn't, I'm sure their idea, $2 million towards helping people who want to detransition that someone like Chloe Cole, that went down this misguided path to think they could become the next. A different gender and they regret it and they want to come back. so the surgery is irreversible. Some of the drugs that they put you on make irreversible changes. And so they, they need help. And the Cleveland Clinic is being required to pledge $2 million towards detransitioning as well as having to stop all of its, ah, gender, reassignments.

Tim Wildmon I'm just gonna stop because these, because of what you meant m predicted a couple years ago, Steve. And that is, somebody's gonna, somebody, somebody, some kid is going to become an adult who had a sex change or had their body mutilated or taken hormone therapy or whatever when they were 14. Because you're supposed to affirm, you know, if a boy thinks he's a girl, you're supposed to affirm them or either you're a bigot or an irresponsible parent. So, and you said that what's going to happen is that 14 year old is going to become 21, 22 and go, oh my goodness, what in the world did I do to myself? Who allowed me to do this when I was a minor? Oh, it was this hospital and this doctor.

Tim Wildmon You know what, I'm going to get a lawyer and sue them.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon And it worked.

Steve Jordahl Yeah, it worked.

Tim Wildmon And you have that happen, then you're going to have lawyers for the hospital and the doctors say, you know what? You need to get out of this business because this is going to happen again. And that kind of, Not that they're ideological in one way or another. It's just a practical, practical answer is you can't be doing these kinds of surgeries and operations on minors, because it'll come. It can come back to bite you financially in a big way. And the liability. What if something goes wrong? They could get, you know, they could. So anyway, and I'm glad to see this because this is, this should be. These hospitals and doctors should be liable for what they do.

Ed Vitagliano Absolutely.

Tim Wildmon Minors.

Ed Vitagliano And they. And they're going to see Cleveland Clinic.

Tim Wildmon That's right.

Ed Vitagliano Million dollars. We don't want to get forced to pay anything. We're stopping now. And they may still get sued in the future and may not be able to avoid it.

Tim Wildmon Next story. Steve.

President Trump wants to put up a monument commemorating 250th anniversary

Steve Jordahl All right. You know, President Trump has decided he wants to put up a big, huge monument to the 250th anniversary of this country, and it's called the Triumphal Arch. It is going to be in Washington, D.C. the national park Service is putting it up, and they are going to have to do construction 20 hours a day for the next two to three years in order for it to be finished during President Trump's administration. Because if it's halfway done when President Trump leaves office and it happens to be a Democrat that comes in, I can guarantee you they'll stop that thing and tear it down.

Ed Vitagliano You think they would? They'd tear it down.

Steve Jordahl I can't imagine them. At least, this,

Ed Vitagliano And

Tim Wildmon where is it going to be placed? In front of the Lincoln Memorial on the Memorial Bridge crossing over into D.C. from Virginia. That's what it looks like to me.

Steve Jordahl Yeah. it's ours to be constructed out of concrete, clad with US sourced granite. Trying to find the address. It's going to be, According to the documents, workers, will require multiple cranes up to 320ft tall, taller than the U.S. capitol building. at least the construction equipment will be,

Tim Wildmon Yeah, you're not supposed to have anything in D.C. that, is taller than the U.S. capitol. That's why they don't have skyscrapers.

Steve Jordahl Right.

Tim Wildmon In D.C. but you're saying this, the, the arch will be, the, the equipment, like the cranes, will be taller than the Capitol when they're constructing it. Is that what.

Steve Jordahl Right, right. While during the construction. I think it's 250ft tall.

Tim Wildmon I was just going to say it's 250ft. So it's a massive.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano This artist rendition, rendering of it, looks.

Tim Wildmon Looks beautiful.

Ed Vitagliano It's going to say one nation under God. And the arch is also going to have a matching emblem that says liberty and justice for all. it's.

Tim Wildmon It's beautiful.

Ed Vitagliano It is beautiful.

Tim Wildmon Look, the rendering. I will say this. I don't, I don't know what. I don't know what the process is for approving these kinds of projects. Is it just depending on who the president is at the time, or is this something that requires congressional approval?

Ed Vitagliano It would. It's got to come out of somebody's budget.

Steve Jordahl well, the park.

Tim Wildmon Well, it starts with the truth. Social post. That's always. That's always step one. Right.

Steve Jordahl The National Park Service is in charge of it. So that's the budget. It'll come out of the.

Tim Wildmon Well, how much is it going to cost? What's the estimate?

Steve Jordahl Ah, that's a good question. let me look that up for you. Right.

Tim Wildmon Let me just say this, too, though. having been to Washington, D.C. many, many, many times, you, know they're running out of room for monuments inside the District of Columbia in the. In the Washington, D.C. and I'm not talking about way out. I'm talking about on the Mall area. And they. They're running out of places for, monuments. And so I don't know what they're going to do about that. Maybe, find another place.

Ed Vitagliano $100 million is the estimate.

Tim Wildmon What? How much?

Ed Vitagliano Hundred million.

Tim Wildmon It's actually pretty cheap.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano Comparative costs. The nearby Dwight D. Eisenhower memorial costs approximately 145 million.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, I would have guessed a lot more than that.

Ed Vitagliano And it is going to be a mix of public and taxpayer, money and private donations.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Next story, Steve.

For years, Jeffrey Wall flew for Air Canada without a pilot's license

Steve Jordahl All right, Next time you are on an Air Canada plane, you might want to stop by the cockpit and get the, pilot to show you his pilot's license. Because for years, Jeffrey Wallnua, who's 59 years old now, was assigned as a captain, for Air Canada, and he flew more than 900 flights. Thousands of passengers.

Tim Wildmon How is that possible?

Steve Jordahl And he didn't have a pilot's license.

Tim Wildmon This is not a good advertisement for Air Canada.

Steve Jordahl I don't think so.

Ed Vitagliano Well, it sounds like the way they run their government.

Tim Wildmon just like that movie Catch me if you can. That guy.

Ed Vitagliano Oh, yeah, yeah. Catch me if you can.

Steve Jordahl He didn't do the pipe. He didn't do the flying. He didn't do the flight.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Tim Wildmon That was a crazy book. I read that. That was a true story. Catch me if you can. I read the book, and then I saw the movie with Leonardo Dicabrio.

Tim Wildmon So this guy did hundreds of times, right?

Steve Jordahl 900 flights.

Tim Wildmon And he was the pilot captain.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Tim Wildmon He didn't have a pilot's license. And he's flying air.

Tim Wildmon I, don't know how there's questions. We have friends.

Tim Wildmon Yes.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon I don't know. So you're saying, Steve, if you fly Air Canada, just ask in, a friendly way. When you enter the plane, look up to the cockpit and say, may I see your pilots?

Ed Vitagliano How does. How do other pilots not catch this, at least initially? I mean, he must have had some flying experience.

Steve Jordahl Yeah, he had to have the tip off. Would have been, excuse me, co pilot. What's that button do right there? But he. I. I'm sure he flew sims simulators for.

Ed Vitagliano Oh, that's all you have to do.

Tim Wildmon The catch me if you can guy. The guy's name was Frank, I think, right?

Steve Jordahl Abnegale.

Tim Wildmon Abnegale, right.

Tim Wildmon But he, played the part of a. He faked being a doctor. Right.

Ed Vitagliano And a lawyer.

Tim Wildmon And a lawyer. And he did these kind of things for years. Yeah, he was.

Ed Vitagliano He was. He was a criminal because he was, you know, cashing checks.

Tim Wildmon He was later hired by the FBI to be. To catch scammers and frauds.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Fraudulent, actors.

Steve Jordahl Because of his, resume.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Wildmon You're real, aren't you, Steve?

Tim Wildmon You're.

Tim Wildmon You're really a radio.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Have you ever looked? We don't know.

Ed Vitagliano We don't know.

Tim Wildmon We don't know.

Tim Wildmon You said you used to be in radio.

Ed Vitagliano Exactly what you would expect a liar to say.

Tim Wildmon Of course.

Ed Vitagliano All right, how about your preacher's license? Right.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. Show them. Let's see them.

Tim Wildmon Of course. I'm a preacher.

Ed Vitagliano One thing you can fake.

Tim Wildmon All right, thank you for listening to this program today, and we hope you keep listening to AFR throughout the day, and we'll see you tomorrow for Trivia Friday.