Tim Wildmon: Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening to AFR. I'm Tim Wildmon, and in studio with me today is Wesley Wildmon.
Wesley: Good morning.
Tim Wildmon: Fred Jackson, coming to you, Tim, and Ray Pritchard. Ray Pritchard is in Florida. Good morning, Ray.
Ray Pritchard: Hey, Tim. How are you doing today?
Tim Wildmon: I'm doing great. I appreciate you being with us. I'm looking at this little weather report, and it just keeps raining and raining and raining. I guess South Florida, where you are, is the same way.
Ray Pritchard: It's a little closer than I thought. Somebody asked me, "Is this flooding happening?" The flooding is worse down south and east of where we are, but there are flooded areas not too far from here in Hudson. So we have gotten a lot of rain. We got about another inch a day or so ago.
Tim Wildmon: Wow. It's funny, although it's not really funny, it's ironic that you're getting all that rain while we have a drought. We need to ship some of it up to Mississippi.
Ray Pritchard: I know. We're about 500 miles from you, and we're in a drought, or maybe not even that far. A lot of the Southeast is in the same situation, but I think that's about to end. The rain is on its way.
Tim Wildmon: We had a little bit over the weekend in northeast Mississippi, and we're going to have a little bit tonight and tomorrow. Not much, but a little bit. There are some storms going on across the country on Election Day. Fred, is that going to stop the voters out there?
Fred: Not at all. There has been heavy turnout. Fifty-seven million Americans have already voted in early voting. There is a lot of intense interest on both sides, Republicans and Democrats, in this election, and it's being reflected in the vote so far. We're getting reports from various places on the East Coast where things opened up earlier today. There has been very heavy voter turnout, so it's going to be an interesting night.
Tim Wildmon: We'll be here at 6:00 Central for the American Family Radio election night special. I know I'm going to be here. Who else is scheduled to be here?
Wesley: A young man by the name of Wesley, sitting right beside us.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Wesley is going to be here. Walker is going to be here.
Wesley: Walker.
Tim Wildmon: I think Ed Vitagliano is going to be here, too.
Wesley: I talked to Ed about that. Ed is supposed to be here tonight to help us with the coverage.
Tim Wildmon: There's a big hockey game. I don't know about the hockey game, but he said to me, quote, "I'm going to need more money."
Wesley: Oh, okay.
Tim Wildmon: What am I going to have?
Wesley: I don't know what he wants.
Tim Wildmon: Overtime. I guess he wants overtime just to come in and do a little extra work. I don't know. I'll talk to him again, but he shut the door when we got to talking.
Wesley: I think he wants a Diet Coke amendment to the contract.
Tim Wildmon: That goes a long way. That's interchangeable with cash. He wants three Diet Cokes paid for, one per hour. We'll probably be here for a couple of hours, so that's what he wants.
Wesley: That's what he normally knocks down.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. I hope Diet Cokes aren't bad for you, Coach. If they are, Ed is doomed.
Fred: We are pausing our radio program that you hear every day after hours from 6:00 p.m. for a couple of hours. We're going to pause that and give you live coverage of what we're seeing in the election results.
Tim Wildmon: It's a big election day. It's the midterm election. By midterm, you mean between presidential elections. The House of Representatives will be voted on tonight across the country, all 435 members of the United States House of Representatives. That's every two years. One-third of the Senate is voted on every two years as well, so that's going on across the country.
You have a big gubernatorial race, and is there a Senate race also in Florida?
Ray Pritchard: Yes. I think the Republicans are going to hold the statehouse. Ron DeSantis, it's hard to express to other parts of the country how much the people of Florida love their governor. If he could run again, he would be kept in office. But I think with his support, Byron Donalds is going to take over the governorship. There is also the Senate race.
Tim Wildmon: The United States Senate race is for the woman who replaced Marco Rubio. Help me out here. Is it Moody?
Ray Pritchard: Ashley Moody.
Tim Wildmon: Ashley Moody. Okay, she's going to win, I think.
Ray Pritchard: She was put in the Senate seat when Marco Rubio accepted the Secretary of State position.
Tim Wildmon: Right.
Ray Pritchard: The governor of Florida appoints a temporary replacement, and she was the one. Now she has decided to run for the full six years. That's what's on the ballot in Florida, and she's been a rock star.
Tim Wildmon: She's going to win.
Ray Pritchard: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: That's interesting. For the Republicans, that's good to know because this is a year when Republicans are vulnerable all across the country. Tim, what is going to happen in Texas? That's a nail-biter right there.
Fred: That's the million-dollar question, Tim. That is one of the big ones we're going to be watching tonight, no question about it.
Wesley: I can help you out here.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, you go for it.
Wesley: Paxton's going to win.
Tim Wildmon: Break it down.
Wesley: I just did.
Tim Wildmon: You're going to bet your analysis?
Wesley: I'm not very good with analysis.
Tim Wildmon: Why are you off tonight?
Wesley: I'm actually a substitute tonight. I don't want to correct Fred on live radio, and I don't think I'm on full time.
Tim Wildmon: So you're on the bench, in case they need you?
Wesley: If he fouls out or Walker gets sick, I will be here. I'll be here on campus, cheering you on from the other side of that window.
Tim Wildmon: Maybe the reason you're not on the radio is that you're slaughtering the King's English.
Wesley: Sometimes it's on purpose. I just had to pick on you there a little bit. I think Talarico is going to lose and Paxton is going to win.
Tim Wildmon: Well, there you go, ladies and gentlemen. In all seriousness, that particular race is going to be watched very closely. Talarico has been polling ahead of Paxton by perhaps one to three percent over the last month, something like that, maybe two to four. All eyes are on that Senate race in Texas because Texas is a red state and has been for 20 years. We'll see what happens there.
Joining us to talk about Election Day across the country is a good friend, Dr. Frank Turek, host of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, which airs Saturday mornings at 9:00 Central and Sunday afternoons at 4:00 Central right here on the American Family Radio Network. Good morning, Frank.
Frank Turek: Good morning, gentlemen. By the way, the new update to I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist just came out one week ago. There is an updated version now, after 22 years.
Tim Wildmon: What changed?
Frank Turek: We added a lot more evidence. The arguments are the same, and the progression we go through to show that Christianity is true is the same, but there is more evidence for each of the arguments we make. We also respond to many of the objections that have been brought up since 2004, when the first edition was written. It just came out last week. It's called the updated version of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
Tim Wildmon: Go get it, faith people. That's Dr. Frank Turek's bestseller, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Where can people get it, Frank?
Frank Turek: They can get it from us at crossexamine.org. Click on the store. I think Amazon has run out of the first batch of it, but it will be in soon enough. They can also go to Christianbook and find it.
Tim Wildmon: Some people like the Amazon route because it helps get the book listed higher. The main thing is, folks, get a copy of Frank's updated version of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
Tim Wildmon: Do you have a Senate and a gubernatorial race in North Carolina, or is it just a Senate race?
Frank Turek: Just the Senate race. We have Michael Whatley, who ran the RNC, and Roy Cooper, who used to be the governor. That's here in North Carolina. But there are, as you guys have been talking about, some even more prominent races out there.
Probably the two most watched and most impactful are the one in Texas, where you have James Talarico, who has such extreme ideas, versus Ken Paxton in Texas. Then you have El-Sayed up there in Michigan running against Mike Rogers.
Tim Wildmon: How can you have a jihadist in the United States Senate?
Frank Turek: You can't believe in the Quran and the United States Constitution at the same time because they're at odds. El-Sayed won't say anything bad about the Muslim Brotherhood. When he was asked who was the bigger problem for the United States, Iran or Israel, he said they were both problems. How do you vote for a guy like that? That's just crazy, especially in America.
Tim Wildmon: I just got back from the United Kingdom.
Frank Turek: It's the nicest Muslim country I've been to.
Tim Wildmon: It's coming here unless people start voting the right way.
Wesley: At least we've got our borders secured now.
Frank Turek: We've got to keep them secure, and we've got to ensure that we don't get jihadists in our government.
Tim Wildmon: Frank, I agree with everything you're saying and with the concerns you're raising. You spend a lot of time on university campuses. Here's my theory: Our university campuses, with the help of a lot of money coming out of the Middle East, have indoctrinated our kids into socialism and a pro-Islam point of view. Am I overstating things?
Frank Turek: No, not at all. It's propaganda. If you look at it from an intellectual and historical perspective, there is no way anybody should be for socialism or Sharia law. Yet people seem to think those are two good ideas now.
Tim Wildmon: Why does your Facebook page keep saying I'm Pastor Jeff Mullen?
Frank Turek: I'm not Pastor Jeff Mullen.
Tim Wildmon: Are you sure you did not self-identify that way?
Frank Turek: I don't self-identify as that. I mean, he is Pastor Jeff Mullen, but that's not me. He's going to get all sorts of hate mail because of what I'm saying.
Tim Wildmon: Get his mug off your Facebook page.
Frank Turek: We're working on that right now.
Tim Wildmon: I don't want the guy to get knocked off because of me.
Frank Turek: We need to take a break right here.
Tim Wildmon: We're correct in that, my friend. We breathe in and breathe out. By the way, vote your faith.net will tell you where all the candidates stand, and we'll link to your site. I think your site is iVoteAtGod.com, right?
Frank Turek: I Vote at God dot com.
Tim Wildmon: It is a big day. We'll see what happens now.
Tim Wildmon: Just to put this in historical perspective, folks, the party that's in power in the White House, in this case the Republicans with President Trump, normally loses seats in the House of Representatives during the midterm elections. That's not a shocker. How big a wave the Democrats will win, or whether they will win one, is yet to be determined.
But in the Senate, and I'm a broken record here for those who remember what a record is, the Senate is where federal judges are confirmed. I don't want to see the Democrats take over the United States Senate and block every federal judge appointment that Trump brings forward. That would be the worst-case scenario for me after tonight.
If it's 50-50, Vice President J.D. Vance breaks the tie in the Senate on these judges. Quite frankly, there is not going to be much legislation passed even if the Democrats do take over the House of Representatives. They would change committee chairmanships and so forth, but we have hardly had any significant legislation passed in this country in 25 years. When you include the divided House and Senate, the presidential veto, and the filibuster, it is hard to get anything done.
Wesley: You have to mention the progression of the left and its ideology. It is so radical that there is very little common ground between the two parties, unlike what there probably was 25 years ago.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, Democrat and Republican, had a good relationship and got some things done.
Listen, folks, it's 10:20 Central Time right here in the morning, so wherever you listen, the polls are going to be open for a few more hours. Do not fail to vote today, and get as many people as you possibly can to vote. Your friends, your family, your church members, remind them how significant and important it is to go vote today, especially if you live in one of these states, like Texas or Michigan, where so much is on the line with these Senate seats.
Everybody needs to go vote, but especially our friends and family in Texas and Michigan. If you have to go pick them up in your car and take them to the polls, that needs to be done.
Wesley: Now, you can pay them personally, you mean, to vote?
Tim Wildmon: There is NIL money available if you need to do that. Go ahead, comment or talk to us here.
Wesley: Frank, I wanted to circle back to something you said about El-Sayed. You called him a jihadist. We all know he would take exception to that, but you're looking at his background and where he comes from. Explain to us what you meant when you called him what he really is, a jihadist.
Frank Turek: A jihadist is somebody who might use violence in order to advance Islam, or who certainly will not condemn violence that advances Islam. He will not condemn Hezbollah, and he will not condemn Hamas. He puts Israel and Iran on the same moral level, which is hard to fathom because the Iranians, if they had their way, would take Israel out. That is in their religion and certainly in the Hamas charter, which is who Iran supports. They support genocide, the genocide of the Jews.
The ironic thing is that people are claiming Israel is committing genocide, while Hamas committed genocide on October 7. In their charter, which was established in 1988 and can be read online, they don't want a two-state solution. They want a one-state solution. "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is basically a chant for genocide, to murder all the Jews.
It is unfathomable to me that people don't understand this. When jihadists from Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah say they want to murder all Jews and Christians, we don't believe them. This has been going on since 1988, when Hamas was established, and all the way back to 632, when Muhammad died and told his followers to kill any Jew who came under their power. This has been going on for 1,400 years. It is not new, and it did not start on 9/11.
You can't believe in the Quran and the United States Constitution at the same time. They are contradictory. They have contradictory values and contradictory goals. Yet this is what El-Sayed believes. He believes in the Quran. He is not telling you the truth about the fact that he believes in freedom of religion, freedom of the press, or freedom of speech. He doesn't.
Tim Wildmon: Frank is talking about the Senate race in Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed is the Democrat nominee, running against Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee. Mike Rogers is a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives. El-Sayed is coming out of the medical profession, or what does that mean?
Wesley: He was trained as a physician, but he never actually became one.
Tim Wildmon: I'm getting the feeling you guys don't care for this El-Sayed fellow.
Wesley: He didn't pass whatever test you need to take to become an MD.
Tim Wildmon: Not that that's relevant. I'm kidding around here, but it is a very serious moment, and we will see what happens. Michigan has been a purple state, if you will, and it is very divided between the east and west sides of the state.
Wesley: There is a very large Jewish population in a suburb of Detroit. More than 100,000 Jews live there.
Tim Wildmon: I didn't realize that.
Wesley: It is something like Oak Hills, or Oak Park, of Detroit. They have a very large Jewish population.
Tim Wildmon: Speaking of El-Sayed, one of the things he said during this campaign was in response to an attack on a synagogue earlier this year in the Detroit area. El-Sayed said, "Hurt people hurt people." That's what he said about the man who drove his vehicle into that synagogue.
Wesley: He was basically justifying it. All the things that Frank mentioned would normally be disqualifying. It is kind of stunning that this guy is still in the race.
Tim Wildmon: In fact, his opponent in the Democratic primary, Haley Stevens, pulled her endorsement of Abdul El-Sayed in just the last couple of days and turned her endorsement to Mike Rogers.
Wesley: She didn't just pull out and say, "I'm not endorsing him, but I'm staying out of this one." She turned her support to Mike Rogers because she said many of the same things Frank was just saying: that he is anti-American, anti-Jewish, and anti-Semitic, and she can't support that.
Tim Wildmon: Another way of saying it is that he's too far left for her. She doesn't even want him to win. She's a left-winger herself.
Wesley: She's saying, "I can't embrace the hate of the left."
Tim Wildmon: You're listening to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Frank, thanks for being with us. Tell us again about the book that's out and how people can get it.
Frank Turek: It's I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, the updated version. I'm going to be talking about it this weekend on the American Family Radio Network.
Frank Turek: Let me mention one other thing about James Talarico down there in Texas. You've been through all of the crazy things he has said about God being nonbinary, that there are six genders, and all of that. He's also said he wants to dismantle capitalism.
Tim Wildmon: You know what the alternative is to that?
Frank Turek: Socialism.
Tim Wildmon: Which means we'll all be equally miserable.
Frank Turek: The free enterprise system has brought more people out of poverty than any system in history, and yet he wants to dismantle it. If you want to see prosperity go by the boards, vote for James Talarico. It is madness what he's advocating.
Tim Wildmon: These are far-left radicals. They may smile well, wear the right jacket, stand in front of a camera, and maybe even speak a little Christianese sometimes, but these ideas, as Frank just said, will destroy our country if they are implemented. They are sweeping the Democratic Party.
Wesley: We have a minute left. Frank, have you noticed the irony that when we want to use a biblical worldview for a position we believe in, we can't do it? But when the left uses the Bible, it is okay. When Talarico uses the Bible, it's okay.
Frank Turek: Oh, yes. He does that all the time, and he uses the Bible wrongly. He says he wants the government to take care of the poor, when the Bible says Christians ought to be taking care of the poor.
Wesley: Yes.
Frank Turek: He's misquoting the Bible, and everybody applauds him. We quote the Bible properly to say that the government is in place to protect innocent people by punishing wrongdoers, and we get all sorts of claims that we're Christian nationalists.
Tim Wildmon: That's a good point. All right, we're going to take a break right here. We'll be back. Thank you, Frank. We appreciate it, my friend.
Frank Turek: God bless you guys.
Tim Wildmon: Hey, welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Tim, Wesley, Fred, and Ray are with us. We'll let Frank go. Frank will be on with us tonight during our coverage, right?
Fred: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: Is he going to be on?
Fred: I have the list. Give me just a minute. You keep talking, and I'm going to pull up the list of the people who are going to be there.
Tim Wildmon: Our ladies, Jenna, are going to be on with us. Did you hear my tour spot there, Fred?
Fred: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: I think I need to change that. Do you think it's offensive to people?
Fred: I don't think so.
Tim Wildmon: Do you hear that right?
Fred: Yes, I did.
Tim Wildmon: I think we should keep it just the way it is. If people don't want to go with us on any of our tours, I don't know what their problem is.
Fred: We're just calling it the way we see it.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. Call it the way you see it. So, what are you going to say, Wesley?
Wesley: Sandy Rios, Abe Hamilton, Tony Perkins, Todd Starnes, Jenna Ellis, Davey Woodnall, and James Taylor.
Tim Wildmon: James Taylor?
Wesley: James Taylor.
Tim Wildmon: James Taylor is going to be with them?
Wesley: James Taylor.
Tim Wildmon: That's big news for the network. Is he going to play his guitar?
Wesley: I do know this one. "I know that I..." Most of the time.
Tim Wildmon: Most of the time, you all leave me behind on things from the '60s and '70s. I just sit here for five minutes.
Wesley, I've seen fire and I've seen rain. You know that, right?
Wesley: Yes. Do you have any more in there?
Tim Wildmon: Well done.
Wesley: You're making yourself laugh there.
Tim Wildmon: I am. I'm cracking myself up right there.
Wesley: I think you're making fun of old people.
Tim Wildmon: Not intentionally.
Wesley: It seems like every two weeks somebody dies who I grew up watching on television or hearing on the radio. I'm going, "Wow. Who's next?" Dolly Parton passed away recently. All of us grew up watching and listening to Dolly Parton, and you're going, "Wait a minute. She's mortal too."
Tim Wildmon: Tonight we'll be here with our coverage from 6:00 to 9:00 Central right here on American Family Radio. You can stream our coverage at afr.net and stream.afa.net. We'll be streaming on Facebook too.
Fred: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: We'll also be updating our newscasts throughout the night. In fact, one of our anchors is coming in at midnight to do fresh updates all night long because we've got a big Senate race in Alaska. Keep it on American Family Radio tonight, folks, all night.
Ray, Fred, Wesley, I'm talking about this because I hope it goes well tonight for conservatives. I'm holding out hope that they can hang on to the Senate. But whatever happens tonight, the Lord is in control. We know that, and I don't mean to be cliche. God is in control of everything, so we can bank on that.
Then, as one of the many reasons not to be depressed, we have some great college football coming up Saturday.
Wesley: That's right. It's a big weekend.
Tim Wildmon: You can get your popcorn out. We've got Alabama going to LSU, which is going to be a good one, even though both of them have two losses. Then we have Georgia at Ole Miss.
Wesley: I guess you're SEC-centric right here.
Tim Wildmon: Georgia at Ole Miss is going to be a good one. Then you've got undefeated, number-one-ranked Miami playing at Notre Dame.
Wesley: Did you know this game?
Tim Wildmon: Huge, huge game. It's a nighttime national game. I'm a big Notre Dame fan. There was a 30 for 30 documentary about the Notre Dame-Miami rivalry from the '80s. Do you remember, with Lou Holtz? It was called "Catholics Versus Convicts."
Wesley: Right, because Miami had the reputation of having a bunch of thugs in their football program back in the '80s.
Tim Wildmon: It was a reputation they rightly earned, by the way. The Catholics were the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Anyway, they renew their rivalry coming up Saturday night. Notre Dame is a five-and-a-half-point favorite.
Wesley: Notre Dame is favored by five and a half even though Miami is number one.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. All right, Fred, back to the hard news here.
Fred: Yes, it is Election Day, and this morning President Trump was a guest on the Fox and Friends program. Being Election Day, it was obvious what he talked about: getting the vote out and discussing socialism as the alternative to what the Republicans have been offering. He went down the list of everything he has done since his election as president again in 2024.
But then there was a showstopper that I don't think anybody expected. He had a huge announcement regarding Israel. President Trump, on Fox this morning, announced that the United States is ending its long tradition of direct financial aid to Israel, ending the four billion dollars a year in aid. This is how it sounded.
President Trump: Now, as far as paying Israel, Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel four billion dollars a year. We made a deal months ago that we're stopping, and they are fine with it, because they've become a very successful country and don't need it. We won't be paying Israel anymore, so it's just a wasted thing. We've already agreed that by the end of this year we won't be paying Israel. That will help Israel if they need it. They've been a great ally.
Fred: That was the announcement, but it was quite a shocker. Even the president, a little bit later in the interview, gave one of the reasons he made this announcement. He said, quote, "The left uses the four-billion-dollar payment that everybody knows about. It's no secret, as a signal of unfairness, and we can't allow that to happen. I don't like that because it's too easy. It's almost too easy a target. Bibi and I have been talking, and we've agreed." End quote.
I watched a report out of Tel Aviv just a few moments before coming into the studio. The Fox correspondent said this had been received with great shock in Israel. While it is true that the president and Prime Minister Netanyahu have been talking about this, the reporter said Prime Minister Netanyahu believed this drawdown of direct U.S. support would occur over 10 years.
Tim Wildmon: Are you serious?
Fred: Yes. But the president saying this morning that it's ending now, in 2026, was a shock.
Tim Wildmon: I did a quick search, so I can't verify whether this is accurate or not. All I typed into Brave was "foreign aid from U.S. countries." It said the United States was the world's largest foreign aid donor in 2023, providing $62 billion in official foreign aid around the world. The top recipients in 2025 were Ukraine, at $6.7 billion; Israel, at $3.3 billion; Jordan, at $1.6 billion; and on and on.
Israel has long been a top recipient of United States foreign aid. That is true because they've been our number-one ally in the Middle East, and they've been threatened from across the region. Hezbollah and Hamas are always threatening and attacking them. The United States has said, "We stand with you, Israel."
Fred, if what you said is true, I'm not with you. That's your information.
Fred: I did hear Benjamin Netanyahu say about two months ago, or six weeks ago, that they wanted to become more independent.
Tim Wildmon: They don't want to take United States money for aid.
Fred: But Benjamin Netanyahu did not say at the time that they wanted to cut it off immediately.
Tim Wildmon: I'm going to withhold judgment until I hear more from President Trump, but I hope it is not true that Trump unilaterally cut off all money supporting Israel, cold turkey, at the end of 2026. I hope that isn't true. But it sounds like, from what you're saying, that Israel is stunned that Trump did this.
Fred: According to the Fox correspondent in Tel Aviv this morning, it is being received with shock. The caveat was that Netanyahu and Trump had talked about ending that aid, but according to the correspondent, Netanyahu's proposal was for a gradual diminishing of that direct aid over a 10-year period. President Trump did say that if Israel needs help, we will help them. I'm not sure what that means at this point.
Tim Wildmon: That's why the timing of this is concerning. Why did he announce it on Election Day?
Fred: Exactly.
Tim Wildmon: I hope the news of it flies under the radar.
Fred: In that speech, he said he was trying to take away a talking point from the Democrats.
Tim Wildmon: But why? If you're going to do that, do it six weeks ago. Why this morning? It has no impact on where the Democrats are with Israel. Does it have an impact on the turnout of young Republicans to vote? I don't know.
Wesley: If you really wanted this to be part of the campaign, say it six weeks ago and let the debate begin. There are still tens of millions of Americans who hold Israel close to their hearts, believe Israel is our best friend in the Middle East, and want to see America do whatever we need to do to defend Israel, surrounded as they are by nations that would wipe them out today if they could.
Tim Wildmon: What if they didn't have the Iron Dome?
Wesley: Israel would be obliterated. They would not even exist.
Tim Wildmon: There is no telling how much money it costs to have that kind of defense system in Israel.
Wesley: It is a perfectly legitimate goal from the Israeli side to say, "Let's become more independent." We are in favor of a gradual drawdown. But to suddenly say on Election Day, "This is November 3, and by the end of December there will be no more money," is different. I want to hear from Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister. I want to hear what he has to say today.
Tim Wildmon: It's hard to make up your mind when President Trump is speaking, then you add the headlines and what Fred read about the Tel Aviv commentary. All of that is up and down, up and down. There is no flat.
Wesley: Let me add this real quick. There have been times over the last two or three years when Trump has been publicly at odds with Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel. I was waiting to hear him say, "They frustrated me in this way, and I'm doing this." I didn't get that from the tone or the things he said. It didn't sound like he was doing it out of frustration or malice, or saying, "I don't like the way you're leading, so I'm going to pull the money."
However, if he made this announcement without first talking with Benjamin Netanyahu and reaching an agreement, I would have a problem with that.
Tim Wildmon: So they have a united front?
Wesley: I would want to hear Benjamin Netanyahu's response as prime minister.
Craig: I'm a little disappointed if he announced it this morning because he wants to take away a talking point from the Democrats. That's a little late.
Wesley: Why do we care what the Democrats think? Let's just do the right thing.
Craig: That is what he said. President Trump said that financial support of Israel is one of the Democrats' strongest talking points, as if he sees that as an argument.
Tim Wildmon: Here's the bottom line. Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza. The Gaza Strip is down in the southeastern part of Israel, on the border of the Mediterranean. We all know what's going on. Israel is having to use its military to fight the terrorist group Hamas inside Gaza. Gaza is mixed in with the civilian population, so when they drop bombs, people die. Women die, children die, and noncombatants die.
That makes international news because people say, "Israel is committing genocide. They're killing innocent people, and we're funding it."
Wesley: I'm going to get to that.
Tim Wildmon: They say, "Israel continues to kill people in Gaza, and who's paying for that? The United States is, because we give them three billion dollars." They went after Biden on this too. This is bipartisan.
In fact, if you want to find out what is happening in the Democratic Party, they are about to have an intense war within the party itself because some people are going to want to purge themselves of Jews and anybody who supports Israel in any way.
Wesley: Can I ask all three of you a question? You have been doing this a lot longer than I have, and you've observed different presidential politics. If Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump, and their teams or administrations, agreed to end the aid over a 10-year period because Netanyahu wants Israel to become more independent, do we have as much of a problem with that?
Tim Wildmon: If there is an agreement between Israel and the United States, and Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump are in total agreement for the purpose of Israel becoming independent, then that's their decision.
Wesley: I don't have a problem with that. But if Trump is undercutting Israel in the name of political expediency so he can get the left off his back, then I have a big problem.
Craig: Me too. But we don't know the answer to that, probably for the next couple of weeks, until we hear from Benjamin Netanyahu.
Wesley: Does that make sense?
Craig: It does. The fundamental question we're all thinking about is whether this represents a fundamental reshaping of America's relationship with Israel. If you go back to 1948, there was more or less a solid wall of support, Democrat or Republican.
Tim Wildmon: Until Obama.
Craig: Until Obama. He's the outlier there. But with all the others, you never had to ask Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, or Walter Mondale whether we should support Israel. Even Biden was fairly supportive. Does this now mean a fundamental reshaping of American policy?
At least inside the Democratic Party, there is already an internal war between people who support Israel and people who hate Israel.
Tim Wildmon: Wesley, you made the comment about young Republican voters. It does seem to be true that there is less support for Israel among young Republicans than among people my age.
Wesley: I mentioned this before, but I want to distinguish between the two different reasons for the position of young Republicans and that of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party hates Israel, as we have discussed. But the young Republicans' position is more about staying out of foreign affairs altogether.
Tim Wildmon: Right.
Wesley: It is not necessarily picking on Israel. They say we need to stay out of foreign wars. This is the Tucker Carlson position, and J.D. Vance leans that way. The argument is that Israel drew us into the war with Iran, that we should not be fighting or bombing Iran, and that if Benjamin Netanyahu had not convinced President Trump that the United States needed to join them, the world would be normal and we would not be hated by part of the Muslim world.
That is the argument they are going to make. It costs us a lot of money to be involved in foreign entanglements, and nobody likes to be at war. But sometimes you have to be at war to preserve your way of life, your commerce, your freedom, and your liberty.
Craig: Tim, I think the one part of that we can all agree on is that we don't know the interpersonal details between Netanyahu and Trump behind the scenes before this whole thing with Iran started. But I'm under the strong impression that President Trump truly thought back in February that this would be a four- or five-week deal, a month or two months. I don't think he thought we would still be fighting in November.
Tim Wildmon: I agree. I don't know whose fault that is, because things can happen that are unforeseen, unintended consequences, as they say. However, when it comes to warfare, you have contingency plans.
Somebody like Pete Hegseth, for example, or the Secretary of War, would come in with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and say, "Listen, Mr. President, here's how it's going to go. If this happens, this happens. If this happens, this happens. If this happens, this happens. But regardless, we will be out in six weeks."
Or they could say, "Mr. President, you understand we're committing to a year here, right? We might have to use the Marines to land and take over, or the Army, or whatever. You understand that, right?"
Craig: That's what's confusing to me. Everybody was saying all spring and summer, "What are we doing?" We seem to be playing a game without a game plan.
Wesley: The communication from the White House and from Trump was terrible.
Craig: It was awful. He would come out and say, "We're going to bomb them into oblivion," and the next day say, "We're negotiating." It gave us whiplash.
Wesley: I told you all about four weeks in, "Go ahead and have this conversation, but if we say he's negotiating, everything is changed." I don't want to have that conversation. That means we have a memorandum of understanding and all of that.
Tim Wildmon: It sounds like they are saying, "At any point, deal."
Wesley: I'm not saying President Trump's motives were wrong. His initial support of Israel and his desire to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon were right. I'm saying that afterward he seemed to be treading water and not giving us any direction on what was happening, other than saying one thing one day and something else the next.
Tim Wildmon: Underline what you said: It's a game with no game plan.
Wesley: It's a game with no game plan. Here we are. I was saying this needed to be over by Memorial Day, and I didn't mean 2027.
Tim Wildmon: I'm with you. Are you with me, brother?
Wesley: I gave him three months, and I'm over it. I'm telling you.
Tim Wildmon: Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening to AFR. I'm Tim Wildmon, and in studio with me today is Wesley Wildmon.
Wesley: Good morning.
Tim Wildmon: Fred Jackson, coming to you, Tim, and Ray Pritchard. Ray Pritchard is in Florida. Good morning, Ray.
Ray Pritchard: Hey, Tim. How are you doing today?
Tim Wildmon: I'm doing great. I appreciate you being with us. I'm looking at this little weather report, and it just keeps raining and raining and raining. I guess South Florida, where you are, is the same way.
Ray Pritchard: It's a little closer than I thought. Somebody asked me, "Is this flooding happening?" The flooding is worse down south and east of where we are, but there are flooded areas not too far from here in Hudson. So we have gotten a lot of rain. We got about another inch a day or so ago.
Tim Wildmon: Wow. It's funny, although it's not really funny, it's ironic that you're getting all that rain while we have a drought. We need to ship some of it up to Mississippi.
Ray Pritchard: I know. We're about 500 miles from you, and we're in a drought, or maybe not even that far. A lot of the Southeast is in the same situation, but I think that's about to end. The rain is on its way.
Tim Wildmon: We had a little bit over the weekend in northeast Mississippi, and we're going to have a little bit tonight and tomorrow. Not much, but a little bit. There are some storms going on across the country on Election Day. Fred, is that going to stop the voters out there?
Fred: Not at all. There has been heavy turnout. Fifty-seven million Americans have already voted in early voting. There is a lot of intense interest on both sides, Republicans and Democrats, in this election, and it's being reflected in the vote so far. We're getting reports from various places on the East Coast where things opened up earlier today. There has been very heavy voter turnout, so it's going to be an interesting night.
Tim Wildmon: We'll be here at 6:00 Central for the American Family Radio election night special. I know I'm going to be here. Who else is scheduled to be here?
Wesley: A young man by the name of Wesley, sitting right beside us.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Wesley is going to be here. Walker is going to be here.
Wesley: Walker.
Tim Wildmon: I think Ed Vitagliano is going to be here, too.
Wesley: I talked to Ed about that. Ed is supposed to be here tonight to help us with the coverage.
Tim Wildmon: There's a big hockey game. I don't know about the hockey game, but he said to me, quote, "I'm going to need more money."
Wesley: Oh, okay.
Tim Wildmon: What am I going to have?
Wesley: I don't know what he wants.
Tim Wildmon: Overtime. I guess he wants overtime just to come in and do a little extra work. I don't know. I'll talk to him again, but he shut the door when we got to talking.
Wesley: I think he wants a Diet Coke amendment to the contract.
Tim Wildmon: That goes a long way. That's interchangeable with cash. He wants three Diet Cokes paid for, one per hour. We'll probably be here for a couple of hours, so that's what he wants.
Wesley: That's what he normally knocks down.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. I hope Diet Cokes aren't bad for you, Coach. If they are, Ed is doomed.
Fred: We are pausing our radio program that you hear every day after hours from 6:00 p.m. for a couple of hours. We're going to pause that and give you live coverage of what we're seeing in the election results.
Tim Wildmon: It's a big election day. It's the midterm election. By midterm, you mean between presidential elections. The House of Representatives will be voted on tonight across the country, all 435 members of the United States House of Representatives. That's every two years. One-third of the Senate is voted on every two years as well, so that's going on across the country.
You have a big gubernatorial race, and is there a Senate race also in Florida?
Ray Pritchard: Yes. I think the Republicans are going to hold the statehouse. Ron DeSantis, it's hard to express to other parts of the country how much the people of Florida love their governor. If he could run again, he would be kept in office. But I think with his support, Byron Donalds is going to take over the governorship. There is also the Senate race.
Tim Wildmon: The United States Senate race is for the woman who replaced Marco Rubio. Help me out here. Is it Moody?
Ray Pritchard: Ashley Moody.
Tim Wildmon: Ashley Moody. Okay, she's going to win, I think.
Ray Pritchard: She was put in the Senate seat when Marco Rubio accepted the Secretary of State position.
Tim Wildmon: Right.
Ray Pritchard: The governor of Florida appoints a temporary replacement, and she was the one. Now she has decided to run for the full six years. That's what's on the ballot in Florida, and she's been a rock star.
Tim Wildmon: She's going to win.
Ray Pritchard: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: That's interesting. For the Republicans, that's good to know because this is a year when Republicans are vulnerable all across the country. Tim, what is going to happen in Texas? That's a nail-biter right there.
Fred: That's the million-dollar question, Tim. That is one of the big ones we're going to be watching tonight, no question about it.
Wesley: I can help you out here.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, you go for it.
Wesley: Paxton's going to win.
Tim Wildmon: Break it down.
Wesley: I just did.
Tim Wildmon: You're going to bet your analysis?
Wesley: I'm not very good with analysis.
Tim Wildmon: Why are you off tonight?
Wesley: I'm actually a substitute tonight. I don't want to correct Fred on live radio, and I don't think I'm on full time.
Tim Wildmon: So you're on the bench, in case they need you?
Wesley: If he fouls out or Walker gets sick, I will be here. I'll be here on campus, cheering you on from the other side of that window.
Tim Wildmon: Maybe the reason you're not on the radio is that you're slaughtering the King's English.
Wesley: Sometimes it's on purpose. I just had to pick on you there a little bit. I think Talarico is going to lose and Paxton is going to win.
Tim Wildmon: Well, there you go, ladies and gentlemen. In all seriousness, that particular race is going to be watched very closely. Talarico has been polling ahead of Paxton by perhaps one to three percent over the last month, something like that, maybe two to four. All eyes are on that Senate race in Texas because Texas is a red state and has been for 20 years. We'll see what happens there.
Joining us to talk about Election Day across the country is a good friend, Dr. Frank Turek, host of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, which airs Saturday mornings at 9:00 Central and Sunday afternoons at 4:00 Central right here on the American Family Radio Network. Good morning, Frank.
Frank Turek: Good morning, gentlemen. By the way, the new update to I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist just came out one week ago. There is an updated version now, after 22 years.
Tim Wildmon: What changed?
Frank Turek: We added a lot more evidence. The arguments are the same, and the progression we go through to show that Christianity is true is the same, but there is more evidence for each of the arguments we make. We also respond to many of the objections that have been brought up since 2004, when the first edition was written. It just came out last week. It's called the updated version of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
Tim Wildmon: Go get it, faith people. That's Dr. Frank Turek's bestseller, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Where can people get it, Frank?
Frank Turek: They can get it from us at crossexamine.org. Click on the store. I think Amazon has run out of the first batch of it, but it will be in soon enough. They can also go to Christianbook and find it.
Tim Wildmon: Some people like the Amazon route because it helps get the book listed higher. The main thing is, folks, get a copy of Frank's updated version of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
Tim Wildmon: Do you have a Senate and a gubernatorial race in North Carolina, or is it just a Senate race?
Frank Turek: Just the Senate race. We have Michael Whatley, who ran the RNC, and Roy Cooper, who used to be the governor. That's here in North Carolina. But there are, as you guys have been talking about, some even more prominent races out there.
Probably the two most watched and most impactful are the one in Texas, where you have James Talarico, who has such extreme ideas, versus Ken Paxton in Texas. Then you have El-Sayed up there in Michigan running against Mike Rogers.
Tim Wildmon: How can you have a jihadist in the United States Senate?
Frank Turek: You can't believe in the Quran and the United States Constitution at the same time because they're at odds. El-Sayed won't say anything bad about the Muslim Brotherhood. When he was asked who was the bigger problem for the United States, Iran or Israel, he said they were both problems. How do you vote for a guy like that? That's just crazy, especially in America.
Tim Wildmon: I just got back from the United Kingdom.
Frank Turek: It's the nicest Muslim country I've been to.
Tim Wildmon: It's coming here unless people start voting the right way.
Wesley: At least we've got our borders secured now.
Frank Turek: We've got to keep them secure, and we've got to ensure that we don't get jihadists in our government.
Tim Wildmon: Frank, I agree with everything you're saying and with the concerns you're raising. You spend a lot of time on university campuses. Here's my theory: Our university campuses, with the help of a lot of money coming out of the Middle East, have indoctrinated our kids into socialism and a pro-Islam point of view. Am I overstating things?
Frank Turek: No, not at all. It's propaganda. If you look at it from an intellectual and historical perspective, there is no way anybody should be for socialism or Sharia law. Yet people seem to think those are two good ideas now.
Tim Wildmon: Why does your Facebook page keep saying I'm Pastor Jeff Mullen?
Frank Turek: I'm not Pastor Jeff Mullen.
Tim Wildmon: Are you sure you did not self-identify that way?
Frank Turek: I don't self-identify as that. I mean, he is Pastor Jeff Mullen, but that's not me. He's going to get all sorts of hate mail because of what I'm saying.
Tim Wildmon: Get his mug off your Facebook page.
Frank Turek: We're working on that right now.
Tim Wildmon: I don't want the guy to get knocked off because of me.
Frank Turek: We need to take a break right here.
Tim Wildmon: We're correct in that, my friend. We breathe in and breathe out. By the way, vote your faith.net will tell you where all the candidates stand, and we'll link to your site. I think your site is iVoteAtGod.com, right?
Frank Turek: I Vote at God dot com.
Tim Wildmon: It is a big day. We'll see what happens now.
Tim Wildmon: Just to put this in historical perspective, folks, the party that's in power in the White House, in this case the Republicans with President Trump, normally loses seats in the House of Representatives during the midterm elections. That's not a shocker. How big a wave the Democrats will win, or whether they will win one, is yet to be determined.
But in the Senate, and I'm a broken record here for those who remember what a record is, the Senate is where federal judges are confirmed. I don't want to see the Democrats take over the United States Senate and block every federal judge appointment that Trump brings forward. That would be the worst-case scenario for me after tonight.
If it's 50-50, Vice President J.D. Vance breaks the tie in the Senate on these judges. Quite frankly, there is not going to be much legislation passed even if the Democrats do take over the House of Representatives. They would change committee chairmanships and so forth, but we have hardly had any significant legislation passed in this country in 25 years. When you include the divided House and Senate, the presidential veto, and the filibuster, it is hard to get anything done.
Wesley: You have to mention the progression of the left and its ideology. It is so radical that there is very little common ground between the two parties, unlike what there probably was 25 years ago.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, Democrat and Republican, had a good relationship and got some things done.
Listen, folks, it's 10:20 Central Time right here in the morning, so wherever you listen, the polls are going to be open for a few more hours. Do not fail to vote today, and get as many people as you possibly can to vote. Your friends, your family, your church members, remind them how significant and important it is to go vote today, especially if you live in one of these states, like Texas or Michigan, where so much is on the line with these Senate seats.
Everybody needs to go vote, but especially our friends and family in Texas and Michigan. If you have to go pick them up in your car and take them to the polls, that needs to be done.
Wesley: Now, you can pay them personally, you mean, to vote?
Tim Wildmon: There is NIL money available if you need to do that. Go ahead, comment or talk to us here.
Wesley: Frank, I wanted to circle back to something you said about El-Sayed. You called him a jihadist. We all know he would take exception to that, but you're looking at his background and where he comes from. Explain to us what you meant when you called him what he really is, a jihadist.
Frank Turek: A jihadist is somebody who might use violence in order to advance Islam, or who certainly will not condemn violence that advances Islam. He will not condemn Hezbollah, and he will not condemn Hamas. He puts Israel and Iran on the same moral level, which is hard to fathom because the Iranians, if they had their way, would take Israel out. That is in their religion and certainly in the Hamas charter, which is who Iran supports. They support genocide, the genocide of the Jews.
The ironic thing is that people are claiming Israel is committing genocide, while Hamas committed genocide on October 7. In their charter, which was established in 1988 and can be read online, they don't want a two-state solution. They want a one-state solution. "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is basically a chant for genocide, to murder all the Jews.
It is unfathomable to me that people don't understand this. When jihadists from Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah say they want to murder all Jews and Christians, we don't believe them. This has been going on since 1988, when Hamas was established, and all the way back to 632, when Muhammad died and told his followers to kill any Jew who came under their power. This has been going on for 1,400 years. It is not new, and it did not start on 9/11.
You can't believe in the Quran and the United States Constitution at the same time. They are contradictory. They have contradictory values and contradictory goals. Yet this is what El-Sayed believes. He believes in the Quran. He is not telling you the truth about the fact that he believes in freedom of religion, freedom of the press, or freedom of speech. He doesn't.
Tim Wildmon: Frank is talking about the Senate race in Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed is the Democrat nominee, running against Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee. Mike Rogers is a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives. El-Sayed is coming out of the medical profession, or what does that mean?
Wesley: He was trained as a physician, but he never actually became one.
Tim Wildmon: I'm getting the feeling you guys don't care for this El-Sayed fellow.
Wesley: He didn't pass whatever test you need to take to become an MD.
Tim Wildmon: Not that that's relevant. I'm kidding around here, but it is a very serious moment, and we will see what happens. Michigan has been a purple state, if you will, and it is very divided between the east and west sides of the state.
Wesley: There is a very large Jewish population in a suburb of Detroit. More than 100,000 Jews live there.
Tim Wildmon: I didn't realize that.
Wesley: It is something like Oak Hills, or Oak Park, of Detroit. They have a very large Jewish population.
Tim Wildmon: Speaking of El-Sayed, one of the things he said during this campaign was in response to an attack on a synagogue earlier this year in the Detroit area. El-Sayed said, "Hurt people hurt people." That's what he said about the man who drove his vehicle into that synagogue.
Wesley: He was basically justifying it. All the things that Frank mentioned would normally be disqualifying. It is kind of stunning that this guy is still in the race.
Tim Wildmon: In fact, his opponent in the Democratic primary, Haley Stevens, pulled her endorsement of Abdul El-Sayed in just the last couple of days and turned her endorsement to Mike Rogers.
Wesley: She didn't just pull out and say, "I'm not endorsing him, but I'm staying out of this one." She turned her support to Mike Rogers because she said many of the same things Frank was just saying: that he is anti-American, anti-Jewish, and anti-Semitic, and she can't support that.
Tim Wildmon: Another way of saying it is that he's too far left for her. She doesn't even want him to win. She's a left-winger herself.
Wesley: She's saying, "I can't embrace the hate of the left."
Tim Wildmon: You're listening to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Frank, thanks for being with us. Tell us again about the book that's out and how people can get it.
Frank Turek: It's I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, the updated version. I'm going to be talking about it this weekend on the American Family Radio Network.
Frank Turek: Let me mention one other thing about James Talarico down there in Texas. You've been through all of the crazy things he has said about God being nonbinary, that there are six genders, and all of that. He's also said he wants to dismantle capitalism.
Tim Wildmon: You know what the alternative is to that?
Frank Turek: Socialism.
Tim Wildmon: Which means we'll all be equally miserable.
Frank Turek: The free enterprise system has brought more people out of poverty than any system in history, and yet he wants to dismantle it. If you want to see prosperity go by the boards, vote for James Talarico. It is madness what he's advocating.
Tim Wildmon: These are far-left radicals. They may smile well, wear the right jacket, stand in front of a camera, and maybe even speak a little Christianese sometimes, but these ideas, as Frank just said, will destroy our country if they are implemented. They are sweeping the Democratic Party.
Wesley: We have a minute left. Frank, have you noticed the irony that when we want to use a biblical worldview for a position we believe in, we can't do it? But when the left uses the Bible, it is okay. When Talarico uses the Bible, it's okay.
Frank Turek: Oh, yes. He does that all the time, and he uses the Bible wrongly. He says he wants the government to take care of the poor, when the Bible says Christians ought to be taking care of the poor.
Wesley: Yes.
Frank Turek: He's misquoting the Bible, and everybody applauds him. We quote the Bible properly to say that the government is in place to protect innocent people by punishing wrongdoers, and we get all sorts of claims that we're Christian nationalists.
Tim Wildmon: That's a good point. All right, we're going to take a break right here. We'll be back. Thank you, Frank. We appreciate it, my friend.
Frank Turek: God bless you guys.
Tim Wildmon: Hey, welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Tim, Wesley, Fred, and Ray are with us. We'll let Frank go. Frank will be on with us tonight during our coverage, right?
Fred: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: Is he going to be on?
Fred: I have the list. Give me just a minute. You keep talking, and I'm going to pull up the list of the people who are going to be there.
Tim Wildmon: Our ladies, Jenna, are going to be on with us. Did you hear my tour spot there, Fred?
Fred: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: I think I need to change that. Do you think it's offensive to people?
Fred: I don't think so.
Tim Wildmon: Do you hear that right?
Fred: Yes, I did.
Tim Wildmon: I think we should keep it just the way it is. If people don't want to go with us on any of our tours, I don't know what their problem is.
Fred: We're just calling it the way we see it.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. Call it the way you see it. So, what are you going to say, Wesley?
Wesley: Sandy Rios, Abe Hamilton, Tony Perkins, Todd Starnes, Jenna Ellis, Davey Woodnall, and James Taylor.
Tim Wildmon: James Taylor?
Wesley: James Taylor.
Tim Wildmon: James Taylor is going to be with them?
Wesley: James Taylor.
Tim Wildmon: That's big news for the network. Is he going to play his guitar?
Wesley: I do know this one. "I know that I..." Most of the time.
Tim Wildmon: Most of the time, you all leave me behind on things from the '60s and '70s. I just sit here for five minutes.
Wesley, I've seen fire and I've seen rain. You know that, right?
Wesley: Yes. Do you have any more in there?
Tim Wildmon: Well done.
Wesley: You're making yourself laugh there.
Tim Wildmon: I am. I'm cracking myself up right there.
Wesley: I think you're making fun of old people.
Tim Wildmon: Not intentionally.
Wesley: It seems like every two weeks somebody dies who I grew up watching on television or hearing on the radio. I'm going, "Wow. Who's next?" Dolly Parton passed away recently. All of us grew up watching and listening to Dolly Parton, and you're going, "Wait a minute. She's mortal too."
Tim Wildmon: Tonight we'll be here with our coverage from 6:00 to 9:00 Central right here on American Family Radio. You can stream our coverage at afr.net and stream.afa.net. We'll be streaming on Facebook too.
Fred: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: We'll also be updating our newscasts throughout the night. In fact, one of our anchors is coming in at midnight to do fresh updates all night long because we've got a big Senate race in Alaska. Keep it on American Family Radio tonight, folks, all night.
Ray, Fred, Wesley, I'm talking about this because I hope it goes well tonight for conservatives. I'm holding out hope that they can hang on to the Senate. But whatever happens tonight, the Lord is in control. We know that, and I don't mean to be cliche. God is in control of everything, so we can bank on that.
Then, as one of the many reasons not to be depressed, we have some great college football coming up Saturday.
Wesley: That's right. It's a big weekend.
Tim Wildmon: You can get your popcorn out. We've got Alabama going to LSU, which is going to be a good one, even though both of them have two losses. Then we have Georgia at Ole Miss.
Wesley: I guess you're SEC-centric right here.
Tim Wildmon: Georgia at Ole Miss is going to be a good one. Then you've got undefeated, number-one-ranked Miami playing at Notre Dame.
Wesley: Did you know this game?
Tim Wildmon: Huge, huge game. It's a nighttime national game. I'm a big Notre Dame fan. There was a 30 for 30 documentary about the Notre Dame-Miami rivalry from the '80s. Do you remember, with Lou Holtz? It was called "Catholics Versus Convicts."
Wesley: Right, because Miami had the reputation of having a bunch of thugs in their football program back in the '80s.
Tim Wildmon: It was a reputation they rightly earned, by the way. The Catholics were the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Anyway, they renew their rivalry coming up Saturday night. Notre Dame is a five-and-a-half-point favorite.
Wesley: Notre Dame is favored by five and a half even though Miami is number one.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. All right, Fred, back to the hard news here.
Fred: Yes, it is Election Day, and this morning President Trump was a guest on the Fox and Friends program. Being Election Day, it was obvious what he talked about: getting the vote out and discussing socialism as the alternative to what the Republicans have been offering. He went down the list of everything he has done since his election as president again in 2024.
But then there was a showstopper that I don't think anybody expected. He had a huge announcement regarding Israel. President Trump, on Fox this morning, announced that the United States is ending its long tradition of direct financial aid to Israel, ending the four billion dollars a year in aid. This is how it sounded.
President Trump: Now, as far as paying Israel, Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel four billion dollars a year. We made a deal months ago that we're stopping, and they are fine with it, because they've become a very successful country and don't need it. We won't be paying Israel anymore, so it's just a wasted thing. We've already agreed that by the end of this year we won't be paying Israel. That will help Israel if they need it. They've been a great ally.
Fred: That was the announcement, but it was quite a shocker. Even the president, a little bit later in the interview, gave one of the reasons he made this announcement. He said, quote, "The left uses the four-billion-dollar payment that everybody knows about. It's no secret, as a signal of unfairness, and we can't allow that to happen. I don't like that because it's too easy. It's almost too easy a target. Bibi and I have been talking, and we've agreed." End quote.
I watched a report out of Tel Aviv just a few moments before coming into the studio. The Fox correspondent said this had been received with great shock in Israel. While it is true that the president and Prime Minister Netanyahu have been talking about this, the reporter said Prime Minister Netanyahu believed this drawdown of direct U.S. support would occur over 10 years.
Tim Wildmon: Are you serious?
Fred: Yes. But the president saying this morning that it's ending now, in 2026, was a shock.
Tim Wildmon: I did a quick search, so I can't verify whether this is accurate or not. All I typed into Brave was "foreign aid from U.S. countries." It said the United States was the world's largest foreign aid donor in 2023, providing $62 billion in official foreign aid around the world. The top recipients in 2025 were Ukraine, at $6.7 billion; Israel, at $3.3 billion; Jordan, at $1.6 billion; and on and on.
Israel has long been a top recipient of United States foreign aid. That is true because they've been our number-one ally in the Middle East, and they've been threatened from across the region. Hezbollah and Hamas are always threatening and attacking them. The United States has said, "We stand with you, Israel."
Fred, if what you said is true, I'm not with you. That's your information.
Fred: I did hear Benjamin Netanyahu say about two months ago, or six weeks ago, that they wanted to become more independent.
Tim Wildmon: They don't want to take United States money for aid.
Fred: But Benjamin Netanyahu did not say at the time that they wanted to cut it off immediately.
Tim Wildmon: I'm going to withhold judgment until I hear more from President Trump, but I hope it is not true that Trump unilaterally cut off all money supporting Israel, cold turkey, at the end of 2026. I hope that isn't true. But it sounds like, from what you're saying, that Israel is stunned that Trump did this.
Fred: According to the Fox correspondent in Tel Aviv this morning, it is being received with shock. The caveat was that Netanyahu and Trump had talked about ending that aid, but according to the correspondent, Netanyahu's proposal was for a gradual diminishing of that direct aid over a 10-year period. President Trump did say that if Israel needs help, we will help them. I'm not sure what that means at this point.
Tim Wildmon: That's why the timing of this is concerning. Why did he announce it on Election Day?
Fred: Exactly.
Tim Wildmon: I hope the news of it flies under the radar.
Fred: In that speech, he said he was trying to take away a talking point from the Democrats.
Tim Wildmon: But why? If you're going to do that, do it six weeks ago. Why this morning? It has no impact on where the Democrats are with Israel. Does it have an impact on the turnout of young Republicans to vote? I don't know.
Wesley: If you really wanted this to be part of the campaign, say it six weeks ago and let the debate begin. There are still tens of millions of Americans who hold Israel close to their hearts, believe Israel is our best friend in the Middle East, and want to see America do whatever we need to do to defend Israel, surrounded as they are by nations that would wipe them out today if they could.
Tim Wildmon: What if they didn't have the Iron Dome?
Wesley: Israel would be obliterated. They would not even exist.
Tim Wildmon: There is no telling how much money it costs to have that kind of defense system in Israel.
Wesley: It is a perfectly legitimate goal from the Israeli side to say, "Let's become more independent." We are in favor of a gradual drawdown. But to suddenly say on Election Day, "This is November 3, and by the end of December there will be no more money," is different. I want to hear from Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister. I want to hear what he has to say today.
Tim Wildmon: It's hard to make up your mind when President Trump is speaking, then you add the headlines and what Fred read about the Tel Aviv commentary. All of that is up and down, up and down. There is no flat.
Wesley: Let me add this real quick. There have been times over the last two or three years when Trump has been publicly at odds with Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel. I was waiting to hear him say, "They frustrated me in this way, and I'm doing this." I didn't get that from the tone or the things he said. It didn't sound like he was doing it out of frustration or malice, or saying, "I don't like the way you're leading, so I'm going to pull the money."
However, if he made this announcement without first talking with Benjamin Netanyahu and reaching an agreement, I would have a problem with that.
Tim Wildmon: So they have a united front?
Wesley: I would want to hear Benjamin Netanyahu's response as prime minister.
Craig: I'm a little disappointed if he announced it this morning because he wants to take away a talking point from the Democrats. That's a little late.
Wesley: Why do we care what the Democrats think? Let's just do the right thing.
Craig: That is what he said. President Trump said that financial support of Israel is one of the Democrats' strongest talking points, as if he sees that as an argument.
Tim Wildmon: Here's the bottom line. Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza. The Gaza Strip is down in the southeastern part of Israel, on the border of the Mediterranean. We all know what's going on. Israel is having to use its military to fight the terrorist group Hamas inside Gaza. Gaza is mixed in with the civilian population, so when they drop bombs, people die. Women die, children die, and noncombatants die.
That makes international news because people say, "Israel is committing genocide. They're killing innocent people, and we're funding it."
Wesley: I'm going to get to that.
Tim Wildmon: They say, "Israel continues to kill people in Gaza, and who's paying for that? The United States is, because we give them three billion dollars." They went after Biden on this too. This is bipartisan.
In fact, if you want to find out what is happening in the Democratic Party, they are about to have an intense war within the party itself because some people are going to want to purge themselves of Jews and anybody who supports Israel in any way.
Wesley: Can I ask all three of you a question? You have been doing this a lot longer than I have, and you've observed different presidential politics. If Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump, and their teams or administrations, agreed to end the aid over a 10-year period because Netanyahu wants Israel to become more independent, do we have as much of a problem with that?
Tim Wildmon: If there is an agreement between Israel and the United States, and Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump are in total agreement for the purpose of Israel becoming independent, then that's their decision.
Wesley: I don't have a problem with that. But if Trump is undercutting Israel in the name of political expediency so he can get the left off his back, then I have a big problem.
Craig: Me too. But we don't know the answer to that, probably for the next couple of weeks, until we hear from Benjamin Netanyahu.
Wesley: Does that make sense?
Craig: It does. The fundamental question we're all thinking about is whether this represents a fundamental reshaping of America's relationship with Israel. If you go back to 1948, there was more or less a solid wall of support, Democrat or Republican.
Tim Wildmon: Until Obama.
Craig: Until Obama. He's the outlier there. But with all the others, you never had to ask Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, or Walter Mondale whether we should support Israel. Even Biden was fairly supportive. Does this now mean a fundamental reshaping of American policy?
At least inside the Democratic Party, there is already an internal war between people who support Israel and people who hate Israel.
Tim Wildmon: Wesley, you made the comment about young Republican voters. It does seem to be true that there is less support for Israel among young Republicans than among people my age.
Wesley: I mentioned this before, but I want to distinguish between the two different reasons for the position of young Republicans and that of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party hates Israel, as we have discussed. But the young Republicans' position is more about staying out of foreign affairs altogether.
Tim Wildmon: Right.
Wesley: It is not necessarily picking on Israel. They say we need to stay out of foreign wars. This is the Tucker Carlson position, and J.D. Vance leans that way. The argument is that Israel drew us into the war with Iran, that we should not be fighting or bombing Iran, and that if Benjamin Netanyahu had not convinced President Trump that the United States needed to join them, the world would be normal and we would not be hated by part of the Muslim world.
That is the argument they are going to make. It costs us a lot of money to be involved in foreign entanglements, and nobody likes to be at war. But sometimes you have to be at war to preserve your way of life, your commerce, your freedom, and your liberty.
Craig: Tim, I think the one part of that we can all agree on is that we don't know the interpersonal details between Netanyahu and Trump behind the scenes before this whole thing with Iran started. But I'm under the strong impression that President Trump truly thought back in February that this would be a four- or five-week deal, a month or two months. I don't think he thought we would still be fighting in November.
Tim Wildmon: I agree. I don't know whose fault that is, because things can happen that are unforeseen, unintended consequences, as they say. However, when it comes to warfare, you have contingency plans.
Somebody like Pete Hegseth, for example, or the Secretary of War, would come in with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and say, "Listen, Mr. President, here's how it's going to go. If this happens, this happens. If this happens, this happens. If this happens, this happens. But regardless, we will be out in six weeks."
Or they could say, "Mr. President, you understand we're committing to a year here, right? We might have to use the Marines to land and take over, or the Army, or whatever. You understand that, right?"
Craig: That's what's confusing to me. Everybody was saying all spring and summer, "What are we doing?" We seem to be playing a game without a game plan.
Wesley: The communication from the White House and from Trump was terrible.
Craig: It was awful. He would come out and say, "We're going to bomb them into oblivion," and the next day say, "We're negotiating." It gave us whiplash.
Wesley: I told you all about four weeks in, "Go ahead and have this conversation, but if we say he's negotiating, everything is changed." I don't want to have that conversation. That means we have a memorandum of understanding and all of that.
Tim Wildmon: It sounds like they are saying, "At any point, deal."
Wesley: I'm not saying President Trump's motives were wrong. His initial support of Israel and his desire to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon were right. I'm saying that afterward he seemed to be treading water and not giving us any direction on what was happening, other than saying one thing one day and something else the next.
Tim Wildmon: Underline what you said: It's a game with no game plan.
Wesley: It's a game with no game plan. Here we are. I was saying this needed to be over by Memorial Day, and I didn't mean 2027.
Tim Wildmon: I'm with you. Are you with me, brother?
Wesley: I gave him three months, and I'm over it. I'm telling you.
The hosts examine President Trump's reported announcement that the United States will end its direct financial aid to Israel, including the timing of the decision and questions about whether it reflects an agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They discuss Israel's security, Hamas, Iran, and the potential impact on America's longstanding relationship with Israel.
Election Day coverage includes voter turnout, closely watched Senate races in Texas and Michigan, the Florida governor and Senate contests, and the importance of Senate control for federal judicial appointments. The hosts also discuss concerns about socialism, biblical responsibility, and the influence of progressive ideas on American universities and politics.
A Christian apologetics guest discusses the newly updated edition of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and argues that Christianity remains supported by evidence while addressing objections raised since the book's original publication.
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