Ed Vitagliano: Hey, and welcome to Today's Issues. It is Monday, November 9, 2026, in case you didn't get the memo. Midterm election year. That's all we heard about: midterm 2026. At the time, I'm sitting in for Tim Wildmon this week. I'm joined in the studio by Fred Jackson. Good morning, Fred.
Fred Jackson: Good morning, Ed. Does that mean we're not going to talk about politics at all this week?
Ed Vitagliano: I'm afraid I have good news and bad news. The good news is we live where Jesus is on the throne. The bad news is we're going to talk politics, and that has been a lot of bad news here recently. Also in the studio, Tony Vitagliano. Good morning, Tony.
Tony Vitagliano: Good morning.
Ed Vitagliano: And Chris Woodward.
Chris Woodward: Hello.
Ed Vitagliano: You know what? The election results didn't get Chris down. He's still in here, giving his enthusiastic hello.
Chris Woodward: I have been here since Tuesday. I haven't left, actually.
Ed Vitagliano: Very nearly, literally. Listen, folks, I'm going to ask Chris here just to do a little commercial for American Family News. We have some wonderful men and women who work on the AFN news team, led by our fearless leader, Fred Jackson. Fred, we have a dedicated staff of very knowledgeable people at AFN. When most of the staff here get off, like when we get off for the Thanksgiving break, everybody else goes home at noon on Wednesday. Not AFN.
Fred Jackson: No, we'll have newscasts on Thanksgiving Day, and we'll have newscasts on Black Friday, when everybody's out shopping for deals.
Ed Vitagliano: We live in a world that is unfolding on a day-by-day basis, and there is a lot of news. We're living at a time in the history of this country and of the world when there is so much news of critical importance for Christians to know about.
We're going to be talking today about what the election means with regard to the relationship of this country to Israel. For some people in the secular world, that may not be important. But for us here at American Family Radio and the American Family Association, it is very important. It is of biblical importance.
That's why we feel we need to be here. Listen, there's so much happening culturally. Here we are talking politics again, but you cannot separate politics from what political decisions and lawmakers make that affect us. We're talking about the transgender agenda, all of those sorts of things, and where the politicians plan to take this country. Listen, folks, the next two years are going to be intense. Please be aware of this.
Actually, that's not breaking news, because the Democrats told us all during the campaign what they plan to do. So there's going to be a lot of news on that front, especially over the next few weeks.
But we're also going to be covering what is going on inside the Republican Party. Not only do we have the Democrats and what their power is going to be, but the Republican Party is searching for a way forward. Where do we go from here? As soon as the election was over last Tuesday, the news was already talking about who's going to be running for president in 2028. The day after. It kind of never stops.
Who we choose as our lawmakers and who we choose as our president is going to be of great importance to Christians. What kind of characters are we talking about? Where is the Republican Party going to go? What kind of new leadership are they going to be looking for? These are all critical stories.
The reason we hang around on Friday afternoon comes from years of experience. When there are political announcements that they think are not going to be popular with the people, they don't announce them at four or five o'clock on Friday afternoon.
Fred Jackson: Right. They don't.
Ed Vitagliano: They're hoping the busyness of the weekend swallows up the controversy.
Fred Jackson: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: So, all of that to say, folks, Lord willing, we are going to be here. We have a great team of Christian reporters. They're here not just because they like covering news, but we all understand that we have a Christian worldview, and we bring that to how we tell the stories here.
Fred Jackson: Yes. It helps give context to the sometimes dozens and dozens of big stories every day. You could drown in that sheer volume of stories. What we try to do is put all of that in a broader context and help our listeners and those who read AFN.net understand why this is important and what it says.
Ed Vitagliano: Oh, absolutely. In our Sunday school class yesterday, we spent the whole class talking about the ramifications. It's not because we're into politics, really. It's about people understanding that the decisions that were made last Tuesday are going to have an impact, possibly on our freedom of religion and our freedom of speech.
What does it mean that we have more and more Muslims being elected not only to the Senate and the House, but to school boards and all of those things? Those have an impact. What does it mean for our kids and grandkids?
Fred Jackson: Exactly.
Ed Vitagliano: All right, Chris, before we get to the news of the day, tell our listeners how they can get the written version of much of what is discussed on our AFN broadcasts and what else is available at AFN.net.
Chris Woodward: When you go online, type AFN.net in the search bar, and you will get the website for American Family News, AFN.net. When you're there, look on the upper-right side of the screen and click on Subscribe if you've not already done so. Give us your email address, and once a day, usually in the early to mid-afternoon, you'll get an email from us with five or six stories to keep you informed.
Those are things that will help you figure out what's going on today and maybe what's coming up this week. They're things that you can print out for free and share with your Sunday school class or your small group to keep you informed and engaged on issues.
The cool thing about AFN.net is that it's not just what you hear on the radio at the top of every hour. Visit AFN.net for videos and columns. We even have a political cartoon.
Ed Vitagliano: I do not draw them for your benefit.
Chris Woodward: Yes, we actually outsourced that to somebody who can draw and is funny. Check out AFN.net for all kinds of information, again, not just what you hear here on the radio at the top of every hour.
Ed Vitagliano: All right, let's go with the news of the day. Our top story at the moment on AFN.net, Fred, is actually under a breaking news tab. President Donald Trump, in his first major interview since his party got beaten in the House and Senate midterm election races, thinks his administration was too aggressive on deportations, and he thinks he can work with Democrats in this new Congress on some sort of immigration deal. This is a little bit of what he had to say on 60 Minutes.
Interviewer: Do you think immigration hurt you in the midterms? Do you think the crackdown did?
Donald Trump: I think it both helped and hurt. I think I got an A-plus for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out, but I get hurt because we also took people who had good jobs and created one violation, or broke one law, which was that they came into the country illegally.
Interviewer: So you think your deportation policy was too tough?
Donald Trump: It was too tough. I think it might be too tough, yeah.
Ed Vitagliano: All right, Tony, I see your head about to explode. I don't think you want to come first. Fred, give me a minute.
Fred Jackson: I understand what President Trump is saying. I don't think the numbers bear that out. I think almost, I won't say universally, but it was in the 70th to 80th percentile of people saying in exit polls that it was the economy, affordability, gas prices, kitchen-table issues, and the war in Iran and its follow-on impacts on the economy.
I'm not sure how far down the list immigration appeared. I'm not saying President Trump is saying that is the only thing, but I certainly hope the Trump administration is not going to consider amnesty. I understand the idea about people just working jobs and wanting their kids to go to school. But the fact that they came here illegally from countries, many of which have socialist leanings, is what makes it unwise to give those people amnesty, because you are going to cement the blue hue in this country for an entire generation. You risk it.
Ed Vitagliano: When I heard this piece of audio this morning on our newscast, my immediate reaction was, and you just alluded to it, that the Democrats are going to love that. The Democrats are just going to jump all over that.
By including in the deportation orders people who entered the country illegally but were out there working a job, building houses, paying taxes, and so forth, that was a gift to the Democratic Party. Republicans may not call it amnesty, but the Democrats are going to build on that.
The other thing we know is that within the Hispanic community, which supported President Trump in 2024, the reasons they gave for switching to the Democrats in this election included the deportation of those individuals the president just described. They entered the country illegally, but they had been working jobs and behaving themselves after entering the country illegally.
So that's where we are. I guess we're going to have to watch this. But I do believe Republicans will not call it amnesty, and both parties are probably going to come together because there is going to be a rethinking across the Republican Party about these deportation policies.
Fred Jackson: Sometimes they call it a path to citizenship.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes. So it's not outright amnesty, which, by the way, Ronald Reagan signed in 1986, I think the biggest amnesty bill in our history. They may word it a little bit differently, but it is eventually going to allow many of the people who came here illegally by the millions under Joe Biden to stay permanently.
All right, Tony, you've had time to calm down.
Tony Vitagliano: Give me a minute, which is good. I don't entirely buy this. It seems like a deflection to me. I'm going to be tactful in my wording. This seems like a deflection to me.
Trump ran on two big pillars, really three. In 2024, the economy was number one. Other pillars were no more wars and mass deportations. Stephen Miller was out there speaking very strong language about what we were going to do. We were going to secure the border and have mass deportations. He was saying it the whole time.
Interestingly enough, a quick Google search and a retrieval by AI showed that Pew Research in 2024 found that 48 percent of Latinos supported Trump in 2024, versus only 28 percent in 2016. That's a 20 percent increase for a president who was running on a platform of mass deportation.
So I think this is being exaggerated by the media and even some conservative media outlets. I think people are getting in Trump's ear, trying to shift some of the blame away from the Iran war and the economy and inflation toward mass deportations and amnesty, because there are people who just want mass amnesty.
Trump himself says this. Trump said, according to the article on AFN, that he believes killers and drug dealers in the country illegally should be deported, but suggested that he was open to the idea of a deal that would let others stay if they are good people working in a landscaping company, working in a hotel, or doing something, and in some cases paying taxes.
We all know here that a large percentage of people who have crossed the border illegally, who may be here working a job, do not put a lot of that money back into the system in the form of taxes. Much of it goes to their home country or is sent back to other countries.
It's a little frustrating to me. I'm not going to lie. I've restrained myself and held it back a little bit, but this seems like a deflection. I think the media, along with the Democrats, are trying to seize on that to push Trump to concede and make a deal with them about mass amnesty.
Fred Jackson: The Democrats don't care about the why of the 2026 midterms. That's not entirely true. They are going to thump the issues in order to gain traction for what they want to do. However, they are more interested in what they can accomplish going forward.
It makes sense that they would try to squeeze whatever pressure they can out of the midterm results because they want to accomplish their goals and perhaps even capture the White House in 2028.
I don't understand 2026, even with some of the visuals that were upsetting, such as people being pulled out of birthday parties or whatever the specific cases were. If the economy had stayed the same, gas prices were creeping under two dollars a gallon, inflation was still coming down, and there was no war, I'm sorry, mass deportations would not be the issue that caused Republicans to get beaten. I could be wrong. The results may have been the same, but I don't see it being the lightning rod we're now trying to make it into.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't think the catastrophe of November 3 was because of mass deportations. It was the economy, the kitchen table, gasoline, the connection to the war, and the impact of being involved in yet another war in that part of the world. That affected gas prices. That was almost entirely the case in terms of exit polling.
So I think you're exactly right. If none of those things had happened, I don't think anybody would have been voting Republicans out on the basis of mass deportations.
I have another Trump mystery. Dana White, the UFC guy who runs the UFC, where the fighters pummel one another, held an event on the White House lawn earlier this year. He's meeting with President Trump today because, supposedly, President Trump is considering Dana White to be the next White House press secretary.
For people who may not have paid attention to the news for a while, there is not a White House press secretary at the moment. We had a woman for a couple of days named Katie Zachariah, but that did not work out.
Trump has been looking behind the scenes for somebody to be the next White House press secretary. It was reported over the weekend that President Trump was considering UFC CEO Dana White. In fact, he put it out on social media: “Dana White will make a great White House press secretary.” He's a fighter, right? Everybody was asking, “What in the world are you thinking, sir?”
News outlets started doing some digging. One example is the Daily Beast, which put out a story claiming that somebody in the White House mentioned Dana W. White, a woman who previously served as the Pentagon chief spokeswoman during Trump's first term, and said, “Dana White would be good. You should recommend Dana White for this job.”
So Trump was thinking, “Dana White, great guy. He said nice things about me. Let's make him the White House press secretary.” Then, when people started reporting on all this, Trump was asked about it and said he was just kidding.
That is where this lies right now. President Trump said Dana White, the UFC guy, would make a great press secretary, not Dana W. White, the former Pentagon spokeswoman. In your opinion, Fred, do you think President Trump is serious about this, or is he horsing around?
Fred Jackson: I think Trump was being serious about it. I know that a lot of the time he trolls people to stir the pot, get them concerned, and, quite frankly, get even shows like ours talking about things that he posts on social media. But just going by a gut feeling, I think Trump was serious.
Ed Vitagliano: The Katie Zachariah fiasco was a really bad first day. I don't want to drag her through the mud anymore. She seemed to be in over her head. So I would think they would be very cautious about their next selection. What do you think about Dana White?
Fred Jackson: I don't really know much about him. I've obviously heard him and seen him on his programming.
Chris Woodward: Here Comes the Boom.
Fred Jackson: I like that movie with Kevin James. I think he had some acting chops in that, along with Joe Rogan. What's the scuttlebutt about this guy? If he becomes the White House spokesperson, I wonder about training. Are we going to see another fiasco like we did with Katie Zachariah?
Chris Woodward: Yes.
Fred Jackson: You have to have somebody who is prepared. Caroline Leavitt is going to go down in my mind as the best White House spokesperson there has been. From day one, she was so good on her feet. We're talking about a 20-year-old who was so prepared every day and was the sweetest bulldog, getting up there every day and able to handle the media.
You either have to find a clone of Caroline Leavitt, find somebody of that nature, or, if you cannot find a Caroline Leavitt, use the formula they had for a while when she was on maternity leave. Bring J.D. Vance out. Stephen Miller could come out.
You don't have to have these briefings every day. President Trump talks to the media every time he walks out of the White House heading for Marine One. He may be the best person to have. Have him come out once a week and do the scrum, what we call the scrum. People want to talk to him. I would go with that.
That would be less risky than putting another Katie Zachariah out there. That's not what the White House needs right now. That's not what the Oval Office needs right now. That's not what the Republican Party needs right now. Marco Rubio was fantastic in that role. Bring those people out. They can handle the media.
Ed Vitagliano: President Trump may be the best at it out of anybody. Caroline Leavitt was superb as a surrogate, the person who represents the president. I think this would be a disaster. I hope President Trump was just trolling everybody.
The Republican Party needs some stability right now. They need to know that the president is in charge, that he may be chastened because of the election results, but that he has a plan for the next two years. When that plan comes out, they need somebody who can defend it ably in front of the press and explain it to the American people.
We're going to take a short break. When we come back, more news of the day. You're listening to Today's Issues.
Don Wildmon: There was a merchant who ran a small general store in a little community out west. Considering himself a religious man, he was known far and wide as the merchant who always quoted a Bible verse when ringing up a sale.
One day, a traveler passing through the little community stopped at his store. “Mister, I have one of the most expensive show horses in the country out there in the trailer behind my car, but I forgot to bring a saddle to ride him with. I hope you have a saddle because this is the last store before I get to the show.”
“Yes, sir. We stock saddles,” the owner replied.
“Good,” said the traveler. “Could you show me one?”
The merchant went to the back of the store and picked up the only saddle he had in stock. He carried it out to the stranger.
“How much is it?” the stranger asked.
“Well, that saddle will cost you twenty dollars,” replied the merchant.
“Man, I can't put a twenty-dollar saddle on that horse. Don't you have anything better than that?” asked the stranger.
“Just a minute, and I'll check,” said the merchant.
He went to the back of the store and stayed a few moments. Then he came out again, bringing in the same saddle. The stranger didn't recognize it as the one he had just looked at.
“This saddle is made of some of the finest material available,” said the merchant. “It's one of our finest saddles.”
“How much is it?” asked the stranger.
“Well, sir, that saddle will cost you four hundred dollars,” replied the merchant.
The stranger looked disappointed. “Mister, that horse out there deserves the very best. Don't you have anything better?”
“Just a moment,” said the merchant.
Again, the merchant went to the rear of the store. He stayed a few moments and then brought out the same saddle again.
“This is the finest saddle we have,” he said.
“How much is it?” asked the stranger.
“Mister, that saddle is going to cost you twelve hundred dollars.”
“Good. I'll take it,” the stranger said.
He reached into his wallet and pulled out twelve one-hundred-dollar bills to pay for the saddle. Then he took the saddle and left.
The men in the store who had witnessed the incident were anxiously waiting for the store owner to ring up the sale to see which Bible verse he would quote. They all gathered around as he headed for the register.
“Sam,” one of them asked, “what verse can you quote after a deal like that?”
The merchant thought for a moment, then hit the keys on the register. As the drawer came open, he quoted a paraphrase of Matthew 25:43: “He was a stranger, and I took him in.”
You know, the ability to memorize Scripture is a good thing. I've read of people who have memorized the entire Bible, and I've met scores of people who could tell you the chapter and verse of numerous Scriptures, particularly those in which they are interested.
Personally, I'm kind of on the dullard side. I have to refer to my concordance to find the Scripture. The moral of the story is that it's one thing to memorize Scripture. It's quite another thing to practice it.
Ed Vitagliano: Welcome back. Ed Vitagliano, sitting in for Tim Wildmon today, joined in the studio by Fred Jackson, Tony Vitagliano, and Chris Woodward. All right, Chris, light it up.
Chris Woodward: We have one more story here about the White House. Late last week, the Wall Street Journal published an exclusive. This is how the story begins:
“The White House delivered a warning to conservative groups: We’re watching you.”
Two days after voters rebuked President Trump and his party, the administration moved to hold together a coalition that was beginning to splinter. The White House Office of Public Liaison, which works with outside groups, sent a memo to more than 3,000 conservative organizations that laid out a list of Trump's accomplishments in office and pledged to prevent newly ascendant Democrats from reversing them.
The memo concluded with a sentence highlighted in yellow: “We are monitoring statements, press releases, and media engagements from your organizations.”
People took that as a threat, because how else might you take something highlighted that says they are monitoring you? I talked to a couple of groups that received this memo. One was Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which does a lot of pro-life work. Another organization we have interviewed for as long as I've been here is the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
Let's begin with the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. I spoke to one of their vice presidents, Ross Marchand. He said they received this and, quite frankly, the White House should have apologized to them based on how the midterms went.
Ross Marchand: Frankly, it was bizarre. The White House should have reached out to us and other conservative groups, apologizing for not listening to us. That is a major cause of why Republicans did so badly during the midterms. It also bodes really poorly for freedom of speech and is going to deter, unfortunately, a lot of groups from speaking their minds.
It's really important for watchdog groups like the Taxpayers Protection Alliance to be able to call balls and strikes and call out the administration and lawmakers from both sides when they're departing from conservative principles, when they're departing from free-market principles, and when they're spending money out of control.
We have a two-trillion-dollar deficit and a forty-trillion-dollar debt. It's simply not sustainable, and it's important for groups to be able to call attention to that.
Chris Woodward: The Susan B. Anthony group had put out statements saying the Trump administration lost voters based on its inaction regarding abortion pills. I'll play this clip, and then we'll get everybody's thoughts.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America representative: The election was an obvious tsunami, and that's because the GOP ignored their base. Part of that has to do with Republicans at large not speaking about the issue during the election, but also this court decision by the administration to leave Joe Biden's mail-order abortion drug policy in place.
The administration had this calculation that delaying action on abortion drugs would help Republicans in the midterms, and that was a complete miss. They didn't win over the small percentage of voters who actually support keeping mail-order abortion drugs legal in this country. The only tangible results of delaying and allowing Joe Biden's rule to stay in place were turnout problems and hundreds of thousands of dead babies.
Chris Woodward: Those are two of the 3,000 conservative groups that received a warning from the White House saying they are being monitored.
Ed Vitagliano: Fred, a couple of things here. First, the Democratic Party is pretty clear about what it intends to do with power. Those who voted for them understand what they have said they intend to do, whether they do it or not. If you are listening to the Democratic Party, you understand what they stand for and thus what they would do if they have power.
I'm not sure the Republican Party can claim that same type of clarity. To the points being made by some of these conservative groups, the Republicans, and this predates President Trump, have always shied away from the things that were important to their own base in favor of other approaches.
I agree with the conservative groups that don't like the wording of this memo, because the federal government has way too much power. I don't care who's in it, who's at the head of it, or who's running it. The amount of power that the federal government wields could make groups chill their own speech because they don't want to go up against a federal government wielding that much power.
I was troubled by that memo. Why is the federal government going to be monitoring what private groups say, unless they're advocating for the overthrow of the Constitution?
Fred Jackson: It sounded like the Republicans were taking a page out of the Joe Biden administration playbook, that they were going to monitor what groups you email and what groups you're associated with or praise. We all know what happened to members of the military. They were checked out as to what other groups they associated with.
I'm going to use a very sophisticated word: This was a dumb thing to do. It really was. I'm not sure if it was one person who said, “I'm going to throw that in there just to keep our groups in line.”
The groups that support you, those 3,000 groups for the most part, exist for a cause. If you're not helping and not listening to their concerns, then those groups, if they're worth their salt, are going to continue with their cause regardless of what the party says.
Take pro-life, for example. They're going to fight for unborn babies. Do you think they're going to keep their mouths shut just because somebody in the White House doesn't like what they're saying or that they're disappointed you didn't do more about mail-order abortion pills? It was a silly thing to do, and it is bearing the fruit you would expect from real conservative groups who fight for a cause like abortion. We're not going to put up with your attempts at intimidation, because unborn babies are too important to us.
Ed Vitagliano: Tony, if these groups are not going to surrender their vision and mission, and many of these groups are Christian groups motivated by their faith, if they didn't surrender during the Joe Biden years, I find it hard to believe they will be intimidated by someone in the Trump administration.
I've always had a problem with the Republican Party in general treating social conservatives as the cranky uncle at Thanksgiving. They always seemed to want our vote when election time came around, but they also seemed embarrassed by the passion of a Christian pro-life group that just wants to defend the lives of unborn children.
Tony Vitagliano: This was definitely an unforced error, in my opinion, because a lot of these groups are Christian, and their mission is not predicated on who is or isn't in positions of authority.
What drives the mission, speaking specifically about the pro-life movement and these organizations, is that regardless of what man says, we know what God says about the value of every human life. So it doesn't matter.
There seems to be a lot of finger-pointing. If the Republican Party is doing what it is supposed to do on an economic level and a foreign-policy level, and the things that cross the aisle or get independents and moderates on board, then it can focus on the issues that everyone cares about. People actually care more than you would think about the social issues.
We saw in 2024 a repudiation across the board of the madness of the transgender movement, DEI, and critical race theory. It was a repudiation of social issues. We can't ignore those issues or the organizations fighting against them and for other valuable issues. You can't ignore them without doing so at your own peril if you are the Republican Party.
Ed Vitagliano: Fred, one last thing, and then we can move on. President Trump in 2016 won a lot of evangelical and born-again Christians, people who might not otherwise have participated because of some of the baggage they saw, including his number of marriages, some of the things he had said, and sometimes his demeanor.
We wrestled with many evangelicals who said, “I'm not sure I can vote for this guy. I may just not vote for anyone.” President Trump brought a lot of those people along because of his promise, which he kept, to appoint pro-life judges. Survey after survey showed people saying that was the only reason they voted for him.
To Tony's point, it is not wise for the Republican Party to dismiss people who vote because of a particular social issue. I don't think they're implying anything right now. There is a lot of chaos in the conservative community because of the catastrophe on November 3, so I'm not sure the Republican Party is saying anything. But that's the implication of this memo: “You have to toe the line with us.”
You're not going to get anywhere with Christian groups, or probably any of these groups, by threatening or implying a threat. These are groups that have been in existence for a long time, sometimes decades. You are not going to intimidate us into silence by saying, “We're watching you and listening to what you're saying.” These are people with a vision who are dedicated to it.
During Cherathon, we usually play a clip of Brother Don, our founder, talking about an article in USA Today. What does he say? It's all about being faithful. Real, solid, Bible-driven, Bible-based groups are not going to compromise.
Both the Democrats and Republicans may say, “We don't need you anymore.” That's fine. We're going to be faithful because our King is Jesus Christ, and He doesn't change. We're going to stay faithful and stay in the fight.
They may say, “We're going to take you off the air.” We'll find another way to get out there, because our message is biblically based, and the Bible is based on eternal truths. That's the bottom line, and that's why we're here. If a Republican or Democratic Party wants to come along and support us, that's fine. But if you don't, we're not going to change our minds, because we serve the King.
And by the way, it is not impossible for American Family Radio to one day disappear if things get bad enough.
Fred Jackson: That's right. Coming from Canada, I know where that kind of left-leaning thinking takes people. They have a group in Canada that monitors radio stations. If they hear things they don't like on radio stations, they write what we would call the FCC here. They write the CRTC, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, saying, “This radio station had this preacher on, and he said this. That's unacceptable to us. We're going to pull your license.”
Don't think for a moment that could not happen here. And don't think for a moment there are not people on the left, probably the majority of them, who would love to do that.
Tony Vitagliano: Christians should continue to care about the social issues and continue to hammer away at them. It's very obvious to me that the left still cares about social issues.
They used the economy and the war in Iran as leverage to get into power, and now what are they talking about? The social issues are coming right back. You have women celebrating abortion because they know some of these state legislatures have flipped and they have gained governorships. They're celebrating the abortion issue.
Mark my words, they're going to start pounding away at DEI again. They're going to start pounding away at transgenderism. Those social issues never stop being important to them. So why should the Republican Party turn around and say, “You know what, guys? I think we need to lay off the social issues for a while.”
Ed Vitagliano: We didn't talk about this in our story meeting this morning, but did all of you see what Dave Chappelle said?
Chris Woodward: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't want to undercut it if we're going to cover it, but comedian Dave Chappelle, very well known and popular, said this. You're not supposed to bring phones into his stand-up comedy routine, but somebody did and recorded the audio.
Dave Chappelle said something to this extent: “I hate to say this. I know this is kind of messed up, but I have to tell you, the day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I felt good.” He went on to talk about how good he felt after he was murdered.
Chris Woodward: He said he felt better since the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Ed Vitagliano: He didn't say right after, but I don't think an apology has been issued.
Chris Woodward: Yes, an apology has been issued because somebody recorded it and publicized it.
Ed Vitagliano: Are you sorry because of what you said, or are you sorry because someone recorded you and put it out? This is the point I'm trying to make. There are people here, such as the two podcasters who were laughing about somebody saying they were going to dig up Charlie Kirk's corpse and kill him and shoot him again. Those two podcasters were laughing about that. They have also had to apologize.
The point I'm trying to make is that if you think the midterms were just about the economy for the left, you are deluded. These people hate conservatives, hate Christians, hate our Constitution, and hate a biblical worldview. They are at war with these things, and the Democrats have now taken power to put that into practice.
Let's not forget that it was just ten years ago that many of these people were part of a campaign called “Love Trumps Hate.”
Fred Jackson: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: This is an ideological war, folks. It is a spiritual war.
Fred Jackson: That's right.
Ed Vitagliano: Christian groups, Christian ministries like ours, churches, and pastors, if you haven't figured this out by now, you better figure it out fast.
I've seen this statement posted on Facebook the day after the election: “As long as they leave my faith and my guns alone, I'm good with the election results.” Don't be deceived. They've already said they're going to come after both of those. They are not going to leave those things alone.
Folks, I hate to say this, but I'm monologuing a little bit here. President Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War, said, in general, that America was going to have to be all one thing or all the other with regard to slavery. I believe this was from his “House Divided” speech, though I'm not one hundred percent sure.
He said we can't be split on the issue of slavery. We're either going to be all in on slavery, or it's going to be illegal, because he understood the biblical principle that a house divided cannot stand. Our nation cannot stand either. It is going to be all one thing or all something else.
The “all one thing” is going to be the approach of the Founding Fathers, which was a republic rooted in the Christian faith and the Christian worldview, or that is going to be jettisoned and this country will be rooted in humanism, secularism, atheism, and the all-powerful state.
If you don't see that, I feel sorry for you for the day when your eyes are opened, because it's probably going to be when something happens and you ask, “Why didn't someone do something to stop this?”
Well, that's what we're trying to do. That's what this program exists to do, this network and this ministry and other ministries like it.
With about two and a half or three minutes to go, let's do this. They have already come out with the cost of your Thanksgiving meal this year.
Chris Woodward: How much?
Ed Vitagliano: Let's go around the panel. How much do you think Thanksgiving will cost on average this year for a family of ten?
Chris Woodward: I've seen some of these numbers. Are you asking us to guess?
Ed Vitagliano: Yes.
Chris Woodward: I'm trying to think of the numbers I've seen before. Forty-six dollars.
Ed Vitagliano: I've seen Walmart advertising a deal for twenty-five dollars.
Chris Woodward: For the basket?
Ed Vitagliano: No, not for twenty-five dollars. You can get a coupon and it comes down to twenty-five.
Chris Woodward: I don't know. I'd say forty-six dollars.
Ed Vitagliano: I'm going to say fifty dollars a person.
Chris Woodward: Fifty dollars?
Ed Vitagliano: Yes. So a family of ten, that's five hundred dollars.
Fred, you've already had Thanksgiving because you're Canadian, but how much do you think American Thanksgiving will cost?
Fred Jackson: For ten people? We estimate way below that because our kids are all grown up.
Ed Vitagliano: Hang on. Five hundred bucks. Did I get the math right?
Chris Woodward: I'm sorry. I said forty-six dollars total for ten people to eat. That's turkey, dressing, everything.
Ed Vitagliano: Turkey and dressing? Are you dreaming?
Chris Woodward: What's the right answer?
Ed Vitagliano: The correct answer: A Thanksgiving meal for ten this year will cost $78.93. In the bizarre world in which we live, that is cheaper than it was this time last year.
Chris Woodward: We just had an election on the economy, and the Democrats will take credit.
Ed Vitagliano: I was only thirty dollars off.
Chris Woodward: In my defense, I don't ever buy these groceries.
Ed Vitagliano: I was going to say, does caviar come with it?
Chris Woodward: No. My encouraging wife just texted me and said, “You are bad wrong.”
Ed Vitagliano: Thank you. All right, folks, we're going to take a break.
Ed Vitagliano: Hey, and welcome to Today's Issues. It is Monday, November 9, 2026, in case you didn't get the memo. Midterm election year. That's all we heard about: midterm 2026. At the time, I'm sitting in for Tim Wildmon this week. I'm joined in the studio by Fred Jackson. Good morning, Fred.
Fred Jackson: Good morning, Ed. Does that mean we're not going to talk about politics at all this week?
Ed Vitagliano: I'm afraid I have good news and bad news. The good news is we live where Jesus is on the throne. The bad news is we're going to talk politics, and that has been a lot of bad news here recently. Also in the studio, Tony Vitagliano. Good morning, Tony.
Tony Vitagliano: Good morning.
Ed Vitagliano: And Chris Woodward.
Chris Woodward: Hello.
Ed Vitagliano: You know what? The election results didn't get Chris down. He's still in here, giving his enthusiastic hello.
Chris Woodward: I have been here since Tuesday. I haven't left, actually.
Ed Vitagliano: Very nearly, literally. Listen, folks, I'm going to ask Chris here just to do a little commercial for American Family News. We have some wonderful men and women who work on the AFN news team, led by our fearless leader, Fred Jackson. Fred, we have a dedicated staff of very knowledgeable people at AFN. When most of the staff here get off, like when we get off for the Thanksgiving break, everybody else goes home at noon on Wednesday. Not AFN.
Fred Jackson: No, we'll have newscasts on Thanksgiving Day, and we'll have newscasts on Black Friday, when everybody's out shopping for deals.
Ed Vitagliano: We live in a world that is unfolding on a day-by-day basis, and there is a lot of news. We're living at a time in the history of this country and of the world when there is so much news of critical importance for Christians to know about.
We're going to be talking today about what the election means with regard to the relationship of this country to Israel. For some people in the secular world, that may not be important. But for us here at American Family Radio and the American Family Association, it is very important. It is of biblical importance.
That's why we feel we need to be here. Listen, there's so much happening culturally. Here we are talking politics again, but you cannot separate politics from what political decisions and lawmakers make that affect us. We're talking about the transgender agenda, all of those sorts of things, and where the politicians plan to take this country. Listen, folks, the next two years are going to be intense. Please be aware of this.
Actually, that's not breaking news, because the Democrats told us all during the campaign what they plan to do. So there's going to be a lot of news on that front, especially over the next few weeks.
But we're also going to be covering what is going on inside the Republican Party. Not only do we have the Democrats and what their power is going to be, but the Republican Party is searching for a way forward. Where do we go from here? As soon as the election was over last Tuesday, the news was already talking about who's going to be running for president in 2028. The day after. It kind of never stops.
Who we choose as our lawmakers and who we choose as our president is going to be of great importance to Christians. What kind of characters are we talking about? Where is the Republican Party going to go? What kind of new leadership are they going to be looking for? These are all critical stories.
The reason we hang around on Friday afternoon comes from years of experience. When there are political announcements that they think are not going to be popular with the people, they don't announce them at four or five o'clock on Friday afternoon.
Fred Jackson: Right. They don't.
Ed Vitagliano: They're hoping the busyness of the weekend swallows up the controversy.
Fred Jackson: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: So, all of that to say, folks, Lord willing, we are going to be here. We have a great team of Christian reporters. They're here not just because they like covering news, but we all understand that we have a Christian worldview, and we bring that to how we tell the stories here.
Fred Jackson: Yes. It helps give context to the sometimes dozens and dozens of big stories every day. You could drown in that sheer volume of stories. What we try to do is put all of that in a broader context and help our listeners and those who read AFN.net understand why this is important and what it says.
Ed Vitagliano: Oh, absolutely. In our Sunday school class yesterday, we spent the whole class talking about the ramifications. It's not because we're into politics, really. It's about people understanding that the decisions that were made last Tuesday are going to have an impact, possibly on our freedom of religion and our freedom of speech.
What does it mean that we have more and more Muslims being elected not only to the Senate and the House, but to school boards and all of those things? Those have an impact. What does it mean for our kids and grandkids?
Fred Jackson: Exactly.
Ed Vitagliano: All right, Chris, before we get to the news of the day, tell our listeners how they can get the written version of much of what is discussed on our AFN broadcasts and what else is available at AFN.net.
Chris Woodward: When you go online, type AFN.net in the search bar, and you will get the website for American Family News, AFN.net. When you're there, look on the upper-right side of the screen and click on Subscribe if you've not already done so. Give us your email address, and once a day, usually in the early to mid-afternoon, you'll get an email from us with five or six stories to keep you informed.
Those are things that will help you figure out what's going on today and maybe what's coming up this week. They're things that you can print out for free and share with your Sunday school class or your small group to keep you informed and engaged on issues.
The cool thing about AFN.net is that it's not just what you hear on the radio at the top of every hour. Visit AFN.net for videos and columns. We even have a political cartoon.
Ed Vitagliano: I do not draw them for your benefit.
Chris Woodward: Yes, we actually outsourced that to somebody who can draw and is funny. Check out AFN.net for all kinds of information, again, not just what you hear here on the radio at the top of every hour.
Ed Vitagliano: All right, let's go with the news of the day. Our top story at the moment on AFN.net, Fred, is actually under a breaking news tab. President Donald Trump, in his first major interview since his party got beaten in the House and Senate midterm election races, thinks his administration was too aggressive on deportations, and he thinks he can work with Democrats in this new Congress on some sort of immigration deal. This is a little bit of what he had to say on 60 Minutes.
Interviewer: Do you think immigration hurt you in the midterms? Do you think the crackdown did?
Donald Trump: I think it both helped and hurt. I think I got an A-plus for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out, but I get hurt because we also took people who had good jobs and created one violation, or broke one law, which was that they came into the country illegally.
Interviewer: So you think your deportation policy was too tough?
Donald Trump: It was too tough. I think it might be too tough, yeah.
Ed Vitagliano: All right, Tony, I see your head about to explode. I don't think you want to come first. Fred, give me a minute.
Fred Jackson: I understand what President Trump is saying. I don't think the numbers bear that out. I think almost, I won't say universally, but it was in the 70th to 80th percentile of people saying in exit polls that it was the economy, affordability, gas prices, kitchen-table issues, and the war in Iran and its follow-on impacts on the economy.
I'm not sure how far down the list immigration appeared. I'm not saying President Trump is saying that is the only thing, but I certainly hope the Trump administration is not going to consider amnesty. I understand the idea about people just working jobs and wanting their kids to go to school. But the fact that they came here illegally from countries, many of which have socialist leanings, is what makes it unwise to give those people amnesty, because you are going to cement the blue hue in this country for an entire generation. You risk it.
Ed Vitagliano: When I heard this piece of audio this morning on our newscast, my immediate reaction was, and you just alluded to it, that the Democrats are going to love that. The Democrats are just going to jump all over that.
By including in the deportation orders people who entered the country illegally but were out there working a job, building houses, paying taxes, and so forth, that was a gift to the Democratic Party. Republicans may not call it amnesty, but the Democrats are going to build on that.
The other thing we know is that within the Hispanic community, which supported President Trump in 2024, the reasons they gave for switching to the Democrats in this election included the deportation of those individuals the president just described. They entered the country illegally, but they had been working jobs and behaving themselves after entering the country illegally.
So that's where we are. I guess we're going to have to watch this. But I do believe Republicans will not call it amnesty, and both parties are probably going to come together because there is going to be a rethinking across the Republican Party about these deportation policies.
Fred Jackson: Sometimes they call it a path to citizenship.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes. So it's not outright amnesty, which, by the way, Ronald Reagan signed in 1986, I think the biggest amnesty bill in our history. They may word it a little bit differently, but it is eventually going to allow many of the people who came here illegally by the millions under Joe Biden to stay permanently.
All right, Tony, you've had time to calm down.
Tony Vitagliano: Give me a minute, which is good. I don't entirely buy this. It seems like a deflection to me. I'm going to be tactful in my wording. This seems like a deflection to me.
Trump ran on two big pillars, really three. In 2024, the economy was number one. Other pillars were no more wars and mass deportations. Stephen Miller was out there speaking very strong language about what we were going to do. We were going to secure the border and have mass deportations. He was saying it the whole time.
Interestingly enough, a quick Google search and a retrieval by AI showed that Pew Research in 2024 found that 48 percent of Latinos supported Trump in 2024, versus only 28 percent in 2016. That's a 20 percent increase for a president who was running on a platform of mass deportation.
So I think this is being exaggerated by the media and even some conservative media outlets. I think people are getting in Trump's ear, trying to shift some of the blame away from the Iran war and the economy and inflation toward mass deportations and amnesty, because there are people who just want mass amnesty.
Trump himself says this. Trump said, according to the article on AFN, that he believes killers and drug dealers in the country illegally should be deported, but suggested that he was open to the idea of a deal that would let others stay if they are good people working in a landscaping company, working in a hotel, or doing something, and in some cases paying taxes.
We all know here that a large percentage of people who have crossed the border illegally, who may be here working a job, do not put a lot of that money back into the system in the form of taxes. Much of it goes to their home country or is sent back to other countries.
It's a little frustrating to me. I'm not going to lie. I've restrained myself and held it back a little bit, but this seems like a deflection. I think the media, along with the Democrats, are trying to seize on that to push Trump to concede and make a deal with them about mass amnesty.
Fred Jackson: The Democrats don't care about the why of the 2026 midterms. That's not entirely true. They are going to thump the issues in order to gain traction for what they want to do. However, they are more interested in what they can accomplish going forward.
It makes sense that they would try to squeeze whatever pressure they can out of the midterm results because they want to accomplish their goals and perhaps even capture the White House in 2028.
I don't understand 2026, even with some of the visuals that were upsetting, such as people being pulled out of birthday parties or whatever the specific cases were. If the economy had stayed the same, gas prices were creeping under two dollars a gallon, inflation was still coming down, and there was no war, I'm sorry, mass deportations would not be the issue that caused Republicans to get beaten. I could be wrong. The results may have been the same, but I don't see it being the lightning rod we're now trying to make it into.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't think the catastrophe of November 3 was because of mass deportations. It was the economy, the kitchen table, gasoline, the connection to the war, and the impact of being involved in yet another war in that part of the world. That affected gas prices. That was almost entirely the case in terms of exit polling.
So I think you're exactly right. If none of those things had happened, I don't think anybody would have been voting Republicans out on the basis of mass deportations.
I have another Trump mystery. Dana White, the UFC guy who runs the UFC, where the fighters pummel one another, held an event on the White House lawn earlier this year. He's meeting with President Trump today because, supposedly, President Trump is considering Dana White to be the next White House press secretary.
For people who may not have paid attention to the news for a while, there is not a White House press secretary at the moment. We had a woman for a couple of days named Katie Zachariah, but that did not work out.
Trump has been looking behind the scenes for somebody to be the next White House press secretary. It was reported over the weekend that President Trump was considering UFC CEO Dana White. In fact, he put it out on social media: “Dana White will make a great White House press secretary.” He's a fighter, right? Everybody was asking, “What in the world are you thinking, sir?”
News outlets started doing some digging. One example is the Daily Beast, which put out a story claiming that somebody in the White House mentioned Dana W. White, a woman who previously served as the Pentagon chief spokeswoman during Trump's first term, and said, “Dana White would be good. You should recommend Dana White for this job.”
So Trump was thinking, “Dana White, great guy. He said nice things about me. Let's make him the White House press secretary.” Then, when people started reporting on all this, Trump was asked about it and said he was just kidding.
That is where this lies right now. President Trump said Dana White, the UFC guy, would make a great press secretary, not Dana W. White, the former Pentagon spokeswoman. In your opinion, Fred, do you think President Trump is serious about this, or is he horsing around?
Fred Jackson: I think Trump was being serious about it. I know that a lot of the time he trolls people to stir the pot, get them concerned, and, quite frankly, get even shows like ours talking about things that he posts on social media. But just going by a gut feeling, I think Trump was serious.
Ed Vitagliano: The Katie Zachariah fiasco was a really bad first day. I don't want to drag her through the mud anymore. She seemed to be in over her head. So I would think they would be very cautious about their next selection. What do you think about Dana White?
Fred Jackson: I don't really know much about him. I've obviously heard him and seen him on his programming.
Chris Woodward: Here Comes the Boom.
Fred Jackson: I like that movie with Kevin James. I think he had some acting chops in that, along with Joe Rogan. What's the scuttlebutt about this guy? If he becomes the White House spokesperson, I wonder about training. Are we going to see another fiasco like we did with Katie Zachariah?
Chris Woodward: Yes.
Fred Jackson: You have to have somebody who is prepared. Caroline Leavitt is going to go down in my mind as the best White House spokesperson there has been. From day one, she was so good on her feet. We're talking about a 20-year-old who was so prepared every day and was the sweetest bulldog, getting up there every day and able to handle the media.
You either have to find a clone of Caroline Leavitt, find somebody of that nature, or, if you cannot find a Caroline Leavitt, use the formula they had for a while when she was on maternity leave. Bring J.D. Vance out. Stephen Miller could come out.
You don't have to have these briefings every day. President Trump talks to the media every time he walks out of the White House heading for Marine One. He may be the best person to have. Have him come out once a week and do the scrum, what we call the scrum. People want to talk to him. I would go with that.
That would be less risky than putting another Katie Zachariah out there. That's not what the White House needs right now. That's not what the Oval Office needs right now. That's not what the Republican Party needs right now. Marco Rubio was fantastic in that role. Bring those people out. They can handle the media.
Ed Vitagliano: President Trump may be the best at it out of anybody. Caroline Leavitt was superb as a surrogate, the person who represents the president. I think this would be a disaster. I hope President Trump was just trolling everybody.
The Republican Party needs some stability right now. They need to know that the president is in charge, that he may be chastened because of the election results, but that he has a plan for the next two years. When that plan comes out, they need somebody who can defend it ably in front of the press and explain it to the American people.
We're going to take a short break. When we come back, more news of the day. You're listening to Today's Issues.
Don Wildmon: There was a merchant who ran a small general store in a little community out west. Considering himself a religious man, he was known far and wide as the merchant who always quoted a Bible verse when ringing up a sale.
One day, a traveler passing through the little community stopped at his store. “Mister, I have one of the most expensive show horses in the country out there in the trailer behind my car, but I forgot to bring a saddle to ride him with. I hope you have a saddle because this is the last store before I get to the show.”
“Yes, sir. We stock saddles,” the owner replied.
“Good,” said the traveler. “Could you show me one?”
The merchant went to the back of the store and picked up the only saddle he had in stock. He carried it out to the stranger.
“How much is it?” the stranger asked.
“Well, that saddle will cost you twenty dollars,” replied the merchant.
“Man, I can't put a twenty-dollar saddle on that horse. Don't you have anything better than that?” asked the stranger.
“Just a minute, and I'll check,” said the merchant.
He went to the back of the store and stayed a few moments. Then he came out again, bringing in the same saddle. The stranger didn't recognize it as the one he had just looked at.
“This saddle is made of some of the finest material available,” said the merchant. “It's one of our finest saddles.”
“How much is it?” asked the stranger.
“Well, sir, that saddle will cost you four hundred dollars,” replied the merchant.
The stranger looked disappointed. “Mister, that horse out there deserves the very best. Don't you have anything better?”
“Just a moment,” said the merchant.
Again, the merchant went to the rear of the store. He stayed a few moments and then brought out the same saddle again.
“This is the finest saddle we have,” he said.
“How much is it?” asked the stranger.
“Mister, that saddle is going to cost you twelve hundred dollars.”
“Good. I'll take it,” the stranger said.
He reached into his wallet and pulled out twelve one-hundred-dollar bills to pay for the saddle. Then he took the saddle and left.
The men in the store who had witnessed the incident were anxiously waiting for the store owner to ring up the sale to see which Bible verse he would quote. They all gathered around as he headed for the register.
“Sam,” one of them asked, “what verse can you quote after a deal like that?”
The merchant thought for a moment, then hit the keys on the register. As the drawer came open, he quoted a paraphrase of Matthew 25:43: “He was a stranger, and I took him in.”
You know, the ability to memorize Scripture is a good thing. I've read of people who have memorized the entire Bible, and I've met scores of people who could tell you the chapter and verse of numerous Scriptures, particularly those in which they are interested.
Personally, I'm kind of on the dullard side. I have to refer to my concordance to find the Scripture. The moral of the story is that it's one thing to memorize Scripture. It's quite another thing to practice it.
Ed Vitagliano: Welcome back. Ed Vitagliano, sitting in for Tim Wildmon today, joined in the studio by Fred Jackson, Tony Vitagliano, and Chris Woodward. All right, Chris, light it up.
Chris Woodward: We have one more story here about the White House. Late last week, the Wall Street Journal published an exclusive. This is how the story begins:
“The White House delivered a warning to conservative groups: We’re watching you.”
Two days after voters rebuked President Trump and his party, the administration moved to hold together a coalition that was beginning to splinter. The White House Office of Public Liaison, which works with outside groups, sent a memo to more than 3,000 conservative organizations that laid out a list of Trump's accomplishments in office and pledged to prevent newly ascendant Democrats from reversing them.
The memo concluded with a sentence highlighted in yellow: “We are monitoring statements, press releases, and media engagements from your organizations.”
People took that as a threat, because how else might you take something highlighted that says they are monitoring you? I talked to a couple of groups that received this memo. One was Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which does a lot of pro-life work. Another organization we have interviewed for as long as I've been here is the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
Let's begin with the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. I spoke to one of their vice presidents, Ross Marchand. He said they received this and, quite frankly, the White House should have apologized to them based on how the midterms went.
Ross Marchand: Frankly, it was bizarre. The White House should have reached out to us and other conservative groups, apologizing for not listening to us. That is a major cause of why Republicans did so badly during the midterms. It also bodes really poorly for freedom of speech and is going to deter, unfortunately, a lot of groups from speaking their minds.
It's really important for watchdog groups like the Taxpayers Protection Alliance to be able to call balls and strikes and call out the administration and lawmakers from both sides when they're departing from conservative principles, when they're departing from free-market principles, and when they're spending money out of control.
We have a two-trillion-dollar deficit and a forty-trillion-dollar debt. It's simply not sustainable, and it's important for groups to be able to call attention to that.
Chris Woodward: The Susan B. Anthony group had put out statements saying the Trump administration lost voters based on its inaction regarding abortion pills. I'll play this clip, and then we'll get everybody's thoughts.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America representative: The election was an obvious tsunami, and that's because the GOP ignored their base. Part of that has to do with Republicans at large not speaking about the issue during the election, but also this court decision by the administration to leave Joe Biden's mail-order abortion drug policy in place.
The administration had this calculation that delaying action on abortion drugs would help Republicans in the midterms, and that was a complete miss. They didn't win over the small percentage of voters who actually support keeping mail-order abortion drugs legal in this country. The only tangible results of delaying and allowing Joe Biden's rule to stay in place were turnout problems and hundreds of thousands of dead babies.
Chris Woodward: Those are two of the 3,000 conservative groups that received a warning from the White House saying they are being monitored.
Ed Vitagliano: Fred, a couple of things here. First, the Democratic Party is pretty clear about what it intends to do with power. Those who voted for them understand what they have said they intend to do, whether they do it or not. If you are listening to the Democratic Party, you understand what they stand for and thus what they would do if they have power.
I'm not sure the Republican Party can claim that same type of clarity. To the points being made by some of these conservative groups, the Republicans, and this predates President Trump, have always shied away from the things that were important to their own base in favor of other approaches.
I agree with the conservative groups that don't like the wording of this memo, because the federal government has way too much power. I don't care who's in it, who's at the head of it, or who's running it. The amount of power that the federal government wields could make groups chill their own speech because they don't want to go up against a federal government wielding that much power.
I was troubled by that memo. Why is the federal government going to be monitoring what private groups say, unless they're advocating for the overthrow of the Constitution?
Fred Jackson: It sounded like the Republicans were taking a page out of the Joe Biden administration playbook, that they were going to monitor what groups you email and what groups you're associated with or praise. We all know what happened to members of the military. They were checked out as to what other groups they associated with.
I'm going to use a very sophisticated word: This was a dumb thing to do. It really was. I'm not sure if it was one person who said, “I'm going to throw that in there just to keep our groups in line.”
The groups that support you, those 3,000 groups for the most part, exist for a cause. If you're not helping and not listening to their concerns, then those groups, if they're worth their salt, are going to continue with their cause regardless of what the party says.
Take pro-life, for example. They're going to fight for unborn babies. Do you think they're going to keep their mouths shut just because somebody in the White House doesn't like what they're saying or that they're disappointed you didn't do more about mail-order abortion pills? It was a silly thing to do, and it is bearing the fruit you would expect from real conservative groups who fight for a cause like abortion. We're not going to put up with your attempts at intimidation, because unborn babies are too important to us.
Ed Vitagliano: Tony, if these groups are not going to surrender their vision and mission, and many of these groups are Christian groups motivated by their faith, if they didn't surrender during the Joe Biden years, I find it hard to believe they will be intimidated by someone in the Trump administration.
I've always had a problem with the Republican Party in general treating social conservatives as the cranky uncle at Thanksgiving. They always seemed to want our vote when election time came around, but they also seemed embarrassed by the passion of a Christian pro-life group that just wants to defend the lives of unborn children.
Tony Vitagliano: This was definitely an unforced error, in my opinion, because a lot of these groups are Christian, and their mission is not predicated on who is or isn't in positions of authority.
What drives the mission, speaking specifically about the pro-life movement and these organizations, is that regardless of what man says, we know what God says about the value of every human life. So it doesn't matter.
There seems to be a lot of finger-pointing. If the Republican Party is doing what it is supposed to do on an economic level and a foreign-policy level, and the things that cross the aisle or get independents and moderates on board, then it can focus on the issues that everyone cares about. People actually care more than you would think about the social issues.
We saw in 2024 a repudiation across the board of the madness of the transgender movement, DEI, and critical race theory. It was a repudiation of social issues. We can't ignore those issues or the organizations fighting against them and for other valuable issues. You can't ignore them without doing so at your own peril if you are the Republican Party.
Ed Vitagliano: Fred, one last thing, and then we can move on. President Trump in 2016 won a lot of evangelical and born-again Christians, people who might not otherwise have participated because of some of the baggage they saw, including his number of marriages, some of the things he had said, and sometimes his demeanor.
We wrestled with many evangelicals who said, “I'm not sure I can vote for this guy. I may just not vote for anyone.” President Trump brought a lot of those people along because of his promise, which he kept, to appoint pro-life judges. Survey after survey showed people saying that was the only reason they voted for him.
To Tony's point, it is not wise for the Republican Party to dismiss people who vote because of a particular social issue. I don't think they're implying anything right now. There is a lot of chaos in the conservative community because of the catastrophe on November 3, so I'm not sure the Republican Party is saying anything. But that's the implication of this memo: “You have to toe the line with us.”
You're not going to get anywhere with Christian groups, or probably any of these groups, by threatening or implying a threat. These are groups that have been in existence for a long time, sometimes decades. You are not going to intimidate us into silence by saying, “We're watching you and listening to what you're saying.” These are people with a vision who are dedicated to it.
During Cherathon, we usually play a clip of Brother Don, our founder, talking about an article in USA Today. What does he say? It's all about being faithful. Real, solid, Bible-driven, Bible-based groups are not going to compromise.
Both the Democrats and Republicans may say, “We don't need you anymore.” That's fine. We're going to be faithful because our King is Jesus Christ, and He doesn't change. We're going to stay faithful and stay in the fight.
They may say, “We're going to take you off the air.” We'll find another way to get out there, because our message is biblically based, and the Bible is based on eternal truths. That's the bottom line, and that's why we're here. If a Republican or Democratic Party wants to come along and support us, that's fine. But if you don't, we're not going to change our minds, because we serve the King.
And by the way, it is not impossible for American Family Radio to one day disappear if things get bad enough.
Fred Jackson: That's right. Coming from Canada, I know where that kind of left-leaning thinking takes people. They have a group in Canada that monitors radio stations. If they hear things they don't like on radio stations, they write what we would call the FCC here. They write the CRTC, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, saying, “This radio station had this preacher on, and he said this. That's unacceptable to us. We're going to pull your license.”
Don't think for a moment that could not happen here. And don't think for a moment there are not people on the left, probably the majority of them, who would love to do that.
Tony Vitagliano: Christians should continue to care about the social issues and continue to hammer away at them. It's very obvious to me that the left still cares about social issues.
They used the economy and the war in Iran as leverage to get into power, and now what are they talking about? The social issues are coming right back. You have women celebrating abortion because they know some of these state legislatures have flipped and they have gained governorships. They're celebrating the abortion issue.
Mark my words, they're going to start pounding away at DEI again. They're going to start pounding away at transgenderism. Those social issues never stop being important to them. So why should the Republican Party turn around and say, “You know what, guys? I think we need to lay off the social issues for a while.”
Ed Vitagliano: We didn't talk about this in our story meeting this morning, but did all of you see what Dave Chappelle said?
Chris Woodward: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't want to undercut it if we're going to cover it, but comedian Dave Chappelle, very well known and popular, said this. You're not supposed to bring phones into his stand-up comedy routine, but somebody did and recorded the audio.
Dave Chappelle said something to this extent: “I hate to say this. I know this is kind of messed up, but I have to tell you, the day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I felt good.” He went on to talk about how good he felt after he was murdered.
Chris Woodward: He said he felt better since the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Ed Vitagliano: He didn't say right after, but I don't think an apology has been issued.
Chris Woodward: Yes, an apology has been issued because somebody recorded it and publicized it.
Ed Vitagliano: Are you sorry because of what you said, or are you sorry because someone recorded you and put it out? This is the point I'm trying to make. There are people here, such as the two podcasters who were laughing about somebody saying they were going to dig up Charlie Kirk's corpse and kill him and shoot him again. Those two podcasters were laughing about that. They have also had to apologize.
The point I'm trying to make is that if you think the midterms were just about the economy for the left, you are deluded. These people hate conservatives, hate Christians, hate our Constitution, and hate a biblical worldview. They are at war with these things, and the Democrats have now taken power to put that into practice.
Let's not forget that it was just ten years ago that many of these people were part of a campaign called “Love Trumps Hate.”
Fred Jackson: Yes.
Ed Vitagliano: This is an ideological war, folks. It is a spiritual war.
Fred Jackson: That's right.
Ed Vitagliano: Christian groups, Christian ministries like ours, churches, and pastors, if you haven't figured this out by now, you better figure it out fast.
I've seen this statement posted on Facebook the day after the election: “As long as they leave my faith and my guns alone, I'm good with the election results.” Don't be deceived. They've already said they're going to come after both of those. They are not going to leave those things alone.
Folks, I hate to say this, but I'm monologuing a little bit here. President Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War, said, in general, that America was going to have to be all one thing or all the other with regard to slavery. I believe this was from his “House Divided” speech, though I'm not one hundred percent sure.
He said we can't be split on the issue of slavery. We're either going to be all in on slavery, or it's going to be illegal, because he understood the biblical principle that a house divided cannot stand. Our nation cannot stand either. It is going to be all one thing or all something else.
The “all one thing” is going to be the approach of the Founding Fathers, which was a republic rooted in the Christian faith and the Christian worldview, or that is going to be jettisoned and this country will be rooted in humanism, secularism, atheism, and the all-powerful state.
If you don't see that, I feel sorry for you for the day when your eyes are opened, because it's probably going to be when something happens and you ask, “Why didn't someone do something to stop this?”
Well, that's what we're trying to do. That's what this program exists to do, this network and this ministry and other ministries like it.
With about two and a half or three minutes to go, let's do this. They have already come out with the cost of your Thanksgiving meal this year.
Chris Woodward: How much?
Ed Vitagliano: Let's go around the panel. How much do you think Thanksgiving will cost on average this year for a family of ten?
Chris Woodward: I've seen some of these numbers. Are you asking us to guess?
Ed Vitagliano: Yes.
Chris Woodward: I'm trying to think of the numbers I've seen before. Forty-six dollars.
Ed Vitagliano: I've seen Walmart advertising a deal for twenty-five dollars.
Chris Woodward: For the basket?
Ed Vitagliano: No, not for twenty-five dollars. You can get a coupon and it comes down to twenty-five.
Chris Woodward: I don't know. I'd say forty-six dollars.
Ed Vitagliano: I'm going to say fifty dollars a person.
Chris Woodward: Fifty dollars?
Ed Vitagliano: Yes. So a family of ten, that's five hundred dollars.
Fred, you've already had Thanksgiving because you're Canadian, but how much do you think American Thanksgiving will cost?
Fred Jackson: For ten people? We estimate way below that because our kids are all grown up.
Ed Vitagliano: Hang on. Five hundred bucks. Did I get the math right?
Chris Woodward: I'm sorry. I said forty-six dollars total for ten people to eat. That's turkey, dressing, everything.
Ed Vitagliano: Turkey and dressing? Are you dreaming?
Chris Woodward: What's the right answer?
Ed Vitagliano: The correct answer: A Thanksgiving meal for ten this year will cost $78.93. In the bizarre world in which we live, that is cheaper than it was this time last year.
Chris Woodward: We just had an election on the economy, and the Democrats will take credit.
Ed Vitagliano: I was only thirty dollars off.
Chris Woodward: In my defense, I don't ever buy these groceries.
Ed Vitagliano: I was going to say, does caviar come with it?
Chris Woodward: No. My encouraging wife just texted me and said, “You are bad wrong.”
Ed Vitagliano: Thank you. All right, folks, we're going to take a break.
Ed Vitagliano sits in for Tim Wildmon with Fred Jackson and other panelists to examine a Wall Street Journal report that the White House warned more than 3,000 conservative organizations their statements, press releases, and media appearances were being monitored. Representatives of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and Susan B. Anthony List describe the memo as an intimidation tactic that could discourage criticism of the administration.
The panel also discusses President Donald Trump’s comments that his deportation policy may have been too tough and his openness to an immigration deal. They debate whether immigration or economic concerns drove the midterm results and consider the Republican Party’s direction.
Other topics include reports that Trump is considering UFC president Dana White for White House press secretary, the future of pro-life advocacy, and why Christian social conservatives say they must remain faithful to biblical convictions regardless of political leadership.
Live
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