Host: Welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Today is Wednesday, September 30, 2026. The panel today includes Ed Vitagliano, Wesley Wildmon, and Fred Jackson.
Host: If you combine all four of us, with each person contributing 25 percent of the brainpower, we should be able to give 110 percent.
Ed: If each person representing 25 percent of the panel gives 110 percent, then you've got 440 percent.
Host: That's what I'm saying. We're bringing it.
Ed: I don't think that's what you were saying.
Host: I don't think it's what I was saying either, but Ed sounded so much better.
Wesley: You don't want to say each of us has 25 percent of our brain functioning.
Host: It's a mental powerhouse that we bring forth.
Ed: That's right. We're bringing it.
Host: Thanks for listening, everybody. We have no guest today, so it will just be us until Steve and Jordan take over the show. Let's talk about today. Not all of it is good, unfortunately. We wish it was, but Fred has a big international news story going on.
Fred: Folks, if you go to AFN.net right now, there is breaking news at the top of the website. The headline is, “Israel says a pilot stabbed another pilot on a passenger flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv in an apparent terrorist attempt.”
Fred: While most of us were sleeping overnight, there was an incident. A Boeing 737 operated by Flydubai took off from Dubai, headed to Tel Aviv. Reports say there were at least 100 Israeli citizens on board. About two and a half hours into the flight, according to the reports we are being given, the copilot took out a knife and began stabbing the captain of the aircraft.
Fred: The flight dropped from about 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in a matter of 30 or 40 seconds. Somehow, there were people, perhaps crew members or another pilot, among the passengers aboard that airplane. They managed to get into the cockpit, pull the pilots apart, take control of the aircraft, and land at an airport in Saudi Arabia.
Fred: According to Prime Minister Netanyahu, there is no question that this was an apparent terrorist attempt aimed at killing all of these Jewish passengers and everybody else on board. It sounds like a suicide terrorist attack.
Host: Just to be clear, this was not an Israeli airline.
Ed: No, it was Flydubai, probably operated by two Arab Muslim pilots, and one decided to attack the other in an attempt to bring the plane down.
Fred: Israeli fighter jets were scrambled as this was unfolding. Obviously, the thought was that perhaps the copilot was going to try to fly to Tel Aviv and crash the aircraft there.
Host: But no passengers died.
Fred: Fox News has been showing pictures of passengers with blood all over them. Apparently, they are the ones being hailed as the heroes. They got into the cockpit, took control of the aircraft, and were able to bring it down. One report says the rudder of the aircraft was badly damaged because of the rapid descent.
Host: Fox spoke this morning with a former and retired F-18 fighter pilot named Matthew Buckley. He was one of the fighter pilots scrambled on 9/11, when those planes were crashing into the towers in New York. They asked him about this incident.
Guest: Sadly, this isn't an isolated incident. In this case, it does look terror-related. I'll trust the Israeli sources on this. You're not flying into Israel without them knowing exactly who you are. But the Germanwings incident, or the EgyptAir flight, or the FedEx incident, where an air crew tried to take control of the aircraft and crash it into FedEx headquarters, show that this is sadly not unheard of. This clearly is leaning further from the mental-health column into the terrorism column.
Guest: You've got to keep your head on a swivel. Tensions are obviously heightened, especially because there are only a handful of airlines still flying to Israel after the October 7 attacks, particularly from Dubai. There are literally fewer than a handful. I guarantee you that on any flight going into Israel, they have the equivalent of air marshals on board.
Guest: This was pretty violent. This airliner, a 737-800 MAX, descended about 20,000 feet in about 30 seconds.
Host: Twenty thousand feet in 30 seconds?
Guest: It was a nose dive.
Host: I'm surprised people weren't hurt from that.
Ed: Maybe they were. Maybe there were injuries from it.
Host: You remember when this happened with EgyptAir?
Ed: Yes, about 15 years ago. There was a pilot who evidently left New York, or perhaps South America, heading to Cairo. They got out over the ocean, and he basically committed suicide.
Host: That was different from an attack by a copilot. Who would have ever thought that would happen? But this was Flydubai, going from Dubai to Tel Aviv.
Wesley: Were both pilots taken to the hospital?
Fred: Yes. They made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
Host: I have a hard time visualizing an aircraft going that steep and then being able to level out.
Ed: They must have been really high up in the air, about 30,000 feet.
Host: If you nose-dive from 33,000 feet and descend 20,000 feet, that's stunning.
Host: We are living through times when I don't know if there will be history past this. It seems to me that one of two things is coming. Either some sort of wider war will engulf Israel, whether it would be biblical, meaning something referred to in the Bible, or something short of that but still cataclysmic. Or the Lord is coming back. Maybe both.
Host: The amount of hostility coming from the world, from Muslim countries and the world in general, and even from our nation, continually stuns me. I see so much hostility on social media in comments about any story even tangentially related to Israel. The comments underneath say things like, “What are you, some kind of Jew lover?”
Ed: It's coming from the far right and the far left. They converge on this.
Host: I've never seen anything like it. I lived through the 1973 war, the 1967 war, the Intifada, and all these kinds of things in the 1990s. I have never seen this much hostility worldwide, and it seems to be growing. It can only end in one of two things. I don't think Islam is going to collapse, so as this hostility ratchets up, there is going to be some sort of wide war, maybe another world war in the Middle East, or we are looking at the end of history.
Ed: Thank you for that. I'm so encouraged to go through the rest of my day with a bright and sunny outlook.
Host: It could be after the college football season is over, though, Tim.
Host: How did the pilot get the knife on the plane? Was it a makeshift knife?
Fred: That's a good question. Right now, it's being described as a knife, so somehow that pilot made it through whatever checks they do of the aircrew in Dubai.
Ed: Is there a possibility that some people on the inside were helping?
Host: Remember, in the religion of Islam, the most fundamentalist Muslims are different from people who are merely cultural Muslims. As with other religions, you have people who are nominal, and you have the devout. What I would call fundamental Islam, or what some people call radical Islam, is Islam by the book, meaning the Quran.
Host: My first impression of what happened here was that it was an act of jihad. In jihad, you can also take your own life if you are doing the will of Allah to take the lives of infidels. That's why they are the only religion in the world where you see people blow themselves up. They blow themselves up so they can kill other people or attack other countries.
Host: The idea is, why would somebody kill himself? It sounds crazy. But it isn't crazy if you believe you are going to paradise with 72 virgins if you are a male. I don't know the last time I saw a female Muslim blow herself up. Maybe that happens, but I've not heard of it in a long time. They are almost always males.
Wesley: The teaching is that if you die in fulfillment of the requirement of jihad, as a Muslim man, you are supposedly guaranteed 72 virgins upon your arrival in paradise.
Host: I don't know why you'd want that, but anyway.
Ed: That's another reason not to make a joke about something so serious. The point is that, for those who wonder why somebody would do something so crazy or insane, to them it isn't crazy because they believe those actions are rewarded in the afterlife.
Wesley: That makes sense in the fundamentalist view of Muslim teaching, that their god, Allah, wants Muslim men to make war on the infidels, especially the Jews. If they kill them and die in fulfillment of that obligation, they are rewarded by God.
Host: Was there any more public example of this in modern times than 9/11, which we just commemorated, the 25th anniversary?
Ed: That showed the world how committed these jihadists are. They wanted to kill as many Americans, or infidels, as possible so they could be rewarded by Allah. That's the reason they hijacked the planes. It wasn't to send a political message. It was a religious message they were sending to the world.
Host: Wesley, go ahead, and then Fred.
Wesley: I've read this before, but from 9/11 to 2016, there were 452 suicide terrorist attacks, and 450 of them were Islamic or Muslim.
Host: How many, and do you know the source?
Wesley: The source is a book called The War Against Islam. At the time the book was released in 2016, it said that from 9/11 to 2016, 452 suicide terrorist attacks had taken place, and 450 of them were Islamic terrorist attacks.
Ed: There is no equivalent teaching in any other religion in the world, including Christianity, where you blow yourself up and kill yourself in the name of promoting your religion or pleasing your God. You get rewarded for it. Buddhists don't do that. Hindus don't do that. Jews don't do that. Christians certainly don't kill other people in the hope that God will reward them.
Host: What percentage of the 1.6 billion Muslims claim to be radicalized?
Ed: Fifteen percent claim to be radicalized.
Host: That's why the numbers are scary. If there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and 15 percent are radicalized, then you've got trouble all over the world with suicide bombers.
Ed: That's another reason why their philosophy, their religion, is incompatible with the United States Constitution.
Host: If my calculator is correct, 15 percent of 1.6 billion is 240 million.
Ed: That's a lot of radicals.
Host: You're listening to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Fred, anything else on that story?
Fred: Don't miss the timing of today's attempted terrorist attack. One week from today is the third anniversary of the Hamas massacre in Israel, October 7. Those of us in this part of the world have a difficult time understanding the mindset. We know a lot of details about what happened on October 7, 2023. Hamas terrorists attacked unarmed men, women, and children. They videotaped themselves carrying out their atrocities against Israeli people.
Fred: Some of these terrorists called their relatives to say, “Look what we did,” celebrating as they massacred Jewish people and took more than 200 hostages.
Host: The hostages are forgotten now. It's “Free Palestine.” That's the mantra of the liberal left today and some on the right.
Fred: What concerns me, and what makes this seem even more like a spiritual dynamic is that you listen to people on the right who we would otherwise agree with on most issues, and they are antisemitic. They believe the Jews are basically the problem.
Host: Why is that? Is it the idea that Israel drags us into wars and things that are not in America's best interest?
Wesley: That's one of the reasons they would give. Within that group, the majority are not nearly as hostile toward Israel. They just don't care whether it is Israel or China. They don't want America dragged into a war or pulled into something that doesn't serve America's interests.
Host: I'm sure most of these people are MAGA, meaning they support President Trump.
Wesley: Yes.
Host: I would respectfully say that your argument is not with Benjamin Netanyahu. Your argument is with Donald Trump, the president, because he said, “I run the show.” He says he runs the show even in Israel. If he runs the show, he is responsible for whatever military action the United States takes.
Ed: And that's why his poll numbers are dropping.
Host: I think it's misguided for people on the right to blame Israel for something the president says he alone is responsible for, namely the actions of the United States military.
Wesley: They would also look at it historically. They wouldn't say it is only about Donald Trump.
Host: Israel is our friend, an ally of the United States. Their values are much like ours here. They really are a Western country in the middle of the Middle East, surrounded by the Arab and Muslim world.
Host: Israel has been getting along fairly well with its neighbors for years, and I think you can commend Donald Trump for that in part. Other presidents deserve credit as well, but Donald Trump can be commended for the Abraham Accords and for trying to work out peace between Israel and its neighbors.
Host: Israel is surrounded by enemies who hate the Jews. They live in a tiny part of the world. The country of Israel is about the size of New Jersey, surrounded by huge countries filled with people who hate the Jews. They will tell you it is because of Israel's bombing in Gaza, but they don't believe Israel has a right to exist. When they say, “From the river to the sea,” that means eradicating the Jews.
Fred: That is the difference between the right and the left. People on the right who disagree with Israel say they believe Israel is drawing us into wars or military actions in which we have no business being involved. People on the far left simply hate the Jews and want them killed. They support Hamas and terrorism in many ways.
Host: We'll be back momentarily with more of Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network.
Speaker: Human beings, being what they are, are prone to make mistakes. Some of the mistakes we make are very serious and costly. Some of them, however, are innocent and often humorous.
Speaker: I recently ran across a humorous mistake made by a florist in Harrisburg, Illinois. Somehow, the cards on two bouquets were switched. One birthday bouquet to a housewife from her husband read, “Congratulations. Hope the baby is doing fine.” The other card, sent to a mother in the hospital with her first child, read, “Congratulations. Hope you have many more.”
Speaker: It would be fine if all our mistakes were humorous ones. Maybe we could laugh a little more. But some of the mistakes we make are not so funny. Some of them are dead serious.
Speaker: Paul, writing to the Christians in Galatia, wrote what I have in mind here: “Make no mistake about this,” he said. “God is not to be fooled. A man reaps what he sows.”
Speaker: There are some basic truths in life that no man can escape, and one of them is that we reap what we sow. Not long ago, a parent expressed concern to me that their children did not attend church as regularly as the parent wanted them to, and yet the parent attended very seldom. We reap what we sow.
Speaker: Maybe this is old news to you. Maybe you've already heard it. That doesn't change the fact that it is true. Sometimes we become so accustomed to what is true that we regard it very lightly. We make a terrible mistake when we do this.
Speaker: In this life we live, there are two roads on which we can travel, the high road or the low road. Natural consequences follow the choice we make. The reason the Carpenter came into this world was to get people to walk the high road. He came to lead them in their journey of life down the high road.
Speaker: He will never force us to choose the high road. If we wish to choose the low road, he gives us the freedom to do so, even though it breaks his heart. There is a little poem that fits this idea so well:
Speaker: “But to every man there openeth a highway and a low,
And every man decideth the way his soul shall go.”
Speaker: In the final analysis, it is our decision what kind of life we live here on earth. People can influence us, but we have the final decision about what our life will be. Our lives are, after all, largely what we want them to be.
Speaker: After we make our decision about what we will do with our lives, we reap the results. Those who seek the answer in houses, lands, and things will someday find that empty lives are just as empty, filled with things.
Speaker: Yes, we make mistakes. Mistakes are the trademarks of humanity. But whatever else we may do, let us keep this truth in mind: “Make no mistake about this. God is not to be fooled. A man reaps what he sows. If he sows in the field of his lower nature, he will reap from it a harvest of corruption. But if he sows in the field of the Spirit, the Spirit will bring him a harvest of eternal life.”
Speaker: Incidentally, what kind of crop do you expect?
Host: Welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. If you want to send us an email, the address is [email protected]. Tim, Ed, Wesley, and Fred are here.
Host: Before we move to the next story, I want to plead with everybody who lives in Texas to get everybody you know, family and friends, to vote in the November election. You've got a senatorial race that is of utmost importance, and you've got a governor's race. I think Abbott is ahead and will probably win comfortably in the governor's race, but the Senate race is up for grabs if you believe the polls.
Host: You've got Tony Orozco, the Democrat, and Ken Paxton, the Republican. Who do you think I would vote for if I lived in Texas, Ed?
Ed: I think I know.
Host: Our listeners know what is at stake in Texas ideologically and according to our values. The race seems to be so close that it will come down to who gets the most people out to the polls to vote in Texas for this senatorial election. There is a total worldview difference between Paxton and his policies. I know he has personal behavior in his past, but that should not distract from the larger issue.
Wesley: Some Republicans have a problem with Ken Paxton because of those personal issues. They also had a problem with John Cornyn, and Paxton defeated Cornyn in the Republican primary.
Host: This is a very important Senate seat for two reasons. First, Texas and Florida have basically become red states and have countered California and New York, which the Democrats essentially control. But Republicans could lose Florida or Texas in statewide elections, just as Georgia and North Carolina have changed.
Ed: Who would have ever thought Georgia would have two Democratic senators?
Host: Atlanta has changed because of all the people moving there. The Texas Senate race is critical for another reason. President Trump has two years left. I am going to concede that the House of Representatives will go to the Democrats.
Wesley: That would be typical.
Host: It may happen, and the margin is already very small. But President Trump will have two years left, and it is the president's responsibility to appoint federal judges, including potentially Supreme Court justices. If the Democrats control the Senate, they will probably block every one of his nominees.
Host: The Republicans currently have a 53 to 47 majority. I'm not endorsing any particular party. I'm just telling you life as it is. If the Republicans lose the United States Senate, it needs to at least be 50-50, where Vice President Vance can break a tie.
Host: To me, it is about the judges. There are many other issues to consider, but the importance of who a president appoints as a federal judge, with a lifetime appointment, is critical. President Trump will appoint conservative people to be on the bench, and that is very important for the future of our country.
Ed: Absolutely.
Host: So, if you are in Texas, you have to think about that beyond whether you are mad at Paxton about something or not.
Ed: I want our listeners to know that here at AFA, we are all about the Christian worldview and the issues, moral and otherwise, that flow from the Bible. There are times when we criticize Republicans. For us, this is not strictly a partisan thing. It is about the founding ideals based on the Bible and the Constitution, and who upholds those ideals.
Host: We have been critical of Ken Paxton in terms of what he did in the past. As Wesley pointed out, he has apparently repented of those things, although I don't know what a person does in his heart. This is about the ideas coming from particular candidates, what they are going to do when they get to Washington, D.C., and how they are going to vote.
Wesley: If you've got two Republicans who are close in their voting, in where they get their money, and in their ideology, then you can look at a second layer, such as what they do on the weekends, what they do in their personal life, and where they go to church. I understand that.
Host: It is the same thing in Michigan. The candidates are not even close in their views.
Ed: As far as I can tell, and I'm an outsider who lives in Mississippi rather than Texas, Paxton's job performance as attorney general is an A-plus. It is the highest rating on our voter guide.
Wesley: Paxton is rock solid on his policy and worldview in terms of the Constitution and all those things.
Host: There are other tight Senate races, but Michigan is another one. If you are listening in Michigan, you have to get everybody you know who is eligible to vote to go to the polls. In some states, you may still have time to register if you are not registered.
Host: We saw statistics from perhaps 10 or 15 years ago that among the people who identify as Christians in this country, only half are registered, and only half of registered Christians vote. That's 25 percent. That's shameful.
Host: You can go to iVoterGuide.com and find just about everything you want to know about every major candidate in every major race. This is the best voter guide out there. It is under the auspices of the American Family Association and AFA Action. You can find out how people vote, who gives to them, and all those kinds of things. You can also find registration deadlines.
Host: Get linked into that, make plans to vote, and get your family, friends, and church members out there to vote. It is not impossible that socialists could end up taking over this country. We have to get out there and vote because socialists are anti-God, and the brunt of that ideology will fall on you, your children, and your grandchildren, perhaps for generations to come.
Host: In Michigan, the Senate race is between Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed. It is the same contrast as in Texas, a socialist versus a constitutionalist. That's our view.
Host: There are other Senate races around the country, but those two, Michigan and Texas, apparently are going to be razor-thin. It may come down to who can get the most supporters actually to go out and vote.
Ed: I have a quote here from Angela Paxton, Ken Paxton's wife, in her July 25 divorce filing.
Host: Is she his ex-wife?
Ed: It was a divorce filing. What she said was, “It's not the people, it's a seat.” Even if you're mad, and even if we're all mad about the circumstances, if we don't get out to vote, she said we will be fighting not a battle but a war in two years.
Host: Basically, if you lose Texas to a Democrat, it won't be a battle. It will be a war.
Fred: President Trump announced yesterday that he is about to launch a 32-day campaign tour that will include Texas, Ohio, and Michigan. Here is what he said.
Guest: They all want me to go. I'm one person. They all want me to go campaign. I'm starting in about two days. I'm starting literally a 32-day tour. I'm going to Texas, Ohio, and all different places. As you saw with Darlene, Lindsey Graham's sister, she was behind in the polls. I went and did a rally for her, and now she ended up meeting a very good politician.
Fred: He is hitting the road, and they are hoping that the MAGA influence can convince a few people to get up and vote, as we've been talking about.
Host: Any president has a lot of power to influence people to go to the polls and vote. President Trump in particular is a great campaigner. What is going to work against the president, I think, with independents is the economy. We've talked about that, so we don't need to kick that can around again.
Host: I think it is going to come down to how he helps the Republicans. The Republicans have done an abysmal job over the last couple of years defining what they are for and what their agenda is. That leaves people voting only on the price of gas at the pump or the price of groceries.
Host: President Trump needs to do a better job of outlining what the next two years will be like if conservative senators are elected. I'm not sure the president will be able to pull that off. His support has dropped among the general voting public and even among MAGA because of the war in Iran. This is going to be a real challenge for the president.
Host: If anybody is up to charging the troops, it is President Trump, in terms of his ability to campaign. But I'm not sure that will overcome the negative sentiment out there. This is going to be a big ask.
Fred: Just under a week ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel was in New York to speak to the United Nations. Most of the people left the auditorium shouting, “From the river to the sea,” “Genocide,” and other things.
Fred: There was also a big verbal dust-up between Netanyahu and the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, who initially wanted to arrest Netanyahu when he came to town. Mamdani has accused Netanyahu and Israel of carrying out genocide.
Fred: It was a shock when breaking news came out of New York City yesterday that Mamdani said he was setting up a task force to fight antisemitism in New York. He said he is going to spend money protecting synagogues, which is interesting because since Mamdani came into office, the number of hate crimes against Jews has increased. Many people say it is because of the mayor's rhetoric.
Fred: We spoke with Robert Spencer, the head of Jihad Watch, about Mamdani's announcement.
Guest: He understands that there is a political cost in a city with such a large Jewish population. He is trying to tack back now and make people think that he is a reasonable mayor who is not antisemitic.
Guest: But I can tell you right now that the man is being deceptive. He is lying. He is not being honest. We have to understand Mamdani's actions in that light.
Guest: If a man holds to a religion that allows for deception and says something at variance with multiple stated positions he has taken over the years, then it is not Islamophobic or hateful to say that he is deceiving us or trying to.
Guest: We will wait and see what happens, but many people looking back at what has happened since Mamdani became mayor of New York are skeptical about his intention to fight antisemitism.
Host: I am skeptical too. First of all, he is not going to get anywhere with his own party by doing this, and he may get some blowback from them. But a lot of people are leaving New York City, and not just Jews leaving because of antisemitism and fear. We are talking about the economic policies of this socialist mayor.
Host: I don't think I'm playing into stereotypes by saying there is a lot of wealth and achievement in the Jewish community in New York City. If you lose those people, along with others who are leaving because of the economic policies, and wealthy Jews leave New York City for Florida, Nashville, or somewhere else because they are afraid for their lives, that will only hurt Mamdani's socialist plans.
Host: I'm with Robert Spencer. I don't trust Zohran Mamdani. I don't think this is anything other than an attempt to stem the hemorrhaging of people who are critical to the tax base of New York City. It is a desperate plea to save face or win over a group that is otherwise leaving.
Fred: We love homeschoolers here at the American Family Association. Many of our people homeschool.
Ed: My wife and I homeschooled our two girls, and we believe in it.
Wesley: You wouldn't have homeschooled a few if you had my three.
Ed: My three kids were great children, 60 or 65 percent of the time.
Wesley: All the time.
Ed: Sixty-five percent of the time, all the time.
Fred: We have a story about a homeschooler in Nebraska. Twenty-two-year-old Andrew Coats wanted to be a fireman, but the city told him he was not qualified because he was homeschooled.
Host: What?
Fred: They said they do not believe homeschoolers have the required credibility. This was in Fremont, Nebraska.
Ed: That's ridiculous.
Fred: This fight has been going on for a while. Last night, because of all the public response, the Fremont City Council voted unanimously to change its policy. They said they would not let homeschooling stand in the way and that Andrew Coats was qualified.
Fred: I think young Mr. Coats is going to get the job. He was in the audience last night. I saw some of the video from the city council meeting. He was almost in tears because this battle had been going on for so long.
Wesley: The city had a policy that it would not accept diplomas from nonaccredited schools, including homeschools.
Fred: That was the issue. The city had offered him a job as a firefighter, but then rejected him because of the policy. Homeschooling is legal in Nebraska.
Wesley: This was a foolish policy, and it probably would have been financially costly because the city would have lost in court.
Host: I didn't even know that to be a firefighter you had to have a diploma. It seems to me you would just need to pass the test.
Ed: Like a GED or something?
Host: No, just pass whatever test you have to take to go to fireman school. Why do you have to have a diploma?
Ed: You have to be able to read and write and fill out reports.
Host: Should I demonstrate that?
Wesley: I think you need to have at least a high school diploma.
Ed: I agree with that 100 percent. I think everybody should have one, but I don't think it should be required for every job. Should you have to have one to be a plumber?
Wesley: The point is whether you can do the job. The free market can decide what requirements to have. If an employer wants somebody to have a doctorate degree, they can require it. If they do not want to require a degree, I don't care. Can you do the job or not?
Host: I don't know how we ended up on this.
Wesley: We all know how we ended up here. The head troll went to work.
Ed: I forgot the story now.
Fred: In all seriousness, Diet Coke is in danger in New York City.
Host: I saw the story. You sent it around to the leadership, and you know what I say to the people of New York? Good.
Host: All you Diet Coke fans voted for a communist and put him into office. I hope you have to give up Diet Coke because they can't get it into the stores.
Ed: I am a big Diet Coke fan.
Host: I don't drink Diet Coke. I prefer Coke Zero.
Ed: Diet Coke is my coffee in the morning.
Fred: There is a serious shortage in New York City. People are complaining because store shelves are empty.
Host: You vote for a communist, you lose your Diet Coke.
Wesley: There are no Fritos corn chips either. The pizza parlor shelves are empty.
Host: I don't care what kind of degree you have. Everybody should be able to have a Diet Coke.
Fred: You don't have a hungry yet?
Host: We'll be back in a minute.
Host: Welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Today is Wednesday, September 30, 2026. The panel today includes Ed Vitagliano, Wesley Wildmon, and Fred Jackson.
Host: If you combine all four of us, with each person contributing 25 percent of the brainpower, we should be able to give 110 percent.
Ed: If each person representing 25 percent of the panel gives 110 percent, then you've got 440 percent.
Host: That's what I'm saying. We're bringing it.
Ed: I don't think that's what you were saying.
Host: I don't think it's what I was saying either, but Ed sounded so much better.
Wesley: You don't want to say each of us has 25 percent of our brain functioning.
Host: It's a mental powerhouse that we bring forth.
Ed: That's right. We're bringing it.
Host: Thanks for listening, everybody. We have no guest today, so it will just be us until Steve and Jordan take over the show. Let's talk about today. Not all of it is good, unfortunately. We wish it was, but Fred has a big international news story going on.
Fred: Folks, if you go to AFN.net right now, there is breaking news at the top of the website. The headline is, “Israel says a pilot stabbed another pilot on a passenger flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv in an apparent terrorist attempt.”
Fred: While most of us were sleeping overnight, there was an incident. A Boeing 737 operated by Flydubai took off from Dubai, headed to Tel Aviv. Reports say there were at least 100 Israeli citizens on board. About two and a half hours into the flight, according to the reports we are being given, the copilot took out a knife and began stabbing the captain of the aircraft.
Fred: The flight dropped from about 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in a matter of 30 or 40 seconds. Somehow, there were people, perhaps crew members or another pilot, among the passengers aboard that airplane. They managed to get into the cockpit, pull the pilots apart, take control of the aircraft, and land at an airport in Saudi Arabia.
Fred: According to Prime Minister Netanyahu, there is no question that this was an apparent terrorist attempt aimed at killing all of these Jewish passengers and everybody else on board. It sounds like a suicide terrorist attack.
Host: Just to be clear, this was not an Israeli airline.
Ed: No, it was Flydubai, probably operated by two Arab Muslim pilots, and one decided to attack the other in an attempt to bring the plane down.
Fred: Israeli fighter jets were scrambled as this was unfolding. Obviously, the thought was that perhaps the copilot was going to try to fly to Tel Aviv and crash the aircraft there.
Host: But no passengers died.
Fred: Fox News has been showing pictures of passengers with blood all over them. Apparently, they are the ones being hailed as the heroes. They got into the cockpit, took control of the aircraft, and were able to bring it down. One report says the rudder of the aircraft was badly damaged because of the rapid descent.
Host: Fox spoke this morning with a former and retired F-18 fighter pilot named Matthew Buckley. He was one of the fighter pilots scrambled on 9/11, when those planes were crashing into the towers in New York. They asked him about this incident.
Guest: Sadly, this isn't an isolated incident. In this case, it does look terror-related. I'll trust the Israeli sources on this. You're not flying into Israel without them knowing exactly who you are. But the Germanwings incident, or the EgyptAir flight, or the FedEx incident, where an air crew tried to take control of the aircraft and crash it into FedEx headquarters, show that this is sadly not unheard of. This clearly is leaning further from the mental-health column into the terrorism column.
Guest: You've got to keep your head on a swivel. Tensions are obviously heightened, especially because there are only a handful of airlines still flying to Israel after the October 7 attacks, particularly from Dubai. There are literally fewer than a handful. I guarantee you that on any flight going into Israel, they have the equivalent of air marshals on board.
Guest: This was pretty violent. This airliner, a 737-800 MAX, descended about 20,000 feet in about 30 seconds.
Host: Twenty thousand feet in 30 seconds?
Guest: It was a nose dive.
Host: I'm surprised people weren't hurt from that.
Ed: Maybe they were. Maybe there were injuries from it.
Host: You remember when this happened with EgyptAir?
Ed: Yes, about 15 years ago. There was a pilot who evidently left New York, or perhaps South America, heading to Cairo. They got out over the ocean, and he basically committed suicide.
Host: That was different from an attack by a copilot. Who would have ever thought that would happen? But this was Flydubai, going from Dubai to Tel Aviv.
Wesley: Were both pilots taken to the hospital?
Fred: Yes. They made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
Host: I have a hard time visualizing an aircraft going that steep and then being able to level out.
Ed: They must have been really high up in the air, about 30,000 feet.
Host: If you nose-dive from 33,000 feet and descend 20,000 feet, that's stunning.
Host: We are living through times when I don't know if there will be history past this. It seems to me that one of two things is coming. Either some sort of wider war will engulf Israel, whether it would be biblical, meaning something referred to in the Bible, or something short of that but still cataclysmic. Or the Lord is coming back. Maybe both.
Host: The amount of hostility coming from the world, from Muslim countries and the world in general, and even from our nation, continually stuns me. I see so much hostility on social media in comments about any story even tangentially related to Israel. The comments underneath say things like, “What are you, some kind of Jew lover?”
Ed: It's coming from the far right and the far left. They converge on this.
Host: I've never seen anything like it. I lived through the 1973 war, the 1967 war, the Intifada, and all these kinds of things in the 1990s. I have never seen this much hostility worldwide, and it seems to be growing. It can only end in one of two things. I don't think Islam is going to collapse, so as this hostility ratchets up, there is going to be some sort of wide war, maybe another world war in the Middle East, or we are looking at the end of history.
Ed: Thank you for that. I'm so encouraged to go through the rest of my day with a bright and sunny outlook.
Host: It could be after the college football season is over, though, Tim.
Host: How did the pilot get the knife on the plane? Was it a makeshift knife?
Fred: That's a good question. Right now, it's being described as a knife, so somehow that pilot made it through whatever checks they do of the aircrew in Dubai.
Ed: Is there a possibility that some people on the inside were helping?
Host: Remember, in the religion of Islam, the most fundamentalist Muslims are different from people who are merely cultural Muslims. As with other religions, you have people who are nominal, and you have the devout. What I would call fundamental Islam, or what some people call radical Islam, is Islam by the book, meaning the Quran.
Host: My first impression of what happened here was that it was an act of jihad. In jihad, you can also take your own life if you are doing the will of Allah to take the lives of infidels. That's why they are the only religion in the world where you see people blow themselves up. They blow themselves up so they can kill other people or attack other countries.
Host: The idea is, why would somebody kill himself? It sounds crazy. But it isn't crazy if you believe you are going to paradise with 72 virgins if you are a male. I don't know the last time I saw a female Muslim blow herself up. Maybe that happens, but I've not heard of it in a long time. They are almost always males.
Wesley: The teaching is that if you die in fulfillment of the requirement of jihad, as a Muslim man, you are supposedly guaranteed 72 virgins upon your arrival in paradise.
Host: I don't know why you'd want that, but anyway.
Ed: That's another reason not to make a joke about something so serious. The point is that, for those who wonder why somebody would do something so crazy or insane, to them it isn't crazy because they believe those actions are rewarded in the afterlife.
Wesley: That makes sense in the fundamentalist view of Muslim teaching, that their god, Allah, wants Muslim men to make war on the infidels, especially the Jews. If they kill them and die in fulfillment of that obligation, they are rewarded by God.
Host: Was there any more public example of this in modern times than 9/11, which we just commemorated, the 25th anniversary?
Ed: That showed the world how committed these jihadists are. They wanted to kill as many Americans, or infidels, as possible so they could be rewarded by Allah. That's the reason they hijacked the planes. It wasn't to send a political message. It was a religious message they were sending to the world.
Host: Wesley, go ahead, and then Fred.
Wesley: I've read this before, but from 9/11 to 2016, there were 452 suicide terrorist attacks, and 450 of them were Islamic or Muslim.
Host: How many, and do you know the source?
Wesley: The source is a book called The War Against Islam. At the time the book was released in 2016, it said that from 9/11 to 2016, 452 suicide terrorist attacks had taken place, and 450 of them were Islamic terrorist attacks.
Ed: There is no equivalent teaching in any other religion in the world, including Christianity, where you blow yourself up and kill yourself in the name of promoting your religion or pleasing your God. You get rewarded for it. Buddhists don't do that. Hindus don't do that. Jews don't do that. Christians certainly don't kill other people in the hope that God will reward them.
Host: What percentage of the 1.6 billion Muslims claim to be radicalized?
Ed: Fifteen percent claim to be radicalized.
Host: That's why the numbers are scary. If there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and 15 percent are radicalized, then you've got trouble all over the world with suicide bombers.
Ed: That's another reason why their philosophy, their religion, is incompatible with the United States Constitution.
Host: If my calculator is correct, 15 percent of 1.6 billion is 240 million.
Ed: That's a lot of radicals.
Host: You're listening to Today's Issues on American Family Radio. Fred, anything else on that story?
Fred: Don't miss the timing of today's attempted terrorist attack. One week from today is the third anniversary of the Hamas massacre in Israel, October 7. Those of us in this part of the world have a difficult time understanding the mindset. We know a lot of details about what happened on October 7, 2023. Hamas terrorists attacked unarmed men, women, and children. They videotaped themselves carrying out their atrocities against Israeli people.
Fred: Some of these terrorists called their relatives to say, “Look what we did,” celebrating as they massacred Jewish people and took more than 200 hostages.
Host: The hostages are forgotten now. It's “Free Palestine.” That's the mantra of the liberal left today and some on the right.
Fred: What concerns me, and what makes this seem even more like a spiritual dynamic is that you listen to people on the right who we would otherwise agree with on most issues, and they are antisemitic. They believe the Jews are basically the problem.
Host: Why is that? Is it the idea that Israel drags us into wars and things that are not in America's best interest?
Wesley: That's one of the reasons they would give. Within that group, the majority are not nearly as hostile toward Israel. They just don't care whether it is Israel or China. They don't want America dragged into a war or pulled into something that doesn't serve America's interests.
Host: I'm sure most of these people are MAGA, meaning they support President Trump.
Wesley: Yes.
Host: I would respectfully say that your argument is not with Benjamin Netanyahu. Your argument is with Donald Trump, the president, because he said, “I run the show.” He says he runs the show even in Israel. If he runs the show, he is responsible for whatever military action the United States takes.
Ed: And that's why his poll numbers are dropping.
Host: I think it's misguided for people on the right to blame Israel for something the president says he alone is responsible for, namely the actions of the United States military.
Wesley: They would also look at it historically. They wouldn't say it is only about Donald Trump.
Host: Israel is our friend, an ally of the United States. Their values are much like ours here. They really are a Western country in the middle of the Middle East, surrounded by the Arab and Muslim world.
Host: Israel has been getting along fairly well with its neighbors for years, and I think you can commend Donald Trump for that in part. Other presidents deserve credit as well, but Donald Trump can be commended for the Abraham Accords and for trying to work out peace between Israel and its neighbors.
Host: Israel is surrounded by enemies who hate the Jews. They live in a tiny part of the world. The country of Israel is about the size of New Jersey, surrounded by huge countries filled with people who hate the Jews. They will tell you it is because of Israel's bombing in Gaza, but they don't believe Israel has a right to exist. When they say, “From the river to the sea,” that means eradicating the Jews.
Fred: That is the difference between the right and the left. People on the right who disagree with Israel say they believe Israel is drawing us into wars or military actions in which we have no business being involved. People on the far left simply hate the Jews and want them killed. They support Hamas and terrorism in many ways.
Host: We'll be back momentarily with more of Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network.
Speaker: Human beings, being what they are, are prone to make mistakes. Some of the mistakes we make are very serious and costly. Some of them, however, are innocent and often humorous.
Speaker: I recently ran across a humorous mistake made by a florist in Harrisburg, Illinois. Somehow, the cards on two bouquets were switched. One birthday bouquet to a housewife from her husband read, “Congratulations. Hope the baby is doing fine.” The other card, sent to a mother in the hospital with her first child, read, “Congratulations. Hope you have many more.”
Speaker: It would be fine if all our mistakes were humorous ones. Maybe we could laugh a little more. But some of the mistakes we make are not so funny. Some of them are dead serious.
Speaker: Paul, writing to the Christians in Galatia, wrote what I have in mind here: “Make no mistake about this,” he said. “God is not to be fooled. A man reaps what he sows.”
Speaker: There are some basic truths in life that no man can escape, and one of them is that we reap what we sow. Not long ago, a parent expressed concern to me that their children did not attend church as regularly as the parent wanted them to, and yet the parent attended very seldom. We reap what we sow.
Speaker: Maybe this is old news to you. Maybe you've already heard it. That doesn't change the fact that it is true. Sometimes we become so accustomed to what is true that we regard it very lightly. We make a terrible mistake when we do this.
Speaker: In this life we live, there are two roads on which we can travel, the high road or the low road. Natural consequences follow the choice we make. The reason the Carpenter came into this world was to get people to walk the high road. He came to lead them in their journey of life down the high road.
Speaker: He will never force us to choose the high road. If we wish to choose the low road, he gives us the freedom to do so, even though it breaks his heart. There is a little poem that fits this idea so well:
Speaker: “But to every man there openeth a highway and a low,
And every man decideth the way his soul shall go.”
Speaker: In the final analysis, it is our decision what kind of life we live here on earth. People can influence us, but we have the final decision about what our life will be. Our lives are, after all, largely what we want them to be.
Speaker: After we make our decision about what we will do with our lives, we reap the results. Those who seek the answer in houses, lands, and things will someday find that empty lives are just as empty, filled with things.
Speaker: Yes, we make mistakes. Mistakes are the trademarks of humanity. But whatever else we may do, let us keep this truth in mind: “Make no mistake about this. God is not to be fooled. A man reaps what he sows. If he sows in the field of his lower nature, he will reap from it a harvest of corruption. But if he sows in the field of the Spirit, the Spirit will bring him a harvest of eternal life.”
Speaker: Incidentally, what kind of crop do you expect?
Host: Welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. If you want to send us an email, the address is [email protected]. Tim, Ed, Wesley, and Fred are here.
Host: Before we move to the next story, I want to plead with everybody who lives in Texas to get everybody you know, family and friends, to vote in the November election. You've got a senatorial race that is of utmost importance, and you've got a governor's race. I think Abbott is ahead and will probably win comfortably in the governor's race, but the Senate race is up for grabs if you believe the polls.
Host: You've got Tony Orozco, the Democrat, and Ken Paxton, the Republican. Who do you think I would vote for if I lived in Texas, Ed?
Ed: I think I know.
Host: Our listeners know what is at stake in Texas ideologically and according to our values. The race seems to be so close that it will come down to who gets the most people out to the polls to vote in Texas for this senatorial election. There is a total worldview difference between Paxton and his policies. I know he has personal behavior in his past, but that should not distract from the larger issue.
Wesley: Some Republicans have a problem with Ken Paxton because of those personal issues. They also had a problem with John Cornyn, and Paxton defeated Cornyn in the Republican primary.
Host: This is a very important Senate seat for two reasons. First, Texas and Florida have basically become red states and have countered California and New York, which the Democrats essentially control. But Republicans could lose Florida or Texas in statewide elections, just as Georgia and North Carolina have changed.
Ed: Who would have ever thought Georgia would have two Democratic senators?
Host: Atlanta has changed because of all the people moving there. The Texas Senate race is critical for another reason. President Trump has two years left. I am going to concede that the House of Representatives will go to the Democrats.
Wesley: That would be typical.
Host: It may happen, and the margin is already very small. But President Trump will have two years left, and it is the president's responsibility to appoint federal judges, including potentially Supreme Court justices. If the Democrats control the Senate, they will probably block every one of his nominees.
Host: The Republicans currently have a 53 to 47 majority. I'm not endorsing any particular party. I'm just telling you life as it is. If the Republicans lose the United States Senate, it needs to at least be 50-50, where Vice President Vance can break a tie.
Host: To me, it is about the judges. There are many other issues to consider, but the importance of who a president appoints as a federal judge, with a lifetime appointment, is critical. President Trump will appoint conservative people to be on the bench, and that is very important for the future of our country.
Ed: Absolutely.
Host: So, if you are in Texas, you have to think about that beyond whether you are mad at Paxton about something or not.
Ed: I want our listeners to know that here at AFA, we are all about the Christian worldview and the issues, moral and otherwise, that flow from the Bible. There are times when we criticize Republicans. For us, this is not strictly a partisan thing. It is about the founding ideals based on the Bible and the Constitution, and who upholds those ideals.
Host: We have been critical of Ken Paxton in terms of what he did in the past. As Wesley pointed out, he has apparently repented of those things, although I don't know what a person does in his heart. This is about the ideas coming from particular candidates, what they are going to do when they get to Washington, D.C., and how they are going to vote.
Wesley: If you've got two Republicans who are close in their voting, in where they get their money, and in their ideology, then you can look at a second layer, such as what they do on the weekends, what they do in their personal life, and where they go to church. I understand that.
Host: It is the same thing in Michigan. The candidates are not even close in their views.
Ed: As far as I can tell, and I'm an outsider who lives in Mississippi rather than Texas, Paxton's job performance as attorney general is an A-plus. It is the highest rating on our voter guide.
Wesley: Paxton is rock solid on his policy and worldview in terms of the Constitution and all those things.
Host: There are other tight Senate races, but Michigan is another one. If you are listening in Michigan, you have to get everybody you know who is eligible to vote to go to the polls. In some states, you may still have time to register if you are not registered.
Host: We saw statistics from perhaps 10 or 15 years ago that among the people who identify as Christians in this country, only half are registered, and only half of registered Christians vote. That's 25 percent. That's shameful.
Host: You can go to iVoterGuide.com and find just about everything you want to know about every major candidate in every major race. This is the best voter guide out there. It is under the auspices of the American Family Association and AFA Action. You can find out how people vote, who gives to them, and all those kinds of things. You can also find registration deadlines.
Host: Get linked into that, make plans to vote, and get your family, friends, and church members out there to vote. It is not impossible that socialists could end up taking over this country. We have to get out there and vote because socialists are anti-God, and the brunt of that ideology will fall on you, your children, and your grandchildren, perhaps for generations to come.
Host: In Michigan, the Senate race is between Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed. It is the same contrast as in Texas, a socialist versus a constitutionalist. That's our view.
Host: There are other Senate races around the country, but those two, Michigan and Texas, apparently are going to be razor-thin. It may come down to who can get the most supporters actually to go out and vote.
Ed: I have a quote here from Angela Paxton, Ken Paxton's wife, in her July 25 divorce filing.
Host: Is she his ex-wife?
Ed: It was a divorce filing. What she said was, “It's not the people, it's a seat.” Even if you're mad, and even if we're all mad about the circumstances, if we don't get out to vote, she said we will be fighting not a battle but a war in two years.
Host: Basically, if you lose Texas to a Democrat, it won't be a battle. It will be a war.
Fred: President Trump announced yesterday that he is about to launch a 32-day campaign tour that will include Texas, Ohio, and Michigan. Here is what he said.
Guest: They all want me to go. I'm one person. They all want me to go campaign. I'm starting in about two days. I'm starting literally a 32-day tour. I'm going to Texas, Ohio, and all different places. As you saw with Darlene, Lindsey Graham's sister, she was behind in the polls. I went and did a rally for her, and now she ended up meeting a very good politician.
Fred: He is hitting the road, and they are hoping that the MAGA influence can convince a few people to get up and vote, as we've been talking about.
Host: Any president has a lot of power to influence people to go to the polls and vote. President Trump in particular is a great campaigner. What is going to work against the president, I think, with independents is the economy. We've talked about that, so we don't need to kick that can around again.
Host: I think it is going to come down to how he helps the Republicans. The Republicans have done an abysmal job over the last couple of years defining what they are for and what their agenda is. That leaves people voting only on the price of gas at the pump or the price of groceries.
Host: President Trump needs to do a better job of outlining what the next two years will be like if conservative senators are elected. I'm not sure the president will be able to pull that off. His support has dropped among the general voting public and even among MAGA because of the war in Iran. This is going to be a real challenge for the president.
Host: If anybody is up to charging the troops, it is President Trump, in terms of his ability to campaign. But I'm not sure that will overcome the negative sentiment out there. This is going to be a big ask.
Fred: Just under a week ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel was in New York to speak to the United Nations. Most of the people left the auditorium shouting, “From the river to the sea,” “Genocide,” and other things.
Fred: There was also a big verbal dust-up between Netanyahu and the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, who initially wanted to arrest Netanyahu when he came to town. Mamdani has accused Netanyahu and Israel of carrying out genocide.
Fred: It was a shock when breaking news came out of New York City yesterday that Mamdani said he was setting up a task force to fight antisemitism in New York. He said he is going to spend money protecting synagogues, which is interesting because since Mamdani came into office, the number of hate crimes against Jews has increased. Many people say it is because of the mayor's rhetoric.
Fred: We spoke with Robert Spencer, the head of Jihad Watch, about Mamdani's announcement.
Guest: He understands that there is a political cost in a city with such a large Jewish population. He is trying to tack back now and make people think that he is a reasonable mayor who is not antisemitic.
Guest: But I can tell you right now that the man is being deceptive. He is lying. He is not being honest. We have to understand Mamdani's actions in that light.
Guest: If a man holds to a religion that allows for deception and says something at variance with multiple stated positions he has taken over the years, then it is not Islamophobic or hateful to say that he is deceiving us or trying to.
Guest: We will wait and see what happens, but many people looking back at what has happened since Mamdani became mayor of New York are skeptical about his intention to fight antisemitism.
Host: I am skeptical too. First of all, he is not going to get anywhere with his own party by doing this, and he may get some blowback from them. But a lot of people are leaving New York City, and not just Jews leaving because of antisemitism and fear. We are talking about the economic policies of this socialist mayor.
Host: I don't think I'm playing into stereotypes by saying there is a lot of wealth and achievement in the Jewish community in New York City. If you lose those people, along with others who are leaving because of the economic policies, and wealthy Jews leave New York City for Florida, Nashville, or somewhere else because they are afraid for their lives, that will only hurt Mamdani's socialist plans.
Host: I'm with Robert Spencer. I don't trust Zohran Mamdani. I don't think this is anything other than an attempt to stem the hemorrhaging of people who are critical to the tax base of New York City. It is a desperate plea to save face or win over a group that is otherwise leaving.
Fred: We love homeschoolers here at the American Family Association. Many of our people homeschool.
Ed: My wife and I homeschooled our two girls, and we believe in it.
Wesley: You wouldn't have homeschooled a few if you had my three.
Ed: My three kids were great children, 60 or 65 percent of the time.
Wesley: All the time.
Ed: Sixty-five percent of the time, all the time.
Fred: We have a story about a homeschooler in Nebraska. Twenty-two-year-old Andrew Coats wanted to be a fireman, but the city told him he was not qualified because he was homeschooled.
Host: What?
Fred: They said they do not believe homeschoolers have the required credibility. This was in Fremont, Nebraska.
Ed: That's ridiculous.
Fred: This fight has been going on for a while. Last night, because of all the public response, the Fremont City Council voted unanimously to change its policy. They said they would not let homeschooling stand in the way and that Andrew Coats was qualified.
Fred: I think young Mr. Coats is going to get the job. He was in the audience last night. I saw some of the video from the city council meeting. He was almost in tears because this battle had been going on for so long.
Wesley: The city had a policy that it would not accept diplomas from nonaccredited schools, including homeschools.
Fred: That was the issue. The city had offered him a job as a firefighter, but then rejected him because of the policy. Homeschooling is legal in Nebraska.
Wesley: This was a foolish policy, and it probably would have been financially costly because the city would have lost in court.
Host: I didn't even know that to be a firefighter you had to have a diploma. It seems to me you would just need to pass the test.
Ed: Like a GED or something?
Host: No, just pass whatever test you have to take to go to fireman school. Why do you have to have a diploma?
Ed: You have to be able to read and write and fill out reports.
Host: Should I demonstrate that?
Wesley: I think you need to have at least a high school diploma.
Ed: I agree with that 100 percent. I think everybody should have one, but I don't think it should be required for every job. Should you have to have one to be a plumber?
Wesley: The point is whether you can do the job. The free market can decide what requirements to have. If an employer wants somebody to have a doctorate degree, they can require it. If they do not want to require a degree, I don't care. Can you do the job or not?
Host: I don't know how we ended up on this.
Wesley: We all know how we ended up here. The head troll went to work.
Ed: I forgot the story now.
Fred: In all seriousness, Diet Coke is in danger in New York City.
Host: I saw the story. You sent it around to the leadership, and you know what I say to the people of New York? Good.
Host: All you Diet Coke fans voted for a communist and put him into office. I hope you have to give up Diet Coke because they can't get it into the stores.
Ed: I am a big Diet Coke fan.
Host: I don't drink Diet Coke. I prefer Coke Zero.
Ed: Diet Coke is my coffee in the morning.
Fred: There is a serious shortage in New York City. People are complaining because store shelves are empty.
Host: You vote for a communist, you lose your Diet Coke.
Wesley: There are no Fritos corn chips either. The pizza parlor shelves are empty.
Host: I don't care what kind of degree you have. Everybody should be able to have a Diet Coke.
Fred: You don't have a hungry yet?
Host: We'll be back in a minute.
Tim Wildmon, Ed Vitagliano, Wesley Wildmon, and Fred Jackson discuss reports that a co-pilot stabbed the captain of a Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, forcing an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The panel considers Israeli security concerns, the approaching anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack, and rising antisemitism. Retired F-18 pilot Matthew Buckley and Jihad Watch founder Robert Spencer provide commentary on the reported incident and New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani’s plan to combat antisemitism. The hosts examine the importance of upcoming Senate races in Texas and Michigan, including the contests involving Ken Paxton, James Talarico, Mike Rogers, and Abdul El-Sayed. They discuss President Donald Trump’s planned campaign tour, the importance of judicial appointments, and the need for Christians to participate in elections according to biblical and constitutional principles. The program also includes a My Turn devotional reflection on Galatians 6 and the principle that people reap what they sow, along with a report about a Nebraska city reversing a policy that disqualified a homeschool graduate from becoming a firefighter.
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