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welcome to today's Issues, offering a Christian response to the issues of the day. Here's your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.
Tim Wildmon Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. And Today is Tuesday, September 8, 2026. And in studio with me today is Ed Vitagliano. Good morning, Brother Ed.
Ed Vitagliano Good morning, Tim.
Tim Wildmon Wesley Wildmon.
Wesley Wildmon Good morning.
Tim Wildmon And Krish Woodber.
Wesley Wildmon Hello.
Tim Wildmon All right. I like that spirit, Krish. Fred. Well, that's, that's enough though. You can, you can get back to. But I like the opening, you know, opening enthusiasm.
Fred Jackson is tracking down his lobster that didn't come in
Fred Jackson's not here today. Where's Fred? Was Fred Tariff.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, he.
Tim Wildmon Because he's a Canadian.
Ed Vitagliano Canadian.
Tim Wildmon I think we tear it. We did tariff.
Ed Vitagliano We slapped tariff on him. Yeah, deservedly so.
Chris Woodward He's now demanding 15, 25 and 50% more from AFN.
Wesley Wildmon I didn't hear. I didn't hear.
Tim Wildmon No. What happened?
Wesley Wildmon Tracking down his lobster. He's tracking it down. It didn't come in. Oh, so he's about to find out who, where it is.
Tim Wildmon He took a day off to find where his lobster is in root.
Wesley Wildmon For those that listen often.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. Fred orders lobsters from Boston and this
Wesley Wildmon one didn't break it in.
Tim Wildmon Or somewhere up there real.
Ed Vitagliano Really? It didn't make it.
Wesley Wildmon I'm kidding.
Chris Woodward Oh, all right.
Ed Vitagliano Well, that can happen. I don't trust the mail.
Wesley Wildmon Yeah. But to track it down, I don't think you,
Tim Wildmon He has a. Well, he has a passion for it. Fred's talked about ordering lobster from.
Ed Vitagliano There's a restaurant up, there in, Is it Nova Scotia or is it, is it in Maine?
Tim Wildmon I think it's in Maine.
Ed Vitagliano where he, where they'll overnight it.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano And he, he's, he loves his lobster now.
Wesley Wildmon He loves it a lot. But I don't, maybe not tracking it down, though.
Tim Wildmon No, I don't think, Fred's not a lobster hunter.
Wesley Wildmon That's right.
Tim Wildmon You know, he doesn't track, quote, track
Ed Vitagliano down lobsters Today on the History Channel.
Wesley Wildmon But we've orders something we were looking for in the mail that didn't come in, and then you get the tracking code out, and then you start calling. You want to know where it is?
Ed Vitagliano Where this says it was supposed to be delivered today.
Labor Day marks end of summer, doesn't it? It does
Tim Wildmon All right, we, got a lot to talk about today. Lots happened since last Thursday. Went to the last time we did a Today's Issue show here on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks. Hope everybody had a wonderful Labor Day, ah, weekend. And kind of marks the end of summer, doesn't it?
Wesley Wildmon It does. Oh, he's laughing at the heat. The weather for a second.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, it does.
Tim Wildmon The weather pays no attention to the calendar.
Ed Vitagliano That is true.
Tim Wildmon so we roll on with 90s. In the 90s for most of the, For a lot of the country anyway. But, So, But. But it is kind of the official. Not official. Unofficial end of.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, I think September 21st thereabouts, is the start. Official start of fall. But usually after Labor Day, most people start thinking that way.
Tim Wildmon yeah.
Ed Vitagliano Start thinking about when we. When can I pull out my sweaters?
Tim Wildmon And how did you celebrate Labor Day, Ed?
Ed Vitagliano Like, what did you do When I was growing up.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano Well, I, for one. For one thing, school usually started.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano After Labor Day.
Tim Wildmon That's true. I remember those days.
Chris Woodward Ah.
Ed Vitagliano when I was in high school, my dad put a swimming pool in the backyard, and we got to swim in it.
Tim Wildmon Above ground or in ground?
Ed Vitagliano In ground.
Tim Wildmon Wow.
Ed Vitagliano And, so, sometime in June, the water warmed up in enough for us to swim in it into August. But after Labor Day, it. We covered the pool.
Tim Wildmon so you get two months in, in Boston of pool weather.
Ed Vitagliano July and August were the two months. June. Yeah, it was a little iffy because it took a long time for that water to warm up. We got two and a half months, I guess, but. So that's. That's what I always remember. And it was a pain in the neck to cover the pool, and then I had to start raking leaves.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Chris Woodward Ah.
Ed Vitagliano And, it was a difficult life growing up.
Tim Wildmon I understand. I can hear. I can hear it in your voice.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Scientists at University of Michigan apparently travel back in time to change college football outcome
Tim Wildmon All right, Krish, what's, on the first news, item here?
Chris Woodward Well, you know, Labor Day, in addition to pumpkin, spice lattes, and dreams, of cooler weather, it often brings in many, college football games. And I'm going to begin here with college football.
Ed Vitagliano Interesting.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Wesley Wildmon Good for you.
Chris Woodward College football kicked off, over the weekend with many games, including one out of Michigan which resulted in a very well done and cheeky Babylon be headline when it comes to the Michigan game against Western Michigan.
Tim Wildmon People. Do you need to tell people what happened here?
Ed Vitagliano Probably.
Wesley Wildmon Okay.
Chris Woodward All right. So let me set this up. All right. So Michigan is playing at home against Western Michigan. A game that on paper the Michigan Wolverines should be winning handily.
Tim Wildmon They were like 25 point favorite, correct? Something like that.
Chris Woodward Yeah. So you have your little brother so to speak come in, come to town and play you in your house. And Western Michigan is doing its thing and they. They're holding the Michigan Wolverines to seven points. Western Michigan has six points. Then they get close enough to kick a field goal. Now they have a lead in the second half. They're winning nine to seven.
Tim Wildmon This is riveting.
Chris Woodward They get another field goal. They're up 12 to 7. Michigan gets the ball back with just under a minute to go. They start driving down the field and as time is expiring the quarterbacks pass sells out of the end zone with what is clearly 000 on the time clock. And everybody thinks the game is over including Western Michigan players. And then the camera cuts to the referees who are having some sort of conference at midfield to discuss something unbeknownst to the thousands of people that have already stormed the field.
Tim Wildmon How much money can we get out of Michigan?
Chris Woodward Correct.
Caroline All right.
Chris Woodward And then they announced that unbeknownst to all the people watching at home and all the people sitting in the stands there is according to some clock, no one sees one second left in the game allowing Michigan one more play. The quarterback doesn't throw it as deep into the end zone. A guy catches it. And Michigan goes on to come back against Western Michigan. A lot of people take to social media talking about how Michigan has stolen the game.
Tim Wildmon Wait a minute. Hold on just a minute. That was a 60 yard Hail Mary pass in the air.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Tim Wildmon Despite whatever you think of time expired or not, 99.9% of the people I think believe time had expired. That was a marvelous throwing catch there was to end the game. so I mean it's just. It was. It was a. It was a heave. It was like Doug Flutie ask you remember that?
Ed Vitagliano Oh yeah. 1984 Orange Bowl.
Tim Wildmon So you know what's the controversy? Game over. Right Krish?
Chris Woodward Well yes. but apparently according to the band Babylon B some scientists at the University of Michigan apparently developed the ability to travel back in time one second and change the outcome of this game. So I'm breaking news here to America
Tim Wildmon on this battle Babylon B. What do you. You sent that out?
Ed Vitagliano Oh, yeah, I sent that out. that was funny. First of all, it's not funny if you're anyone other than a Michigan fan. clearly one of the worst calls ever. But the Babylon Bee, to their credit, managed to turn this thing around into something funny. It says, in one of the most remarkable technological breakthroughs of the past millennium, scientists at the University of Michigan have successfully traveled back backwards in time by 1 second. Long thought to be outside the realm of possibility, the dream of time travel became a reality on Saturday night. And the only problem is that the scientists have announced that weirdly, their time machine only works so far when the mission University of Michigan is losing.
Chris Woodward Yes, you heard it here first.
Ed Vitagliano That's pretty funny.
Tim Wildmon I was watching that game, I felt bad for Western Michigan because Western Michigan coach and their players, you know, they pulled off. This is a major, major upset, especially inside the state of Michigan. You got, as you say, little brother, Western Michigan traveling to the big house and trying to defeat the mighty Wolverines. And it appeared that they did. And then. Oh, we gonna put another second.
Ed Vitagliano You know what this reminds me of? Although I hate to bring up communists at a moment like this, but back in 1972 during the Olympics, the United States was playing the Soviet Union. The United States had amateur, players at that time. There's no dream teams.
Wesley Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano No professional athletes.
Tim Wildmon These are college kids.
Ed Vitagliano These are college kids. Whereas the Soviets clearly had what amounted to professional athletes on their teams. But I remember, I remember watching the game with my dad and the US won the game. And the East German referees, I think they were East German, they said, wait, wait, wait, one second left on the clock. The Soviet Union got the ball, inbounded one second left, one second left. The Soviets inbounded. The, the U.S. defended the play. The Soviets said something happened. They give them that one second over again, they throw the ball in and there's a tap in and the Soviets win. I'm not sure I've ever seen. Yes, a real thing.
LSU ran two plays in the final four seconds to beat Ole Miss
I'm not ever. I'm not sure I've ever seen my dad madder than he was at that moment. Because the whole family, we all hated communists like any red blooded American should.
Chris Woodward He was a marine.
Ed Vitagliano He was a marine. He got up out of his chair. I don't remember what he said, but it can't be repeated. Whatever, whatever it was. And he grabbed the phone, wanting to call someone. I don't know who he thought he was going to. Yes, give me Nixon. And he just put it back on there. He was so mad.
Wesley Wildmon But this.
Ed Vitagliano I'm sorry, this is what. This reminds me of. A home field call on the part of Michigan, and. And poor west western Michigan got ripped off, I think.
Wesley Wildmon And now not to, Not to defend Michigan here. And I saw what y' all saw, and then I rewatched it and resaw what everyone saw. I did read something where the coach for Michigan was arguing for, 2/10 of a second left. But I've never seen a football game or any sport go down to the. To the. You know, to a tenth of it, like in basketball. Now, I take that back. In basketball, they may do that.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, they'll go to tents.
Wesley Wildmon But in football, I've never seen that before.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Wesley Wildmon And. But nonetheless, we all saw it. I don't even think there was two tents left, based on what I saw. But anyways, that was a case to be made.
Tim Wildmon All right, well, one other note on time travel, and then we'll move on here in college football, The Ole Miss LSU game played on November 4, 1972, at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, undefeated and reported they headed to the orange bow. LSU somehow ran two plays in the final four seconds to beat the Rebels 17 to 16. So you can run two plays in baton. If you're the home team in Baton Rouge in four seconds if you need it to win. That was the case, in, 19, 72. So this isn't the first time that the clock at home is magically.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Went the home team's way. You can't run two plays in four seconds. But they did.
Ed Vitagliano They did.
Tim Wildmon And LSU beat Ole Miss.
Ed Vitagliano There's all kinds of shenanigans when you're the home team. I remember watching the. The NewSong England Patriots. I don't think they were the Boston Patriots at that time. I think their name had changed. in a snowstorm, they're playing somebody, and they were about to try to kick the winning field goal. And while the timeout was going on, both teams off the field. They ran a snowblower onto the. And cleared off a spot where the ball would be placed for the kick.
Tim Wildmon Oh, did they really?
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon they have an advantage there, huh?
Wesley Wildmon Well, that's not really hidden. That was in your.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. There's nothing illegal about it, but it just seems.
Wesley Wildmon Oh, yeah.
Wesley: Excited about tariff talk, Wesley
Tim Wildmon All right. Today's issue is the name of this program. Well, it's time for some tariff talk.
Chris Woodward Yes, it is.
Ed Vitagliano Tariff talk with
Tim Wildmon you. Excited about tariff talk, Wesley?
Wesley Wildmon I'm, fired Up.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. Thank you.
Wesley Wildmon Go ahead.
Chris Woodward This segment is Trump Coin. All right, I might get called Fake News.
Tim Wildmon Stay with us. I just ask you for that is bring you one to two minutes of tariff Talk. Do not turn off the radio.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Tim Wildmon Okay. Over to you, Krish.
Starting today, Canada is enforcing what are called retaliatory tariffs against US products
Chris Woodward All right, so, a while back, President, Trump announced he didn't like how Canada was treating Americans and consumers
Tim Wildmon and farmers, not one bit.
Chris Woodward So he announced that the US Was going to be tariffing or taxing products from Canada. Canada recently announced, well, whatever you're going to tariff or tax, we're going to do the same thing. So starting today, Canada is enforcing what are called retaliatory tariffs against various US Products in a store. You can find on our website, afn.net, you will see that Canadian tariffs hit hundreds of American products, including steel, aluminum, cheese, appliances, clothing, cosmetics, and farm equipment.
Tim Wildmon Wait, hold on a second. One of these things is not like the other. If you were going down that list of items, don't go down them again. I'm gonna check them off.
Chris Woodward Steel.
Tim Wildmon Yep.
Chris Woodward Aluminum, Yep. Cheese.
Tim Wildmon Huh?
Chris Woodward appliances, cheese, clothing, cosmetics, not to be eaten. And farm equipment at various rates of 15, 25, or 50%.
Tim Wildmon Oh, man.
Chris Woodward Hockey equipment is also being.
Ed Vitagliano Pair of.
Tim Wildmon Listen, I got to know this, and this is. I know this is strictly, strictly selfish.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Interest is that 50% applied to cheddar, because I'm gonna have a problem.
Chris Woodward Only if it's from Wisconsin.
Tim Wildmon I'm gonna have a problem.
Ed Vitagliano Well, you don't live in Canada, though. Huh? you don't live in Canada. This just means more cheese.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna start tariffing our cheese. Well, it's gonna be cheese on cheese now.
Ed Vitagliano Cheese on cheese.
Tim Wildmon Like a pizza.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. Mozzarella. Yeah, it's. Get some good mozzarella. okay, so to be fair to the Trump administration, Canada has been, for many, many years playing us for suck.
Steve Jordahl Correct.
Chris Woodward That was Trump's argument in the first term when he redid nafta.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. So what kind of tariffs and on what kinds of products?
Tim Wildmon we mentioned that, I think. Are you.
Ed Vitagliano No, this is. They're slapping tariffs on how we slap.
Tim Wildmon What are we slapping on them?
Chris Woodward All right, this is the part where we say, oh, yeah, what were they,
Ed Vitagliano previous previously tariffing in terms of
Wesley Wildmon handling this really well?
Tim Wildmon I know.
Wesley Wildmon I'm moderating right now. Go ahead.
Chris Woodward Pretty much the same list, but at different, lower rates. Now, in terms of what we have been taxing, dairy and agriculture, 50%. Automobiles and auto parts, 25% alcohol and beverages. Canada makes a lot of brew, lumber, paper, pulp, steel, aluminum, consumer and miscellaneous goods.
Tim Wildmon The bottom line is we are now in a trade war with our friends
Chris Woodward from Canada, which is a big trading partner.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, I don't know if that's good or not.
Wesley Wildmon yeah, with the whole tariffs thing, and I'm not going to try to pretend like I can break all this down, but simply put though, and this, this is what everyone in the Republican and those that support Trump believe, we've been done wrong from a terror standpoint across the globe for years. why Trump decided to start making it an issue is a different conversation. But I think what we can all, at least I can observe and agree with, is that we've been done wrong. America's been done wrong from a terrorist or from a taxing or terrorist standpoint. Now, whether this is the right time to pull this type of leverage. Right. I mean, I guess we'll wait and see. but, but, you know, all right,
Tim Wildmon we've exceeded terror talk.
Ed Vitagliano Okay. I do, I do want to just clarify one thing. If we could here on terror before we move on is what, what I was talking about is before the Trump tariffs on Canada. So pre 2025, Canada's tariffs on the US targeted dairy, poultry, eggs, softwood, lumber, cultural products, alcohol and tobacco. Some of these tariffs up to 245%, for example, for things like butter. So there were, there was a long list of things that Canada had already been slapping tariffs on. And so President, what President Trump was trying to do is level the playing field.
Wesley Wildmon So that, that's, ah, and that's why I, I think he's doing now. He's still getting a lot of people. This is, can be a confusing topic if you don't understand the history.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Tim Wildmon It's got his head wrapped around this tariff stuff. Yeah, that's why he's on the show today.
Ed Vitagliano That's right. So I'm glad I could help.
Tim Wildmon All right, bring it on.
Tim Ferriss: Wesley says maintaining Senate majority is most important midterm issue
Next story. Krish.
Chris Woodward All right, the GOP is going to have a convention this week in Dallas.
Tim Wildmon What?
Chris Woodward The gop? The Grand Old Party?
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Chris Woodward It's going to have a convention this week in Dallas and President, Trump is supposed to appear and speak there
Tim Wildmon a couple of times, a midterm, sort of rally.
Chris Woodward Yes, One of the first they've ever done, there in Texas. And the reason why it comes at a very interesting time is according to some polls, Democrat James Talarico is leading Republican Ken Paxton in the race for U.S. senate. So people are expecting this to be kind of a rally of the troops. Get out and vote for Ken Paxton. Don't let Talarico win. And one Republican that was on television today telling Texans, do not vote for, James Talarico is none other than Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who's faced a couple of, big challenges in recent years from people like Beto o'. Rourke. But here's what Ted Cruz had to say about Talarico.
Steve Jordahl Clip 4 Talarico is a very talented candidate, but he's an extreme candidate. His substantive views, he would make a fantastic Senate candidate in California, but in Texas, I mean, this is a guy who says God is non binary. This is a guy who says there's six genders. He wants a state income tax. He wants to put a welcome mat on the southern border to welcome illegal immigrants into this country. He ran a vegan, campaign because meat is destroying the world again. This is Texas.
Tim Wildmon Texas.
Chris Woodward We shall see what other Republicans have to say later this week.
Tim Wildmon Well, you know, all the polls show this race in Texas as close. And, I'm m talking about the United States Senate race. And it's very important for the Republicans to win that if they want to maintain the majority. And I've said before that if you had to guess today, based on the polling, the Democrats are probably going to win the House of Representatives back. That's typically what happens in midterm elections when you have a, whoever the, president is, whether it be a Democrat or a Republican, the opposing party almost always makes great gains in the midterms for whatever reasons. That's just the historic reality. But I'm of the opinion that even if just assume that the Democrats take over the House of Representatives, the main thing for the Republicans is, and for conservatives is that they maintain control of the US Senate. Why do you say that, Tim? See what I did there? Yeah. Ask myself a, question so I could continue talking.
Ed Vitagliano I'll continue talking.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. Wesley, you interested in this at all or.
Wesley Wildmon Go ahead.
Tim Wildmon Okay. All right, Just making sure I haven't lost you. The, in all seriousness, the maintaining of the US Senate is the most important thing because, the, all the federal judge appointments that President Trump would have left in his remaining two years in office would go through the Senate. And the Senate could, if they, if it's controlled by the Democrats. They'll block them. They'll block them. At least they'll block the vast majority of them. the, federal, judge appointments and those are so crucial to our Nation's, health, whatever you want to say, the state of our country, we've got to have more conservative federal court judges, as many as you can get through. So that's why I say so back to the point where if the Republicans lose the Senate race in Texas, that's terrible. that would be a terrible thing to happen. If you believe in. As, I say in. You want to see President Trump be able to appoint federal. There are a lot of other responsibilities that the United States Senate has. I understand that, but to me, that's. There's nothing more important than, confirming of federal judges.
Ed Vitagliano No, it's very important. And I don't like the way the polling is going in Texas. Right. In Texas.
Tim Wildmon Wouldn't that be a stunner, though, if the Democrats won the Senate? in Texas, I mean, they won't do it. Okay, well, I don't think so either. But the polling keeps showing the telo. Is their line tied or head or ahead? Wesley says it's fake news.
Wesley Wildmon It is.
Ed Vitagliano I have. I have no way of knowing. So I. But I will say this.
Wesley Wildmon I looked at history. They do this all the time. That's how. That's the reason I call him a liar on the polling.
Walker Wildman is concerned about the race in Texas for attorney general
Ed Vitagliano All right. Although you do have to remember Cruz did win against Beto o' Rourke. When people were saying. Polls were saying o' Rourke is a dead heat, but he narrowly won. I think it was close.
Wesley Wildmon Two million votes.
Tim Wildmon Listen, I was talking to a gentleman who lives in Dallas who was, I was with the other day. He was in Tupelo. And, he. He said he's a Christian conservative guy like us. And he said that it's really, really close. And of course, he was going on the polling. Everybody else goes on, but the polling on the statewide levels as well as the polling done, by national firms. But he said this. He said, Ken Paxton. Is it Paxton or Paxton? I'm sorry?
Chris Woodward Paxton.
Ed Vitagliano Paxton.
Tim Wildmon Paxton. that. A lot of people see him with a lot of baggage.
Ed Vitagliano Well, Cruz only beat a better Beto O' Rourke by 215,000 votes. Okay.
Tim Wildmon In Texas, that's.
Ed Vitagliano That. That doesn't sound like a lot in. In Texas. I am concerned about the race in Texas. I know a lot of people think. I, do tend to worry. I am a worrier. But you do have a lot of Hispanic voters who voted a lot in a lot higher percentages for Donald Trump in 2024. Don't know who they're going to vote for this time around. And young People who are switching to socialism, if they come out en masse and vote for Talarico, we can be in trouble. And that's state.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, Republicans could, So, anyway, this gentleman was saying, you know, it's, it's nip and tuck. It's closed. And that Paxton baggage is, has, has baggage that's affecting his support. Yeah,
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Reporter Hello, I'm Walker Wildmon. My brother Wesley and I, we're going to be leading a group to Greece in March of 2027. We're going to be traversing and walking the footsteps of Paul, visiting cities like Thessaloniki, Athens, Philippi, Corinth, just to name a few. Many of the sites that the apostle Paul walked and taught and preached and converted unbelievers to Christianity as part of our early church history. And then right after that trip, my parents, Tim and Allison, they're going to be leading a group to Italy, looking at a lot of the rich, Italian history along with, the history of, of the early church there. In Italy, they're going to be visiting the cities of Venice, Rome and Florence, just to name a few. Both of these trips are back to back. You can go on one or both by visiting tours.afa.net to register. We'll see you in March of 2027. Tours.aca.net to register. Find out all the information and view the itinerary.
Tim Wildmon Your love Lord reaches to the heavens. Your faithfulness to the SK36.5.
This is today's issues. Email your comments to commentsfr.net Past broadcasts of today's Issues are available for listening and viewing in the [email protected] now back to more of today's issues.
The Senate race in Texas is very close; polls are very close
Tim Wildmon Everybody to today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Tim, Ed, Wesley, and Krish. And we're talking about the, midterm elections coming up, and a big race that the nation's really watching is the Senate race in Texas. And we had mentioned, Paxton the Republican versus Tellarico the Democrat. And it's, the polls are very, very,
Wesley Wildmon very, very, very close.
Tim Wildmon The polls are for what you think of the polls. And, but Paxton, as far as his job performance as Attorney General of the state of Texas, I don't think anybody across the country from a conservative perspective has done better in that role. Maybe the AG in Missouri.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon You know, as far as, But I mean, this, so that's not at issue among.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. His conservative credentials I don't think are up for, really, for debate. He, does have some, we might call cultural baggage. I, I, I, There are some.
Tim Wildmon You don't like his culture?
Ed Vitagliano No, if I'm, I don't want to speak out of turn. I think there's some questions very well. About his relationship.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano Wife. And, and so, so I, I don't want to repeat stories out of, out of tail here. out of school, I guess. But. So for Christian conservatives, his support, Paxton support may be a little softer than it might if he was just simply a, you know, a conservative. That will get the job done.
Tim Wildmon listen, we live in a different world than we lived in 30, 40 years ago. And I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm just saying the reality is you have to pick, you have to. When it comes down to two people. Okay. Then you have to pick the one. you can't disqualify somebody for their personal behavior. That doesn't sound that good. Do you know what I'm trying to say? You have to, you have to look out.
Wesley Wildmon You have to prioritize. I think the best way to say it is you have to prioritize what most affects you as a voter.
Tim Wildmon And, and, okay, what is it? What is the, I don't, what is a person? Let's just say, let's just say. Okay, like Bill Clinton, for example.
Caroline Okay.
Tim Wildmon that's kind of when all this first started. Before Bill Clinton. Sexual immorality. Was kind of under the, you know, table. It wasn't talked about. It was kind of, you know, jfk, Marilyn Monroe and all that stuff. It was kind of hush hush or,
Ed Vitagliano you know, the general public didn't know any of.
Tim Wildmon No, it wasn't. But after Bill Clinton's situation and affairs and so forth, that became to be an issue publicly. Right. But I remember the Democrats basically saying the same things a lot of Republicans say when. Because let me tell you something, that kind of thing affects human beings and it doesn't matter whether they're Republican or Democrat. It happens on both sides of the aisle. but what I'm saying is, and is that when it comes down to two people and one of them is going to be elected. Right, One of them is going to be elected. Then I think people have come to the conclusion that you got to go with the person, their policies and how are their policies going to affect everybody rather than what we used to do in America, which is basically, if you cheat on your wife, you're disqualified from running for office. That no longer. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying that's the reality of where we are in our country today. Well, would you agree with that?
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. And I think the reason for that, for the way it used to be, is because both political parties were seen as, wanting the absolute best for America but taking a different approach, different, ah, approach about how to get there. So the conservatives were tough on crime, money for the military, the liberals were less money for the military, more money for, you know, welfare and all those kind of things. But everyone pretty much agreed both political parties are not going to, they're going to try to support our constitutional system.
Tim Wildmon This came up during Trump.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. So, but what.
Tim Wildmon Go ahead.
Ed Vitagliano I'm sorry, but now we have a situation where the two political parties are in two different worlds.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano So we, we look at those on the left and say they want to destroy the Republic, they want to change us into something else. So now we don't have the, if you want to say it this way, we don't have the luxury of, counting character first. What we need.
Tim Wildmon That's a good point.
Ed Vitagliano In other words, if you have a communist running for president and that person is a straight up family man faithful to his wife, you go, yeah, that's great. We all want that for our candidates, but he's going to destroy the country. So what I have to consider first is who do I want in office?
Wesley Wildmon Who's Going to preserve the Republic and, so on. I Voter guide. Ken Paxton is verified conservative.
Ed Vitagliano Tell people what I Voter guide is.
Wesley Wildmon I Voter God is the AFA Action Voter guide that afa, AFA Action overseas. So we have a staff, for our voter guide, who rates candidates based on several factors, a couple of which would be their scorecard, their endorsements, where they get their money from, how they voted, other information in recent.
Tim Wildmon Ken Paxton has the highest rating there.
Wesley Wildmon You couldn't get.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Wesley Wildmon Yeah. And as far as. So they have. They have moderate, they have conservative. They have very conservative because of how they talk and how they act. Verified conservative means is his record is proven and he can't possibly get more conservative, from what impacts the voters than Ken Pack.
Tim Wildmon I think this, came to the fore too, in 2016 when Donald Trump ran. Everybody knew he was a playboy from his past.
Ed: Wesley says Trump had to introduce himself to conservatives leading up to 2016
we've, talked about this before. Yeah. But again from his past. Okay. And he was a NewSong York, you know, business tycoon. So he wasn't. In fact, he had to introduce himself to conservatives and to Christian conservatives in particular, leading, up to the election, 2016. But the bottom line was, I think, to where your point, Ed, is, and what Wesley's saying is that, people realized, okay, when it comes down to. Especially when it comes down to two people, and I have to choose, I have to go with who's going to be the most conservative, policy when they take office and all the other stuff is, sort of, you know, drifts to the side. Now, what would you say? Here's the challenge, though, I think for us, then we can move on to another topic here.
Ed: How can you endorse a candidate who's admitted to adultery
What would you say if you were. I'll ask you, Ed, and then Wesley, Krish, what would you say if you're on a. Let's say you're on a TV show or a, news show, or you get an interview and they say to you, well, how can you, as a Christian conservative, especially with American Family association of American Family Radio, how can you endorse. And I'm not speaking about any candidate in particular here. I'm asking a general generic question. How can you support a. A candidate who's, admitted to the. To adultery, and you call yourself a Christian, organization. Shouldn't that disqualify you from leadership? How would you answer something like that?
Ed Vitagliano I think you should go first to Wesley on that question. look, I'm just kidding.
Chris Woodward He went Bird Harper on read.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, there you go.
Tim Wildmon I mean, that is a. That is a real question now. It's, It's a question coming from most. It's a question coming from more people on the left who want to try to. Well, this is, say it's hypocritical, right? What I'm saying.
Ed Vitagliano This is, this is what I say.
Tim Wildmon And then Wesley can come.
Ed Vitagliano And then that, if I have. We had some. Let me just give you a real life example. We had some issues. We live out in the country. We have a septic tank. we had some issues this weekend. So we're gonna have to get our septic tank pumped out. Okay. I don't ask the person who's coming out to do that how often they go to church or what their moral status is. I want to know if I can have this thing done by someone who's qualified and will give me a good price because that particular job requires only, a particular skill for some, for a price that's affordable. Okay. Now when you come to political, leaders, it's a little more problematic because, most of what they do kind of falls into that category. Okay. We want them to build roads, we want them to pay for police and the military, and we want them to be, you know, good with money. There is a moral component to it. And for most of my adult life, that moral component component was very important. Except now we are contemplating candidates who are pushing socialism and communism and atheism and, getting young people on track to change their genders without their parents knowledge. And to me, those issues come to the top.
Tim Wildmon Gotcha.
Ed Vitagliano And the cat. And the category of their m. Moral character, drops down beneath that because I can, I can teach my kids and my grandkids what candidate X is doing that's wrong in his personal life. But I don't want my kids or grandkids taken away from my family and given over to atheists. To me, that's a whole different category.
Wesley Wildmon I think the. If the left is asking the question, I don't think they deserve an answer. Or our time, if their Christian is sincerely trying to figure out the question.
Tim Wildmon I posed an answer to it.
Wesley Wildmon An answer to it. I think that's worth discussing. And if a Christian has a con, their conscience is bothered by that in particular issue of someone's personal lifestyle, then I can understand why. Why they would not vote. But voting for the other team doesn't make any sense.
Tim Wildmon No, no, no, no. Well, you know, also, just one other thing. We're going to move on here. The, The. The left is not bound by these questions at all.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Tim Wildmon Because they don't believe in
Wesley Wildmon adultery or
Tim Wildmon being a sexual morality matters. Not to them at all. They don't even consider that as a
Ed Vitagliano disqualifier in Massachusetts, which is why I wouldn't waste time. they don't care in Massachusetts. They just passed a bill and the governor signed it into law allowing abortion up to the moment of. The moment of birth. Okay. Now if you have a Republican running against that kind of governor and, and there are some questions about that Republican's moral qualities. I'm looking and saying how many babies are going to die.
Tim Wildmon I got.
Ed Vitagliano The Democrat gets voted in.
Tim Wildmon I got, you know, I'm there.
Wesley Wildmon And one last thing on.
Tim Wildmon Last thing. Then Krish, you can close it out.
Chris: I agree with 100% the way Ed described the analogy
Move on to another topic. You got another topic?
Wesley Wildmon I do.
Tim Wildmon Okay, go ahead.
Wesley Wildmon I don't have. I don't have much more to add to. I think I agree with 100% the way Ed described and I like the analogies. Well, I will say this though. As Christians are. We are all fallen and therefore we have, we have testimonies every day of people who's done something wrong. They've been caught, they've made a change, and then they get back on track. That happens all the time. now I understand there you have, you have, ah, repetition. So if he's on his, you know, I guess what I'm saying is at what point there's a discussion to be had about forgiveness and making a change and that there's. And then there's a discussion to be had about someone going on and on and on and repeating the same sin over and over again. Both of those are a discussion we had. But that, like I said, what. I prioritize what their record is as it relates to how it impacts me as a citizen.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Krish, wrap it up for us.
Chris Woodward Okay, so in 2026, I appreciate people outside this ministry are concerned about morals, but I would argue that it would be immoral for you not to vote and let the person out there sharing or saying heretical things. and like Tall Rico. Yeah. For. I mean, if you're gonna sit at home and not vote because of morals and let somebody living and ruling immorally have, have their say. And that's. That's him. That's. That's a problem, I think.
Pentagon reportedly refusing payout for soldiers killed in Iran because it isn't war
Tim Wildmon All right, next topic.
Chris Woodward Right, Krish. Is something that I hope is not true.
Tim Wildmon I hope to.
Chris Woodward there is a publication out of the UK called the Telegraph. And according to the Telegraph, in a story over the weekend this is their headline. Pentagon refuses payout for soldiers killed in Iran because it isn't a war. And they have the phrase because it isn't a war in quotations. According to the Telegraph, the Pentagon is refusing payouts for people, and their families when the soldier dies in combat in Iran. And there have been American casualties in the situation that began earlier this year.
Tim Wildmon Combat? You sure?
Chris Woodward I mean, it says conflict.
Tim Wildmon Okay. Conflict. It's conflict, not necessarily combat. You know, can you, by the way, before. Can you and your team try to contact the Pentagon, see if you can get a, see if you get a comment from them? Because that. This didn't sound right to me in terms Pete Hegseth, the, Secretary of War. Is that what it's called now?
Ed Vitagliano Yes.
Tim Wildmon He is a, very pro soldier. Okay. And pro military. I mean, he should be. And so it would surprise me if he doesn't do something about that. If in fact that's true. The headline caught my attention. I did read the article because there was one widow.
Tim Wildmon Of one of the, Do you have that information?
Chris Woodward Libby Kleiner. She's the widow of Major Alex Kleiner.
Tim Wildmon Okay. What. Do you have any more. Can you read more on that?
Chris Woodward She wrote on social media that she has not received appropriate pay following his death in an aircraft crash during the conflict in Iran.
Tim Wildmon What she's saying. And again, we're just reporting what she's saying. That really bothered me when I read it was she's saying that the Pentagon has told her she, as a widow, doesn't qualify for benefits associated with, the death of her husband in service. Because it's not a war. M. Not an official war. And I was reading that going that. That's not right. Okay. Yeah. That seems to me like he needs to. That needs to be rectified. Is that.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. The problem. This is a bad decision if this is what the Pentagon is saying. Because the President does, as Commander in Chief does have the legal authority to send troops into combat without a declaration of war from Congress. And I've pulled up here that 18 US service members have been killed in the conflict and some of them have been killed in what you might consider to be combat, because they were killed on bases when Iranian missiles or drones struck. There was a helicopter crash, I think that, in March that also took the lives of several. so this is, combat in the sense of hostilities between our military and another country's military. Whether or not it's an officially declared war, I think is irrelevant.
Chris Woodward Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano They were Sent into harm's way, doing combat operations and were killed.
Chris Woodward Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano And that seems to be the end of the story to me. I can't imagine to your point, Tim. Pete Hagseth not overturning this.
Tim Wildmon I'll bet he does something about that in the next day or two.
Chris Woodward And somebody that may tell him to do something about that is Vice President J.D. vance, who obviously is not president, but still holds some weight. And I bring up Vance by now because Vice President Vance has reportedly responded to this woman's social media post by committing to reach out personally. And the War Department later confirmed all benefits after review. so we will follow up on this, but a terrible headline that you don't want to see during this.
We haven't officially declared war on anybody since World War II
It made me think of something. My dad, he dropped out of college back in the 60s and got, drafted and was sent to Vietnam. And as Ed is aware, you guys are aware of, that was not considered a war for a long time. And my dad came, home and was told, you know, that's not a war. All these things, terrible things. And I remember my dad telling me one time, he since gone home to be with the Lord. But, my dad said, look, they shot at me, and I shot at them. We were at war. You know, that's how we put it. And we did the same thing with veterans of Korea as well. We didn't call it a war for a long time.
Tim Wildmon I don't remember the last time the US has declared war on anybody, do you?
Ed Vitagliano Well, I think we declared war, after 9, 11, officially.
Tim Wildmon on who?
Ed Vitagliano Iran and Afghanistan.
Tim Wildmon Okay, well, look that up, that up, because brother Tim's having a foggy memory on that.
Chris Woodward It has been 25 years.
Tim Wildmon a official declaration of war on Iran and what United States last officially
Wesley Wildmon declared war on June 5, 1942, against Axis aligned, nations of Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania during World War II.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, I think. I guess I'm wrong.
Tim Wildmon I'm not laughing.
Ed Vitagliano No, you know, you're laughing. I deserve it. I get this all the time at the house.
Wesley Wildmon I declared war 11 times across.
Tim Wildmon And we haven't declared. We haven't officially declared war on anybody since World War II.
Wesley Wildmon 1942.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano So, okay. we. So we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years without a formal declaration of war. All right, I am. I am. I was.
Chris Woodward We were.
Ed Vitagliano I was. I was.
Tim Wildmon Say it, man.
Ed Vitagliano I was wrong.
Tim Wildmon You felt better.
Chris Woodward You missed. That's the way. That's what they say now.
Young America's Foundation puts flags out on college campuses honoring 9 11 victims
Tim Wildmon All right, you're listening to Today's issues on American Family Radio. Next story.
Chris Woodward Talking about 9, 11 real quick, 1 organization out there trying its best to make sure young people know what really happened that day and why is young America's foundation for 20 some odd years now, they have had a 911 never forget project where they go out on college campuses and they put flags out for all the people killed in 9 11. They put out, visual aids and stuff like that for people to walk and read and see on their way to class. And I spoke with YAF's media coordinator Rob Tandy about this very thing. Here he is. Clip 8.
Caroline We felt that there was a void in our education system m. and just frankly around the country of telling the story of what actually happened on that day that we were attacked by Islamic radicals. So what we do is we give our students the educational materials to be able to explain what happened as well as honor all of those murdered. And it's extremely important now, especially on college campuses, when we look, you know, a lot of our students in college now, we're not even alive. So it's important to continue to tell that story and to continue to educate those on our campuses.
Chris Woodward We have more of that story on afn.net, and do check out the website this week because, as of today, we're going to be doing 911 stories for the rest of the week.
It's been 25 years since 9 11, unless I'm wrong
Tim Wildmon So, 9 11, what's today, by the way?
Ed Vitagliano It's Friday, I think.
Tim Wildmon Okay. So it would be the, unless I'm wrong, 25th anniversary. Oh, no, correct. She wouldn't be wrong twice in one show.
Ed Vitagliano That was embarrassing. Wrong.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, yeah, it was.
Wesley Wildmon You saved me because I was thinking the same thing. You just said it first.
Ed Vitagliano Well, my first thought was how in the world 20 years without a declaration of war.
Wesley Wildmon Right.
Tim Wildmon 25 years, since 9 11. It's hard to believe it's been that long.
Wesley Wildmon Yep.
Tim Wildmon But, so there'd be a lot of commemoration around that day.
Wesley Wildmon Yeah.
I think after this 25th anniversary, 911 will probably not be as prominent
Tim Wildmon Next story.
Chris Woodward President Trump was actually at a Tunnels for Towers event earlier today that is, always done around 9 11. he spoke at this event, which is one of several speaking engagements.
Tim Wildmon Let me ask you this. I think after this 25th, anniversary, commemoration, 911 will probably not be as much every year in the people's consciousness. I'm thinking, because, I mean, how much more can you say about it, you know what I'm saying, Than.
Ed Vitagliano Well, yeah, you're just honoring those who died like you would in a war. it'll probably Continue. But the further something moves into the historical past, the fewer people. People are alive who were affected by it.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano You know?
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
AI may soon allow humans to talk with animals, some say
All right. you're listening to today's issues on American Family Radio. Tim, Ed, Wesley and Krish. Krish, you've got about a minute left. What do you got there, Krish?
Chris Woodward I will share this on our Today's Series Facebook page as well, but we oftentimes discuss artificial intelligence and the developments and amazing things that A.I. is now enabling people to do. Yeah, A.I. this is an actual headline. It's not a Babylon bee. AI may soon allow humans to talk with animals. But some. But some say it could violate their right to privacy.
Ed Vitagliano Well, I thought. I thought it said that AI would allow humans to understand what animals are communicating. It's not going to help us speak to them, is it?
Chris Woodward Not, not. Not in that sense, no. But it would be interesting to, have a conversation.
Tim Wildmon They're saying AI could develop, and I'm not kidding here, sounds that, animals use between themselves. Wesley. A bark. That's AI Ah. but. But would develop.
Wesley Wildmon Well, I think a Dr. Doolittle wouldn't been. I, know he wouldn't be able to benefit. Job.
Ed Vitagliano We've got a new dog in the house here, a few months old. I would love to have something. I'd love to speak into something I was going to give you and then communicate that to that doctor.
Tim Wildmon I think this topic deserves a little bit more than time. So we're going to continue this when we get back because I got a couple things to say.
Wesley Wildmon Dr. Doolittle on the phone.
Tim Wildmon The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
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welcome to today's Issues, offering a Christian response to the issues of the day. Here's your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.
Tim Wildmon Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. And Today is Tuesday, September 8, 2026. And in studio with me today is Ed Vitagliano. Good morning, Brother Ed.
Ed Vitagliano Good morning, Tim.
Tim Wildmon Wesley Wildmon.
Wesley Wildmon Good morning.
Tim Wildmon And Krish Woodber.
Wesley Wildmon Hello.
Tim Wildmon All right. I like that spirit, Krish. Fred. Well, that's, that's enough though. You can, you can get back to. But I like the opening, you know, opening enthusiasm.
Fred Jackson is tracking down his lobster that didn't come in
Fred Jackson's not here today. Where's Fred? Was Fred Tariff.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, he.
Tim Wildmon Because he's a Canadian.
Ed Vitagliano Canadian.
Tim Wildmon I think we tear it. We did tariff.
Ed Vitagliano We slapped tariff on him. Yeah, deservedly so.
Chris Woodward He's now demanding 15, 25 and 50% more from AFN.
Wesley Wildmon I didn't hear. I didn't hear.
Tim Wildmon No. What happened?
Wesley Wildmon Tracking down his lobster. He's tracking it down. It didn't come in. Oh, so he's about to find out who, where it is.
Tim Wildmon He took a day off to find where his lobster is in root.
Wesley Wildmon For those that listen often.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. Fred orders lobsters from Boston and this
Wesley Wildmon one didn't break it in.
Tim Wildmon Or somewhere up there real.
Ed Vitagliano Really? It didn't make it.
Wesley Wildmon I'm kidding.
Chris Woodward Oh, all right.
Ed Vitagliano Well, that can happen. I don't trust the mail.
Wesley Wildmon Yeah. But to track it down, I don't think you,
Tim Wildmon He has a. Well, he has a passion for it. Fred's talked about ordering lobster from.
Ed Vitagliano There's a restaurant up, there in, Is it Nova Scotia or is it, is it in Maine?
Tim Wildmon I think it's in Maine.
Ed Vitagliano where he, where they'll overnight it.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano And he, he's, he loves his lobster now.
Wesley Wildmon He loves it a lot. But I don't, maybe not tracking it down, though.
Tim Wildmon No, I don't think, Fred's not a lobster hunter.
Wesley Wildmon That's right.
Tim Wildmon You know, he doesn't track, quote, track
Ed Vitagliano down lobsters Today on the History Channel.
Wesley Wildmon But we've orders something we were looking for in the mail that didn't come in, and then you get the tracking code out, and then you start calling. You want to know where it is?
Ed Vitagliano Where this says it was supposed to be delivered today.
Labor Day marks end of summer, doesn't it? It does
Tim Wildmon All right, we, got a lot to talk about today. Lots happened since last Thursday. Went to the last time we did a Today's Issue show here on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks. Hope everybody had a wonderful Labor Day, ah, weekend. And kind of marks the end of summer, doesn't it?
Wesley Wildmon It does. Oh, he's laughing at the heat. The weather for a second.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, it does.
Tim Wildmon The weather pays no attention to the calendar.
Ed Vitagliano That is true.
Tim Wildmon so we roll on with 90s. In the 90s for most of the, For a lot of the country anyway. But, So, But. But it is kind of the official. Not official. Unofficial end of.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, I think September 21st thereabouts, is the start. Official start of fall. But usually after Labor Day, most people start thinking that way.
Tim Wildmon yeah.
Ed Vitagliano Start thinking about when we. When can I pull out my sweaters?
Tim Wildmon And how did you celebrate Labor Day, Ed?
Ed Vitagliano Like, what did you do When I was growing up.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano Well, I, for one. For one thing, school usually started.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano After Labor Day.
Tim Wildmon That's true. I remember those days.
Chris Woodward Ah.
Ed Vitagliano when I was in high school, my dad put a swimming pool in the backyard, and we got to swim in it.
Tim Wildmon Above ground or in ground?
Ed Vitagliano In ground.
Tim Wildmon Wow.
Ed Vitagliano And, so, sometime in June, the water warmed up in enough for us to swim in it into August. But after Labor Day, it. We covered the pool.
Tim Wildmon so you get two months in, in Boston of pool weather.
Ed Vitagliano July and August were the two months. June. Yeah, it was a little iffy because it took a long time for that water to warm up. We got two and a half months, I guess, but. So that's. That's what I always remember. And it was a pain in the neck to cover the pool, and then I had to start raking leaves.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Chris Woodward Ah.
Ed Vitagliano And, it was a difficult life growing up.
Tim Wildmon I understand. I can hear. I can hear it in your voice.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Scientists at University of Michigan apparently travel back in time to change college football outcome
Tim Wildmon All right, Krish, what's, on the first news, item here?
Chris Woodward Well, you know, Labor Day, in addition to pumpkin, spice lattes, and dreams, of cooler weather, it often brings in many, college football games. And I'm going to begin here with college football.
Ed Vitagliano Interesting.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Wesley Wildmon Good for you.
Chris Woodward College football kicked off, over the weekend with many games, including one out of Michigan which resulted in a very well done and cheeky Babylon be headline when it comes to the Michigan game against Western Michigan.
Tim Wildmon People. Do you need to tell people what happened here?
Ed Vitagliano Probably.
Wesley Wildmon Okay.
Chris Woodward All right. So let me set this up. All right. So Michigan is playing at home against Western Michigan. A game that on paper the Michigan Wolverines should be winning handily.
Tim Wildmon They were like 25 point favorite, correct? Something like that.
Chris Woodward Yeah. So you have your little brother so to speak come in, come to town and play you in your house. And Western Michigan is doing its thing and they. They're holding the Michigan Wolverines to seven points. Western Michigan has six points. Then they get close enough to kick a field goal. Now they have a lead in the second half. They're winning nine to seven.
Tim Wildmon This is riveting.
Chris Woodward They get another field goal. They're up 12 to 7. Michigan gets the ball back with just under a minute to go. They start driving down the field and as time is expiring the quarterbacks pass sells out of the end zone with what is clearly 000 on the time clock. And everybody thinks the game is over including Western Michigan players. And then the camera cuts to the referees who are having some sort of conference at midfield to discuss something unbeknownst to the thousands of people that have already stormed the field.
Tim Wildmon How much money can we get out of Michigan?
Chris Woodward Correct.
Caroline All right.
Chris Woodward And then they announced that unbeknownst to all the people watching at home and all the people sitting in the stands there is according to some clock, no one sees one second left in the game allowing Michigan one more play. The quarterback doesn't throw it as deep into the end zone. A guy catches it. And Michigan goes on to come back against Western Michigan. A lot of people take to social media talking about how Michigan has stolen the game.
Tim Wildmon Wait a minute. Hold on just a minute. That was a 60 yard Hail Mary pass in the air.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Tim Wildmon Despite whatever you think of time expired or not, 99.9% of the people I think believe time had expired. That was a marvelous throwing catch there was to end the game. so I mean it's just. It was. It was a. It was a heave. It was like Doug Flutie ask you remember that?
Ed Vitagliano Oh yeah. 1984 Orange Bowl.
Tim Wildmon So you know what's the controversy? Game over. Right Krish?
Chris Woodward Well yes. but apparently according to the band Babylon B some scientists at the University of Michigan apparently developed the ability to travel back in time one second and change the outcome of this game. So I'm breaking news here to America
Tim Wildmon on this battle Babylon B. What do you. You sent that out?
Ed Vitagliano Oh, yeah, I sent that out. that was funny. First of all, it's not funny if you're anyone other than a Michigan fan. clearly one of the worst calls ever. But the Babylon Bee, to their credit, managed to turn this thing around into something funny. It says, in one of the most remarkable technological breakthroughs of the past millennium, scientists at the University of Michigan have successfully traveled back backwards in time by 1 second. Long thought to be outside the realm of possibility, the dream of time travel became a reality on Saturday night. And the only problem is that the scientists have announced that weirdly, their time machine only works so far when the mission University of Michigan is losing.
Chris Woodward Yes, you heard it here first.
Ed Vitagliano That's pretty funny.
Tim Wildmon I was watching that game, I felt bad for Western Michigan because Western Michigan coach and their players, you know, they pulled off. This is a major, major upset, especially inside the state of Michigan. You got, as you say, little brother, Western Michigan traveling to the big house and trying to defeat the mighty Wolverines. And it appeared that they did. And then. Oh, we gonna put another second.
Ed Vitagliano You know what this reminds me of? Although I hate to bring up communists at a moment like this, but back in 1972 during the Olympics, the United States was playing the Soviet Union. The United States had amateur, players at that time. There's no dream teams.
Wesley Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano No professional athletes.
Tim Wildmon These are college kids.
Ed Vitagliano These are college kids. Whereas the Soviets clearly had what amounted to professional athletes on their teams. But I remember, I remember watching the game with my dad and the US won the game. And the East German referees, I think they were East German, they said, wait, wait, wait, one second left on the clock. The Soviet Union got the ball, inbounded one second left, one second left. The Soviets inbounded. The, the U.S. defended the play. The Soviets said something happened. They give them that one second over again, they throw the ball in and there's a tap in and the Soviets win. I'm not sure I've ever seen. Yes, a real thing.
LSU ran two plays in the final four seconds to beat Ole Miss
I'm not ever. I'm not sure I've ever seen my dad madder than he was at that moment. Because the whole family, we all hated communists like any red blooded American should.
Chris Woodward He was a marine.
Ed Vitagliano He was a marine. He got up out of his chair. I don't remember what he said, but it can't be repeated. Whatever, whatever it was. And he grabbed the phone, wanting to call someone. I don't know who he thought he was going to. Yes, give me Nixon. And he just put it back on there. He was so mad.
Wesley Wildmon But this.
Ed Vitagliano I'm sorry, this is what. This reminds me of. A home field call on the part of Michigan, and. And poor west western Michigan got ripped off, I think.
Wesley Wildmon And now not to, Not to defend Michigan here. And I saw what y' all saw, and then I rewatched it and resaw what everyone saw. I did read something where the coach for Michigan was arguing for, 2/10 of a second left. But I've never seen a football game or any sport go down to the. To the. You know, to a tenth of it, like in basketball. Now, I take that back. In basketball, they may do that.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, they'll go to tents.
Wesley Wildmon But in football, I've never seen that before.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Wesley Wildmon And. But nonetheless, we all saw it. I don't even think there was two tents left, based on what I saw. But anyways, that was a case to be made.
Tim Wildmon All right, well, one other note on time travel, and then we'll move on here in college football, The Ole Miss LSU game played on November 4, 1972, at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, undefeated and reported they headed to the orange bow. LSU somehow ran two plays in the final four seconds to beat the Rebels 17 to 16. So you can run two plays in baton. If you're the home team in Baton Rouge in four seconds if you need it to win. That was the case, in, 19, 72. So this isn't the first time that the clock at home is magically.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Went the home team's way. You can't run two plays in four seconds. But they did.
Ed Vitagliano They did.
Tim Wildmon And LSU beat Ole Miss.
Ed Vitagliano There's all kinds of shenanigans when you're the home team. I remember watching the. The NewSong England Patriots. I don't think they were the Boston Patriots at that time. I think their name had changed. in a snowstorm, they're playing somebody, and they were about to try to kick the winning field goal. And while the timeout was going on, both teams off the field. They ran a snowblower onto the. And cleared off a spot where the ball would be placed for the kick.
Tim Wildmon Oh, did they really?
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon they have an advantage there, huh?
Wesley Wildmon Well, that's not really hidden. That was in your.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. There's nothing illegal about it, but it just seems.
Wesley Wildmon Oh, yeah.
Wesley: Excited about tariff talk, Wesley
Tim Wildmon All right. Today's issue is the name of this program. Well, it's time for some tariff talk.
Chris Woodward Yes, it is.
Ed Vitagliano Tariff talk with
Tim Wildmon you. Excited about tariff talk, Wesley?
Wesley Wildmon I'm, fired Up.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. Thank you.
Wesley Wildmon Go ahead.
Chris Woodward This segment is Trump Coin. All right, I might get called Fake News.
Tim Wildmon Stay with us. I just ask you for that is bring you one to two minutes of tariff Talk. Do not turn off the radio.
Chris Woodward Yes.
Tim Wildmon Okay. Over to you, Krish.
Starting today, Canada is enforcing what are called retaliatory tariffs against US products
Chris Woodward All right, so, a while back, President, Trump announced he didn't like how Canada was treating Americans and consumers
Tim Wildmon and farmers, not one bit.
Chris Woodward So he announced that the US Was going to be tariffing or taxing products from Canada. Canada recently announced, well, whatever you're going to tariff or tax, we're going to do the same thing. So starting today, Canada is enforcing what are called retaliatory tariffs against various US Products in a store. You can find on our website, afn.net, you will see that Canadian tariffs hit hundreds of American products, including steel, aluminum, cheese, appliances, clothing, cosmetics, and farm equipment.
Tim Wildmon Wait, hold on a second. One of these things is not like the other. If you were going down that list of items, don't go down them again. I'm gonna check them off.
Chris Woodward Steel.
Tim Wildmon Yep.
Chris Woodward Aluminum, Yep. Cheese.
Tim Wildmon Huh?
Chris Woodward appliances, cheese, clothing, cosmetics, not to be eaten. And farm equipment at various rates of 15, 25, or 50%.
Tim Wildmon Oh, man.
Chris Woodward Hockey equipment is also being.
Ed Vitagliano Pair of.
Tim Wildmon Listen, I got to know this, and this is. I know this is strictly, strictly selfish.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Interest is that 50% applied to cheddar, because I'm gonna have a problem.
Chris Woodward Only if it's from Wisconsin.
Tim Wildmon I'm gonna have a problem.
Ed Vitagliano Well, you don't live in Canada, though. Huh? you don't live in Canada. This just means more cheese.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna start tariffing our cheese. Well, it's gonna be cheese on cheese now.
Ed Vitagliano Cheese on cheese.
Tim Wildmon Like a pizza.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. Mozzarella. Yeah, it's. Get some good mozzarella. okay, so to be fair to the Trump administration, Canada has been, for many, many years playing us for suck.
Steve Jordahl Correct.
Chris Woodward That was Trump's argument in the first term when he redid nafta.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. So what kind of tariffs and on what kinds of products?
Tim Wildmon we mentioned that, I think. Are you.
Ed Vitagliano No, this is. They're slapping tariffs on how we slap.
Tim Wildmon What are we slapping on them?
Chris Woodward All right, this is the part where we say, oh, yeah, what were they,
Ed Vitagliano previous previously tariffing in terms of
Wesley Wildmon handling this really well?
Tim Wildmon I know.
Wesley Wildmon I'm moderating right now. Go ahead.
Chris Woodward Pretty much the same list, but at different, lower rates. Now, in terms of what we have been taxing, dairy and agriculture, 50%. Automobiles and auto parts, 25% alcohol and beverages. Canada makes a lot of brew, lumber, paper, pulp, steel, aluminum, consumer and miscellaneous goods.
Tim Wildmon The bottom line is we are now in a trade war with our friends
Chris Woodward from Canada, which is a big trading partner.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, I don't know if that's good or not.
Wesley Wildmon yeah, with the whole tariffs thing, and I'm not going to try to pretend like I can break all this down, but simply put though, and this, this is what everyone in the Republican and those that support Trump believe, we've been done wrong from a terror standpoint across the globe for years. why Trump decided to start making it an issue is a different conversation. But I think what we can all, at least I can observe and agree with, is that we've been done wrong. America's been done wrong from a terrorist or from a taxing or terrorist standpoint. Now, whether this is the right time to pull this type of leverage. Right. I mean, I guess we'll wait and see. but, but, you know, all right,
Tim Wildmon we've exceeded terror talk.
Ed Vitagliano Okay. I do, I do want to just clarify one thing. If we could here on terror before we move on is what, what I was talking about is before the Trump tariffs on Canada. So pre 2025, Canada's tariffs on the US targeted dairy, poultry, eggs, softwood, lumber, cultural products, alcohol and tobacco. Some of these tariffs up to 245%, for example, for things like butter. So there were, there was a long list of things that Canada had already been slapping tariffs on. And so President, what President Trump was trying to do is level the playing field.
Wesley Wildmon So that, that's, ah, and that's why I, I think he's doing now. He's still getting a lot of people. This is, can be a confusing topic if you don't understand the history.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Tim Wildmon It's got his head wrapped around this tariff stuff. Yeah, that's why he's on the show today.
Ed Vitagliano That's right. So I'm glad I could help.
Tim Wildmon All right, bring it on.
Tim Ferriss: Wesley says maintaining Senate majority is most important midterm issue
Next story. Krish.
Chris Woodward All right, the GOP is going to have a convention this week in Dallas.
Tim Wildmon What?
Chris Woodward The gop? The Grand Old Party?
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Chris Woodward It's going to have a convention this week in Dallas and President, Trump is supposed to appear and speak there
Tim Wildmon a couple of times, a midterm, sort of rally.
Chris Woodward Yes, One of the first they've ever done, there in Texas. And the reason why it comes at a very interesting time is according to some polls, Democrat James Talarico is leading Republican Ken Paxton in the race for U.S. senate. So people are expecting this to be kind of a rally of the troops. Get out and vote for Ken Paxton. Don't let Talarico win. And one Republican that was on television today telling Texans, do not vote for, James Talarico is none other than Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who's faced a couple of, big challenges in recent years from people like Beto o'. Rourke. But here's what Ted Cruz had to say about Talarico.
Steve Jordahl Clip 4 Talarico is a very talented candidate, but he's an extreme candidate. His substantive views, he would make a fantastic Senate candidate in California, but in Texas, I mean, this is a guy who says God is non binary. This is a guy who says there's six genders. He wants a state income tax. He wants to put a welcome mat on the southern border to welcome illegal immigrants into this country. He ran a vegan, campaign because meat is destroying the world again. This is Texas.
Tim Wildmon Texas.
Chris Woodward We shall see what other Republicans have to say later this week.
Tim Wildmon Well, you know, all the polls show this race in Texas as close. And, I'm m talking about the United States Senate race. And it's very important for the Republicans to win that if they want to maintain the majority. And I've said before that if you had to guess today, based on the polling, the Democrats are probably going to win the House of Representatives back. That's typically what happens in midterm elections when you have a, whoever the, president is, whether it be a Democrat or a Republican, the opposing party almost always makes great gains in the midterms for whatever reasons. That's just the historic reality. But I'm of the opinion that even if just assume that the Democrats take over the House of Representatives, the main thing for the Republicans is, and for conservatives is that they maintain control of the US Senate. Why do you say that, Tim? See what I did there? Yeah. Ask myself a, question so I could continue talking.
Ed Vitagliano I'll continue talking.
Tim Wildmon Yeah. Wesley, you interested in this at all or.
Wesley Wildmon Go ahead.
Tim Wildmon Okay. All right, Just making sure I haven't lost you. The, in all seriousness, the maintaining of the US Senate is the most important thing because, the, all the federal judge appointments that President Trump would have left in his remaining two years in office would go through the Senate. And the Senate could, if they, if it's controlled by the Democrats. They'll block them. They'll block them. At least they'll block the vast majority of them. the, federal, judge appointments and those are so crucial to our Nation's, health, whatever you want to say, the state of our country, we've got to have more conservative federal court judges, as many as you can get through. So that's why I say so back to the point where if the Republicans lose the Senate race in Texas, that's terrible. that would be a terrible thing to happen. If you believe in. As, I say in. You want to see President Trump be able to appoint federal. There are a lot of other responsibilities that the United States Senate has. I understand that, but to me, that's. There's nothing more important than, confirming of federal judges.
Ed Vitagliano No, it's very important. And I don't like the way the polling is going in Texas. Right. In Texas.
Tim Wildmon Wouldn't that be a stunner, though, if the Democrats won the Senate? in Texas, I mean, they won't do it. Okay, well, I don't think so either. But the polling keeps showing the telo. Is their line tied or head or ahead? Wesley says it's fake news.
Wesley Wildmon It is.
Ed Vitagliano I have. I have no way of knowing. So I. But I will say this.
Wesley Wildmon I looked at history. They do this all the time. That's how. That's the reason I call him a liar on the polling.
Walker Wildman is concerned about the race in Texas for attorney general
Ed Vitagliano All right. Although you do have to remember Cruz did win against Beto o' Rourke. When people were saying. Polls were saying o' Rourke is a dead heat, but he narrowly won. I think it was close.
Wesley Wildmon Two million votes.
Tim Wildmon Listen, I was talking to a gentleman who lives in Dallas who was, I was with the other day. He was in Tupelo. And, he. He said he's a Christian conservative guy like us. And he said that it's really, really close. And of course, he was going on the polling. Everybody else goes on, but the polling on the statewide levels as well as the polling done, by national firms. But he said this. He said, Ken Paxton. Is it Paxton or Paxton? I'm sorry?
Chris Woodward Paxton.
Ed Vitagliano Paxton.
Tim Wildmon Paxton. that. A lot of people see him with a lot of baggage.
Ed Vitagliano Well, Cruz only beat a better Beto O' Rourke by 215,000 votes. Okay.
Tim Wildmon In Texas, that's.
Ed Vitagliano That. That doesn't sound like a lot in. In Texas. I am concerned about the race in Texas. I know a lot of people think. I, do tend to worry. I am a worrier. But you do have a lot of Hispanic voters who voted a lot in a lot higher percentages for Donald Trump in 2024. Don't know who they're going to vote for this time around. And young People who are switching to socialism, if they come out en masse and vote for Talarico, we can be in trouble. And that's state.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, Republicans could, So, anyway, this gentleman was saying, you know, it's, it's nip and tuck. It's closed. And that Paxton baggage is, has, has baggage that's affecting his support. Yeah,
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Reporter Hello, I'm Walker Wildmon. My brother Wesley and I, we're going to be leading a group to Greece in March of 2027. We're going to be traversing and walking the footsteps of Paul, visiting cities like Thessaloniki, Athens, Philippi, Corinth, just to name a few. Many of the sites that the apostle Paul walked and taught and preached and converted unbelievers to Christianity as part of our early church history. And then right after that trip, my parents, Tim and Allison, they're going to be leading a group to Italy, looking at a lot of the rich, Italian history along with, the history of, of the early church there. In Italy, they're going to be visiting the cities of Venice, Rome and Florence, just to name a few. Both of these trips are back to back. You can go on one or both by visiting tours.afa.net to register. We'll see you in March of 2027. Tours.aca.net to register. Find out all the information and view the itinerary.
Tim Wildmon Your love Lord reaches to the heavens. Your faithfulness to the SK36.5.
This is today's issues. Email your comments to commentsfr.net Past broadcasts of today's Issues are available for listening and viewing in the [email protected] now back to more of today's issues.
The Senate race in Texas is very close; polls are very close
Tim Wildmon Everybody to today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Tim, Ed, Wesley, and Krish. And we're talking about the, midterm elections coming up, and a big race that the nation's really watching is the Senate race in Texas. And we had mentioned, Paxton the Republican versus Tellarico the Democrat. And it's, the polls are very, very,
Wesley Wildmon very, very, very close.
Tim Wildmon The polls are for what you think of the polls. And, but Paxton, as far as his job performance as Attorney General of the state of Texas, I don't think anybody across the country from a conservative perspective has done better in that role. Maybe the AG in Missouri.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon You know, as far as, But I mean, this, so that's not at issue among.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. His conservative credentials I don't think are up for, really, for debate. He, does have some, we might call cultural baggage. I, I, I, There are some.
Tim Wildmon You don't like his culture?
Ed Vitagliano No, if I'm, I don't want to speak out of turn. I think there's some questions very well. About his relationship.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano Wife. And, and so, so I, I don't want to repeat stories out of, out of tail here. out of school, I guess. But. So for Christian conservatives, his support, Paxton support may be a little softer than it might if he was just simply a, you know, a conservative. That will get the job done.
Tim Wildmon listen, we live in a different world than we lived in 30, 40 years ago. And I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm just saying the reality is you have to pick, you have to. When it comes down to two people. Okay. Then you have to pick the one. you can't disqualify somebody for their personal behavior. That doesn't sound that good. Do you know what I'm trying to say? You have to, you have to look out.
Wesley Wildmon You have to prioritize. I think the best way to say it is you have to prioritize what most affects you as a voter.
Tim Wildmon And, and, okay, what is it? What is the, I don't, what is a person? Let's just say, let's just say. Okay, like Bill Clinton, for example.
Caroline Okay.
Tim Wildmon that's kind of when all this first started. Before Bill Clinton. Sexual immorality. Was kind of under the, you know, table. It wasn't talked about. It was kind of, you know, jfk, Marilyn Monroe and all that stuff. It was kind of hush hush or,
Ed Vitagliano you know, the general public didn't know any of.
Tim Wildmon No, it wasn't. But after Bill Clinton's situation and affairs and so forth, that became to be an issue publicly. Right. But I remember the Democrats basically saying the same things a lot of Republicans say when. Because let me tell you something, that kind of thing affects human beings and it doesn't matter whether they're Republican or Democrat. It happens on both sides of the aisle. but what I'm saying is, and is that when it comes down to two people and one of them is going to be elected. Right, One of them is going to be elected. Then I think people have come to the conclusion that you got to go with the person, their policies and how are their policies going to affect everybody rather than what we used to do in America, which is basically, if you cheat on your wife, you're disqualified from running for office. That no longer. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying that's the reality of where we are in our country today. Well, would you agree with that?
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. And I think the reason for that, for the way it used to be, is because both political parties were seen as, wanting the absolute best for America but taking a different approach, different, ah, approach about how to get there. So the conservatives were tough on crime, money for the military, the liberals were less money for the military, more money for, you know, welfare and all those kind of things. But everyone pretty much agreed both political parties are not going to, they're going to try to support our constitutional system.
Tim Wildmon This came up during Trump.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. So, but what.
Tim Wildmon Go ahead.
Ed Vitagliano I'm sorry, but now we have a situation where the two political parties are in two different worlds.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano So we, we look at those on the left and say they want to destroy the Republic, they want to change us into something else. So now we don't have the, if you want to say it this way, we don't have the luxury of, counting character first. What we need.
Tim Wildmon That's a good point.
Ed Vitagliano In other words, if you have a communist running for president and that person is a straight up family man faithful to his wife, you go, yeah, that's great. We all want that for our candidates, but he's going to destroy the country. So what I have to consider first is who do I want in office?
Wesley Wildmon Who's Going to preserve the Republic and, so on. I Voter guide. Ken Paxton is verified conservative.
Ed Vitagliano Tell people what I Voter guide is.
Wesley Wildmon I Voter God is the AFA Action Voter guide that afa, AFA Action overseas. So we have a staff, for our voter guide, who rates candidates based on several factors, a couple of which would be their scorecard, their endorsements, where they get their money from, how they voted, other information in recent.
Tim Wildmon Ken Paxton has the highest rating there.
Wesley Wildmon You couldn't get.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Wesley Wildmon Yeah. And as far as. So they have. They have moderate, they have conservative. They have very conservative because of how they talk and how they act. Verified conservative means is his record is proven and he can't possibly get more conservative, from what impacts the voters than Ken Pack.
Tim Wildmon I think this, came to the fore too, in 2016 when Donald Trump ran. Everybody knew he was a playboy from his past.
Ed: Wesley says Trump had to introduce himself to conservatives leading up to 2016
we've, talked about this before. Yeah. But again from his past. Okay. And he was a NewSong York, you know, business tycoon. So he wasn't. In fact, he had to introduce himself to conservatives and to Christian conservatives in particular, leading, up to the election, 2016. But the bottom line was, I think, to where your point, Ed, is, and what Wesley's saying is that, people realized, okay, when it comes down to. Especially when it comes down to two people, and I have to choose, I have to go with who's going to be the most conservative, policy when they take office and all the other stuff is, sort of, you know, drifts to the side. Now, what would you say? Here's the challenge, though, I think for us, then we can move on to another topic here.
Ed: How can you endorse a candidate who's admitted to adultery
What would you say if you were. I'll ask you, Ed, and then Wesley, Krish, what would you say if you're on a. Let's say you're on a TV show or a, news show, or you get an interview and they say to you, well, how can you, as a Christian conservative, especially with American Family association of American Family Radio, how can you endorse. And I'm not speaking about any candidate in particular here. I'm asking a general generic question. How can you support a. A candidate who's, admitted to the. To adultery, and you call yourself a Christian, organization. Shouldn't that disqualify you from leadership? How would you answer something like that?
Ed Vitagliano I think you should go first to Wesley on that question. look, I'm just kidding.
Chris Woodward He went Bird Harper on read.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah, there you go.
Tim Wildmon I mean, that is a. That is a real question now. It's, It's a question coming from most. It's a question coming from more people on the left who want to try to. Well, this is, say it's hypocritical, right? What I'm saying.
Ed Vitagliano This is, this is what I say.
Tim Wildmon And then Wesley can come.
Ed Vitagliano And then that, if I have. We had some. Let me just give you a real life example. We had some issues. We live out in the country. We have a septic tank. we had some issues this weekend. So we're gonna have to get our septic tank pumped out. Okay. I don't ask the person who's coming out to do that how often they go to church or what their moral status is. I want to know if I can have this thing done by someone who's qualified and will give me a good price because that particular job requires only, a particular skill for some, for a price that's affordable. Okay. Now when you come to political, leaders, it's a little more problematic because, most of what they do kind of falls into that category. Okay. We want them to build roads, we want them to pay for police and the military, and we want them to be, you know, good with money. There is a moral component to it. And for most of my adult life, that moral component component was very important. Except now we are contemplating candidates who are pushing socialism and communism and atheism and, getting young people on track to change their genders without their parents knowledge. And to me, those issues come to the top.
Tim Wildmon Gotcha.
Ed Vitagliano And the cat. And the category of their m. Moral character, drops down beneath that because I can, I can teach my kids and my grandkids what candidate X is doing that's wrong in his personal life. But I don't want my kids or grandkids taken away from my family and given over to atheists. To me, that's a whole different category.
Wesley Wildmon I think the. If the left is asking the question, I don't think they deserve an answer. Or our time, if their Christian is sincerely trying to figure out the question.
Tim Wildmon I posed an answer to it.
Wesley Wildmon An answer to it. I think that's worth discussing. And if a Christian has a con, their conscience is bothered by that in particular issue of someone's personal lifestyle, then I can understand why. Why they would not vote. But voting for the other team doesn't make any sense.
Tim Wildmon No, no, no, no. Well, you know, also, just one other thing. We're going to move on here. The, The. The left is not bound by these questions at all.
Ed Vitagliano Right.
Tim Wildmon Because they don't believe in
Wesley Wildmon adultery or
Tim Wildmon being a sexual morality matters. Not to them at all. They don't even consider that as a
Ed Vitagliano disqualifier in Massachusetts, which is why I wouldn't waste time. they don't care in Massachusetts. They just passed a bill and the governor signed it into law allowing abortion up to the moment of. The moment of birth. Okay. Now if you have a Republican running against that kind of governor and, and there are some questions about that Republican's moral qualities. I'm looking and saying how many babies are going to die.
Tim Wildmon I got.
Ed Vitagliano The Democrat gets voted in.
Tim Wildmon I got, you know, I'm there.
Wesley Wildmon And one last thing on.
Tim Wildmon Last thing. Then Krish, you can close it out.
Chris: I agree with 100% the way Ed described the analogy
Move on to another topic. You got another topic?
Wesley Wildmon I do.
Tim Wildmon Okay, go ahead.
Wesley Wildmon I don't have. I don't have much more to add to. I think I agree with 100% the way Ed described and I like the analogies. Well, I will say this though. As Christians are. We are all fallen and therefore we have, we have testimonies every day of people who's done something wrong. They've been caught, they've made a change, and then they get back on track. That happens all the time. now I understand there you have, you have, ah, repetition. So if he's on his, you know, I guess what I'm saying is at what point there's a discussion to be had about forgiveness and making a change and that there's. And then there's a discussion to be had about someone going on and on and on and repeating the same sin over and over again. Both of those are a discussion we had. But that, like I said, what. I prioritize what their record is as it relates to how it impacts me as a citizen.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah.
Tim Wildmon Krish, wrap it up for us.
Chris Woodward Okay, so in 2026, I appreciate people outside this ministry are concerned about morals, but I would argue that it would be immoral for you not to vote and let the person out there sharing or saying heretical things. and like Tall Rico. Yeah. For. I mean, if you're gonna sit at home and not vote because of morals and let somebody living and ruling immorally have, have their say. And that's. That's him. That's. That's a problem, I think.
Pentagon reportedly refusing payout for soldiers killed in Iran because it isn't war
Tim Wildmon All right, next topic.
Chris Woodward Right, Krish. Is something that I hope is not true.
Tim Wildmon I hope to.
Chris Woodward there is a publication out of the UK called the Telegraph. And according to the Telegraph, in a story over the weekend this is their headline. Pentagon refuses payout for soldiers killed in Iran because it isn't a war. And they have the phrase because it isn't a war in quotations. According to the Telegraph, the Pentagon is refusing payouts for people, and their families when the soldier dies in combat in Iran. And there have been American casualties in the situation that began earlier this year.
Tim Wildmon Combat? You sure?
Chris Woodward I mean, it says conflict.
Tim Wildmon Okay. Conflict. It's conflict, not necessarily combat. You know, can you, by the way, before. Can you and your team try to contact the Pentagon, see if you can get a, see if you get a comment from them? Because that. This didn't sound right to me in terms Pete Hegseth, the, Secretary of War. Is that what it's called now?
Ed Vitagliano Yes.
Tim Wildmon He is a, very pro soldier. Okay. And pro military. I mean, he should be. And so it would surprise me if he doesn't do something about that. If in fact that's true. The headline caught my attention. I did read the article because there was one widow.
Tim Wildmon Of one of the, Do you have that information?
Chris Woodward Libby Kleiner. She's the widow of Major Alex Kleiner.
Tim Wildmon Okay. What. Do you have any more. Can you read more on that?
Chris Woodward She wrote on social media that she has not received appropriate pay following his death in an aircraft crash during the conflict in Iran.
Tim Wildmon What she's saying. And again, we're just reporting what she's saying. That really bothered me when I read it was she's saying that the Pentagon has told her she, as a widow, doesn't qualify for benefits associated with, the death of her husband in service. Because it's not a war. M. Not an official war. And I was reading that going that. That's not right. Okay. Yeah. That seems to me like he needs to. That needs to be rectified. Is that.
Ed Vitagliano Yeah. The problem. This is a bad decision if this is what the Pentagon is saying. Because the President does, as Commander in Chief does have the legal authority to send troops into combat without a declaration of war from Congress. And I've pulled up here that 18 US service members have been killed in the conflict and some of them have been killed in what you might consider to be combat, because they were killed on bases when Iranian missiles or drones struck. There was a helicopter crash, I think that, in March that also took the lives of several. so this is, combat in the sense of hostilities between our military and another country's military. Whether or not it's an officially declared war, I think is irrelevant.
Chris Woodward Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano They were Sent into harm's way, doing combat operations and were killed.
Chris Woodward Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano And that seems to be the end of the story to me. I can't imagine to your point, Tim. Pete Hagseth not overturning this.
Tim Wildmon I'll bet he does something about that in the next day or two.
Chris Woodward And somebody that may tell him to do something about that is Vice President J.D. vance, who obviously is not president, but still holds some weight. And I bring up Vance by now because Vice President Vance has reportedly responded to this woman's social media post by committing to reach out personally. And the War Department later confirmed all benefits after review. so we will follow up on this, but a terrible headline that you don't want to see during this.
We haven't officially declared war on anybody since World War II
It made me think of something. My dad, he dropped out of college back in the 60s and got, drafted and was sent to Vietnam. And as Ed is aware, you guys are aware of, that was not considered a war for a long time. And my dad came, home and was told, you know, that's not a war. All these things, terrible things. And I remember my dad telling me one time, he since gone home to be with the Lord. But, my dad said, look, they shot at me, and I shot at them. We were at war. You know, that's how we put it. And we did the same thing with veterans of Korea as well. We didn't call it a war for a long time.
Tim Wildmon I don't remember the last time the US has declared war on anybody, do you?
Ed Vitagliano Well, I think we declared war, after 9, 11, officially.
Tim Wildmon on who?
Ed Vitagliano Iran and Afghanistan.
Tim Wildmon Okay, well, look that up, that up, because brother Tim's having a foggy memory on that.
Chris Woodward It has been 25 years.
Tim Wildmon a official declaration of war on Iran and what United States last officially
Wesley Wildmon declared war on June 5, 1942, against Axis aligned, nations of Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania during World War II.
Ed Vitagliano Oh, I think. I guess I'm wrong.
Tim Wildmon I'm not laughing.
Ed Vitagliano No, you know, you're laughing. I deserve it. I get this all the time at the house.
Wesley Wildmon I declared war 11 times across.
Tim Wildmon And we haven't declared. We haven't officially declared war on anybody since World War II.
Wesley Wildmon 1942.
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
Ed Vitagliano So, okay. we. So we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years without a formal declaration of war. All right, I am. I am. I was.
Chris Woodward We were.
Ed Vitagliano I was. I was.
Tim Wildmon Say it, man.
Ed Vitagliano I was wrong.
Tim Wildmon You felt better.
Chris Woodward You missed. That's the way. That's what they say now.
Young America's Foundation puts flags out on college campuses honoring 9 11 victims
Tim Wildmon All right, you're listening to Today's issues on American Family Radio. Next story.
Chris Woodward Talking about 9, 11 real quick, 1 organization out there trying its best to make sure young people know what really happened that day and why is young America's foundation for 20 some odd years now, they have had a 911 never forget project where they go out on college campuses and they put flags out for all the people killed in 9 11. They put out, visual aids and stuff like that for people to walk and read and see on their way to class. And I spoke with YAF's media coordinator Rob Tandy about this very thing. Here he is. Clip 8.
Caroline We felt that there was a void in our education system m. and just frankly around the country of telling the story of what actually happened on that day that we were attacked by Islamic radicals. So what we do is we give our students the educational materials to be able to explain what happened as well as honor all of those murdered. And it's extremely important now, especially on college campuses, when we look, you know, a lot of our students in college now, we're not even alive. So it's important to continue to tell that story and to continue to educate those on our campuses.
Chris Woodward We have more of that story on afn.net, and do check out the website this week because, as of today, we're going to be doing 911 stories for the rest of the week.
It's been 25 years since 9 11, unless I'm wrong
Tim Wildmon So, 9 11, what's today, by the way?
Ed Vitagliano It's Friday, I think.
Tim Wildmon Okay. So it would be the, unless I'm wrong, 25th anniversary. Oh, no, correct. She wouldn't be wrong twice in one show.
Ed Vitagliano That was embarrassing. Wrong.
Tim Wildmon Yeah, yeah, it was.
Wesley Wildmon You saved me because I was thinking the same thing. You just said it first.
Ed Vitagliano Well, my first thought was how in the world 20 years without a declaration of war.
Wesley Wildmon Right.
Tim Wildmon 25 years, since 9 11. It's hard to believe it's been that long.
Wesley Wildmon Yep.
Tim Wildmon But, so there'd be a lot of commemoration around that day.
Wesley Wildmon Yeah.
I think after this 25th anniversary, 911 will probably not be as prominent
Tim Wildmon Next story.
Chris Woodward President Trump was actually at a Tunnels for Towers event earlier today that is, always done around 9 11. he spoke at this event, which is one of several speaking engagements.
Tim Wildmon Let me ask you this. I think after this 25th, anniversary, commemoration, 911 will probably not be as much every year in the people's consciousness. I'm thinking, because, I mean, how much more can you say about it, you know what I'm saying, Than.
Ed Vitagliano Well, yeah, you're just honoring those who died like you would in a war. it'll probably Continue. But the further something moves into the historical past, the fewer people. People are alive who were affected by it.
Tim Wildmon Right.
Ed Vitagliano You know?
Tim Wildmon Yeah.
AI may soon allow humans to talk with animals, some say
All right. you're listening to today's issues on American Family Radio. Tim, Ed, Wesley and Krish. Krish, you've got about a minute left. What do you got there, Krish?
Chris Woodward I will share this on our Today's Series Facebook page as well, but we oftentimes discuss artificial intelligence and the developments and amazing things that A.I. is now enabling people to do. Yeah, A.I. this is an actual headline. It's not a Babylon bee. AI may soon allow humans to talk with animals. But some. But some say it could violate their right to privacy.
Ed Vitagliano Well, I thought. I thought it said that AI would allow humans to understand what animals are communicating. It's not going to help us speak to them, is it?
Chris Woodward Not, not. Not in that sense, no. But it would be interesting to, have a conversation.
Tim Wildmon They're saying AI could develop, and I'm not kidding here, sounds that, animals use between themselves. Wesley. A bark. That's AI Ah. but. But would develop.
Wesley Wildmon Well, I think a Dr. Doolittle wouldn't been. I, know he wouldn't be able to benefit. Job.
Ed Vitagliano We've got a new dog in the house here, a few months old. I would love to have something. I'd love to speak into something I was going to give you and then communicate that to that doctor.
Tim Wildmon I think this topic deserves a little bit more than time. So we're going to continue this when we get back because I got a couple things to say.
Wesley Wildmon Dr. Doolittle on the phone.
Tim Wildmon The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Senator Ted Cruz warns that Democrat James Tallarico is too extreme for Texas as polls show a close race against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. The hosts analyze Cruz's specific criticisms and explain why Republican control of the Senate remains essential for confirming federal judges. Canada has begun enforcing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. steel, aluminum, and farm products while the panel examines the history behind the U.S.-Canada trade dispute. The program also covers a report that the Pentagon initially withheld combat death benefits from families of service members killed in the Iran conflict, and notes that Vice President J.D. Vance intervened. The roundtable wrestles with how Christian conservatives should weigh candidate character against pressing policy concerns. The hour also features Young America's Foundation 9/11 Never Forget campus initiative and Don Wildman's commentary on spiritual wholeness amid anxiety.
Chapter Markers
(00:00:21) Show Opening and Labor Day Banter
(00:04:24) Michigan vs Western Michigan Football Controversy
(00:12:32) Tariff Talk on Canada Retaliatory Tariffs
(00:17:49) Texas Senate Race and Cruz on Tallarico
(00:25:03) My Turn with Don Wildman
(00:30:21) Character Versus Policy for Christian Voters
(00:43:59) Pentagon Benefits Dispute for Iran Casualties
(00:49:52) Young America's Foundation 9/11 Never Forget Project
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