Morning Wire - Mobilizing the Faith Vote: Ralph Reed’s $62 Million Strategy | 8.25.24

Episode Date: August 25, 2024

Ralph Reed lays out the largest voter mobilization effort targeting evangelical Christians, how it could shape the election, and why faith-based voters remain a cornerstone of the GOP. Plus he explains why voting for Trump is a moral issue. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The faith vote has always been especially crucial to the GOP. But in recent elections, Democrats have been putting more effort into expanding beyond black churches and making a pitch for other Christian voting blocks, particularly evangelicals. This cycle has seen the rise of evangelicals for Harris, a group that counts Billy Graham's granddaughter and the chairman of Christianity Today's board among its members. In this episode, Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham sits down with Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition to discuss the presidential race

and how the Trump and Harris campaigns are trying to win over Christian voters. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Vickley with Georgia Howe. It's August 25th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. The following is an interview between Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham and Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Mr. Reed.

So to start, I saw that Faith and Freedom is planning to spend. $62 million to turn out the evangelical vote this year. What specifics can you give us about that effort? Well, it is the most comprehensive and ambitious ground game program directed at voters of faith in modern American political history. We will knock on 10 million doors of homes that have between 17 and 18 million modeled evangelical Christians and other social conservatives, to vote in those homes. That's about half of all the homes that the entire Republican Party

vote knocked on in 2022. There's never been an organization outside the Republican Party on the right that has visited this many voters at their door, engaging in face-to-face conversations. We're also making 10 million get out the vote calls with volunteers using an app where they can pick a battleground state and call voters in that state. And we're also sending $24 million get out the vote texts,

and we're focused on low propensity voters who have voted in one or less of the last three elections. We have 6,000 volunteers and about 4,000 paid staff engaging in this effort. We're also distributing voter guides in 113,000 churches, and we're doing voter registration drives in about 25,000 churches. So it's a massive, massive effort. And I think this effort alone by itself

is enough to make up the margin that we saw in 2020, where Wisconsin, the votes separating Biden and Trump were only 20,000 in Arizona, 10,000, and in Georgia, 11,700. I'm confident we can make up those margins and more just with this project along. Well, you know, you have to say that the left does seem to be recognizing the importance of that evangelical vote in a way that maybe they didn't in the past.

And we've seen efforts in recent weeks to brand Kamala Harris as a woman of strong Christian faith. Christianity today, for instance, ran a story about how she inspires black faith leaders. And of course, we're also seeing a lot of legacy media outlets stressing Tim Walzes Lutheran identity. Do you think this branding is effective? No, because I think it misapprehends the faith vote. The media and many on the left think that evangelical Christians and faithful Roman Catholics are driven by identity politics. They think that if a candidate says they've been born again that they're going to vote for them or that they have a deep and abiding faith that they're going to vote for them. We have so many examples of that not

being true that I don't know why they still think it. These voters are driven by issues and by policy. And this is the most pro-abortion ticket in U.S. history in Harrison and Walls. It's the most anti-Israel ticket in American history. It's the most anti-religious freedom ticket in American history. And Harrison Walls are on record supporting a scheme that we're not. would pack the Supreme Court and force the premature and unconstitutional retirements of three of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court, including Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, they would replace them with justices to the left of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. So, you know, those are the issues that burn in the hearts and give meaning to the souls of these voters,

not whether or not you go to the same church they do or you can quote scripture. And there's no better example of that than Donald Trump. I mean, you know, he had been married multiple times. He had been tabloid fodder for decades. He owned casinos in New Jersey and elsewhere. He was not somebody who had lived a perfect life, but he was pro-life, he was pro-Israel, he was pro-religious freedom, and he said he would appoint conservatives to the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, and he did so. He kept those promises, and I assure you, there is a deep reservoir of appreciation and gratitude

to Donald Trump in the faith community because of the promises he made and the promises he kept and the promise of a second Trump administration. Well, I'd like to sort of turn the camera a little bit, but stay on this topic. So we're seeing a group of evangelicals called Evangelicals for Harris, and that was just established.

And it's not just a fringe group. I mean, their event, their very first event, includes the chairman of the board of Christianity today as a speaker. And then we're also seeing that Redeemer Presbyterian, which is the high-profile church founded by the late Tim Keller, is also hosting a symposium on faith and politics that is exclusively featuring Harris supporters, including David French of the New York Times.

So I guess what I want to ask is, what would you say to these churches, and organizations about how they're living out their faith in the public sphere? Well, there's nothing new about where Christianity today is. I mean, remember, they editorialized for the impeachment and removal from office of Donald Trump when he was previously president. And they've been way beyond Never Trump for a long time. And there's nothing new about that.

And Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham and heir to his ministry, Billy Graham, of course, was involved in the founding of Christianity Today, has pretty much said that his father would be embarrassed if he were still alive by what's happened to what he helped found. And I think there's some of that out there, Megan. And I mean, look, it's a free country. And to be clear, 15% of the evangelical vote is about six or seven million boats. You know, it's a lot of people. But it's still only 15%. of the evangelical community. And they're a distinct minority. It's a free country. They're free to share their view, but I don't think it's going to work to advocate the election of people

who are for abortion up to, and in some cases, including infanticide, and who advocate rolling back a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that for the first time in a half a century, has given Christians the right to express their faith in the public square, free from discrimination and persecution. In the Coach Kennedy case where there was a coach in Colorado who would pray

with athletes after games at midfield, it was totally voluntary. He was disciplined by his school. That case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The court not only ruled in favor of Coach Kennedy and those athletes write to pray, but they overturned the so-called Lemon test based on a Supreme Court decision from 1971 called Lemon v. Kurtzman, that in its application greatly prescribed and restricted religious speech in the public square.

And finally, these voters, these believers, are as pro-Israel as any Americans since the founding of our country over 225 years ago. And they believe strongly in the right of Israel to not only defend itself, but to have the backing of the United States as its strongest allies and to have Kamala Harris out there trying to muscle and browbeat Israel into a ceasefire agreement that would allow Hamas and other Iranian military proxies to threaten Israel's right to exist is not going to be supported by voters of faith.

These are core moral issues for them. They're not political issues. They're issues of right and wrong. And they see Harris and Walls as anti-Israel, anti-life, anti-family and traditional values, and anti-religious freedom, and correctly so. I think that's what I'm getting at here. When you say that these are more, moral issues. Because in 2016 and 2020, the argument that you saw from some of these folks was that they were morally opposed to Donald Trump, therefore they were going to sit out or vote third party, but now they're openly supporting Kamala Harris. So do you feel like fig leafs have kind of fallen in this election? I may want to stay away from the fig leaf analogy.

Okay. You know, I don't want to make this personal. I really don't even know. David French. You know, I read his stuff on occasion. He seems like a person of integrity to me. Seems like a fair-minded and serious believer, even though I don't agree with him politically. But to take the position that he's now taking, that he is publicly taken in an op-ed in the New York Times, that he's now not just not voting or voting for a third party or writing somebody's name in, but he's voting for Kamala Harris. And I think that for believers to do any of those three things, vote third party, stay home, or in the worst case scenario, to vote for Harrison Walls, is to be complicit in the immoral and unethical and indefensible policies that they would

advance. I mean, it is to support. What in my view, you know, okay, technically it may not be unconstitutional. They're always talking about how we're trying to protect constitutional norms. What more violates and assaults constitutional norms than trying to pack the Supreme Court? That's been attempted one time in American history, technically more than one. You know, you could talk about Adams' 11th hour appointments of federal judges. There are a couple of other examples that we don't need to get into. But the most extreme is Franklin Delano Roosevelt trying to expand the court in 1938. It was summarily rejected by the voters

in those midterm elections. He withdrew the proposal. No one has dared to do it again until now. And that strikes at the very heart of our constitutional democracy because it means that you're okay with the Supreme Court interpreting and applying the Constitution to the passage of laws unless they vote against you. And the minute they vote against you, you then want to pack the court and change all the decisions. And the irony of some of the Christian never Trumpers who are now coming out and saying they're going to vote for Harris is one of the decisions that they're trying to reverse is the decision that those folks, meaning the Christian never Trumpers, have been. devoted their entire careers to trying to overturn, which was Roe v. Way, which other than Dred

Scott is probably the most morally indefensible and evil decision ever rendered by the Supreme Court. You know, you could argue plus E.B. Ferguson, but there are very few of these. And so I think it's a shame. You know, look, Donald Trump says and does things that I wish he wouldn't say or do. But in the end, It's not about whether or not the candidate's personal style or personality or even governing style is the one that I would prefer. It's about policy and how it affects people. And if you implement a policy that will lead to the taking of innocent human lives, in many cases after the child can feel pain, after they can survive outside the womb,

and in a handful of cases, not a lot, but enough to matter, after they'd been born. I don't see how you can defend that morally or biblically. I certainly can't, and I could never vote for Harris or Walls. So what do you say to the evangelical voter who may be feeling a little demoralized

about the GOP position on abortion right now, and what they see is at best, maybe a softening of the language in the GOP platform? Basically, how do you argue that they should still turn out the vote for Republicans? Well, I would encourage them to go back and actually read the Republican Party platform. And by the way, Megan, I should be clear, it's not the platform that I would have passed. It's not the platform that I would have written. But I can not only defend it, I can advance it on moral terms because there are two things

in that platform that most people may not even be aware of. The first is it asserts that the unborn child is a person constitutionally and legally and therefore deserving of protection under the 14th Amendment's clause that guarantees equal protection of all persons. Fourteenth Amendment was introduced and ratified after the Civil War to make sure that slaves were not, freed slaves were not discriminated against, that they were equal before the law. obviously that didn't happen in one of the greatest tragedies of American history, but that was the aspiration and intent of the 14th Amendment.

And that language saying that an unborn child is a person for purposes of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment has been in the Republican Party platform since 1984. And remember that the 14th Amendment doesn't just apply to the states. it also applies to the federal government. So when people say that when Donald Trump rewrote the platform at the convention in Milwaukee, he removed any role for the federal government, it's just simply not true. The 14th Amendment applies to the federal government. Secondly, the platform calls for the passage of bans on late-term abortion,

which is a term that is not defined, but which for purposes of the pro-life movement is generally defined is at least after 20 weeks and as science advances probably 15 weeks. And that language also clearly anticipates and includes action by the federal government. So I would say when you have one party that is calling for abortion at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason, paid for with tax dollars, including under Medicaid, and the other party saying that the unborn child is a person should be protected under the Constitution. It clearly is not today, and the child won't be protected unless one or two things happens until either, A, the Supreme Court rules that that language in the 14th Amendment does apply to the child, or until Congress passes a law that codifies that,

And then that is upheld by the court. So one of those two things has to happen. This is clearly an aspirational position, as it has been since 1984. But it is in there. Now, what is not in there, Megan, is the Human Life Amendment language. We had previously called for the passage of a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. I still support that, okay? But I would simply make two points.

number one, in the 44 years that that has been in the Republican Party platform, no one has even brought to the floor for a vote a human life amendment to the Constitution. So I don't think that the fact that that isn't in the platform means that we don't have other tools at our disposal. The second point I would make is that the fact that we overturned Roe in the Dobbs decision. That was the main reason why we wanted a human life amendment. The purpose of the human life amendment was to overturn Roe. Roe has now been overturned. So while I still favor a human life amendment, I just want to set the fact straight on what the platform says. And I also think we should make it abundantly clear that the person running on that platform is Donald J. Trump,

who is the most pro-life president in American history. He spoke at the March for Life. He defunded Planned Parenthood under regulations that he promulgated. He re-adopted and strengthened the Mexico City policy to ensure that U.S. tax dollars do not pay for abortions or promote abortion overseas. And most importantly, he appointed not one, not two, but three Supreme Court's, justices who were critical in the Dobbs decision. So I have no reservations at all about either the platform or this ticket. All right. Well, Ralph Reed of Faith and Freedom, we thank you so much for

your time. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham interviewing Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. And this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.