Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1034 | Trump, Vance, and the New GOP | Guest: Ron Simmons

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Today, we sit down with Allie's dad, Ron Simmons, to discuss former President Donald Trump’s big vice presidential announcement. Will Ohio Sen. JD Vance give Trump the push he needs to win the election? What does this ticket mean for the pro-life agenda, and should we be worried? We also explore how a former never-Trumper could become the second-highest leader in the country. Monday was day one of the Republican National Convention, and it was a doozy. We break down the speeches and a highly contentious prayer by Harmeet Dhillon. Additionally, we examine the Secret Service’s failures at the Trump rally on Saturday — where were the agents supposed to be, and how could they have made such a colossal mistake? Get your tickets for Share the Arrows: https://www.sharethearrows.com/ --- Timecodes: (00:56) Allie’s new book! (04:24) Trump enters RNC convention (07:45) Secret Service failed Trump (15:00) Trump at RNC Convention (21:00) Trump picks senator J.D. Vance for Vice President (48:01) New RNC platform (53:00) Amber Rose at the RNC (56:00) Teamsters (01:00:00) Harmeet Dhillon’s prayer (01:04:48) Are conservatives too easy? --- Today's Sponsors: Cozy Earth - go to COZYEARTH.COM/RELATABLE to enjoy 30% off using the code RELATABLE. Pre-Born — will you help rescue babies' lives? Donate by calling #250 & say keyword 'BABY' or go to Preborn.com/ALLIE. Jase Medical — get up to a year’s worth of many of your prescription medications delivered in advance. Go to JaseMedical.com today and use promo code “ALLIE". NetSuite — gain visibility and control of your financials, planning, budgeting, and inventory so you can manage risk, get reliable forecasts, and improve margins. Go to NetSuite.com/ALLIE to get your one-of-a-kind flexible financing program. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 1033 | Trump Shooting: Fulfilled Prophecy or Failed Security? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1033-trump-shooting-conspiracies-prophecies-the-truth/id1359249098?i=1000662333269 Ep 1032 | Project 2025: Truth vs. Lies https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1032-project-2025-truth-vs-lies/id1359249098?i=1000661942041 Ep 1028 | Democrats Want Joe Biden Out. There’s One Way to Do It | Guest: Ron Simmons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1028-who-will-replace-joe-biden-guest-ron-simmons/id1359249098?i=1000660841494 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

President Trump has picked J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate. What do I make of this? Do I think it's going to help or hurt? Also, what in the world is going on at the Republican National Convention? Twitter is aflame with all kinds of takes and what is also going on with the changes in the party platform. Why were pro-lifers and some Christians pushed out of the process? Oh my goodness. I've got my dad here. to help us break it all down today and give us his calm insight on all of this and so much more. This episode of Relatable is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use Goadally at checkout. That's Good Ranchers.com. Code All right.

Before we get into the conversation with my dad, I did just want to make a really fun, exciting announcement is that my book, Toxic Empathy, How Progressives Exploite Christian Compassion is now available for pre-order. There it is, Rosaria Butterfield, whom we've had on this podcast, was kind enough to give her endorsement. This quote is one of my favorites. Every page of this book is a lifeline to sanity. She very graciously says, and that's what I hope. This book has been three years in the making, and it is combating the progressive lie that in order to be kind and compassionate, especially as a Christian woman, you have to be. be progressive. So we go through these five lies that we hear from the left, these catchy mantras, abortion is health care, trans women are women, love is love. No human being is illegal. Social justice is justice. And we look at the anecdotes that we are constantly fed by fear mongers, but also

empathy mongers that make us believe in order to be loving, we have to take the progressive affirming position. But it's just not true. Empathy and compassion are not synonymous. Empathy and love are not synonymous. For Christians, we are called to speak the truth in love, but we are also called to this inextricably intertwined relationship between truth and love. True love always rejoices in the truth as 1 Corinthians 13.

says. And so this book is about true Christian compassion, about how we inform our political views based on factual truth and more importantly based on biblical truth. This book is really my answer to the question, what do I say when blank? If you read this book, you will never have to ask me that again. What do I say to X? All of that is thoroughly answered in this book. This is going to equip you to have these very contentious conversations this election season with friends, with family. You can get it on Amazon. That's probably the easiest place to get it, but you can go to toxicempathy.com. Toxicempathy.com. You can see all of the different places to pre-order. It will be available. It will ship to you starting on October 15th, but if you pre-order, it really helps me a lot.

So toxicempathy.com. Thank you guys so much. And by the way, I announced this yesterday. And I looked on Amazon. If you go to like the Movers and Shakers tab, it's number three on the Movers and Shakers tab. But then someone by the name of, I think it's J.D. Vance. I don't know if you've heard of him before. He's got the number one and two slot. I can't figure out why. Maybe you guys could give me some insight.

All right. That's it on that. Without further ado, here's my dad. Okay, Dad. Welcome back to the relatable program. Well, thank you. Yes, we got a lot to talk about. We got to talk about the R&C, the Republican National Convention, what it is, how it works, how it's significant.

But first, let us start out by just watching this epic entrance by Donald Trump last night in Milwaukee. Here's Sot 1. And I had to start again. Just my children and my lucky stars. I mean, just unbelievable. What a historic moment. I know that y'all were out of the country when the shooting happened. What was your reaction when you found that out?

Yeah, well, it's funny that I'm glad you asked that because we've been abroad for almost two weeks and just got back late last night. But, you know, it was where we were was almost opposite time of Milwaukee. So we were asleep when everything was going on. And I didn't wake up through the night. Mom happened to wake up through the night, looked at her phone and saw it. But luckily, didn't wake me up. I'm glad she didn't. But when I woke up, I couldn't believe it.

I mean, it was like, and the first part that I read was kind of like what you said yesterday on your podcast on, I read he had been shot. I automatically thought he probably been killed, right? Yeah. And so, and then I was just after that, I just was just, you know, hogging the news as much as I could. I wanted to find out as much as I could, you know, texted some of my friends that are a little bit more intricate in the situation than I was at the time.

And pretty remarkable. I mean, it was a, it was a shocking day. Let me put it. That was very, very shocking. I can remember when Ronald Reagan was shot.

I was, you know, he was the first president. I'd ever voted in that election. And it wasn't long after he got into office that he. that he got shot. And it was pretty telling at that time, too. And, you know, that's a good, that's a good point about Ronald Reagan, that this has happened before. This is certainly not the first time the president has been almost assassinated. Of course,

we've had actual assassinations in the past. But a lot of people have been saying, and this is what I feel, too, that it does feel like a uniquely dark moment, that we are lurching toward something. I don't even know what that something is, towards some sort of precipice. And I don't want to think that way, but it feels that way. I mean, what do you think? Is this different than what happened in 1981? Is this just another dark moment? Or is it unique? Well, I think it's different mainly because, remember, while he's a former president, he's a candidate.

Yeah. And I did look back in research how many top candidates have been, had an assassination attempt against them. that may have been, I just, I have not had the opportunity to look that up, but it's totally different. And the secret service team for a former president is not the same as the secret service team for the president. And I actually understand that. However, once the candidates are basically vying for the same office, then I believe that the secret service team, if it hasn't been, should be, you know, beefed up.

Just like RFK should have a secret service team. That is ridiculous. I didn't even know that until it came out yesterday. Oh, you did not? Yeah, President Biden has to approve that, right? And he has not approved that. So crazy. So crazy.

Because they don't lie about RFK in the same way, but they do lie about RFK and his vaccine stance and treating him as if he is this existential threat. I mean, what is your take on the security situation with President Trump? There's so many different theories, so many different perspectives. It was a dereliction of duty. Some people say it was DEI policies to blame. And then others saying, look, unless you're in the situation, it's really hard to assess who did what and what failures were there. I mean, speaking just as an amateur, it's hard for me to understand how a shooter was even able to get on a roof that close to the president.

it, but what's your take on it? Well, I will remember when I was in public office, I had dinner one night with a friend of mine, and he had brought a couple of guys in that were former Secret Service people. And I'll never forget what he told me at the time. He said, on the far left and the far right, the people that are way out there on the bleeding edge, them going from talking or social meeting to shooting is not a big leap for them. Where most of the rest of us, we could have very, very vehement disagreements. And we would never even consider going to those steps, right? And so that's what I think people have to guard against.

And as far as how the security worked, absolutely, it was someone fell on the job. And to me, it ultimately goes back to the head of the Secret Service, the lady that ahead of that now. She should probably lose her job because 150 yards, I promise you, Ali, even though when you and I hunted, you know, 20 something years ago, we didn't have the opportunity to shoot at something that you could kill something that size. You could hit something that size relatively easily with a high-powered rifle like he had. I mean, I've killed deer much further than that. And the only reason he didn't, the only reason he didn't, it wasn't because the guy was a bad shot, you know, at this particular time. It's just because he turned his head

because the guy was perpendicular to him, right? So he was right over here. He happened to turn his head. So it just happened to do that. I mean, it was now happening to do that. And yes, you know, his life was saved, but just as tragically those other people, the gentleman who passed away and the other two who were not sure what's going to totally happen to yet. But Secret Service, I don't care if the, if the police should have been monitoring that building because there wasn't enough secret service. At the end of the day, it's the secret services fault that they didn't make sure that was done. And when people are pointing up there, all right, pointing up there and secret services

looking at them pointing up there before the guy shoots and they didn't take, they didn't at least come get Trump and take him down until they could figure out the situation. Right. Big mistake. Right. And listen, we've got the president. six foot four, you can't have a five-foot-five person trying to protect, physically protect them. Can't do it. I'm sorry.

That's what I said yesterday, too. A lot of debate about whether women should be Secret Service. My personal opinion is that they shouldn't, even if it's just for the sheer size and the strength of them. Like, you got to be able to drag a six-foot-four, 240-pound man off stage if you have to. And you just can't. I could not do that. I would not be able to do that. That's another thing. They left him on stage too long. If you go back and watch the Ronald Reagan shooting, they were in that car within two seconds. They were in the car. Now, he was headed to the car, okay, so a little bit closer, but there wasn't any, nobody was saying, what do we do now? Yes. And that's what happened yesterday. You heard the female agent in that, what are we doing? Where are we going? What are we doing? What are you talking about? What, what, what? That is, that is very, you know, we've worked with, with different events that I've done. I've worked with. various security people and security details. And they always have a plan. They say, this is where I'm going

to be. This is where I'm looking. This is how we're going to exit. If anything looks a right, you just give me the look and you're out. So, and that's just, that's me. And that's just, you know, one security guy. We're talking about a former president and not just any former president, but one who is, I think, uniquely hated by a lot of people, uniquely lied about by a lot of people. And the secret service. and Secret Service snipers. And even they just seemed completely discombobulated. And, you know, I don't want to be in a position of trying to condemn them since I don't know the situation, but you're right. It just seems like at least they should have said, I don't know what that person is doing, but let's get Trump to safety and figure it out.

And they didn't. And now someone is dead. Yeah, you have to be cautious. You have to be cautious. See, the, you know, we'll see. I hope we get a fully transparent, although it's not likely that we get a fully transparent investigation results and that they'll be reported to us pretty quickly.

Because whatever happened, it happened, the American people have a right to know. We don't need to know their secret way that they, you know, set up security and all that type of stuff. We just need to know, okay, where was the failure? Why did it happen? What have we done to make sure it won't happen in the future? Yeah. And there was that story of the police officer, the local police officer climbed up, saw the kid with the gun and retreated. And I just wonder, why not after that was that kid not surrounded in a second and taking it out?

Yeah, I don't know how long was it. I haven't heard how long it was between when he saw him and when the boy shot. I don't know. He should have been on the horn quickly. Once he got out of his way, he should have been yelling up there just to cause. confusion, right? Yes. And I don't, I don't know if it was that interaction, between that and their interaction with the shooting, I know that it's been reported, according to the Associated press, that from the first time law enforcement saw this guy to when he actually shot was 26 minutes. That in and of itself is damning to me. Anything more than one or two minutes. Yeah. You know, I mean, that should happen. They should have been on that, you know, It's disturbing.

Disturbing. Well, we weren't going to go that direction, but when you see the president walking in and he's got the bandage on his ear and you know what he has just gone through, we kind of needed that context. And I don't know if you noticed this. We would just watch for a little bit last night before we went to bed. But Trump at the convention, you probably didn't get to watch since you were on a plane, but he seemed very subdued. He seemed, I'm sure he's exhausted, but I think he's probably a little traumatized, and I just wonder if he is a little humbled. I mean, you get that close to death. It's almost a spiritual experience.

He seemed very different in his countenance last night. I assume, I've never had an experience like that, but that's what I assume as well. And hopefully as a leader, you know, you lead as much by what you don't say as to what you say, right? And so hopefully as a leader, he is trying to pass on, hey, this is my demeanor. And I'm sure he'll give a very powerful speech, but this is my demeanor. This is a demeanor we need to take on. I will say one thing I thought was kind of funny, though. And again, sometimes you just have to laugh at different things.

It's okay. Surely you could do a better job of band you in that ear than put just like a square pad on there. I mean, I think you could make it just a little bit. It's better. Did you notice that? Yeah. The question is, if he's got a hole in his ear, will he wear some type of earring? I mean, that's the real question. I don't think so. I don't think so.

You never know. You never know with Trump. I love this quote by Ronald Reagan after he got shot. And I just pray this for Trump that this would be his perspective. He said, this is part of his diary entry, actually. It says, getting shot hurt. Still my fear was going. because no matter how hard I tried to breathe, it seemed like I was getting less and less air because his lung was punctured.

I focused on that tiled ceiling and prayed, but I realized I couldn't ask for God's help. While at the same time, I felt hatred for the mixed up young man who had shot me. Isn't that the meaning of the lost sheep that we are all God's children and therefore equally beloved by him? I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back to the fold. Of course, the young man that shot at President Trump is dead. but just that kind of release and that grace. And he also said, I owe my life to God and we'll try to serve him in every way I can. Of course, that's what we want for all of our leaders to owe their lives and their position to God and to try to serve him in every way.

So maybe this was a spiritual experience for Trump. And this can be used in that regard. Well, I mean, nothing, nothing's new under the sun, which you talk about a lot. And Daniel 221 and 22 tells us about who's going to be our leaders. It's who God sets them up and takes them down. Now, we participate in all of that because we're people of free will. And sometimes we get what we ask for, as you can read through the Old Testament for sure. And it's the same way here.

Okay, back to the RNC, shifting back to Milwaukee. What is going on there this week? What does it all mean? Well, in some ways, it's pretty perfunctory when you have a situation where, Donald Trump going through all the primaries, you know, even though you and I may have voted for him or whomever we voted for, the, we were not voting for him per se. We were really voting for delegates that go to the convention. And each state has so many delegates.

I think there's 2,300, 2,400 total Republican delegates. And based on the population of your state and how many congressional people you have come out of your state, I mean, House of Representatives and Senators you have, that determines how many delegates to the convention, okay? And then so those delegates go there, all right? And the delegates then will, mostly they're going to a bunch of meetings and they're hearing policy people. I notice one thing they have on there. There's a new Dennis Quaid and John Voigt movie out coming out about Ronald Reagan. You know, they'll have pre-screens of that. They'll talk about different. you know, maybe there'll be experts on immigration.

They'll have a lot of parties. It's kind of a fun time for everybody to be there. And then they'll have speeches, you know, every night by generally, they're mostly going to be from politicians. And I will talk about those later if you want to. And then also some celebrities as well or some special. Sometimes I remember maybe last time they had one of the Gold Star families that was there in 2020. And that's what they do.

And then they'll, but they do go through some. a nomination process because the party has to nominate its presidential choice. And then the delegates are bound, we talked about this before, to vote for that person that their state has said they vote for. And for most states, it's winner take all. Some states, they still divide them up. So you might see somebody say that they give, you know, 30 votes to Donald Trump and 20 votes or 10 votes to Nikki Haley, okay?

That doesn't mean somebody's broken from the mold, all right? That doesn't mean that at all. And then, of course, it's the big deal when the president announces his VP candidate as he did. Yes. And tell me what you think about that. What do you think about J.D. Vance is a pick? Oh, I don't know if you even remember this, Allie, but I knew J.D. Vance who he was. I didn't know him.

But I knew him because I heard about this book called Hillbilly Elegy. And this would have been, oh, me. this would have been several years. Whenever it first came out. It came out in 2015, I think. Yeah. And so you were just out of college over in, you know, still living, not in Texas, living out of state.

And so I read that book. And after I read the book, you know, I thought it was great and all that stuff. But after the 16 election, I knew exactly why Donald Trump got elected. Because if you read that book, that tells you. why Donald Trump got elected. And it's because that he figured out how to speak into the J.D. vances of the world. And when I say that, how J.D. grew up. He truly did grow up poor. You know, a lot of people talk about that, right? Like, even I will say, well, my mom and dad were public school teachers, and we didn't have a bunch of money. And we didn't. But we weren't near where J.D. Vance and his

mom were and his grandparents and what have you. And thank goodness for strong grandparents. Because his mom at the time was a total wreck. She was, you know, on drugs and all this stuff. And his dad was in and out of the picture. And his grandmother, if you read the book or watch the movie, she was one tough cookie. I mean, I mean, she raised him. Now, to his credit, he was obviously whip smart. Yeah. He was whip smart coming out of, the hills of West Virginia and South Eastern Ohio, because they kind of moved back and forth, I think, or maybe it was Kentucky, but ended up, yeah, ended up in Ohio. And if, if, if, if you want to talk about poor, but yet proud people, those people that are in Appalachian are like that.

And then he goes on, somehow, I forget how it's when he gets, I think, into Harvard, to Harvard, through the Harvard or Yale. He went to Yale. He went to Yale. Oh, he would really not be happy with that, would he? He went to Yale. And that's where he met his wife and, you know, going through all that. And then after 9-11, joined the, you know, joined the Marines. And I didn't see him. When I watched the movie, read the book, I still didn't see him as a politician, you know, getting into public service.

I didn't see that. But I think what happens is when you get, when you, when you have the opportunity to have a format and have a stage like that. and you see what was in your life playing out all around the country, you feel like, I need to step and do something about it, not just take the benefits of telling my story. Yeah, you know, he is, he's changed in a lot of ways. I read that book too. Timothy read it before I did, and then I read it, loved it, cried through it, cried when I watched, the movie, too, just an incredible story. But what's amazing about it is that he told that, story, 2015, 2016. It was a number one New York Times bestseller. It was an Oprah book of the month.

It got all of these rave reviews from the Washington Post and the New York Times. I don't think if that same book was written today that it would have as much positive, as much of a positive reception by the mainstream media, simply because it's telling the story of poor white people. And especially post-2020, we've heard that you're not really allowed to talk about that. There's only one kind of oppressed person and speaking about people who might be more conservative, they might be Christian, they might be white, and the hard times that they have fallen on, much because of government policies that's almost like a taboo subject. But he waited into that was one of the first people to tell those stories. And that was just meaningful to me. He was a never Trump guy. I don't think

he's trying to hide that. But he was very public because he was very successful as an entrepreneur where after he went to Yale, he was never Trump, never Trump said a lot of things about Trump. But then, you know, he ran for Senate as a Republican in Ohio and he definitely dropped the like anti-Trump perspective. And maybe his mind just, you know, it just, it just really changed. And now here he is. So it's a pretty remarkable, not just his life, but over the past few years, who he has become and how he has kind of risen to this place. Now I have a question for you. because I want to play the video of him accepting this nomination and all of that. But he's a different kind of conservative dad.

Like he is not your typical, I don't know, like George Bush, Carl Rove kind of conservative. He's almost this new generation of what some people call more of like a populist, pro-labor conservative. And I just wonder what you think about that. Do you agree with that characterization? Do you think this is a shift? Well, I think you can be pro-labor without being a pro-union boss. And we'll talk about that because one of those bosses spoke last night.

But I do think that it's a different. You know, I think every generation has their view. Every Republican generation, every Democrat generation. And I'm talking mainstream, okay, because I consider J.D. Vance mainstream, but there may be a new mainstream. And I think that's okay. I think you have to realize that we have to, we had, our party had to figure out how we were going to get the worker with us. You know, the Republican Party always had the country club people and we always had the evangelicals for the most part, a couple of actions they didn't do as well. But we didn't really ever have the everyday worker, the waitress, the truck driver, the person that worked in the factory, things like that. And those really are what built America, right? I mean, a lot of the the people, a lot of the greatest generation that came out of World War II, some of them went to college, but some of them went right into those jobs. And we as a party jumped on this. Everybody

needs to go to college, right? And we, in a sense, by doing that, we downplayed those other things. And I see us going back to that. And I'll credit Donald Trump for a lot of that. So a man who's probably never worked in a labor job, although he has had a lot of those people working for him and he's been on site and all that. It's so funny that he is the one who kind of makes the rest of us think about that again. And I think that's one of the reasons he picked JD. The other reason he picked JD vance, I believe, is because he wanted the people to see that if something did happen to him, that we have a strong person there backing him up.

And there won't be any doubt about what he believes. He's got a military history. He is well known. He's well-liked. He has the look of a leader. He does. I think all of that's important. And I cannot wait for the Kamala Harris, J.D. Vance, debate.

That's going to be great TV. Gosh, that is not, that's going to be maybe as painful to watch as Trump and Biden. That is like, oh, that contrast there, I actually saw this delusional left-wing journalist. I don't know if she still writes for the Washington Post. Her name is Jennifer Rubin. And she said, oh, you know that after Kamala, here's this announcement that she cannot wait for that first debate. It's like a kid in a candy store.

I'm like, yeah, if the kid is allergic to candy, that's what it's like. If a kid has a phobia of candy, that is what that is like. He is going to intellectually demolish Kamala Harris. It's not even going to be fun to watch, maybe a little. But it'll be fun. It'll be a lot of word salads in there. A lot of word salads from her side for sure. And you know what?

He's young. That's another part of this is that when you've, got two tickets and you've got, now you've got this contrast, even more so. I mean, we saw it Biden and Trump after the debate and we thought, oh my gosh, that contrast is insane. But now you've got these iconic photos of a bloody Trump lifting up his fist in front of a blue sky in the American flag saying fight to his supporters as the supporters in the background are saying USA, USA, USA. And then you've got this guy over here who, who's, you've got this guy over here who who basically has flies flying in and out of his mouth because he's just looking around

mouth agape confused all the time. You have him and you have Kamala Harris and now you have Trump and you have this young fighter in J.D. Vance and that's a good point that you made that look if something happens to Trump, God forbid, like we, I think most of us would be pretty excited about a J.D. Vance presidency. And so, yeah, that's a really good point. We do have a video of him, not accepting the nomination because that speech is today, but the nomination announcement at the RNC.

So here's soft four. The question is on the motion that Senator J.D. Vance be nominated by acclamation. All those in favor signify by saying I. All those opposed signify by saying no. in the opinion of the chair, the eyes have it, and the motion is adopted. I thought that was just really sweet. Okay, we've also got J.D. Vance explaining the call in which Trump tells him or asks him to be his VP running mate. Here's top five.

When the president called me today to actually formally offer me to become, you know, the vice presidential nominee, which just sounds crazy. My son, my seven-year-old son was sort of making noise in the background. You know, I'm getting so embarrassed. It's like, oh, my God, Donald Trump's asking me to be his vice president. So the phone rings. He calls you and you're like, okay, this is the call or maybe not the call? Or maybe it's a bad call, right? It's the call who knows whether it's good or bad.

But then he actually has me put my seven-year-old son on the phone. You think about this, everything that's happened, the guy just got shot at a couple of days ago, and he takes the time to talk to my seven-year-old. It's a moment I'll never forget. Dad, your take on that? Oh, my gosh. I actually watched that last night. I was watching it on our, mom and I were watching it on our phone in the Admills Club,

where we're waiting for our next flight to come home. It was incredible. And it doesn't, of the other stories I've heard individually about President Trump, it doesn't surprise me at all that he asked to have the little boy get on the phone. And I watched that whole interview. It's something you said a few minutes ago about how Vance had been anti-Trump. Sean asked him that question. Hannity asked him about that.

And he handled that really, really well. what he basically said was that, hey, you know what? I didn't know him as well. You know, I had also been sucked into what the media was saying about him. And once I learned who he was and got to know him over the last few years, I admit I was wrong. And I changed my mind on him. And I thought that was pretty, most people don't do that.

You know, people are forgiving people. Americans are forgiving people. If you'll just admit it when you're wrong and then, you know, move in the correct direction. People understand that. Nobody expects someone to be perfect. Yeah. And yeah, I agree with that. And I think as long as he's honest about that and he just said, look, I changed my mind and he doesn't try to deny it or lie about it.

Like, I'm cool with that. I'm fine with that. And I also think it's fine to have criticisms of President Trump. But I'm telling you, this is another sign of a different Donald Trump. This is another sign in addition to his countenance. at the debate and even, even last night in some ways, I think the Donald Trump that prizes, which there's nothing wrong with prising loyalty, but the unforgiving grudge holding Donald Trump that we've seen come through a few times over the years, like I think that he has laid a lot

of pride down because to select, I know he just wants to win, but to select a VP that at one point called himself publicly a never Trumper, I think Trump has a different perspective. And I think that's good, that he's seen that this is bigger than him. And that's what I hope for. That's what we need, don't you think? Oh, yeah. And I forget whether who, I think it may have been Hannity in the same interview. He said, well, you know, I asked Donald Trump about this. I said, you know, this is Hannity talking, I think it was Hannity, that said, well, you know, he was a never Trumper. And he said these things about you. And evidently President Trump response was, well, he doesn't think that anymore, does he?

I mean, that's the perfect response. Yeah. You know, he could have, and I think the old Donald Trump would have gone off for three minutes about that, right? Yeah. But that's what, praise God. I just hope that God is working in Donald Trump's heart because we need that. We are at the turning point as a country. We do need that strong leadership.

I am interested to hear what you think about. We talked about this yesterday, how Axios is reporting that top House Democrats are saying we've resigned ourselves to a Trump presidency. I know that we've got a long way to go until November, but as things stand right now with this momentum that President Trump has, what are you thinking about this election? What do you think that the Democrats are thinking? What's going on? I think pretty soon, once the whole assassination thing goes over

and we get back to a quote unquote normal news cycle, that obviously the attacks will heat back up, okay? but I also think that the down-ticket Democrats are going to be the ones, and maybe not publicly, but they're going to be the strongest voices about having someone else on their ticket. Now, ultimately, honestly, Allie, I'm not sure that's going to happen. I used to think, yeah, it's probably going to happen. They're going to force him out and what have you. But I don't know that that's going to happen.

I think he and his family are so committed to this. And it's very hard to give up power, right? Power gained is rarely freely given up. And so I worry about that a little bit. From a selfish standpoint, I hope he does stay in because I think that's the best contrast that you can have because he's running on, he has to run on his record. And we can point his record.

And anybody else they put in is going to say, hey, that wasn't me. I would do things somewhat differently, even though I love President Biden. But I don't, again, again, as I've said, every time we've talked, no matter what happens so far, and across the country polling, it still stays kind of within the margin of error. Yeah.

Now, the good part is, is in the in the state, the battleground states that that, it looks like those leads continue to be more and more for Donald Trump. And that's the main thing, honestly. Yeah. Making sure that he wins the Wisconsin, making sure he, you know, continue and he wins Georgia back, keeps North Carolina, maybe he can win Virginia, Arizona for sure, Nevada. We need those states, might even need Pennsylvania, although it's a stretch. What we have to worry about for the next four months and what I want your viewers and listeners

in their local areas to pay attention to, please, is what's going on with your local elections. officials. I didn't say elected officials. The people in your county or in your city, ever they do it, that run the elections, okay? What are the things, what are the little things that they may be doing that you need to be paid attention to? How do they find that out? How do people find that out? Well, what they need to do is they need to get on their website for their local election official and kind of see how they're talking about. What are there, they need to know, what are your get out the vote efforts? Because, you know, basically Biden has added to his campaign, in my opinion, all of the federal agencies to work with local officials

on getting the vote out. And that seems, okay, yeah, everybody should vote. But from what I've heard so far is that, like the small business administration, they're not reaching out to red counties to help them. They're only reaching out to blue counties. So if you live in a red county or a Purple County, I want to know what the election administrator in your area, what their get-out-the-vote efforts are, and where are they getting help through the different federal agencies? That's what I would want to know. Because if there's any way that Donald Trump, in my opinion, unless something large again happens on the negative side, will lose this race, is if they can figure out how to once again

skirt the law, and say they're breaking the law, skirting the law, to get out more of, more blue voters than red voters, that's how that they could still win. Do not think this race is over because it is not over. They will not go gently into the night. No, of course not. And of course, they're going to try to use, which they would have done this for anyone, but J.D. Vance as New Fodder. He's a traditional Catholic guy. His wife is actually Hindu, but I assume that they have the same values and the same beliefs, but they're going to try to cast his entire faith. family as radical, far-right Catholics. And so it'll be interesting to see how they use J.D. Vance and his past comments about

things like abortion against him. Last night, CNN's Van Jones, who sometimes is reasonable and sometimes is completely irrational, here's how he describes the threat of J.D. Vance at Sot 9. Trump, to your point, I agree with you. He's an instinctive, impulsive, intuitive. nationalist. J.D. Vance is an ideological nationalist. That's a much more dangerous virus because he can make this, he can polish this stuff and make it seem palatable to people. He can sell this stuff to Silicon Valley. He can sell this stuff other places. And what it does is it locks the Republican

Party on a pathway that I think is dangerous for the world. This pick is a horror on the world stage. So J.D. Bance matters because Donald Trump is pointing the Republican Party in a very very scary direction for the long term. Okay, Dad. So right after the Republican nominee gets almost assassinated, we have Van Jones on CNN saying that Vance, or if I just want to be as generous as possible, his ideology is a dangerous virus, a threat to the country, a horror on the world stage because apparently he has scary nationalistic beliefs of virus, dad. Well, when they say virus, when they say nationalists, they're saying Nazis.

that's their term for Nazi that's their signal that's what they're that's what they're telling their people and trying to tell independence and what have you and you know when they say virus they're saying

something that can control other people without other people helping it right that's what they're saying right where they're saying like he's going to take advantage of all these people because he's so you know he can he can speak out there you know he ideologically they know they know

that he, when you look at him, he looks like a leader. I mean, he just looks like a leader. Now, obviously, he's got to follow through on it. But a lot of people, a lot of voters are surface voters, right? How he sounds, how he looks. That'll do it. Yeah. Yeah. They are trying to moderate, it seems like. The Republican Party right now is trying to capture some of those independent voters and those blue-collar voters who might be more moderate than, you know, you and I are on things like abortion. And we've already heard and we've talked about what Donald Trump said at the debate. He said several times he wants a compromise on abortion. He said before 16 weeks. He says, you know, you just kind of have to follow your heart. We believe in these exceptions.

Now, J.D. Vance, in the past as a Catholic, I believe, has made statements that are very completely pro-life anti-abortion. But he recently said in an interview on MS. NBC that he actually believes in the legal availability of Miffipristone, which is one of the abortion pills, which I think is horrible. And then last night when he was talking to Hannity, I did actually see this kind of misconstrued by some conservatives. He repeated what Donald Trump said about following your heart when it comes to abortion. But actually, J.D. Vance was not saying that himself. He was saying that that's what Trump said. And Trump is the nominee. And, you know, this is where I have to fall in line now, kind of is what I heard him say.

I know that's disappointing for pro-lifers. I would love a more pro-life ticket. I want us to be completely anti-abortion. I also understand that this is the only ticket that we have that represents people that can be pushed and prayed toward life, toward protecting babies, towards wins in that direction. What's your take on that? Well, here's my take. My take is this ticket's not going to do anything to make abortion easier, 100%. And I also believe that what the party is doing, and yeah, I'd like to wait my magic wand as well, but I learned when I was in office that doesn't work like that, is that they're doing what we asked them to do as pro-lifers, okay? We ask them to overturn Roe v. Wade. That has been done. When you overturn Roe v. Wade, it comes back to the states. We had never prior to that in an organized movement said we want a national band, okay, although we probably did.

That's never been a huge policy thing. I think it's very good to discuss that going forward. No question about it. That would be my preference. However, it is back in the state where the laboratory exists, and hopefully what will come out of that is a potential policy either that Congress adopts or there's another court case that solidifies it nationwide pertaining to that, and all the way down to, you know, an embryo, right, that you would, you and I would call an embryo. We believe that's a light. There are a lot of people that don't believe that.

But I think they're going to stick with that the fact that that's back in the state's hand. J.D. might end up saying if he comes back on your show, which I hope he will, saying that, hey, Allie, I am a pro-lifer. I believe in life at conception, all right? and if I have the opportunity to help promote that, I will do that. However, at this current time, it is in the hands of the states to do that. And I will promise to you that I won't support anything within our executive authority that will enhance the ability for someone to get an abortion.

Yeah. Well, we'll see about that. Obviously, we want as many wins as possible toward life so we can save. Yeah, and I was, you know, I'm sorry, I'll interrupt you. But one of the things I wanted to visit on for just a minute is this R&C platform committee. I think people need to understand that. Every state puts two people on that platform committee and they're elected by their own national committee people and the other delegates. So it's a huge committee.

They've been working for a while. They don't just come together and do it on Monday, right? And what I would like to see is, and I haven't talked to him yet. And I know you probably talked to him in the past is David Barton is one. of our people on from Texas on that committee. I would love to know how that conversation went. I think that would be really interesting and maybe it's an opportunity sometime to reach out to him and have him come on your show and talk about it. But I, because David, you and I both know is a very strong pro-lifer and a very strong Christian man. And I believe that he believes the way you and I do.

but I was interested to see that he was one of our, one of the Texas two platform committee members. Yeah, we actually haven't talked about the change yet. We just haven't been able to and why so many people are frustrated by this. So I'll give a little bit of a summary. Delegates at the Republican National Convention approved a new party platform that softens the party's language on both abortion and marriage. Last week, the platform was quickly pushed through. The R&C Platform Committee on July 8th, marking a shift in the party stands to more closely align with the views of former President Trump and leaving staunch pro-life Christians excluded from the process. Some people are mentioning that the 2016 RNC platform mentions God 15 times.

The 2024 R&C platform draft mentions God just two times. Most notable to Christian conservatives, the new platform dropped language from the 2020 platform. that defined marriage as the union between one man and one woman and called for strong protections for the unborn. The new platform still includes language that links abortion to the 14th Amendment, but it emphasizes leaving the issues to the states. And now I will just say, because I just heard this explained with, and I was with our friends at Alliance to Finning Freedom last week, that that's actually very nonsensical. This is coming from attorneys who understand this much better than I do, but you can't say that this is a 14th Amendment issue and that it goes to the states.

The 14th Amendment issue was created post-slavery to recognize the dignity and the need for protection of all people that they can't be subjugated through slavery. So you can't say that abortion is a 14th Amendment issue and that it goes to the states because those things are actually incongruent. But again, talking to my friends, hang on, talking to my friends at ADF, they were a lot of them were not included in this process. Now you would think some of the most prominent pro-life attorneys who have argued before the Supreme Court on the issue of religious liberty and free speech that they would have been included in this to make sure that legally it makes sense. But this new RNC platform when it comes to life, it literally doesn't make any sense. And I want to know why the best and smartest pro-life is, you know, were excluded from this process? Well, I don't know that.

That's a good question. What we need to do, though, is find out who was included in the process, right? But I do think, Allie, I'll push back a little bit. The 14th Amendment, right now it is in the state's hands. I think one of the reasons, if I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, that they use the 14th Amendment because that sets up another court case, right? that the 14th Amendment allows you, okay, assuming that we follow that line, allows that to be brought up into federal court and allows that to get to the Supreme Court, right?

There will be a question, is a whatever, whether it's an embryo or whether it's a six heartbeat, whatever, is that a human and therefore are they granted the same protections as we granted everyone in the 14th Amendment? That is going to happen. I don't know if it will happen in my lifetime, certainly going to happen in your lifetime, that the Supreme Court will be forced to deal with that because you're right. That is a human right in itself. They're going to have to decide, is it a human right to life versus a state right to regulate? Exactly.

I think that may be why that some of our friends may have got that inserted. I don't know. ADF should have been involved in that. I don't know the other groups that you talk to a lot. I mean, you talk to as many pro-life groups as anybody. That's a great question. And I think we need to find that out. Lila Rose, she's also one of the most prominent pro-life activists.

They should have called you. They should have called me. I can guarantee you it wouldn't have looked as goofy as this. But, yeah, obviously I don't agree with that. I don't agree with it's one thing to not want to campaign on the issue. of restoring the natural definition of marriage between a man and a woman. I understand that's not even really where Donald Trump is. But to drop it from the platform, I saw, for example, log cabin Republicans, they are an

LGBTQ Republican group. They celebrated this change in the party platform that was approved of yesterday. And now this is a group that says that marriage between one man and one woman, that that's antiquated language, that that's an old concept. that doesn't need to be championed. It basically doesn't have a place in our political language. But look, like, whether someone agrees with me on this or not, the family, husband, wife, mom, dad, child is the building block of any free and stable society.

It is the most outside of the church is the most stabilizing force in all of human existence. And for us, as the faith and family party to completely abandon that out of our platform, platform, I don't like that. That shift worries me a lot. Yeah, well, there's a lot of things that are legal that aren't best, right? Their traditional family, the study, all the studies show, and they'll continue to show that that's where the children have the best opportunity to succeed. That doesn't mean that a gay marriage isn't civilly, is not legal from a civil law standpoint. That doesn't mean it that we as a party should say that that's equal, right?

Because it's not equal. We know that traditional family units or the nuclear family, whatever people want to call it, are absolutely the most successful families out there. Yeah. I like to say natural family because someone pointed out to me that traditional family means that it's rooted in tradition and it's not even rooted in tradition. It's rooted in nature. But anyway, so I.

That was disappointing to me. You know, I think there are all kinds of speakers that they allow to speak. There were a couple of speakers that caused a controversy last night. There was an adult performer named Amber Rose. Oh, my goodness. Who is that, by the way? She is an adult performer, and she's not someone who used to be one and then, you know, reformed. She still is currently.

And she is pro-abortion. Just recently she was on a podcast where she said, that she actually really relates to and respects Satanism as a religion because Satanism helps women get abortions. She became famous because of her very public relationships with multiple rappers, but she recently said that she's voting for Donald Trump. Look, I'm happy to have her vote. I'm happy to have the votes of other people like her. I'm not saying that we should gatekeep and say you can only be one way to vote Republican. But do we need a person like that speaking at the RNC? Oh, gosh. I think there are a lot of other ways that the Trump campaign could have utilized her to speak to what certain segments that she most appeals to.

But the people that were watching that last night, the R&C convention, were, well, most of them would be like me, just from a knowledge standpoint, did not know who she was. Yeah. Okay. And I think a lot of your audience probably didn't know who she was unless you've talked about it before. And so what value was that bringing? I mean, she was a woman of color. So, you know, talk about that. Well, I think she looked like it. I don't know. I watched part of the speech, but I could be wrong on that.

She was a woman of spray tan, I think. Okay, well, spray tan could be a woman of color. Yeah, a color. Yeah, for sure. Nothing can get spray tanes. And look, like anyone can be redeemed, of course. And I would be happy to befriend this person and talk with her. And I hope that Christ saves her.

It's not about that. But it's about, okay, what is our platform? who are our best representatives. And I'm curious because you mentioned this earlier. So I wanted to bring it back to that. What did you think about the head of Teamsters, who is the biggest labor union, I think, in the country? He gave a long speech, which I personally found very boring.

What do you think about that, hoisting him up as a big part of the Republican Party now? John O'Brien is his name. So he is a good Irish person, it sounds like to me. Yeah. And he did that with great risk, by the way. because those positions are elected. He's elected to be head of the Teamster Union. And so that's a pretty big risk.

But I think what he has seen is just the same thing that we kind of talked about in Hillbilly Allergy on a little bit more formalized basis in that the people that are teamsters feel like they are getting the short end of the stick as well with all of the new, you know, unnecessary regulations on oil and gas drilling that might, you know, run the ships that where they work on the. docks or either the trucks that they drive or whatever particular profession that they're in, the environmental regulation. So I think he sees his organization being totally counted on by the Democrats, but not necessarily served well by their policies. And I think that probably, just from a bigger standpoint, that might be the most important person that gets on the stage at the R&C convention.

Yeah, that's interesting. So you think it was an important pick for him, for them to pick him to speak. Oh, there's no question about that's never happened. Yeah. Well, at least in a long time that I remember where they've had ahead of a major union. Yeah. All right. Now, the auto workers haven't come along yet, right?

Yeah. But to have somebody like that, that's pretty impressive. And again. He's got a standing ovation, too. So it might have not been for me. I might not have been the target audience, but he got a standing out with the convention. Yeah, that's correct. Well, you'd get a stand, you know, if you were there, too.

Yeah, well, I don't know. It depends on what I said. This was a very contentious moment. The second benediction of the night at the RNC was Republican leader Hermit Dillon. She is Sikh. She is an immigrant from India. And let me just say, like, Hermit is awesome. She is awesome.

She is an attorney. She represents a lot of people fighting for their right to free speech, their right to religious Liberty. She has represented a lot of people and she is a stalwart conservative and I think she would have been a really good pick for an RNC chair. A lot of people took issue with her benediction last night and the prayer that she prayed and here it is. It's not three. Dear Wahiah Guru, our one true God, our one true God. We thank you for creating America as a unique haven on this earth where all people are free to worship according to their faith. We seek your blessings and guidance for our beloved country.

Okay, so what people took issue with was when she said, Wahy Guru, our one true God, and then went into talking about how this one true God is the creator. And I saw her going back and forth, people on Twitter saying, you know, I love you, but I just wasn't on on board with that. What she might not realize is that because she kept on going back and forth saying, well, we do just have one God. But that's, of course, not how Christians see things. We believe in the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, which is not the same thing as the Muslim God. It's not the same thing as the Sikh God. So some people took issue with this. But I'm curious, in the past, at these conventions, do they typically have representations of people of lots of

different faiths, or is this kind of new? What would have people said if the second guy would have been a Jewish rabbi. Nothing. Most people probably nothing, yeah. Nothing. Okay. And listen, I don't agree with her either, and I didn't like that. I'd look what that word was. I didn't know what that word was. But, you know, the Jewish people would say the same thing. We serve one God, you know, just like you Christians do. We, we, so, you know, it's a, it's a secular, the R&C Republican National Committee is a secular committee, right? And they have, to be able to say that we include people of all faith, right? We may disagree with them on that particular issue, but we have to be like Ronald Reagan. What our goal is, it's not the R&C's goal to

convert somebody to Christianity. That's not, that's not their goal. And a lot of our fellow Christians believe that is their goal, at least that's the way they act. That's mine and your goal. That's who we are. That's what we're supposed to do individually with people, right? and our churches are supposed to do. That's not the RNC's job. Now, if we don't like the way they're doing it, yeah, we can vote differently and try to get that change. But I wouldn't be overly critical.

Now, if that would have been the only prayer prayed all night, maybe differently. But I wouldn't get too out of whack on that one. Yeah. And Christians just remember, like, we get to bring our full worldview into the voting booth, into the RNC, into every sphere that we occupy, we get to represent the gospel.

We get to represent the true, only true God, the triune God in everything we do. Like, we get to bring that to the table, even though there are people who say that we're not. And so, like, if we want to infuse light and truth into all these spheres, like, we are also free to do that, thank the Lord. Now, you could say that some of those people got cut out when it comes to changing the party platform. but, you know, like we do what we can. For example, there was a petition going around and there were a lot of prominent pro-life leaders, including Al-Moller, Lila Rose, me, Tony Perkins, and we signed a petition basically asking the R&C, like, please reevaluate this life language that you have included. Now, we were not heated. We were not listened to, but we all have to do what we can to raise our

voices and to leverage our influence on behalf of the values and the beliefs that we have. And here's what I would say to that, Allie. I see this happened a lot, is that if we want that to change in 28, we need to start working on that today. We can't start working on that in May of 28. We have to start working on that today. And it can be a slow and gradual change. But we need a game plan, and maybe Perkins is the guy to help us put that together. He's just put together, you know, a group of people like Lala, like yourself, like others. And let's say, how can we do this? And we do that by, you know, meeting with the Republican leaders individually over time, no threats. We meet with them over time. Why is this important? We have to convince them.

We don't threaten them. We have to convince them, okay? And so I think that's, that's what we need to do for sure. Okay. Let's, let's end on this question that I I heard posed last week by someone very, very intellectual and very good question, okay? On the one hand, because, and you might, I don't know if you're thinking this way, but there are a lot of Christians out there thinking this way when they're looking at these two tickets. And on the one hand, they're looking at the changes to the party platform and they don't feel as represented as they would like to, which I completely understand that. but they're better than Biden, right?

They're better than Biden. They're thinking that. But how do you decide between, okay, I always have to vote for the person that's better than the pro-abortion candidate over here? Or when do you start thinking, hang on, are Christians just like the cheap date of the Republican party? All you have to do is buy us a couple drinks and we're still going to go with you. As long as you're not as bad as the left, we'll still.

vote for you faithfully. You can abandon God in your platform. You can abandon marriage. You can abandon life in your platform. You can not run on these issues. As long as you are just an inch to the right of where the far left is, we're still going to vote for you. At what point to Christians say, I am going to stop rewarding compromise with my vote. And I'm no longer going to support this party. because if you keep on supporting a party that inches towards the left, they're going to keep inching toward the left. So I honestly, I don't have the answer. I'm just wondering, how do you think we think through that?

Well, to me, it's really not even that complicated. The way you solved that is you solved that locally and in your primary process. If you want to change the Republican Party, you're not going to change it in the general election. You change it by having your local elected officials that, are in line with you because local elected officials become state elected officials become federal elected officials. That's the way you change it. You make sure that the people that are your delegates to the R&C convention or people that

believe in you, okay? You have to get involved and participate in that. You have to make sure that they know. Even when I say participate, that might be just making sure you're sending emails, okay, to the people that let them know that, you know, that, hey, I'm a voter that votes every time I want to know what you think about these issues. That's where you have to do that, all right? Now, you have to remember when we get to a general election

that essentially in the United States, it's a binary choice. So you're always going to either be super excited about, I am voting for this person, okay? Like a lot of us were that way with Ronald Reagan. I was that way with the Bushes as well, all right? Not so much with McCain, although he certainly was much better than Obama, but McCain was a little bit left of where I wanted to be. And Donald Trump, in a lot of ways, it doesn't believe the same things I believe on some social issues.

But it's a binary choice. I have to now vote for Donald Trump, or I want to vote for Donald Trump, obviously. Even though if he was even a little different than he is now, I couldn't vote for Joe Biden. So that's where it comes down to. The worst thing you can do is stay home. Everyone that stays home that would consider themselves conservative is given one half of a vote to Joe Biden. That's the way it works in a binary system. Yes.

Yep. Well, thank you so much, Dad. As always, for your calm insight. I really appreciate it. These are crazy times. Crazy times. It's really good. And remember, we all need to share the arrows.

Yes. That is not. I don't want false advertising. That's not my merchandise. Not. I happen to find this shirt somewhere. And I thought this is so typical. You happen to.

You know, you talk about that for your conference. Yes. And you're the folks you talk to, sharing the arrows. And really, it's sharing the arrows as Christians. Yeah. But like you said yesterday, Allie, there's been a lot of people out there that have been quietly supporting Trump are going to vote for him. We can't be quite anymore.

We've got to stand up. And we've got to share that arrow with him as well. Yeah. Because look at the risk he's taken. When you read Melania's statement. Yeah. That tells, that's the same statement that, you know, similar statement that Lisa, my wife would written that, you know, Timothy would have written if you were in that situation. I mean,

that's, that's the way families feel. Yeah. And so there is a huge sacrifice to put yourself out like that. And we need to be there to support whomever that is that we support. Yes. And amen. Well, thanks so much, Dad. I really appreciate it. Until next time. Okay, take care. Bye.