Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1076 | Hurricane Aftermath: Christians Step Up While Biden Vacations | Guest: Ron Simmons

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Today, we sit down with Allie's dad, Ron Simmons, to discuss advice for JD Vance at tonight's VP debate. We also discuss the catastrophic damage done by Hurricane Helene to communities along the coast as well as the Biden-Harris administration's response, or rather, lack thereof. Luckily, local churches, communities, and even President Donald Trump have stepped up to help those in need during this disaster. And Kamala finally visits the border wearing a necklace worth ... how much? We also give a recap of Share the Arrows. Get Ron's book here: https://a.co/d/53MBSeW Black Mountain Children's Home donate page: https://www.blackmountainhome.org/donate/   Pre-order Allie's new book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": https://a.co/d/4COtBxy   ---   Timecodes:   (2:41) Hurricane Helene Coverage (21:26) Christian Charities help Asheville (27:09) VP Debate (37:00) Does the debate matter? (37:40) VP Polling (56:28) Share the Arrows recap   ---   Today's Sponsors:   A’del — try A'del's hand-crafted, artisan, small-batch cosmetics and use promo code ALLIE 25% off your first time purchase at AdelNaturalCosmetics.com   EveryLife — The only premium baby brand that is unapologetically pro-life. EveryLife offers high-performing, supremely soft diapers and wipes that protect and celebrate every precious life. Head to EveryLife.com and use promo code ALLIE10 to get 10% of your first order today!   Pre-Born — Will you help rescue babies' lives? Donate by calling #250 & say keyword 'BABY' or go to Preborn.com/ALLIE.   Jase Medical — Go to Jase.com and enter code “ALLIE” at checkout for a discount on your order.   ---   Relevant Episodes: Ep 1064 | My Advice to Trump for Tonight's Debate | Guest: Ron Simmons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1064-my-advice-to-trump-for-tonights-debate-guest/id1359249098?i=1000669066357 Ep 1038 | Who Pushed Joe Biden Out? | Guest: Ron Simmons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1038-who-pushed-joe-biden-out-guest-ron-simmons/id1359249098?i=1000663130101 Ep 1065 | Kamala Lied, Babies Died https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1065-kamala-lied-babies-died/id1359249098?i=1000669194217   ---   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

Tonight is the first vice presidential debate between Tim Wals and J.D. Vance. What can we expect? My dad and I have some advice for the Republican vice presidential candidate. Also, Hurricane Helene has devastated the southeast of the United States. We're going to look at some really amazing stories of the goodness and generosity of the American people and especially of the church and Christian charities. But we're also going to ask. the question like where's the Biden Harris administration? Why have they seemingly abandoned this part of the country that they are supposed to be leading? And also at the end, I will do a recap of our amazing share of the arrows event that you don't want to miss. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go.com. Use code alley at checkout. That's go.com.com. Ranchers.com code alley. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far before we get into it with my dad. And this is just an amazing conversation with him. You're going to love it especially towards the end because it's so encouraging. But I do want to pause and just tell you about my book, Toxic Empathy. It comes out October 15th. You'll hear me talk about it a little bit more when I talk to my dad. but this is the book that you need before the election. I pushed really hard for it to come out at least a couple weeks before the election

because it gives you all of the tools to have these very difficult conversations about the policies at stake with your friends, especially Christian friends. Toxic empathy is the tool of emotional manipulation that the left uses to get women, especially Christian women, to think that the progressive side of an issue is the most compassionate and moral one. And the opposite is true. And I'm going to tell you exactly why in this book, Toxic Empathy, it really helps me out a lot if you pre-order it. Go to Toxicempathy.com. You can get it there. Or you can just go to Amazon. Amazon sells most of the books and you can buy it there. And it really helps us out a lot if you go ahead and order it. Plus, you'll get it really fast and you'll be

able to read it quickly before the election and be fully equipped with everything you need. All right. Without further ado, here's my dad. Dad, welcome back to the program. Oh, thank you. Good to be here. Okay, we got a lot to get through. First, we've got to talk about the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene. You know, when I first heard about this, I knew that it was headed that way. I thought that it was mostly going to affect Florida. I did not realize that the Carolinas would be as hit, would be hit as badly as they have been. Yeah, I know. It's one of those hurricanes that usually when a hurricane hits the shore, it slows down.

down and often breaks up. You still have a lot of rain and occasionally it'll spin off a tornado or something. But this one kept it speed up way after it got inland. And so, and it went through quick. Now, that's part of the good news. But the challenge that the Carolinas in North Georgia had was it had rained for a couple days before that. In fact, some parts of Western Carolina got 21 inches of rain.

And so the trees that fell over weren't all about. the wind. It was about the soil sometimes and they just toppled over. In fact, we have some friends in that part of the world and I got a text from him yesterday saying that Asheville that they had, he had 20 trees that looked like pixie sticks lined up in his yard. Oh my goodness. Isn't that something? In fact, even one of your fellow Blaze host. Zach Dasher. Lives up there. But Al Robertson and his wife were up there headed to an event. They got stuck up there. Oh, my goodness. They're all okay.

Yeah. But they got stuck up there and couldn't get out trying to get over to their event because all the areas were blocked off. He said it was incredible. Yeah, I was talking to Zach Dasherk. He's a part of the Unashamed podcast. He's a part of the Robertson family. And, you know, their church is working really hard to get people the resources that

they need. But he told me that one particular organization, Black Mountain Children's Home, Black Mountain Children's Home has been especially hard hit. They are taking donations. We can put the link in the description here so you can easily find that. But those are already vulnerable kids. And now they've been kind of, they're not hurt. None of the children were hurt, praise God.

But they've been made a lot more vulnerable, which is, of course, true of a lot of children, elderly people in that area. And you know, and the other thing I think we learned from that alley, a couple of things. One of these is a good lesson for your young listeners, which I reminded your brother of last night, is that you need. to keep cash hidden away somewhere in your wallet or billfold because if you didn't have cash, you couldn't go to the store and buy anything because all the internet and stuff was down. And in fact, I heard Zach tell a story that he happened to have cash. And so he was able to help a lot of other people because a lot of people don't carry cash anymore. Yeah.

You need to carry some cash stuck away in your billfold. Never use it unless it's an emergency. But that's, that is very good advice. You know, I was talking to a mom yesterday, and we were kind of joking about if there was some apocalyptic situation, what skills we would be able to bring to the table. And we were both joking about the fact that neither of us have great, like, apocalyptic skills. Most of the skills that we have rely on the existence of the Internet. So I'm going to have to cultivate something. Actually, I disagree with that.

And I don't know this other lady, but with you, I think your thinking skills themselves are. pretty good. You would just transfer into where we are. So I think, but you might want to work on some others, too. She said, you know, she has a background in speech pathology. I told her, I don't know, if we need a spy to act like they have a particular accent to go into another part of the world. It's a little, it's a little far-fetched, but I'm here to give everyone a job. So anyway, that's a good piece of advice. I also think you're always telling people that it's important to know how to read a map, which is probably important in times like these. Yes. Yes. In fact, because I don't know.

Everybody should buy a map of their home state and just put it in the glove compartment, which is that little thing that you open up in your car, which nobody puts gloves in. You know what you should do, Dad. You should have a YouTube video of like go through step by step reading an Atlas for dummies. That would be a good one. Yeah, that's a good idea. I mean, that's a good idea. You have to put it in millennial language so you can really understand. So unfortunately, in North Carolina, there are hundreds of people that remain unaccounted for. Also, don't want to forget about eastern Tennessee. Eastern Tennessee has also been hit very hard.

Over 50 hospital staff workers, along with patients, are stranded on top of a hospital roof in Irwin, Tennessee due to life-threatening flood emergency. As you said, Asheville, the pictures. We have a picture of houses. Asheville. I mean, literally, you can only see the roofs on top, on top there. And what happens in those situations, Ali, that part of the country, people up there familiar with it is that the rain comes and the mountains, you know, it goes down the mountain and it ends up in a river somewhere, creeks and rivers. And that's where all the issues are caused. The Asheville's on the, I think it's the Swanee River and the Broadmo.

River all kind of close to that, and those are the ones that flood and cause all of this issue. And a lot of it's caused to the water coming, because it doesn't stay on the mountain, right? It comes down the mountain. Yeah, and flood water itself carries so much bacteria, potential for illnesses and all of that. People are criticizing the response or lack of response from the Biden-Harris administration. President Biden spent the weekend at his beach house in Delaware. He defended two reporters on Monday saying that he was commanded. the situation via telephone. Here's a two.

Can you expect Iran to retaliate? And the hurricane, Mr. President. Why weren't she and Vice President Harris here in Washington commanding this this weekend? I was commanding. I was on the phone for at least two hours yesterday and the day before as well. I command this call the telephone and all my security people. It's not important for the country to see. Thoughts. Well, it reminds me of Hurricane Katrina. when President George W. Bush, he instead of landed in New Orleans, flew over it to look at the damage because he was concerned that landing there would cause more confusion or hassle than would, you know, to take people to divert. And he was criticized. I mean, in fact, he never recovered from it because it looked like he didn't care. Now, this was in his second term, so he wasn't going to run for re-election again. But he was criticized. And I'll notice the media hasn't criticized other than that one.

brave reporter who will probably never get another question again. It's crazy. It's, it's, it is optics, okay? I don't question that President Biden, there was phone calls that he was on talking about it. But optics are important in the world that we live in. And, you know, with, with Harris being out in Las Vegas or Los Angeles, wherever she was in some big, you know, swanky fundraiser, that certainly didn't look good. And for President Trump to be into the disaster area before either one of them, Yeah. That is. It looks awful. And of course, I believe it was the New York Times. No, it was Politico. Politico said that Trump dragged Hurricane Helena into the election and politicized it. And so, of course, they blamed him for making it political when really he was just doing what any leader should do. And these are the same kinds of people that called not only called George W. Bush apathetic, but said, he was racist because a disproportionate number of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were black. Kanye West famously was on the news saying George W. Bush doesn't care about black people.

And that was in 2006. Yeah. And so, I mean, it's the same way today. But no, they're not criticized. They're just, I don't know. Do they not care about mountain people or they don't care about the people in Georgia or Tennessee or what have you? They need to go back and read Hillbilly elegy because that's exactly the way Trump won in 2016. Somehow I don't think that's on their audible.

their top of the book list. But, yeah. And Harris out there eating, what did I see? It was a blueberry balls and lobster rolls. That was on the menu for their fundraiser with all the big swanky things. Then they have a picture of her, of course, sitting in a sitting on airplane. Oh, yeah, we've got that picture. Yeah, I think she's working on her next word salad.

Yeah. She was saying, how can I say holistical? Holistical. As many times of profitable. Yeah, she's got this picture. It was going viral. and the tweet says, I was just briefed by FEMA,

Deanne Criswell on the developments about the ongoing impacts of Hurricane Helene. We also discussed our administration's continued actions to support emergency response for recovery, blah, blah, blah. And she's sitting there, you know, on her plane. She's got her headphones in. She's writing, but people are pointing out that the piece of paper she's writing on

is completely blank and her headphones are not plugged into her phone because the phone is sitting right there on the table in front of her and there's nothing plugged into the jack. So obviously this was just a post picture to try to feign concern. I mean, like you said, optics matter, but they didn't even get the optics right. They didn't even get the optics right. It's like the optics at the border. They didn't get those right either. Yeah. And we'll talk about that. But I do have one question about Joe Biden. He's in Delaware. I mean, he spends a lot of time at the beach. I mean, he is basically out of the picture. Who do you think is running the country?

I think his chief of staff and his wife. Yeah. That's my best guess. There may be a few other people around. And they'll bring him in. I don't have any doubt that he was sitting there when the phone call was going on. Now, what he was doing, I don't know. Could have been napping, could have been reading a book.

Who knows? But I definitely don't think he. And they're just trying to, you notice they're trying to separate Biden and Harris as much as possible. You never, hardly ever, I shouldn't say never, hardly ever see them together. Yeah. And that's a campaign choice. That's a campaign strategy. Just like, just like the whole strategy behind the June debate was orchestrated by his campaign because they knew that if he did mess up, they still had time to make a change. Quick pause to tell you about our first sponsor for the day. And that's Adele Natural Cosmetics. Y'all, they were at Share the Arrow's this weekend. And so

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then you need to try Adele Natural Cosmetics. Go to adele natural cosmetics.com. use promo code Alley for 25% off your first time purchase. Adele Natural Cosmetics.com code Alley. Now, even if we were to look at this from a kind of a cynical, just political perspective, the fact that Harris, just from a campaign viewpoint, didn't land on the ground in a swing state like North Carolina, what do you think is behind that?

I mean, surely strategically. I can tell you exactly what's behind it. What? Because her campaign is afraid. if they put her down there in a live situation that's not scripted at all. Remember, they can't. They're probably going to be able to fly in their supporters like they do in the restaurant things and all that type of stuff, right?

Then they are afraid of what she's going to say. Yeah. Not that she's going to say something negative or derogatory, like a Hillary Clinton would be afraid of, that she's going to say things that don't make any sense. Yeah. And that's what they're afraid of. They do not want her in any, even these basic scripted interviews she's had with very kind reporters to her have not really gone well.

Yeah. I mean, the one was Stephanie Ruhl. I don't know if you heard any of that one, but that was just awful. I've seen a lot of videos recently where she's talking, like she had one where she was talking to these two guys. That's the NBA guys. And they asked, you know, what are we going to do about people not being able to pay their rent and afford groceries?

And she launched into the same thing that I thought surely she wouldn't because she's been so made fun of this recently, but she launched into the same monologue about, well, you know, I grew up in a middle-class family, and I was raised by a single mom. She never got to the answer of what she's going to do. But that's the world we heard in 2020, lived experience, lived experience. They believe that your lived experience matters more than policy or fact. Well, lived experience is not going to lower people's costs. And that's what she brings to the table. And unfortunately, people seem to be kind of... Yeah, people have aspirations, Allie. They aspire to be better.

And then that's it. That's all she said. I didn't know what is. Okay, I get that. I agree with you on that one, but what does that mean? Well, if people would just be unburdened by what has been and realize that yesterday is not today and today is not tomorrow. Oh, gosh. See, you're rolling my eyes already.

But it is also the present and not the past. Then people would finally just, inflation will go away. Don't you know, Dad? Okay, before we get into actually the good response from Americans, and this is what America really is, when it comes to the disaster that's happening, I do just want to keep going on that point of just the horrible optics. When they put her in a situation, the contrast between the situation that she's in and her is awful. And I want to show the picture of her at the border. She finally, even though she's been the borders are for three and a half years and she's supposed to be in charge of the border, she's never visited. But now that people are talking about in the campaign, she visited, people are making fun of this picture because she looks ridiculous.

She's got high heels on. She's got a $62,000 Tiffany necklace on. Again, I'm just wondering, does she not have better strategy, better people in her campaign to say, okay, we at least have to make this look legit? I don't think she takes advice well based on the fact that she has a history of not being able to keep staff. So what happens in campaigns is people that get around the candidate want their career to be prolonged. So they are mostly yes people. It's very rare to find someone in a campaign tell you the truth. Yeah.

And I think that's probably what's happened. And they probably said, you look beautiful. You look elegant. Everybody will love it. And, you know, whatever. And then she claimed that she was the one that got the raise for the border agents. Yeah. which they came out right after that and said,

she had nothing to do with that. Yeah. You know, just. And the border, I mean, the border union, the border patrol union is saying we literally, the border,

we cannot survive four years of Kamala Harris. We can't do it. It's already an untenable situation. I don't think America can survive at Allie with 450,000. Now, these came out from the Homeland Security Office themselves. 450,000 illegal aliens with criminal

records are on the streets in the United States. Maybe a few of them have been arrested by now, but can you believe that? 450,000. That's what I want to talk to my friends about that are actually Republicans, but have such, you know, Trump derangement syndrome that they can't vote for him, that this, because this is what you're going to get. This is what you got in the last four years. It's already proven. And you're going to get another 400 or 500,000 to, to, to, to, to do that and plus the 10 million that are already here and their whole goal is to they know that it with a certain number of people here that some of them will slip through the cracks and be able to vote okay and then eventually they're going to say hey we can't send all these people back but so

we just need to give them amnesty yeah and i mean that's the whole game plan they just you know bill malugan who reports on the border for fox news he just released a bunch of data saying that there are tens of thousands of these illegal aliens who have been convicted of rape, even child sexual assault, murder, assault. And, I mean, just the videos I see, it just becomes overwhelming and you just feel so helpless. These are men. They don't look destitute, not saying that that would justify it. They don't look starving.

Just 20-year-old men coming on over. And we're not, apparently none of us are allowed to ask, why? we don't have a right to say, no, I don't want those people in my country going up next to my daughter, or not growing up, but being around my daughters. And we're not allowed to say that. You're accused of racism or whatever. And it just seems like there's not enough political will to really do anything about it. See, I think that's where the, I think that's where the people need to keep saying it, right? The people, you and me and all of your audience, we need to keep saying it. We can't, we do not need to be afraid of that. otherwise we'll fall right into what happened under Stalin and Hitler. I mean, that's what happened is they, you know, good people, when good people do nothing, bad things happen.

There's never a vacuum, all right? There's never a vacuum. Either good or evil fills up the vacuum. Yep. Always. Yep. And there's a lot of good filling up the vacuum right now when it comes to the disaster that's happening, as is very often the case, the Christian.

powered organizations, the churches, the individuals are showing up. Glenn Beck's charity, Mercury won. He founded that over 10 years ago. They're in Asheville, North Carolina right now. There are lots of pictures of that. It's really amazing. I mean, they are transporting with helicopters, water bottles, diapers, all kinds of resources. They've partnered with several churches in the area to make this happen. As you said, Trump. made a stop in Valdosta, Georgia to receive a briefing on the devastation, assist with relief distribution, deliver remarks. He said, I've come to Valdosta with large semi-trucks.

Many of them filled with relief aid, a tanker truck filled with gasoline, a couple of big tanker trucks filled with gasoline, which they can't get now, and we'll be working to distribute it throughout the day. Country music superstar Morgan Wallen donated over $500,000 to the Red Cross via the Morgan Wallen Foundation. I thought this was really sweet. I saw this on X. This reporter took this picture of this line of women that apparently had been there for hours.

And it says, see this line? All these ladies waited in line tonight to take loads of linemen's laundry home. One lineman asked me what those ladies were standing in line for. And when I told him, they were waiting to be given laundry with a look of sheer disbelief. He said, you've got to be kidding.

me. And so, I mean, that's really the heart of America. That's what makes America different, I think, the way that we rallied together despite political differences or socioeconomic differences to try to relieve one another's burdens. And you know, there's a great song related to linemen that work on the electrical lines. We're not talking about offensive, defensive linemen folks. At first time, I read that, I thought, why would they be, football was the first thing on my mind because we're in the fall football season. But Glenn Campbell had a great song, Glenn Campbell, of the late Glenn Campbell, which some of your audience will remember, had a song out there called I'm a lineman for the county. It's a great song. People should look it up and listen to it.

It'll make us appreciate people like that. I mean, they run to disaster, right? Just like our first responders run to disaster when there's a tragedy and something like that. So that's, yeah, I looked at those list of people. The first thing that came to my mind was what you said is mostly Christian faith-based organizations. I didn't see one, Black Lives Matter. okay I didn't see any reports of Kamala giving money to help these people like she gave money to help people get out of jail that went out and murdered somebody right I didn't see any of the George Ford Foundation giving him I didn't see any of that okay and so who really really cares about America it's pretty clear even New York Times the New York Times has had to report when you look at a map

of where the most charitable giving happens it's always the red counties. And it's funny because they tried to excuse it by saying, well, most religious people are more charitable, and most religious people are a large number of religious people, but Republicans. So that's why it is that way. And I'm like, yeah, I know.

That's exactly right. I know. I remember a few years ago, it was when Beto O'Rourke was running because there was a report on how much of their salary each year, all of the Democratic candidates in 2020 were, you know, donated to charity. And I mean, it was like less than 1% for all of them because, and that's what I say to those who are Christians who vote Democrat because of what I call

that they're manipulated by that toxic empathy thinking these are the compassionate approaches. You're outsourcing the compassion that God is calling you to to the government. That's not the government's job, not primarily. There may be times for that. But they are not a charity organization. They're not the church. They're not stewarding our funds. well, do not outsource your compassion, your love to the state. That's not actually loving, that's lazy. No. And the government should only be the very bottom last safety net. That's the way should. But, you know, a lot of churches, a lot of organizations, a lot of people have just kind of advocated all of that to the government, which is a mistake. And that's a big tradeoff.

Anytime you're taking money from the government, there's a government. going to be a tradeoff. There's always a string attached. Nothing's for free in politics. Second sponsor is EveryLife. Every Life this weekend donated a bunch of diapers to the pregnancy center that is attached to the church that was our venue at the event. That's just what they do. They are also donating diapers to those affected by Hurricane Helene. And so that's where their heart is. If you go to EveryLife.com, you buy their buy for a cause. bundle. You are buying wipes and diapers and other baby items for the families that are affected by this hurricane. So that's one way no matter where you live to be able to help these people

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And Tim Walz. Okay, tell me, let's just hear it. What do you think is going to happen? Well, here's what I think, here's what I think coach Tim's going to do, right? Which he's about as much of coach as anybody. But he is going to attack Trump the entire time. Okay, and he's going to pour mouth himself that, hey, I didn't go to Yale like you. I went to yada, yada, yada.

And the moderators are going to go right along with him. Okay, there's no question they're going to do that. Who's moderating tonight? Margaret Brennan and Nora O'Donnell. Okay, got it. Both left wingers, of course. But I think J.D. Vance is such a. good speaker and communicator that he will it will i think at the end of the night on the

d side that they'll think that tim's lovable but for independence i think that they'll realize that you want the smarter more uh capable person to be one heartbeat away from the presidency and i i don't think j w vance will take any bait J.D. Vance. Yeah. We'll take any bait at all. Yeah, no, I don't think he'll take any bait. I think that he is definitely disciplined.

I have no doubt about how smart he is, that he's going to have good answers, that he's going to be able to turn the questions around. And that was a weakness of Trump, is that he wants to answer every single bit of the question and justify himself. I don't think J.D. Vance will do that. I wish it had been a J.D. Vance versus Kamala Harris. That is part of the reason. It wasn't just that Biden and Trump that it was so obvious that Trump was going to win.

And I think Biden had basically a 0% chance to beat Trump. But they also did not want Kamala Harris to debate J.D. Vance because that would have been just a slaughter. Oh, it would have been. And that we wanted that so bad. Yes. And we can't underestimate Tim Walz. I hope that you're right and that I'm wrong because Tim Walz is radical as he is because he is radical. he's going to, because they're gunning for the same people tonight.

They're gunning for the middle. They're gunning for those independents. He's going to try to come across as a good old boy. Oh, yeah. And he does. And he will do that and he will say, you know, I'm a Christian, X, Y, Z, and all of these things. And he's really good at that. He is likable.

I hope J.D. confronts him in his answers. In other words, when it's his name to turn, I hope he talks directly to J.D. Tim Walts. Yeah. And also. think JD a few times we'll push back on the moderators. Yeah, I think so too. Here's what I think is best case scenario.

Because Tim Wals, and it's hard for us to say because we don't like them at all, I see it though. He's likable. He has a good stage presence. He has great comedic timing. And that's unfortunate. But that's why they chose him. He's way better than Josh Shapiro.

I see that now. At first, I didn't. At first I thought this was a gift to us because he's so radical in Minnesota is run so terribly now. But now I see it. I see exactly why they chose him. And so don't underestimate him, but I think of J.D. Vanson, and he can make him nervous, make him stutter, make him start, as you said, start answering for some of those policies that he put in place. And like the moderators, if we had good moderators, they could do this. Say, ask him about that lunch plan that he put in place that everyone is praising him for. How much food waste, how much money waste,

basically subsidizing lunches for rich kids in public schools as the poor kids are forced to eat this crap that has no nutrition and is a tiny portion size. Put him on his toes on those things. Make him look like he's sweating a little bit and I think that J.D. Vance can come out on top. But if J.D. Vance looks like a bully, then that's going to be a problem.

I don't think people will buy into a bully between two guys like that. I don't think so. Definitely not this much. I also think J.D. Vance ought to say. I'll tell you one thing I didn't do, Nora, I didn't lie about my military career. Yeah. That's great.

Mm-hmm. Pregnant pause right there. Pregnant pause. Leave it at that. And I think he will. This is another thing with J.D. Vance. You let him make his own mistakes and trip him up because moderators are going to be saving him. Don't interrupt your opponent when they are making a mistake.

No, that's right. Even though the mics are going to be live, I hope J.D. Vance stays quiet when it's not his turn. They're going to be live when the other person's talking. Yeah, we'll see. And here's my other piece of advice. Because it's still, I think the jury is still out on whether the whole Haitian migrants eating cats thing was a net positive or negative for Trump. It's gone back and forth. Remember that most people watching this debate are not internet meme people.

Like, I wouldn't bring all the dialogue that happens on X. into this debate. These are different people. These are undecided people. Don't choose the most fantastical stories of the problem of immigration to make your point. Use Lake and Riley. Use Molly Tibbets. I hope she does.

Use Kate Steinle. Focus on those things. And remember, Tim Walls said that he was more pro-choice than Nancy Pelosi. At least eight babies have died because they survived abortions and under Tim Walz's law that he signed. you can't give health care to those babies or you don't have to give health care to those babies. I mean, that's who he is. Yeah. I would not really probably touch the Somali refugee population issue in Minnesota.

I probably wouldn't go there. Well, it could come up. Yeah. If I were JD Bams. Yeah. I mean, I think, but I think that Tim Walls' whole plan is to try to make Vance answer for Trump. And I would stop it right off the bat right there.

I would stop that right off the bat. I would say, you know what? These are questions that you could ask President Trump. Tim, I can arrange that sit down if you need to. I said, but why don't you and I talk about real policy or about our own selves? Yeah. Another mic drop. Another pregnant pause.

Another pregnant pause. Now, Vance. is a little bit more polished or he comes across as more polished as um than tim walls and you already brought that up he's going to draw the contrast i'm just a high school football coach and vance oh you went to yale all this stuff yeah how do you think jd vans should play that i'd say i'll tell you what tim let's talk about our backgrounds yeah i don't know if you i brought it i've got an extra book in the back in the back here i can give it to if you haven't read it yet because i grew up in a home that was a home that was full of abuse, full of addiction.

And I really juggled between living at my grandmother's house and my mom's house. And I love my mother and grandmother. And my mom's, you know, she's recovered and what have you. And my grandmother saved me, you know, literally. But I will tell you, I don't think you want to compare backgrounds on how we grew up. I went to the Marines. I went to serve my country, okay, first. And then I was fortunate enough to be able to get into a,

a very fine school. I mean, that's how I would do it. Yeah. And he's probably going to, Wallace is probably going to attack him about, you know, because Vance was against Trump in 2015, what happened over time.

And I would say, well, Tim. Vance handles that well. Yeah. And what I would say to him is, of course, I'm kind of more sarcastic.

I'd say, well, Tim, actually, I learned some of that from you and your running mate on how you can just change positions, okay? Yeah.

He probably shouldn't say that. Probably shouldn't say that because he didn't change positions. That's what I did. He did. that question really well. You know, I was against Trump, but I did not see what I see now. Yeah. And he owns it. He says, I was wrong. Yeah. That's, that's all you do. That's the easiest thing to do. Right. Yeah. They hate when you try to dodge that. They appreciate just being honest. That's right.

And there's really no loss in that. I was wrong because a lot of people voting for Trump this year did not vote for him in 2016 or 2020. That's right. And so they're on the same trajectory. Next sponsor is pre-born. So if you are feeling like, okay, there's so much dark. in the world, I just want to find a way to contribute to the light, to the good things that are happening, then you should partner with preborn and helping save lives of unborn children. They're a large network of clinics throughout the country that provide free resources like free sonograms and diapers and prenatal vitamins and so many other things to pregnant moms in need. When a mom sees her baby on the ultrasound, she is so much more likely to choose life. And so by donating whatever you can to preborn by going to preborn.com slash alley, you are helping

save lives. The cost of an ultrasound is $28. So if you donate just $28, you are providing an ultrasound to a pregnant woman who may then choose life after that sonogram. Donate whatever you can, whether it's $5 or $5,000 every little bit counts. Go to preborn.com slash alley. Do you think this debate matters? VP debates, I'm not sure that they usually do. Oh, I think it does matter this time only because I think people are tired of Harris and Trump. And so I think this brings some new life, something to talk about and what have you. Yeah. Do you think it can change people's votes? I think on the margin, if they're totally undecided, I think knowing who this is that, we just already saw a president

that really couldn't function as president, and so that second in charge, you know, can be very important. So Vance is going into this with a little bit of a disadvantage, according to this CBS poll. So this is it, well, it's a UGov poll. And UGov, I... Which is an internet poll. That doesn't even, those are awful.

Okay. So you don't think that, so here's what the internet poll says. Do you think they, and then it goes through these questions, are competent? Tim Walls, 57% versus Vance, 55. Are authentic, 52 versus 48. Tell the truth, 49 versus 45. Share your values, 45 versus 43.

If needed, are they qualified to be president? This is among registered voters. Qualified, Tim Walls, 49%, J.D. Vance, 44%. Not qualified, 51% Tim Walls, 56% J.D. Vance. Okay, so let me tell your audience something about polling for the next few weeks. Don't pay any attention to polling for the next few weeks because both sides are going to be trying to show polling that favors them one way or another. And you can find polls that are opposite of that right there. So these are more, these are called push polls, right?

And they're trying to push an answer, you know. If I could tell you, Madam Voter, that J.D. Vance had. stolen three cars when he was a teenager, would that make, would that make you not vote for him? That's how they down. Now, he's not saying he did steal three cars, but if I told you that, you know what I'm saying? And so I'd be very careful about these. What your audience should do, okay, other than make sure they vote is get five friends to vote. That's what they should do. Don't focus on the news, quit watching the news, quit watching the political stuff. You know, if we're going to watch a debate tonight, great. I think that'll be fun. But I'm telling you,

the media is going to get worse and worse, okay? Because if they believe that Trump Vance has a chance, they're going to double down. They've already said that all the rules are different now when it comes to Trump. We don't have to be fair, right? I mean, the former general, what was his name? McQueenie, McChrystal, General McChrystal,

came out and said, policies don't matter. I vote for character. Policies don't matter at all. things are separate. Well, the guy is, you know, he's on MSNBC now. Yeah. Right?

He got, he got, he got, basically got fired by Obama because he, when there was supposed to be a call coming in from Joe Biden, he said, oh, is that Joe bite me? And so, so Obama calls him in his office. He brings him back from Afghanistan, calls him in his office, said, did you say that? And he said, yes, I did. And relieved him. What? You hadn't heard that story?

No. Oh, no. That's true. story. That's weird. Okay, well, this is another push poll. Enthusiastic about the VP pick, 65% among Democrats are 65% are excited about walls. Only 49% of Republicans are excited about Vance. Oh yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Because Trump is a very strong personality. So people, they're not, they're not, certainly Republicans aren't voting. They're voting for Trump. Okay. But the other side might be thinking, well, heck, I'm excited about walls because it's not Harris.

So, you know, something happened, he might be just as good as she is. I don't really know about it. And again, I just don't, these UGov, those are, those are Internet as registered voters, not likely voters. Yeah. Democrats, though, do seem to be more unified in their enthusiasm around their candidates. They always are, though. Yeah. That's normal.

They were that way with Hillary. I mean, obviously they were that way with Obama, but they're that way with everybody. They're very good at that because Democrats are told not to be independent thinkers. They're told to be, you do what I tell you. That's like the Senate race in Texas, right? Colin Allred, who's running against Ted Cruz. Now, Colin Allred comes across as a pretty nice guy. Somebody you'd probably like to sit down and, you know, have Cheryl a meal with and what have you.

He went to Baylor and all that type of stuff. But the challengers all of that is when he got into the House, okay, he voted straight in line with Nancy Pelosi. he voted, he voted against, you know, protecting girls' sports. He voted against any pro-life measure. He voted against all of that. He voted against border stuff. And so, but now he wants to say he's so moderate. Unfortunately, you might be that way, you know, when you're home,

but your voting is what your record is. Yeah. How did Democrats not see that, well, I mean, I get on both ends, on the politician end, but also on the voter. obviously all these Democrats right now are running to the right of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Yes. But they don't vote that way. But if you're a Democrat or if you're someone who is thinking about voting for Allred or any of these Democrats and you fancy yourself a moderate or you fancy yourself an independent, how do they not see what you're talking about?

That all of this is just rhetoric. Kamala Harris is never going to care about the border. She's never going to care about the grocery prices. She's never going to do anything positive about those things. The guys that are running for Senate on the Democrat ticket who say that they're just middle of the road, Tim Wall's same way. How do you not see that that's not what their policy aligns with? How do you not see that? Well, I think that most of them do see that.

In this particular election, most of it comes down to I hate Donald Trump or not. Yeah. That's what it comes down to. And that's why I said that, I mean, I hope, President Trump wins. I really do. But I also think he is the only qualified Republican that could lose. Yeah. I absolutely think Ron DeSantis would have mopped the floor. Yeah. With this. And probably some others, too. Maybe Nikki Haley would have, too. Who knows? Okay. Maybe. Yeah. I think it would have been, I think it would have been hard for any candidate.

But yeah. Well, he's just not going to make the mistakes. Now, he's not going to make the mistakes that President Trump makes. Now, he also is not going to have the enthusiasm on the Republican side. So it's a little bit of a trade-off. But it would be easier for someone like me who's trying to mobilize suburban moms, who we understand that we don't like this about many suburban women, that they just don't like his personality or they don't like his character or things like that. But that is what it is.

And so we wouldn't have to be apologizing for those things with someone like Ron DeSantis. It would just be like, really, are you going to vote for the guy who voted for the heartbeat bill in Florida or the woman who voted against the Born Alive Infant Survivors Protection Act? And are you going to vote for the sweet dad who loves his wife and loves his little kids? Or are you going to vote for the woman who sold her body for her career when she was told about, which one are you going to do, Christian? This makes it a little bit more complicated. but at the end of the day, it is about policies. That is what is about. That's what's going to affect your life.

It should be, yeah, what are the policies? What are the stance? It's kind of like they, you know, they're probably going to talk about the project 2025. I would just encourage people to go online. They are definitely going to do that. That's a good point. And look it up and just look at, see which of those policies you have heart burn over.

Now, maybe there are some that you would disagree on, whatever, but look it up. Just tell me if it's this draconian. as you think it is, do not listen to the other side on that. I know the people personally who put that together. And I'm telling you, they're people just like your audience. They're good, American-loving, God-fearing people that want what's best for everybody. And even like, even the ones that are as conservative as we are, they didn't even put everything in Project 2025 that they personally might want. Like some people, like there might be some people who

created Project 2025 who personally, like me, are against the ethics of a large part of IVF. Yeah. But there is nothing in Project 2025 that says we're banning IVF. And yet that's what you hear from the Democrats. No, of course. Yeah. I know. And so I just think, just policy, policy, policy, go out and talk to people. It's going to be okay, all right? It's going to be okay. I don't know what's going to happen. This is a razor, razor tight race. I just heard this morning. Atlas.com has some polling.

And they're probably the, they were the ones that was the most accurate in 2020. And, you know, they got, the funny thing is, is they got Trump up in Arizona, tied in Nevada, up in Michigan by four points. Yeah.

And up in Pennsylvania. Yeah. But losing North Carolina, which is hard for me to believe, you know, we'll see after this. This could have an effect on that. and what is it,

Wisconsin's basically tied, I think, something like that. So it's going to be razor, razor thin. Which means you're about to see the media double down like they never have before. That's exactly what I was saying. They're going to double down. They are going to, it'll be all of these things.

Remember the October surprise, as we always hear about, it'll be all these things that can't, that won't have time to be refuted. Yeah. Watch out for that women. They are going to be using that toxic empathy. To manipulate you into believing that voting for Harris is protecting miscarriage care, is protecting these gender-confused kids that just want to be loved,

and to protecting the same-sex couple that just wants to raise children, protecting the woman that's fleeing Colombian gang violence, protecting the young black man that is a victim of systemic racism, they are going to convince you through toxic empathy that is your moral duty to vote Democrat on behalf of the marginalized in the moment. most vulnerable. But the policies that they are proposing, the ideas that they put forth to manipulate you are obscuring the fact that all of their policies are harmful, both to the people they are telling you are victims and to everyone else. Christians are called to be led by the

truth and love approach, which means we actually love people best when we are guided by truth. That doesn't mean we can't have good faith disagreements as Christians on certain things, although there are some things that we just can't have disagreements on like marriage and gender and all of that. There are disagreements to be had, but we have to be led by what is factually true, what is historically true, what is scientifically true, and most importantly, what is biblically true, don't be manipulated by this toxic empathy stuff and buy my book on this. Because this is, I've equipped you. It comes out October 15th with all of the arguments for all five subjects that I just listed so that by the time you finish that, you will be like, oh, nope there's no propaganda that they can send me that will manipulate me and not only that but you will be able to go to all of your friends all of your mom friends all of your friends in your church and say

okay you might not know this about this subject so let's talk about it yeah so they should pre-order that book pre-order that way that way they'll get it just after the 15th it'll be yes and and let me tell you too like this is really important because amazon pretty much controls like they sell most of the books for any, for any author. And Amazon only buys as many books as they think will sell quickly after. And so how many books Amazon buys is based on my pre-order numbers. Right. Good point. And so I really need as many pre-orders as possible so that Amazon will buy enough books because otherwise if they only buy a certain number of books and we sell, they sell out because they didn't buy enough books after October 15th, then for a good amount

of time, could be a week, could be two weeks, it'll say out of stock. And then people aren't going to be able to buy from Amazon. And then that I want as many women as equipped as possible. So please pre-order if you can. You can go to toxicempathy.com. You can go to Amazon. We'll put the links in the description of this episode. But it's really just because I want to help. I want to help as many women as possible. Well, speaking to help, your event this past weekend. Yeah, and we're going to do a little recap on that. That was incredible. I just want you to know how proud mom and I were for that.

I know. And how, man, it was just, it was just mind-blowing to me as to having all those women there and your speakers and everybody was so kind. And the venue was great. It was really, really, really good. Well, praise the Lord. And you said that you couldn't walk out into the sanctuary and look at all the women. Every time I walked out, I wanted to tear up because I was thinking about, wow, you talk about fishes and loaves.

Yeah. You know, this is feeding the 5,000. I mean, you know, and it came from the fishes and loaves of, you know, of where you started long time ago, you know, with grandma and her feeding into you and mom feeding into you. I mean, those were, that's the way it all started. Yeah. And just praise God for that. It's all the Lord. And, you know, I didn't even realize when I started really singing and thinking about and singing to my girls, this is my father's world.

It's, we sang it there and it was just beautiful hearing 4,000 female voices singing that and so comforting. But I didn't even realize until a couple of years ago when mom said, you know that was grandma's favorite him. And she sang that to you. Yeah. And I didn't, you know, I didn't even remember that. But that's also encouragement to you, grandmothers and mothers, that the seeds of what you were singing and saying to your kids will take root and will be watered and grow in a way that you can't even see right now.

You know, that's funny that you say that. I'm giving a talk in a couple of days, and it's mostly going to be ladies that are probably around my age. And the talk that I'm going to give is it's never too late to make a difference. And sometimes the difference is something that they do that's huge, like Mother Teresa and all of those people that did great things after age 60. But sometimes, especially for us that are grandparents, it's just planting the seed that you may or may not see developed fully, right? And so that's what's good. Yep. And that's what the Lord does.

He waters, he gives growth. And you never, it might not be for another 50 years that those seeds are flowered. But that's all Christians are called to do is sow the seeds of obedience. So thank you so much. You bet. Dad. Don't forget about my book here. It's going to be awesome.

I was about to say, I was about to segue you. I know. I know, but you're slow. So speaking of 50 years, there is a speech in this book. by Ronald Reagan that's over 50 years old now. It's about 50 years when he did it. And if you want to listen to it in his voice, buy the book and then also get the audible version because that's going to be pretty cool.

You can just go to my website, ronsimmonsonys.com, and I'll give you a discount on the book and I'll sign it for you. Or you can buy it on Amazon or anywhere else that you find books. And if you're, you should get this for the early to bro in your life, especially. I mean, it's good for women too. It's got all kinds of wisdom and fun little trinkets about our upbringing. and my dad's upbringing, but for Christmas, too, for your husband, for your boyfriend, for your brother, for your dad. It's just, I think that a lot of men don't have mentors. They don't. And it's hard,

maybe it's harder for men. You could tell me to seek out those mentors because they really want to feel like I've got it together. Yeah. I'm taking care of my family. I know what I'm doing. And to reach out to someone and say, I need help is basically a confession that I don't know everything. And that can be hard. actually the strongest sense of self-confidence is admitting I don't know everything. And I talk about that in the book about the whole idea of the wagon alley is there are different parts of the wagon, right? And mostly we, especially men, we just want to have the handle and, you know, and pull everything, right? Yeah. And sometimes we need to be inside the wagon. Yeah.

With somebody else. Or we need to just be pushing, following somebody. Some of the greatest accomplishments that I ever were a part of that were when I was when I was helping somebody else. Yeah. They were leading a particular deal, but they couldn't have gotten up the mountain without those of us that were the wheels that were pushing. I always remember that quote by Ronald Reagan, and I really tried to remember it and apply it because it can be so hard, but he said there's no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.

I'm into that. That is so hard. The C.S. Lewis quote, too, and screw tape letters where, you know, the demon is talking about the enemy, which is God. And he said, the enemy wants to get his children to a place where they do not care who is glorifying God as long as it's getting done. And gosh, all of us can apply that to our lives. It's so hard. But this book is about that, about helping others succeed as much as it is succeeding in a way that is glorifying. You know, you never know, sometimes after our greatest defeat becomes our greatest blessings.

Yeah. There's always a blessing around the corner if you're willing to look. And what Satan means for evil, God turns to good. Amen to that. Thank you so much, Dad. Enjoyed it very much. Last sponsor is Jace Medical. So Jace Medical exists to give you the medications that you need a case of an emergency.

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You heard a little bit from my dad. And to those of you who were there, thank you so much. Some of you came all the way from Canada. We had Portland. We had California very much represented. We had Minnesota. We even had from the southeast, which obviously, as we talked, talked about has been so impacted by the hurricane. And yet so many of you were able to still

get a flight and fly out to Texas. We had Jersey Shore. We had New York. We had Florida. We really had all over. And I'm just so thankful for the effort that you guys made to go because I understand all of the logistics, especially if you're a mom or maybe you had to take off work to be there and you guys made it happen. And it was such a beautiful crowd and a beautiful day. You know, I didn't know exactly how it would go. I had no worries at all about any of the speakers. I knew that Rosaria, Alisa, Abby, Candace, Francesca singing. I knew that they were all going to bring it. And I knew that Prestonwood, the venue was going to do a great job. I knew the Blaze team was going to do a great job. But bringing it all together, we had so many plans.

that were talked about in meetings and written down on paper. And yet how things were actually going to tangibly work themselves out when you have 4,000 people going in and out, you know, having to check their bags, go through security, show their ticket, and try to buy merchandise and other things and get seated and follow all of the rules and then having to leave for lunch and come back all in time. and we had a limited period of time. We had to be done by four.

And I've spoken at enough conferences to know that very often these events are running 30 minutes an hour behind. And I know we couldn't do that. And so I was worried about some logistical things. And yet, because of God's grace, the prayer is an encouragement that you guys sent me. I really had a piece that passed all understanding, even just the week leading up to it. I was so joyful and so excited and knew the Lord was going to have his way and do what he wanted to do and he absolutely did. Everything ran so smoothly. Not perfectly. There are absolutely

things that we want to improve on next year. One of them is getting more merchandise because we sold out of our CJLA Share the Arrow's merch at like 9 a.m. Whoops. Whoops. We didn't know that 100% of you would want them based on calculations. It's typically like 25% of people who attend events like this actually want to buy the merchandise. Well, it was like 100% plus. And so, next year we'll get that taken care of some like security lines being long and things like that. But you guys handled it with so much grace. And guys, this is what I always say. My audience, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to brag. I just have to brag a little bit. My audience is the best audience. I would put them up against any audience when it comes to enthusiasm, engagement, kindness,

groundedness. If I were to use one sentence to describe my audience, it's that they're the kind of women that you would want to babysit your kids. They're the kind of women that when you're traveling with your own kids, you are praying that you sit next to someone like this because you know they'll be kind and gracious and take care of your children. I just have so many stories of the kindness of women at Share the Arrows. And I'll share some of those. But I just want to go through some of the footage and some of the pictures that we have.

Maybe my favorite moment, although it's really hard to say because I had so many favorite moments from Share the Arrow. but singing, this is my father's world led by Francesca Badiselli with the voices of thousands of women was incredible. Here's Sot 3. Guys, I'm about to start crying right now. It was so beautiful and such a beautiful reminder. And I got to watch some of it on and off last night because it's available for Blaze TV subscribers.

If you go to SharetheAros.com slash watch party, the watch party happened last night. And so people were chatting live as they were watching it. But you can still watch it now and whenever. If you're a Blaze TV subscriber, if you're not, just use that link, blazedtv.com slash watch. Or, sorry, share the arrows. com slash watch party. And you can subscribe. It'll give you a really good discount on a subscription.

And you can watch the whole thing. And I just know that you're going to be impacted by it because of the grace of God, but also just the dynamic wise teachers that we had. It was so good, so many great moments. I loved when after worship Rosari Butterfield was the first speaker. It just flowed so perfectly and beautifully. And everyone gave her a standing ovation when she walked out. She hadn't even said anything yet. They just gave her a standing oh. Same thing with Elisa Childers because their reputation precedes them. Their boldness and their

wisdom precedes them. And so everyone was so excited. Here's this amazing view. This is full screen one. This is a view from above the sanctuary. Look at that. Jam packed with 4,000 women just completely raptured. Not that kind of rapture, but just completely, I think that's Elisa attentive to what she was teaching. Elisa's talk was amazing, by the way. I watched that whole thing last night, and I was just like gripped. She's an amazing speaker. And then here's a view of the sanctuary during the Candace Cameron interview. This is Candace Cameron Bure. You can see that. And women love, she was so, she was so vulnerable. They love. loved what she had to say, especially just like the marriage advice. And then here is a great

shot of the audience worshiping together. Beautiful. Also just beautiful. I've beautiful audience members. And then I love this view from the balcony. It's just like a gorgeous shot. And gosh, the expanse, the magnitude. When I first walked out first thing in the morning, morning. I mean, I just about lost it. I really didn't want to mess up my makeup, but I almost lost it. Just seeing y'all all standing there and clapping, seeing so many months of work come to fruition. And just the fact that you guys were there, your presence was so powerful. The Holy Spirit, his presence was palpable. I know you guys felt it. And I know you guys even felt it in sharing the stories that I was sharing on I got so many messages from y'all saying that you were crying just looking at the pictures

and seeing the messages from women. I got so many messages, but my favorite one that I think just sums up the feeling that people had when they left, share the arrows. This person said, I walked out of there with zero fear of man. Praise God. And that's, I mean, that's the sentiment that I've heard over and over again that I can't take credit for. It is just the Holy Spirit. doing what he dies. But I left there with no fear, with no anxiety, confident, encouraged, built up, feeling like I could take on anything that the enemy throws at me. That's exactly what I wanted. Sharing the arrows together. And there was also a really funny moment. Bree, I don't know if you saw this. Did you see the moment with Brady? No, I was backstage and I had like the radio on

where we were all communicating and a bunch of us backstage only saw what was on screen. So he saw me. Yeah. So they were cutting away from it. So I just heard a bunch of voices like, what's happening? What's happening? Oh, yeah. Well, I think people were a little nervous.

So Brady is our videographer. And Brady is amazing. Okay. He's so talented. He did the promo video for us. He shot the Candice, the Candice Burray promo too. Like he's a very talented videographer as well as editor. And so, of course, I wanted him to shoot this day. And I can say this because he has said it. So typically, when you're a videographer or photographer, you wear all black. Duh. And it was like a very dark sanctuary. And he left Timothy and me a voice message after he was like, guys, I don't know why I decided to dress like I was taking family pictures on the, family pictures on the beach in Florida. But he was wearing this like white button down in white pants. So he was literally.

literally glowing in the dark. And he got, he's so funny. Like he, he can take this into stride. He knows that I'm not just calling him out. His Instagram stories on this were really funny. But he wanted to get this amazing shot while I was speaking from the choir loft. Okay. So it's like really high up. And we can, if you can put up that picture again from the balcony, the full screen four, um, there's a big choir loft behind me. And you can't like really see it because it's really, it's dark, it's not lit back there. But he wanted to get that shot behind me so you could see me. You could see the full audience, which was awesome. And I should have pulled that. I should have pulled the shot that he ended up getting, which was really cool. But he is like crouching down,

running across the choir loft in his like full on white garb. And ever as I'm making that I'm about to transition into like the beginning of my speech. I'm literally about to start talking. about infanticide in ancient Rome. Okay, literally that's what I was about to say. And I look out in the audience and everyone is laughing. And I had just said something that was not funny at all. And I was so confused. It's very disconcerting when the audience has a reaction that, like, you know that you did not elicit. And so I said, I first I was just going to keep going. My sweet mother-in-law, I saw her in the audience and she was just smiling at me attentively. And I could tell she was communicating like, it's fine. They can just stop laughing and keep going.

but I felt like I needed to pause because I was so confused. And I was scared that there was something like on my face. And so I paused and I was like, wait, I feel like people are laughing. Was that funny? And then people started shouting things at me. And I was very confused. And I was like, my hair? Because I thought someone said my hair. And they were like, no, no, no, the something. I don't even remember what they said, the videographer. And I turned around and said, oh, you're laughing at Brady. And they had been laughing at. And they had been laughing. Brady just because of the movements that he was making. He's very apologetic about it and he will definitely wear all black in the future and it will be an amazing highlight video that he comes up with.

I have no doubt about that. And it actually made for a very funny moment. And I was like, I'm so glad I took improv in middle school because I was like, how am I going to do this? How do I? Okay, everyone's laughing. I laughed along with people. How do I transition into talking about infanticide in the Roman Empire and how Christians fought against that and that that's our legacy that we are that we have like that the church has been built on and we should muster the same courage today because we're not facing Coliseums or just facing criticism. Anyway, so it was about to be a really awesome point. And I had to pause and then I tried to bridge the gap by telling like a Roman Empire joke like you know how men are always thinking about the Roman Empire. I tried to transition us into

that and it just didn't work. Everyone was laughing still because my joke was kind of funny. And so then I just had to say, you know what? I'm just going to go into this and you are going to have to stop laughing eventually. And so we did. We got through it. And honestly, I'm like, it is fine. It's more than fine because it turned into a funny inside joke and a funny moment with everyone and added some levity to it. So like I am not frustrated at all. It ended up being really funny and totally fine. But that was a really fun moment. We got to surprise Vanessa Sivage. If you remember Vanessa, she sat on this couch and told her story about how she helped

a whistleblower at Texas Children's Hospital blow the whistle on gender transition, quote-unquote, practices happening illegally at Texas Children's Hospital. So we gave her our first ever share the arrows award. And that was beautiful. Like her testament of courage is amazing. And so encouraging to everyone else. And I just want to take a moment, too, just to brag on y'all's kindness and your thoughtfulness. I have, if I can pull it up, I have some amazing testimonials from people. There was one woman who said that she was trying to sing, but her baby was fussy.

And the woman next to her said, why don't you let me, you know, hold your baby and try to shush your fussy baby so you can focus on worship. She didn't know this woman, but she did. And she was able to focus on the songs being sung. There was a long line for water bottles as women were entering that morning, and it was really hard for everyone to get the water bottles that they needed before they went in, while a group of women at the front of the line decided to buy all the water bottles for everyone and pass them back to everyone who needed it. There was one of you who told me that as you were singing,

it had just been a really hard year. And there's so many of you who told me the same story. It's amazing. You felt yourself just breaking down in tears because of the hardships that you've been through. So many of you told me that you almost didn't come because of the things that were going on in your life at home, the difficulties. And you got there anyway. And when you did, you just kind of lost it in the best way possible. And that the women around you, whom you did not know, laid hands on you and prayed with you and cried with you. There were so many of you who came alone and you were nervous and you left with lifelong friends. I met groups of you who I assumed were friends because of how comfortable you were with each other. And then I was always surprised to hear, oh yeah, we just met. I'm from Ohio. I'm from Florida. I'm from California.

I'm from Minnesota. And here we are. We're best friends. We're going to lunch together. I mean, that's what I wanted. that's exactly what I wanted that's what that's part of what sharing the arrows is it's not always about standing when standing with someone when something hard is happening when they're getting unfairly maligned it's also just building the friendships um co belligerence in this in this battle and

that was accomplished that was accomplished here and really i can't take credit for it it is just god doing what he does and we are so privileged to be the vessels of his work and i am so excited for these women to go back to their homes, their families, their friends, their coworkers, their schools, whatever role they occupy with the boldness that has been one for us in Christ and that has been shown to us throughout history by the martyrs, by the persecuted, by those who have stood up for truth, stood up for biblical values, whether it's Genesis 127 or John 146 for the last 2,000 years. That's how the world has changed, not through Christian cowardice or compromise, but through Christian courage. And we need Christian

courage. Women need to hear about Christian courage. They don't need to be coddled. They need to be challenged with biblical truth. And that's what they got through Share the Arrows. That's why I, that's part of why I started to share the arrows because not all content geared toward women is coddling and fluffy. I'm not saying that, but a lot of it is. And what wasted talent? What wasted life and a wasted testimony and wasted capacity and wasted capability? If all the nourishment, which is really just spiritual junk food that women are being fed is about self-love and self-esteem and feelings and emotions. Not all feelings and emotions are bad. I'm not saying that, but women can handle substance. We can handle hard truths. We can handle

difficult, complex, theological topics. Like, we can handle apologetics. We can handle being told the truth about sin and repentance and holiness. We can stand firm on these controversial truths. We don't need superficial coddling. We need God's word. And I am very thankful to say that that's what women got it share the arrows and i hope and pray that we can do it again next year if you will help me pray to that end um that's that's that's that's the plan i wish i had more a more excitement and definitive announcement for you that is the plan and i just i really trust that lord willing he brings that to fruition but if you would help me pray for that because i know there's a lot of you couldn't make it this year you got fomo you can go watch it online but there's nothing like being there

and we will do everything we can to bring it to you again next year because God is in this and it's all his and something that I have to remember because it's so easy to get, you know, like I love things like this and there were so many people involved that certainly wasn't me, but the like the idea of it, I feel so like, I mean, it's just been my dream for for so long. Every single bit of this was just a dream that has been ruminating for so long. It's really easy to get caught up in. well, next year needs to be X, Y, Z. We need to be bigger and better and to think about our success measured in numbers.

And I'll remember a pastor at my church a couple years ago said something that is stuck with me. I try to think about it every day. Is that the measure of success in a Christian's life is faithfulness. Not fame, not numbers, not money, not accolades, not popularity, faithfulness. And that is true in anything, but that's certainly how I'm thinking of this event. However many there are, however many people come in the future, I want to think not only how great can it be, because that's important, I want to serve you guys well and excellently, but how faithful can it be? How solid can it be? How substantive can it be? How truthful can it be?

how earnest and genuine and honest and biblical and God glorifying can it be. Those are my measures of success. And as long as we are doing that, I will be, I'll be happy. So thank you guys for being wonderful. And again, just thank everyone for everyone who was involved in so many levels and so many areas of my life. In-laws flew in, high school friends volunteered at the merch table. so many meaningful people to me helped make this happen. So and just thank the Lord.

Really just I'm still reeling. It was an amazing weekend and you guys have told me you're still on cloud nine too. Praise God. Let's keep that piece and keep that enthusiasm. All right. To close this out, I want to tell you about something really exciting. It's a new magazine that Blaze has produced. It is beautiful.

It's a quarterly magazine and it's called Frontier. I mean, stunning photography, really thoughtful commentary, original journalism. The first issue features work from Chris Rufo, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck. It's just a really timeless and beautiful and profound publication that is worth your investment. You're going to be reading stories and commentary that you really can't get anywhere else, that you're not going to find anywhere else. There's nothing like it. and if you want to be encouraged and challenged and informed and be smarter after you do something,

then you should become a founding member. Go to blazeunlimited.com slash alley. We're just getting started. So go ahead and be one of the first. That's blazedunlimited.com slash alley. All right. That's all I've got time for today. See you guys back here tomorrow.