Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1300 | Was the Government Shutdown a Win or Loss for Trump? | Ron Simmons

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

Today Ron discusses the recent government shutdown avoidance, highlighting the passage of five separate bills, including a bipartisan vote that excluded the Save Act requiring photo ID for voting. The bill also includes $8.4 billion more than Trump's request, cuts $10 billion in wasteful foreign aid, and ends taxpayer subsidies for woke media. Ron's conversation also touches on the Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act, which passed with only one Democrat voting in favor, and the ongoing immigration enforcement efforts, emphasizing the need for cooperation from local law enforcement. Ron gives his opinion on Sen. Bernie Sanders' proposal to cap credit card interest at 10%. Ron also discusses school choice in Texas and the availability of a $1,700 federal tax credit for educational scholarships. Lastly, Ron ends the episode with some Q&A. Sen. Bernie Sanders: We need to cap credit card interest rates at 10%: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sen-bernie-sanders-need-cap-credit-card-interest-rates-10 Share the Arrows 2026 is on October 10 in Dallas, Texas! Tickets go on sale February 11 at: ⁠⁠https://sharethearrows.com⁠⁠ Buy Allie's book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.toxicempathy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Timecodes: (00:00) Intro (01:30) Government Shutdown Narrowly Avoided (03:45) Save Act and Voter ID (07:05) Negotiating From Power, Not Weakness (09:59) Cutting Woke, Wasteful Spending (13:44) Democrats vs. Pro‑Life Bills (18:30) Targeting Criminal Illegal Immigrants (22:16) ICE Detainers and Local Resistance (30:00) Sanders’ Credit Card Cap (39:35) Protecting Kids From Social Media (47:55) Long Fight for School Choice (55:20) Tax Credits for Scholarships --- Today's Sponsors: Fellowship Home Loans | Start with a free consultation at ⁠FellowshipHomeLoans.com/Allie⁠ and receive a $500 credit at closing. Cozy Earth | Head to CozyEarth.com and use code RELATABLE for up to 20% off. And if you get a Post-Purchase Survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth right here! --- Episodes you might like:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ep 1286 | Maduro Detained, Minnesota ICE Altercation, Can Trump Save Single-Family Homes? | Ron Simmons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000744608458 Ep 1293 | Ron Simmons | Can Trump Use the Insurrection Act Against Minnesota Mayhem? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000746486355 --- Buy Allie's book "You're Not Enough (and That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.alliebethstuckey.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Relatable merchandise: Use promo code ALLIE10 for a discount: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley, term supply, see site for details, fellowship home loans, mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819382. Hey, hello, everyone. Hope everybody's doing okay. We did survive the Ice Mageddon of 2006 here in the Texas area. I'll tell you what, I don't think I've ever seen ice and snow on the ground here as long as we've had it. In fact, I walked into the studio today, and it's been 10 days or more, and there's still a big pile of ice and snow out there on one of the sidewalks.

So it's kind of funny. But anyway, I've had enough winter. I'm ready for spring. So dear Lord, whenever you're ready, let's go ahead and send it our way. I don't mind having a little winter, but a couple of weeks, and I'm ready to move on and get back out on the golf course and all the good things that come with spring and summer. So anyway, thanks for being here. This comes out on Saturday. Every other Saturday, Allie, has allowed me to do this, which I've really, really enjoyed.

And, man, we're getting some great response from it as well. I've gotten a lot of good emails and we're getting a lot of views of this. So thank you. And any ideas that you have on what we want. want to talk about in the future, please send those in. You can email me, Ron at Ron Simmons.com, or you can leave a message on Instagram or however you normally communicate with the show. Several things to talk about today. Several things to talk about today. And we'll get through them as quickly and as efficiently as we can. But the first one is we avoided a government shutdown.

I think it might have been shut down for 24 hours or something like that, but we really avoided the big issue with government shutdown because the bill was passed on February the third, Tuesday, that allowed the government to stay operating. And actually there were five separate bills that were passed. What they're trying to do, and this is what we would call regular order, and we're going to have a little video of Speaker Johnson talking about it, is get the appropriations process broken down into different bills, all under one bill. And that way, there may be some things that I like in this bill as a

as a congressman, if I was a congressman, that, okay, I'm okay with voting. But this bill I really can't vote for because there's things in there that I just cannot go along with. So anyway, they did pass it. So the government stays open. And it was bipartisan. And one of the reasons it had to be bipartisan is because we had 21 Republicans that voted no, which is pretty unusual. unusual in the Trump era. Trump has been very good about getting people all on the same page. And so the 21 people that voted no, first of all, I don't want you to think that automatically all 21 of those are people that are rhinos. That's certainly not the case. And that they're not crazy people either, right? Some crazy, crazy, far, far, far, far right people. These are people,

most of them anyway, that, you know, they just had an issue with a part of the bill. And, you know, our old friend Tom Massey, who I actually think probably is one of these guys as just Dr. No. We had those in the Texas legislature. I generally, legislature, I generally called them show horses instead of workhorses. Mr. Massey votes no against Republicans more than any other Republican. One of the reasons that some of the 21 Republicans voted against the bills was that the SAVE Act was not included. And it was HR 20. and they were trying to put it inside of one of these bills because it hadn't got passed yet. And essentially the SAVE Act says, it says several things, but the bottom line is it required a photo ID to verify who you were and that you were eligible to vote to go vote.

So when you went to a voting location, you had to provide photo ID. We do that in Texas. There are a few exceptions for that. But essentially we have that in Texas. We were trying to get this in federal elections. is what the SAVE Act was trying to do. And several of the members in the House that voted against this said that was the reason. Now, the reason it didn't get put in there, in my opinion, is because it wasn't in what the Senate sent over.

And Trump was really heavy on past what the Senate went over so we don't shut down the government any longer. And if they would have put it in there, it would have had to go back to the Senate. And during that time, the government would have been. shutdown. And for whatever reason, for the most part, when there's a government shutdown, mainly because the media plays into this, is they blame it on Republicans. And going into a midterm year, we don't need that issue. So it's a hard vote. And I sympathize with the 21 that probably wanted to vote yes on this and follow their leadership and follow their president. But they voted no. Now, some of them, you know, are just no people. But there are a lot of them that I believe had a legitimate

reason. The other thing that they didn't like was the fact that the bill only allows for two more weeks of funding for the Department of Homeland Security. And that was a big deal in the Senate. That was actually something that Schumer and Trump negotiated to be able to do that. And the idea is over the next two weeks, they're going to have separate discussions and debates over funding for DHS. And it won't just be the funding so much. It'll be the ruling. It'll be the ruling. that DHS and regulations that kind of control them. We will see how that goes. I don't trust Schumer as far as I can throw this couch, right? I can probably throw him further than the couch, but I don't trust him at all, and so I don't believe he'll negotiate in good faith.

Now, I hope I'm proven wrong, and I hope what happens is, is that to the extent that they can, that the Republicans just steamroll it. It's harder to do in the Senate because she needs 60 votes to end debate to be able to even have a vote. But maybe they'll have some Democrats that will have a reasonable way to look at this. They'll probably have to make some compromise. And just to understand, that's the way the sausage is made. There's always some compromise. One of the reasons there was some pork that went into this spending bill that went through

the Senate in the House is because the House had to have some Democrats in order for it to pass because the 21 Republicans went against it. we don't have a wide enough majority to be able to pass it without Democrat. So there's always give and take, and it's easy to be a purist when we're sitting on our couch. But when you're actually inside the rails, in other words, you're one of the congresspeople voting. You've got to figure out what's the best deal I can get done for the people of America. And that's, I believe, what they've done. Now, there's also some cool things in here, though, that are positives.

And I'm going to get to those in just a minute. But before we do that, one of the congressmen talked about the negotiating strategy that needs to be used when we're negotiating with Democrats. And this is Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee. It's $8.4 billion more than what Trump asked. Department of Labor, Human Health Service is $221 billion. You know, this thing just keep going. It exceeds the president's request and includes funding for programs. President Trump zeroed out.

And we've got to start negotiating from power. When you start following our president's advice on a lot of this stuff and negotiating, you don't negotiate from weakness. Trump will tell you, you negotiate from power. And that's why he wins. Well, that's exactly right. And the quicker you learn that, the better you're off. Now, it's easy to say that.

It's a little harder to do it. but it is important that you have to understand who's in power. Now, the only really way that Republicans can negotiate from power is if they're all solidified. And that has been very hard to do in the House. I mean, the House is, you know, it's 435 members. You know, the Republicans have about 2.17, 218. And to get all of those people on the same page on any issue is a difficult process. I do not envy Speaker Johnson's job at all.

There were some cool things that came in the bill, though, and I'm going to go through a couple of those here in just a little bit. But before we do that, let's see what Speaker Johnson had to say about the spending bill. For a long time, we wanted to get back to regular order in the appropriations process. You're standing up here with the best appropriators in the business and have served in many years, and we've forced the Muslim memory back. We're getting back to that regular order process. It's 12 separate appropriations bills.

We've gotten them to your desk, and this is a big thing. It seems like a small thing, but it's a big thing. And we're spending less money year over year and with all the innovations and things that you said there. This is good for the country. And America is back. The hat is appropriate. It's the right slope. Well, I think that was really good.

I think it is good that the speaker reminded us of how the process works and the fact that we're spending less money year over year than in the past. And President Trump also talks about how we're distributing foreign aid. And remember the whole USAID thing? President wanted to make a comment on that. Let's listen to that as well. It continues the closure of USAID and creates a brand new America First Opportunity Fund for responsibly providing foreign assistance to nations where it actually serves American interests. So we have nations that do help us and it serves our interests.

So we have something to help them out. That's good. We've got to remember all of that. stuff that, you know, that Elon Musk recommended when he was first part of the Doge. And that some of that stuff is still coming through. They've tried to pull some of it back, but it's still coming through. A few other things to think about. The first one is something that I've been excited about as much as anything because it

just drives me crazy. We're spending taxpayer money on woke media. But this officially ends taxpayer subsidies for radical woke programming on NPR and PBS. Thank goodness. And there are a lot of good programs. on PBS, but all their new stuff is, oh, so far left, no question. It takes $10 billion in wasteful foreign aid spending, cuts that, continues the closure of wasteful U.S. aid program, which the president talked about,

cuts funding on weaponized IRS programs, as you remember a few years ago, where the IRS was going after conservative organizations, that it cuts back on the weaponizing of that. It builds on the Republican rescissions package last, summer, taking money back out of programs that shouldn't be done. It fully funds our military, including well-deserved pay raise for all service members. It puts investments in American shipbuilding, continues funding deportation flights. What we talk about that is, you know, we're deporting people.

That's on us. So we send them, you know, we take them back to their countries. In fact, the ones that want to self-deport, I think we even provide $1,000 plus a free flight back to their country. And most of the people that have left the country that are illegals have self-deported. About two-thirds of the people that have left the country have self-deported, and about the third of them have the ones that we've had to deport. And then finally, it continues the historically successful efforts to reduce crime in our nation's capital. D.C. crime has gone way down since even their mayor. Your member said, thank you, President Trump, for putting

the National Guard in there to help reduce crime, and they've done that. So, Anyway, we've gotten past this issue. The government's not shut down. We're moving forward. Those of you that depend on that, I know that that'll be important to you. And those of us that want a continued smaller government, I think we just have to keep pushing our representatives for that. Quick pause to tell you about our first sponsor for the day. And that is Fellowship Home Loans.

So as we move deeper into the New Year, a lot of you are thinking about creating a home that really serves your family, whether that's a project that you've wanted to start. or simplifying your finances or building more in your margin for months ahead. And fellowship home loans can help you do that. You can refinance to lower your monthly payment or you can use their fixed rate line of credit to take on projects or consolidate debt with confidence and stability. The rate never changes. And that gives you the flexibility to steward your home and your finances wisely. You can even skip your next two mortgage payments with their help.

And that could create the flexibility that you need to create. the home that you need for you and your family. Mike and Brian do everything by the book. That means by the word of God. They care about integrity and Christian values. That's how they operate your business. Let them help you. Go to fellowship homeowners.com slash alley.

If you close with them, you'll get $500 toward your closing cause. That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley. Nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, Equal Housing Linder, and NAMLAS number 819-382. Next thing we want to talk about is, and this is just a reminder, all right?

This is a reminder of Republicans versus Democrats and how different they are. First of all, boy, they're just are not hardly any moderate Democrats anymore, especially when it comes to social-related issues. The House passed a bill HR 6945 that supports pregnant and parenting women and families act, and it passed 215,

to 209, and only one Democrat, Henry Quayar of Texas, down in the Rio Grande Valley, voted in favor of it. And what it does is, it allows something called temporary assistance for needy families. That's called TANF. You may have heard that term TANF. Those funds are distributed by the government to organizations that help families that are in need. Well, our good friend, President Biden, in his slick administration, they tried to propose a rule that, would not allow pregnancy resource centers from receiving those funds because he didn't want any funds going to resource centers that were helping moms that wanted to have their babies. He wanted only that money going to places that would help mom kill those babies.

And this has been stopped, thank goodness. In fact, his rule did never get passed, which was good. but this bill has now gone to the Senate, all right, for them to act on it and we'll see if they act on that or not. We hope they do, but you don't know. Another bill that the House, that the House has proposed and it passed by a vote is the Pregnancy Student Rights Act. And what this does, it requires colleges and universities that receive federal student

aid to inform pregnant students about their rights on campus and community resources. and accommodations and how to file discrimination complaints so they can carry their pregnancies to term and continue their education. But just to show you how crass Democrats are related to the unborn, here is a little video from Representative Bobby Scott out of Virginia and his opposition to what seems like a pretty common sense, helpful piece of legislation. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 6359, the Pregnest Students' Rights Act. This bill requires schools to provide pregnant students with information about on-campus and community resources and accommodations to assist them in carrying a baby to term while they pursue an education.

Unfortunately, instead of sharing unbiased and comprehensive information, this bill requires schools to distribute only partial information about a student's rights under Title IX. selective information and resources that solely encourage students to carry a pregnancy to term. It provides no information about rights and accommodations for students who may find themselves in a medical situation that requires an abortion. Can you imagine that? I mean, it's just hard to even believe, but I just, we don't want to get lackadaisical because Roe v. Wade's been turned over, overturned, I mean, and we don't want to give up fighting because, you know, You know, the big issue now is all of the abortions that are happening through the pill.

I forget the name of it starts with an M. Allie talks about it all the time. And there's a lot of abortions going on still due to that. And the Democrats are almost 100% vote in blocks against anything that's pro-life. Henry Quayar, as we said, the only representative that voted in favor of the bill. He's in a predominantly Catholic district down there in the Rio Grande Valley Hispanic Catholic district, which we know most Hispanics are pro-life. And so please don't, if you want to know, well, maybe this Democrat's okay or maybe that one's

okay. When it comes down to these issues, none of them have been proven to be okay. And it was the same way in the Texas House, unfortunately. And I had friends on the other side of the aisle, but they did not support any legislation that was there to save the unborn. I just want to make sure that never leaves your mind when you're looking at who to vote for come this spring in primaries or this November. So let's just make sure we remember that.

Now, let's talk a little bit about the next subject and immigration. We can't let that go far because it's something that's on the news every day. It's something we're thinking about every day. It's something, it's probably the biggest thing that President Trump ran on was cleaning up, first of all, shutting down our border, which he's done a great job of that. and there have even been Democrat senators that have talked about that. And also to get rid of primarily, initially anyway, I should say initially, not primarily, initially, initially the criminal element of the illegals that are here.

And these are people that not only broke the law by crossing into our country illegally, they also broke the law by committing an additional crime or either they're wanted for a crime back in their home country. And so the president, as you know, a week or two ago sent Bordersar, Tom Holman into Minnesota. Tom, been in this business for 40 years. He was an ice agent at one time. He's actually worked under five presidents. In fact, President Obama gave him a medal for his work in securing our border and making sure

that we got, that we deported illegal aliens. And we talked about this before, but President Obama deported more illegal aliens than any president in history. Now, Trump's probably going to surpass that, but 3.2 million. And I never heard one word of complaint about that from the Democrat elected officials or the media. I mean, that just tells you how sick our media has gotten, especially the mainstream media, how sick they have gotten on unwilling to be fair in their reporting.

It's not their opinion. Their opinions are fine. They can be wherever they want on those. But in your everyday reporting, it is just not even worth paying any attention to. And that's why you listen to podcasts like this. That's why you look at other information to try to sort through the facts. And it's hard to do it. But anyway, so Holman has gone there.

and he is in Minnesota, kind of making sure we get things on the right track because nobody likes the fact that two people have passed away because of this and ICE officers have been hurt and they've been ridiculed and what have you. But some of the media has said that this means that Trump is surrendering to all the protests and the riots. But let's see what Mr. Holman has to say. I want to be clear.

I don't read a lot of social media. I don't read a lot of media. I don't believe half of all I see. We are not surrendering the president's mission in immigration enforcement. Let's make that clear. Prioritization of criminal amends. Let's mean we forget about everybody else.

That's just simply ridiculous. When you have a criminal standing here and a non-criminal standing there, that criminal always should be targeted for it because he's a significant concern to the safety and security of the community. By at large for decades, ICE and CBP have carried out their duties

with integrity, and compassion. That remains the expectation of President Trump, and we will, I will, hold our agents and officers to that standard. So that's a very good message. First of all, we're not surrendering. We're going to do whatever we have to to get primarily the criminal element of illegals out of this country, and we're going to arrest them. Secondly, we're going to follow professional standards as federal agents as to how we're supposed to follow that. But we're going to protect, as we'll talk a little bit about later, we're going to make sure that we protect those agents as well.

There's never going to be a situation where it's okay to abuse our federal agents. One of the things that he said, and I listened to the whole newscast or press conference, sorry, I listened to the whole press conference. and in fact, he just did another press conference on Wednesday, if you want to listen to that. But I listen to the whole thing. And one of the things that he said, this is so interesting, and he's going to talk about it in just a second. We have a clip of it is that the reason that we have to have so many agents, ICE agents and federal officers in Minnesota right now is because that we don't get any cooperation up to date out of the elected official.

and the law enforcement there. So what happens in a lot of states is that if someone is, let's say that they've committed a local crime, and so they're picked up by local law enforcement, and they run them through the system, and there's an ICE detainer, meaning that they're illegal and the ICE has asked you to hold those people until we can come get them, that those people are being released and not being held as ICE has requested that they do. And so therefore, ICE, instead of just going and picking them up at the jail

in a very secure scenario where, as Mr. Holman says, I could send one officer to do that, maybe two, we have to go pick them up out in the public, out in their neighborhoods, out where they work, wherever, because we're going to get them. He's clear on that.

We're going to get them. So you're forcing us to put the public at risk by not cooperating with these illegal aliens that are also additional criminals. And therefore, instead of having to have one or two go pick one of these people up, they have to have 15, 20, and then another 15 or 20 that are supporting them to go pick them up because of what's going on, because of their, the ice agents are being abused, they're being spat upon, they're thrown at, they're being, people are carrying, as we know, guns in there, throwing ice bottles at them, those types of things.

So really, Minnesota, listen to me. And one of our people here on the teams from Minnesota. So I want him to make sure he calls everybody and tells him who knows back there, listen to me. And that is to look, if you wanted things to calm down, then it's okay to protest. Just don't put violence in your protest, okay? If you want to stand out there and protest and carry a sign and even say, hey, we're against this, that's fine. but when you impede law enforcement, all you're doing is creating the need for more law enforcement because there will be no surrender.

You do understand that, that President Trump is not a surrender person. Maybe in the past you could have gotten that done through those types of threats, but it's not going to happen on this one. But I want to let's hear Mr. Holman talk about what just makes common sense on how this thing should be treated. This is common sense cooperation that allows to draw down on the number of people we have here. Yes, I said it, draw down the number of people here. Because we have the efficiency and safety of the jails in the prison. An example that I heard.

There are 1,300 illegal alien criminals that are in jails across Minnesota. 1,300. And those can be easily taken by ICE with just, a little cooperation. And Tom Holman believes that we're moving towards that. He says that Attorney General Ellison has agreed to notify ICE of release dates for criminal public safety risks, allowing ICE to take custody of those safely for everyone involved. So if you don't want ICE in your community, then encourage your elected officials and

your police force to cooperate with them. This past weekend, 650 criminal aliens were picked up by ICE in other states, and you didn't hear anything about it from the media. There weren't any protests. That's because they were done in the manner. I talked about a minute ago that there was a detainer. ICE went to the jail, picked them up, took them back to their detention centers, or they deported them, whatever it is that they do at that particular time.

That's the way it should go, and I'm hopeful that people around the country, if they want violence to go down, that they will pay attention to that. So again, this immigration thing is going to go on for a while now. Biden let in 14 million people, didn't vet hardly any of them. And so you're going to see this immigration enforcement going on until the problem is eradicated. And again, I'll call on Congress, Senate and House, get together, get some better immigration laws that allow good people to get here easier and bad people to never get here. That's what it takes. Instead of using this as a political football, which is what continues to happen. Both sides use it to their advantage, okay? No question about that in politics. And we need to take that away and actually had some good

legislation that will help solve this issue. All right. So Trump, of course, weighs in on all of this. and he has said he calls it the Ask Us Doctrine. And what he's basically saying, which is true, but it is, it is awesome, funny stuff. In fact, let's go ahead and put his statement up there from Truth Social. I'm not going to read the whole thing. Obviously, it's a lot on there. You can go read that. But essentially what he's saying is that we are going to guard federal property,

but it's up to you, the states, to guard your own property and protect your own citizens. and we will happy to come in there, but you've got to ask us. And he also puts in there, you've got to say, please, which is just the way Trump is, which is kind of funny. I don't really think they means that, but I do think that he says, look, we're not going to put our people in harm's way when you're not even going to support us. So if you ask us, Democrat, states and mayors will help you, but we're not doing it. In fact, he told Christy know him not to do it unless they come to us and ask us.

He also said there will be no spitting in the facts. of our officers, there will be no punching or kicking the headlights of our cars. There will be no rock or brick throwing at our vehicles or at our Patriot Warriors. If it is, those people will suffer an equal or more consequence. I mean, that's pretty straightforward, I would say, right? Just no way you're going to do it. And they're also going to protect federal property. Just in Oregon, just this past few days, there was a federal building that they went in there

and vandalized and what have you. And he's just not going to allow that. And you remember back in 2020 when they went into that federal building in Oregon or it's a courthouse or something and, you know, basically, you know, set up shopping there, set fires. It's all just a total mess. So, again, I think the immigration stuff, I mean, we're hard on it. And I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be good.

So I'm glad they're doing it. And again, any questions on that, let me know. All right, a few more things that we're going to talk about here. And one of them, I wanted, this is something that I didn't put in the show notes for the staff here. But I read an article this weekend, or actually an opinion piece by Senator Bernie Sanders. And it was about credit card interest rates. Most of the people that I'm talking to probably have some credit cards. I don't know.

hopefully you're on the way to getting rid of as many of those. Maybe you keep one just for emergency purposes. But if you're on the way to get rid of those, like Dave Ramsey talks about and other financial people talk about, I certainly agree with that. I talk about that in my book, Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon. But what he says is that he wants the federal government to cap,

which they could do, interest rates on credit cards to 10%. You know, most credit card interest rates are 17, 18, 19, even 20-something percent. And it sounds good, right? I mean, most of us would say, yeah, that'd be great. That would bring my cost down and all that. Here's the challenge, all right?

And I just want to make sure you understand this is that the reason credit card interest rates are at 20-something percent is because the consumer laws very much, relating to credit cards, very much favor the consumer, meaning that you see all these programs where, hey, I'll help you. you reduce your credit card of balance or I'll make it to where you're not paying interest on it and all that. Well, all of those things reduces how much credit card companies actually collect. And then people just don't pay. They file bankruptcy or whatever and just don't pay their credit cards off. So in order for credit cards to make what they consider to be a reasonable profit, they're not making 20% off of all their credit card charges, okay? Because remember, Remember, some people pay them off at the end of every month.

Okay, any credit card I've had, that's what I've always done. So there's no interest on it. Some people don't pay at all, file bankruptcy, or some people get these reduced scenarios where they don't have to pay back as much as they owed. When all that's said and done, the actual profit they make is quite a bit less than that, all right? But it allows people that don't even have great credit scores to obtain credit. and to compensate for the fact that the credit card companies know that some of them are not going to pay,

they charge a higher interest rate on all of it so that they can get down to what they think is a reasonable amount. And you and I could agree or disagree with them on whether their profit margin is reasonable or not. So if you cap it at 10%, which I'm totally fine with because, you know, I don't use the credit cards for interest. I don't take interest on my cards or whatever. But the problem if you cap it at 10% for a lot of the nation is it will reduce the number of people that can get credit. Because the credit card companies will have to only give credit cards to the people whose credit scores, whose capability of repaying are much higher than they are today.

And long term, that's probably a good thing for the country. but short term, there would be a lot of people that could not get credit, and that would have a negative impact on them and on the economy. So when you read those things, just make sure you look at the whole picture. I'm not saying we should or shouldn't do that. I'm just saying you need to understand what the effects of that are and make sure that if you want to opine on that to your congressperson or whatever, that you understand that, that you may be in a position to where if they take it down,

to 10% that you can't even get a credit card because right now your credit worthiness isn't good enough for that credit card company to take a risk on you. And so just to understand that's the way that's the way things work. Next sponsor is Cozy Earth. Okay, you want to listen up. You got about a week until Valentine's State guys. And so I think if you order from Cozy Earth, you can probably get something in before then. And I think that your wife or girlfriend will love Cozy Earth. And their lounge sets, their pajamas, their bamboo sets are so comfortable, I would know. I have multiple sets of these. I love Cozy Earth.

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Now, let's take a few questions. Here, we've got a few minutes left to do some questions, and we've got a lot of good questions. I can't answer all of them, but we're going to go through as many as we can. I love getting these questions. These are so, you guys are so good at this. Let's see here.

The first one, when did you know that Ali was going to be such an inspiration to many? So many. Well, you know, I would not be telling the truth if I said, oh, I knew that early on. Now, I do, I did know early on that she was going to share her opinion with many because she's always been one to share her opinion, even as a little girl. How that was going to end up growing and maturing, I really didn't know. I felt like when, when she, and I've talked about this story before, when she spoke at her

college's graduation, I could just see it in her eyes that it was. was like a light bulb moment that, okay, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And so I guess from that point, I had a feeling that this was something she was going to pursue. I don't think any of us knew that it would grow to what it's grown and what I think it will continue to grow to over the next several years. But I, and I think part of that, honestly, I will give a little bit of credit to her mom and myself is that we, with all of our kids, we never told them things they could not do. Now, we were honest with them. I mean, listen, my oldest son was never going to be run the 100-yard dash in nine seconds, okay?

So that was honesty. I didn't want him to be a sprinter, all right? But if they wanted to pursue something, we were an encourager of that. and we did what we could to facilitate that. That means if, you know, if, if Allie wanted to do this or that and I had contacts in a place, I use those contacts, okay? So moms and dads, you have a wealth of connections that you need to be willing to utilize for your kids.

There's nothing wrong with it. That's the way things work. That's the way things should work. It's also important, though, moms and dads, that you live a life of integrity and character so that when you go to someone and saying, hey, my daughter's interested in this, I know that you're involved in that business. Can you give her a look? They're not going to pay attention if I don't have integrity myself.

So moms and dads, we have to live a life of integrity and good character so that people will listen to us as well. Let's see here, are there any conspiracy theories that you believe? in. I don't believe that John Kennedy was only shot. I think it was shot by Oswald, but I think there was more to it than that. I'll go to my grave thinking that. I don't know if it's true or not, but I do believe that there's more to it than that. All you had to do is read the Warren report and know that the magic bullet theory just didn't add up to me. I thought that was, I thought that was interesting. All right. Let's see here. What are your parenting tips for raising strong

adults who don't walk away from their faith. I think the only thing that you can do is that when your kids are young, that you expose them to your faith and that you teach them the basic values of your faith and the tenets of your faith. And then as they become older and they become, you know, adults, you've got the foundation in them. I experienced this in my own life. I went through a period of time in my mid to late teenage years. My mom and dad had divorced and I don't know. It was just a mess. And so, and I wondered, you know, where's God during all this, right? And, but the foundation was set that it brought me back to him later in my teen years, you know, when Lisa and I were dating and what have you. So I think you have to build the foundation. And then it'll be up to their own free will,

whether they leave that or whether they never leave it or whether they leave it and come back between them and God, it will be through them. Now, you can still have influence through all that period of time and they need to see you living a life that's committed to Christ. But I do believe the foundation early is the key point. If you haven't had the, didn't give the foundation early because you didn't come to Christ until later and your kids were already born, then there's no time like the present to get that started, all right? And don't ever give up on that. Because I do believe that what you plant in there that the Holy Spirit can water and grow. And I absolutely believe it.

I've seen it happen too many, too many times. What did you do to protect your children if, what would you do if protect you to raise them today versus when you did? Oh, that's a good one. First of all, I'm thankful that I'm not a new mom or dad today. It's very difficult. I think the thing that you do is a lot of the same. Some of the things are the same is that you build a foundation of faith with them. making sure that they're in church regularly, making sure that you guys are talking about

things that are related to your faith and to your value system and that you're living that, you're not just talking about that. But I also think you're, and this is where you're not going to be popular, but you have to limit their exposure to the extent that you can to some of the outside world things. You know, social media, I think you have to really limit that. I'm proud of our oldest son and his wife. I mean, they have a young teenage son and getting ready to be a second teenager in the house. And they have really, really been good about restricting their access to social media.

Now, they won't be able to do that forever. But the longer you restrict it, if during that time you're building into them their own value system, they'll be better equipped to stand up for themselves when they are exposed to it. So you can't just restrict them. during the time you're restricting them, you have to be building into them, okay? Building into them, the value system that you believe in, that's based on your faith, and hopefully they'll have come to Christ by then, that they'll have, they will have been saved, and they'll be wanting to walk with the Lord.

And so that's what you have to do. It can't just be a vacuum, because if you don't, if you just restrict it and don't do anything, then they're just going to be hungry, more hungry for it, more hungry for it. and when it's exposed, it could get definitely out of hand. This is an interesting one. How has capitalism also been corrupted? It's the divide between the rich and the poor problem. You know, I think it's always been a problem that,

and the Bible says that, you know, Jesus said the poor will always be with you. And I think what happens, there's always going to be people, depending on how you determine rich, and I think we're talking about financially here, is there's always going to be people that have more and people that have less. That's the way our society works.

It also works that way. Let me make sure you understand this, okay? In socialist and communist societies, it works the exact same way. If you don't believe me, go to places like Iran or places like Russia or places like Cuba or Venezuela as it was. meaning that there are a few people at the top. The problem with those is that it's a much smaller group, and it's all government-controlled. There are a few people at the top that have unbelievable wealth.

In fact, some people believe Vladimir Putin's the richest man in the world. Now, he can't go anywhere to spend his money, but he's the richest man in the world. And then the rest of the people live on a very low substance level. There's no middle class in most of these places. And so, therefore, don't think that, capitalism is the issue. It's not, capitalism isn't the issue. It's the corruption of power that's the issue. And that's why we have to have a representative government so that the representative government can keep the power in check. And have we done as good a job as we should have? Probably not. All right? I would agree with that. However, it is the best form that we have because without that representative government, power just gets more powerful, as you can tell in these countries that

have been taken over by what amounts to be dictators. So we should offer as much opportunity as we can for people to move up in their socioeconomic status. One of the challenges we've had here in the United States is we've tried to give handouts instead of hand-ups. And all we've done is create a vicious cycle of people staying on government entitlement. And until we change those programs to incentivize people to get out as opposed to stay in, then we're going to continue to have the divide. Let's see. Why do liberals misinterpret Jesus?

Because they're liberal. No, that's not a good answer. I think because they have, because their first answer, is their political answer in their mind. And then they look at how can I form everything else around that. So if my political belief is abortion, you know, government handouts, whatever, no borders, then I look to whatever else I'm viewing or learning with that prism and I want to make it fit in there. That's what they do.

That's why they do it. And so until they really have Jesus first, and that's the basis for how you look at everything else. In other words, we should look at government based on what we feel about the Bible first, and then we should shape our government and political views around that. A lot of times liberals will take their political views, and then they'll try to shape government around it. That's exactly what the guy that's running for Senate in Texas, Tala Rico guys doing. He's got his political views and then he goes to, and then he tries to form what the Bible says to match those views. And what he really needs to do, if you're listening to

me representatives, we know each other, go look at the Bible first what it says, literally what it says, and it certainly doesn't say kill the unborn, and then shape your political views around that. If you do that, we'd be a lot, our country would be a lot better off for all of us. All right. Finish up here. Words. And again, if I didn't get your question, feel free to email me on that. But the last segment I do every time is called Words from the Wagon.

And that relates to my book, which you see behind me, Life Lesson from the Little Red Wagon. If you haven't ordered that, you can order it off of Alley's merchandise site. And it'll be in the show notes. Also, if you haven't gotten her book on toxic empathy, you know, there was a hit piece that came out on Allie from our good friend and actually my fellow Arkansas, Hillary Rodden Clinton, she wrote a piece that an op-ed piece in the Atlantic that was just saying, oh, you know, I love empathy. I'm so empathetic. And Allie Beth and all these Christians are not empathetic that are on the right. Well, of course, she probably never read Ali's book. And secondly, she totally misinterpreted it.

And if you haven't listened to Allie's podcast episode response to that, you need to do that. but you know listen if Hillary and Bill want to come sit on the couch over here I'm sure Ali and I would have a good interview and debate with them you know just a couple of fellow Arkansasans getting back together we could call the hogs we could do whatever but if you want to come sit and talk about it we're happy to do that so the invitation is open and we'll be happy to sit down with you and talk about that and there's some other questions we might have as well okay where's from the wagon here's some things you know in the my book I talk about it. Not everything happens exactly how we want it to happen, and not everything is

about us. Sometimes things that we are heavily involved in really aren't about us at all, even though we might think they are. They're really not. A good example of that is when I started the legislature in 2013, one of the big issues for me was being able to give parents' school choice, especially for those that have kids that have disabilities because I just saw in many, not all, so don't miss quote me, many of our public school environments did not have the ability or maybe even the desire sometime to provide the services necessary for kids with disabilities to learn as much as they could and go as far as they can in the education system. And so I filed a bill along with my good friend Giovanni Capriclione.

filed a bill related to school choice in 2013. It didn't get out, didn't go anywhere. I filed again in 2015. You can look up on YouTube if you want to. You can look up. There's a video out there of me talking about school choice in 2015 that was professionally done. So it's a pretty good video.

They cut out all my mistakes. 2017, I filed a bill. I had a majority of the House members in the Texas House had signed on as co-sponsors so we could have passed the bill. The speaker did not let that bill get to the house floor. I don't know that he was anti-school choice. He just was afraid, and a lot of the members were afraid of their local school systems and the teachers voting against them and all that. Because public school advocates have been against school choice for a law. time for no good reason in my opinion because if you've got a good public school you're not going to

be hurt by people having school choice and maybe some of them going to private school the people would rather send their kids to a public school that is good and teaches the right things not only in reading right and arithmetic but their values are the same as well just just straight value doesn't have to be religious values but just right and wrong values okay so in 2017 and I left at the end of 2018, we still haven't gotten it done. But the momentum was building, okay? Every year we got more interest and more interest. Well, this passed in 2003 or 25, I forget which one it was, but 25, I think, that they passed school choice in Texas.

The largest school choice program in the country allocated $500 million. in a two-year budget cycle to go for parents that wanted to send their kids to someplace other than a public school because it didn't work for them. And the system is set up to where parents with kids with disabilities and low-income parents have the first shot at it. And if there's money left over, other people can apply. So it's essentially open to anyone, but there's a limited amount of money that's available right now. And it started actually this week is the week you could start to apply for that. And it was so

exciting to me that something we started a long time ago that certainly really wasn't about me that's finally gotten done here in Texas. And you have a lot of other states as well. So that's a big, big shout out. If you live in Texas, you can you can just Google school choice in Texas sign up and it'll take you to the link where you can sign up for that and put your application in because you never know. Disability kids can get up to $30,000, which, as you know, special needs education is super expensive. So you can get up to 30,000. Other kids can get up to 10,000. Really, really good program. The other thing, the last thing I want to talk about is something that most of us don't know about, but you remember the big, beautiful bill, right? How could we forget that?

One thing in there was that there's essentially now a $1,700 federal tax credit. And tax credit, remember I've talked about this before, when you have a tax credit, if I owe $3,000 in taxes and I get $1,000 tax credit, I only owe $2,000, okay? Unlike a tax deduction, which is just a percentage of that. So a tax credit is dollar for dollar. And there is a $1,700 tax credit available in 2027. that if that you can take $1,700 off of something you would send to the government. Instead, you would send it to these, what they call scholarship granting organizations, okay?

And their whole deal is to give scholarships initially to low-income kids so that they can have school choice. So why wouldn't you and I, which we should, and if we've got taxes to pay, which we all have taxes to pay, okay? Some of them are taken out of our, you know, payroll and some of them we just pay quarterly is take that $1,700 of that and give it to one of these scholarship organizations so that you can help more kids have school choices. And I know a guy at one of the organizations called ACE Scholarships, ACE, you can look them up. And they say this is going to be an incredible program. So I want you to look into that because those of us that have a tax

liability, which almost all of us do, let's take $1,700 of that and give that to one of these organizations so that they can help a kid have school choice. That would be a really good thing to do. So anyway, thank you for your time today. I hope you enjoyed it. We always appreciate you. I appreciate you supporting Allie and her podcast. Keep praying for her. She's got a busy winter and spring where she's speaking all over the country and, you know, she gets attacked like Miss Hillary did, but Ali knows how to in her own special way and through the grace of God be able to respond to that. Thank you. We'll see you next time.