The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Thursday, April 3, 2025

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 - 09:14)A Big Loss in Wisconsin: The Politicization of the Judiciary and Major Liberal Win Tuesday in WisconsinPart II (09:14 - 10:12)Where are the Conservatives on Election Day? Republicans Turn Out for Trump, But Have a Huge Problem When It Comes to Special ElectionsPart III (10:12 - 22:34)A Third Term for President Trump? He May Be Joking, But Real Obstacles Remain and Dangers LurkTwenty-Second Amendment by Constitution of the United StatesTrump Attorney Studied Options for Third Presidential Term by The Wall Street Journal (Annie Linskey and Josh Dawsey)Part IV (22:34 - 29:01)The President’s Comprehensive Tariff Announcement: Is Trump’s Strategy Right? Will It Work? – Only Time Will TellSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Thursday, April 3, 2025. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, the so-called spring elections that took place on Tuesday are now known to us in terms of the results. In Wisconsin, the liberal candidate won the Supreme Court seat. That's a very big story. And from a conservative perspective, a very sad story. It shows the politicization of law in this country and the fact that the courts themselves, which are supposed to be the least political unit of our or branch of our government have turned out to be highly political, and this really began on the left when the progressives could not get, as they styled themselves, what they wanted through legislation. Instead, on an issue like abortion, Roe v. Wade, they went to the court, and eventually, in the 1973, Roe v. Wade decision, they got what they wanted, reversed, of course, by the Dobbs decision in

2002. But the courts have been an ideological battleground ever since. Now, there's a sense in which the courts have to be about the biggest ideas, the clash and conflicts that come in the constitutional process. But when you start talking about candidates as conservative and liberal, and you know you're also saying at the same time in Wisconsin, let's be honest, Republican and Democrat, then it's really dishonest to turn around and say this is a non-political court. It is a highly political court. So I want to demonstrate to you why that is so. I'm going to use the words of Judge Susan Crawford, who soon will be Justice Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate in this race.

She made a statement in which she said, after winning the election, quote, today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections, and our Supreme Court. She went on to say, quote, Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price, our courts are not for sale, end quote. Okay, all right. Here, the winning candidate, the new liberal justice, this is the swing seat, by the way, so that means liberals will maintain control of the Supreme Court.

You are now looking at a situation in which the newest justice came on and said that her victory was the salvation of the court. Now, that means she's saying that her election prevents something else from happening. What would that have been? It would have been the election of a conservative justice rather than a liberal justice. And as I said, just in terms of practical effects, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin has a lot of say over the districting when it comes down to congressional districts. and redrong those lines could be to the advantage of Democrats or liberals slash and to the disadvantage of Republicans or conservatives. And the fact that that was right out and open in this race tells you again, you can't say with any honesty this is a non-political court. And by the way, that is not just because of the left right now.

Frankly, both sides understand that the courts have been politicized and neither side can afford just to be out of that battle. Little footnote here, by the way, one of the things the left most fears, is that there will be an opportunity for President Trump to name a fourth or fifth justice to the Supreme Court. Now, they're hedging the bets a little bit when they look at the current composition of the court, because if it is a conservative seat that comes open and President Trump nominates a conservative, that's just a net stability for the court. Conservatives would gain if there is the retirement, death, or resignation of a liberal member of the court. But the odds right now are because of a majority of conservatives on the court that the likelihood is that the retirement might be a conservative.

And that just points out that the election of Kamala Harris is president with the ability to nominate liberal justices to the court. She had better odds of being able to change the direction of the court. Then you look at the election of Donald Trump. You could say at the very least it prevented the nominees that would have come from a president Kamala Harris. That's very important, as I said, in the lead up to the election. but it would be unprecedented in at least modern American history if anyone a single president were able to appoint four or more justices of the Supreme Court. Just remember Jimmy Carter was president of the United States and never had the opportunity

to make a nomination to the nation's highest court. Donald Trump in one term had three. We'll see what happens in the second term. But we know right now that if that happens with the Supreme Court of the United States, that immediately if a Republican president makes an appointment, a conservative appointment, that's going to have Republican support. It's going to have Democratic opposition. And you just flip, that's the way it is right now. It wasn't supposed to be that way, but it is. It's also very clear to us that when you look at Susan Crawford, we're not just looking at someone who's very liberal in these issues. She has been an advocate for an attorney for Planned Parenthood. And we'll return to that in

just a moment. But that's a signal of the kind of judicial activism we're going to expect there. want to go back to something that soon to be Justice Crawford said. In that speech, she said that Wisconsin, quote, fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy and fair elections, etc., what's she talking about? Well, here's one of the interesting developments in that race. The interesting development was the involvement of Elon Musk, head of Doge, founder of Tesla, he just go down the list, world's richest man, he poured a lot of money into supporting the conservative candidate. And here's what's really, really interesting. It's very irritating, but we need to watch what's going on here. You had people on the left complain that Elon Musk's money was an unfair

intrusion into the process. And frankly, Elon Musk is trying some creative things, such as basically financial advantages for, you know, entering into a contest upon registering for the election, etc., etc., that kind of thing. The big point is that everything's contested these days. So the moment you say Elon Musk, you're saying Donald Trump, and that means the left is going to go at whatever is the issue of the proposal with everything they've got. And they're using Elon Musk. Here's what's really interesting. They're using Elon Musk as a symbol to scare away voters. And you can only say after the election this week that it was an effective strategy. So that tells us something. And Elon Musk is not shy. I think that's a fair thing to say. Neither is his friend, President Trump,

shy. Neither one is shy. But that means that he, can and now has become a symbol against which the other side can organize. That's the double-sidedness of that kind of political or public role. The double-sidedness is, yes, it excites your side, but it offends the other side. The math comes down to answering the question, does the involvement of Elon Musk bring out more conservative voters who otherwise wouldn't vote, or does it bring out more liberal voters? In Wisconsin, at least, the math is clear. It brought out more oppositional liberal voters. What does that mean for the future? Well, you know, that's going to be analyzed, but the math in this case is pretty clear.

But here's something else, and I say, say I was irritated about this. I think we all should be irritated. You had the national media and others talking about the singular outside funding brought in by Elon Musk. And so the conservative candidate had big money when it comes to Elon Musk. Well, all right, except given the data we have right now, the liberal candidate had more outside support, including, by the way, support from George Soros directly in this campaign, just as he has involved himself now for decades in this kind of liberal cause. And at least there is credible reporting right now that at the end of the day, the liberal candidate will have had more big money funding than the conservative. But, you know, if you can break it down into several smaller gifts, politically at least, the media will give you a buy or at least a pass.

and even pass on what turns out to be a false argument. Oh, and by the way, one other thing to watch, you know, given the reporting that has to come after an election in terms of the financing and the support and contributions and all the rest, we will know the truth in this, or at least we will know what are the legal submissions, but the press will have been moved on far beyond that by that point. They're not going to come back and say,

oh, you know, we made a mistake. We mischaracterized that. No. Next story, move on. That's the way it works. In Florida, the two congressional seats, they were open in both cases because individuals resigned those seats to accept appointments in terms of high office in the Trump administration. That includes Mike Waltz, who held the sixth district seat.

He resigned to become national security advisor to the president. The Republican candidate won that election not as handily as had been expected. Come back to that in just a moment. In the first district, that position had been held by Matt Gates. And he resigned at that point. point due to an expected nomination as President Trump's Attorney General. As you know, not rehearsing all that, didn't work out. But nonetheless, that seat was open and again, the Republican one. So this does not change the party composition of the House of Representatives because of it had. If either or much less both of those seats had gone to the Democrats, it would have made this situation very difficult for the Republican leadership in the House. It's a narrow margin already.

But there is a bigger issue here and that has to do with turnout and it is a warning. It turns out that the left is more motivated to turn out the vote in off-year elections. Or to put it another way, it turns out that conservatives are less likely to show up to vote in off-year elections. So at this point, it is clear that when President Trump's name is on the ballot, conservatives show up. Republicans show up. Swing voters show up, and as was reflected in election day back in 2024. But when you don't have a presidential candidate on the ballot, and in particular, evidently right now on the Republican side, when you don't have Donald Trump's name on the ballot, the turnout is not the same, and that's a huge problem. Because you cannot have a comprehensive advance in terms of policy if you don't show up to crucial elections just because, They're not presidential elections.

But, you know, at this point, we have to turn to another big headline issue, which has to do with elections and Donald Trump. And whether or not, President Donald Trump, who is in the position of holding a second term after the interregnum between his first term. So he elected first in 2016, elected to a second term in 2024. Even during the campaign, President Trump kind of toyed with this idea about running for a third term. earlier in terms of previous years, he made the point that that's not constitutionally possible and it wasn't going to happen. More recently, including in some recent comments to the press, not only people around the president, but the president himself has left open the idea of a third term. In an interview just in recent days, the president said that he was in his own words,

quote, not joking about staying in office as president after his current term concludes in 2009. As the Wall Street Journal said, this jumpstarted, quote, a long-simmering Washington debate over just how serious he is about seeking a third term. The journal went on to say, quote, the president in an interview with NBC News pointed to unnamed methods for clenching another four years in office. It then simply adds this. Trump would be 82 at the end of his second term, end quote. So is this real or not? Is the president serious or not? Is the Constitution clear or not, well, let's just admit those are important questions. As to what exactly the president means, I think only he knows. And even on that, it might be provisional, just given the fact that this is

2025, the president pointed out in that NBC news interview that an election next time seems a long way off. Now, it won't for long because that's the way presidential politics works. I think at least a part what's behind this is that every second-term president dislikes the fact that there is no third term on the horizon, which means that there's a ticking clock, and thus there is a political weakening of a second-term president precisely because he is not going to be in office in any point more than four years after he enters the office. So at that point, you know, every turn of the page means another day gone. I pointed, as I said, to one foreign ambassador, speaking of the disequilibrials. who was counting the months to the next president of the United States. And that's a problem for an incumbent

president in a second term. And every single second term president feels that problem. By the way, it's also just a fact that it's a great historical achievement to have that second term. So it's also interesting you have people asking, well, is the president serious about this? I mean, how serious could he be about this? The president said he's not joking, which by the way, I found funny. because of how many times President Biden has been lampooned for just constantly saying, no joke. So, no joke. President Trump said he's not joking about the possibility of a third term.

Okay, so what does the Constitution say? Well, let's just remember the 22nd Amendment that came after the long four-election presidency of Franklin Dono Roosevelt. He didn't serve four full terms. He was elected to four terms. He died shortly after. matter of fact, beginning his fourth term. But the point is, he was elected four times president of the United States. Now, that was unprecedented. It was President George Washington, the very first president of the United States, who set the example of serving two terms and then going back home

to his farm. And ever since then, largely out of respect to Washington and his example in terms of the American presidency, it was considered just beyond imagination that someone would run for a third term. Now, when it comes to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the reason he ran for a third term, as he said, and the reason he was elected to a third and then a fourth was because the entire world picture had shifted. In terms of the first two terms, the main issue was responding to the Great Depression. In terms of the second two elections, the big issue was World War II. And thus, you can understand why the nation would have been quite hesitant to shift commanders in chief in the middle of the biggest war in world history.

But it's also interesting to know that some two-term presidents after Roosevelt and after the 22nd Amendment, which, by the way, was originally pushed by Republicans, understandably, since Roosevelt was a Democratic candidate in those four elections, he won. You had even President Dwight Eisenhower, two-term Republican president, basically won the 1952 and 1956 elections was ineligible to run in 1960, but even he said he had been advised. he said by his attorney general, William Rogers, that he might be able, nonetheless, to continue as president if he ran on the ballot as vice president and then the person elected president resigned in order to give way so that he could serve a third term. So far as I know, President

Eisenhower didn't say to the press, I'm not joking, but the fact is that it does not appear that was a serious consideration. And later, William Rogers, his attorney general, said that the conversation had never taken place. of the president, what does the Constitution say? The 22nd Amendment, which was ratified in 1951 to prevent anything like Roosevelt happening again, the 22nd Amendment states, quote, no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, end quote. Now, once again, you look at that and you go, were they not thinking? Why did they say, no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice? That's not enough.

We certainly see right now that's not enough because it only speaks to election. And so it's just a reminder that when you're, say, amending something like the Constitution, you better foresee, or at least work at foreseeing, answering some questions that aren't directly answered. This says clearly no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. So you turn around and say no president can serve more than two terms in office. But that's not exactly what it says. Because you also look at it and you see that if the person is a vice president who ascends to the presidency, basically serving, I'll just summarize it, something like two years or less, he can run for election,

then he can run for election again, which could mean that under the 22nd Amendment, you could easily have a president for a right about 10 years. So that is actually being president more than two terms, which is probably why the language was written as it was written. but you also have the fact that the 22nd Amendment just speaks to election, doesn't speak to service in terms of this limitation. Okay. So President Eisenhower said he was advised that it could be possible that you could have the president say switch places with the vice president. You could have the election and that vice president could be elected president, then could

resign giving way to the vice president to become president again. you say that sounds complicated? Well, of course it does. It's also fairly implausible. It works under an autocracy because this is almost exactly what Vladimir Putin did over the course of the last several decades. When he was term limited to two terms as the president of Russia, he instead had his prime minister run as president, and he served as prime minister, but all the power went to the prime minister. So it wasn't a switch of titles, but it was very clearly a game in which Vladimir Putin stayed in power. Then he came back to the the presidency again and then basically eliminated any meaningful term limits. So guess who's the

president of Russia right now? Vladimir Putin. Okay, so it's fair to say that's exactly what the framers of the 22nd Amendment did not want. But what about that idea that you could have a switch and the president runs as vice president and thus isn't elected as president, but then the president who is elected resigns and he takes office? Well, the problem there is the 12th amendment. Because the 12th Amendment, and you do the math, it's considerably older than the 22nd Amendment, the 12th Amendment says that no one may be on the ballot as vice president who has not qualified to be president. Now, the big issue there was not the two terms. The big issue there presumably was someone born outside the United States running for that office. The Constitution requires that the

president of the United States be a native-born citizen. It doesn't say the same about other offices. So I think that's the reason why the 12th Amendment states what it states. But it does state that someone who's not qualified to serve as a president can't be on the ballot as vice president. And, you know, there are all kinds of law professors who are debating this. Very well-known law article written back during the Clinton administration, when Clinton's numbers were, by the way, really high. Didn't always stay that way, but they were really high. People were asking the question, you know, is he going to try to run for a third term? And so you had constitutional scholars come back and say, well, it might be possible simply because you could kind of maneuver around the 12th and

maneuver around the 22nd amendments and somehow come up with this. But here's one of the big problems. That assumes the American people who would obviously know what's going on want that to happen. It also assumes that you'd have a vice president who'd agree to resign after having been elected president of the United States. I'll just say, you know, human nature being what it is, I see that is rather implausible. From a Christian perspective, understanding that, that term limits and the separation of powers are about avoiding the concentration of power that could end up, given our understanding of sin, to be a very dangerous, dangerous situation. That's a Christian understanding. So that Christian understanding of not wanting to give sin the opportunity, to give

the opportunity for a tyrant, you don't want to concentrate that kind of power in one man for too long. You can understand why the separation of powers is in place and the term limits are in place. And I just don't think it's very likely that the American people are going to say, I think we'll just dispense with that. I think it's also very difficult to imagine the American people, the voters being complicit with the idea that wink, wink, we're voting for a presidential candidate only for that to be switched after the election. I think that's like a wink too much for the American people. I'm just going to say, I don't think that's going to happen. Of course, there are some who could say, well, all you need to do is just amend the 22nd amendment. but the process of amending the Constitution is incredibly cumbersome. And by the way,

conservatives want it that way. We don't want the Constitution in the United States treated like something you can just put on a word processor and change at will. So the political requirements in terms of the congressional votes and in terms of the ratification from a sufficient number of states makes it virtually impossible that that can happen in any short number of years, except in unusual circumstances. So yes, is that hypothetically possible? Yes, absolutely. Given the political realities now, is it likely to happen? No way. I would not be surprised if President Trump is not thinking some of these thoughts. I mean, frankly, given, you know, being in the Oval Office, it'd be hard not to think some of these thoughts. I am certainly not saying that advisors around the president aren't suggesting and perhaps even enriching some of these thoughts. That's what happens. And the Christian worldview also helps to explain that when you have a concentration of power in concentric circles. It's everyone's interest, perhaps, in the White House right now, to go along. We I think it's also very interesting to see how many people are saying, you know, we don't know exactly what to do with this. I think that is probably the strategy of the president in terms of even the way he's responding to the issue.

He wants to be very clear that he believes in energy in the executive. So to be honest, this is a serious issue, but we don't know if even President Trump means this seriously. And I think that's exactly the dynamic that we see here. And it's going to take some time for that to become clear. In the meantime, you can count on this. There are a lot of law professors deep in those books and statutes and constitutional arguments right now because all of a sudden this has become a live issue right in our time. The other big issue we need to think about and think about in terms of worldview and principles is the tariff announcement the president made yesterday. and without going into detail, it's a pretty comprehensive, no, it's a very comprehensive tariff announcement. It has to do basically with all import, special conditions for certain industries, certain nations that are being responded to with reciprocal tariffs. In some cases,

the president pointed out, the tariff the U.S. is going to put on, or actually legally put on yesterday, is not as big or as severe as the tariff that nation puts on America. and imported goods. The bottom line in all this is this right? Is this fair? Is this going to work? And the answer is, first of all, to take, is it going to work? Time will tell. This is a very volatile situation. The president clearly thinks that the imposition of tariffs is a way to recover from lost ground in terms of economic developments over the course of the last 30 to 40 years. The president clearly believes that. He believes that other nations have prospered to the disadvantage of the United States. He believes that other nations have gained jobs to the

the disadvantage of jobs in the United States. He believes that the American Treasury, and he hasn't said this as clearly as he could have, but he does believe that the American Treasury has been impoverished by a lack of income that would come to the U.S. Treasury, which, on the other hand, is going to the treasuries of other nations by the terrorists they put on American goods. Okay, so that's the basic background in terms of the decision. The President had run on this. The President talked about this and even dealt with the issue to a certain extent in his first term. And he has shocked some by the comprehensiveness and the energy and the depth and the severity of these tariffs. But this is not a basic change in his policy.

It is a change in the policy of the United States government, which for the course of decades now has been increasingly committed to what's defined as free trade. President Trump has said from the beginning, he thinks free trade is number one an oxymoron. It's really not free trade. and that's because all these other countries, so many of these other countries, already had tariffs against American goods. And, you know, so much for your free trade. You might call it more honestly freer trade. Of course, this is complex. And in a fallen world, in a world of so much complexity, which there's so many motivations and so many nations involved with their own national interests, so many corporations involved, so many transnational corporations involved. This is going to be a very complex picture. Is this going to work or not? I just want to say honestly, we don't know. No one knows. There's some experience based upon prior

tariffs. There's some extrapolation you can make. Some people close to the president are talking about trillions of dollars coming into the nation's treasury. Well, that happens if the current levels of trade or anticipated levels of trade by import and tariff income work. But if that doesn't work, people change their economic behavior. You can't end up with something else. And that gets to two other issues. And that is the fact that people change their economic behavior. For example, you have headlines right now that many Americans are simply putting off the decisions to make a big purchase because they're waiting to see what the conditions might be. They don't want to end up paying too much in terms of the tariffs. The price increase might scare them off.

On the other hand, you have the fact that there are multiple parties in all of this that aren't nations. This is something that other people have to watch. There are multiple parties in this that aren't nations. They're multinational corporations. Do they gain or do they lose? well, by and large, they have been working for years against the idea of nations as economic units and towards a global economy. And all that goes with that. So they're not pleased with this.

The other side of the American people is that even as many of these jobs and industries have shifted overseas, where labor is cheaper, even with transportation, the product is cheaper, Americans have grown accustomed to walking into a big box discount store. buying a bicycle made elsewhere at a very low price with all of these tariffs. And, you know, it's said by the White House, so some of these companies will absorb them. Well, the answer is not for long. I mean, that's not going to happen for long. The prices are going to go up. And you also have the fact that the economic markets, they work on the expectation of what's around the corner. That's the way they work. They're not just working on the economic conditions today. they're making their decisions based upon their assumption of how the economy is going to work around the corner. And terrorists throw a wrench into that.

And that could lead to disequilibrium in the markets. And honestly, that could lead to an awful lot of political pressure on the White House. We simply don't know. Sometimes the most honest thing you can say about a proposal like this is we don't know. Too many moving parts. Too many independent decisions to be made. too many governments involved, too many marbles just throwing out on the table. But I think the president did that on purpose. He clearly believes in tariffs. And we will see

where the marbles go. One last thought on this. When you look at tariff policy, the president is pointing towards a mid or long range goal. That probably ties in to some of what we talked about before. If people just assume that all of this can be undone within a relatively short number of years, they will make decisions accordingly. Those aren't the decisions President Trump wants. He wants responses to these tariffs now in response to the policy goals he has. He wants to accomplish before he leaves office. And there are so many ways in which the office of the president of the United States is invested with just jaw-dropping power and authority, such as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. But when it comes to a lot of these

economic issues, yes, the president can announce these tariffs. But effectively, I'm going to go back to the picture I use. He took a big box. some marbles and threw them on the table. We're about to find out where the marbles go. In the meantime, let's hope that the economy itself doesn't lose its marbles. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmuller.com. You can follow me on Twitter or X by going to Twitter.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsd.U. For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.