The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Thursday, August 1, 2024

Starting point is 00:00:04 It's Thursday, August 1st, 2024. I'm Albert Moller. Welcome to the new season of the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, sometimes the avalanche news seems almost overwhelming. It's sometimes hard to know. Is this an unusual season of developments or is this a particularly significant period of history? Are we looking at something unprecedented here? Or is it just a matter of impression? No, it's not just a matter of impression. Over the course of the the last, say, 50, 60, even 40 days, we have seen in this country an utter transformation of the political landscape. Now, that's an exaggeration, if you mean we're resetting, say, the last half century. It is, on the other hand, extremely accurate if you consider what we're looking to in the November presidential election. We really are looking at a changed landscape. And it's changed in a way that is unprecedented. We discussed in the special edition of the briefing after the withdrawal of President Joe Biden from the race. We discussed the fact that nothing like this has happened in presidential history in the United States. Even in 1968, when then-President Lyndon

Starting point is 00:01:14 Johnson withdrew from the race, he did so before the primary season and gave his party the opportunity to have a real contest in terms of who would succeed him as the Democratic nominee in 1968. That turned out, ironically enough, to be his own vice president, Hubert Humphrey, but Humphrey had to win the nomination. He wasn't just desistinged. with it. As a matter of fact, back in 1968, in a way that many people considered disloyal, then-President Lyndon Johnson, in withdrawing from the race, did not even indicate he was giving his support to his own vice president. Humphrey had to go out and gain the nomination. Of course, he did so, and that convention was held in Chicago, just as the Democratic National Convention

Starting point is 00:01:55 is going to be held in Chicago this year. It went down as one of those very dark marks in the history of the Democratic Party, and the party went down to defeat against Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee in 1968. But as we're thinking about the 2024 election and just the last several weeks, let's consider something. Back in June of this year, it appeared that the presidential race was set in concrete. It was going to be the incumbent president of the United States, Joe Biden, as the Democratic nominee, over against Donald Trump, the former president of the United States. And so both parties and the watching public assumed that it was, in effect, a rematch of 2020. But all that changed at the end of June, June 27th, with the debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden,

Starting point is 00:02:42 that ended up being a turning point not only in the 2024 race, but in all likelihood in American presidential history. Joe Biden's performance was so bad, so spectacularly bad, that it gave the Democratic Party the opportunity to topple him. Now, here's what's really important to note. And just a few weeks after these very historic events, a bit of the background becomes more clear. The Democratic Party was pretty much settled in on the fact that Joe Biden was going to lose the 2004 presidential election. That was also an assumption that was shared by the Trump campaign and the Republican Party and by the political class. So if you go back to, let's just say, the afternoon before the debate on June the 27th, both sides thought it was going to be Trump versus. is Biden, Biden was going to lose, and yet by the time you get to just two weeks later,

Starting point is 00:03:34 everything appears to be changed on the political landscape. And of course, most importantly, what's changed is the likely Democratic nominee. We, in a technical sense, have to say likely at this point, because even though Kamala Harris clearly as vice president and with the explicit affirmation of President Biden, has that race wrapped up, at least in terms of the votes of the likely delegates. The reality is that the Democratic Party is going to have two different events upcoming. One of them is something that amounts to something like a virtual call of delegates. And then after that, the actual Democratic National Convention coming in a matter of days in Chicago. So I'm not pushing the theory here that Joe Biden was basically toppled by the Democratic Party

Starting point is 00:04:21 without cause. I'm saying that in the debate on June the 27th, he gave the party the cause. What becomes clear in retrospect is that the party was really looking for some way out of what they saw as an almost certain defeat in the face off of Donald Trump coming in November. And now they have a reset. And by the way, it is upsetting the entire equation of the 2024 election. And when I say the entire equation, it really does mean that because we are looking not only at the fact that the Democrats are going to have a different standard bearer, it's a reset of the entire political equation. And thus, a part of what we're experiencing right now in the headlines unfolding just about every day is the unpredictability of a race that no one was expecting to be between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Nobody, as recently as say, three weeks ago.

Starting point is 00:05:15 In recent days, many in the media have been playing an audio clip of comments made by Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance saying that, subsequent to the Republican National Convention, when the Republicans left believing the campaign was going to be against Joe Biden, the comments are that the Republicans are thrown something of a sucker punch by this switch of the candidates. Now, in that case, Senator Vance was simply saying what everyone else was thinking, because the reality is that this does completely reshape the race. So instead of a Biden-Trump repeat from 2020, we have a very different campaign shaping up, and of course it isn't fully taking shape yet because the big question right now has to do with who will be on the vice presidential slot on the Democratic side because Vice President Kamala Harris is now, it appears

Starting point is 00:06:08 almost certain to be the Democratic presidential nominee. And so it is up to her to choose a running mate, something she says she will do by early next week. She also has pledged to campaign with her choice next week in public events. But here's where many people don't understand that it's basically free publicity for the Kamala Harris campaign to leave the speculation about the vice president's slot open as long as possible. As a matter of fact, something's going on that many people don't recognize. Interestingly, former president Donald Trump does recognize what's going on. And that is the fact that the media is starving Trump and the Republican campaign of media attention by arguing that all the big stories right now are unfolding on the Democratic. democratic side. Now, as is the case in almost every one of these cycles, the media overwhelmingly liberal in political disposition are basically talking about, number one, what interests them,

Starting point is 00:07:04 and secondly, what is going to serve their own political interest. That's not to say that there's no authentic journalism. It is not to say that this is some kind of vast conspiracy. It's actually bigger than that because it's just a social reality. That reality is clearly apparent, not only in what you see with your eyes and hear with your ears when it comes to say television coverage, it also has to do with the fact that just about every major academic survey and academic study of the worldview disposition of the mainstream media indicates just how far left of the American public the major media are. And that's just again. It's a matter of fact, and it's baked into the cake. And so the mainstream media are going to be very much more happy

Starting point is 00:07:49 with the victor of any Democrat in any one of these major contests, the far more liberal candidate, likely to have far more support. And so a lot of this is just playing out. But again, it's playing out right now to the advantage of the Kamala Harris effort, because as long as people are just speculating over and over again about who will be her vice presidential choice, it is just free media. And it's also media time that's not given to what the Republican side would wish the conversation might be about. Now, as we're just considering the options faced by Kamala Harris, it is really interesting that Vice President Harris is almost surely going to choose a white male vice president. So let's be clear, even as there are some who speculated that her she would

Starting point is 00:08:36 choose someone like Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, it's very unlikely that's going to be the ticket. It's also very unlikely that it would be Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. You look at that and you realize, you know, that's just really. adding an awful lot of controversy, and it's also adding a lot of political exposure. And as much as the Democratic Party wants to appear, the party of progressivism in virtually every way, let's just say they also want to get elected. So it's far more likely that the vice presidential choice is going to be someone like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, or Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. But here's where things also get really interesting, because one of the

Starting point is 00:09:18 most accomplished to the politicians on that list is Josh Shapiro, who is the governor of Pennsylvania, is an extremely tactical, political force, also with great strategic background. He is considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, but he's got a big problem, and that problem comes out, and it's the fact that he has been at least open to the idea of vouchers when it comes to schools. Now, I want to say he hasn't delivered on that speculation and that support that he's offered in the past. As a matter of fact, he's probably running from it because the teachers unions are so powerful. The educational establishment driven by the teachers' unions is so powerful in the Democratic Party. The very fact that he has been open to such vouchers in the past is probably enough to disqualify him

Starting point is 00:10:05 that won't be acknowledged in terms of being the choice for the Harris ticket in 2024. And so it's a process of elimination. There's another interesting development here. Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota, has all the sudden kind of risen in the speculation, somewhat because of his energy and his own brand of political populism and the fact that he's kind of trademarked the word weird when he applies it to the Republican ticket. And somehow that has resonance in the Democratic Party, they see him as something of a political brawler who would add a bit of energy to the Kamala Harris ticket. The problem for Kamala Harris is that Tim Walls is that Tim Walls is so,

Starting point is 00:10:46 energetic, it's going to be very hard to see how he would play the second role in any major political arrangement. Really energetic, politically powerful vice presidents have often been extremely frustrated in that office, and they've often threatened or frustrated the person at the top of the ticket. The classic example of that was when John F. Kennedy chose Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson as his running mate that was largely to balance the ticket in order to gain the electoral votes of a state like Texas. But even as Kennedy made that choice, it was something that was opposed by many in his own campaign, particularly his brother and campaign manager, then Robert F. Kennedy. And the reality is that Lyndon Johnson hated being vice president.

Starting point is 00:11:34 And that's an understatement. Now, one other issue we need to consider is why prominent Democrats didn't challenge Kamala Harris for the lead role in 2024. Now, you might say, well, one reason is that you had President Biden kind of anoint her. But President Biden was not so powerful at that point that he could anoint anyone. No, there are two big issues that likely frame the reason why Democrats call us so quickly, indeed almost breathtakingly quickly, around Kamala Harris. And that would be the political context of 2024 and the political context of 2008. Why both of those realities? First of all, the political context of 2024. There were only about 100 days left in the campaign

Starting point is 00:12:18 when the Democrats decided they would coales us around Kamala Harris. And that's because the election's coming and it's coming fast and there is an incredible amount of work to do. And quite frankly, the Democrats were largely flat-footed in terms of figuring out even how they're going to do the mechanics of the Democratic National Convention. So far as I know, some of those details are still not worked out. And so you had the party realized that the 2024 context was really explosive.

Starting point is 00:12:47 And, of course, the big issue was how in the world, given identity politics, how in the world, given the progressivism in the driver's seat in the Democratic Party, could under these emergency circumstances, the party turn away from a vice president who is an Asian American, African American woman, and would be the first woman president of the United States? how in the world could the Democrats explain to their own constituency how they had somehow rejected Kamala Harris in order to anoint someone else? So that was largely impossible, 2004. There's something else going on. A lot of the major candidates who just might have been able, in some context, to mount a serious challenge, they didn't want to run against Donald Trump in the fall. They are saving their political opportunity for four years later. And so if Kamala Harris wins, well, that political opportunity may be eight years incoming for the Democrats, but if Kamala Harris loses, 2008 looms massive in terms of the Democratic opportunity.

Starting point is 00:13:50 And don't mistake the fact that there are at least, say, 10 to 12 to 15, maybe more major Democrats who see themselves on the top of a presidential poster in 2008. That's a big part of this equation. But even as the media speculation included many others as potential vice presidents, and at least at this point, you have to say as vice presidential candidates, they are still at least possibilities, including Kentucky Governor Andy Bashir. Now, here's where things get really interesting. And I'm speaking, of course, as a resident of Kentucky. I'm speaking to you from Kentucky. Andy Bashir is the twice elected governor of the state of Kentucky. But he is not a political miracle. His father served terms in state government, including two terms as governor. And there was just a

Starting point is 00:14:39 four-year period between Steve Beshear, the father serving two terms as eight years as Kentucky governor, and then Andy Bashir being elected and, of course, then re-elected. But this has a lot to do with name recognition in a state like Kentucky. Andy Bashir is far to the left of most Kentucky. And by the way, if you just break down the counties, he lost like a hundred of them. But he won in the big urban areas, insofar as Kentucky has, it's a handful of larger urban areas. They're more Democrat, they are more liberal, and he won there. He basically motivated the turnout. He has also come out as a brawler in terms of the fact that he obviously would like the vice presidential nod from Kamala Harris, and particularly on the issue of abortion. And so that's an indication

Starting point is 00:15:26 in the state of Kentucky that he understands his political future is decidedly not inside the state of Kentucky. There have been speculation he might run for the U.S. Senate. He doesn't appear to be the legislative type, but it is clear that he sees his place in terms of the political future in terms of national politics among the Democrats, not so much in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Of course, a part of the political calculation has to do with the fact that Josh Shapiro just might deliver Pennsylvania, which a Democratic presidential candidate has to win. That was also something that was speculated with North Carolina Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, because it was speculated if he was on the ticket, he just might be able to bring North Carolina into the Democratic camp.

Starting point is 00:16:09 That would offer at least some kind of political gain for the Democrats. But Roy Cooper withdrew without much explanation from consideration, maybe because he really didn't see himself as the vice presidential type at this state, in his life. But you're also looking at other states. That's where Mark Kelly, U.S. senator from Arizona, if he delivered Arizona, might deliver a margin that becomes essential to any hope of Kamala Harris and the Democrats of winning in the electoral college. But then again, if you listen to the pollsters who are talking right now, they keep saying that Kamala Harris has narrowed the gap, that it is now an even race. But then you also have people like

Starting point is 00:16:49 Nate Silver at the New York Times that come back and say, well, in an even race, the Republican wins because of the electoral college. So all of this right now is very much in flux, and you can expect there's going to be a lot of disequilibrium between now and election day in November. But what I want to underline, what I want to stress is that the worldview issues are a constant. And if anything, those worldview issues now loom even larger. And that's because, as I have often tried to explain, Joe Biden basically was the gateway drug into the left wing of the Democratic. Party. It was openly understood that he was chosen at a specific point in the 2020 Democratic race because he was liberal enough to get the nomination, but not so liberal as to have

Starting point is 00:17:37 no chance in the general election. That's where Kamala Harris, when she was running for the 2020 Democratic nomination, took positions that were so far to the left, she didn't even make it to the first delegate counts. By the way, you've had some political observer saying, Where are the Republican attack ads, given all the statements that she's made in terms of her past as Attorney General in California and even as a United States Senator, which at least one year she was identified by one rating organization as the most liberal senator. Well, as you look at it, you say, why are not ads running showing some of those comments? And I think the best explanation is the Republicans really didn't think this was going to happen. And they sure didn't think it was going to happen with this kind of speed. And so, yeah, the vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, said it was a sucker punch.

Starting point is 00:18:28 They're having to recover, but it is likely that in the next, say, 90-something days before election day, you're going to hear a lot from Kamala Harris from, say, 2019 and 2020, courtesy of the Republicans. But as we think of worldview issues that really are of urgent concern to evangelicals, it's hard to come up to one that's more important than the sanctity and dignity of human life and the issue of abortion. And clearly, as we have acknowledged, we have a massive challenge here. But when we're looking at Kamala Harris, well, she certainly helps to make that challenge very, very clear. Remember that back in March of this year, it was March the 14th, Kamala Harris's vice president became the first U.S. president or vice president to visit an abortion clinic.

Starting point is 00:19:12 In other words, in order to prove just how pro-abortion she and her party are, the vice president went to a Planned Parenthood Clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota, where abortions were interrupted just long enough for the vice president to make a visit. Now, I consider that one of the dark marks, not only of this administration, but of the American presidential history. And by the way, within just a couple of days of Kamel Harris claiming to have wrapped up the race for the Democratic nomination in terms of the aftermath of President Biden's withdrawal, Vice President Harris's husband, Doug Imhoff, made his own visit to an abortion clinic just to make the whole picture crystal clear. Now, remember that going back to the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination,

Starting point is 00:20:00 it was then Senator Kamala Harris who ambushed former Vice President Joe Biden at that point on the question of abortion, questioning his bona fides in support of abortion, and in particular asking him to condemn his own previous support for the Hyde Amendment, preventing U.S. taxpayers from being forced to pay for abortion. Now, here's the thing. Eventually, Kamal Harris did withdraw from the Democratic race. Eventually, Joe Biden did ask her to be his vice presidential running mate. But Biden did surrender on the issue of the Hyde Amendment and basically, in order to gain the nomination, sold his soul to the pro-abortion cause. And so I don't think that was such a big issue for Joe Biden. because he's basically been pro-abortion, at least in terms of legislation, as long as he has been

Starting point is 00:20:49 in public life in the United States. But he's trying to carry off this game plan of appearing to be kind of personally opposed to abortion for the years he was in the Senate, but nonetheless supportive of Roe v. Wade, something very similar to the arrangement made by the Kennedy family. Most importantly, the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. In other words, I am personally opposed to abortion by my Roman Catholic conviction, but I'm for abortion rights because I don't want to impose a theological view on the American people. But you'll notice that Joe Biden's not talking that way so long as he's been in the White House, and Joe Biden hasn't been talking that way for a long time. It's like problem with abortion. Who has a problem with abortion? The press gets hung up on the fact that

Starting point is 00:21:33 President Biden doesn't like to use the word. Well, here's a shift. Kamala Harris apparently loves to use the word. She would be the most pro-abortion figure in the white. House ever. While she was in the Senate, Kamala Harris pushed a bill supporting abortion modeled after the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That proposed legislation, which she was pushing, would have allowed federal courts to have pre-review of any state restrictions on abortion. This is a process legally known as pre-clearance. She went right after the ability of states to protect unborn life. Now, it's really interesting right now that the Harris campaign is saying that her policy and abortion is basically to continue the campaign pledge made by

Starting point is 00:22:17 President Joe Biden saying that what he wants to do is the legislate Roe. But here's where we just have to press for full honesty. There is no way that this Democratic Party is going to propose legislation that would merely horrifying, as this is in itself, put Roe back in place by legislation. Because the Democratic Party is committed to a position on abortion that's far to the left, even of Roe v. Wade. And certainly when it comes to Kamala Harris, that has been her policy. So thus far, the press has let her get by without making that clarification. The only statements I know that have been made about this issue have been made on her behalf by persons associated with the Harris campaign. That's not going to work as a long-term strategy. She's going to have to

Starting point is 00:23:01 answer the question. Well, here we are. And as we're talking about the political reset, we're going to have to talk about the Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance and controversy surrounding Senator Vance when it comes to statements about childlessness. And we're going to turn to that next week and in a big way. Because even though the press is just making this a matter of controversy, there are very serious worldview issues here that are of deep and unavoidable interest to Christians. And so we're going to be looking at that. We're going to be looking at other parts of the 2024 campaign,

Starting point is 00:23:35 And of course, we have similar developments coming, for example, in the aftermath of the assassination attempt against President Donald Trump. Just a matter of days ago, the director of the Secret Service resigned. And just a matter of even fewer days ago, there was a rather confrontational experience in the United States Senate in a hearing in which authorities from the Secret Service are trying to explain what did and did not take place. Then, even in more recent days, you have had local police authorities in open conflict with statements made by the Secret Service even in that senatorial hearing. So it is going to get very, very interesting. And of course, as we think about the need for kind of resetting where we stand, we're going to have to look not only at issues here in the United States, where we have to

Starting point is 00:24:22 look at issues on the world scene. And of course, the biggest, most urgent thing right now is the fact that Israel is having to defend itself not only against Hamas and Gaza, but Hezbollah in Lebanon. and the big question right now in recent headlines, we'll discuss them thoroughly, is what this is going to mean in terms of the possibility of war between Iran and Israel. And that's where we need to understand, like it or not, acknowledge it or not. Israel and the United States are linked together in a very important and inseparable way when it comes to having an enemy such as Iran. And it's interesting to note that leaders in Iran have been very quick to make that point. So once again, welcome to a new season of the briefing, and no, you're not imagining things. We are in a very, very intensive period of world developments.

Starting point is 00:25:13 And, of course, the headlines in the United States and globally compel our attention. And undeniably, they are filled with issues of vast worldview significance. We'll do our best to unpack these things together day by day. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, you 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 sbtsk.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again

Starting point is 00:25:43 tomorrow for the briefing.

The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Thursday, August 1, 2024

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