The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Thursday, June 25, 2026

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.On today’s edition of The Briefing, Dr. Mohler discusses huge wins by Democratic socialists in American cities, the shift even further left by Democrats, the gambling case of Brendan Sorsby, and Luigi Mangione’s new defense strategy.Part I (00:14 – 11:19)The Socialist Surge: Democratic Socialists Score Huge Wins in Democratic Primaries in American CitiesWith Win in Washington, Socialists Have Momentum in Urban America by The New York Times (Campbell Robertson, Jill Cowan, and Anna Griffin)Gen-Z socialism, from Zohran to Zack and beyond by The EconomistPart II (11:19 – 13:58)The Resurgent Left and the Democratic Party: The Democrats Appear to Shift Left—Even Far Left—And the Old Liberals Are Thrown OutThe left is coming for Democratic incumbents by The EconomistPart III (13:58 – 24:38)A Win Against Out of Control Sports Gambling: The NFL Says No to Brendan SorsbyBrendan Sorsby drama ends, but not before tearing college football apart by USA Today (Matt Hayes)The NFL Rejects the Quarterback at the Heart of College Football’s Gambling Storm by The Wall Street Journal (Andrew Beaton)Part IV (24:38 – 27:16)Luigi Mangione Needs a New Defense Strategy: It Turns Out That the Emotional Distress Defense Has a DownsideSign 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, June 25th, 2006. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Sometimes there are headlines that scream out there's been a major political development. Sometimes it's just a headline. But sometimes there's a lot more to it than a headline. Just consider the headlines that are running in the aftermath of Tuesday's Election Day, certainly in primaries across the country. How's this? Socialists gaining momentum in urban areas.

areas. We're talking about the word socialist, and this does turn out to be a very legitimate story. It's a huge development. Now, just to cut quickly to the bottom line, what we're talking about here is the fact that in many of America's urban centers, younger Democratic voters are shifting not only to the left, but way to the left in an historic pattern that, frankly, defies all the experience of the last several decades. That's not to say that younger Democrats haven't been liberal haven't been moving left. It is to say, wow, this is a big shift. So just as an example, the economist, that major news magazine in Britain ran a cover story on Gen Z socialism. And it's looking at the United States, but it's also looking elsewhere. It's looking beyond. But the big

story, no doubt about it, is here in the United States. And this big story, of course, gained headlines just over the last several days and hours because of the big swing to the left in primaries in New York City. And that's because Mayor Zora Mundani, let's just remind ourselves, who is a socialist. He is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He was pushing fellow candidates with affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America. And in three big races, he won. And we're talking about congressional seats. We're talking about things that really matter. And so you also had Mayor Mondami pushing candidates who are running against incumbent Democrats. And that's another huge part of this story.

As the Wall Street Journal reported, quote, Progressive Allies of Zohram-Mamdani swept through New York primaries Tuesday, handing defeats to mainstream Democrats in deep blue congressional districts and boosting the New York City's mayors standing as a kingmaker in the party. The story continues. Former New York City controller Brad Lander ousted incumbent Representative Dan Goldman. Okay, so now you have a situation in which you have a leftist Democrat running against someone who would have been considered a liberal Democrat. That's how far this lurched to the left,

and that's how energetic it is. And we are told that the race centered on Israel and the war in Gaza. Once again, just consider the fact that we're talking about one of the largest concentrations of Jewish voters, which also overlays one of the most liberal congressional districts in the United States. Now, far more liberal than it was just Monday. You also had two other candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, very much backed by Mayor Momdani, who went on to win. And that means almost assuredly they're going to win in the general election because of the Democratic supermajority there in the city of New York. But there were other primaries. There are other races as well. Over the course of the last several weeks, we're talking about mayoral candidates in cities in California, big cities, also in the capital city of the United States of America in Washington, D.C. And you have another headline. How's this from the Washington Post? America's new socialist mayors face a grim fiscal reality.

They go on to say this. This is what's important in terms of understanding what's happening. Quote, socialism rise is spiky, concentrated in blue cities where affluent but often downwardly mobile college graduates cluster. That's a problem for the Democratic Party, says the post, quote, where the excesses of progressive governance are helping to make the party's brand toxic in the less true blue areas. But it's also a challenge for the socialist because cities are the hardest place to execute big plans for new taxing and spending. End quote. Okay, really, really fascinating thing here. You have this massive lurch to the left. I think that's the most important worldview concern. We're talking about alerts to the left, and the left was already the left. But we're talking about an abandonment of anything connected to classic political

liberalism in the 20th century. And now you're talking about the embrace of socialism. Let's do just a little bit of history. If you go back to the beginning of the 20th century, remember that Marxism basically emerged, you could say as a political force in the last half of the 19th century. We're talking about Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. We're talking about the Communist Manifesto. And eventually, you realize that the big Marxist movements really waited until the 20th century. And the most famous or infamous, of course, would be the Bolshevik revolution that brought the Soviets to power in Russia. But it is important to understand that there was overlap and there were developments in the United States even in the same rough era. So for example, you had Eugene Debs and the formation

of the Socialist Party of America in 2001. So we're talking about 125 years ago. But even as there was some immediate embrace of the socialist logic and of even a communist understanding of economics, the fact is that this never really got very far. Now, I think most Americans have been surprised how many vote socialist candidates actually received, including in some national elections in later decades. But still, socialism was never a threat, certainly speaking nationwide, in the United States. It was never a threat in Congress in terms of any kind of real influence. It was never a threat, certainly, when it came to the White House. But even then, even going back to the 20th century, one of the hottest, most contested territory was the teeming and expanding big cities

in the United States. And that's because just as Marx and Ingalls had actually said, oddly enough, they're right about this, that where you have the concentration of workers in a metropolitan environment, you have what they declared to be the possibility for a revolutionary development and a revolutionary core. But, as I said, it didn't get very far. And so you fast forward all the way to 1982. In 1982, Michael Harrington, very well-known figure on the American left, and committed to socialism, committed to Marxism. He committed himself to the development of a new political party. It came out of the ruins of previous socialist parties.

It was known as the Democratic Socialist of America. So even though many Americans haven't really thought about that party, it's been there since 1982, just to put it in context, two years into the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Not a coincidence. Not a coincidence. President Reagan ran as a conservative Republican on a very very, ardently free market platform. And thus, this was a response. And here's the point. It didn't get very far. And yet, if you just look through the decades that follow in the 1980s, 90s, into the early

decades of the 21st century, you know, there were basically just a couple of well-identified socialists in the whole country, actually just one that got a great deal of attention. And that would be Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. And he was really from the left, the far left, and he was elected as a part of the wave, just a continuation in many ways of the politics of the 60s. But, you know, Bernie Sanders was basically just a, well, he was good for headlines, and he certainly helped to define some of these issues for the Democratic left. But it is interesting that at least in two rounds of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders attracted sufficient interest that the Democratic Party had to

nominate Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election cycle to avoid. Bernie Sanders having a real chance at grasping the Democratic presidential nomination. Now, had Bernie Sanders won that nomination, the Democratic Party almost assuredly would have gone down in electoral ruins. That's why the party responded so clearly. But the party now has a huge problem. And so it is really interesting. Now, among conservatives on the political right, there are problems, no doubt. But the big thing now, the headlines right now, are these giant developments on the left. But there's an asymmetry here, a word we have to come back to time and time again. When you're talking about the Democratic Party and you're talking about the political left,

we're not talking about a widespread movement of people, Democrats across the country saying, what we want is socialism. That is not happening. And frankly, the leaders of the party are pretty aware of that. What is happening is that in America's largest cities that lean the most, well, dramatically to the left, and among younger voters who think that the future needs to be radicalized, that's where the energy for the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, is really found. Zora Mondani really tapped into that. And, you know, you have cities in many parts of the country, and so you could look from the west coast to the east coast. Not so much in the middle. It's not saying that it can't happen. But right now it's pretty much on the coast.

And we talk about how progressivism, leftism, and secularization happen, not evenly, but according to even patterns. I mentioned the three seas, the campus, the city, the coast. That's where this kind of action is. Okay, so what's the big worry in the Democratic Party? The giant worry right now. And it's close to panic on the part of many who are leaders in the Democratic Party is if their party gets branded this way, that is going to be really difficult when it comes to the 2008 presidential election. the other hand, they have all these younger voters who are being radicalized. And if they're dissatisfied with the Democratic Party, guess what, they go after incumbents.

So the big issue here, the big trumpet sound heard in the primary elections, especially in New York on Tuesday, was that in those cities, those concentrated blue cities, if you are not moving left fast, then history very well may leave you behind. This really is a worldview clash on the left. You might say within the left. Now, the big worldview clash is between those giant worldviews. So you speak about the Christian worldview and the secular worldview. And increasingly in politics and in culture, the rightward worldview and the leftward worldview. But the big energy right now is on the left. Now, there will be a lot of energy on the right, especially in the lead up to 2008.

But here's another thing we need to consider. The Democrats didn't make this happen. And the national democratic leadership, frankly, didn't want this to happen. this is what you would have to call is something of a spontaneous and organic development, which shows that the Democratic Party really is in a form of crisis. And that crisis is that an incredible number of Democrats are incredibly unhappy with where the Democratic Party is. You know, a part of what's playing into this, and you have many editorialists and other observers noting this, is that the entire political energy of Donald Trump, not just in the last, say, two years, but in the going

all the way back to 2016, the energy that has been brought by President Trump has caught the Democrats off guard in such a way that the base of the Democratic Party, certainly the leftist base of the Democratic Party, thinks that Democratic leaders have basically been sleeping through history. I'm going to leave the U.S. again and just go to the economist. I'll cite it again from London. Here's another headline, quote, the left is coming for Democratic incumbents. Okay, so here again, this entire controversies on the political left, this entire controversies in the Democratic Party. It has to do with the future of that party. Okay, so this has happened before on the left. And so the years 1968 and 1972 should loom large in the Democratic memory. Because what

happened in 1968 is that the party went with a centrist and the left got angry. That was Hubert Humphrey. And of course, he lost to Richard Nixon. In the 1972 election, the left was ascendant in the Democratic Party and nominated Senator George McGovern. And that was one of the biggest electoral defeats the Democratic Party has ever experienced in all the electoral history. And so you look at that and you say, well, would the Democrats do it again? Well, let me just point out something. When you say the Democrats, and you could say the same thing on the Republican side, you say the Republicans. You know, I think many people think there's some kind of conference room and some kind of skyscraper.

Or maybe it's a war room in the basement of some building. And that's where the parties, real leaders decide these things. okay there are real leaders in both parties and they do decide some things they don't decide this kind of thing the democratic party action we're talking about right now was certainly not orchestrated by the leadership of the democratic party as a matter of fact the resurgent left wants to get rid of certainly chuck schumer the new york democratic senator who's the leader the democratic leader in the senate they want him gone he was plenty to the left say 10 years ago now wow he's an obstruction to the leftist momentum. There's something else going on in the Democratic Party. This is something

that happens on the political left over and over again. And so you can look at this in socialist revolutions all over the world, certainly over the course of, say, the last 120 years or so. Here's a pattern. When you have a younger base that is motivated and activated far to the left, they demand a generational change. And so there are leaders in the Democratic Party, who've been working for decades to get to these positions of leadership. And to the younger, more radical Democrats, you know what that means? Absolutely nothing. Or worse, you're showing yourself to be a part of the problem rather than the solution. Out with you.

All right, we'll continue to watch this story and watch it very closely. It's not one that's going to be over anytime soon in the next several weeks. But boy, did it take a big step just in the last couple days. So we'll be following this with worldview analysis. All right, now we need to shove to another story. This is a big story. It's not on the same level of giant political developments, but you know it really is a giant cultural development. I'm talking about the case having to do with Brendan Sorsby. He is the Texas Tech football player with just a minute, evidently a former Texas Tech football player, who had decided to make himself available to a special NFL draft. And guess what? The NFL announced that it is not going to go through with that draft, and it made some very clear statements about Brendan Sorsby and about the fact that he was gambling.

many times, as admitted to gambling many times, even on his own team. And, you know, the important thing to understand is that the NFL said, this isn't going to happen. Let's back up just a little bit, though. We're talking about the scourge of gambling in the United States and the fact that what we have is a plague of gambling that is really creating a distortion field throughout the entire culture. And certainly when it comes to, say, the NCAA, when it comes to the NFL, you're talking about giant big brands. It has really at this point been a larger problem. in the NCAA, precisely because so much has been happening in there, you have all this money now going to players, you have the financial stakes just going higher and higher. You also have an

increased betting going on various platforms. So it's not just what is legally defined as betting. It's also the prediction markets and so many other things. What you have is a perverse incentive pile up. Now, for Christians, you need to understand that in a fall in the world, a perverse incentive morally is this. It is a context in which you make bad behavior more likely. You hold out a potential gain from bad behavior, and thus a society that has these perverse incentives is basically saying you shouldn't do that, but you know what? You might make a lot of money if you do. You know, you shouldn't do that, but you just might become instantly rich if you do. A sane society doesn't put perverse incentives at the center of the culture. It doesn't allow massive investment of corporations

and perverse incentives. But that's exactly what's going on now with gambling. And it is a giant problem. It has to do with state lotteries. It has to do with the prediction markets. It has to do with casino gambling and the spread of casinos across the country. It also has to do, of course, with online gambling. It has particularly to do with specific demographic populations. And so it is spread throughout much of the culture, but it's concentrated as a problem, number one, among men. Number two, it is concentrated as an expanding, exploding problem among young men. Now, I think most Americans would say, yeah, you're talking about 20-somethings,

maybe a few college students younger than that. No, you're actually talking now about the fact that a frightening percentage of middle schoolers have at some point, middle school boys we're talking about here, have been involved in more than casual betting. And you can blame the online developments for much of that. All right. So if you look at the NCAA, now just remember that one of the biggest, challenges to organize sport in the United States has been to protect it from financial corruption.

That's a giant issue. It has to do with Major League Baseball, massive scandals, rules that came in the wake of it. It has to do with all kinds of bad experiences. So much of them have to do with gambling. And so there are big rules in organized sport you just can't break. And one of the biggest of those rules is that you can't bet in ways that are illegitimate. And there are two aspects of that. number one, you're not supposed to bet on your own sport. But number two, the worst thing possible is to bet on or against your own team. So if you're on a team and you have any kind of bet placed, one way or the other having to do with the performance of your team, you are breaking the biggest rule. You're breaking the cardinal rule, the most clear rule. And that's exactly what Brendan Sorsby

did. And according to most press reports and including what now comes from the NFL, You're talking about at least about 30 different developments, 30 different actions that he took. You're talking about a significant amount of money. But the big issue here is not the amount of money. The big issue here is the moral valence, as we talk about in ethics. It's the moral impact of all of this. Okay, it got more complicated. And so it's really interesting that over the course of the last several weeks,

you had Texas Tech's quarterback, that's again, Brendan Sorsby, you had him banned from the NCAA from play. And the reason for that was he admitted to the gambling. And then you had a Texas court rule in favor of Brendan Sorsby saying that he was qualified to play for Texas Tech because he had claimed that he was not just betting. He was betting because of a therapeutic category. It was a syndrome and addiction. And thus, he didn't bear moral responsibility for placing these bets.

And remember, these were bets having to do with his own team. All right. Now, at that point, you had in the national sports media an absolute explosion. It's a really interesting stuff. Wall Street Journal, Texas Tech quarterback who was banned for betting, gets Hail Mary reprieve. Matt Hayes, columnist for USA Today ran an article here's the headline. Soresby walked only after sport lost its mind. In other words, he's saying this is absolutely crazy.

Let me tell you why I think in this case, Matt Hayes was absolutely right. If indeed you could have a college quarterback, bet 30 times, and this began, we're told at Indiana University where he was on the team, if you could have a collegiate NCAA quarterback bet and then say, oh, but it's an addiction, I don't bear moral responsibility here, then Americans would, I think, quite automatically lose absolute confidence in the integrity of the sport. And, you know, there are certain things that Americans evidently will put up with. There's a certain level of toleration.

But allowing a quarterback who was betting on his own team and did so repeatedly, that's just so far over the line, that that's where I think Matt Hayes is right. If this happened, the sport would have lost its mind. But here's also where there's some moral clarity. At least there are some moral limits. And so, as you say, even in prison among inmates, there are certain rules in that society they put in place in certain enforcement mechanisms. In other words, everywhere you go, there are going to be some rules, and someone's going to have to agree to those rules, and someone's going to try to break those rules. And so there were an awful lot of teams, including some in their same conferences that were not going to play Texas Tech.

And then Texas Tech nonetheless continued to say, no, we're going to defend this player, but it was getting really hot. So let me just tell you, Texas Tech was then the subject of an enormous amount of political and cultural pressure. And furthermore, this was an expanding story. And in that light, you know, Texas Tech had to worry what's going to be revealed next. Okay, it appeared just, you know, a little over a week ago that Brendan Soresby was actually going to solve the problem for Texas Tech and for the NCAA, frankly, by saying that he was going to make himself available for the NFL supplemental draft. In other words, he's just going to leave all that collegiate mess behind. He's going to let the NCAA and Texas Tech off the hook. He's going to go

and make himself available to an NFL team. Okay, but that isn't going to happen. As Andrew Beaton of the Wall Street Journal reported, quote, in a letter to Soresby on Tuesday, a lawyer for the league wrote that Soresby's application for the supplemental draft had been denied. The league occasionally conducts that draft for players who have seen their college eligibility impacted, but said it wouldn't hold one this year. It continues, quote, The NFL's decision is a firm rebuke of a player who admitted to violating one of the most sensitive rules in all sports and then spent months trying to escape punishment. The NFL decided not to aid that effort and the rejection could leave Sorsby on the sidelines entirely this season,

with the NFL closing the door on him after he gave him. up his legal fight to play at Texas Tech. The article really explains a lot here. It's a good analysis. Quote, Soresby was caught in an untenable position, and the NFL knowing how much damage could stem from admitting a player who bet on his own games wasn't about to bail him out, end quote. Okay, so here's a very interesting worldview realization.

You have an organization that really wants good players. It wants to prioritize and protect good players. Teams have an interest in wanting really talented. players to be available. And so you even have this ridiculous market now in players at the collegiate level. But on the other hand, credibility is actually a precious commodity that once lost is very difficult to regain. And so the NCAA, I think, had taken action to protect its credibility. This Texas court basically intervened, raised huge issues of credibility. The NCAA was looking for some political and legal backup in order to do what it considered to be necessary to protect

that intercollegiate competition. And then you had the NFL put right in the middle of the question. And what's really interesting is that the NFL didn't waste time. They actually said we're not even going to hold a supplemental draft. Why? Because we don't want anything to do with Brendan Sorsby. Not with this controversy. The one thing the NFL can't do right now is allow someone under that kind of ethical cloud to move right into, we'll say, playing for an NFL team. Okay, so it's not over, however. This is the kind of story that's probably never over.

And so you have organizations such as the athletic, sports illustrated, and others pointing out that, you know, the guy still got talent. And so eventually some team, in trouble, is likely to decide they are willing to take a risk even with a Brendan Sorsby. At least that will not be. immediately. There are those saying he may go for a year and play for the Canadian League or something

like that. But at least in terms of the NCAA and the NFL, just to use, you know, just a few initials there, at least for the NCAA and the NFL for right now, Brendan Soresby is too hot to touch. That tells you something about two things. Number one, there still are huge moral concerns about gambling in most circles in America. But number two, there aren't enough concerns for anyone to ask the basic question. Why would a society let it something? get in this kind of position in the first place. You also, of course, with all this claim of addiction and all the rest, you have the issue of who bears moral responsibility.

And here's what's really interesting. You look at that letter from the attorney for the NFL. It places moral responsibility directly on Brendan Sorsby. That's interesting. That's revealing in itself. In other words, the NFL says right now it's his problem. And so far as the NFL is concerned right now, it wants to leave that problem. right there. Okay, one final issue as we get ready to close for today. All these headlines about

Luigi Mangione. And it has to do with the fact that you are looking at two different prosecutions as he's being tried for the murder of Brian Thompson back on December the 9th of 2024. And basically there's no question that he did it. We're talking about video evidence. We're talking about plenty of forensic evidence. It's also a sign about the confusion of our society that a significant number of Americans have turned Luigi Mangione into a hero. Okay, so why the headlines right now? It is in our legal system, when you're talking about a crime of this magnitude, and you're talking about investigations by both state and local and then add to that federal authorities, it turns out that there are very legitimate charges to be brought against Luigi Mangione at the state level

and at the federal level. The state level has to do most of all with the shooting, and in this case, it's a secondary murder charge, and that would be the equivalent of first-degree murder in many other states. But the fact is that you also have federal charges at a federal trial that's pending. They're not the same charges because that would be unconstitutional, but they are charges very much related to the use of the firearm, all kinds of other things that invoke federal charges. Okay, so why the headlines right now? It is because the judge in this case, then the New York State Court, announced that Luigi Mangione's defense team had decided to change the defense strategy. Their strategy was going to be based in an argument that he had done it, but was experiencing,

quote, extreme emotional disturbance at the time. That extreme emotional disturbance is a defense there in New York State. So what's the big issue? Well, just think about it. Think about the sequence. There was the realization that it was going to be very difficult for Luigi Mangione to admit in state court, yeah, I did it, but I was under extreme emotional disturbance. And then get in a federal court and say, no, I didn't do it. Here's the thing. You know, know what? When you get yourself in a situation of this kind of moral responsibility, I think your options begin to get limited very, very fast. When it comes to Luigi Mangione, we can only hope that justice is accomplished rightly and quickly. Thanks for listening to the briefing.

For more information, go to my website at Albertmoler.com. You can follow me on Twitter or X by going to X.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsbts.t.s.com. For information, on voice college just go to voicecollis.com I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.