The Daily Signal - #446: A Mom’s Fight Against Illegal Immigrant Criminals

Episode Date: April 23, 2019

Life hasn't been the same for Mary Ann Mendoza, since she lost her son Brandon in 2014 due to a car accident caused by an illegal immigrant. She shares her experience, and how she'd like our country's border security polices to change. We also cover these stories:•ISIS is claiming responsibility for the Sri Lanka Easter attack.•The brothers allegedly involved in the Jussie Smollet hate hoax are suing his lawyers. •Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces plans to name an area after President Trump.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, April 24th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Mary Ann Mendoza lost her son in 2014 when an intoxicated driver hit his police car. That driver was in the United States illegally. Our colleague Rachel Del Judas had the chance to sit down with Mary to hear her story and get her thoughts on border security. Today we'll play that interview. Plus, Mick Mulvaney, the White House Chief of Staff, gave some insightful comments at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. We'll play those remarks. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes, and please subscribe.

Now, on to our top news. Can the U.S. Census ask people whether they are citizens? The Supreme Court seems inclined to say yes, that it's legal for the census to ask that. According to Fox News, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted, why doesn't Congress prohibit the asking of a citizenship question in the same way that Congress has explicitly provided that no one can be compelled to provide religious information. The statute that Congress has passed gives huge discretion to the secretary how to fill out the form, what to put on the form, referring to the Commerce Secretary.

However, the four liberal justices seemed hostile to asking the question on the census. Well, ISIS is claiming responsibility for the Sri Lanka Easter attack that left more than 320 people dead and over 500 wounded. The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Tuesday after Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka's government suggested that the attack was retaliation for the attack on two mosques in New Zealand last month, which left 50 people dead. According to Reuters, three sources say that the Sri Lankan government received warning from Indian officials hours before the bombings that an attack was imminent. But word never reached the highest levels of government, and President Mithrappala Siracina said he would be changing heads of the defense forces after they failed to notify him. In address to the nation, he said, quote,

officials who got the intelligence report from a foreign nation did not share it with me. I've decided to take stern action against these officials. The two brothers who attacked Jesse Smollett and the hoax crime aren't happy about what they view as an ongoing smearing of their reputations. Their lawyer, Gloria Schmidt, announced the brothers would be suing the lawyers representing Smollett. Attorneys Mark Garagos and Tina Glendian through their continued false statements and hateful rhetoric have only deepened the damage that was caused by the very first out of 16 counts

of lies that were told to the police that started this whole situation. That is why today we are taking action. In federal court, we want to end these malicious attacks and ensure that those responsible for continuing to destroy the reputation of the Chicago Police Department, the city of Chicago and that of Ola and Bola Oshondaro are held accountable. While President Trump spent Tuesday morning unloading on the media over Twitter, he said, quote, in the old days, if you were president and you had a good economy, you were basically immune from criticism. Remember, it's the economy stupid.

Today I have, as president, perhaps the greatest economy in history, and to the mainstream media, it means nothing, but it will. He also hit at the New York Times saying, I wonder if the New York Times will apologize to me a second time, as they did after the 2016 election. But this one will have to be a far bigger and better apology. On this one, they will have to get down on their knees and beg for forgiveness. They are truly the enemy of the people. He also slammed Joe Scarborough from MSNBC's Mooring Joe,

who he called Too Angry, Dumb, and Sick, and said CNN was beyond disaster. So a busy morning for the president's Twitter feed. Every time Sarah steps up to the podium, I get excited because I'm not really sure what we're going to get. You know, a press briefing, a bunch of lies, or divided into softball teams. It's shirts and skins, and this time don't be such a little bitch, Jim Acosta. And I'm never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders. You know, is it Sarah Sanders?

Is it Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Is it Cousin Huckabee? Is it anti-Huckabee Sanders? Like, what's Uncle Tom but for white women who disappoint other white women? That was comedian Michelle Wolfe at last year's White House Correspondence Dinner. While the dinner this year features a non-comedian historian Ron Turner, the White House isn't interested in any second rounds of mockery. Citing unnamed sources, Politico reports that President Trump has said that no White House

or administration officials should attend the annual dinner this year. Well, the president's son-in-law, Jared Kush, downplay the role of Russian Facebook ads on Tuesday in the 2016 election, saying that investigations into the Trump campaign had harmed American democracy much more than the Russian ads. The Washington Examiner records Kushner saying, quote, you look at what Russia did, you know, buying some Facebook ads to sow dissent and do it, and it's a terrible thing, but I think the investigations and all the speculation that's happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple Facebook ads.

between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues. In a video, Netanyahu made a new announcement. I'm here on the beautiful Golan Heights. All Israelis were deeply moved when President Trump made his historic decision to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Therefore, after the Passover holiday, I tend to bring to the government a resolution calling for a new community on the Golan Heights, named after President Donald J. Trump.

Well, an appeals court ruled against a Christian adoption agency on Monday, saying that the city of Philadelphia could continue to exclude foster care agencies who declined to place kids with gay couples. A panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled three to nothing against Catholic social services, saying that they had not demonstrated religious persecution or bias in being excluded from participation. Lori Windham, Senior Council at the Beckett Fund, for religious freedom responded, saying, quote, this ruling is devastating to the hundreds of foster children who have been waiting for a family and to the dozens of parents working with Catholic

social services who have been waiting to foster a child. We're disappointed that the court decided to let the city place politics above the needs of kids and the rights of parents, but we will continue this fight, end quote. The decision was written by circuit judge Thomas Ambrough, a Bill Clinton appointee, and there's no word yet of an appeal to the Supreme Court. Bernie Sanders runs to the left of most Americans on most issues, and that includes criminal justice and voting rights. When asked in a CNN town hall on Monday, whether prisoners, including the Boston bomber and those convicted of sexual assault, should have the right to vote, his answer was simple. Here's that clip. Now, here is my view.

If somebody commits a serious crime, sexual assault, murder, they're going to be punished. They may be jailed for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, their whole lives. That's what happens when you commit a serious crime. But I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy. Yes, even for terrible people. Because once you start chipping away and you say, well, that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Or that person did that.

Not going to let that person vote. You're running down a slippery slope. So I believe that people who commit crimes, they pay the price. When they got out of jail, I believe they certainly should have. the right to vote. But I do believe that even if they are in jail, they're paying their price to society, but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy. Next up, we'll feature Rachel's interview from the border with Marianne Mendoza. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand

what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme court. We're joined on the Daily Signal podcast today by Marianne Mendoza, who lost her son Brandon in 2014 after his police car was hit by an intoxicated driver who was in the U.S. illegally. Marianne, thank you for being with us today. Thank you for talking to me. I appreciate it. Can you tell us the story of your son Brandon and what happened? On May 12, 2014, he was actually on his way home from work and a repeated illegal alien criminal who was three times illegal limit drunk, high on meth, had driven over 35 miles a wrong way on the freeway, certain Phoenix,

and slammed head on into my son on his way home from work. And my son ultimately ended up dying about three hours later in surgery. Oh, man. That is heartbreaking. Where were you when you found out what happened and how did you feel? Can you kind of recreate that time for us? I actually got a call at about quarter of three in the morning from a fellow police officer, Brandon, who was Air National Guard Station. So I got a call from Afghanistan saying, Mom, Brandon's been in a terrible accident.

I woke up out of a deep sleep and I kept trying to call Brandon's cell phone. He wasn't answering in. A few minutes later, the Mesa Police Department came to my house, rang the doorbell. And I knew when we drove up to the hospital, the police presence there, I just knew that it wasn't good. And that's the day that my life changed forever. Brandon is one of four children that I have. And so spoke of our family will is forever gone. We're permanently separated.

Can you tell us a little bit about Brandon as a person? What was he like as little boy and what was he like as an adult? Brandon was just full of life and he always made everything fun. He was the glue, you know, between the siblings. And he knew very early on probably at the time he was 14, 15, that he was going to be a police officer. And that was his goal in life. And so when his dream finally came true, it was a very momentous day for him when he graduated from the police academy. At the time, he was one of the youngest recruits in the Mesa Police Academy who had ever graduated. So he was

very proud. I was very proud of him. And he was a modern beat cop. And he took the time to go door to door to a section of town that the chief had assigned him to. And he took the time to meet everybody went in and reclaimed a park for the neighborhood, got rid of all the drug dealers, had all the trees trimmed up so the police had visual of the park, got all new playground equipment put in there for the children. And then before his untimely death, he was planning a new ball field in the center of the park. And so after he was killed, the community that he was working with there, just went to the city and said, we need to name this ball field Mendoza Park. And so the city went ahead with the plans and got the ball field finished and it's now named

Mendoza ballfield in honor of my son and the work that he did down in that area. Wow, thank you for sharing that. It seems like he really, he had such a heart for the community that he was working in. He did, and he spent a lot of time at the Boys and Girls Club at the Mesa Arts Academy, made sure that the children knew the importance of staying in school, staying out of gangs, staying away from drugs, and he would spend his own money and go, and get pizza or ice cream for them after he had spent his time off playing kickball with them in the park. He bought Christmas presents for children in the area who weren't going to have a very good Christmas.

In fact, before he was killed, he had already bought three bikes for grandchildren who were being raised by their grandparents. And so that Christmas, those bikes were presented to the children, and they knew they came from Sergeant Brandon Mendoza. He did have an annual Thanksgiving dinner every year, too. And so I have continued that tradition and had an annual Thanksgiving dinner this year. we will be having it in 2019 to honor homeless veterans. And it's the Mendoza Thanksgiving dinner here in Mesa. Wow, that is beautiful. So what is your opinion on border security and what kind of reforms do you think should be enacted

to stop things like your son's death from happening? Well, the thing that really catapulted me into this fight was the leniency that's shown to illegal aliens in our court system because my son's killer was a repeat illegal alien criminal. and that is what you hear so many times. A lot of these angel families, their loved ones have been killed by an illegal alien who's already committed a crime in our country, was shown leniency or served no jail for the crime they committed

that you or I would be in jail for. So that kind of catapulted me into this. This problem has gotten so much bigger than Congress and the Senate even knows what to do with. It's like a dirty kitchen. You go into it and it's like, where do you start? That's what it's become for Congress because they've just let it go for decades.

And it's an overwhelming problem. But the first thing that I think that needs to happen is we have to secure our border because you deport a criminal and you don't have a secure border and they're right back over. How many times have we heard recently of an illegal alien criminal who's been deported six, seven, 17 times, 20 times, and they're back here committing more crimes. We've got to secure the border. We've got to be able to have a way to deport them and know they're going to stay out of our country. We've got over 900,000 illegal alien felons roaming our streets set for,

deportation that haven't been deported yet. And then we need to start doing increased interior enforcement. That's why Angel families are working so hard with the sheriffs of America to enforce a 287G program, which has local law enforcement working with ICE because so many of these sanctuary cities and sanctuary counties and states, they don't want to cooperate with ICE because they say immigration is a federal problem. This is an American problem. And it's coming to a city and a state and a county near you.

So people stand up for your rights, for your protection that you deserve in our country and demand that your police departments and your sheriff's departments work with ICE and enact the 287G program. What is your response to opposition from the left on border security, including people like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who has said that a border wall is immoral? It's funny how now all of a sudden, you know, that Trump has, announced that he was contemplating sending illegal aliens who were coming across our border to sanctuary cities and mainly to a sanctuary state like California, it's now becoming an issue for

them because they know the magnitude of them coming over the border and they don't want those people in their cities and states in reality. And Angel Families has actually started a campaign that's called Blood on Your Hands and it's hashtag Blood on Your Hands, which I'm using on Twitter and I'm using on Facebook on our Twitter and Facebook pages, calling out these politicians who are supporting sanctuary policies who are against securing our border and who are fighting our president in every step of the way. I'm calling them out because every American that's killed by an illegal alien criminal has left their blood on these politicians and elected officials' hands. What would you say to someone who says that most illegal immigrants don't commit crimes,

so we shouldn't be focused on these rare tragedies? They're not rare tragedies. Over 4,300 Americans are killed every year by illegal aliens. criminals in our country. You know, 9-11, almost 3,000 people were killed, and that was a huge tragedy, and people couldn't believe the loss of life. This is happening annually more than what's happened in 9-11. So over 63,000 Americans have been killed since 9-11. You know, in the Vietnam War, we lost 58,220 Americans on foreign soil.

And, you know, people can't even believe that loss of life. Over 63,000 Americans have died on our homeland because of the ineptness of our politicians in this country to come together, not as a Democrat or Republican, but to come together as an American politician and to protect their citizens. They are stepping over dead American bodies every time they are fighting for an illegal and for their rights and for their protection. They're stepping over my son's body every time they're doing something like that. What is your perspective on a lot of the media coverage that we've seen? talking to another angel parent recently and he was telling me about rape trees and I was telling him I had never heard of that concept before. Can you tell us a little bit about those kind of situations, explain to listeners what those are and your perspective on why major outlets aren't telling these stories? The women and children who come over with these cartel and coyotes, they are forced to pay money and they are raped along the way.

and the mothers who let their teenage daughters or young girls come with these people, they do give them birth control pills, they give them the warning after pill, they know they're going to be raped on their way to the United States. And it's not just once, it's multiple times along the way. And this isn't just a humanitarian problem for Americans who are being killed and injured and affected by illegal aiding crime in our country. By our politicians not wanting to secure our border, and by enticing these people to come to our country for the freebies that we offer

and the sanctuary policies and cities, the sanctuary, the protection we offer them, they are actually putting money and aiding and abetting the cartel in dehumanizing these people and abusing them along the way. They are aiding and abetting those cartel to do these things to these women and children. And it's wrong. It's 100% wrong. This is another thing that Angel Families is trying to point out. This is happening.

A woman and a child who come over the border, that woman doesn't have the money to pay the coyote. to get her $4 to $8,000. Once they're in the United States, they're a sex slave for God knows how many years. Because every dime that they make in their sex slave business is going back to Mexico to pay the cartels. Human trafficking has become a bigger moneymaker for the cartel now than drug trafficking. Drugs, it's brought over the border, sold one time, and they go back and have to manufacture more. Women and children who they can bring in there and sell for sex, it's a constant moneymaker.

And these are what these politicians in D.C. who refuse to. to go with our president, secure the border, stop this from happening. They're, you know, condoning this. It's sickening. Can you tell us a little bit about Angel Families, the organization itself, and how that it's been a support to you? Angel Families, Michelle Root, whose daughter, Sarah Root, was killed in Omaha. She and I are co-founders of this. We co-founded it in September of last year to bring more awareness to angel families and the loss of their loved ones to give them the opportunity to tell their stories.

Like I said before, we're working on a blood-on-your-hands campaign. We want to start calling these politicians out. We are real soon here. We're going to have billboards coming up across the United States. It's going to show pictures of our loved ones and talk about, you know, my son was killed by a repeat illegal alien criminal. This person was killed by a dreamer. And every one of our billboards are going to have.

hashtag blood on your hands until Americans start realizing you're electing politicians into office who don't care about you. And it isn't a matter of if this is happening to you. It's when because the odds are getting greater every day with the amount of people coming over our border. And we are going to have a huge rally in September in D.C. With sheriffs, it's going to be called badges and halos. And we're going to bring awareness to the fact that Angel families are working with sheriffs

and the 287G increased interior enforcement and stopping sanctuary. policies in the United States. Our website's angelfamilamilies.com. If you're so inclined to please help us, go donate. We need help with travel costs. We need help with the cost of these billboards. And our personal fight, we are now taking it to the public and to the politicians because we're fighting for all your listeners. We're fighting to make sure this doesn't happen to them. Can you tell us a little bit about how Brandon's passing has impacted your life in a personal way? Well, Brandon was a very integral part of my family, and he and I were best friends. We traveled a lot.

We had a love of photography, and so when he was taken from me, there was a huge part of my life that was taken. Brandon wasn't married at the time, and my other children were married and have kids, and so their lives were a little different than Brandon's was, so we could afford to travel and do the things that we did together. But I just, if this happened to me, I know this is how my son would be fighting for me. That's just the kind of relationship that we had. And so he's inspired me to do something to make a difference not only in my community, you know, as in carrying on his Thanksgiving dinner and doing the things that I do in his memory, but to take this fight nationally and to try and make a difference in Americans' lives.

And to try and make a difference that our politicians will have an open heart and an open mother. to hear what I have to say and to know that this isn't this isn't done in a you know a lot of people say it's racial it's you know you're just doing this in a hateful way you know illegal aliens aren't a race they're people from all over the country and I'm not saying anything about one particular race I'm saying people who are illegally present in our country have got to be stopped so that these crimes you know it's not only the 63,000 Americans that have been killed since 9-11 There's hundreds of thousands on Americans that are affected every year by assault, by rape, by identity theft, by hit and run. The crimes are mounting and getting and getting larger and larger the statistics every single year.

If you could tell Americans, fellow Americans, family, friends, people who might not realize the seriousness of this issue, why this, why border security, why illegal immigration is such a serious issue, what would be that one thing that you would tell them? start looking into things and start educating yourself. There is a man up in Oregon, David Cross, who does statistical studies, and he gets straight from the Oregon jail system up there, and it gets a percentages per county of illegal aliens that are up there. And I post those on our Angel Families' Twitter account. It's at Angel Families, and people can go and look at those. it's one county in one state in this country and it will blow you away the statistics.

Also, I urge your listeners to go to illegal alien crime report.com. That gives you the stories that you will never hear about in the mainstream media and go to nc.fire. That's short for North Carolina, NC fire. There's a rape epidemic going on against American children by illegal alien criminals in our country. And those statistics, those monthly statistics of children being raped in North Carolina are going to absolutely disgust you. And these are the things that we need to fight for. Start educating yourself.

Get on websites that give you the truth. Don't read a headline and believe that it's a truth. You have to know illegal alien criminals are committing more crimes at a larger rate than American citizens are. Marian, thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing your story and Brandon's story. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Do you own an Amazon Echo?

You can now get the Daily Signal podcast every day as part of your daily Alexa Flash briefing. It's easy to do. Just open your Amazon Alexa app, go to settings, and select Flash Briefing. From there, you can search for the Daily Signal podcast and add it to your Flash briefing so you can stay up to date with the top news of the day that the liberal media isn't covering. Tuesday morning. was the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, and I was among those who attended. Among the speakers was President Trump's acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney,

who gave an interesting speech that included an awkward situation he had faced at a past prayer breakfast, and more importantly, some insight into how President Trump thinks. We're going to play that speech. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Leonard, for having me. A little secret as to how I got here today when my staff got the invite. Of course, they came to me, and they said, look, we got.

the invite for you to speak at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. We assume you aren't going to go, which is a safe assumption in my office because I don't do prayer breakfasts. It's not one of the things I was brought up doing, but more importantly, I've only done one before, and I screwed it up really, really badly. It's a true story. Any South Carolinians here? Tonight, I can't see you, folks. So a couple of folks will know this story. When I was first in Congress, I got invited by Jim DeMint, who was the center at the time? He said, why don't you come over? We have a delegation prayer breakfast. I'm like, Jim, I'm Roman Catholic from the South. I don't do a lot of prayer breakfast. How do you do this? He says, well, it's really easy. You pick out one of your favorite passages from the Bible. You come over and you read it to the group.

We talk about it a little bit. I said, okay, that sounds great. I can do that. So I pick out my passage. And I show up at the appointed time, and it's a room about half this size. and I went to Jim as the thing was beginning and I said, I can't do this. And he said, why not? I said, well, I can't read my passage. He said, why not? I said, it's not appropriate to read in a group. And he said, goodness gracious, what passage did you pick out that you can't read in a group?

And I tried to tell him, he goes, well, it doesn't mean if it's too late, we started already and you're already in the program, so go. And he pushes me up on a stage like this. And I read my passage that I had picked out for this very small, intimate gathering of about 400 people. And the passage is one of my favorite, that was the job, right? Pick out your favorite passage, and it's Matthew chapter 6, verse 6, and following. And if you don't remember which that is, that's the one passage you cannot read at a prayer breakfast

because it says essentially, and I'm going to paraphrase, when you fast, wash your hair and wash your face and comb your hair, do not be like the hypocrites and let everybody know that you are fasting. When you, yeah, people know where this is going. When you give alms, don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Don't be like the hypocrites who let everybody know they're giving alms. And for goodness sakes, when you pray, go into your room and do it in private. Yeah, and that was not the reaction I got at the South Kline of Prayer Breakfast when I said that.

Because for many of them, I was the first Catholic they had met. And we think I was the first member of Congress to be Roman Catholic. from South Carolina, so it really was their first introduction to it in a lot of ways. And I just had a lot of really stunned looks on the people's faces like, oh my goodness, what is this man talking about? And I made one of the mistakes you make in public speaking, which is I got really nervous, like I am right now, and then went off script and said, so I was talking to this group of people with this just stunned look on their face

that I had just called them all hypocrites, apparently. I said, and just to go to show you that the Lord has a sense of humor, the reason I read this passage and the reason it's one of my favorite passages, it's a passage that in my church we read every year on Ash Wednesday, which is the one day of the year when we put something on our forehead and said, look at me, I went to church. I did not get that reaction then either. So, and I apologize in advance for being a little probably too, too. too comfortable hear my speech.

And the next words out of my mouth were, and I've never understood the damn things since I was 10 years old, and I sat down. So, Trey Gowdy, who, despite that, has become one of my dear friends, was sitting next to me because he was a member of Congress at the time, and sat down, and after the sort of the haze went away after 30 or 40 seconds, he looks at me and says, you do know that you just cursed at Jim DeMint's prayer breakfast. I said, Trey, I don't remember the last three or four minutes of a while.

my life. So why do I, why have I agreed to come here today? I agree to come here today to talk about, to talk because of what happened after that. Because I was really sort of, you know, bothered by it. But I was really bothered about the fact that, you know what, I still didn't understand why we put the ashes on our forehead and tell everybody we went to church. At the same time, we're telling everybody to go pray in private. And I went to go talk to the priest. I don't know Father Byrne is here, and I can't remember if it was Father Byrne or not who told me this, but I had a wonderful conversation with a priest, and I asked him the question. He said, well, make, look, here's why we do it. Because when Christ was talking about that and giving

that instruction, he was telling you to do the exact opposite of what was popular at the time. So at the time, everybody talked about how they were fasting, everybody talked about how they were giving alms, and everybody talked about how they were praying. And he didn't want us to do that. He wanted us to be counter-that, counter-cultural, and do the opposite of what was the popular thing at the time. And so, like, the reason we do it today is because not enough people do it. Not enough people are open in their faith. Not enough people are comfortable saying, yeah, you know what?

I went to church today. Or, yeah, my family went to Mass last week. Or, yeah, we pray before meals. It's the type of thing that is no longer popular to do. so one of the reasons that we do it. And it's one of the reasons that I'm here. And it's also one of the reasons that I'm so excited to be part of this administration because the president has allowed us, Christians of all denominations,

folks from all different faiths because we have them in all parts of the administration, to be very vocal about their faith and to practice their faith, and to take their faith and work it into our policies. And if you take a look at what the administration has done in the first two and a half years, I think you can see the principles of our faith being manifest. You heard Leonard talk a little bit about religious liberties and religious freedoms. He talked a little bit about the domestic impact of that. That goes hand in hand with what this president has been leading us on internationally.

I don't know if you're aware of this, but we spent a great deal of time over the last two and a half years on the mistreatment of Christians and other religious minorities overseas. We had the first ever ministerial at the State Department, and I think we had 600 people from around the world to deal with to this. You know what he did with Pastor Brunson in Turkey. What you don't know about is what goes on behind closed doors. And I very rarely talk about my private meetings of the president, the stuff that goes on that's outside of the public eye.

But I can assure you that I have been sitting with him in the Oval Office, in the cabinet room, with leaders from around the world, where he will look at them and say, now you're not doing enough to take care of the Christians in your country or thank you for helping the Christians in your country. And I won't lie to you. That's pretty powerful stuff. To be a leader of a foreign nation sitting in the Oval Office

with the President of the United States that I have a look and say, look, I need you to do more to help religious minorities. That's heavy stuff. And it strikes me that's probably something that hasn't been articulated in the Oval Office in way too long. So to be able to be there to be part of that has been very invigorating. My favorite story about what the president, the way the president has sort of taken the principles of our faith and made them manifest deals with his thoughts on abortion. One of the neat things about my job is that I get to see the early versions of the state of the union speech.

And I can assure you it's a lot longer in the first draft. In fact, we time it out, and it could be two hours, two and a half hours. And we also count the number of lines. And we try and make sure, okay, if this is a priority, it gets maybe get 15 lines in the speech, if this is a smaller priority, it might get four. If it's not a priority, it might get cut out and end up on the editing room floor. And when we went through the speech last time, we were talking about, you know, what are we going to say about pro-life?

And we had probably four lines in there, which was a good, some good content on the topic. And the president was looking at the very last time before he went out to give the speech. And he made some notes. And he didn't tell us what he's doing. He just made some notes. And so, okay, I'm ready. And what was happening at the time was that the governor of Virginia had just made his abhorrent comments about killing children after they were born. And if you remember the speech, you know what the president was writing.

Was the president was writing more about how important it was to protect life and how terrible it was and how terrible it was to see what Virginia was doing and what had become so mainstream that the reaction to it was not more pronounced than it was. So I'm comfortable as a Catholic, even though I work for a gentleman who is not Roman Catholic, that the principles of our faith are alive and well and well respected in this administration and are driving many of our policies. And that is something that I'm extraordinarily proud to be part of. I hope it's something.

I would think that it's something that we all agree makes us a better administration and makes us a better country. I certainly believe that it does. I recognize this as a prayer breakfast, which means that before I'm finished, I'm probably supposed to say a prayer. I'll tell you about the only other prayer. breakfast I went to, and I did the same thing, because I had to go back the next year to the South Carolina prayer breakfast. And DeMint said, do you want to come this year? And I said, no, thank you. I'll skip this

year. And he says, no, Mick, you have to come back and fix what happened last year. I'm like, oh, geez. So I showed up. And one of the interesting parts about that passage that I referenced in Matthew is that there's really, is four components to it. There's the component about fasting. Next is the component about alms giving. And then the component about praying in private is the fourth component of the four. The third component of that passage deals with how to pray. And the apostles asked Jesus, how should we pray? And then the Lord's Prayer comes after that. I noticed, I really enjoy the new order of the Mass that we changed a couple years ago. There's one part of it that I wish we hadn't changed. I think the introduction now to Lord's Prayer at Mass is that it's informed by divine

teaching, which is absolutely right, and you cannot argue with it. But I do miss the old introduction about how we let us pray with confidence in the words our Savior gave us. I think that's invigorating to know that you have confidence that, okay, we asked God how to pray to him, and he told us. And that gives us a confidence that I think that is lacking in another in other areas, that you know this is always the right prayer at any time, which means I know it's the right prayer now. So if you wouldn't mind, we'll finish maybe together saying the Lord's prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thine will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not to temptations. but deliver us from evil. Thank you all very much. Have a wonderful rest of the day. And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert Echbruse Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis, Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.