The Eric Metaxas Show - #106 - Rod Martin

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Eric talks with Rod Martin about the latest attempt on President Trump’s life, the rise of political violence, the Marxist ideas fueling the left, and why America must recover the founders’ vision of ordered liberty. They also discuss Iran, the possibility of regime change, Reza Pahlavi, and whether the Iranian people may soon rise against the mullahs. Later, Eric speaks with Malachi O’Brien about the historic breaking of the two hour marathon barrier and why it matters far beyond the running world. Subscribe for clips from The Eric Metaxas Show to hear politics and culture from a Christian perspective.⭐ PRE-ORDER TODAY:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:⭐️ BlockTrust IRA: https://www.metaxascrypto.com/⚖️ Legal Help Center - Get Free Legal Help Today: https://www.legalhelpcenter.com/🛏️ MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/☀️ Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/- -LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE:    / @ericmetaxas  #EricMetaxas #TheEricMetaxasShow #News #politics Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

Hey there, folks. As you know, I often on this program speak to Rod Martin, also know as Rod D. Martin, about what's going on. And I am very happy to have him as my guest today to try to process what's going on. Rod Martin, welcome back. Great to be here. Maybe we should first talk about the attempt on President Trump's life, since that's the headline news, as unfortunately it must. be. Well, there's no question that this is just horrifying. And I was so gratified to hear what the president had to say about even senior Democrats coming up to him in the room and hugging him and offering support. And that's how things ought to be. We should be one people that is horrified by any kind of political violence whatsoever. The problem is we aren't. And And there was some really fascinating polling on this in September by UGov that found that 26% of young male Democrats, so 45 and younger, 26% more than a fourth, believe political violence is justified. And that was the word used, justified.

Now, this is not a both sides problem. the conservative number was 7%, not 27, not 26, seven. Seven should horrify us. We should be absolutely horrified that 7% of anybody thinks we ought to have political violence to advance a political agenda. But seven is a quarter of the Democrat number, which is a quarter of them all. So this is where we are. This is almost civil war kind of territory.

Yeah. And we have to deal with it. And you know where it's coming from. It's coming from the same critical theory we've been talking about now for a long time. This Marxist rebranding that defines certain groups of people as incapable of wrong and other groups of people as irredeemable and deplorable. And, you know, Hillary didn't use those words likely or accidentally. It's actually the mindset of critical theory, which is just a rebranding of Marxism.

You know, they talk about oppressors and oppressed. The classical Marxists talked about the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but the analysis was identical. And the ultimate result of that is you have a lot of people who grew up in a public school and a public education system. this shooter was a Caltech graduate and a teacher. He's not some crazy guy. He's a mainstream Kamala Harris donor who goes to no kings rallies and goes and shoots the president. And that's where a lot of these people are. So until you deal with the schools, until you deal with the critical theory indoctrination,

instead of what we all were raised to believe was important, critical thinking, where you actually look at the facts, you actually have the discussion, you actually do the kinds of things you've been doing your whole career, Eric, until you actually bring that back as the cultural norm, this is only going to get worse. Well, we have to really explain, you know, why is it wrong to say, because it's one thing for us to tuttut and, And of course, obviously I agree with you,

but to explain the issue, because I think there are people that either they're sloppy thinkers or they just, they've picked things up. And I can understand where people are coming from. For example, when I talk about Bonhofer, I've spoken about Bonhofer for 16 years giving speeches, and I always get the question, how can a man of God be involved in a plot to murder the head of state?

And this is where you have to explain, you say, ladies and gentlemen, listen, this is complicated. First of all, it's not murder. If it's murder, it's a sin. Killing is not always murder, okay? When we, you know, took out Osama bin Laden or when David killed Goliath, it's not murder, it's killing. So we have to really try to understand when is violence acceptable and when isn't it. So when we go to war, there's violence involved. But that is different from what we're talking about here.

And we really have to, in a sense, educate the culture on what are we actually talking about? Because I think there are people, and you know this, Rod, there are a lot of people out there that are convinced Donald Trump is Adolf Hitler. And if I were alive, then I could get involved in the plot, kill Hitler. I would kill Hitler. They really haven't thought it through. and they're convinced that because he's Hitler, we have an obligation to do something. We've got to stop him.

Hitler has taken over the democratic process. He's the enemy of democracy. So they really do feel like it's justified because he's Hitler. And so first of all, I think we have to explain that, you know, even if it is Hitler, what is justified and what's not justified, because Bonner, Hoffer was not like, hey, it's Hitler, we got to kill him. You know, it's a little more complicated than that. But I think that there are people that feel a level of desperation because they are convinced

genuinely that Trump is a threat to everything. They really believe that. And so I guess we have to talk about why we believe that it's not okay to take a gun and try to kill your enemies in this way. and I guess part of this, part of the calculus, is they have run out of the ability to persuade. In other words, they've come to a point where they're frustrated because their efforts at persuasion are failing.

Their efforts at the ballot box are failing. And so I think in that frustration, they say, well, we've got to resort to violence because people aren't listening, as though they actually had our own. arguments, which, alas, they do not. Well, yes. And coming back to a key point you were making there, yes, lots of these people believe Donald Trump is literally Hitler.

But you can only get there if you're programmed to think that by a relentless narrative going back as long as I can remember. They were doing this to Bush, too. They were doing this to Reagan. They weren't doing it with the same intensity yet. However, you'll recall in 2008, there was that picture of John McCain as this blood-smeared Dracula figure. You know, there's been this demonization and dehumanization of people on the right for as long as I can remember. And it's worse than that, I wouldn't consider John McCain to be a particularly right-wing figure.

George W. Bush is not some hardcore conservative guy. And yet they were literally Hitler, too, just not with the same intensity. Now, Trump, Trump is just horrifying because he's really going after the centers of the left's power. He has actually gotten rid of 139 federal regulations for every one new one. He has actually given us the biggest tax cut. in the history of the federal government. He has actually reduced federal power in meaningful ways. And his justice department has argued cases before the Supreme Court that dramatically roll back the state that FDR and the Democrats created for most of a century.

So they feel incredibly threatened, whether you're talking about deep staters or their friends in the teachers unions or whatever you're talking about. And so he is an. existential threat, not to democracy, but very much to what they call our democracy, which just means ruled by Democrats. And look, there were a couple of Bernie staffers a couple of campaigns ago who got caught planning concentration camps for people like you and me. And Bernie didn't even fire them. I mean, this is just how they operate. This is how they think. And if you think that they are cheering for the killing of Donald Trump. Just imagine these same young

Democrat men who think political justice is, political violence is justified. Imagine these guys in 10 or 20 years in positions of authority. They are going to be brutally totalitarian and they make no bones about it. Well, again, this is why I feel that we need to educate the culture and it's something you're doing every day. I'm trying to do it every day. I'm trying to do it in writing my book on the revolution. Everybody needs to understand what we have in America, the founder's vision, people

governing themselves, how you get that, how you lose it. Because if you don't have that, people drift toward cultural Marxism, toward socialism, toward all the things that we're seeing young people drift toward because they don't know the basics. They don't know what the rules are, what makes a people flourish. They haven't been taught that in school. The culture hasn't been teaching that. So it's one of my, you know, crusades that I'm on is that if you really understand what it is that we have and how our government works, what a blessing it is, what a blessing is to everybody.

If you actually understand that, you won't drift in these directions, but we have hosts of young people, especially, but older people who they've really lost touch with the basics, they're angry. In any event, we'll be right back trying to solve these problems with Rod Martin. Don't go away.

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So go to Mypilloo.com or call the number on your screen. Use this promo code to take advantage of our second annual mega sale. But wait, there's more. To make the mega sale even more special when you order right now, your order's going to ship absolutely free. Welcome back talking to Rod Martin. So, Rod, we're talking about political violence in America. And I think that, you know, to restate what we were saying before,

the left, you know, you talk about they've lost. their way. I mean, we don't, we're not dealing with, with, with Bill Clinton. No. We're dealing with Marxist lunatics, people that basically hate America. It really started with Obama, who wants to fundamentally transform America, and who imported, you know, critical race theory and that kind of Marxist thinking into the mainstream of American life. And it is pernicious. And it has been doing its work. And the logical result of that is political violence on the left. Yes.

And there's no escaping that left-wing political philosophy has always been an inherently violent thing. It glorifies in, exalts violence as the tool for needed social change. So that's just anathema to the Christian worldview. The Christian worldview from which the American Revolution sprang is all about persuasion. And the reason it is is because it asserts that man is made in the image of God. And you don't have the right to kill an image bearer unless there is a really distinct circumstance, such as actual war, execution of a murderer, something that actually would justify this usually with some measure of due process. But, but, you know, but, you.

You never use that as a substitute for persuasion because we believe that everyone is equal. All men are created equal endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. These things being the case, then I don't get to compel you to do things my way. I get to persuade you. And then we have an election every couple years or four years or six, depending on the office. and we basically take a head count of who was most persuasive. And that is the basis of ordered liberty, which is what the founders wanted,

ordered liberty, where my rights end, where yours begin, and I have to treat you with dignity no matter what. Now, that doesn't mean we have to get along. That doesn't mean we can't yell at each other. That doesn't mean that we have to be buddies. it does mean that there is a line you cannot cross. And Marxism asserts that you must cross it. And so these worldviews are not compatible. And the Marxist worldview, the socialist or even democratic socialist worldview,

is one that is seeking to annihilate that Christian and, in application, American way of looking at the world. it's essential that people read the book you are writing on the revolution that is going to be a godsend in this hour it's also essential that people read Cole Allen's manifesto which is just manifestly anti-Christian these are the worldviews in conflict

and make no mistake there can only be one winner you know thank you for referencing my new book revolution because I was just going to say that when you bring up, you know, violence, when is violence acceptable? And then you mention the revolution. And what I discovered in my research, and it's obviously in my book, is that the revolutionaries, the Americans did not want violence. They were committed never to fire the first shot.

They were committed only to defend themselves. And this is a big deal, folks. This is the biblical view. This is, you know, just war theory that we don't just say, well, it's right. and we're going to use guns to win, we come at it defensively. We say that, you know, if the war begins, we will not cower, we will defend ourselves.

But that commitment on the part of the leaders of the American Revolution to have the moral high ground, not to stoop to the level of the British, who would do anything to win, who would treat their prisoners despicably, who would bayonet and kill people, young men who were surrendering, you know, that kind of thing. They would stoop to that.

Our side, Washington and others were very strict and stern in saying we will never stoop to that. We have standards. So, yes, we will defend ourselves, but we have to have the moral high ground. It's very important that we understand these things, folks. Otherwise, you know, violence becomes increasingly acceptable. and I think that the Christian quality of the Americans fighting in the American Revolution, I didn't know, Rod, as I went into my research, that I would find this. I simply didn't know it, but it became clearer and clearer to me that most of the leaders,

or at least those who were the leaders, Washington and others, they were determined that we would fight in a certain way. only in this way. And if God blesses us, God blesses us, but we are not going to, we're not going to stoop. We'll be right back talking to Rod Martin. Hey, the folks, four we go. If Medicare has you confused, our friends at Chapter have the answers. We recommend that you contact them. We trust them. You can go to askchapter.org slash metaxus. Askchapter.org slash metaxus or call 571. 421, 1,253. That's 571, 421, 1,253. Hi, everyone. If you were injured in an accident, listen up. We have legal professionals standing by

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Thanks, Vernon. You heard the man. Call now to find out. how much money you qualify for. Welcome back. I'm talking to Rod Martin. We're talking about a lot of things, including the political violence, recently the attempt to murder President Trump and members of his cabinet. And I guess I'm wondering what the cognoscenti are making of this. When President Trump was interviewed by Nora O'Donnell, I guess it was on 60 Minutes,

it's so clear that the left feels that they have an obligation, and Nora O'Donnell felt an obligation, to kind of give the other side its say. And so she quotes the manifesto of this murderous lunatic. I mean, it's almost inconceivable that he did what he did, but then he writes this thing out, accusing the president of being a pedophile. Ladies and gentlemen, have you heard this?

A rapist. and you think, I guess, does he really believe that, that President Trump is a pedophile? It's just so crazy, but it's even crazier that, you know, one of the head figures at CBS News decides that she needs to quote this to the president's face. Well, this is part of that dehumanization and just de-legitimization, not just of Trump, but of conservatives generally, because the next part of that same criticism is, well, you voted for a rapist pedophile,

so you are a rapist pedophile, and you must be killed too. Okay, well, how many of us do you want to kill? And we actually have an answer for that because Gus Hall, who was the longtime General Secretary of the Communist Party USA, was asked that in an interview decades ago. And he said, oh, no, no, we wouldn't engage in. purges like Stalin. In America, we wouldn't have to kill more than about a third of the population. Well, okay, once you imbibe of that Marxist mindset, that's where you are, whether you're a national socialist like Hitler, who kills 10 million of his own people, six million of them Jews, four

million others, or you're Stalin and you kill 20 million of your own people, or you're Mao and you kill 65 million of your own people or Paul Pot, and you kill a third of your population in under three years. All of these things have this constant thread, the permanent revolution, which is always soaked in blood, and it's no different from the French Revolution except in degree. So, again, that's the worldview we're talking about. Now, Nora O'Dall wants to give credence to both sides, I would ask how much time she would think was appropriate for us to give both sides of the JFK assassination or the Martin Luther King assassination or any other assassination of someone that they care about.

Well, she didn't, I mean, look, she didn't put it that way, but effectively, I mean, by reading the manifesto, you're thinking you're giving air time to the devil. I mean, you're really doing something that is generally not in the best interest of the nation. And that's when Trump said, you're despicable or something like that. And I thought, this is why Trump is such a great man because he will say that, that he doesn't let it go, but he will throw it right back at her. What you're doing is despicable. You should be ashamed of yourself. And she should be ashamed of herself to publicize that kind of thing, to say, well,

what do you think about that? You know, because again, this is, we've seen this in our lives where people say, well, we want to show both sides of the story, but it's really not fair because sometimes when you say you're showing both sides of the story, you're not really showing both sides of the story. There are certain things that are better left unsaid. And that's always a judgment call. But I was so glad that the president threw it back at her.

And he should have. Absolutely. The double standard is extraordinary. And, you know, if we're just talking about regular politics, no big deal. Politics is a contact sport. It's not supposed to involve contact with bullets. And that's where we are now. They murdered Charlie.

They've tried to murder Trump at least three times that we know of. And there's just no end of this. They're not going to stop coming. I mean, if this man survives his second term, it'll be a miracle of God. it already has been. So you can't function in that kind of environment and what they're trying to do. And Yuri Besmanoff talked about this in that famous interview in 1984. Now, he was a top KGB defector.

And he came over and said, look, you have this demoralization process where you teach an entire generation through the schools that everything they are told to believe is good is actually terrible. and they're victims, and they can never be anything but victims, and they've just got to kill their oppressors. So you have that demoralization stage, but you also have this programming where whatever the narrative is is true, and you don't analyze facts that aren't fed to you. Two plus two really does equal whatever the party tells you, and that will change from day to day. We'll be right.