The Eric Metaxas Show - Ken Starr (continued)

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

Ken Starr, the man who knows a thing or two about impeachment, continues examining current and previous presidential “missteps” and troubles that have divided America.

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Okay, folks, more excitement. I don't know if you can bear it. But we have a second hour now. I continue my conversation with the great Ken Star, but perhaps even better. I get to talk with a real star. He lives in Texas with some beagles in a lean-to down by the pond. His name is John Smirak. John, welcome. Hey, Eric.

Well, we continue our analysis from last time of sleepy Joe Biden. But really, the problem with Joe Biden is not when he's having senior moments. The problem is when he's having his lucid moments. That's when you see the really ugly side of what we're facing. Well, just to remind our listeners, at the beginning of the first hour, we were having a conversation about his Ted A Tet with the Hard Hat in a, what was it, an auto worker's plant? Yeah, an auto plant.

And he, but it was kind of a weird scene because he was kind of crushed. There's people all around him, and you could see him get very visceral. and, you know, everybody's taking film of this, but you're saying it wasn't his misspeaking, it was his speaking that we should be worried about. Yeah, he lies about the Constitution. It says the Second Amendment exists to protect hunting. And in my piece it's streamed up.

The Second Amendment was about letting individual citizens have guns so that they could form popular militias. not like the National Guard, okay? Nothing like the National Guard. The popular militias that accomplished the American Revolution, and before that, overthrew Charles I in England, they were privately run. They were not controlled by the government.

That was the whole point of them. When the government, under Charles I, was an absolute monarchy that was closing Protestant churches. We're talking about 1660? That's right. 1640, yeah, 40, 1640. So 1640, sorry. Yeah, the English Civil War.

And then in America, the militia overthrew the royal governors. They weren't controlled by the governor of the state. When the founders talked about a well-regulated militia, they didn't mean one run by the government. That was the whole point. I'm reading this book, That Every Man Be Armed by David Halbrook. And if you read the founders, that they're big concern about the Second Amendment, was that somebody might get the idea that the U.S. should have a standing army instead of these popular militias, which were controlled by the people, not by the governor. Well, this is a big idea, John. We've come so far from this. We have to remind ourselves that we the people are the government.

That's not just a phrase. It's true. The founders said, we are the government, and militias are we the people standing up against anyone that would threaten what we. think of as our constitutional rights? Virtually all the founders agreed that the armed populace was meant to be a kind of fourth branch of government, the backstop against tyranny. And over and over again, you see in these debates, well, of course, that abuse won't happen because the citizenry who are armed would never tolerate it. Virtually every one of the other parties, and this is not some crackpot idea. they got this from Cicero, the Roman, the Roman Republican, who said, if you disarm the populace and have a paid mercenary standing army, tyranny will be the outcome, and sure enough, he died,

and Julius Caesar imposed a tyranny. And Machiavelli wrote about this in the Renaissance saying the reason all these Italian city states are tyrannies is that they have foreign mercenaries or standing armies instead of an armed populace. caught on in the reformation, especially in Switzerland, it caught on in England. Our tradition is an ancient venerable tradition going back to the Roman Republic that learns from the threats to liberty presented when the government has an absolute monopoly of violence. And in the 20th century, boy, was that vindicated. If you read death by government, this amazing book by R.J. Rummel, $150 million to $170,000.

million people were murdered intentionally by their governments, not through war, through genocide, through concentration camps. Between 150 and 170 million people were killed by governments. And the one thing they had in common, all those people had been disarmed by those governments first. Isn't it amazing? I mean, and you need radio programs, TV programs like this one, to re-educate the American population because most of us did not learn this in schools, and we really don't understand what you're talking about. When somebody like Biden, you know, says, I'm a hunter, he's missing the point, but he's assuming that most other people are going to miss the point. And, you know, he's, I mean, look, he makes a good point when he says, you know, you're not

allowed to have a machine gun, right? And the guy says, right. And we've got to figure out where those lines are. But it does get tricky, because if you're talking about a militia, I think you'd ask the question, okay, why aren't we allowed to have machine guns and bazookas and rocket launchers? It's a very, it's a tricky thing. It's why we need to have the actual conversation. You know, stream.org. Imagine if you needed to be a professional journalist with a journalism degree in order to publish an op-ed online. Imagine that you needed a license from the government to write about politics on Facebook. Imagine applying to the First Amendment the kind of outrageous attacks that they regularly

hand out about the Second Amendment, and you'll see they're making it not much of a constitutional right at all. They're trying to make it something like driving, where if you won't take a sobriety test, they can revoke your driver's license because driving is technically a privilege. Driving on public roads is a privilege. It's not a constitutional right like the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is a constitutional right. If that doesn't sound sacred to you, you're not a real American.

Go live in a normal country like Belgium or something. You'll be much more at home. It's unbelievable. What was the meme that you wanted to use for Joe Biden at the end of his contra-tomp with the auto worker? Oh, he threatens to smack the auto worker, like an aristocrat. threatening a serf in the middle ages. And what was the thing about surf?

They were disarmed. Right. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has secret service agents behind him. So if this guy took him up on it, he'd get beaten up, maybe go to prison. So, okay, threatening to slap a surf. And then when the surf responds like an American, hey, you work for me. Remember, this is a Democratic Republic, not 13th century France or 19th century Russia. What does Biden do?

He says, I don't work for you. Don't be a horse's ass. The citizen says, you work for me. I don't work for you. I don't work for you. I don't work for you. Don't be a horse's ass. That needs to be in an attack at.

Joe Biden, Joe Biden's view of the role of the president, I don't work for you. Don't be such a horse's ass. I'm Donald Trump, and I prove this man. Now, I have to tell you, the problem I think with, with conservatives is that we we should be we there should be a hundred young people competing to make the best meme of this to put it on the internet like immediately because this is so funny and so apt APT so totally apt I don't work for you don't be a horse this ass this is what Obama and all the Democrats agree on the government doesn't work for us

We shouldn't have an armed citizenry as a backstop against tyranny. Tyranny is not a problem. Liberty is the problem. John, we're... No, I'm just sorry. We're going to... If our audience are good boys and girls, we will continue this conversation with you tomorrow.

We have Catherine Schwarzenegger Pratt coming on to talk about her new book, Jeremy Camp, and if people are good, be good. We'll have John Smirak back. But, John, thank you so much, my friend. What is funnier than playing foreigner while you're sitting next to Judge Ken Starr? I can't think of anything. I just have to amuse myself. Judge Starr, welcome back.

We're talking to you about a lot of things, about what's happening in the country, your nukegous contempt, a memoir of the Clinton investigation. But just to go back to the erosion of faith in the public institutions, you were saying, you know, we need somebody like a Reagan. I guess I wonder whether before you can get the... there, you need to have the war or have the fight. And that was, if you discover, as I think Trump has, that there are people embedded all throughout the system who are not just at war with you, but because they wouldn't be

at war with you if you yourself weren't at war with corruption in the deep state, you have to fight them because the idea that we can all pretend to get along and unify when, you I guess my thinking is that folks that I admire like George W. Bush, they did too much of that. In other words, that there was a war to be fought. There were nasty people doing nasty things. And in the interest of civility, he kind of gave it a pass or said, I don't, you know, I don't want to have enemies or whatever it is. We see this through. I always think of my Bonhofer book and how there were these Petretian Germans who just couldn't see Hitler. for who he was until it was too late. They weren't really willing to dirty their hands and to get down in the gutter with him. And I sometimes think that that's part of the role that Trump has in

American life at this point is that he is willing to go where others haven't gone to take China on for the sake of our economic future and to do a lot of those kinds of things. And I suppose I don't think that things can get better until we do root out some of these deeply entrenched I would say, enemies of American-style self-government, people who have become so wedded to power that they just won't let go until they're forced to let go. I think we saw a microcosm of that in the impeachment hearings in the House against President Trump. With Lieutenant Colonel Henman, Vindman, some of his testimony was, I found very troubling in terms of his perspective. because it was clear for me, this is an inference that I drew, that he was quite offended, that the president of the United States would depart from the talking points that had been prepared by the national security staff.

Right, right. And so I keep coming back to our constitutional order. We only elect the president. And one of the things that has since happened, I gather, is that the relatively new National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien, has been reducing the size of the staff. And that, of course, is one of the huge issues for any bureaucracy. How big are we? Are we lean and mean, meaning efficient?

Are we fat and flaccid? And have we become so self-important that we are actually pursuing our agenda? As opposed to the ancient traditions, supposedly, of the British civil servant, we're here to serve, whoever it is. We're not here to undercut the prime minister, even though this prime minister may be pursuing policies that we, the Career Civil Service, don't like, but it's our duty to carry them out. Well, that's the thing. And isn't this a cultural issue? In other words, Trump is that vulgarian from Queens, the new money billionaire, who dares to come on to our turf, we who went to Georgetown and Harvard School of Government and on and on and he dares this jughead to come in and tell. And, you know, the American people says, yeah, he dares. because guess what, we, America, elected him to do that on our behalf.

And if you don't like it, you must quit. And if you see the background economy, and these things don't just happen in a vacuum, there's context. What is the context? And so how did he carry Pennsylvania? How did he carry Wisconsin? The perceived erosion of a huge part of what makes the American economy tick. So it was not a morality statement.

it was an economy statement as well as is government really serving us and our interests? Well, I guess because I had the benefit or the well, let me say that it was a good and a bad thing that I was exposed to Yale University when I was because I feel like I saw, for the first time in my life having been raised in a working class environment, I saw the ruling class and who they were and where they were headed. and those are the very people that, you know, they become Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett, and on and on. I've seen these people become the leaders of the United States government, effectively speaking, and they have a way of seeing things that's extremely secular, that cannot help but be somewhat superior in attitude because they have this education. And they do look down, it seems to me, on those who don't. And I would like to think that our greatest leaders haven't done that. Trump certainly doesn't do that.

But that is the problem. In other words, when you feel that you've been educated to a point where you actually know better and that you've got to impose what you know, even if it really doesn't work with the system that we have. Well, and recall this is somewhat periodic in American history. The federalist under John Adams. really look down their noses at the Jeffersonians, these rubs and so forth. And New England in the Maine looked down upon it. Andrew Jackson, right, a populace in bringing in all these rustic Tennesseans and so forth.

And then a much more modern example, Dwight Eisenhower, with John Foster Dulles of New York City, complete blue-blood kind of background, but what happened at the State Department under John Foster Dulles? and then Dwight David Eisenhower, they opened up the Foreign Service, the diplomatic corps, and started recruiting people who didn't even have college degrees. Yeah, I didn't know that. An openness to, we have too much of the Ivy, and not enough remember, Dwight Eisenhower hail from the Heartland. And he knew what those soldiers were like, right? And those soldiers weren't just from Yale.

They were from all over this great country. and many of those from all over the great country, like an Ulysses S. Grant, rising to greatness during the Civil War, during the horror of that, look at his background, right? Not a very impressive background from the great state of Illinois. Look at Abraham Lincoln. I don't think he was educated at Harvard or educated other than to the King James Version of the Bible, Shakespeare,

and of course his great, great human experiences. Well, it's an amazing thing when you think of, of arguably our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln is coming from a point of view. It's only recently that I have come to realize his profound, I would say unprecedented appreciation for the founders. I don't think we've ever had a president that has appreciated the founders and the founders' vision and what we call American exceptionalism in the way that Lincoln did. And when you think that he was despised in his day, we forget.

because he was assassinated, but he was so despised as a, you know, a rail-splitting hick. I think that there's no question that if the people of America perceive they're being looked down upon by their leaders, it's off-putting. Clinton had the common touch. He had the ability to make people feel he was one of them. Certainly this president has that. But I... It's a great gift. Empathy is a great gift. And I think with both President Clinton and with President Trump, what you see is really there, a sense of feeling of putting yourself in the position of someone who has not had all the breaks to go to Yale. Yeah. Well, I guess I'm still fascinated by how vicious things have gotten. When I saw Nancy Pelosi tear up the nose to the state of the

union, I thought the last time I've seen anything this wild and unprecedented on TV, literally I had to go back 30 years to when Mike Tyson bit the ear of Evander Holyfield. That's the last time I could remember that I saw something on TV that I had no context for. I just spun around the room and thought, what just happened, what just happened? What is it that do you think that has driven those folks to this point? If they accuse him of being unpresidential, why can't they be more civil? They seem to outdo him. That act I viewed as an act of weakness, born of security,

and thus to show artificially strength. I will show him. But why would you do it in that particularly very off-putting way, especially since it happened to be a very well-received and rather emotionally touching state of the union? You can disagree with a pro-life position that the president is advancing or whatever. But throughout that long speech,

there was every reason to feel good about American exceptionalism. So she really, to me, just showed, I've got to show strength here. I'm up to this. I'm going to act rather childishly. And the American people are so wise. That's the thing. We talk about the wisdom of the people.

They're so wise that surely very few people, other than the most radical, applauded that very, Well, it was the most petulant thing I've seen in public life, I have to say. We're going to be right back talking to Ken Starr. The book is contempt, a memoir of the Clinton investigation. I guess the Lord must be in New York City. Knocking at your back door. Hey, folks, it's here from Texas show.

I am talking with Judge Ken Starr. We're talking about everything. We're talking about the erosion of American institutions. So just to go back to when you were on the program a couple of years ago, and you said we need to trust the process with Robert Mueller. It seems to me that you being the gentleman that you are, and there were a number of people of your tribe at that time, who said we can trust the process.

And there were other people, I guess, like me, who said, things are different now. The folks on that side are, they're playing a game. They're gaslighting us by saying, oh, we need this process. But somehow there were people, like me then already saying something smells funny. I don't

trust the process. They're out to get him and it is a witch hunt. I don't disagree in light of the Mueller report with your characterization. Now, Kenstar headline, Ken Star calls Mueller report witch hunt. Albin, write that down. I want to reiterate this. I have the

greatest admiration for Bob Mueller but the Bob Mueller who testified in July of last year is not the Bob Mueller I worked with. He's not the Bob Mueller who goes to Vietnam, Semperfy, serves his country. So, you know, whether it's the ravages of age or whatever, I don't know. But who was truly in command and control of that operation? In fact, the word embarrassing was used by the Wall Street Journal to describe this great Patriots performance. So something happened, but I think the Bob Mueller with whom I served under President Bush 41, the guy who has prosecuted some of the meanest of the mean and the toughest of the tough, that was not the person who was in charge. But also, even from the beginning, I mean, it falls to folks like Sean Hannity since the New York Times has abdicated its role in journalism to point out that Mueller had very strong Hillary Clinton supporters exclusively.

on his team. I mean, simply the optics of that is bizarre to me. They seem to be out for blood, but people weren't calling on them, calling them on that, except for, you know, places like once in a while Fox News. Well, I actually was saying that in public comments on different, different networks, that I had trust in Bob Mueller, but I was concerned about the people who he had gathered on his team. So, a point of history. When I was being a accused of, oh, you're a partisan Republican in the investigation of President Clinton. I took that to heart, and I've just made sure that we had people. I didn't have a litmus test, but the key example was I recruited Watergate, fame special

prosecutor general counsel, Sam Dash, who is a name from yesteryear, but he was a big name in American history during the Nixon impeachment process, a Democrat and a professor are very respected at Georgetown. And he was my ethics counsel. He reviewed every indictment that we returned, and he reviewed every word of the star referral or the star report. We need it. So I said, we need checks and balances, the genius of the founding.

Checks and balances, separation of powers. Do you suppose there will be any reckoning with regard to some of what happened with Stroke and Page and. and, you know, the steel dossier. In other words, it seems clear and clearer as time passes that there was real, you know, malignant ugliness. This was not just, you know, it's not something that sort of just happened. Mistakes were made. It seems that it was deliberate. It seems that the destruction of Hillary Clinton's, you know, blackberries with hammers and things. You just look at that and you think, my goodness, what have we come to? And why isn't someone able to do something about it?

That's what I don't understand, not being a lawyer. I don't understand how that can work or why it hasn't worked. It all boils down to the evidence. What is the evidence? John Adams to the Boston jury, facts are flinty things. So what are the facts? And then the other element is, what can you prove in court by admissible evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt? So I realize that there are times that people said, why isn't that person in jail? And the person may not be in jail because you don't have enough. not that they didn't do it, whatever it is, but you don't have as an ethical prosecutor enough evidence to prove each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. And what happened with Bob Barr recently? In other words, he chose not to bring criminal charges. I can't even remember the specifics very recently, and people were upset about that. Yeah, this is Andrew McCabe and it's Bill Barr, yeah. That's it. Okay. And he was criticized for that. And I guess I heard that it's because he didn't feel he could get a conviction in D.C.

Is that, do you think, part of his thinking? You've got to assess it. I don't know. But you have to assess you being the ethical prosecutor before a fair-minded jury. But then there's a prudential factor. Do you think you can get this conviction here in this jurisdiction? It's a fair consideration. I don't know whether that was true or not.

But I'll just say this. I think everybody, I certainly wish it would happen on the other side of the aisle, would calm down in terms of the invocation of the criminal law. cause. Let's indict them and lock them all up, right? I recoil against that because presumption of innocence, liberty is, but we want justice. That's the key. We want justice. But one of the key elements of the Department of Justice training is if you can proceed to write a wrong through the civil law, that's what you do. The criminal law should be the last resort. Why? Freedom is at stake. The presumption of innocence is at stake.

So I didn't lose a moment's sleep when the announcement came that Andrew McCabe would not be indicted. I said, as long as it's a professional judgment brought by people of integrity, then I applaud it. Okay, we've only got a few seconds left in this segment. So we're going to go to a break. Folks, I'm talking to Ken Starr. He's the author of a book contempt, a memoir of the Clinton investigation. This is the Eric Mataxis show. Tell your friends.

You've got to see. sound your A, the day you're born, beyond the sea somewhere waiting for me. I've always wanted to get Bobby Darren in the studio with Judge Ken Starr. Bobby Darren unfortunately passed away many years ago. Can't make it happen, but we have the recording. And Judge Starr, thanks for being here in person. My pleasure. Thank you.

At least you did your part. Let's talk about, since you're a judge, let's talk about judges. This president, I think, shocked a lot of the people, conservatives, who didn't quite trust him when he said to, you know, Leo Strauss, Federalist Society, give me a list, and I will commit to appointing these people. And then he goes way beyond that and appoints 180-something conservative federal judges. I mean, that is a monumental achievement for any president. Did you see that coming? No. Beyond our wildest dreams. And he's truly been absolutely simplify, always faithful.

true to his word, and to have two justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, people of total integrity, Brett Kavanaugh, with whom I worked and who was savaged absolutely terribly and unfairly. But he's there. He's doing his job. The judge's project, and let's give credit also to Majority Leader McConnell, the combination, the partnership between the pros of the United States and the Senate Majority Leader has really helped shape American law for the next generation. And that's one of his proudest achievements. Well, we both know that if we don't have originalists interpreting the Constitution, we're in big trouble. We cannot have, you know, judges going by their feelings. And I'm sorry to say that in our lifetimes, we've seen that drift. So the idea that we're pulling back from

that, I assume the president will get at least one more Supreme Court. appointment, but I imagine that that's going to be another ugly battle. Oh, I think it'll be quite ugly. But I think the Cavanaugh battle, Eric, here is, I tend to be an optimist walking on the sunny side of the street. The fight for the seat of Anthony Kennedy was one that the other side, we're going to take this to the absolute, whatever we need to do to stop that seat from being filled by a conservative. We want someone who's not an originalist to the contrary. And we heard quite recently from Senator Schumer how much they don't want an originalist on the court

with his stunt on the steps of the United States Supreme Court, which is really shameful. Oh, oh, you're referring to what Schumer said. I just want to go to that for a second. when Schumer said those words threatening, I guess it was, I can't remember who he was threatening. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. I said to myself, this kind of like Pelosi tearing up the state of the Union, I said, this is unprecedented. This fool, he's not some guy.

He is a leading senator of the United States of America. If anybody on the planet ought to know you can't say such a thing to another. branch of government. I don't know that I will ever get over it, that we had a senator do that. It's one thing for maybe a hot-headed freshman congressperson to do that. But how can we get to, how could he allow himself to get to that point? Is he just grandstanding? What do you suppose is happening? I think the senator has more than one showed poor judgment. Just as Nancy Pelosi showed poor judgment. So are you playing to your crowd and you want to keep them mobilized and excited and so forth? But can't you do so in a way that shows some dignity and some respect? First of all,

he is on the steps of the Supreme Court while the argument is underway. And it was, as Captain Hook would say, bad form or poor form. But it's worse than that. And in fact, as someone recently commented, if this had been someone not on the floor of the Senate, he wasn't on the floor of the Senate, but not a United States Senator, the person would have been arrested. Because it would sound like a threat, didn't it?

In fact, it was a threat. He turned and pointed the finger and said what he said. So yes, it is really, this was an unpardonable political act. But to go back to our previous conversation, part of the conversation, that what he did in a few words

is dramatically undermine the entirety of the United States governmental system. The idea that somebody at his level would politicize the Supreme Court, it's one thing to disagree with the decision, but to politicize it and make it nasty and political, I really was just astounded that they were willing to go there. It was astounding and it was outrageous. I'm very glad that the Chief Justice of the United States immediately, almost in the next breath, remonstrated against what Senator Schumer did.

And then I'm very glad that I don't know what's happening, but that an appropriate censure motion, it won't carry, but it should. And it should certainly carry with Democrats from states that will be voting for Donald Trump. Because it's the right thing to do. Well, in a really civilized society, and it shows you how far we've slid, in a really civilized society, Schumer would have been keel-hauled in the Potomac, but we can't talk about that right now. It really, I just have no words.

I could not believe what I saw that day. We've just got a minute or so left. Where do you see us going in this election? It's a very strange election, to be sure. If we can get past coronavirus and get back on an even economic keel, It is, in fact, the president's, it's his to lose. And I would say my own word of advice, and he hears it all the time, is walk on the sunny side of the street, be positive, rise above this nonsense, tweet to your heart's desire. In fact, I said this in 2017.

I wrote a Washington Post op-ed. Yes, Washington Post op-ed. Encourage the president to tweet, but could you be positive? positive and quit attacking your enemies, even though that's his New York instinct, but he's the proud of the United States. And if he changed that, he would be winning in a landslide. Oh, I know. A 55 to 56% approval rating, because look at his policies. So I think we're going to see, I'm predicting, a different tone from President Trump.

Yeah. And a time of national tragedy, coronavirus. I thought he was wonderful in Nashville. he became what in the response to the tornado and the loss of life. He didn't fly over. He went on the ground and he's great in relating to people. And that's what I think the other side of the aisle doesn't give him credit for. He relates to people.

Oh, listen, I think he is without any question because none of us got to hear Lincoln. But I think he is easily the funniest president that we have ever had. Unfortunately, we're out of time. Judge Starr, just a privilege to have you. you thank you so much thank you very hey there folks it's here come on get rhythm do get the blues get a rock and roll feeling in your bones

but taps on your toes and get rhythm when you get the blues hey there folks it's here from tax the show hey albin i got to ask the question of my audience audience are you ready for the question are you ready ready no no no I mean really ready are you ready here's the question We're doing a campaign for food for the poor to feed the poorest of the poor in Guatemala.

Here's the question. Have you given yet? I can't hear you. All right. Have you given yet? Have you given something? Just something. Have you given something yet?

Some people said, yes. I could hear that. In my mind, I could hear that. Now, to those of you who have given, I want to say thank you. To those of you who have not given, oh my goodness. Oh, my goodness. You have an opportunity, folks. We've teed it up for you.

This is serious. Like, this is one of those things where I can't pretend that maybe this is not for you. This is basic stuff. This is feeding the poor. We've vetted food for the poor. They are an extraordinarily reputable organization. We've had people from Food for the Poor on this program explaining things. This is very simple.

And your money goes extremely far. The money that we give in this country, It goes so far in a place like Guatemala Food for the Poor leverages it. They get donations from around the world food and beans and other staples. And then they get this stuff, you know, with trucks and cars and they get it up into the hills to feed these families. All you have to do is either pick up your phone or go to metaxistalk.com. Go to metaxis talk.com. You'll see the banner there or you can call.

But I want to play Alice Marino is somebody that. that actually visited one of these villages. Let's see what Alice has to say. I just cannot imagine going through what they go through every single day. These mothers want the same thing that us as mothers want for our children. If I was born into poverty like that, would I have the strength to do what they do? And that to me just reminds me. God, thank you for bringing them to us so they can remind us.

and make us humble. Well, you know, it is a funny thing because when you encounter this, it changes you. You cannot believe that there are people in this day and age going through this. The only thing that I say, I've said this many times, is that you want to focus as much as you can on the bad news because it's real, but then you want to say, but there's good news. The good news is I can actually do something about it. There are many horrible things you can do nothing about except pray. In this case, you can give money.

which is going to go directly to help these families. $80 feeds a kid for a year. That's how Food for the Poor leverages this stuff. So that's why we rave about food for the poor. They manage, they know what they're doing, okay? They're not, you know, there's a lot of organizations. They try, but they're not that effective. Food for the poor is very effective.

If you haven't taken advantage of the opportunity, you've got to do it, folks. I promise you that this is a wonderful thing to give to. I'll give you the phone number. It's 844-863. hope that's 8448663 hope you can write it down I recommend you write it down 844 8663 hope obviously you can go to our website mettaxistock.com every single person who gives is entered in a contest we've got a big fun grand prize contest you win all kinds of stuff tomorrow on this program we announce this week's winner every single week we have a winner we just do this

to make it fun. Every week, whoever gives is entered in a contest. Doesn't matter what you give, you get an equal chance to win. And there's other things we want to do and give away. Anybody who can give $10,000, we want to spend an evening with you, have dinner, get to know each other. I want to thank you in person. Lots of folks can give. Lots of folks haven't yet given. Let today be the day. Let right now be that time. Again, the number is 844-863 Hope. 8-4-8-6-3 hope, or just go to Metaxus, talk. God bless you. Thank you.