Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's The WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective in the hot topic of the day has not changed for this week. It is still the election and the election results and is just still diving into the numbers and finding, well, mostly more good news out there. And then a couple of places where, you know, it's still a little bit tight and then some losses on some of the pro-life measures and others across the country. So we're going to cover a little bit more of that today as we close out the week. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton and special guest Chad Connelly back with us. Chad, we last had you on right before the big day and and going into the election. And now you had a few days to take a look at the numbers and see the good results and just wondering what your take is on how we ended up. 

Tim Barton [00:00:51] Well, if I can jump into real quick before we go to Chad, because, Chad, when we finished yesterday, there were still two states in holding Arizona and Nevada, and now people are already calling that those have now been decided. Now I'm looking on different maps. Not everybody's called it yet. But I do want to point out, because as soon as we hit the record and finished record yesterday, people were like Arizona. As we called for Trump, I was like, man, we missed that by like, you know, half a second. So I'm looking at some election maps right now and I don't see it on all of the different sites. Not everybody's calling it, but some have already called Arizona and Nevada, which I think is maybe reasonable anyway, Chad, as we're waiting to see some of the other results coming in, including that, I just want to throw that caveat out there, that it looks like that Trump might, in fact, have won every one of the swing states, which yesterday we weren't sure about. And today it looks like that might be the case, which is significant. And by the way, Tim, I have to point out, if that is that may be the only thing The New York Times has got right in the last 50 years, because we reported that on election night, New York Times had put that that little I would say tweet, but X whatever it is, now that they were predicting that Trump would win all seven battleground states. So The New York Times finally got something right. Even a blind dog finds a bone once in a while. I guess that's that's what The New York Times is. 

Chad Connelly [00:02:16] Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, great for for as far as that goes in my prediction. I did I guess I did it Sunday night. I put down 312 and that's exactly what I was going to end up with. And I'm not that I'm some kind of perfect prognosticator, but, you know, David, not we've been in every one of those states and I felt like we had a pretty good finger on the pulse of what we were hearing. And I've been trying to draw out this point with political consultants for four years is the pastors know what's going on in their state. You know, they don't have to be of particular denomination or ethnicity. They're hearing things from their denominational people. And let's face it, the pollsters, what they had right was they they figured out they don't know America now. Right. The second thing is, I don't know Trump voters. Trump has always overperformed. I think that some of these whiny, liberal elite women are so anxious to speak to a pollster. And let's face it, some Trump voters, they don't trust him at all. They don't want to talk to him. The fact that Trump's going to end up with 312 electoral votes, that the Senate and looks like probably the House as well is just amazing for conservatives, as hasn't happened in a long time. This is a landslide. But I think the biggest thing it highlights is how out of touch the big city liberal elites are. They haven't talked to a Republican conservative church going flag waving, God fearing American in decades. And it shows up because their bias comes out through their polling and their reporting. That's my take. 

Rick Green [00:03:59] What do you think? They wake up after this? I mean, do you think this not only means in government because the people that were elected, we can see some changes, but in the campaign apparatus, we might see some changes. 

Chad Connelly [00:04:10] Listen, I think this is the question is, will the media ever do real self-reflection? No. If I think Trump did three things in the last, what, ten days, two weeks that were monumental, they made a decision in June or July to have the young men vote. And so he did all these podcasts. He coordinated that with Joe Rogan. What y'all? 40 million views. That's unheard of. That that may transcend mass media. The McDonald's fry station, that was just brilliant. I called it I'll News Nation. I got the Democratic strategist to agree with me on All News Nation. He was nodding, you know, what a brilliant move. And then, of course, the garbage thing. They capitalized on unforced errors in Kamala's campaign like nobody else seen on our side. To me, people on the conservative side are reluctant to dive into that stuff. And then the Joe Rogan interview, I think those were brilliant, brilliant moves. As I told our pastors, you know, almost three start. I can be here as a strategist, obviously whatever. But former Republican chairman. But I told pastors, yeah, elections matter. They bring focus and attention. But the truth of the matter for me is we're going to always engage. And let's face it, y'all, we're going to stand on policy things. Republican-Democrat, because they're Christian values, not Republican or Democrat values. So we're going to have quote unquote, air quote, fights in both directions. But for the conservative movement, this is monumental. I believe it is a complete repudiation of leftist progressivism. Wokeism. It may have put that back in the Pandora's box that they opened up by putting boys and girls sports and all that kind of thing and going to girls restrooms. I think it's a repudiation of that. 

Tim Barton [00:05:56] You know, I want to jump in on that, too, because I have seen some Democratic congressman, some other Democrat members doing some self-reflection that this is a complete repudiation of the Democrat Party. And they've been that blunt with it. And they're telling their colleagues, we are totally out of touch with America. Now, I my analysis is that it takes some humility to admit you're wrong at any point in time. And I don't know that there's enough humility within Democrat leadership, Democrat Party or Democrat, the high elites, to acknowledge that or to say, well, we just didn't message it right. Will message it differently. But I think it's interesting that I even heard on election night here in Texas call an all red who ran against Ted Cruz was defeated by nine points in that Senate race, which a lot of the outside news media thought that was going to be a very tight race and it was a net non point. But the Democrat lady who replaced call an all red as a congressman from over in Dallas, she said, look, she's I've worked with Republicans. I'm a Democrat legislator in a Republican state. I work with Republicans and I reject bad ideas from Democrats. I bet, Jack. Bad. I mean, she just sound like she was so mainstream moderate. And I'm not going to go where the party goes. I'm going to go where the where the right ideas are. And it's interesting to me how many of them will take that position if that's going to be more of a state thing. I don't know that the national guys are able to do that. You know that how Kim Jefferson, those guys. But I think their consultants may be look at this stuff because they don't get paid as well if they lose, obviously. But it takes a lot of humility to to admit that you've got something wrong. And we'll see where that goes. And well, it goes to one of the things that we have been talking about is that we really think that this is that this Trump winning is not only an answer to prayer for so many Americans. I think that God is giving us a respite. Right? Like maybe a reprieve. 

Chad Connelly [00:07:47] Man. 

Tim Barton [00:07:48] And ultimately, I think if the church if Christians if we don't steward it well, then this is something that can rapidly go the wrong direction. And I say that recognizing that when we are looking at the polling from culture, the fact that when you look at the the abortion ballot measures in ten of the states that the pro-abortion crowd won overwhelmingly, not just on that the ballot measures winning seven out of ten, but even in Florida, where it was defeated, 57 plus percent voted for abortion. And so, Chad, to me, this is such, in my mind, a wake up call that church. You better start to support some people. Amen. To know what the word of God says, to stand for the word of God. And I'm saying this first as a believer, but then Chad already thinking, I know what your answer is, but looking at the party, I know it's very easy when you have a victory to not maybe reflect, strategize and continue to implement things that work. Because as mentioned, what you were doing with Faith wins. You and my dad traveling, having 10 to 15 meetings a week. For weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks leading to the election and a lot of these battleground states challenging pastors to speak up, speak out, stand on biblical truth. If it wasn't for organizations like Faith Wins, WallBuilders doing some of these things. And of course, without somebody like Charlie Kirk, who it is his faith and motivating them to do all that he's doing, I'm just wondering, do you think there's people inside of the RNC, inside of the Trump organization, that recognize the significance of needing people of faith to be backers and supporters of what they do? Or is are we running the risk of potentially Republicans treating Christians like Democrats have treated the black and minority vote that like, where else are you going to go? You have to support us so we're not going to pay you any attention. I'm afraid it's it's a little bit more like that. But I'm hopeful that with guys like Charlie Kirk being so instrumental to the Trump victory, that that maybe there's a different thought and feel. Chad, I'm just curious what you think. 

Chad Connelly [00:10:05] Well, big question, right? Look, I was standing in a very famous place talking to somebody who's the Trump whisperer. And their answer to me was, where are the evangelicals going to go? That that is no doubt. And I got to tell you, they're saying right now the way we won was we moved to the middle and we shelved abortion. Now, you and I know they didn't really shelve abortion. What they did was create a lot of that. They thought, okay, we're not or talk about it and we're going to take it's in the States hands because of the Dobbs decision. It's out of our hands. It's not us. The left didn't let us ignore this, y'all. We got people in our little Baptist Church in South Carolina who are confused, women are going to die and gays are going to die. And this is awful. And you can't vote for him because of this. So that messaging, especially the young single women, is a very effective because it pulls on the heartstrings and it plays into the emotions. Tim, you're spot on. This is my concern is does the party recognize and I don't know if you all saw this Pew was saying that evangelicals made up 22% of the electorate. Now, I don't like looking at any numbers early because I think they're they're all exit polling and they're over modeled instead of more authentic results. But if that's the case, that would have been the lowest percentage of evangelicals. Now, I also think that skew because the Democrats somehow lost, what, 15, 16 million votes from last night. So to say this was a high turnout or low turnout, if you factor in 2020 numbers, 81,000,074 million versus 66, 67,000,075 million, you're missing 15 million people somehow. So that's skewed, right? But I so I'm not sure I trust the 22%. But you're right, Tim. This has always been my fear. I have sat in those rooms with these Republican experts at the RNC in in high places, and they don't fundamentally agree with me and they don't understand us. Most of them can identify our church in pictures. Therefore, they don't want to deal with us. I do think Trump, because he's got people around him, you know, your dad, mom and Aunt Dana were at the the faith rally a week ago. Monday was a week ago Monday, David in Atlanta. And he definitely said, I'm going to have a faith adviser in the White House. So I'm hoping the three of us, the four of us can have influence with whoever that is and tell them, you cannot ignore this. But your edge, you asked them the right question. And I can almost make it offensive. To what? Yes, Trump recognizes the importance, but no, Trump's consultants don't. And we'll see where that tension ends up. 

Tim Barton [00:12:50] And I think, too, it's also very telling of the church that they thought they could move to the middle and that would be morally acceptable in America. That says a lot about what the church has and has not been teaching and the lack of discipleship. And so certainly I would I would think that as we are looking at at the way forward, that if we don't recognize the need for the church to start doing a better job of discipleship as believers to start helping have these conversations with our friends, then this is what the Founding fathers warned against, that if you remove religion, morality, our Constitution won't work. America won't stand, according to George Washington and John Adams. And this is the dangerous place. But this is again, this is where I think God's given us a chance, which I actually heard somebody explain it. I thought very brilliantly where when when Nehemiah went to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, you had the king who wasn't a Christian, but the king provided for Nehemiah all that he needed to go back and rebuild the wall. So you have an ungodly king turning loose, a man of God to go do God's. Work to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. And I think that it's very possible that Trump gives us the cover that enables us as believers to go do a lot of what needs to be done in this nation. But again, I think this is where if we don't steward this well, then it could take a very bad turn very quickly, because when the fundamental difference is used to be some basic values of life, marriage, family, Israel, religious liberty, if if both sides move to the middle and there's no more morality, that is an overarching objective morality from the Bible that's leading one party or the other. It sets America up in a very dangerous place. I really do think this is something we need to look at, and I know there's so much more we want to get to, so I apologize, Rick. I will back up and know. 

Rick Green [00:14:49] I'll take a break and we'll come back and jump right back into it. And to Tim's point, I mean, as we're going to break, everybody be thinking about that. What are you going to do? What what trial? What sword, what, what, what brick are you going to pick up to rebuild the walls? Because we have been exactly as Tim just said, man, we've got the opportunity. Nehemiah has been sent to rebuild. We got the king's blessing at this point. And we've got what we need to go rebuild. We just got to do the do the work. So quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:16:21] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us today. A little bit more on a little bit more what we're probably going to do, an election recap for the next two weeks, especially as the good news keeps coming in. Well, we got Chad Connelly back with us today in it, guys, for the second half. I mean, let's do start thinking ahead here. Like, what are some of the things we need to be encouraging boots on the ground, individuals to make? I mean, we've talked a little bit about the big dogs and and what the folks in office will do or what some of the campaign strategists will do. What should we be encouraging people to do as they prepare for a season of rebuilding? 

Chad Connelly [00:16:52] Tim, I love what you just said, and here's what I'll say, because I think this fits into what Rick's asking is I would rather be where conservatives are now with a Trump administration a million times over them, with a Harris administration, people that you and I know will be at the table to have these discussions. We wouldn't even know where the table was if it was the Harris administration. We would know what day they met, what city they were in, what building, much less what table. So you and I will know people at the table. And I think that's what we do. Rick, I had I had a bunch of pastors texting and calling and email me Tuesday. And of course, I was in that cat on a hot tin roof nervous mode that I always am in on Election Day. And they were like, What are you going to do next? I'm like, Are you? Are you kidding? You know, we're going to we're going to keep know what we're doing. You know, I got criticized by all these campaigns for not endorsing work. I love where we're at. That I would rather be building relationships with pastors and teaching them how to disciple better effectively in the in the cultural war we're in than to be with a campaign spending all my time and energy apologizing for something. Someone on the campaign said, I'm I don't want to be in that world. I think what we got to do is teach our people how to engage. You know, we recruited poll watchers from churches in seven states. I'm just wrapping up my report to send to a donor now before I go speak, actually. And we're going to keep doing stuff like that. Here's what I know. All of us have built a big stick. I would now hold up our pastor network to pretty much anything that's been built in the country in the last, I don't know, 25 or 30 or maybe 40 years. Here's what we now had. We had 25 different denominations. I watched our meetings. We had hundreds and hundreds, thousands of pastors this year. But now we've got a we built a big stick. And my plan is to swing it. We need to now swing it right. We need to use this on issues like fighting, gambling and fighting medicinal marijuana and and standing for conservative judges and for the rule of law. I've got pastors all over the country calling me, texting me, email me. How can I help? Thank you for showing me something I've not seen before. You know, look, Trump's planning a tour of 50 birthday celebration in 2026. We need to get WallBuilders in the middle of that deal. I've already texted Hogan about that this morning. Who better than what you guys are doing at WallBuilders, Tim and David and all the memorabilia and the mementos and the historical stuff you've collected that needs to be in the middle of that deal. So we got every reason the world to keep building out a structure in every key state. I am going to focus more in the next, you know, probably 12 to 18 months in the States. So I have Senate races in 26. No question about it. But the answer to what what are you going to do now is keep doing what we've been doing because it's working. 

Rick Green [00:19:54] Yeah, I'm into that. 

Tim Barton [00:19:55] Yeah, I would add to that that everybody listening needs to not take any kind of a breath at all. We're told the scriptures, the wise men attacks a city, the mighty Tarzan's stronghold in which he trusts. What happens is you always stay on offense. You know, we win the Battle of the Bulge. So did Peyton stop and say, well, it's over? No, no. I went to the battle scars, the battle match. It went right across the Rhine. Every time you win a battle, like even with Lincoln, when he gave that proclamation for prayer and fasting and everything turn, he still had 20 battles to fight after that, after God answered the prayer. So we're at a point now where we have to stay offensive minded. We don't sit back and rest. We keep moving forward. Now's the time to start looking at neighbors around you. Say, Hey, which one of you is going to run for school board this cycle? You know, start recruiting people right now for state rep. Yeah, we just had races, but not all the right people got elected. So let's look at the races right now, see who we want to take out two years from now. And start recruiting people right now so they get out in the mirror, get better known, easier to elect two years from now. I mean, this is not the time to sit back at any point. And so, you know, Rick, you were talking about what's happened in the last hundred years since the time of Calvin Coolidge. What happens when you when Republicans are conservative win races? It's not what we always think. It's not always expect. We've got to be aggressive. 

Rick Green [00:21:14] Man. We've got to hit the gas big time. You know, the last time that a Republican president had a Republican House and Senate for a full term. was Calvin Coolidge. So we're talking almost 100 years ago. I mean, Trump had two years in his first term, right? Bush had two years in his first term and then two years in his second term. But before that it was Calvin Coolidge. And he had a full, you know, full term. So, I mean, I just think we don't know what's going to happen in two years. And obviously, you know, likely we hold the Senate for the full term. But you could lose the House. And so, man, there is no excuse to wait. The momentum is there. People want the big changes. They just voted with an overwhelming I mean, the greatest victory for Republicans since the Bush Reagan years or Reagan Bush, you're sorry. And so no doubt. I mean, we got to hit the gas and and this administration needs to hit the gas and we need to gain significant ground in a short period of time. We have the opportunity to do that. 

Chad Connelly [00:22:05] I totally agree. And I'm glad Joe got us squared away because I wouldn't rather than that. But it is an unique opportunity. Trump now has a massive mandate hold in the Senate, make sure all his appointees, all the judges, they get approved. You'd want to hold the House so that there's not all this drama suing over this subpoenas over that impeachment conversations. The man did even get inaugurated last time before they started talking. Was it The Washington Post after the election? They need to be impeached. What? So it was kind of a shake your head, Tom. This stuff happened so fast they never could get grounded this time. I believe that the people around him have already built a transition team. They've already actually built that structure. They can plop down on the the White House positions and the agencies in the lead. I think they're way ahead of where any certainly in Republican administration. But I also think they're way ahead of any Democratic organization ever was. I think the thing to look back on at the election is how do you keep the coalition together? And that's going to be the interesting thing. How do they do this? Because he has cobbled together something that no Republican president has ever cobbled together. And how do you keep that together? How do you how do you pay attention to how do you cater to whatever the right wording is? I think he did a lot of that the first time. He didn't get any credit for it. Now, how do you put people in a leadership position to understand that and help it stay together to move forward? That's the big question for me. 

Rick Green [00:23:37] Yeah. And everybody at home could do something here, right? Everybody can start to rebuild their own foundations so that they're able to be a part of that in the community as well. And to your point on the the 250 a celebration, man, we expect a we're building Independence Hall right now at the Patriot Academy campus. We want to cut the ribbon on that thing on the 200th birthday, July 4th, 2026. But even more important than those physical things like Trump talking about this thing in Iowa is just the foundational principles, you know, actually understanding why those principles in the declaration were the foundation for making America great so all of us can have a part to play. It's just so exciting to know that we do have this window, right, guys? I mean, think about where we could be sitting right now. We could we could be going, okay, how do we survive? Another four years of the market is a good goodrow. Or we could be sitting here right now going, okay, we got all these legal battles in these seven battleground states and it's going to be a knockdown, drag out. We don't know what's going to happen in January and May. And the fact that God gave us this huge victory so that we can already right now start planning and actually taking positive steps to take ground back instead of this, you know, the defensive, just just the fight to even hold the ground. What a blessing we have, guys. 

Tim Barton [00:24:41] It really is. And that is some good news on this Friday that we. Right. 

Rick Green [00:24:45] It is a good news Friday for sure. 

Tim Barton [00:24:47] We are not having to wait to figure out who our president is, you know, going into election night. And we thought, man, some of these states, it might take ten, 11 days before we know there could be lawsuits. Right. I mean, we don't have this, you know, Bush Gore. There's this hanging Chad, Florida scenario that we're just not going to know for a long time. And not only do we know, we have the answer that certainly of the two candidates, right, the one that is far more pro freedom of speech, pro First Amendment and religious liberty. And I mean, you go down the list, it's so remarkable. God gave us blessings that arguably we did not deserve in America based on how we've been living. But this is where now I think the mandate is for us as believers and as the church, that we have to steward well the blessing that God gave us. And it reminds me even a little bit of John Adams reset posterity. You will never know how much it cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope we made good use of it. And if you don't, I'm going to repent in heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it. We better make good use of this over the next four years. The other thing I would add, it is so nice to have America back being America first again. Most Americans do not understand all the global agreements that were made in the previous administration, World Economic Forum and so many things. It's going to be so nice to have American sovereignty back and America not being run by Europe, but America being run by Americans. That will be so cool to have another four years of that. 

Rick Green [00:26:12] So that's good news. Guys. Thanks to Chad Conley for joining us today. Faith wins, dawg, by the way, is the website. And since I just heard David say, don't take a breath, I'm going to assume that David and Chad will keep doing like, you know, 15 cities a day, every day for the next, you know, five years or so. 

Chad Connelly [00:26:27] Now, maybe. 

Rick Green [00:26:28] Maybe not quite that many. Maybe maybe not quite that many, but faith wins.org if you want to get these guys out for an event and and follow Chad there. Chad, thanks so much for being with us today, man. 

Chad Connelly [00:26:38] Thank you, brother. Love you guys. 

Rick Green [00:26:40] That's Chad Connelly. Faithwins.org. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.