Rick Green [00:00:07] Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And it's Thursday. So we do Foundations of Freedom Thursday around here. That's a chance for you to send in your questions and we'll get to as many of those as we can. You can send those into radio@wallbuilders.com that's radio@wallbuilders.com. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton and we're going to start our questions today guys from Nadine. She said there's so much talk about advance can be the Senate speaker meaning Vice President Vance while serving as VP. I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on this, since a it's been said that Adams did this, but I did not see record of there even being a majority minority speaker position until the late 1800s. And B it seems like it would be a major crossing of the branches, which is something I thought the founding fathers felt important to separate. Looking forward to hearing from you guys. Nadine great question. Thank you so much for sending that in. Yep, guys. So a lot of this came about. Remember when they were voting for Senate Majority leader? I think most of the grassroots was not happy with any of the three options, to be honest. Felt like the option that that was least bad was probably Scott. The worst one was Cornyn and then the guy in the middle one. And so John Thune, now Senate majority leader. But during all of that discussion, it was, okay. Well, you know, no matter who they put up, could J.D. Vance as president of the Senate in his role as vice president just walk in and run the Senate? What would that look like? And did John Adams actually do what we heard that that he apparently did that. 

David Barton [00:01:36] So the answer to that actually is in the place that we ought to look first, and that's the Constitution. I'm afraid two clauses out of the Constitution, Article one, Section three, and the Article one is out of the seven articles, this is the longest one, and it deals with Congress itself. And so this is was this read the enumerated powers or found the things that that the Constitution says Congress can do and the federal government can do. So this is the long section, but the Section three and I'm going to read paragraph four and paragraph five. So paragraph four, Article one, Section three, paragraph four says, the vice president of the United States shall be president of this Senate, but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided. So automatically, if you're vice president, you are president of the Senate. That's nothing the Senate gets to decide on. They don't get to vote on that. They don't get to choose that. The Constitution says that if you're vice president, you're in charge of the Senate. Now, any time the vice president's in the Senate, he can run the Senate. Most vice presidents over the last century so chosen not to show up much at all. They don't show up much to work over there at all. They kind of hang with the executive branch and maybe help with some agency work over there or whatever. But at the beginning, they're the liaison between the president and the executive branch and the legislative branch. And so that's not a blending of the branches, it's just the liaison, because the president is still kept separate. And if the vice president becomes president, then he's not the president of the Senate anymore. So that's that's paragraph four. Here's paragraph five. It says the Senate shall choose their other officers, meaning they don't get to choose who the president the Senate is. The Constitution is done. That paragraph five, the Senate. So choose their other officers and also a president pro tem and the absence of the vice president. And that's where the majority leader now becomes the president. Pro tem are usually is the one who runs it. The majority leader often runs it all, although you can have a president pro tem as a more honorary position. But the Constitution continues. Or when the vice presidential exercise the office of president United States. So if the vice president gets promoted president because the president is gone for whatever reason are taken out or dies in office or whatever, then at that point in time, the Senate will choose someone to run the Senate until there's another vice president. So it's not a blend is separation of powers. You still have that separation there. What you got is the Constitution makes it very clear that this is not a question for whether J.D. Vance wants to do this or not. He is the president of the Senate. That is the constitutional mandate of his role. That's not an option for the Senate to vote up or down on. That's just the way it is. Now, Kamala, in the last session, particularly in the first two years, she was there a whole lot because it was a tie Senate. And so she presided over a lot of stuff. But that's not what's typical in the last century. 

Tim Barton [00:04:31] And that to be clear. Right. What you're saying is that he doesn't have a choice by the title the Constitution gives him or even by that power. However, the Constitution made it clear that the reason you have a president pro tem is because if the vice president is not there, you need somebody else that can run and make decisions. And so he does have the choice as vice president, whether he wants to be in the Senate or not. And literally, you could choose not to be there even if there were tied votes, you could say, I'm not going to worry about it. You guys figure it out. And then they would have to figure out and work resolution and something would happen. But also. Worth noting, and I'm not saying that said, the contradiction that you said is adding more context to it, because part of the question was also I mean, what evidence do we have that John Adams ever did that? And part of the evidence we have is the fact that John Adams voted more as vice president than any other vice president in history until Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris is the first one that had more votes than John Adams. 

David Barton [00:05:35] And I, I do have to interrupt and point out that back at the time of John Adams, Congress only met 3 or 4 months a year as opposed to 24 months a year. And I said that deliberately wrong. But all the time they meet. Now what, Kamala? She's like having eight terms of President Adams or President Washington or whatever. So back to you, Tim. 

Tim Barton [00:05:57] Well, just to signify. Right. I mean, to add to this point, when there the Constitution says you're required to meet at least once a year. So. Right. Not that you're going to be there for nine, ten months, 11 months of the year, But but back in the founding year, I mean, you still had families in farms and there's stuff going on. You got homes and kids you got to get back to. So it wasn't the same kind of political thought it's become today. But with that being said, the reason that John Adams is the one pointed to is because he was so active, which his voting record clearly indicates. And it's also interesting. I mean, we've seen Kamala Harris, we've seen two vice presidents do this where they show up and vote on measures and it's not a tie, but they want to vote because they think it's a historic piece of legislation and they want their name kind of connected to this, to say I voted for it, I can sign this, whatever it might look like. But certainly for J.D. Vance, he can be as involved or uninvolved as he chooses to be. And unfortunately, we've had a lot of vice presidents who just enjoyed kind of being with the executive team and working things behind the scene, whereas it would be far more interesting and maybe even more impactful and effective if that vice president showed up and said, you know what? If you want to make sure you really get Trump's agenda done in the Senate, J.D. Vance ought to be there every week and maybe not every day, but certainly he needs to have a very real presence, because if they're concerned about what's Thune going to do and how is he going to lead, well, then J.D. Vance can show up and say, hey, I'm gonna take you for now. I got this. No worries. And he can go the direction he wants to go in. That is what is a little bit unknown. However, that as you pointed out, constitutionally there's not a question surrounding this. The only question is if J.D. Vance wants to and will he? Those are the only real questions. But there is great precedent. And the Constitution clearly lays out this is what you can do. 

David Barton [00:07:59] And I'll add a couple of historical commentaries to that in the sense that what's changed today versus John Adams being in there now with Kamala is the current Congress now really has become a a body run by committees. And it was not that way at the founding. At the founding, the Senate got together and they pretty much all talked about stuff. Now, they had some committees and committees who do a little preliminary work, but most of the debate occurred on the floor. And today, most of the debate occurs and the committees and the committees meet and they mark it up and they debate it and they have all the stuff and and they carried to the floor and pretty much have an up or down on it. And that's what the Rules Committee does, is it limits how much debate you're going to have on any bill that goes through. So this is one of the differences today is most of the work is done not on the floor where the vice president would have a lot of control on it, but more behind the scenes and the committees and the other thing and compare and we were kind of joking earlier about how that John Adams was only there for a few months out of the year. That's also the difference between then and today, whether they're four Tam, as you said, 10 or 11 months or whatever, is the fact that back then they read the Constitution knew that there were only a certain amount of enumerated powers. There's only 16 clauses in the Constitution telling the federal government what it can do. There's 18 powers in those 17 clauses, and now it's like 43,000 things that the federal government says it can do. But back in the founding era, the founders said, no, no, we're not talking about education that belongs to states. We're not to do in place of law. Now, we talk about all of that in Congress. Now, one of the reasons it lasts so much longer. 

Tim Barton [00:09:33] And that just for our clarity, you said there were 16 and 17 clauses. 

David Barton [00:09:39] 17 clauses have enumerated powers and 18 different and right powers. One of those clauses has two in it. So there's 18 we say there's there are 17 enumerated powers because I count 17 clauses. The one of the clauses lists two things within it. And so there's 18 enumerated powers and 17 clauses. 

Tim Barton [00:09:58] And the bottom line is we're Constitution says explicitly they have this power. They have this power that's an enumerated power where it's clearly laid out. There's no discussion. There's no confusion. And that's your point. The founding fathers understood what that meant. And even though there are people that even in their time tried to expand it and change it, they were far more restrained. And this is, guys, one of the exciting things. We talked about it some yesterday about some of these Trump appointments is we're getting people who actually understand there should be far more limited reality to these institutions, agencies, to the government in general. And it will be really encouraging, hopefully, God willing, to see us going back that direction. And J.D. Vance could play a role in part of that in the Senate, which will be interesting to watch as well. 

Rick Green [00:10:46] No doubt about it. All right. Let's head over to San Diego. Got a question from Scott in San Diego. He said, hooray. Thanks for the hard work you guys did on this election. What a win. The entire country move. Right. And hopefully will continue to. Thanks to you and the others who worked hard. And of course, Scott. Now, the President Trump is back and setting up his cabinet. I have a question. He is asking sitting members of both houses of Congress to vacate their seats and take appointments. What does that do to the counts of the seats in Congress? Please explain how votes will be taken if the number of GOP seats is reduced to a minority. How are the seats filled? We seem to have had some cracks in the blue wall surrounding California up here. Who knows? We may find freedom here yet still behind enemy lines. Scott in San Diego. Well, Scott, hang in there, brother. There's a lot of good things happening in California even. And yes, we are seeing some cracks in that blue wall. All right, David. Jim, several questions here. Obviously, the main one is what happens if President Trump ends up tapping too many members of Congress, not just below the majority? I think Would we end up with a Republican majority of three? 

David Barton [00:11:44] Yeah, there's a plus three. A majority of Republicans in the House and three of the members of the House have been tapped by President Trump for positions in his administration. One of them was Gates, who would resign from the House, is now no longer running or no longer in that position. Trump wanted to appoint him, too, but you still have three vacancies, so at this point it would become a tie. But at this point, it's also pretty evident to Democrats that those three seats will be replaced by Republicans. Trump In choosing those three people, I looked at the three seats and I think one was are plus 30. And by the way, that means Republicans have won that. See what, a 30 point margin over recent years. One was are 27 plus 27, one was are plus 26. So all three of those seats are going to go to Republicans. They're very strong Republican districts. I don't think that Democrats will try to do anything in the House in the way of a coup where they can have power for two weeks or a month or whatever, because it won't last long. As soon as that next Republican comes in. So it'll be tied for a while. But I think that the Democrats will let my Johnson have the reins and continue with the reins. And it's plausible that some of those seats, two of the seats can actually be filled by the time the Congress is sworn in with special elections the way that's been done. So they there's very possible that they will have a majority again over in the Senate. That's not a question in the Senate over there. They have a supermajority in Dallas. 

Tim Barton [00:13:11] Clarify because right now Republicans have the majority in Congress. So what happened in the election? Those individuals are not part of Congress yet because they haven't been sworn in yet. So you still have the last Congress that is there. So Republicans have the majority. And if there are special elections in two of those districts, which it looks like they're very well can be and you already have, then those elected representatives ready to go before the swearing in. Then this idea of it being a tie and what are Democrats going to do? That is a moot point. Thrown out the window means nothing because Republicans once again will have that majority. Even if it's just those two seats, they'll have a two seat majority. And then if it takes a little longer for that third election to take place, it won't matter again because Republicans have that majority. So I think some of this, as long as those elections can go through, some of this doesn't really need to be that big of concern. I think what's a bigger concern is where potentially you have some of these Rino type of Republicans who might side with Democrats or fight against Mike Johnson or some of this kind of Trump agenda, so to speak, and and slow down what what possibly could be done in really positive ways? I think that's probably a bigger challenge and a bigger concern, at least in my mind, then the possibility of there not being enough Republicans by the time the swearing in takes place for Mike Johnson to maintain the gavel as Speaker of the House. 

David Barton [00:14:39] Yeah, I agree totally. I think the biggest problem Mike Johnson has is not Democrats will be those in his own party that turn on him. But I think he's been helped a whole lot by the fact that Trump has such a wide margin of victory with so many states. And the fact that Trump likes Mike so well and they're working together so well, and that's been moving the agenda all along real well. Even in the interim with the interim bills they passed, everybody seems to to have given Mike some grace there. And so I agree with you. I think if there's an insurrection or if there's a problem, it's not going to be for Democrats to be from internal. But I don't see that happening yet. And, you know, even the earlier question we had from Nadin about that, about Vance being in there, and even the question from Scott about what do you do with the Senate. A lot of that was predicated on the fact that before the election it looked like it might be a 5050 Senate. And if it was a 5050 Senate, what are you going to do? And since there was a pickup of, I think, four Senate seats in the election, that's no longer even a question. Now, it could be a question how much Vance wants to show up being a former senator. Maybe he wants to go in and, you know, do some things there, which he certainly can't. But the possibility of anything happening over in the Senate that would need leadership or need leadership in a different direction, I don't think that's going to happen at all. So great question. But at this point, it looks like that we're kind of safe on both bodies and we'll have that trifecta for at least two years to see what can be done. 

Rick Green [00:16:04] Our guys. We're going to take a quick break. As Foundations of Freedom Thursday, more of audience. The audience is questions when we return. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:17:18] Welcome back to the WallBuilders show. Thanks for staying with us on this Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Moving down our list, we've got. Let's see. Jonathan has the next question. And Jonathan said Jonathan Tanner said, I have heard that the terms Indian and Eskimo are not politically correct, but are also offensive and derogative as well. As a Christian. How should I go about this? Seeing that we have called Native Americans these terms for hundreds of years and now these terms are considered offensive. I can't keep up, guys. I don't know what's offensive anymore. It seems like everything is offensive. So like, when does it reach the crescendo point that you don't say it anymore? 

Tim Barton [00:17:53] Well, I think it's important to ask the question, who decides what's offensive? 

Rick Green [00:17:56] Right, Right, right. 

Tim Barton [00:17:58] I mean, sincerely. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, to be offended is so subjective. Now, first of all, one of the verses that my dad made me memorize decades ago at this point is Psalms 119 165. Great piece of they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them. And the idea behind it is if you're getting offended, you probably don't love God's law enough. And it's not that there's not offensive things out there, but when when we allow petty things to derail us from who God made us and called us to be, and we allow other people's words to dictate our emotions, our mental state, whatever it is. I mean, clearly, you know, the Bible talks about we're supposed to pray for those and you and you bless those and you turn the other cheek and you forgive. And if we don't forgive them in their trespasses, then either our Heavenly Father, forgive our trespasses, that there's so much to this. Now, that's kind of a side notes. And I can absolutely hear if there's any leftist liberal out there listening or reading the transcript of this program. They're going well, but you're coming from this white position of privilege, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I get it. It still is worth asking the question who determines what is offensive? And it then largely becomes subjective. If you know there's something if you're saying something intentionally to be offensive, that is something very different. And certainly I think that's what the question implies, right? If if it used to be that we said, hey. Right. My my buddy over there, which one? Well, my, my, my white buddy that's not offensive. Is also very white. Well, my buddy over there, that's my black buddy. My gosh. That that's an African-American. That's not a black person. I'm pretty sure that's a black person. Right. And like that. All of that. Right. This is where it gets tricky because the woke world, we live in it really genuinely like, let me go on this rabbit hole for a second. This is part of a Marxist ideology that one of the things Marx said that at times you would have to teach people they were victims and to teach them their victims. There's a victimology that goes with that. And so when language then, well, the language people use that's being oppressive against you, there's no doubt that people can use words to try to be mean or derogatory toward somebody. But not every time somebody is talking about somebody else. Is it a derogatory term? But if we live in a Marxist world, which by and large academia has been teaching and promoting this for decades, is that you're either the oppressed or the oppressor, right? You're either the victim or you're the victimizer. And therefore, language has become the the weapons in the battle that we're seeing happen in culture. And whoever controls the words wins. The war is ultimately what happens because they can make the other side always look like the evil scoundrels that they are. And so again, going back to the very basic in my mind, fundamental thought is who determines this? Because who then has the position of the power, the hierarchy, the authority to determine what's offense and what's not. And ultimately to be offended is something that's largely subjective and oftentimes is largely taught where you say, Hey, don't let them say that about you. We learn to be offended by certain things when someone's teaching us to be offended. And again, it's not to say that you can't say offensive things and that people aren't intentionally being derogatory at times. But this idea and woke culture is that to say someone is an Indian instead of a Native American, it would you could say it in a derogatory way, but the word itself was not intended to be derogatory. When when Columbus used the word Indian for the natives living in the Caribbean or even North America, he wasn't saying it to be offensive. He was saying it more as a descriptive of where he thought he was somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Well, these must be right. Part of the Indian people of this land where we have now discovered or landed because he didn't know we discovered something new. It wasn't derogatory. And one of the things the left does is they they try to promote this victimology everywhere they can. And this is this is where a lot of this stuff comes from. Now, with that being said and guys, I know I'm rambling and you guys have a lot to say on this as well. But if you know there's a word that offends somebody, do you have friends? If I have friends and there's something that offends. I'm not going to say it to them. If it genuinely offends them. Now, if we're really good friends, I might say it's time to give them a hard time. But I'm not going to be intentionally offensive to someone. And so sometimes you just get to know somebody right away. Hey, Rick, you are you've been getting a little weight there in your belly, haven't you? But and you're like, you're a jerk. And I got to punch you in the face, right? Like, we could do that. But if I knew you were actually, like, trying to, like, weight loss journey, I'm not going to say something intentionally offensive to you. If if I know this about you, and I think this is where in in the woke rules, it it removes this human element of relationship of of general respect for individuals where. The idea that if I don't support certain sexual behaviors, if I believe marriage is a man and woman, then I am this hateful, bigoted, intolerant, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Like, no, I can have a perspective, an opinion, and still be a loving person. Jesus was the friend to the sinners. They loved him more than all the religious people. But Jesus upheld the standard the whole time he did it. And this is where in in this woke culture, they ignore relationship. They ignore context. They ignore the humanity of the individual, the humanity or the respect for human life. And you're either the victim or the victimizer. And so it's it's really coming from a very broken world view. Instead of saying, hey, let's have a relationship, let's get to know people. And if something offends them, then don't wound the conscience of a brethren to reference something from First Corinthians Chapter eight. 

David Barton [00:23:54] And I would add to a lot of this is, as you point out, Thomas attitude. If you look back in the Book of Acts, it says that they were first called Christians at Antioch. That was an offensive, derogatory term when they were first called Christians. That was it's those it's those Christians. Well, they embrace that, that they became proud of that term. And then it's been that way for, you know, centuries since then. You can take you can take any word and make it offensive or be proud of it. And it's interesting, the people who get offended so often are the progressives and they have to teach offense. You have to teach someone to be offended. And so they have to find somebody and get offended or you're not smart enough to know you should be offended over this. So let me be offended for you and I'll tell you how offended you are by being offended for you. And so they feel like they have to have this vicarious offense for somebody else. And so if you go back and Rick, you may remember this was 8 or 10 years ago when Cleveland Indians first started looking at changing their name from Cleveland Indians and the Washington Redskins, the same thing. But we went through that thing of ten years ago when this is just wild everywhere. There's derogatory terms and everybody's been a fan and they actually polled a native tribes and tribes. And no, we're honored the Cleveland Indians. And we don't have in trouble the Washington Redskins and that the tribes themselves thought those words were still acceptable. The activists who had been through college and told you need be offended for them because they're not smart enough, not that they should be offended. That's where so much of this came from. And so just go back to, hey, you don't need to be offended on somebody else's behalf. And it's the way you say it more than anything. 

Tim Barton [00:25:26] And add to your point when you said activist, that's a really good word for it, because some of some of the activists, they were Native Americans and they were saying it's so efficient. Well, who taught them that was offensive? Their white professor. Okay. Right. The professor that promotes Marxism, that that thinks socialism is good and capitalism is evil and etc., etc., etc., It's reflective of a world view. And it's this woke mind virus that has been consuming so much of culture. And guys, I would say I think the most important thing is, is going back to that relational aspect to be honoring and loving to people and to not try to be offensive. But then on the flip side, Psalms 119 165 great piece of they would love that law and nothing shall offend them. Try to live your life where you're unaffordable. 

Rick Green [00:26:14] I think we should patent that word unaffordable. In fact, we're just going to call this the wobblers unaffordable show from now on. Unaffordable. And you said it was songs 119. 

Tim Barton [00:26:23] 165. 

Rick Green [00:26:25] 165 solves 119 165. Great way to close out today's program. We had so many more questions from the audience. Just no time to get to them. Will do more of those next Thursday on Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Be sure and join us tomorrow for some good news on our good news Friday broadcast. You can check all those out at WallBuilders Dot show. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilders Show.