Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for joining us today here at the intersection of faith and culture, Rick Greene here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And a lot, of course, going on, as always, guys. But man, it seems like you cannot just wait until the evening to get your news is like every 30 minutes, every hour there's something new coming out of the Trump White House, and it's both domestic and international. We've had a few programs talking about a lot of the domestic policy today. We'll try to catch up on as many of the issues internationally as we can. Of course, the tariffs, the the you know, the announcement yesterday about his idea of taking over Gaza. There's just so much going on. So let's just jump in, guys. What what do you think? Well, I mean, obviously, the big news of the day, at least for me, I was not that I haven't been back on my heels with a lot of the things that have happened that have just been amazing and good. But I didn't see this one coming at all. I don't know, did y'all see any hints about Trump throwing this idea out there. And I knew he was going to watch the footage last night or I guess night was the last night or night before last of of October 7th. And maybe that spurred some of this and then Netanyahu be in here. But this seems like a man. Huge news. 

David Barton [00:01:14] And let's back up on that for a minute to Rick. If people haven't heard, Trump has said, hey, America is going to take over Gaza. And for people who don't recall, that's back October 7th, that massive massacre of Jewish citizens in Gaza, and that's Palestinian held territory. This Israel occupied territory. We'll get to that later. But it's nobody saw it coming. I mean, this is it. Well, I can't I said two weeks ago, Trump talked about this. Trump talked about the fact that he's got to get Arab nations involved, that he has to go in there. That has to be cleaned out as a result of the war. It's a devastated area. And we've talked before about how the Palestinian leadership takes all the money and the Palestinian people live in poverty in really dire conditions. And it was that way in Gaza. They were taking all the money, funneled in the tunnels, funneled and the ways that they killed Jews and the people weren't getting it. And so Trump two weeks ago, back January 25th, said, hey, we need to get Gaza's got to change. We got to do something different. We got to get different leadership. And there are different people in control, etc.. And even backing up, if you go to Israel when at the end of World War Two, there was what was called the British mandate over Israel, and that was going to expire in 1948. And there's going to be a fight to say who got all that land, whether it's the Arabs or the Jews or whoever. And that's the ancient homeland of the Jews. And they were going to fight for. But nobody thought they had a chance because they didn't have a military. And so then you get into the war for Israel in 1948, and the Jews lo and behold, won. And they beat Egypt and they beat Saudi Arabia and Iraq and all these other nations. And so it was a surprise to everybody. Well, that the Arabs in that area weren't going to give up on that. And so they launched another big war against Israel, 1967. It came particularly from Egypt. And Egypt was one of the big leaders in that. And the Jews won that. It was a surprise war. They didn't see it coming, but they want it. And so at that point, what happens is Palestinians living down in Egypt territory and called Gaza, that was Egypt's territory because Israel won the war, they occupied that Egyptian territory they had The Palestinians are creating such problems as those Egyptian territory that's now occupied by Israel. And quite frankly, Egypt has been really happy to be rid of it and not have to deal with the Palestinians. And so there's not been real conflict over that. So that's the area we're talking about. 

Tim Barton [00:03:33] Why it's very telling that to that point, that the Egyptians will not allow any Palestinians, any of the, quote unquote, refugees to come to Egypt. Their immigration is closed down on this because as people look at some of what happened coming out of Gaza, that as you mentioned, obviously, as people remember that that terrorist attack from the concerts. But and then going to the villages, all of those terrorist came out of Gaza and there's a Hamas connection. Hamas has been in the leadership, Hamas being a terrorist organization. And there's been many people from the outside looking in saying, hey, what Hamas did was bad. But the people in Gaza. Right. Don't associate them with Hamas. Except it's worth noting that they were the ones who voted for the Hamas leadership and they're the ones that have been educated under the Hamas leadership because they've been going to those schools. And so the propaganda has been taught to them. And so not to necessarily say they're guilty of everything that Hamas did or these terrorist coming out of Gaza did, but they're probably not quite as much of an innocent bystander as some people might imagine. Now, that's not really here nor there to the fact that Trump has said something. One of the craziest thoughts in connection to, as we've seen what he's done over the last couple of days, really the last couple of weeks since he's been president, it's been crazy. But what he did with USAID and closing that down and the idea of we're not going to be spending tens of millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on these crazy. Other national projects. That's not an American interest. And so already, guys, it does raise a pretty interesting question. What is the American interest for Gaza? Because this is going to be something that at minimum is tens of millions. Realistically, it's going to be hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to redo what Trump is talking about. And and certainly as people of faith, I think we can make some connections. But what do you guys think is going to be the explanation for the American interest where he's saying no to so many other things and saying that this is in America's interest to take over this thing has been problematic for decades and solve Israel's problem. And early some of the other Arab nations around them solve some of their problems for what's been coming out of Gaza itself. 

David Barton [00:05:55] I think I have an answer for that. Before I do that, just bring everybody up to date. Let's play a little one minute clip from his press conference. This happened yesterday when he was with Netanyahu at the White House and he announced is just out of the clear blue. Well, I can't see out of the clear blue because, again, two weeks ago he mentioned that he probably was going to do something with this. But here's what he announced yesterday. Here's here's a one minute clip. 

Donald Trump [00:06:18] U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it to will own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site. Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Well, Saudi Arabia is going to be very helpful and they have been very helpful. They want peace in the Middle East. It's very simple. We know their leader and their leaders very well. They they're wonderful people and they want peace in the Middle East. As far as Gaza is concerned, we'll do what is necessary. If it's necessary, we'll do that. We're going to take over that peace and we're going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs. And it'll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of. And there'll be jobs for everyone, not for a specific group of people, but for everybody. 

Rick Green [00:07:20] That was President Trump from yesterday. David, you were you were coming in on that. And I do want to throw out there with the questions that Tim was asking, because in addition to the money in the in the interest for the country, a big question to be answered is going to be, you know, obviously risk of American life because clearly a dangerous area. If we're going to secure that area, our American troops are going to be used to secure that area. There's no doubt you're going to have, I would think, those who would love to attack what they call us, the Great Satan. So, anyway, a lot of questions to answer. But, David, you were about to address it now that we've heard President Trump's clip. What do you think? 

David Barton [00:07:53] I think that as a result of what Israel has done in the last year plus a couple of months, it's not going to be nearly as dangerous as it was. There's 50,000 less terrorists in Gaza than there were. One of the reasons Israel is starting to want to restore that area is because they feel like they've gotten most of the terrorists routed out of there. And, you know, going what Tim mentioned earlier, why did the Palestinian people so hate the Jews? That's what happened when you have an American education. I didn't mean say American. When you have an education system that is so anti-Israel like the American education progressive system has become. So I actually didn't mean to say that, but I was kind of sarcastically leading into the fact that we're getting an America, a very pro Hamas education system which says Jews are they're evil, they're Satan, etc.. So that's education. They've had that for now several generations and in Gaza. So they are anti-Israel. And yet those who live closest to Israel like up and the Samaria area, they actually prefer Israeli leadership to Palestinian leadership because of the way their life is more peaceful, they have more money, prosperity, etc.. So part of it will be retraining reeducating those down in Gaza. But with a lot of those terrorists gone, it's not going to be nearly as dangerous for Americans to come in. But I think what you really get is it's a lot cheaper for us to pay Israel to handle situations in the Middle East than for us to send troops over there. And that's where a lot of American terrorists have come from. Like we saw on 911 at that Middle East area. And Israel has been able to take out bad guys that are after America as well. So it's cheaper for us. Plus, on top of that, when you look at the cost factor. Rebuilding Gaza is so much cheaper. And particularly if you can turn that philosophy around, so much cheaper than all the foreign aid we've been putting in those nations, trying to pacify them, keep them from attacking the United States. So I think in the long term, our expenses go down, our loss of life goes down if we can get this pulled off. 

Tim Barton [00:09:52] Well, let let me let me throw in another thought and question, because obviously, as we talk about covering things from a a historic a biblical and a constitutional perspective, it's not hard to say, hey, biblically, we want to be on the side that supports Israel. And I say it's not hard. Some people that are Christians have a different opinion. I don't know. The Bible's confusing on this. I think you read Romans where it talks about we are grafted in that Israel is the route that Christians are now part of that tree. I don't believe in replacement theology and I think that's correct. But there are some people that would say, well, Christians have gone too far because you've elevated the Jew above the Christian, etc., etc.. That's that's not part of our ideology, is not part of our promotion, but as a person of faith. Again, I think it was a very clear covenant that God made in the beginning that I will bless the bless you. I will curse those that curse you because this is after he tells Abraham, I'm like you, a great nation, right? Your descendants are as numerous as the stars in the sky as a stand on the seashore. And so there's a lot of connection. People have faith. That's easy. The historic standpoint, we can point to founding fathers that were supporting the idea of a nation for Israel to exist again. And certainly when Israel, after World War two, works to to restore their own nation, they were just choosing a place that had historically been there, their ancestry, a dwelling, although that certainly be a part of it. They were looking for somewhere that they would have a place that they could defend. So if somebody ever came in again and said, We're going to round up all the Jews, they would have a nation that would say we're not giving them over. This was a Jewish nation. And so they're looking for a place that they actually can defend themselves, have their own existence, holding land, etc.. And so certainly if you can go back to study what God says in the Bible about the land he's giving Israel, it's far greater than the nation of Israel today. So they use a little piece of that. And actually, that is, as you even went through some of of the war, part of how they reached peace in some of their conflicts. But they actually gave some of the land of what they had initially held on to. They gave up some of the land to find peace. And they've been willing to do that because as long as they have a place they can have as their own and defend. That was important to them. So from a biblical standpoint, not confusing historical standpoint, there's a lot of interesting dots and connections. But now let's go constitutional. Where does President Trump have the constitutional authority to do this using American tax dollars? Now, again, I mean, going back to what we've seen the DDoS do of going in Elon Musk identifying so much of the crazy, insane spending that we've been doing on some of the dumbest things possible. I was listening yesterday to a conservative talk show host, and they were talking about among the many things we've been spending last year. Last year, we spent American taxpayer dollars, $6 million promoting tourism in Egypt. We we were funding their tourism department to encourage people to go visit like I mean, just so many things about what American tax dollars are for. So where would we say constitutionally President Trump has the authority to do this and spend American tax dollars on this? What do you guys think is the constitutional answer? Because I have I have some thoughts, but it is a a very fair and interesting question, I think. 

Rick Green [00:13:20] Well and going to be debated. Right, guys? I mean, this will definitely be one where there's debate on the right. I think we'll we'll see a lot of the folks that supported Trump because they wanted out of Ukraine, because they didn't want to be involved even in the Middle East. They really want to focus on just the U.S. And so it's it's going to bring us back to probably a really good policy discussion of of where should our interest be? We've talked about this before, where we have these bases all over the world and we spent all this money and we certainly are and have been in the past supportive of the idea of you drain the swamp instead of swatting mosquitoes. And we do need to be in some of these places in order to prevent terrorism from coming to us. But that's going to be a that's going to be what you just asked, Tim, is exactly the question. Is it a national interest? Is it defending the United States? We also, of course, have our biblical and historical support of Israel, as you said. But then constitutionally, is it just supporting an ally around the world, our only real friend that is also not a tyrannical state there in the Middle East? David, I know you've got a lot on this. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get David's thoughts on what the constitutional basis of this would be for the Trump administration to potentially take over the Gaza area and bring peace to the area. We'll be back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:15:44] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Really hot topic today. You know, we usually start the show saying taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. This one is definitely a hot topic. David So so like we said, you know, this is probably going to be debated on the right as well. And there'll be a lot of our friends that'll say, Hey man, we don't need any more, you know, effort in other places in the world. We need to be totally focused. Kind of a protectionist mindset. 

David Barton [00:16:08] Yeah. And this goes back to, I think really George Washington introduced the America first policy was not President Trump. It was President George Washington. And so in things like his farewell address, he makes it really clear that you want to avoid foreign entanglements because when you get foreign entanglements, then their enemies become your enemies just because you helped them. Not that we had any problem with those nations, but once you help a nation that is the enemy of another nation, we become the friend of the enemy. And so it becomes a real complicated thing. And so as subsequent presidents like John Adams tried to navigate that in the quasi war with France, and then you get Thomas Jefferson having to negotiate that between France and Spain and England and you trying to stay out of their fights and their all our neighbors and allies, You get into the situation where you have to protect America first. And that's really Washington was so wise with avoid foreign entanglements. But then you get into a situation where that America does have enemies and it happens that our enemies also happen to be enemies of Israel. And Israel is a much better boots on the ground person to help us over there, because the enemies of Israel are always also the enemies of America. They attack both of us and they're going to keep attacking both of us right now in this era. Maybe that will change in future generations. So it is in America's interests and America's economics to be able to fund at a lower, if you will, a lower expense, someone who can deal with those enemies over there before they get here. So it's a difficult constitutional question, but you do have historical precedent for it. 

Tim Barton [00:17:43] Well, and then I would add to the historical precedent. One of the things that President Trump has been very clear about is he doesn't want to send American troops. Right. America's men and women over to some foreign nation to navigate some of these things. And so, as was mentioned earlier, having a really strong Israel that is free and independent and can resolve some of the problems over there without needing help, it really can be a really solid investment because the stronger we help Israel be our best ally over in the Middle East, where there is lots of turmoil, there has been lots of terrorist organizations, etc.. A stronger Israel can very arguably help America be stronger in a lot of ways. And then if, God forbid, we ever did have to do something somewhere, now that we've given up the base in Afghanistan, you would need somewhere else that you could operate and do missions from. And so, again, having having safety and security in Israel on on higher levels could be very beneficial. So I do see not only where there is historic precedent for some of this, but I do see some strategic advantage of what could come from this. Now, I think at some point you might have somebody like a Pete Hegseth, you might have J.D. Vance be on some news outlet and they might give an explanation that at that point we can go, that's that's a great way to say it. That's a great point. I agree with that. Or we might hear it and go, that's that's not the reason at all. We should that's not a good justification for why we're doing. But guys, just from a Christian perspective, this is something that we've talked about. And guys, on Friday, the stack is so big of the good news that we get to talk about from just this last week, the weekend, like it's amazing how much good stuff is happening. And this is this is certainly one of those things as we look at what President Trump has done, so many things we can celebrate and highlight. And this is this is on an international level that we were talking about even before the program, Rick. We told you today we might we might talk about this a little bit. What President Trump is doing on an international stage is also been so incredible. And in all this. Right. We have seen President Trump put America first. So even even kind of close the loop on this, Israel thought maybe tie a bow on it. President Trump has been so clear and putting America first that I have confidence, even if we don't know the full behind the scenes background for this, we might not know the full answer for this Israel deal yet because of what we've seen him do with Mexico, with Canada, with China, with Colombia, with Venezuela. You look at what he's been doing and specifically what those nations have been with tariffs, it's so clear that he is putting America first that I have no doubt that even what he's doing with Israel, even though I think from a faith perspective, it's great as a Christian, I support that idea. As a constitutionalist, I don't I don't know that is unconstitutional. I'm a little torn, right? Depending on how it happens and how it works out if you. Be interesting to see what does that actually look like before we make a hard decision on that. But the confidence of what he's doing to put America first is so clear. And guys, it's crazy what he's doing with tariffs and how effective it's been at the negotiating table with at this point not even putting tariffs in place. Just the threat of it has been quite incredible. 

David Barton [00:21:05] And going back to tax policy, early tax policy, the founding fathers, do you remember even Jesus in the Bible, when he was talking to Peter, he said, Peter, who pays the taxes on a nation? Is it the foreigners or is it the children? And Peter kind of laughed it off and said, Well, that's easy. The children don't pay the taxes, the foreigners pay the taxes. And so that was tax policy that was laid out even back at the time of Jesus. And that was really a tax policy that was that was largely followed in early. America is the foreigners pay for the stuff that foreigners paid, too, and that was tariffs. You had tariffs and you have imports and other things that were going. And so back in the founding era, it was duties and tariffs and duties and tariffs were imports coming in and and things that were coming from other nations. And so those tariffs and Trump is now kind of reviving tariffs. And some presidents have used them occasionally. But basically what's been happening for years is we tax the American people to get more money, to be able to do things. And that's just not the way that even Jesus laid out tax policy. Not that the people themselves don't pay taxes because we know that they do. There was the temple tax and other things back in the Bible. So the people pay taxes too, but the bulk of it came from the foreigners. And so what happens at this point is when you look at nations like Tim, you mentioned Canada and Mexico and China, the people in those nations and America, we got to understand, we are a different nation. We live at a level of prosperity that's unknown to the rest of the world. And so if you're in Mexico, if you are in the Canada's is good. But they're not the United States, but particularly Mexico or China. The people there are living on marginal limits on so many areas. And so they sell their goods here. And that's part of what gives them jobs back there. But if the goods become high priced here, people aren't going to buy those goods. And so what happens is a tariff says, hey, we're going to, as he told Mexico and China and Canada, anything you make and sell in America, we're going to charge an extra 25% on it. Well, guess what? Americans are going to buy something made in, you know, some other country, Australia or whatever. They're not going to buy that, which means in Mexico and in China and in Canada, they're going to lose a lot of jobs, which makes our prosperity even less. So suddenly they're willing to say, Hey, hey, we can't afford that. What do you need us to do? You want us to stop all traffic coming across the border? We're happy to do it. Why didn't you let us know earlier? And so in the case of of I think it was. Well, I know in Canada they said we're putting 10,000 of our troops down at the border. We're going to stop that fentanyl and we're going to stop the the, you know, immigration problem. And Tim was at 100,000 troops that they said in Mexico. 

Tim Barton [00:23:33] No, it was 10,000 in both locations. But in Mexico, they're already posting on social media that they are catching some of the leaders of some of these different cartels. So they just needed a little encouragement to actually go on the offense. And there's a lot of there's a lot of thoughts surrounding this because just like as you look, for example, at USAID and even Big Pharma, some of these different organizations where there's a lot of politicians that have received a lot of money from some of these groups, there's a lot of thought and believe that in Mexico that there is definitely some political leaders, elected officials in Mexico that are on the take from the cartel. And that's certainly possible. It's also possible cartels threaten families. And so some people are like, hey, for the sake of my family, I don't want to go against them, etc.. But that also can make sense. But President Trump and the threat of tariffs, which they've now he said, all right, for 30 days, you know we'll we'll put a kind of pin in this and he's going to send Marco Rubio and like several people to go talk to them to negotiate. We're going to do tariffs according to drop. It's just a matter of what those tariffs are going to look like. But the way to pause those tariffs initially where they had to send 10,000 people and this is Canada and Mexico had us in 10,000 people to the border and to improve border security and to stop migrant caravans in Mexico from coming through, etc.. So there's a lot of positive steps that have already happened just from the threat of this. And guys, even going back to that, you know, the tariffs and duties, it's interesting that President Trump talked about when America is the most prosperous we ever been. And in the late 1800s, early 1900s, it's because we were doing tariffs. But we go back even further and point out that the only president to have been a president where there was no debt at all was Andrew Jackson. But Andrew Jackson, the reason there was no debt under him, James Monroe was a president before him. James Monroe introduced some pretty significant tariffs and I guess two presidents before him. So John Quincy Adams also was there. But Monroe is one that put these policies in place. Monroe put the policy of tariffs in place and in his presidency, it cut the debt in half during his presidency. Those policies stayed in place. And by the time Andrew Jackson gets there, the debts been practically paid off because of. Tariffs of other nations having to pay to do the goods and sale on exchange in America. So tariffs makes a lot of sense historically and constitutionally. What Trump is doing, guys, absolutely incredible. 

Rick Green [00:25:59] I'm not tired of winning yet, guys. I don't know about you, but tomorrow, Foundations of Freedom, Thursday. I'm sure we're gonna have a lot of questions from you on the audience. And and and I will say, folks, there is that clause in article one, section eight about defining offenses against the nations. And if anything was an offense against the nations, it was the attack on October 7th that that Hamas did. And so, you know, that may end up being, you know, defining those offenses against the Law of Nations clause may be one of the things that that Trump brings up as he talks about why we're going to go into Gaza. We'll talk more about it in the future, I'm sure, and have some guests on that are experts in that area as well. But tomorrow, don't miss Spanish Freedom Thursday. And then, of course, Friday is TMZ. Lots of good news to get to as well. Thanks for listening to The WallBuilders Show