Rick Green [00:00:06] When you find your way to the intersection of faith and culture. It's good News Friday here at Wallbuilders. Thanks for joining us. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And I've been waiting for this all week long. All good news today. We're going to see how many of them we can get to. We're still catching up on the Trump administration. And actually I'm going to steal a little bit of time here guys. Because yesterday, just as we were going off the air, Tim was talking about President Trump throwing out the whole 51st state Canada thing. And I haven't asked you guys, I know, I know, everybody thought it was a joke at first. I think Trump might be serious. David, what would you think of Canada as the 51st state and two senators from Canada? I know they do. We get at least two bad senators, probably, but bad, I don't know, it's interesting. 

David Barton [00:00:47] Well, if it could be Alberta and Saskatchewan and Northwest Territory and all those cowboys. Come on bro. I love that. That's kind of like add more Oklahoma and add more Texas to it. The thing you get out of out of Canada, That would be real. 

Tim Barton [00:01:01] Except they have a few more mountains than we do. Let's just let's clarify. It's it's it's a little, a little more mountainous forestry terrain than Oklahoma and Texas. But other than that, it's the same. Sure. 

Rick Green [00:01:16] A little colder. 

David Barton [00:01:17] I made the mistake of thinking of Canadians as kind of a Canada where we are as Americans, you know, a lot of cultural heritage and background. And so I went up there and did a week of TV programs on one of their big stations up there, and I thought, you know, I want to make sure I connect in the right way with them. But I haven't lived in Canada, and I assume that they're kind of, you know, the same thinking we have. And so I got Ahold of of their big Canadian magazine, Maclean's, and I went through and looked at at polling they had done and polling that America had done on the same issues. And in America, God's a big deal. It's not in Canada. Family is the big deal in Canada. So God's way down the list. But family is way up top. And so that's already a difference. And then keeping and bearing arms no no no no no no that that's that's not part of candidates. That not part of their makeup. And the percentage of people who actually had a handgun was like 3% or, you know, some infinitesimally small percentage compared to us. And I really found that for us, being as close as we are in our culture, we are vastly different in the way we think and about the motivations. Church is not a big deal. God wasn't a big deal. Family is a huge deal. Guns and rights and and so it's just a real different thing. And you know, we've seen Trudeau remain as as their their prime minister up there despite all the stuff he did with Covid, despite the way he shut down protest, despite the way they have gone so socialistic and they keep putting them back in. So I'm not sure how good an idea that would be. And I know the Canadians didn't respond well to Trump's proposal, so it would be it would be a real difficult assimilation problem to have, because we just don't have the same basis of philosophy that I assume that we had. At least the polling I saw said that it was not not similar at all. 

Rick Green [00:03:02] I just wanted to go hunting, man. I just wanted to go bear hunt and do some fishing without having to pay the extra tax, you know? Come on, David, that's all I'm after. Oh, man. Get all this international stuff and values and all the things that are really important in life. I just want to go hunting and fishing. 

David Barton [00:03:15] Well, I want to go up there and ride horses. Like, I love riding horses up there. And the cowboys and I mean the the big, vast wheat fields they've got in the Calgary Stampede. Oh, I go up there and spend my money happily up there. But that's the cowboy life. And so I, I'm connected to that. 

Tim Barton [00:03:29] And I. 

David Barton [00:03:30] Love to see them. And that's not. 

Rick Green [00:03:31] Where the population is. 

David Barton [00:03:32] That's right, that's right. 

Rick Green [00:03:34] Yeah, yeah. All right, well let's jump into the good news then. David, you're up first. 

David Barton [00:03:38] Okay, well, this week is the first official cabinet meeting that Trump had. It seems like in all the stuff they've done over the last month, they might have had 40 or 50 cabinet meetings. But this is the first one. And it was really cool. It started off and the the secretary of HUD Scott, Scott Turner, who is a good friend, I mean, he's good brother. 

Rick Green [00:04:00] He was a great guy. Great guy. 

David Barton [00:04:02] He was Texas State Rep professional football player for a number of years. Played in a couple teams. Defensive back, business guy who's. 

Rick Green [00:04:09] Played the Cowboys for a while there. You got to throw that in, David. Come on. I know you were thinking it. You got to go and say he's a Dallas Cowboy for a while there. Right. 

David Barton [00:04:16] He was. But he said he's a Dallas Cowboy in a different way too. He's not just on the team. He's actually a Texas guy. And his commitment. Thank you sir. He's a great guy. And it was so fun because they televised the first cabnit meeting and they recorded anyway but went out. And so Scott openness with prayer was a really, really good prayer. Trump asked him to pray. And it's only a minute 19 seconds. But I want you to hear how the first cabinet meeting of this administration got started and listened to Trump's comment at the very end after Scott gets done. 

Scott Turner [00:04:49] Father, we thank you for this awesome privilege, father, to be in your presence. God, thank you that you've allowed us to see this day. The Bible says that your mercies are new every morning. And Father God, we give you the glory and honor. Thank you God for President Trump, father, for appointing us Father God. Thank you for anointing us to do this job. Father, we pray you'll give the president the Vice President wisdom. Father God, as they leave. Father, I pray for all of my colleagues that are here around the table and in this role. Lord God, we pray that we would lead with a righteous clarity. Father God, as we serve the people of this country and every prospective agency, every job that we have. Father, we would humble ourselves before you, and we would lead in a manner you've called us to lead and to serve. The Bible says, the blessed is a nation whose God is the Lord. Father, we today honor you and in your rightful place. Father, thank you for giving us this opportunity to restore faith in this country and be a blessing to the people of America. And Lord God, today in our meeting, we pray that you would be glorified in our conversation. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. 

President Donald Trump [00:06:00] Scott, that was a very good job you did. 

David Barton [00:06:04] So I love the Trump say, "that was a really good prayer". So but that's what a cool way to start. And notice he was not politically correct. He prayed according to the dictates of consent to what you should. And he prayed in Jesus name very openly, very boldly. He is an open, professing Christian. So it's a really good way to start. And and along that same line, Trump has one of his executive orders. And we talked about executive orders yesterday, one of his executive orders created the white House faith office. Now there have been offices associated with faith stuff and their men outreach to the faith community and the Office of Public Liaison and others would have a faith outreach. But he's got this now in the white House. He's got an office in the white House for the faith office. And and already the kind of things he set forth, an executive order, he said, I want this. I want a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias. This panel will review the activities of all executive agencies and departments to identify and eliminate any anti-Christian policies or practices in the Executive department. This group will also solicit input from affected stakeholders, and issue recommendations for further executive or legislative action to rectify past conduct and protect religious liberty going forward. So he said, we're just not going to have anti-Christian discrimination. And it is so weird that in this country, religious freedom, really the only faith you can openly attack is Christianity. You can't do that to Jews. You can't do that to Muslims. You can't do that to atheists. You can't do it to others. But you can do it with impunity to Christians. And he intends to stop that. 

Tim Barton [00:07:40] Well, and then I was going to point out that it's interesting that President Trump gets criticized by people of faith in many situations because his behavior has not been fully reflective of this incredibly Godly, righteous person, etc., etc. and yet, ironically,  some of the people that leftists or even even more, I was gonna say more secular Christians. But some of them I really think love God. They just are really triggered by President Trump. You know, they would look at other presidents and go, these were such better people. And yet some of those individuals, they might highlight we're not defenders of Christians. We're not defenders of religious liberty in the same way that President Trump has been, which I think is in very fascinating. And guys, as one side note, I, I looked up because I wasn't sure about Scott Turner. He did not play for the Cowboys in fact. Oh no. 

David Barton [00:08:36] I thought it was. 

Rick Green [00:08:37] Denver. Oh it was I thought so highly of Scott. And no. 

Tim Barton [00:08:41] I can't. It's even worse. Although although interestingly, he played for a team that used to be known as the Redskins and then he. 

Rick Green [00:08:49] Oh that's even worse. 

Tim Barton [00:08:49] Worse. And then for the Broncos. Yeah I love. 

Rick Green [00:08:52] Scott all these years. You just ruined it. I would rather believe the lie.

Tim Barton [00:08:54] You just so maybe maybe you'd You remembering when he told the Cowboys and, you know, whatever that might have been at that time. 

David Barton [00:09:03] I'm so glad you said that, because I didn't recall him as a cowboy. I just didn't recall. 

Rick Green [00:09:07] I wondered why you were looking that way. David, I wonder you. I was thinking David would jump on this normally and reply with a cheer that, you know. Yes, Scott was a Dallas Cowboy, so I'm just wondering how in the world he ever got elected to the Texas legislature, having played for the Washington Redskins and not the Dallas Cowboys, because he was really good on the campaign trail. Yeah. 

David Barton [00:09:26] Good guy. There, there there was particularly at that point in time, kind of an anti Jerry sentiment going on with the Cowboys fans as well. 

Tim Barton [00:09:35] So and he was chosen for the content of his character, not the name. 

Rick Green [00:09:39] I was going to say we all have sin. We all have sin in our past. Right. So his his having played for the Washington Redskins, that's what we'll just chalk it up to that. Well guys, what a change can we just have for just for a moment, pause and reflect the difference. Biden didn't even do cabinet meetings for what, the last year or a year and a half or whatever. And the fact that they're gathering, praying in Jesus name. And you look at the pictures of the of the meeting. I didn't see any video yet, but I did see a picture of it. And just just class, man. I mean, it's just an amazing team that they've put together in the fact that they're honoring God, which, you know, of course, we talk about here at Wallbuilders all the time that God consciousness and what Jefferson said about acknowledging God. So just really, really good, good piece of news gives us hope for the for the future even more. Tim, how about you, man? Where you want to go with your first piece of good news? 

Tim Barton [00:10:22] Oh, this is something that I've talked about with several of my military friends over the past couple of weeks. It's it's the at the moment when the headline says Hegseth signs memo reversing renaming of Fort Bragg. You looking at Fort Bragg was named initially after a Confederate was a general, a Confederate leader. And President Biden said, hey, you know, we we should not name it after Confederate because they supported slavery, even though I wanted to be like he was a Democrat. Democrats. Right. Let's let's be clear on this. Nonetheless, he said, well, we should name it for Liberty. And there was lots of silly thoughts surrounding that. The fact that you're going to change it from the name of someone who actually served in the military to something that seems far more arbitrary, the name Liberty. Instead of choosing one of so many noted military heroes we have throughout American history. Whether you start back at the American Revolution and come all the way up to present, there have been so many Medal of Honor winners and so many that have all kinds of awards. So Pete Hegseth, when he gets in one of many incredible things he's already done. He said, we're moving that name back, and he renamed it Fort Bragg. And initially there were some individuals very triggered because he's named that first Confederate general again, although, nope, that's not what happened. Somebody in their brilliance said, let's see who else out there was named Bragg. And by the way, you're from a military. From a military standpoint, Fort Bragg has been around a long time. And and so a lot of military guys, when they talk about some of their career and some of their experiences, though, reference some of these locations, these bases, these forts, whatever it is. Based on their time there, it's a renaming them. Just change them. Some of that conversation makes it a little more weird. 

David Barton [00:12:14] And just add to that, Fort Bragg is the home of all the Special Forces, Delta Force, etc. so it's not like the other bases across the United States. This is where you get the elite training for the elite forces. And when you talk Bragg, that is the only one, because that is that's the heart of the training program and Delta Force and those kind of guys. I mean, that's really key for for Special Forces. 

Tim Barton [00:12:37] Well, so and again, for Pete Hegseth, Seth and whoever came up with this idea because maybe he was like, guys, what can we do? And so I was like, sir, I have an idea. We don't know what how how it happened. But somebody in their brilliance said, let's find somebody else with the last name Bragg. And they did. PFC Roland L Bragg, a World War Two veteran, awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his extraordinary bravery during the battle of the bulge. And the article says this decision reflects the installation's proud history of honoring selfless service and sacrifice in defense of the nation. And just what a great response to Wokeism to the left being triggered to say, look it. It's not just that we don't think we should choose a different name, but but let's stay in the vein of recognizing military heroes and people that have made great sacrifice. And what what a great way to even toy with or trigger leftist by finding someone with the last name Bragg that you can honor and maintain the name Fort Bragg. Just so many things I like about this. But this is, you know, as we talked about with this, this new cabinet, there they are, outside the box thinkers in a lot of ways. And so many of the things we are seeing come from them is so impressive. And guys, that this is just such good news, seeing them already making some of these moves. 

Rick Green [00:14:02] Tell em I think the word you're looking for is a Bush ism. Strategically, this is just incredible. Strategically, man, I, I just I love it because like you're saying, it's kind of trolling them in a way, but it's also just good for the military. It's good for all those guys that have history of Fort Bragg. It's good. You know, they were mad that the name got changed. And anyway, just a great way to outsmart folks. So good stuff happening. Good stuff happening. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back. We got more good news from David and Tim Barton. You're listening to the Wallbuilders show. 

Rick Green [00:15:36] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Back over to David for some good news. 

David Barton [00:15:40] So over the last month, our good news Friday since the inauguration has been Trump every week. And it's not the good news going on elsewhere across the United States. It is. But we've never had so much good news coming out of Washington, D.C.. I mean, we've had administrations where we didn't have this much good news in four years, and this is the last four weeks we've done this every week. So when you look at that, that is made us really happy, all the good things happening. But obviously it has not made the other side happy. And at this point, Trump has 70 different lawsuits that have been filed against what he's doing. So just in a month he's managed to accumulate 70 different lawsuits. And I'm going to go through some of these just put scope out there what people are showing. And part of this is why would you sue to stop this. You know, it's illogical. And then if we do that, I'm going to come back and show what judges are doing with some of this. So he's now I had more than 70 these lawsuits. And they deal basically with his executive orders. So his executive orders are telling agencies within his purview with his his executive domain what to do. And there's people saying, no, we don't want to do what our boss is telling us do, essentially. But the other thing this caused a lot of suits is not only the fact that he's telling the executive agencies to do certain things, but he's fired people and they didn't want to be fired, which is a really weird thing. Most of the nation works on a at will employment, where you can be fired by your employer anytime, for any reason. Unless you work with the union, then you can't be fired, even if you die, apparently, or if you're part of Social Security. And what is it, 36,000? They're more than 250 years old or 120 years old or whatever it is. So I guess there is eternal life and federal government if you work for the federal government. But here's some of the lawsuits. So they're suing over birthright citizenship. And birthright citizenship is like tourism birthright, where you come in for a weekend and you have a child from a you're from a different country, you come in, you have a child, and you go back home, and then you try to come back later and say, hey, my kid was born in the U.S. if my kid's a U.S. citizen and we're traveling with this U.S. citizen. So it's a way of evading immigration laws. They've also had a lot of lawsuits over access to their apartments. Those going out and say, hey, prove to us where the money's going or what you're doing. And this is the one that's mystifying to me because they're saying we don't want those to have access to private data. Now, wait a minute. Those is an executive agency. And all these other executive agencies already have the private data. And so they don't want others in the executive branch to have the private data they have. And they think it's okay for them to have private data, but it's not okay for anybody else to know that we have. It's just it's crazy stuff. I mean, why would you block another agency that's accountable for auditing and for for fact fact checking, if you will, on what's going on? And they're the ones that hold you accountable for doing what your job is, and you don't want them to see what's going on. So that's a really strange kind of thing. Special counsel has been removed. Special counsel is supposed to be appointed by the president, but he got fired and he wants his job back. But the spending freeze now, this is a weird one. You can no longer you. We're going to sue to make you spend money. We're not going to let you stop spending money. We have all these lawsuits because you've declared a spending freeze. And so things like DEI, you know, all this money that was given by by Biden DEI Trump is not delivering it? So they're suing to get money. The the buyout, the federal worker buyout where he said, hey, I'll buy out what we pay this much. They're suing over buying out, putting employees on leave, a lot of probationary employees that we're shrinking the size of government. So the people that are that are just probationary employees. We're not going to take them. They're suing. Transgender stuff. The stuff that he's doing in prison saying, hey, we want males in male prisons and females in female prisons are suing over that. I mean, everything you can think of, he's got a lawsuit going. So with all the lawsuits that are going out there, the judges are now coming back with decisions. And here's one. This this is the DOJ's has been granted audit information and three big federal agencies that refused to give it. So a federal judge said, no, no, no, you got to give it. And it was union. So who sued on behalf of the agencies to say, you can't get this information out? So he's starting to win these lawsuits. 70 lawsuits. And at this point, he's one. And starting to win the lawsuits. Really good news. 

Tim Barton [00:20:06] And let me point out, nothing should boost confidence from the American people more than when an agency says, we don't want people to know what we are doing with taxpayer dollars. Nothing says trust us. Like don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Absolutely. I feel even better about the whole situation. Again, like this is levels of irony. The same people that were saying Donald Trump should show us his tax records. We we don't think he's has as many billion dollars as he claims, blah, blah, blah. Now they're saying, oh, wait a second. No, no, no. Even though he should show you his personal finances. We don't want there to be any financial accountability for the tax dollars we've been receiving over the last many decades. The lunacy on this is so beyond the level of normal, common people comprehension. And yet This is exactly what's going on. I'm so grateful for groups like what DOGE is doing to bring so much this to the forefront, just if nothing else, so we can all be justified in the feeling we've had for a long time going, you know what? I feel like the government is super incompetent and I feel like they're so wasteful. And now we have so many things we can point to of. Yep, there it is. And there's some more of it and there's some more of it. Hopefully now they can resolve the problem and cut so much of it. But just this is crazy. 

Rick Green [00:21:28] It just seems like there's never been any one that's had the, you know, the backbone to go after this. They're always afraid. All, you know, every you spend every money that gets spent has a constituency that's going to be mad or I don't want to I don't want to hack off that group. They'll come after me or whatever it might be. These guys don't care about that, man. They're like, they're basically like Tom Homan when they're, you know, they're saying, I don't care if I find you. I don't care if you don't like what I'm doing. I'm doing this because it's best for the country. 

Tim Barton [00:21:52] Well, and this is one of the things too, that that people have talked about with Trump many times, that the fact he's an outsider, the fact that he is financially stable and then choosing Elon Musk.Right, the wealthiest guy ever. And having these two guys where they're not going to be swayed by some lobbyist for what they can do to benefit their family, right? This is not like when the Clintons come in or the bushes or the Obamas or the Bidens, and this is what we can do to bring wealth to your family. That's not something the Trumps care about. It's certainly not something Elon cares about. And so the fact that they cannot be swayed as much, they're coming from the outside, they're coming from the business world. They they understand some of the practical ramifications of this far better than people. Like, for example, a Joe Biden, as someone who's been involved in government policy his whole life. Or we can go down the list from the Nancy Pelosi's right. I mean, go through this long list of people that have been in government longer than they've done anything else in their life, and most of them have not had jobs outside of government. It makes sense why they're trying to help make money and get their friends money and everything else. But that's where Trump and now Elon with Doge are so different. And even we've talked about who was on the cabinet. The people at Trump's put it on the cabinet are people that are so highly motivated to to help fix a broken system that they're not in it to make money for themselves, either. In America, as you mentioned, like a Tom Homan, the guy that's like, look, I don't care who you are, I don't care what you say about me. I'm gonna do my job. And you, you know, if you don't like it, then you can. Whatever. It's just so refreshing to see people that care far more about a principle than they do about a financial gain, about the accolades or whatever else there might be. 

Rick Green [00:23:40] And to what you guys were saying earlier, I mean, the fact that the Democrats haven't figured out how much the American people are supportive of this and wanting this, I was just reading on on ex Robbie Starbuck, who we've had on the program, who said he was sharing. Democrat Congresswoman Stansbury says the Democrats, quote, stand with everyone around the world affected by USAID cuts. So Rabi says, yeah, that's right. Democrats stand with foreign transgender opera workers they funded instead of standing with you. They're totally nuts. I mean, it's they still haven't figured out that they are so far on the wrong side. They're losing votes every day. They stay in this position. 

David Barton [00:24:16] And by the way, guys, I told you that that one decision, the federal judge said no, it's okay for them to go ahead. I just pulled some more real quick here. Here's a federal judge has ruled against the lawsuit. He's ruled for Trump and said that no, you've got to give access in into the education department. So all these records and education department, they want to say they have to do that. Here's another judge said, no, no. DOGE guys access to the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Here's another judge that says now does gets access to all the seven different cabinet levels they they give access to. So Trump is winning these lawsuits right now. It's really good. 

Tim Barton [00:24:58] I'd like to say it is a good news for I ran out of time. I feel like you've taken like 18 in the second half of the program. But so real quick along these things that Trump is winning. I have an article real quick that says Trump Access Intern program after Biden officials hid signs of DEI. We know that that Trump signed a day one executive order banning what he called the radical and wasteful. Diversity, equity and inclusion and DEI efforts and federal government. And one of the things that had happened to the federal trans administration's like like public transportation, they had a program they called it diversity and federal transit, actually, like under Pete Buttigieg, where they were saying, hey, we want to bring in these underrepresented groups, let them come in and be part of this. Like DEI was promoted, and they actually changed the name in 2024 from Diversity and Federal Transit to boost to make it sound like it wasn't a DEI program. But people found out about it and they're like, no, no, no, this is totally Dei. And so the program, all the interns were sent back home. They said, yeah, that's not how we play this game. We're not doing a D-I intern program. And so even the intern programs and some of these administrative things are being canceled because of the wokeism that's there. And this is how much that President Trump and these policies are doing. It's ending some of the wokeism in the intern programs. Super encouraging. 

Rick Green [00:26:21] Man. Guys, we're going to have to have a longer program. We're never going to catch up. We're on all the good news. I hope that doesn't mean we're tired of winning President Trump. If you happen to hear this, we're not tired of winning. So keep them coming. We'll eventually catch up. We'll dedicate a month to just good news. There's a lot more there, folks. Don't miss next week. We got some great interviews for you early in the week. And then of course, Foundations of Freedom next Thursday. And more good news for you next Friday. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilders Show.