Rick Green [00:00:07] This is the intersection of faith and culture WallBuilders. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective wallbuilders.com is our main site. If you want to go check that out, you can learn more about us as the host. You can learn about what wall builders has been doing for the last 35, maybe even 40 years. No, no, and not almost almost 37 years. I don't David. I'm do my math. And you started in math, so you'll have to add that up for me. Anyway, WallBuilders has been around a while, actually, bringing back the truth of the founding fathers, bringing back our founding documents, and so much of that on our website right there, wildbuilders.com. And then if you missed some of the programs over the last week or two, wildbuilders.show. So that's just the easy to go to website, easy to share the program and listen to some of the programs from the last few weeks, wildbuilders.show. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And Tim's out on the road running all over the country, sharing the good news. So David and I are going to catch you up on some of the stuff that happened last weekend. And David, it was a, it was a busy weekend. A lot happened. In fact, we both, uh, yesterday on Sunday, we got a video from our buddy, Alan Hayes, former state Senator out there in Florida, but it's of Mike Johnson and what a great summary. I mean, this is so good about what DOGE is doing and Elon and how different this is and, uh, and I'm sure David, you've probably already thought of some people in our founding history that are maybe who you would call Elon. I don't know, I haven't figured out who that would be yet. Best I've done is David's Mighty Man and he's Benaiah. He's like the Slayer. But anyway, we'll listen to that clip in just a second, David, but lots to catch up on today. 

David Barton [00:01:37] Yeah, there's a lot to catch up on. And I was really amazed and listen to that clip and we'll play in a second, but how Mike was able to take current technology, the cutting edge stuff that Doge is using and say, Hey, this may be the very thing that gets us back to what the founding fathers intended. I thought, man, what a connection, you know, to go across 250 years. But that may be a tool that gets us back to original intent, which is, you know, limited government and all the good things that they're supposed to be about the government, small government, get it out of our lives. Let freedom and opportunity win the day. And I, it was just, it was striking. So, but that, and then there's just been some amazing things. We keep talking about how, how fast things are moving under Trump and how much he, he continues to, to pour out. And now we're, I think five weeks in a row where the only good news Fridays we've had have been totally Trump stuff, um, and just today, I put another seven stories in there just off, off the wire of things that happen just today that are so good. And so at some point. We're gonna have to stop and do a Good News Friday for something other than Trump so that everybody knows America's still got some good things going on. But I don't, I mean, you said 37 years, whatever it is, I do not recall another time where we've had so much good stuff pouring forth so fast after having been really kind of bad for 15 to 17 years trending downward and how quickly that recovery is occurring. And by the way, it's not all good news because We have such a split culture now in the nation that some people think the good stuff that's happening is bad. And so we know we're seeing some, some pushback on that. If, if you're progressive, if you're woke, if you've been through a secular progressive university in the last 20 years, you're not seeing this as good news, you're seeing this as bad news. And so there's a lot of pushback, but even with that, it clearly appears that more and more Americans are being won over to what's happening. And that's, that's good too. so. You know, all that to say there was just a lot of stuff that happened this weekend that be good to catch up on, not the least of which was how amazing Mike Johnson was in kind of summarizing 250 years of founders, original intent, what's going right now. 

Rick Green [00:03:48] Yeah, there's when you're talking about Trump being all the good news Friday was all I could think was no No, Trump would take all the oxygen out of the room. Never no no, it would it would never all be focused on things that Trump's doing. No, that would never happen No, of course! Yeah But the fact that he's moving as fast as the end is hard to keep up with but what Mike said this whenever this clip was might have been Friday or I'm not sure when he actually the video actually happened But so good and and just a great way to summarize it and you remember David when we when he first got elected speaker in his speech on the floor that day, how much he quoted from the declaration and just so many things that you know, we talk about here at WallBuilders and so he is a guy that is steeped in knowledge about the founding fathers and a good constitutional attorney, so to always take what's happening now and go back and show the history and the original intent the way that we do around here is, is refreshing to see out of our speaker of the house. So we'll listen to this clip. We'll be back in just a sec. 

Mike Johnson [00:04:38] Elon is in the middle, he's gotten in the belly of the beast and I met with him a couple weeks ago at his office, Monday before last, and he was explaining to me what he's doing and he and I got increasingly excited as we're going through this and I said, man, look, I know you're excited because you think of this as a scientist and a data analyst, I think of it as a constitutional law attorney and a historian, Elon, what we're going to do here is restore the original intent of the framers of the Constitution because they envisioned a small, efficient federal government. Remember, most of the power is pushed down to the states, right? Because that's important for maintaining the checks and balances and all the rest of the things we need. But they wanted a federal government that was small and efficient and effective and accountable. And the accountability piece will be insured by the dealings of elected representatives of the people and the Congress who could have oversight. The problem is, for decades, as we know, we haven't been able to do that job well because even though we requested the data and requested the insight, it was hidden but Elon has cracked the code. He is now inside the agencies. He's created these algorithms that are constantly crawling through the data. And as he told me in his office, the data doesn't lie. We're gonna be able to get the information. We're gonna be able to transform the way the federal government works at the end of this. And that is a very exciting prospect. It is truly a revolutionary moment for the nation. 

Rick Green [00:05:54] Well, that was a speaker, Mike Johnson. We were just listening to and, uh, and yeah, I mean, that sounds so grandiose, David, but it's true. We're literally restoring original intent of the constitution. I mean, you and I've talked about it forever in the constitution classes or in events. The idea that the federal government is doing all these things that never had permission to do the fact that we talked about president Trump's executive order that actually requires every agency to look at every regulation from the lens through the lens of whether or not it is is beyond the- uh... power vested in the federal government to the constitution I mean all of these things are just just hugely and very very encouraging well i was i thought it was 

David Barton [00:06:31] interesting the way that Mike said, you know, even Elon got excited because he's looking at it through the technical aspect and Mike says, no, no, no, let me take you back and show you in terms of history and the Constitution and what you're doing as, you know, a technical guy, really an electronic guru, you're doing the stuff that's getting us back to what the Constitution really wants and I loved what he said about restoring original intent. This is to restore original intent, and it is so amazing. because we've talked for years about man, we're not gonna get restored any time soon because of what's going on in education, what's going on in law schools, what's going on in so many other places, but having this quick turnaround, this quick result, the ability to, how do I wanna say this? To pull out really ridiculous things that are happening in real time that kind of turned everybody off. The federal government's doing what? I didn't know they were doing that. We've never heard stories on this before. And as Mike said, it's been hidden. They've been asking for this data for how many years, but you're relying on federal physical employees to go through how many million pages of data and come out with stuff and the fact that he said, as Elon is doing it, they're having it crawl through all the data and make that data readily available for queries. This is just, I had not thought of it in terms of restoring the original intent, maybe getting back to constitutional intent, but it may be that AI is is a real Godsend in that aspect. By the way, I gotta say, we talked about this last week. AI is made by humans. Therefore, it has a lot of flaws and it's gonna have human biases in it. Elon has done a really good job of trying to make his neutral, but all the others are not neutral out there. And so this is gonna work for a while and somebody's gonna get ahold of a way to twist it and a way to corrupt it and a way to not make it do what it's supposed to. So while AI is a good deal right now, that's not an endorsement for everything that's soon to come because human nature always screws up this stuff, always. 

Rick Green [00:08:31] Yeah, no doubt. Oh, okay, David, I got a sidetrack just for a second here. Cause I've been wondering, I've been wanting to ask you this. Is Elon Benjamin Franklin or Benjamin Rush, or one of the other Renaissance guys that did like 10 different things. Cause he's doing, he's got rockets landing while he's saving the constitution, while he's creating AI, while he's doing, you know, making trucks and the cyber trucks and all these other things. So who's, who's in your mind, the, the kind of the shoes that he's filling similar to those guys we know from the founding year. 

David Barton [00:09:01] Well, you chose Benjamin Rush and chose Benjamin Franklin. And both of those guys are brilliant thinkers who thought outside the box, who did creative, innovative stuff. You know, one Franklin with science and one was Benjamin Rush more with medicine and education, but I've got to lean toward the Franklin side because Benjamin Rush is just a Bible thumping evangelical, quite frankly, and I'm not going to put Elon in that category, but if I go to Franklin, he's not a deist and he's a faith guy. It's just as not what drives his life, you know, it's the atmosphere in which he lived and everything around him was that way. And so, you know, he printed religious books, he printed religious material and he was, he was the guy that was a truth guy. He wanted truth out there. And Elon strikes me a whole lot more that way. He is an intellectual guy like Franklin. Uh, he, he's, and you know, we've seen Elon really change over the last three or four years in his philosophy, even His attitude toward God, kind of ambivalent and hostile now a little more open, a little more positive. So I think Franklin, I'm not saying he's like Franklin, because I think Franklin was a little stronger faith guy than Elon is right now, but I think Elon is probably closer to that category as a brilliant thinker for sure, and as an innovator for sure, and as a guy who finds creative solutions for things people aren't able to find solutions for, I think he and Franklin have a lot in common. 

Rick Green [00:10:28] I wonder if Franklin, I forget how old Elon is. I think he's, I don't know what, 45 or something like that. But maybe Franklin at that age would have, if he lived today, would have even used the phrase cultural Christian like, like, uh, like, um, Elon has. And maybe by the time Elon's 81, like Franklin was, he will get even closer to thinking of the father of lights and, uh, and all of those things. Well, we'll see. Anyway, I know that's totally off topic, but I was just sitting here as you were talking about Elon. I'm on a second. Uh, those, those guys that did universities and, and at the same time, they're doing all these other things. That's a, that's just so rare today. Cause everybody tends to do just one thing. 

David Barton [00:11:05] The point you just made is a really good point. What was it that got Franklin away from his ambivalence at the beginning toward a much more supportive faith position. It was hanging around people of faith like George Whitfield. He got attached to Whitfield. And that's in his thirties and forties. And you know, when he's much younger, he's a printer and he likes this guy and he thinks he's pretty strange as a faith guy, you know, he thought Whitfield was kind of far out there, but he so liked him and liked what he was doing and liked what he was accomplishing. that has started affecting his beliefs. And so he just, I got to be the one who prints all the sermons for Whitfield. And he took over that contract, printing all the Whitfield sermons. And he's not a strong faith guy at that point, but it kind of led him on. And so, you know, maybe God's got some people in Elon's life that are doing the same kind of thing that are moving in that direction. But I think that's a really good comparison, really good point you made, because Franklin at that point is kind of maybe where Elon is now. And maybe over time, there's going to be relationships that, that, that move in a, in a, in a much more favorable direction on faith, but he's not hostile like Franklin wasn't hostile. It's just not what him right now, but hopefully it will.

Rick Green [00:12:13]  Yeah. And he does. I hadn't thought about that. You're right. I like the people he's hanging out with in the administration, faith guys in the administration, the, the, the transformation we've seen in his, his economic theory and, and, and politics and those kinds of things. Just in the things that he tweets out and sends out for, you know, starting to follow Milton Friedman, all these kinds of people. And, and, uh, and then of course, you know, you've got the, the people in the administration and I, and I'm sorry to keep a sidetrack different, but it's kind of like Dana White, the guy that started, It runs UFC. When he was telling the story the other day, he's, he's an atheist, but he was telling the story the other day of how much Trump believe that God saved him. And you could tell in the way that Dana was saying it, that it was causing him to question his belief in atheism and wonder, you know what, maybe these guys are right, maybe there is a God, maybe that it's just, it's like, you're saying the people that are hanging around just like it would be for us. If we were, if we were hanging around the wrong people, it could pull us the wrong direction. They're hanging around the right people and the right influences happening to them. It's fascinating. It's fascinating to watch. Just a super neat time to be alive. 

David Barton [00:13:14] And Rick, what you said with Dana White is really significant because polling has just come out. I mean, brand new hot off the press that says right now, less than half of Americans believe in God. So we're down to the lowest point in our history as a nation. And America will not survive that because if you don't believe in God, then you don't believe in God-given rights, which means you will not have limited government. That comes from government. You're not allowed to touch certain things that are in God's control, like our inalienable rights that come from God. I mean, the whole philosophy of American government is limited because we believe that there is a jurisdiction in which God has superior control over human jurisdictions. Otherwise we would be like Canada with Trudeau, and I'm going to take over your inalienable rights. You don't have the right to associate unless I say you can't, or you don't have the right to free speech and all those rights. Those are God given rights. So having said that, We started this thing by saying how this new AI stuff that Elan is doing is bringing to light things that have been hidden for years and years and years. And so, because we're at a point where biblical knowledge and faith in God is the lowest that's ever been in American history, I'm just gonna throw out a few things, believing that, and as we're seeing now, with even Dana White and Elan, they're moving in that God direction because they're having a relationship saying, hey, this stuff is real. And, you know, the scriptures have been proven real time and time again. But I just got to point it out. Uh, Jesus and Luke eight said, nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is there anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Uh, a different point, Luke four, he said, there's nothing hidden that except it's going to be made manifest. And there's nothing secret except it's going to be seen. And even down in Job, Job said, God and covers the deeps out of darkness and brings deep darkness to light. And that's just something for everybody to remember. God watches every single thing we do and it will come to light. If sometime that's going to play before an audience of, I don't know, 150 billion, having lived on earth, there is a final judgment coming where that when we stand before the great Creator, he's gonna say, here's what you did. Here's the good, the bad, the ugly. And everybody's gonna see it. It'll all come to light. And that's a good self-restraint. If you're aware of that. And you don't want the rest of the world to know what you've been doing. Just get your life straightened up, get some things fixed up. You know, say, hey, I don't need to be doing this kind of stuff in secret. If it won't stand up in public, I'm not going to do it. It's just a good reminder that we're not God conscious now. And that always affects our behavior. If we're not aware that God sees and holds us accountable for what we do, good, bad, and ugly, then we're going to see and do things that aren't good. They will be bad and ugly, but just remember There is a creator where the people think so or not. And it looks like a lot of people who had not thought that may be coming back that way, you know, Elon and Dana White and others, which is good news, but just all Americans remember we will be held accountable and what we've done is secrets going to be made public across the, you know, across the entire of eternity, whatever that may be when, when we get there, whatever it looks like. 

Rick Green [00:16:22] Yeah, I was trying to find the quote right here. It is James McHenry when he said, Bibles are strong protections when they abound. Men cannot pursue wicked courses and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience. It's exactly what you're saying. If you've got the God consciousness, if it's all over the culture, people are seeing and hearing truth, you can't just stay in that center, that wickedness with a quiet consciousness. You're gonna get that conviction. And part of the reason you could get to the point of half the country not believing in God is that lack of God consciousness. And so, man, just the restoration of that, the curiosity of all these key people. You know, we didn't even mention Jordan Peterson in that group. I mean, it's just a really neat thing. The conversation is becoming godly, and therefore, man, what did we see last weekend? For last week, 4,000 kids at Purdue came to Christ. And a few weeks ago, we talked about the tens of thousands at these other universities, and the interest in the Bible, and. So it is definitely fertile ground out there. A great, great opportunity for us to speak truth and to bring that God consciousness. And the harvest is plenty folks. So let's get out there and speak truth. David, quick break. We'll be right back and get to all those other items you had. I'm sorry for derailing us today, but quite interesting to hear your thoughts on those things. We'll be right back folks. You're listening to The WallBuilder Show. 

Rick Green [00:18:45] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. It's Monday and Tim's out on the road caught in some travel. So, uh, David and I are holding down the four trying to catch up on what's been going on over the weekend. So far we played that clip from Mike Johnson. Uh, David, you were saying on the break, something about, was it El Salvador where the, uh, where president Trump sent a bunch of gang members? Yeah. 

David Barton [00:19:04] Yeah, there's a really big thing to have this weekend that it's really made liberals mad. It hadn't got all that much coverage. It's worth talking about, but it goes back that Trump invoked a founding father act from 1798. And in 1798, America is in the midst of what's called the quasi war. It was a full war, except it was not officially declared. Hundreds of ships fighting each other. And you got to back up and say, OK, for several centuries, the British. And the French did not like each other and they fought each other off and on for centuries, literally. And so when America gets started, we fight the British and the French come help us and say, man, we'll help you fight the British any day of the week because we hate those guys. And so Marquis de Lafayette and some of the other French leaders came and helped us and they were really key. But after the war was over, we weren't wanting to, to hate Great Britain. You know, we had differences, but my goodness, we're all descended from, from British colonies, essentially. And so at that point in time, the French were going to war against the British in the late 1790s. And they said, Hey, we came and helped you America. You need to come help us fight the British. We said, no, no, no, we're not getting any war. We just finished a war. We don't want any other wars. And so what happened was France actually sent people to America to agitate Americans, to get behind the French, to, to, to work on their leaders, to, to really mob their leaders and make, make them, push them toward the French position and go fight the British. And so in 1798, we got into a war and it was called the Quasi War. We refused to go fight the British. And so the, the French started attacking us. They attacked our ships. They attacked our, our shores. They came right up to our shores and we're going after Americans. And so in 1798, President John Adams, who oversaw that quasi war, he passed the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and it said, look, if you're an alien enemy here to do some kind of violence, We're going to deport you straight out. And so that was done. They deported a whole lot of the agitators that were here from France that France had sent in and that's exactly what Trump used here. We've got all these alien agitators who've come in out of gangs, whether it be, you know, cartels or sex trafficking or anything else. And so what happened this weekend was Trump took about a little over 250 of these guys, put them on planes and sent them to El Salvador. because many of the people that he was sending back were from El Salvador and gangs and had had those ties. But he also sent back a whole bunch of other terrorists, not from El Salvador, because the president of El Salvador said, hey, we have finally gotten our gangs under control here in the country, and we're happy to take other terrorists and we'll turn them into productive citizens because we put them in the prison system and we make them start working in the prison system and they produce food and they produce supplies and they produce things we use in the nation. So send them here and we'll pay them. 

Rick Green [00:21:59] He actually invited him to send more. Now this is the guy that's been also quoting God and that's right. And I've seen some of his speeches and I know you're talking about any, and he, right when he got in, right? He jailed all these gangs. Oh yeah. And they had these massive, you know, fill them up. I didn't realize he was turning them around and inviting more to come through the system. 

David Barton [00:22:18] Whoa, he says, we're going to start having production out of these guys. It's going to help our economy because they're going to produce food and, you know, farm stuff and, and do stuff there in prison. And they were met at the airport by, um, really serious cops, if you will, Salvadoran cops, and I love that El Salvadoran president says, God blessed president Trump for what he's doing, and he sent us these guys. And it's just, you know, you're talking about, he's a God guy. He has turned that country around. He is kind of the Trump of Al Salvador in many ways. And he was happy to take these guys in. Well, he had a federal judge step in the federal judge was one that was originally appointed by Obama back in 2011 and then in Biden and his term elevated him to a higher court. And so he instantly ordered, um, he instantly ordered that all these guys be returned to America and be kept in American prison, they're all foreign illegal aliens. You've got the 1798 alien act and Trump to his Chris, we are so sorry. That plane is already in the air and it's out of American airspace. Your decision doesn't have any effect outside of American airspace. Sorry. We've got to let those guys land in El Salvador. Oh, that's great. It is that it's classic. It was, it was really, really great. And so, you know, it's just, it's really good to see, but they move so fast I get these And that's what's happening now, you know, Trump has not deported the millions and millions and millions he's talked about yet, because right now they're going after the ones that have criminal records and the deport deportations right now are criminal records. Get those guys out of the country. I, you know, I don't know what this will eventually do for crime rates in America or anything else. But if we get God conscious and also have criminals taken out, and especially these gang members that have international terrorist groups. Uh, it's, it's going to be good for Americans and the future. Good for our kids and grandkids and everything else. So that was a really piece of good news that happened this weekend. And one other set of judges that here's, uh, here's, uh, actually a Clinton judge and he's the second judge to say, Hey, the federal government is not allowed to fire people. Trump is firing all these people trying to downsize government. That that's unconstitutional. You can't wait a minute on what part of the constitution are you saying you can't downsize federal government? And if you can't fire federal employees under the executive branch, then who's running the executive branch because the president is supposed to be over that branch, he's the head of it. And so you've got these judges that are trying their best to stop everything that's happening now with downsizing of government, with getting it out of DC and back into the local hands with getting rid of bloated federal bureaucracies. And again, we have these progressive judges that are doing this, but it's just good again. that is continuing to go forth. And we had judges this weekend also step in and say, no, Trump is allowed to fire people. He's allowed to get rid of those people. And so I don't know, I think there's 70 or 80 or 90 lawsuits against Trump right now on what he's done. And the Lord judges, they're picking judges that are like Obama judges or Clinton judges or Biden judges who are saying, you can't do this. And then the courts of appeals saying, yeah, you can. Constitution allows them to do that. So right now Trump's prevailing in the lawsuits, but there was a bunch more of that this weekend. And judge is trying to stop what he's doing, but higher courts are ruling in his favor right now, which really is good for the nation. 

Rick Green [00:25:53] Man, it's a battle on so many fronts, and to have the appetite, the wherewithal, the steadfastness to not be discouraged by all of those, like you said earlier, the pushback by the people that don't want these positive changes and these restoration of the Constitution. We've said it a dozen times at least since he got sworn in, but he would not have been like this if he'd gone right back in in 2020. You know, those tough times, you know, they make you tough. And, and, and we can definitely say count it all joy when you experience various trials of a chapter in James is spot on. Cause it made Trump have the resilience and the wherewithal to do what he's doing right now. So praise God for all of those things. Great show today. Tim Barton will be back with us tomorrow. Don't miss it. We've got a couple of great interviews for you this week and then foundations of freedom, Thursday, this Thursday and good news Friday. We'll get to as many of those stories as we can. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders Show.