Tim Barton [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is Tim Barton, the president of WallBuilders, joined with my dad, David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders. And normally our third amigo, Rick Green is with us but in the midst of his traveling over the weekend and speaking, he lost his voice. We told him, rest a little bit. Hopefully he'll be with us tomorrow. He could have been with us today, in fairness. He could have been on here. We just wouldn't have heard anything he said. And if he was with us now, I would make jokes about that, but he's not. So I'm going to let it go. But we are today going to be joined with a very good friend, Congressman Barry Loudermilk, who has done a lot of interesting things in his career. He's got a military background. He's got an incredible book. Maybe some more than just these things, but his book, And Then They Prayed. We've had him on the program before to talk about that. There's a 250th anniversary edition coming out, which is super fun. But also, he served on some pretty significant committees. And with all that's going on right now, not the least of which the government shut down, and we thought, let's let's see if he will jump on and maybe give us some insight to what's going on. Dad, you and I yesterday talked about maybe some of the government shutdown, the significance of there being a billionaire who's giving 130 million dollars to try to make sure the military has paychecks. But there's a lot of stuff going on right now. 

David Barton [00:01:25] Yeah, it's gonna be great having Barry. And Barry, thank you for being here. Been a great friend, great warrior on so many issues. And so we appreciate you. And for those who don't know, he represents Georgia. And and so just a lot of stuff he's doing. We'll get into some of that. But Tim and I were talking yesterday about the shutdown. And it's like when Republicans cause a shutdown, about ten seconds after it starts, they tell keep telling you how many people died already since the shutdown. And it's like this is the second longest shutdown in history. And I'm not sure that the media's even reported that it's happened yet. And it's like, what if they had a shutdown and nobody noticed? And and that's kind of the way this one has been, it seems like. 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:02:03] Well, well, thanks for having me on. It's always a pleasure and honor to be with you guys. You're some of my favorite people out there. And so and look, this is this is unprecedented territory we're in right now. And it's it's like we're all in amazement and learning from this because the one thing that since I've been in Congress for 11 years, the one thing we've always heard from the other side, especially when we're in the majority, the only thing they'll agree to is a clean CR. Basically, with no policy writers, nothing that, you know, you quite often will use a government shutdown, saying we being Congress, would use a government shutdown to push particular policy issues. And when we were in the majority, we always heard from the minority, we'll only accept a clean CR. That's it. No policy writers in there. Now, they voted for this funding level multiple times, even before it was brought to the floor a few weeks ago to avoid the shutdown but now they're shutting the government down to put policy writers onto something that they've always said that's all that they would support. And the reality is they anticipated this would go like previous shutdowns. That you go a few days, people get upset because, like when president when I was first just running for Congress, Obama had a shutdown, and he did everything within his authority to make it the most painful for the American people. I remember he would shut down parks, even shut down the World War II memorial, which was the most ridiculous thing because they spent more effort and paying federal employees to go put up barricades to keep people out of a free memorial that you don't even need anybody there to monitor. But this is the type of thing that they did. They barred access to parks, closed parks. I mean, everything they could to make it painful on the American people. And the idea is, and it was a strategy that worked, is American people on both sides of the aisle would pick up the phone, they'd call their congressman and demand that the the government be reopened. In this case, this president has taken a different approach. Let's make it as innocuous, as innocuous as possible. In fact, I was speaking at an event the other day, and I asked the crowd of about 400. I said, How many of you have heard that we're in a government shutdown? Of course, everybody raised their hand. Then I said, How many of you have experienced any of it or seen any evidence of it? And not a single one raised their hand. And so there is no leverage from the American people. Now that's gonna change very soon if the president can't find another way of funding some of these critical issues. And one of the ones that's gonna be the biggest, I think, is going to be SNAP benefits, food stamps. When that runs out, I think that you're gonna you're gonna start seeing a whole lot of push on both sides of the aisle to get the government reopened. So it's it's a very interesting dynamic. Clearly the Democrats own this one, and the reason you're not hearing anything from the mainstream media because they can't put the blame where it really should go. 

Tim Barton [00:05:04] Now, Barry, as you're saying that the Republicans are proposing a clean resolution, would that clean resolution include like these SNAP, these EBT benefits? Is that included? And I ask that because it seems like then, if if you can show, well, look, the Democrats are the ones in the Senate. This is already passed the House. Republicans in the House already passed this. The holdup is in the Senate. The reason there's a holdup in the Senate is because there's not 60 votes for cloture. Without cloture, they can't end a filibuster, which is basically what the Democrats have been doing, just filibustering this whole thing to make sure there can't be a vote, because there are enough Republican votes to vote out this clean bill or this clean resolution, but you need Democrats to join on to vote for the cloture, which ends the filibuster. And so it does seem like this absolutely plays into Republicans' hands, not that the media is going to promote or tout that message, but when you can say, guys, we're the ones voting every single time. We have 50 plus votes in the Senate every time for what's going on. And I say 50 plus votes because I know that Rand Paul has not been in favor of this, right? But but general, and actually one or two or three Democrats have even voted for this, but it's the majority of the Democrats. Do you think when this happens, not only is there going to be a lot more pressure from the American people, but also is this going to be something that President Trump or even the media is going to be able to identify who are the actual guilty culprits in this? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:06:32] Well, I think it's it's it's becoming clear that it's the far left element of the Democrat Party that's pushing this. And it's clear that they're in control, especially when there was a a bill that came before the Senate last week. Basically the bill said, okay, we we can't fund the entire government, and we're the problem here. I mean, Congress not being able to fund the government. The essential workers out there who are coming to work right now and not being paid, they should at least be paid. The military should be paid. And that's all this bill did is said we can continue this shutdown as long as we want, but we need to pay those essential workers, like the FAA tra air traffic controllers, right? TSA, those that are specifically involved in every day of our life, FBI agents, et cetera. Let's pay them, let's pay our military, and then we can work out the differences later. They voted that down. So clearly they're unhappy that the American people are not feeling this pinch. And I don't think you can go too much longer that it's not gonna they're they're gonna have to react one way or the other. The media is gonna have to react. 

Tim Barton [00:07:39] Well, yesterday, my dad and I, as we were talking about this, we we were trying to figure out what is what is the ultimate Democrat strategy? Because if you're looking at what are the things they're really trying to make sure are part of the spending package going forward, it seems like things like illegal immigration, right, funding immigrants at whatever level that is. My dad mentioned yesterday he thinks maybe even some of the abortion issue, you know, they would call it healthcare women's rights, but ultimately it's the abortion issue. What do you think is the game that Democrats are playing? What because I I I really don't see, apart from the media backing and supporting them, how this provides more leverage. Because if all these benefits are lost, and you're talking about at that point, is it what, 40 million people that are on some kind of snap EBT benefit? And and I am using a number I saw online, so that's a totally untrustworthy number. I know as I'm saying that, but maybe you can offer some clarity one way or the other. But is it is it to try to create more chaos? We're not gonna fund it and we're gonna make people want to ride in the streets until we get funding for abortion and illegal migrants, et cetera. What what do you think is the strategy? And what what do you think is the leverage they're trying to get out of this? Because it doesn't seem like a winning strategy or tactic from my standpoint. 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:08:56] No, it isn't. And they are smarter than that. So I've been trying to rack my brain around this as well. What is, why are they making this stand? And I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I think it's it's twofold. One, if you look at what they're trying to push through, they're they're saying it's all about healthcare. But then again, they're the ones who wrote the program with the sunset of this date. Okay. No Republican voted for that subsidy or the sunset. They did this. They knew it was coming. And we don't have to address it right now. That doesn't expire until December 31st. So there's time to negotiate that. But look at where what has happened that they're trying to undo do with their legislation is the funding that Trump has cut through USAID and other programs, that there's evidence out there that that money had been funneled into Democrat campaigns over the years. Okay? This is do or die for them right now. If you've cut off that financial switch for them, they're in desperation. So that's one thing. The other thing that they have effectively done from a congressional or legislative standpoint is they have brought a halt to the Trump agenda through Congress. This is the only way they could stop the Republicans from passing the Trump agenda. We've shown it that in the House we're able to get anything through. And so I think that is another thing that has that that they see as a plus is at least for the rest of this year, and there's rumors out there that this could go till Christmas. I don't think so. It well could go through Thanksgiving. But if they do that, then they are truly playing the American people as political pawns for pushing an agenda that the American people really, really do not want. And they've been clear about it. 

David Barton [00:10:47] Barry, the question I've got on this is if it if it now becomes public and they start pushing this thing and people start feeling the pain, which they're working toward help people feel the pain. I the question I've got and I know this is somewhat cynical, do you think they'll get the blame for it or will the media be able to to tag it on the Republicans again, which is what they typically do? I mean, do you think the the Democrats will actually feel the pain in this and that maybe people will see it differently, or is it just gonna kinda end the way most of these do? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:11:16] No, I think they can feel the pain this time as long as we stay disciplined on our side. And I'll give a lot of credit to Speaker Johnson. He's he's done a phenomenal job by holding standing firm because we have nothing to negotiate here. They want to negotiate something that is policy-based. It is has nothing to do with the current budget and currently funding the government. They're using it as leverage. And so if we continue to message the way that we're messaging right now to the American people, the simple messages, all we're trying to do is keep the doors of government open so we have time to negotiate and deal with legislation properly. That's all we're trying to do here. We're not holding anybody hostage. The Republicans did our job. We did what we're supposed to do. And that's one of the reasons they're kind of keeping Republicans out of Washington, D.C. There, there are some that are going up regularly, like I go up at least for a couple of days a week, work on my my January 6th investigation. But it's that we've done our job. This is in the Senate. The Senate needs to do it. The Democrats need to come on board and actually pass this legislation. If we continue that, that messaging, I think it's going to be hard for the mainstream media to ignore it. In fact, there's been many on our side that they're reaching out to the CNNs, to MSNBCs and offering, hey, we'll we'll be glad to come on and explain this to you. So I think there's a chance they do shoulder the majority of the blame. Of course, all of Congress is going to take take on some of it. But this is the the general accepted idea in Washington, D.C. Has been the Republicans are so bad at communicating, is that the Democrats are much better at telling a lie than we are telling the truth. And I think we're beginning to shift, we're beginning to shift that narrative right now. 

David Barton [00:13:00] Well, we're at a time. Well, let's take a break here real quick and come back. But when you come back, hear more about the J6 committee, what you're finding and updates there. And also another thing seems to have been off the radar screen, but pretty big is Venezuela. So get your perspective on both of those when you come back from the break. This is the WallBuilder Show, Tim Barton, David Barton, Rick Green. 

Tim Barton [00:14:26] Welcome back to the WallBuilder Show. This is Tim Barton, the president of WallBuilders, joined with my dad, David Barton, and our third amigo, Rick Green, is actually out today under the weather. But we are joined with a special guest, Barry Loudermilk, who's been talking with us about some of the background of the shutdown, some of what we think maybe some of the strategy, some of what could be potential consequences. And there's still a lot we could talk about with that. But Barry, one of the things my dad and I, as we were talking today about having you on the program, there were several things that we wanted to talk about. One of them we teased on the program yesterday, where President Trump, in an interview, he was asked if he was gonna go to Congress to get Congress to declare war on the cartel. And he said, I don't need them to declare war. We're just gonna kill the people that are smuggling drugs in. And it seems like a really hot take on this. It it also seems to be on par with what President Trump you know, kind of who he's been and what he's done. But with that being said, what is what is your thoughts, maybe from the background you can share, because I know that you have some intelligence that maybe we're not supposed to be totally privy to on some level. So I don't want you to give away anything you're not supposed to. But certainly, as we have seen some of these drug smuggling boats being targeted and blown up, and there's people that, you know, maybe have questioned if that's too extreme. But we also know that those drugs, when they make it into America, there is an incredibly high death toll of American lives from this drug, these fentanyl, whatever else is coming in. So so what is your take, first of all, on this war on the cartel, war on drugs, Venezuela? Can you give us any more detail on what's going on? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:16:17] Well, I can share with you my thoughts on that and and some of what we know. You know, this is definitely something we need to discuss as far as the presidential powers going in. But let me try to put it in perspective. And I think you were going there. I don't think there's anyone in this country that would argue with the president of attacking a naval vessel or a boat or somebody coming across the border if we knew that that boat was carrying a nuclear weapon, right? If if we knew that a weapon of mass destruction was coming into our country to be used against Americans, whether it was nuclear or just a huge conventional weapon or a group of weapons, I don't think anyone would argue with the ability for the president to interdict and take out that that weapon and those perpetrators at any means. That is an invasion of our country. That is a weapon coming in to kill and destroy Americans. When you look at the fentanyl and the drugs that have been running into our country, it's exactly what is happening. And this is from the president's perspective and my conversations with him. He said our country is being invaded and they're bringing in weapons of mass destruction, not just to kill Americans, but to make tons of money off of this that is then used to fund other organizations that really are anti-American as well. And so that is his perspective is this is an invasion. It there are weapons of mass destruction being brought in by people who want to destroy Americans. And so he's going to take any means possible to stop that invasion. And so that's that's his thought process going into this. And I think it's a discussion that we need to have, whether it's under an authorization abuse of military force or you know, how whenever you do something like this, there's always handcuffs that's put on the administration. And and some should be, and quite often there's political handcuffs put on. But I I would really find it hard to believe, of course, the Democrats are are really amazing me all the time, anyhow, that they there would be that much of a fight against taking any measure to stop this invasion of our country that's that's killing millions of Americans. 

David Barton [00:18:34] It seems like it's been a really tough situation because so much of the world seems to have united against Maduro, believing that he stole the last election, that he's doing internal murder to his own people as well as to to Americans and and others. And I guess some seven million people seem to have fled the country just to keep from being slaughtered by him. So he's a really bad guy, a really evil guy. It would seem like you could get unified on something like that, but you know, like you said, never cease to demographics never cease to amaze us on many things. So with all this going on, do you think they're coming to an end on that? Is you think Maduro I mean Maduro was actually offering, hey, if you guys will stop blowing us up, we'll give you some of our gold, we'll give you some of our resources. Seems like he's trying to buy off America to keep it stop. So maybe that means that this is actually working and and we can get some of this stop. What do you think? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:19:21] Well, I think definitely we're in the driver's seat in this one. And so we'll see how the administration handles going forward. But you know, I'm I there's a there's not too many people in politics I trust, right? So there's there's so much history there and there's so much of their economy that's based on this illicit drug trade. I would I would hope the administration, if they do make an agreement there that it is looked into very regularly, very carefully, because we have we have to stop this illegal drug trade going forward. 

Tim Barton [00:19:54] One of the things too, Barry, as we are looking at at the news and some of what's going on, and again, this is one of the things we were really excited to talk to you about. Looking at some of the January 6th stuff happening, I saw a post yesterday where one of the reporters who was in the room with President Trump when he identified that Antifa is a terrorist organization. One of those reporters just released, and I saw it yesterday. It could have been over the weekend, I don't know, but I saw it yesterday. They released some photos showing that one of the J6ers was actually one of the leaders of an Antifa group and organization. One of the things that that that Barry is you have worked to uncover a lot of what's going on or what went on with the J6. We heard from you more than once that there were there was definitely some misrepresentation of what went on. We saw some overcriminalization, but at the same time, there really were some bad actors. They are doing some bad things. But one of the things this reporter pointed out is that this J6er, who was, you know, part of the quote unquote insurrection member or leader in Antifa was never charged with anything J6 related. Have you seen that story? Or can you tell us more? It's is when are we gonna see maybe a better degree of justice? Because we know President Trump pardoned right so many people that were there, but pardoning people that were some of them that were wrongfully accused, that were wrongfully imprisoned, it doesn't necessarily bring justice if you're not also targeting some of the bad perpetrators. 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:21:35] Yeah, and well and where we're at right now in this is I've finally have access now that we have a friendly administration to a lot of the intelligence reports that the FBI had. Because one of my concerns all along, especially when they found out we found out that they had 30 some odd confidential human sources embedded within the the crowds that day. Now, these are not paid agents, even though we found out since then it was with over 200 agents were sent there to the Capitol after it was breached, which was in violation of their rules and protocols. And but these confidential human resources are actually people who were already in these groups and the the FBI pays them to feed information. Well, my question is if you had that many, how did you not know this was coming if it was planned? And so we're finding out now that I have access to those reports. They they had tremendous amounts of intelligence, and part of that intelligence was that there were going to be Antifa embedded in that that within within the crowds there that day. So that is something that we have recently found out. Now, right now, supposedly the agencies cannot continue to send us documents during the shutdown. But that's okay. I'm just going to the agencies and looking at the documents there. So we are we're we're continuing to pursue this, but something else you brought up regarding the the prosecutions is we uncovered just before the shutdown, those 200 agents that were sent to the Capitol to help with supposedly crowd control. The fact that they were there was kept a secret throughout the entire time that the prosecutions were going on. The Biden administration hid the fact that those 200 agents were there, but those 200 agents were also used to investigate the prosecutions or do the investigation for the prosecution of several of those people. Now, the the courts were never advised those. 

Tim Barton [00:23:29] Yeah. Can I ask your question there too? Because it seems like I remember a leader of the FBI on record in a congressional committee saying that there was no FBI presence there. So is in my mind, this is an obvious lying under oath scenario. Am I seeing that? Like it seems like it's that simple. Am I seeing this wrong? Or in fact, is that what he did? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:23:53] No, that that is what I believe that he did and did it purposely, knowing that they were there. And so you have to ask why. The why is because they didn't want the courts or defense attorneys to know that they had 200 FBI agents inside the Capitol witnessing all of this because they were using them for the prosecution. If they had known they were there, they would have called these FBI agents to the stand as witness, and many of those prosecutions they would not testify in a way that would be favorable to the prosecution. So they kept it quiet, right? So this is a real legal issue, I think, for the Department of Justice is that they basically hid evidence by hiding the fact that there were at the FBI's agents that were involved in investigating the prosecutions were actually there and could have been used by witnesses. So we're continuing to push on. My biggest question is right now, with all this information the FBI had, what did they do with it? Where was the intelligence failure so the Capitol was not ready to be secured? 

Tim Barton [00:24:55] Okay, Barry, we're we're we're basically out of time. But the one question I would love if you could give us hopefully some encouragement on is with the things that you are finding, do you think there will actually be some consequences given to not just the wrongdoers who invaded in the Capitol, but also, and I'm saying that in the sense of like the Antifa guys, not like a praying grandma, but also maybe those from the government that were lying and were covering up or were not preventing and wanted there to be issues to go against President Trump. Will there be justice for those individuals? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:25:30] Well, as you guys know, the Congress does not have the authority to hold accountable. But the administration, this is a high priority of theirs. I think this will be coming down the road a little bit. Look, we got a midterm election next time. There's a chance that the Republicans may not be in charge of the House. So the president wants us to do all the investigative work that we can now, and then the administration can continue on with accountability after that. But I do think you're gonna start seeing more accountability, just like you did with James Comey coming out for some of this. 

Tim Barton [00:26:01] Okay, well, we we unfortunately are out of time. Barry, thank you for giving us your an entire afternoon right now. I I really wanted to get into your book And Then They Prayed. It just means we're gonna have to get you on another time for the 250th celebration release of your book And Then They Prayed. If people do want to go ahead and find it, where can they find your book? 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk [00:26:22] Just go to Andthentheyprayed.com and it'll link you right to several outlets. Every Amazon of course, but Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Walmart. They all are carrying the book right now. 

Tim Barton [00:26:35] andthentheyprayed.com Best place to go. Barry, thank you so much for being with us today. We're so grateful for you. And everybody else, thank you for listening. You've been listening to the WallBuilder show.