Rick Green [00:00:07] You find your way to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilders Show. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective, lots of hot topics out there right now. Obviously, you still got the Minneapolis chaos, you got Iran and lots of different things happening. So, guys today's kind of catch up. We haven't had a chance to just chat for a full program. Usually have interviews Monday through Wednesday. And then of course our foundations program with all of our listeners asking questions on Thursdays and then catching up on Friday with good news. So today, man, let's just hit some of these hot topics going around the horn. And probably the first one to throw out to you guys is, is Minneapolis. At least that's the, that's what I'm seeing the most in my social media feeds that's of course, an echo chamber. So, we've all got our, our own selected echo chambers. That doesn't mean that's, what everybody else has seen, but what do you guys think? How about we catch up a little bit on that one?

Tim Barton [00:01:01] Yeah, it's funny, Rick, as you mentioned, the algorithms know who we are. And so, when we get on social media, it feeds us the things that affirm the things we think we know and believe. It's one of the reasons why on X I intentionally follow CNN. I follow some of the very left leaning commentators just to try to make sure I get some of those voices as well, but it definitely seems my algorithm knows. 

Rick Green [00:01:30] No, that means you're doing what, what Zig Ziglar told us years ago to do. He said every morning I get up and I read the Bible and the New York times. And then I know what both sides are up to. So, so, so you're during the same thing. You're just making sure you know what both sides are up to. 

Tim Barton [00:01:41] That's exactly right, except somehow my algorithm knows I'm still more of like a John Wayne and like White Christmas, Disney fan. And so, for whatever reason, right, it keeps sending me things in a different lane. Not to digress on that too much, it was interesting that President Trump had the interview with Will Kaine, was it last night, and talked about maybe deescalating some of what's happening in Minnesota. And I think by deescalating, really, it's a temperature that's deescalating when, of course, he had the phone call with Governor Walz, with Mayor Frye, who I think have just been crazy and terrible leaders in this whole thing. They've encouraged a lot of this nonsense going on. There's so many reports coming out about the very well-orchestrated operation against ICE by some people that have literally flown in from other states to be part of this anti-ICE operation. Almost like it was a military kind of conducted operation where now there have been some reporters that have been able to infiltrate and leak some of the, the signal chat and the messages. James O'Keefe was up there doing some undercover journalism and when apparently there's certain places that are safer at certain times of day, which is not really surprising, except what James O'Keefe pointed out is where, where he was when he was surrounded and had his life threatened earlier this week, he was in a really nice neighborhood. But one of the things I think even CNN had a reporter on the ground that talked about, there is a, a difference between the day shift and the night shift protesters. The day shift actually seems more like genuine protesters and the night shift, and this is CNN's on-the-ground reporter identifying this, the night shift are agitators they are not protesters. They are there to stir stuff up. They're there to cause trouble. And in the midst of this is where President Trump in the interview with Will Cain said that they're gonna de-escalate things It's why he sent in Tom Homan. It's why He decided that he was gonna replace Greg Lavino, who was a chief of the border patrol sector in California and, and not that Trump has lost faith in Greg, but obviously in the midst of the situation, it's way better to change out the people you have there. And Tom Homan is a guy that as much as the left is criticizing him now, they were praising him 10 years ago, maybe, right, maybe 12 years ago when he was the Border Czar, or the head of kind of protecting the border under Obama, I guess at that time it was who it was. So, it's very interesting to see some of this unfolding and we, we talked about it even off here before we got on that the fact that now that it does seem like that the Minneapolis police are at least to some extent a presence. And Rick, because you have family that are law enforcement, obviously we all know people in law enforcement. I do jujitsu and I think like half the gym that the guys that I roll with are law enforcement, and certainly I would assume that a lot of the law enforcement up in Minnesota has been very disappointed with the leadership, with the stand-down orders, the challenges they've had to deal with. And I would, I would think that at this point, many of them would be far more optimistic, I don't even know what the right word is for this, but maybe, cause I don't know if excited is the right word, but maybe relieved that they actually now can do part of the job, what they signed up for to help enforce law and order in a city and state that seems to have gotten out of control. So certainly, a lot going on. And this, the rest of this week will be very telling to see if the, if the temperature has been toned down, if the temperature does turn down, if Tom Homan produces a different kind of leadership that has a different result and if president Trump ultimately will follow through, because if, if, if he removes any kind of presence and ICE at this point, I think all that would happen, it was in, it would embolden the left to go look, if we just are bullies and crazy and loud enough, long enough, we can drive these people out and, and maybe in some of these cases, right, protect some of their fraud, protect their illegal votes and things that are, are ultimately coming because of some of this illegal immigration in their state. 

David Barton [00:06:09] You know, it's interesting in looking at this and even thinking about what we're going to cover there, and by the way, going back to what you mentioned about Holman, isn't it amazing that at this point, the only recent president that's deported more illegal immigrants in America than Trump is Obama, that he still has the record so far on the number of immigrants deported and you sure don't hear that off the left. I mean, it it's like Trump is the only one that's ever done this. And he still has not caught up with what Obama did. And that to your point on Holman, how that Holman was there under Obama. He's, he's here under Trump doing the same thing, but he actually did more of it under Obama than he did under Trump, which is just, you would never know listening to the news or anything else about it. But the thing that I have found fascinating that I think indicates that this may be going in a direction the left did not like and did not want two things; like all the stuff that happened in church. I am not, and I, Tim, like you, I go out and look at, you know, MSNBC and CNN and everybody else run down their headlines and see what they've got and what they're doing. And I'm just not finding any widespread call for anybody to do to churches, what Don Lemon did in that church in Minneapolis. And I think by that silence, that they recognize that this was a really stupid move that it backfired on them. It blew up on them I think Don Lemon and the others thought that they were going to be protected by the First Amendment. They got the right of free speech. That's not what the First Amendment does. That's what it relates to. But I think that they thought they would come out much better than they have come out. And the fact that there's such a silence there, to me, is one of the things that indicates that this may have gone much, much better for us than what, you know, initial reports and buzz seems to make it. 

Tim Barton [00:07:58] And, Dad, to that point, I'm curious, I don't know that I ever saw any calls for people to go into churches even before Don Lemon did. So, so I don't know that this is maybe a one-off or a change of rhetoric because I don't know, I don’t recall that ever being part of the rhetoric. I, I know that certainly there were calls for opposition for confront, confrontation, confronting people where they were, but I say that because to me. A lot of what's happening now too, the fact that some of these groups are using signal chat groups and are doing things to stay under the radar. It doesn't, in my mind, confirm this won't happen in more churches. But maybe that it's just not the, the popular narrative. Because one of the things that too is so interesting, CNN earlier this week, they talked about the American polls when it comes to deporting all illegal immigrants, not just the violent ones, because that's initially what Trump said. Let's, let's deport the violent, illegal criminals. But now there's people saying, hey, after what we've seen with some of these violent, illegal criminals that are doing horrific acts, of the sexual assaults and murders and kidnaps, et cetera, at this point, deport them all. Like they were burning that bridge. They messed up one too many times. CNN did a report on how many Americans want to see all illegal immigrants deported and it was like 55 to 60% of Americans. And this is on CNN. They go through multiple different reports of this, but even CNN was identifying. That at this point, people are just kind of done with this nonsense. Not to say that what happened with, right, Renee Good, Alex Preti, not that people were in favor of that per se, but they're done. With this illegal immigration nonsense that people are pretending like that they're the innocent victims in the midst of this. When the reality is that for many of these illegal immigrants, they are violent criminal offenders and the fact that the American people at this point are like you know what just move all these illegal people that came here illegally that don't have the legal right and standing to be here go ahead and deport all of them. The fact that that's the majority of American people I think is very interesting. 

David Barton [00:10:18] Yeah, I think that's something that's really changed to over recent months. I don't think the numbers were that high three to four months ago. And I think what has happened with Minneapolis and Minnesota and so many other places is now changing narrative. And that was the other thing I was going to throw out was I no longer see the loud mouths piling on Trump with what's going on in Minnesota. Like I did a few weeks ago. It's like they figured out that this is not, not a hill to die on. And this is not even a hill to fight on. And so, some of the governors, Democrat governors and others that were criticizing them from across the country seemed to have gone silent. And it's kind of like that Democrat, well, it's like the Signal and everything else, they're talking to each other. And it is like they have said, hey, let's not get into this because this is a losing issue. And by the way, on the church thing, it was striking to me that right after that happened, over the next 24 hours, I saw a bunch of calls to do this across the county. To disrupt churches. And that's kind of what I was basing it on. I just, that seemed to die pretty quick. That one day that they called for that and then suddenly it's gone. And I think at that point, they figured out and you know, I think the administration has done a really good job of pulling out what's legal and what's right and making those sound bites. And while we know it doesn't necessarily get picked up by all the liberal-left media. It is seeming to alter the way they present their side. They're not repeating what the President said because that would have given too much credit, but it's like they're backing off of their side, which I think is a real positive thing in many ways. And I hadn't seen that latest polling you were talking about, Tim, about 55%. I was just seeing the silence on the other side, which was suggesting to me that probably things were moving that direction, but that's interesting to hear about the polling. I had not seen that at it. 

Rick Green [00:12:16] Yeah, and it was multiple polls. You know, from multiple liberal outlets, which really shocked me, especially for the numbers to be that high. I really thought it'd be, you know close to 50, 50 at best. And that's, that's a really good sign because again, that, that echo chamber we were talking about earlier, most people's echo chambers you get in there and it's all the crazy propaganda. Like I am seeing people share some of the crazy propaganda from other feeds. And it's, you, know, IICE is murdering people. And these are just innocent people that they're going after. I mean, it's kind of 2020 all over again where there's just this real push for a narrative. So, I was really honestly concerned. I thought, man, we're gonna go back down that path. And maybe in some areas in some of those echo chambers they are, but for that overall polling to be 55 or 60 or 65% in favor. And as I recall, Tim, I think if, did you catch that, and maybe I read it wrong, but I think it literally was like, not just deport the rapist, murderers and drug dealers. 

Tim Barton [00:13:09] All of them. 

Rick Green [00:13:10] Deport all illegal aliens. Anybody that came here illegally. Make them go home and get back in line and do it the right way. And that is, that is shocking, honestly, to me that the numbers are that high, which is really good because that's, that's what needs to be done. And I think that's part of what I wanted to ask you guys. And I'll ask this going to break. We'll take a quick break and come back and you guys comment on it. You know, from just a, if you were president Trump right now and you're dealing with the, the negative press of, you know, now two, two protesters who, who I think absolutely put themselves in harm’s way and, and did things they should not do and that we should all be, you know, smart enough not to do. But because of that, you know... Clearly, the president's getting a lot of pressure and I just want to ask you a little bit about the balance. Like, how do you do this? Is it better to just continue to press the gas and continue to deport? Because I think, Tim, you made a really, raise a really important point we need to talk about. If Trump backs off, does that send the signal to all of these other areas? Oh, man, we just got to go riot. We just got go do 2020 again, and he'll give up on this. So anyway, let's ponder that a little bit and then we'll try to get some other headlines as well. Stay with us folks, you're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:16:20] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. We're talking about some of the hot topics of the day and, guys, we're going to break just throwing that out there. You know Tim, you raised it, but I just thought we should kick it around a little bit more. If Trump backs off and I don't think talking to Walz or Fraye is backing off. I think he's, he's trying to get Fraye to let the police go do their job, which a little bit of that happened in the last 24 hours. Trying to get Walz to not have these sanctuary areas where people are not turning over criminal illegal aliens, meaning they're already criminal because they're illegal aliens. But now they've committed another crime and the police and the jails have been just releasing them back into the population in order to not hand them over to ICE insane. You know, what do you guys think? I mean, like how much of this can Trump take and still do the job he was elected to do? Cause this was the number one issue in the campaign. 

Tim Barton [00:17:10] Yeah, I think it's something that is gonna be very telling, really could be indicative of the way the midterms are gonna go, because this is one of those hot button issues that a lot of people were looking at. When we consider how President Trump was able to garner the votes to win in the last election. There's a lot of things we can talk about. A lot of the things you can point to, but certainly he got a lot of the middle-of-the-road people. And a lot the middle-of-the-road people had some very pertinent issues high up on their list. And Trump has not done well with many of those, where the Epstein files is one of the top issues that so many of those middle-of-the-road people cared about. And it really seems like President Trump or his team has fumbled the ball in many ways. When, you know, initially, Pam Bondi said, oh yeah, it's on my desk. And then, oh, I don't actually know where it is. FBI, you now, somebody up in New York, they have these files. We're not really sure. There's just been so many things that have happened. And I think also in the midst of it, not that the Trump administration hasn't worked to try to bring some transparency and clarity to this, but I think their messaging has also been pretty terrible because most people don't know what they've been doing or what has hindered them with some of these judges not releasing different manuscripts and certain things that are locked down and you would think, well, the President, he ought to just be able to unseal all those records, but we actually did support that there is a checks and balance that there are different jurisdictions. And so, the President can't just do anything he wants any time he wants. We actually wouldn't support that, but I'm saying all of it because when you come back to this immigration thing, this is another one of the hot topic issues that a lot of people were concerned with, that we secure the border and in the midst of securing the border also that there was a charge and a challenge for deportation. As we talked about with this, this data before the break, that the majority of Americans are actually in favor of deporting these illegals who have come in and, and obviously there's lots of, of issues and challenges when you have an overwhelming number, because you can overwhelm the system and the healthcare system and It limits what Americans have access to, law-abiding, actually U.S. Citizen Americans, what we have access to, and it taxes the system. I mean, you can go down the list. And so, I do think what President Trump is able to do will be very significant identifying his way forward, because if he is able to stay and persevere and have success in Minnesota, we've already seen things like California is going to be next, right, with people from the administration identifying the fraud that's going on in Minnesota. And even President Trump calling out Ilhan Omar for having $30 million when just, was it a year ago? She had 4.5 million. He's like, well, how did she get so much money so quickly? Where'd it come from? And her husband has a business and his, his business partner is a known fraudster and you kind of start unpacking this bag a little bit. And you go, man, there's a lot of issues. Again, if President Trump is able to have success in Minnesota with deportations, with exposing fraud. With stopping so much of this crime that's been going on. And then he turns to California. I think that will actually encourage a lot of Americans. And I think it's only going to help him because in the midst of our economy getting better and the midst gas prices being lower, I think a lot of that gets lost in the shuffle and the noise of what's going on. And I think if he is able to stick it out and as you mentioned, I don't think. I don't think him having a conversation with Walz and Frye is any kind of compromise. Remember Trump is this master negotiator. He's really, really good at this. And at this point, I definitely have seen him be successful enough that I give him the benefit of the doubt and I'm going to say, you know what, let's just wait and see what happens. Because I don't think he's backing down on any of this. Not, not even a little bit. I think he has a strategy in mind. I think he's advancing towards something. And if he will stay... And if he's successful, I think this is a huge win for the nation. But then also politically, because he, if he does not get a Republican house and Senate in the midterms, then a lot of the actions he's taken through executive order will be lost because they haven't been done legislatively. And you have to have a stronger house and senate than we have right now to get some of those things done legislatively. And so, the midterm is going to be a huge deal. 

Rick Green [00:21:35] Well, David, as I toss this back to you, thinking about that legislatively, I mean, Congress has a role here too, to step up and pass some of those things Tim's talking about, I saw a post by Governor DeSantis last night, I'll just read it to you. He said, he demanded that congressional GOP get tough and immediately put the following bills up for a vote to energize voters. Number one, go after the remittances, do employment verification, defund sanctuary cities, our voters support this 80%, go bold, make Democrats vote against these really popular things and our voters will get energized, add the save act onto that list and we would be in incredible shape for MAGA to win the midterms. So, the President can't do all this by himself and be out there by himself. And he is, I think as Tim alluded to, the master, he said the master negotiator alluded to the fact that he's just really good at judgment and getting all that he can get. So, if he has to say, okay, we're only going to go after the criminal illegal aliens right now in Minneapolis. To de-escalate, but get them out, then he can come back and go after the other ones later. So, he's just good at making those calls. But David, your thoughts on Congress side of things? I mean, they need to back him up right now. 

David Barton [00:22:39] Yeah. But even past that, I mean, he's really good at incrementalism and incrementalism is a biblical principle. We've talked about that a number of times. 

Rick Green [00:22:47] Yeah. Good point. 

David Barton [00:22:48] Talks about little by little, and he's not going after everybody. He's going after the ones we can all agree on shouldn't be here. And anybody that agrees that a rapist that should be here, and by the way, I saw a list of those that have arrested in Minneapolis and the long list of convicted immigrants who have sodomized young children and are still there is unbelievable. And as that comes out more, I think with him just sticking on the criminal side, that's where you're seeing people say, hey, let's just get everything out of here. The whole thing is corrupt. Let's just keep everybody gone. And I think that, you know, he's focused on that the worst of the worst. And look what it's doing with the public perception on every other area. And see that thing. I think, that's the other thing that is so key to this is, you know, media, I, think the media is trying to speculate that, while he's trying to negotiate. That's the talking heads. There's nothing from him that says he's tried to negotiate and soften his approach or anything at all. That's what talking heads are saying about him. That's their speculation. But what I'm finding very interesting is that listening to the Democrats right now, they're in doubt as to whether they can gain the midterm elections. And generally, you pick up 25, 27 seats if you're the non-presidential party. And so, they seem to be really worried about can they even get enough seats to get a majority, much less 25 to 27, which is another thing I think is affecting a whole lot of what they're doing and not saying, is the fact that they're trying to take control in the midterms and they may not get it. 

Tim Barton [00:24:24] Well, Dad, back to your point about President Trump not compromising, a lot of talking heads are saying he is. I do wonder If there is at least the appearance of compromise, not from the talking heads, but even from Waltz and Frye, because why else would they then authorize law enforcement to begin participating and defending some of what's going on? So, I think there has been some level of compromise. But I don't think Trump has compromised in the philosophy or the agenda or even the motivation of what he is doing. I think he's still on task and on point. And the fact that you're sending in Tom Homan. Go watch some interviews with Tom Homan. Just listen to him talk about how fired up he is about all this when he was having to sit under Biden undoing the things he had done under Obama and then Trump had secured even greater and then how stinking mad and angry and devastated he was. Where his wife was not able to talk to him. He's like, I don't know if my marriage is going to last during those four years of Biden because of how fired up he was. And I'm saying that because that's the guy Trump just sent in. There's no way that Trump is compromising on the principle, on the agenda, on this philosophy when you send in Tom Homan, right? Like this is the Avengers version of we just sent in Captain America. Captain America is not going to compromise, right? Like he's, he's the most moral, ethical, motivated, driven guy we have. He's not backing down. And I say that because even though Trump, maybe, Dad, to your point. Decided, hey, all right, we won't target everybody. We're only going to target this, but you're going to back us up on this. He might have scaled down to be more incremental, but he has not stopped overall what his agenda is. He might've just changed how the rollout happens. And we don't, again, we don't know what all that is. Oftentimes President Trump says things that sound crazy, but it's literally staking ground way ahead so he can come back to what seems like the middle ground, which that's really where he wanted to be in the first place. So, I, I again would give President Trump the benefit of the doubt on this and the fact he sends in Tom Homan does not leave any doubt in my mind that they are still on task and on mission. 

David Barton [00:26:36] Yeah, he hasn't compromised, but look, the other guys are now getting on his bandwagon and you know, Walz and these guys are kind of doing, and that's kind of what we saw with Washington DC early on and Muriel Bowers, the mayor of DC cooperate with Trump and said, yeah, we'll help you with this. And that went really well. And I think had those got known early with Trump, it would be a whole different situation for Democrats. Now, rather than having tried to defend and opposed what Trump is doing, which just for the average common American Democrat or Republican, it's illogical. What the Democrats are wanting to do in Minneapolis and Minnesota. 

Rick Green [00:27:09] Well, guys, I said we were going to get to some other headlines. We didn't make it. We're out of time. So, we'll have to do more of that on another program. This is just too important a topic. And I've seen a lot of people say, I mean, this is the issue that will determine the midterms and then ultimately determine what President Trump's able to do in the second half of this last term. So, it's vitally important. That's why we spend so much time on it. And you know, hey folks, get good information, do like Tim does, and you'll get additional people into your feed. So, you're not in an echo chamber as well. But most importantly, listen to the WallBuilders Show every day. Visit the website today, wallbuilders.show. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilders Show.