Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining us on the WallBuilders Show today. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. You can learn more at our websites, wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show. In fact, you want to visit wallbuilders.show today because if you missed yesterday, we had the first half of our interview with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Texas. And today we'll get the second half. David, Tim, yesterday we got to talk to Governor Patrick about the Religious Liberty Commission, which as we talked about yesterday, David, you got to testify before the commission. And then you know, one of the members definitely created a lot of controversy and Governor Patrick was telling us about, you Know, basically removing her from the commission and some of the things that happened there. And, uh today we'll be talking a little bit more about Texas, which we tend to love to do, but for our non-Texans out there, these policies affect you as well. All right, guys, before we go to the second half of our interview, anything else from yesterday's first half of the interview? 

David Barton [00:01:01] You know, what was really fun to me was that knowing I was gonna talk to these folks from the President's Commission and knowing that the testimony would be there, I wasn't worried about the content at all because we have the historical knowledge to know what happened. But what we did, we really, we loaded up a couple of cars full of artifacts and took them over and set up a number of tables for the Commission and those who attended. There was a couple hundred attending the hearing to see what was gonna go on meeting, et cetera. And so in talking about, here's what the military used to do. I mean, we had, we had Bibles, early military Bibles from, you know, pre-Civil War, going back to American Revolution kind of era. We had a Bible from 1782 that was there. And we had George Washington's original orders that he gave for the military. And we went through Abraham Lincoln stuff. And so it was, it was fun to be able to talk about it and, you know, they're listening, but then also hold something up or say down on the table in front of you, you'll see George Washington's own whatever, and just what it does for the, I don't know, the cool factor or the, wow, I mean, it's one thing for you to say it, but when we can see it ourselves and hold it. And so, we had great stuff from Patton in World War II and FDR, some of the stuff he did on faith with World War II. It was just really fun to see the crowd respond, and that's what we've seen literally for years, part of why we started collecting so much stuff was it's one thing when you hear somebody say it, but it's another thing when you can actually touch it, hold it, see it for yourself. And then it's like, I don't have to take your word for it. I have seen it. And it's after Jesus, after he was raised from the dead and Thomas said, I didn't know that Jesus was raised. And Jesus said, all right, stick your finger in the nail holes in my hand, put your hand in my side, see, feel it for yourself. And then Thomas said I believe. And there's always this thing that when you can see something, when you can touch and feel it, there's something it does to you. And so, I think that's one of the things that really helped that hearing be effective was it's not just an opinion of whether America should have religious liberty in the military. It's a 220-year practice that we should have in the military, it's only a recent thing that has gone away. And just because professors might say that we shouldn't have religious liberty, that's not the way it's been. And that was the other thing I really liked watching was people respond to seeing the actual stuff. 

Tim Barton [00:03:25] Yeah, Dad, we actually talked about that a little bit after you were testifying there. We talked about some on our program, but also, we have talked to Governor Dan Patrick and some of the other committee members since then. And they identified how significant part of that was. In fact, I mentioned yesterday, right? Being able to share the stage with Pete Hegseth, where he was at National Religious Broadcasters and he was just so adamantly clear on the Christian foundation. He actually talked about Bibles in the military. And one of the things that we know is that part of the testimony you were able to share, just showing the history, not, not just advocating where some people are like, you're trying to push religion back in. Well, no, actually what we've been doing more than anything else is trying to teach people this was the foundation of America. And so, when people are saying you shouldn't have religion, you're the ones trying to radically transform. We're trying to restore what radicals have removed, what the woke, crazy people removed. And by the way, the reason some of this matters on a fundamental level. Every nation has to have a system of morals, or every nation does, have a system of moral that govern them. That's, that's a given. So, it's not a question of, do we have morals or even this idea that, well, you know, we're not supposed to legislate morality. That's a really silly argument. Every piece of the legislation is reflective of somebody's morality. It's really only question of whose morality prevails. This is what the Founding Fathers knew and understood. The reason the Founding Father's talked about the Bible so often, they knew the Bible was the best standard of morality there was. It's why the Founding Fathers talked about freedom would not work if you didn't have religion and morality and they clarified what religion and morality meant that it was Christianity in the Bible, that's it in their writings. We actually have a lot of that shown on the WallBuilders website but Dad, backing up when you were able to share that testimony, and then we know that that testimony was shared through some people, not just in the administration, but even in the military, and then seeing Pete Hegseth come out and talk about some of those very things where Pete Hegseth in that talk talked about how George Washington was the one who wanted more chaplains, he wanted Bibles in the Military, and all of these things are things not only that you have said for 30 to 40 years, but that you actually shared in this committee, And so then seeing. The Secretary of War repeat and echo those? That was really fun to see. 

Rick Green [00:05:42] All right, we're going to jump back in with Governor Dan Patrick for the second half of our interview with him again, first half available on our website at wallbuilders.show we'll be right back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:06:59] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Jumping right back in with our interview with Governor Dan Patrick. This is the second half. First half again, available at our website, wallbuilders.show. Here's Governor Dan Patrick. 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:07:09] This is no longer, Rick, a fight going on in America between Republicans and Democrats. This is a fight of darkness and light. You know, any totalitarian regime, any communist movement, the first thing when they take over a country is to get rid of churches. Close them down, get rid God, because they don't want anyone superior to them. The second thing they do, they take it over the education system. Well, we know that the march has been on by the radical left and the march is left. You know Lenin said, give me your children for four years and I'll have them for their lifetime. And we know we've lost the schools to the teacher unions, to Randy Weingarten over the years. We have many good schools and many great teachers, but we know the general education system of America has shifted to that direction. And this woke business of boys going in the locker room and playing girl sports, which in Texas, I've passed laws to get rid of all that here in Texas. The DEI, everything, we've banned all that in Texas but it's everywhere else in the country for the most part. And then what else did they have to do? They had taken over the message. You know, it's Probda in Russia. I don't know what it is in China, but they all have their own networks. Well, so did this Democrat party. I mean, except for a Newsmax, Fox, and, and great, radio shows and podcasts like this, and we're outnumbered. They, they, they've conquered both and the reason they hate Trump so much is because he stopped them with the third leg of the stool they have to have, and that was, he stopped him from getting the Supreme court because had he lost to Hillary. It would be a seven, two or six, three Supreme court. It wouldn't make any difference what bills, conservative legislation we passed in Texas, it will all be overturned. That's why they hate him so much. He's they, this has been a multi-decade decade march and they felt so emboldened when Biden won, they thought Trump was through. They felt so embolden. They all came out of the woodwork. They didn't hide anymore. You know, they came out in the light and we said, man, these open borders, letting murderers and rapists and, and sex offenders in and doing nothing about it, which we're dealing with now in this country. And punishing the Christians that, oh, we could do that. We could do that. And then what happened? Donald Trump gets reelected again, and we've got our chance to save this country. But it's darkness and light, and those in the dark are in the dark, they want God out of this country and those are in light. You know, it's a difference. There are people on the left who think they're God, and government is God, and people on the right know we're not God, we follow God. 

Rick Green [00:09:36] That's right, that's right. Great difference. One quick comment, and then one final question. I just want to thank you for school choice. When I came into the legislature with Phil King back in 1998, we couldn't even get a vote on that. And it is breaking, that is what will break up the teacher union control and the Marxist control of so many of our kids and their education. So, thank you. You came along, I think I came out in 03. I think you went in in 06, right? As a senator, when you first 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:10:02] I came in, my first session was '07, right. 

Rick Green [00:10:05] Yeah '07 so ... You know you've always been for those liberty issues and accomplish so much over the last two decades has been it's been credible. 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:10:12] Can I make a quick comment on School Choice? 

Rick Green [00:10:14] Yeah, yeah, please do. 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:10:16] I always believed that if we could get a bill passed in any form, that it wouldn't be hard to make it larger the next session because so many parents would sign up. Inner city, suburbs, rural Texas, it doesn't matter. If you look at the national numbers on school choice, only about 3% of parents opt their children in. Most of them are okay with their schools, more and more disenchanted today than they were years ago. After COVID, we saw a lot and the schools were exposed. But most parents are okay. Most kids don't want to leave their friends, but there are kids with disabilities. There are kids in failing schools. There are kids that are being bullied and pushed around and they're not in a safe environment. And so, I always knew this. And so, when I became education chair in '13 in the senate, I moved to bill, but it went nowhere like you experienced. In '15, we passed a school choice bill out of the Senate. They stood up. In the house from day one said, we're not passing a voucher bill. Well, this isn't a vouch bill, you know, the money goes directly to the schools. The parents pick the schools once they qualify for, but I had that every session and I never gave up. And we finally passed the bill last session. The biggest bill in the world of school choice this first year, a billion dollars. And as a former house member you know how much money that is for a hundred thousand students. It opened qualifications on the app opened up to register or try to register and not try to register, but hopefully to get a slot, one of these hundred thousand slots has started 13 days ago and it ends March 17th. Everyone should apply who wants to. We're already over a thousand hundred applications. 

Rick Green [00:11:57] 100,000 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:11:58] 100,000 in 13 days. And  I always thought we could get to 200,000. We may, but the point is, Rick, and you know how the House reacts. When we come back next session, there are going to be a lot of parents to all these members who fought it, opposed it, killed it, are going say, hey, I need another slot. I didn't get in. 

Rick Green [00:12:17] That's right. Yes.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:12:17] And suddenly the whole world is gonna change and it will get bigger. 

Rick Green [00:12:21] I love it. 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:12:22] And this last note for people who are listening and say, well, I have a concern how it impacts public schools. It doesn't at all. We have 5.5 million kids in public schools in Texas, 9,000 campuses, 1,200 school districts, 365,000 teachers. So, 5.5 million with a budget of 40 billion. And this is 100,000 kids for a billion. There's no way this is gonna undermine public schools but it will make them competitive. And last year, besides passing school choice, we passed a bill putting 8.5 billion into public schools. Half of that I insisted go to teachers directly. So, we've increased teacher pay from an average of 54,000 to 69,000. Now in the last several years, we're taking care of our public schools because we have to have a great public school system, but every parent deserves a right for whatever their reason is to send the school, the child that they love to the school of the choice that they think will be best for them. 

Rick Green [00:13:17] Yeah. Amen, man. I remember sitting down in January of '99. Here I am this 27-year-old, you know, legislator with George Bush, Governor Bush, and it was my one-on-one with him. Right. And I'm getting, and I said, I was like, governor, I'm here to get school choice. That's my number one issue. And he's like, well, it's nice to have goals son. Well, 30 years later, Governor Patrick, you got it done. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you well, 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:13:40] Well, it took the effort of President Trump. It took the effort of Governor Abbott who joined us. 

Rick Green [00:13:46] Governor Abbott, yeah. 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:13:47] And we defeated- I think there were 21 Republicans who voted against school choice in '23, and I think we beat 18 or 19 of them, somewhere around that number, and the others got a little religion. That's a good way to end the show. 

Rick Green [00:14:03] That's right. Well, speaking of religion, that was my last question for you. Do you sense a turn in, you know, for the first few years you were in and for all those years on radio, Christianity was so attacked and Christians felt like they couldn't express their faith. And there was just this mantra against pastors speaking to cultural issues and all that. As you guys were meeting with the commission, as you hear all this testimony, is that shifting? Do we, it seems like the coach Kennedy case was a huge change. We often say we got more religious liberty than ever. One of your committee members. Kelly Shackford loves to say that. I believe that, but in terms of people's opinion, do you feel like there's a shift now, it seems like people are sharing their faith more. Just seems like a new day. What do you, what do you think? 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:14:48] Well, it's a great question and two ways to answer it. It's a little alarming that if you look at the polling done by religious groups that in 2015, I'm doing this by memory here, 55% of Americans felt religion was important in their life. And today, it is 40%. It's dropping. We've seen church attendance drop. We have seen these attacks, which has had an impact. We see a culture change. But with that said, to go back to your point, which you're right on, those of us who believe, we are speaking up. We're not taking it for granted. So, we are being, you know, I always pray for supernatural words, wisdom, and favor every day, and I said that one time, and I was at a Christian school actually giving a speech, and it was Angela Paxson's school, where she taught actually, and Angela said, you need to add courage to it. I said, you know, I hadn't thought about that. She said, because the Lord gives a lot of people the words, gives a lot of the people favor, but do they have the courage to go speak out? And that really spoke to me. So, we have to be courageous. I think that word in the Bible is spoken, I forget how many times, but more than any other one word, chapter after chapter, verse after verse. And I love about being courageous. I love the book of Jude, which is a very small book right before Revelations where Jude was really talking to the church to be aware of imposters in the church and destroying the church from the inside out. But he said in these words that, I just love these words, we must contend earnestly. You know, it's kind of a biblical way to say that. Today we'd say we've got to fight for what we believe in. But we need, and Franklin Graham said this in one of our committees, we need more of combatants out there. With love. But we have to fight for what we believe. When the President announced this commission, Cardinal Dolan told me he went to the Conclave to pick the new Pope, and cardinals from around the world came up and said, gee, the President has appointed you to this commission. You must fight for religious liberty because it's disappearing in the world, even in Western democracies. And we know that. We know how some people have been in prison for just praying outside of a Planned Parenthood center in England. So, we're the last hope for the world on religious liberty. And I was invited to go by the President to go to Davos, Switzerland, which is a place of very wealthy people making big business deals in countries from all over the world they show up there once a year and basically come down from the mountain to tell the other eight billion of us how we should live. And they may be well intentioned, but when I spoke, I said when you come down the mountain, don't come down with your business deal. Don't come with your policy that you're going to take back to your country. How about coming down like Moses did. Let's look out for the people. Let's do what's best for the people, and we can't do what is best for people if we don't have a message of faith. You can't change the character of a person or the culture without changing a person of the country's heart. We can't without Jesus Christ or for those who don't believe in Jesus with the God they follow in their faith. And we have to stand up and fight in this Rick, and so I'm all in the fight, you know, I serve the Lord first. And everything second, and I know there are a lot of people there with me, like, I mean, you've been there for day one. I didn't know you went to George Bush and said, hey, we've got to get school choice passed. I knew you were always in the fight with me when we were serving together. Pleasure to be on with you, and, you know, David Barton came in to our hearing and gave some of the best testimony, and it'll be in our report, a lot what he said. 

Rick Green [00:18:31] That's good. 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:18:31] Talking about our military and how, you know, we supplied Bibles to the military, the government did, from, from the found, from the founders in 1776. Even before that, all the way to 2012 when Joe Biden stopped it. Yeah, he stopped, he stopped, chaplains at Walter Reed Army Hospital from talking about God, they're chaplains for crying out loud. 

Rick Green [00:18:56] What a shame. Yeah. 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:18:56] So, we're taking it back. And you know, it doesn't matter, Rick, how many of us there are. We are going to win. God's on our side. We all know where we're going at the end of the day, and that's to heaven. And while we're here, we'll be in the fight to save our country. 

Rick Green [00:19:12] And to, I'm going to, I'm gonna borrow this from you now. I love it. Contend earnestly. I love that. Contend earnestly, that's great. Governor Dan Patrick, God bless you, man. Thanks for coming on WallBuilders today. 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick [00:19:22] Hey, thank you. You bet.

Rick Green [00:19:23] Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. 

Rick Green [00:20:33] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. That was the second half of the Dan Patrick interview, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, both of those, of course available today at our website, wallbuilders.show. We're back with David and Tim Barton. Man, guys, you know, I, of course, David, you were advocating for school choice from the beginning of WallBuilders and almost no state had it. You had a couple of cities that initially implemented it, but, but clearly Governor Patrick's been working on it for a couple of decades and now may turn out to be the biggest one in the country before it's over. 

David Barton [00:21:03] Rick, speaking of that, I mean, you surprised him by saying you talked to George W. Bush about school choice even before he did. And then Dan Patrick, I remember Dan when I was helping run the state party in Texas and Dan was a talk show host in Houston and he had a really popular talk show. And when he talked about getting involved in politics, we go, nah, I don't think that's gonna work. You know, he's got to talk show. He's got a big audience and he's turned out to be such a stellar leader, such a good leader in so many ways. But I mean that goes back to you Rick. You were doing that, what's that now, 27 years ago? 

Rick Green [00:21:42] You're aging me man. You're aging me. Yeah, but yeah, you know, it's crazy I mean, I remember literally sitting down in front of Governor Bush and going, you know, of course you remember I was I was a little bit brash back then not that I'm not brash now. But anyway, I was probably too brash for my age and I said Governor I'm here to get school choice and then property taxes. He just kind of laughed at me at the time, but you couldn't even get a vote back then So this really is I mean it and it's a reminder to guys you say this all the time These big victories take time. This is not the kind of stuff you get overnight. We've got to be willing to do our duty and stay in the fight. Yesterday, Tim, you were talking about voting in these primaries and not think, you know, just kind of assuming that there's not a big election or whatever, or that it's all over. This is what it takes is that consistent, just steadfast, doing our duty.

David Barton [00:22:28] You know, and even as we're talking about the program in Texas, it's only the school choice is only available for only 1 to 2% of Texans. I mean, that that’s one billion dollars, that sounds like a lot. And it is the biggest school choice program in the in the nation, but that still doesn't include about 98% of Texans. So, he's right. It's going to grow. It's gone to expand. It's been very popular. People like it. We've talked before that there were 32 different entities that have had school choice. Either states or cities like Washington, D.C. Or whatever, and wherever they've had school choice, academic scores have always increased, they've always improved, and so just that alone is gonna be another reason to have it in Texas, but hopefully some other states will keep moving in that direction as well. 

Tim Barton [00:23:14] Well, and guys, I think it's worth even pointing out one of the things that he talked about early on, I guess yesterday early on in his, his interview with you, Rick is about some of the students and what they had undergone in these public schools. Right, the parents who got mailed to somebody with their last name, but not the first name. And they're like, what's going on here? And realizing that the school was helping their child hide this idea of transitioning to be a quote unquote, different gender, but identifying that way parents didn't know about this. And the reason this matters is this happens far more than most people realize, and I say this because there's a lot of people that love and appreciate who we are and what we do from a historic standpoint of teaching American history and promoting Christianity. But there there's, I mean, I know a lot of public-school teachers who love and listen to us and they're like, y'all are totally wrong about this school choice. And I would just want to remind them that lots of things we could talk about, but part of the reason this matters is we're not saying that there are no good people in the public-school program. We're not saying there's no good teachers, there's no Christians, that there's no Christian principles or superintendents or whatever else. But the reality is we are funding Marxism, socialism, communism. We are funding woke ideology. We are finding DEI. We are founding this transgender nonsense, literally funding sex education from kindergarten all the way up through 12th grade. By the way, we were doing that in Texas up until like a couple years ago. So, so this is not as crazy as people think when we're excited about school choice, no, it's because we actually have studied more of the brokenness of the system than a lot of teachers are even aware how broken the very system is and how many really bad teachers there are in the educational system. 

David Barton [00:25:04] You know, just this past two weeks, I've been involved in the state of Texas with standards. And what happened was we had 126 different teachers come and work on the standards. And when they got done, George Washington was no longer in high school history in Texas. Abraham Lincoln was no long in high school history Texas. No longer was the Monroe Doctrine being taught. I mean, they went through and took out stuff that they didn't particularly care for. And I'll remind teachers, hey, you may think your school is great, but you know. The reason you have a better car is because there's competition among manufacturers. The reason that you have better hamburger when you go eat is because of competition. The reason why you have more clothing is because competition. Why would you not think that competition would increase education? It does. Competition always improves things and so that's the other response I'd put out there, especially after what I saw just in the last two weeks with teachers wanting to remove big things from high school and American history. 

Rick Green [00:25:59] Yeah. And one more thing is we're closing off on the other end of the spectrum from what you were talking about, Tim, even some of our friends, you know, in the homeschool movement or private school movement have opposed school choice because they don't want regulation or whatever to come with it. And, and I got an email just the other day. I said, you know, they were saying, I want to be able to choose my curriculum and all this and not have the state. And I said well, wait a minute, don't take the money. If you don't wanna anybody saying anything, that's totally fine. We want you to continue to make all those decisions as well. We just want to empower parents that haven't been able to make those decisions and really put the decision-making power back in the hands. Of parents. So anyway, it did take a long time to get it done. Thanks to Governor Patrick for getting that done. And then most importantly, that Religious Liberty Commission and just fighting for our freedom of religion and bringing these truths back about our Christian foundation. Thanks so much for listening today, folks. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.