Rick Green [00:00:07] This is the Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining us on the WallBuilders Show today. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday, and of course the foundations are being rebuilt in this country. And the other night, the State of the Union from President Trump, a lot of people have been asking us what we thought about it. So, we thought we should spend a little time on that before we get to other questions regarding the foundations of the country. Yesterday, had the second half of our Governor Patrick, our Lieutenant Governor of Texas interview, and so didn't get our State of Union responses in there. So, we'll do a little bit of that today and. Maybe get to some other questions as well. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And our websites are wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show. And speaking of show, the master showman, literally like no stagecraft, like no other President in history. I just have this image in my mind, guys, of him shaming the Democrats, literally pointing at them and telling them shame on you for not even clapping or standing for American citizens, for protecting them. I mean, it was multiple times, and then even shaming them for their past policies. Anyway, I just thought it was a masterful display. What'd y'all think? 

Tim Barton [00:01:15] Well, I'm curious. Were y'all more surprised that A, Fetterman wore a suit, that B, none of the Democrats stood up when Trump says everybody get ready to stand up if you think the American government should protect American citizens over illegal immigrants and none of the Democrats stood up, or C, that Al Green got kicked out again. Which one surprised you more? 

Rick Green [00:01:43] Is there all of the above or none of the above or what? 

Tim Barton [00:01:46] Now, you're saying none of the above, that means you expected all of them. Actually, Al Green's not surprising to me. Democrats not standing up, not surprising, but some of the things they chose not to stand up for, it was almost as ridiculous when, who was the young man who had the, what was it, the brain tumor, the cancer. And, and he was honored. 

Rick Green [00:02:09] Last year. 

Tim Barton [00:02:10] Right. I mean, you know, law enforcement, secret service, he gets all these fun, kind of honorary badges. And Trump recognizes him and the majority of Democrats, like they're not celebrating this young kid. Anyway, that's kind of how it felt on some level. So, it's not surprising they didn't stand up, but again, some of the things they did not stand up or applaud for this time, just to show how much they dislike President Trump. It also revealed, at least I think if people were honest and watched it, it revealed how much they dislike some of the American people as well, not just like Republican American people, no, American people in general, because of some of the things they were showing, they opposed. So those not necessarily surprising to some extent, but certainly the stage propaganda drama was on full display by some of those Democrats. 

David Barton [00:03:04] Well, it continued afterwards as well, because as much as Trump, and by the way, two nights ago when he was calling out people in the audience, or I guess in the balcony actually, and I was looking at the people he was calling out, and I mean, first off, you have the hockey team from the Olympics, and, by the if anybody missed it, you need to go back and see @realdonaldtrump and see the AI they did of Trump in the Olympics. It was fantastic

Tim Barton [00:03:33]  Not to lose the fact that the hockey team comes out in the middle of the press corps as USA chants are going on. Right? Pretty much the whole room at that point is standing up. This is one of the times Democrats didn't and completely blow it. However, there were many people in the press corps that did not stand up to cheer for team USA hockey coming in. Which granted some of them, you know, maybe they're like, well, I had my computer whatever. Which you can’t. You know, so I don't know how they're going to deflect from this one, but it felt like, again, one of those master trolling moments that Trump brings them out in the middle of the press corps, because he knows they're gonna write negative things about them. And so, he brings out Team USA Hockey. So, they're chanting USA! USA! In the Middle of the Press Corps. It was beautiful. 

Rick Green [00:04:21] Hey, just so our viewers can, if they didn't watch the State of the Union can, can envision this, this is up in the balcony, right? So, the press corps is up there in the balcony and there's aisles, these steps going down. Corps sort of in between the press, right? I mean, it wasn't even just on the outside. It was literally in the middle of the press. And here comes, I don't know, seven or eight of the hockey team on one side, down the steps, seven, eight of the hockey team, all wearing their gold medals. Literally, like you said, they're standing in the middle of, the press corps as they're covering the State of the Union, yup, ultimate troll. 

David Barton [00:04:52] It was great, and by the way, Tim and I also watched a video of when Trump called the gold medal team right after they won, and that was a fantastic video to watch. So, if people want to go back and see that video or get @realdonaldtrump and watch him in the Olympics, it was a blast. But you know, you had that kind of stuff going on. You had things that America can celebrate, and so I was looking at that, he gave, what there was another hundred-year-old guy there. So, it was I mean it was just fantastic to watch. Honoring Americans for real things they had done genuine things Medal of Honor stuff. And so I was watching that. I was watched him go through various people, watched him just go through, not just the Medal of Honor people, the people he called out and recognized and honored. It's like heartwarming. It's, like, this is really wholesome. This is really healthy. And I was trying to remember back in the four years of Biden, who did he call out? Who did he honor in the State of the Union? And so, I went back and looked at it and he didn't do many, he didn't call out many, but he did call out the Ukrainian ambassador and recognized her. He did get Betty Mae Fikes, who was in 1965 in the Bloody Sunday March, civil rights. He got the Facebook whistleblower who exposed harmful practices on social media. He got, and I was looking at it and it just weren't that many. And there weren't many that the whole country would get behind and stand up and cheer for, you know, he called out Steven Breyer and use that to say, "and by the way, I've just appointed Katanji Brown Jackson to the court". So, it was more about him than it was about in the other. And just going back and looking and thinking, you now, that's why I don't remember many there 'cause there weren't just a whole lot that connected with me. But in what he did two nights ago that's the kind of stuff that connects with average Americans I don't care if you're a steel worker i don't care if your McDonald’s work I don't care if you’re a CEO executive, that's the kind of stuff that you look at and go that's really good that that's wholesome stuff. It was really fun to see him call out the heroes.

Rick Green [00:07:19] Yeah. And, and, and you know, going back to the shame comments, that was a powerful moment in the, in the speech because he was, he cobbled together three or four of his most important policies, the things he really campaigned on, got elected on, turns out, you know still very popular with the American people, despite all the crazy press bias about removing illegals, about voter ID. I mean, he talked about the SAVE Act. It felt like he was really, you know, throwing down the gauntlet saying, this is where we're going to fight for the next year, for the midterms. This is the policy that I'm really moving the most chips in on. Just for a second about that, guys, I know most people, I guess most Americans don't watch the State of the Union. Maybe those that watch already have their mind made up, but to me that seemed like a really defining moment and potentially defining the elections for 2026. He went on to a lot of other policies, healthcare and a lot other things, but that seemed the big one. What did y'all think? 

David Barton [00:08:14] Yeah, I would think so. And I'm curious to see what the viewership is on this thing when it's all over and said when they get it calculated, because he had a really clear message for any Americans that were watching. And saying that I was struck by the fact that Spanberger's response, Democrat response after the address. And she's the new female governor of Virginia and really radical, I mean, really progressive radical. And she just starts out saying he lied. Well this is recorded before he did the thing so you're already reacting to things before he's even said anything and she's already calling him out as being a liar and talking about how out of step he is and I thought you know that is just not very genuine and real and anybody who saw that would know that but I was really curious to see numbers on it and so you know maybe in the next day or two we'll see what those final numbers are. But I think the messaging was really good and certainly it's going to be up social media wise and spread around. There's so many good clips out of that thing that are so good in so many ways. And I think you're right; he did lay down the gauntlet on the midterm elections as to the big difference. But anybody who saw it, I mean it was a big difference, it was very visible difference, it was not hard to detect at all. 

Tim Barton [00:09:27] Well guys, one of the things that we know to be true is that people often look for what affirms their bias. And so, for people that thought Trump was bad, he's a monster. They're going to find things from the speech that they're going to try to use to twist and distort. But not that I watch CNN at all. Cause I don't, but Scott Jennings, the conservative commentator on CNN. He is often fun to watch some of the video highlights of. Where these pundits on CNN, the guests they have on are just saying crazy things and he's asking some very basic questions, give some very basic pushback and they struggle with any kind of answer. I am very curious for the rest of this week, what his dialog is going to look like. What the guests coming on are going to say or think or do. Because Trump certainly for anybody that, that listens 

Rick Green [00:10:26] I feel like, Tim, I have to interrupt you here and say that, um, Tim just recommended people watch CNN. So, the views of the host on this program do not necessarily, no, I'm kidding, man. You're right. I love watching him. 

David Barton [00:10:39] I'm coming to his defense. He didn't recommend in CNN. He recommended Scott Jennings on CNN. 

Rick Green [00:10:47] That's right, that's the way to do it.

Tim Barton [00:10:48] So what Rick just did to me is kind of what CNN does to Donald Trump. And they're like, hey. 

Rick Green [00:10:54] That's right. 

Tim Barton [00:10:55] We caught you saying this. And he's like, that's not what I said. Not to digress too much. President Trump had some brilliant moments. And I mean, guys, really, we could spend a long time going through it, because he talked for a long time, so there's a lot of stuff to talk about. You know, even the fact that he called out the Supreme Court to their face and was like, hey, I'm still doing tariffs and you guys blew it, but I'm still doing tariffs and we're gonna do better because of it. You just look at some of the things he gets into when he even talks about the Somali pirates that are ransacking Minnesota. He just, at times, He, he's somebody I want to applaud on so many levels. And then sometimes you're like, Ooh, I don't think that's appropriate, sir. I don't know if we should be going there, but he, he is so good at, at blowing up the dumb, exposing the narrative and then giving some vision casting in the midst of it. And obviously not that we're saying that we agree with everything he says and every way he says it. But generally speaking, we've not seen a President with this kind of courage. I mean, other than, you know, his first term, now we're coming into his second year. But we've never guys in our lifetime seen somebody with this kind of vision, courage and boldness. And then even with the commitment of faith that we will go probably break down sometime this week and see some of the faith components in there, maybe count those up and highlight some of those. Maybe even on Good News Friday, we'll bring in and point some of these out. But certainly, when he makes acknowledgments that we have to get back to faith in God. And even when he mentioned Charlie Kirk and being one nation under God, we have to get back that. There's just so many things that we can highlight and we should be celebrating and applauding. So, if anybody's seeing somebody on, on social media or whatever kind of platform talking about how bad this was, they're coming with a predetermined bias. And Dad, even as you mentioned with the response video from the governor that was recorded before the speech, when they're coming in saying he lied, you didn't even hear the speech yet, how are you saying that? This is the bias that we have to navigate and deal with in the midst of a propaganda war, but if you listen to the speech there was so much good stuff in it. 

David Barton [00:13:22] But you know, Tim, you were talking about you haven't seen a President call out like that. I've got to point out, we haven't had stupidity like we've had to be called out like that. I mean, even the fact that he points at the Mandami, you know they got three feet of snow this week up in New York, and Mandami is calling for volunteer people to shovel snow but you have to have two IDs to shovel snow as a volunteer, but you don't have to an ID to vote in New York. I mean, he called that out. And that's not necessarily part of the State of the Union; it's just part of state of stupidity of some of the policies in the union. And I don't think there's been as much low-hanging fruit in our lifetime as what is going on right now with so many illogical things that are happening. And I think he's just kind of responding, how can you ignore it when it's that ridiculous? 

Tim Barton [00:14:13] Well, and the fact that he's bringing attention to so much of it, and then by the way, where he even builds into going into the SAVE Act, where he goes stand, the part where he says, I stand up if you believe the government should put Americans first, and the Democrats don't stand up, and then he goes into talking about the SAVE Act, I think he is also part of, you know, the background of him being a negotiator, his book, The Art of the Deal, I think, he understands. Part of the game he's playing better than most of the people that are in the room playing the same game. 

David Barton [00:14:45] That's right. 

Tim Barton [00:14:45] And I think he is masterfully creating momentum to hopefully help get the SAVAC through the Senate, put pressure on them by exposing some of what's lacking, et cetera. I think is so good, you know, certainly Ronald Reagan, and you guys can speak to this way more than I can. Rick, you, having done so much research on Reagan, can really speak to his. Regan was so- brilliant at being able to cleverly communicate and not cleverly like deceitful, but witty, fun, funny, cleverly, communicate in order to help persuade or sway an audience. And, and Trump has a very different style. He's not quite as, uh, maybe innocent at times, like non-offensive as Reagan was, but certainly he is very brilliant at, being able, to, to Navigate and negotiate and sway Uh, and, and I think it will be interesting to see what comes after this speech in Congress, uh, and maybe even the Supreme court based on, on the speech and what he laid out, it'll be really interesting to see. And Rick, before you. 

David Barton [00:15:51] Respond to the Reagan part of it. You know Tim, as you were saying that, one of the things that strikes me is one thing that the Democrats are absolutely excellent about is doing instantaneous polling on messaging. I mean they have such a polling network set up and they have so mastered polling and they mastered the messaging side. That as Trump was going through that there's no question to me they had focus groups and polling going on seeing what's responded to and I think for this week and next week we're going to find out a lot about how effective his messaging was by how the Democrats respond and what they don't say and what the don't criticize and you know like you said Tim the SAVE Act and how can you be against that and the way he laid it out for America stand up. I think the Democrats probably already polled that. And have very clear directions on what people are responding to. And I think that that's going to be a big focus in the midterm. And I even think just watching what the Democrats do over the next 10 days with their messaging is going to tell you really how effective Trump was in the State of the Union address. So sorry about that, Rick, I interrupted you. I know Tim tossed to you on Reagan and responding to Reagan and Trump kind of comparison. So back to you bro.

Rick Green [00:17:03] No, no great great points. And yeah, I mean, I think obviously as you said Tim very different styles but both very effective at getting the point across and reaching people and tapping into frustrations that people feel. Hey quick break guys. We'll be right back with we probably will still get to some questions from the audience. But a little bit more on the State of the Union and some of these issues going forward stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show 

Rick Green [00:18:34] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. President Trump, of course, covered a lot of the Foundations of Freedom on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address. Tim, before we went to the break, you mentioned the thing on tariffs and the Supreme Court and him kind of calling them out. I just wanted to ask you guys, I thought it was so interesting that Kavanaugh, Justice Kavanaugh essentially gave President Trump a roadmap for how to get around their Supreme Court decision. Now, of course, Thomas and Alito and maybe Cavanaugh can't remember there was a third one that dissented said, hey, Congress has delegated this to the President, he can do this based on the congressional authority that they gave. It's so incredibly broad, the language that they. So, they would have upheld the tariffs as they were, but then they actually basically say to President Trump, but just in case, go ahead and do it this other way, and then we'll have to say yes to it. And that's what he was saying tonight the State of the Union not quite that that far into the inside baseball but that hey we came back. We did it even bigger stronger. I was watching for him to wink at Cavanaugh I don't know if I missed it. Maybe he did. But I wanted to know what y'all thought about that 

David Barton [00:19:41] You know, when that decision came down, I looked at part of it, and it was real clear that they didn't like, the ones that voted, didn't liked the way he used that particular law. But there are so many other laws that allow tariffs. He doesn't have to use that one. That's the easiest one. He can get it done. And so these are, what is the constitution? 

Rick Green [00:20:01] And David, just to be clear, when you say allow tariffs, like the debate here is whether or not the president can do it instead of Congress, like the Constitution says, but we would all agree that that is a, I don't know, I can't remember what the term is, but it's one of the powers that can be delegated. Some can't. That's right. But that one can. 

David Barton [00:20:19] And it's interesting because when I was looking at it, I said, okay, what is the exact wording of the Constitution of tariffs? And so I looked it up, and then I asked AI and said, you know, what about tariffs and the President, whatever? And AI said, well, the President can't do it because of Federalist 12. And so, I looked up Federalist 12, and Federalist 12 talks about tariffs. And so, the Founding Fathers go through tariffs, and what is super interesting is in tariffs, it doesn't say, that congress does the tariffs even though that isn't in article one. It says that tariffs are because the states have been doing tears for so long, we think the federal government needs to be able to do tariffs. Because all the states acting like thirteen different nations, they've all had their own tariffs on imports coming in and the federal government needs be able to do tariffs. And so, all the Federalist Papers talking about it didn't talk about the President or congress It just said the federal government needs to do tariffs. And that's a whole different spin from what AI was saying and what I've heard elsewhere is you just read the Federalists and it doesn't really make an issue about whether it's the President or Congress, just the federal government can do it. 

Tim Barton [00:21:26] Well, and Dad, this is also worth probably taking a side note comment that one of the things that is so important, people don't fully comprehend about AI yet. AI is a tool that can be very valuable and useful if you're using a Grok. And by the way, Grok way better than ChatGBT for lots of reasons. You can go on Elon Musk's X account. As in, I'm saying this, people are arguing and say, well, you're so biased, okay, I hear what you're saying, but he has some examples where he asked the same questions to Grok, the same questions to ChatGBT, and he's not the only one. I'm just saying that's a big name, easy account to find. You can go read them and it shows the woke character and nature of the algorithms of ChatGBT. Not that Grok does not have flaws, but it's so much better. All that to say is there is an art to asking questions and even like in social media algorithms, they start to learn your bias. They start to learning your preferences and so in your social media feed, it will feed you more of what you think you want. Well, unfortunately, even some of the AI algorithms, it starts to learn what it thinks you are really asking for and what you want. And sometimes it feeds into a little bit of your bias based on how you ask the question. And so, we have found doing a lot of research that we have to ask two or three times a question and sometimes asking the question, the same question and maybe rewording the sentence very slightly we get a very, very different answer. And Dad, saying all that because one of the things we did after you looked up and found Federalist 12 because I was with you, we were doing research together. We asked AI another very similar question and that's when AI said, oh, but Congress has already delegated that power to the President. The President has authority to do this and that is why when President Trump came back what he said was, okay, then I'm not using that section of code anymore. I'm going to use this section 122. And he starts naming where he's going to do it. Because part of what the Supreme Court had had ruled is what you can't do that over here. Therefore, these are invalid. They didn't say that he couldn't do any tariffs. They said a section of tariffs was invalid because he wasn't allowed to do that there, even though they didn't talk about like the $200 billion that was already collected because of those tariffs. And as he pointed out, it's a very dumb ruling when you're saying I'm, not allowed to. But then you don't say what has to happen with the $200 billion we've already taken in. If something was illegal, there should be the cause, the solution for how do we resolve what you did that was illegal? And they said, none of that. Trump pointed this out in his response, what had happened with a week or two ago, whenever that was. All of that to say, going back to AI, be careful how you ask the questions, ask it more than one way, make sure that it's not just feeding you a bias of some kind. Whether it be ChatGPT or Grok, but back to the idea that, you know, guys, as you're mentioning, that the Constitution does say that Congress has a power, but Rick, as you point out, there are some powers that Congress can delegate. And so, President Trump totally has the authority to do tariffs, even though with so much of what Trump is doing, it would make way more sense for Congress to do it. And we've talked a lot about the negligence of Congress. Where Congress has failed to act, and this is again, it's part of what Trump was challenging them, even in the State of the Union, to some extent, that we have to get some of this done like the SAVE Act, because all of the good by and large that Trump has done, it has come through change of policy, but largely through Executive Order or through personnel. And if you don't get that enshrined in law, then when you have a change of personnel and different executive orders, all of it can be undone if it's not legislated and becomes statute through law. So, a lot of important things going on and guys, I didn't mean to derail us with the AI. But that's a very important conversation we're discovering more and more how just like people get misled on social media, they see things and they're like, well, this must be true. Like the, the, I mean, it went crazy viral when people, I had so many people send it and share it to me of Pam Bondi saying we can't release the Epstein Files because it'll, it'll cause the collapse of Congress. And they're are like, burn it down. And people responding fired up. And I was like, guys, she never said this, or like, you can do a very simple internet search. Did Pam Bondi ever say this? And it's like, no, this was created and shared, but people were so triggered by this. And this again is why you can't trust everything you see on social media. You can't, trust everything AI tells you and an era of AI generated videos, you also have to be careful that just cause you see a video of somebody saying something does not always mean it was actually them saying it. We have to be very careful. So, to clear it up, just go watch State of the Union. I know it's like two hours, but it'll clear up what President Trump actually said. 

Rick Green [00:26:00] Well, you can watch it in two times speed, so that helps, and still understand most of what is being said. Well, we didn't get to any, I was gonna go to a question that would have been perfect because I don't know if Pocahontas from the state of Massachusetts was in attendance at the State of the Union or not, or at least that's what President Trump nicknamed her for her lack of Indian heritage. But next week, we'll ask about how you answer a person who claims that we're on stolen lands. That was one of the foundational questions we were gonna ask today. No time to answer that one today and Pocahontas isn't here anyway, but David Barton is. And so, David and Tim Barton can definitely answer this question. Save it for next week. Hey, good news tomorrow folks. You don't want to miss that. Lots of good news to share with you on Friday. Thanks so much for listening today. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.