Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining us on this Monday. It's the WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And of course, a wild weekend. Some very big things happened over the weekend. We'll talk about those things from a Biblical perspective, a historical perspective, constitutional perspective. And throughout the week, we've got some great interviews coming up. And then of course our Foundations of Freedom Thursday and Good News Friday. Don't miss those later in the week. David and Tim, some late nights, I was actually up working Friday night and I learned this from you guys at three o'clock in the morning and my Twitter feed started blowing up and Trump's speech came on and I was like, wow, I'm glad I'm awake for this in, in real time. But this is a big deal. I mean, it's... 

David Barton [00:00:55] I think last week you guys told me Twitter is out, is it X or is it Twitter? 

Rick Green [00:01:00] Yeah, see, I'm showing my age to, yeah, yeah. Twitter, X, what's this Twitter thing? Tweet, tweet, I don't know. You're right. His X post, but it was, man, I, I don't about you guys. My, my initial reaction is it doesn't feel like. It doesn't feel like 2001. It feels more like 91, 1991 when Bush Sr was just stopping Iraq. You know, from, from destroying Kuwait and taking over Kuwait. It feels a little bit more like that. I don't, I, I don't know, just gut reactions from you guys. How big of a moment is this? What do you think we're headed into? And I know we don't have a crystal ball. I trust Trump a whole lot more than I have any other president in my lifetime to not get involved in a long-term thing. So, I'm not panicking certainly over that. And we're only, you know, as, as people are listening to these 48 hours into this thing, so we don't t know for sure what's going to happen, but yeah, let's just get gut reaction from both of you guys on what you think about this? 

David Barton [00:02:00] Well, I don't really have a gut reaction because since it happened, I've been studying it. And so, it's no longer a gut action. And I went through and what I did was I tried to go through all the countries over there as well and get the perspective from the Middle East. What's going on over there? What are they saying? Cause I think they probably have a more balanced perspective, less political maybe than we do as far as Trump goes, because I think he live in it and around it. And I was struck by several things, because as I started looking, the thing that caught my first attention was a tweet by Mike Johnson. So, hey, there I go, tweet. There's an X post.

Rick Green [00:02:41] I wasn't going to say anything, I was thinking it, I was thinking it but I wasn't going to... 

David Barton [00:02:47] An X posting by Mike Johnson and he was talking about how that they just had that earlier this week Marco Rubio had briefed them, the Gang of Eight, and the Gang of Eight I didn't know much about and so I immediately looked that up. And as it turns out the President from a constitutional basis it doesn't have to have to require congressional approval, he does to go to war but not to engage in conflict. And so, by law, he has to brief eight leaders over in the House and Senate. There are select eight, and so the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader in the House and the Senate, and then the Majority Leader and Minority Leader on the House Intelligent and Senate Intelligent committees. Those eight have to be briefed. It's top secret. And so, at that point in time, Marco apparently indicated that, day. It looks like that Iran is getting ready to launch an attack on us and we need to do something preemptive. And then we had a senior official come out from the Trump administration saying, hey, we found out that they were getting ready to attack us, sound intelligence. And then Netanyahu said the same thing. They're getting ready to attack. And so, Trump really decided to do a preemptive of attack is what it looks like more than anything. They were getting to launch into something. And he said, well, Look, if they're not going to cooperate and grow up and get over the stuff, if they're still trying to do nuclear stuff and they're still trying to come after us, we're just not going to put up with that. And so that was, that was the first thing that struck me was that they had gone through congressional, all the congressional hoops to, to do what they needed to do. It wasn't a rogue operation and intelligence from what I've heard in three sources now, at least pointed to the fact that Iran was getting and ready to do something. And this was kind of a preemptive on our side. So that changed my whole perspective on what was going on when I got that information. And so that's not a gut reaction at all. I've been thinking about this for the last day and a half, but that's kind of where I've landed on this. And again, just going through what the other nations over there are saying and going through the number of missiles that have been fired in the last couple of days. It is just mind boggling to me, the size of what's going on over there. 

Rick Green [00:05:07] And Tim, before you jump in there, something you just said, David, I can't remember who said it, it may have been President Trump, but it seemed like it was somebody else, basically that the intelligence that everybody was getting, essentially we said, whoever strikes first is going to, it will have a significant, significant impact on how this whole thing turns out. And they were just, everybody on the Israel side and the American side was just convinced this had to be done now in order to prevent significant damage that, that Iran would have been able to do. So, you know again we don't have we're not privy to all that intelligence and there is a trust the guy in the room level here.  But it you know certainly the evidence of not just a couple of years but 47 years of attacking us and you know whether it's Beirut and the marines there or you know the hostages in' 70 just it's like somebody said, I think it might have been Frank Gaffney, said you know look they've been at war with us for 47 years, even if we... It's not that Trump is starting a forever war. He's ending a forever war. So, Tim, what do you think, man? 

Tim Barton [00:06:07] Yeah, I have not studied it to the extent my dad has, although certainly I paid attention, obviously, Rick, as you have as well, to some extent. And now we are, as you mentioned, roughly 48 hours past when some of this happened. I have some friends in the military I was messaging with and they were sharing some thoughts and some other details as well. But for me, one of the indicators, just gut reaction, was first of all, when all over social media you saw Iranian people that were celebrating and applauding. This was like all over the world that this was in Europe. This was in America. This was a Canada. This is in Australia. You saw Iranian people that were chanting for Trump. In fact, there are even videos that people were saying were coming out of Iran where there were young people chanting USA and saying we love Trump as bombs were blowing up in their city because they knew who the targets were. So, it was interesting to see that the Iranian people were actually, it seems like celebrating this in many regards. And then to see the people that were opposing it, I thought was also telling because when, when you consider that with what happened in Israel two years ago plus now with October 7th with the horrific attack from some of the, the terrorists coming out of Gaza. Who, not to digress and go through all the details of the evil that they did against the Jewish people, so many of them just innocent individuals at a party, at a concert, whatever else and you had these crazy leftists coming out that were standing right in solidarity with Gaza. And you have these, you know, pro-Palestinian people all over America. It's interesting that they didn't side with the Iranian people that were celebrating in America and all over the world. Instead they're coming out against Trump in this. And so I think it, one of the indicators at times is not just who your friends are, but who your enemies are. And when you see the people that are cheering for the people of Gaza and the Palestinians, and now they're against Trump, instead of siding with the people of Iran who are celebrating that this evil dictator has been removed. That was very telling to me. Again, just gut reaction, not knowing a lot of details, but seeing who is supporting, who's opposing, who is praising, and who is demonizing what just happened. That was very telling. And then I think the other thing that I saw a lot on social media is some of the growing concern of sometimes even conservative voices who were saying president Trump was supposed to be a peaceful president and yet he's done these just in the last couple of months, he's done these crazy strikes. He, he kidnapped the dictator of Venezuela. And I think... Saying that he kidnapped is maybe a little misleading of what actually happened, but not to digress is what people are saying, that, you know, President Trump has now targeted these nations and he's taken out these people. And one of the concerns I saw from some retired military guys from conservative voices was, we don't need what President Trump is doing because we're going to have to have boots on the ground, etc, etc. And I would just point out President Trump has actually gone the exact opposite direction of boots on the ground. Now that's not to say that there might not be a situation where there were boots on the ground because like in Venezuela there were boots on the ground. For about an hour and a half right for about 45 minutes whatever it was there were boots on the ground and then they got the heck out of dodge. And what President Trump has done is shown that he is able to literally clear the game board without having to do the old conventional things that endangered so many American soldiers and troops. And of course, there were some fatalities where we're still getting details. Not everything has been released yet. There are individuals that are wounded. And so of course prayers to them, their family, their friends, but President Trump has given no indication of boots on the ground. And so, a little bit kind of to your point where President Trump in my mind has, has earned a little more trust than what people seem to be giving him at this point. Recognizing, I saw Michael Knowles post this, and I think it was really great wise advice. He said, most people in America are being armed to your quarterbacks with no information. We are forming opinions when we don't know what Trump knew. We don't what Marco Rubio know. We, we don't know what Pete Hegseth, right? The people that have far higher intelligence than us, we don't know what they knew. And the fact that we are now trying to determine if this was just or unjust? Was this moral? Was this unethical? That did he violate the Constitution? Was this a war crime? Etc etc. You can't make those calls with the limited information we now have. And I know Rick, you asked you know gut reaction. But I'm afraid that one of the challenges now is a lot of people's gut reaction is built on their emotions. And their emotions are being led by whatever posts they're seeing on social media, not being led, by wisdom, by their constitutional understanding, or even by the previous precedent of what Trump has done. And of course, there's the famous adage that the best indicator of, right, future behavior or success or performance is past behavior, success and performance. And President Trump has shown that he has been a president of peace more than any president in our lifetime, helping navigate the end of wars in so many nations. And so, the idea that he's helping other nations have peace, and then somehow, we're thinking that he is now going to deploy troops all over the world for what happened. I think it's inconsistent. And again, because we're making emotional directional decisions with such limited information, I think, it's probably a not only foolish thing to do, it’s a very ill-informed, uneducated thing to do knowing we have so little information. President Trump has already shown himself to be on a very clear side of the peace side of the aisle, but also, he's not afraid to take out the bad guys if they've shown to be bad. And Dad, as you indicated, now with reports coming out that Iran was preparing to send missiles against not just maybe America, but maybe bases around the world. It certainly makes sense that they would do a preemptive strike as Iran was preparing to try to inflict death and destruction on Americans around the world. 

David Barton [00:12:50] And you know, Tim, going to something you just said, I came to a kind of the same conclusion on like the Venezuela stuff. And what struck me was thinking back over, he kept saying, hey, we got to get this fentanyl cut off. It's killing scores of thousands of Americans, this fentanyl. And as it turned out, he tracked the fentanyl back. The biggest distributor and supplier was coming through Venezuela. And tried to work with Venezuela to stop that, stop killing American lives, stop making money off stuff that kills American lives. Get away from fentanyl and since they wouldn't and they just kept doing it. And kept sending it out. And kept send it out. And kept sent it out. He went in and literally the old axiom of cutting off the head of the snake, he did that. And so now drug deaths are down in the United States 25%. So, it's not that he was just going after all the drug dealers in the world. And it's not like he's going after all the snakes in the world. He's just going after the one that reproduces the most snakes. And so, he took off the one that that was doing that. And I think it's the same thing with Iran. And I think the fact that he does not plan to be there is really interesting because within an hour or two after they had hit the first strike and it was, it was massively big, I think more than what was reported here. Netanyahu and others have talked about it, but they hit that strike. But they hit 500 separate targets in Iran when they hit that strike, so it was no little deal. It was they had it. They knew exactly where those launchers were, where those places were and the naval ships that those launches were on. And as soon as he hit it and as soon as they knew that the Khamenei was dead and Khamenei’s been there 37 years. You know, he came in in 1989. He's had an iron hand on that nation, and they have been, they've been, they're the ones that have been funding global terror. So, what happened with Gaza, with Israel, they came out of Iran. Iran funded the Hamas, the Hezbollah, all these others. And so Iran is kind of like what Maduro was in Venezuela. They're the ones funding so much death across the world. And if you can take out Iran, you're gonna take out the funding for so many of these other groups, and they're gonna become much weaker. And whether that's in Africa, whether that in Europe, whether that is in the Middle East or wherever. And I thought that it was really interesting that Trump made an announcement for the Iranian people, said, hey, when we get done, you're gonna have a country if you want it. I hope you step up and do something with it. And the way he talked to them is like, we're not coming in to do anything. You're gonna an opportunity here. I sure hope you do something with the opportunity you have, which again, it's not like the thing they're claiming like, you know, he boots on the ground, getting us involved in wars. He just going in and cut the head off the reproducing snake and then leaving and you know dealing with it. So, I think that's another thing that kind of affirms what Tim was saying. 

Rick Green [00:15:42] All right guys we're going to take a quick break. We'll come back with some more analysis and also just talk about what this means for America because it seems like this also restores the deterrence the recognition by those people out there across the world that might choose, we talk about this after the Maduro thing but even more so here. So, we’ll hit that as well. Stay with us you're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:17:08] Welcome back to the WallBuilders show. Thanks for staying with us on this Monday, of course, an incredible weekend. And, I know David, Tim, you guys are also friends with Beneil Dariush, the UFC fighter that's just an awesome man of God and been to some of our events and he's from Iran. And so, I had him pipe in and talk to the kids, the students at the Patriot Institute this weekend, that morning, actually that Saturday. And so, it was interesting because he had a real balanced approach. He was like, well, you know, I'm very glad for, you know, back home. And, or not even home he called it back in the, in, in the home country and family and people that are there. But I also, you, I know President Trump is going to put America first and make this as a, not a prolonged deal. So anyway, that was, that, was cool to hear from, from somebody that, is from there. But I wanted to ask y'all, as I said, before the break, what you think this does for our reputation around the planet? I mean, what, you know? Are we back to a deterrence factor where people are going to, you know how kids when, if mom and dad say, don't do that, or I'm gonna spank, don't that, I'm going to spank. But they never spank and so the kids do that. Well, just did a little spanking. So, it seems like folks around the world are going to recognize President Trump's going to do what he says and he's going to protect American interests. 

Tim Barton [00:18:15] Well, Rick, I do want to answer that. I want to start with a little contextual thought as well, because one of the things Ilhan Omar said, like when Trump is supporting this strike that happens. And of course, it was a joint operation with American and Israel. And now there's lots of other nations that have kind of joined in to some extent, at least come out and vocalize support, if not done something else. Which Dad, you might come to some of that more than what you've already explained. However, one of things that Ilhan Omar said. Was that this was like just evil on a different level from Trump because he did these strikes in Ramadan and right, this holy day for the Muslim people, and how dare he and I just saw a post on X, where somebody pointed out that Iran is actually now in the last 24 hours fired on eight Muslim countries and then partly because they either supported America, there's American bases, whatever it is. But Ilhan Omar didn't say anything about Iran firing on Muslim countries. Right, in the same timeframe. And I say this because this is where we have to recognize part of the propaganda war that we are in, that so often we are seeing posts and things that will go viral that will take over the internet coming from one side. And yet there's such a level of intellectual dishonesty with it. And I, I say that adding a little context to this thought. I think that one of the things that will happen is, there are certain leaders of the world that will pay attention and take heart to this. And I think that will be very beneficial for America. I think guys like Putin are going to see this and be like, you know what, that Trump guy is just crazy enough to do something that could be very detrimental for my health. I'm going to, I'm gonna continue to have conversations and navigate, negotiate with this guy. And so, I do think this will be impactful on some level. But one of the things where I think we've been intellectually dishonest in America and even our understanding of things like Islam is we have heard now for decades Islam being framed as a religion of peace. And even though we acknowledge, right, that there are many peaceful Muslims. One of the things we've also acknowledged is even if only 10 percent of the Muslim population is the jihadist terrorist, that is a significant portion like hundreds of millions of Muslims that support jihad. And the reason I think it matters, one of the things the Founding Fathers dealt with going back to the Barbary Pirates when the Muslims started, the Muslim pirates of North Africa, when they started attacking American trade ships, when we separated from Great Britain. We no longer had the British Navy protecting American ships and so we're in the middle of the Revolution. And yet because our ships are under attack, we send Founding Fathers like John Adams and Jefferson and Franklin to go have a conversation and try to figure out can we find a peace. Like guys, you're not the ones we're having a war with. We're not trying to have a conflict with you. And one of the things that that they learned in dealing with this Muslim ambassador was that they literally report back to Congress and they said that he told us that they're required by their holy book to make war against the infidels, the non-believers and that's us. And like literally they're required by their faith to do this. The reason I bring this up, is I think it is absolutely significant and a positive thing that Trump removed the leader of this, this movement that was promoting, encouraging, and spreading evil across the world, literally. That's, that's what Iran has been doing. But if we don't start to be honest to some level, and I'm open to you guys having a difference of opinion and going in a different direction, push back if you think I'm wrong. Because I would love to have this honest conversation. And I don't mind doing it on air even though, we can do it off air as well. But I think if we don't start acknowledging what the Founding Fathers recognized is that part of their challenge wasn't just who a specific leader was, it's that there was an ideological bent. And again, for a significant percentage of Muslims that bent Is toward extremism and terrorism. And there's only two options really for non-believers. They convert or they die. And there is a reason that in Iran, for example, America was called the great Satan, Israel was called a little Satan. That they have hated American and Israel from like their inception. And it's again, it's part of the ideology. So removing an evil leader, I don't know that it's going to necessarily solve us having problems in some of the areas in the middle East in the future, because if they have that same ideology that's in the lower level, like even if it's the privates in their army right now, and we've removed all their upper military leadership, well, that same ideology is just going to be elevated by the people that are still there. So, I think what Trump has done will be very positive in many nations where it will help negotiation and solve future problems, which could be incredibly significant for our kids and grandkids, but I don't know that it's going to solve necessarily part of this Middle East problem. And there's way more details and nuance to that because, you know, we can even go back to one of the things from the Bible were recognizing that there was Isaac and there was Ishmael. And God, literally the Bible talks about Ishmael, that his hand was always going to be against his brother, every man's hands against him, that there was going to chaos in his life, his family, his descendants. And so, part of this, I think, is just a reality of some of what the Bible teaches. And again, I'm saying this because I think in America, we've not been really intellectually honest about some of the ideology that is inside of Islam. And the idea that it's really a religion of peace. Well, actually there's a significant portion that do not believe it is a religion of peace and even under the Biden administration, a significant number of immigrants coming to America are not coming from the persuasion that they want to be the peaceful Muslims living in America. No, they actually have a pretty negative ideology. So that's a little bit of a rant. What do you guys think? 

Rick Green [00:24:23] Well, look at what just happened in Austin, guys. It was a, it was a Muslim immigrant, legal immigrant. Well, overstayed his visa first and then somehow got, got legal that just shot up a bar in Austin and killed several people and wearing a shirt that, you know, property of Allah, Koran in the car, you know? And, so yeah, Tim, we're going to, it's going to be very uncomfortable, but this is going to have to be addressed in the way that you just did. 

David Barton [00:24:45] We talked many times on the program about the Nazarene Fund. Tim and I are both on the board for the Nazarene Fund. It engages in rescuing persecuted Christians across the world. But you know, we haven't had to rescue persecuted Christians from Christians. They're not the ones that are targeting for sex slavery or for organ harvesting or whatever. And we don't just rescue persecuted Christians; we rescue persecuted people. And the overwhelming religion that we have to rescue them from is Islam. And that's across the world. Whether it's in Africa, whether it's Europe, whether it's anywhere else. That is the nation that, or that is the belief that we have to fight most often. But it's interesting that even as you look over in the Middle East, I mean, with Iran, they don't even care who you are if you don't believe like them and they'll kill everybody. And so, it's amazing how Tim, you pointed out they hit eight different Muslim nations retaliating. And I was just going through some of the numbers on it, UAE is a place that has been an ally to us. And we talked here a week or so ago, how UAE called their kids home from Great Britain because their kids were getting radicalized Islam in Great Britain and UAE didn't want that. But UAE, following our hit of Iran, they were targeted with 165 ballistic missiles. They were targeted with 541 bomb carrying drones and it killed a number of their people, wounded number. I mean, this is just a nation over there, and Iran is striking all around. And Saudi Arabia said, wait a minute, we told the allies they couldn't even fly over our airspace, and you attacked us, and we didn't do a single thing. So that mentality, there is a large element that is really radicalized, and it is gonna be something that I guarantee will be a big conversation the next year in America here as we've seen this kind of stuff start rising in the United States. 

Rick Green [00:26:37] Certainly a topic we will be covering more of throughout the week and in the coming weeks. Thanks so much for listening today, folks. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.