Primary Night Snapshot

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to the intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Builder Show. Thanks for joining us today. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton, and it's the day after. Let's see, did we say yesterday this is the last primary election, David, or do we have one more with three or four states?

SPEAKER_03 0:21

Well, this is the last primary election with multiple states. There are four states left to go. They're all New England and they're all on separate days. So Massachusetts and Connecticut and Delaware and Rhode Island, or excuse me, New Hampshire. There's four New England states. They all happen on a separate day. This is the last primary election where you have three states involved. And actually, there was a special election in Pennsylvania. So there were four states last night. Okay, okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

So last night that we would have this probably, you know, coverage like uh like we had last night. So this is um um you know, probably not any big surprises, right? I think everybody kind of expected uh Byron Donald to win the uh Florida thing. I didn't know I don't know if we expected him to win it as big as he did, but that's

Pennsylvania Special Election On A Knife Edge

SPEAKER_02 1:05

probably the biggest known election um that people are are uh paying attention to. What what other races do you think were important last night?

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Well, last night you all the three major states, and let me let me just get Pennsylvania out of the way. Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania, this is still fascinating to me. I think of Pennsylvania as a pretty deep blue state, kind of like up there with Oregon and Washington, et cetera. Uh Pennsylvania is a barely blue state, and it just doesn't strike me that way. And it's uh it's essentially because you got Pittsburgh and Philadelphia against everybody else in the state, uh, but they had a special election last night in the State House. There were 102 Democrats and 101 Republicans. How close can you get other than that without being a tie? And one of the Republicans resigned, so they had a special election to fill her seat last night. So uh as the election began last night, there's 102 Democrats, 100 Republicans. And as I I I still haven't seen uh results released today, it's essentially a tie between those two in that race. So either the Democrats will have a three-vote lead out of 203 votes, or it'll be a one-vote lead, but it's gonna be really close.

SPEAKER_04 2:15

Well, and dad, as we're saying that we're recording in the early morning. Um some stations air us later in the day. And so if it's something later in the day, very well it could be known at that point. So you're saying uh at the time of this uh recording, when we are having this conversation right now, it's not reported. Um and dad, it's interesting that you think of Pennsylvania as being blue, because it's certainly not uh the way that I perceive it when when your Democrat senator is more conservative than a lot of Republican senators, and I mean John Fetterman. Um, right? We're early going in. We're like, who is it? Like you're taking a union boss and making him a senator. This is crazy. And John Fetterman has actually proven to be more conservative on many issues than some of these Rhino Republicans. Um, and not to digress and get in the weeds on some of those, although some interesting stuff I'm finding out uh more and more about some of these people, uh, even in Texas, are Senator John Cornyn, uh, who lost the primary badly. Um, one of his top policy advisors has now joined Talo Rico's team uh against Ken Paxton. Talerico is the Democrat from Texas. Um the really crazy one says lots of uh unbiblical uh balance between heretical and blasphemous things about Christianity. And uh the Republicans, current Republican senator John Cornyn, one of his top policy advisors, just joined James Tallerico's team because he said he can't stomach Ken Paxton. Well, I just want to point out when the the the reason John Cornyn was heavily ousted in the primary here in Texas by Republicans is because Republicans, conservatives, Christians,

Fetterman And The Strange New Map

SPEAKER_04 3:55

we were so tired of him not being a true conservative, of him not promoting really good values and fighting for things. And and you might go, well, I wonder why. Well, because when one of your top advisors has now gone to join one of the craziest, wokest Democrats running for U.S. Senate, uh, that actually makes a lot of sense why, as a Republican, uh, he was not very conservative because of who he surrounded himself with and who those policy advisors were. Again, not to digress too much on this, but when you look at even Spetterman in Pennsylvania, he is not as woke and crazy and left as a lot of places. And and we have so many friends in Pennsylvania, um, friends of the program and just friends in general. Uh, I definitely don't see it as a heavy blue state. It's interesting you you kind of have that vibe and feel about it. It's one of those states that President Trump won, and I feel like uh could certainly be in play again in the future, um, with the exception of the the John Fetterman. He might be pretty secure uh in Pennsylvania in his reelection bid, but not to digress, uh Rick, to your point, I don't think there were a lot of upsets necessarily. There was a couple of uh primaries where people got beat worse than we thought they would, or maybe there was one or two upsets, but overall, uh not a lot of surprises. Although, Dad, you did point out, but before you jumped on, uh the the person who won the Democrats uh primary to be the senator from Florida is something we talked about yesterday with the Democrat Socialists

Florida Democrats Choose A Socialist

SPEAKER_04 5:35

of America, their position. Well, now the person running for U.S. Senate on the Democrat side in Florida is a Democrat Socialist of America individual. And all of the irony that that person just won the primary when the the position of the Democrat Socialists of America is you should abolish the Senate. So why are you running for something that you think should be abolished? It's almost like their positions are inconsistent, hypocritical, and illogical. Yes, that is correct, but interesting that the Democrats in Florida thought that was the best candidate for that job.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

And going back a little bit to Fetterman, Tim, to echo what you said, I saw some polling on Fetterman that 72% of Republicans in Pennsylvania support Fetterman, and only 28% of Democrats in Pennsylvania support Fetterman. So even though he continues to be a Democrat, he certainly is much more liked by Republicans than Democrats. But the the other three last night, and and Tim, you were just talking uh uh uh about the one in Florida. Uh the Florida, Wyoming, and Alaska primaries all happened last night. And interestingly enough, all three of them had governors' races because the governors are term-limited in all three of those states. All three of them also had U.S. Senate races. Uh and so that was kind of unusual to have two big races up top

Wyoming Shock Result And A Flawed Ballot

SPEAKER_03 6:55

when you have only three, three election results kind of coming in. Um but as you look over, there were some surprises last night. The governor of Wyoming, and by the way, Wyoming, and and I I just let me let me just say it up now. I really don't like the way that Wyoming and some of the other states are set up in their elections. Yes, it's states, and the Constitution says states can do it, but there are there's only one Congress seat in Wyoming, and there's two Senate seats. It's one of those rare states. They got twice as many U.S. Senators as they do congressmen. So Congressmen is more of a rare seat, if you will, than the senators are. And they had 10 people running for Congress, which means you could win that House seat with 11% of the total vote. It could be that 89% of the state did not vote for you, and you're now the state representative in Congress. I just think that's a really bad system when you have that. And that's something Wyoming has had the last several elections like that. They have a number of people running. It's plurality only. Whoever's the top vote get. There's no kind of runoff or anything else. So at this point in time, uh, it's that that was all over the board. All the predictions turned out to be wrong on that. Um, what was right was Harriet Hageman became the the senator for Wyoming. That was expected. She had been the House member, she defeated Liz Cheney, and so even at governor, uh, the top two people that were expected to win governor, all the polling showed them way ahead, neither one of them did. Uh, one was endorsed by Trump, the other was endorsed by the state Republican Party, and both of those came in second and third. So the one that was not expected, that was down in single digits, is the one who won uh the primary in in Wyoming last night, which means the governor's race, because that is the reddest state in the United States. I think 83% of the state votes Republicans. So that was basically the election last night. Uh they have Democrats on the ticket, but that's pretty

Alaska Voting Rules That Delay Reality

SPEAKER_03 8:50

token, and they don't have much support because there are so few Democrats in Wyoming. The other state that just kind of drives me through the roof is uh Alaska. They had an election last night, but I have no clue why they had an election because it'll be another two weeks before we get final results on the primary results last night. And it wasn't even primary. I can't even say that, because everybody from every party votes on the same ticket, and the top four will go on. For example, in the governor's race, they had 17 candidates for governor, and they represented all parties and no parties. Uh, anybody that that could qualify could be on that list. And because they run as the governor and they also list the governor and lieutenant governor on the same ticket, you had 34 names at the top of the ballot yesterday in Alaska, and you get to pick four uh the four that you think should be governor with their lieutenant governor cohort. So it they they allowed the voting to come in 15 days after the election, so we may not know for a good while. Um, but you could have someone who was not chosen to be first by anybody that wins it because there were enough second place choices of that person or third place choices. It's just a crazy way to do things. So it might be some time before we know with certainty who those four individuals are in Alaska because of that crazy system they've got. And by the way, uh that system was so crazy that last election, uh, Alaska had a uh statewide vote to get rid of that, to see if they wanted to get rid of this called ranked choice voting. And it took them weeks after the election to finally get all the votes counted. And as it turned out, the ranked choice voting was kept intact by 0.26, one-fourth of 1% of the vote kept this thing intact. That was a margin difference. Now, since then, Maine has gone to ranked choice voting. This is a year for Maine to do that. Um, Michigan is going to vote this year in the general election on whether they want ranked choice voting. And pretty much everywhere this has gone, it has been a real disaster for voters and a disaster for people watching elections because you just don't know the results fast enough. Uh but it's interesting, most of the blue cities, the big cities like New York City and Minneapolis, et cetera, they have adopted ranked choice voting for their city voting, which is part of how Mandami got to where he was at the winner was the ranked choice voting. You add all the seconds and thirds and fourths up, and it gives you a lot some firsts that you didn't expect. So we might not know the final results in Alaska for some days yet, but it's it's definitely going to end up being the same kind of typical culprits. There will be a Republican and a Democrat in those four. There's just not much doubt about that because the way the state is shaped. But it's just a crazy system they have to use, and

Florida Cleanup And A Candidate To Watch

SPEAKER_03 11:30

it's it's tough on the voters. So the one that was the easiest was uh Florida, because Florida, if you recall when DeSantis was first elected governor, it took so long to know the results. It was such a messy system. He came in and just started kicking tail and reform things, threw some election officials out, and then since then we've known the results within about two hours after the election closed. And tonight, within about two hours, we knew most of the results in the Florida uh congressional races, both Democrat and Republican. Um Byron Donald's won by a larger margin than everybody expected. Uh, there were actually 11 candidates running for governor then. So there were some good results last night on the conservative direction, but still a ways to go. This is the last part of the primary season. Now we'll head toward the general season.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Yeah, the that ranked choice thing is so confusing and and uh just a mess. And like you said, it's actually growing in other areas. I think they might even have a ballot measure to get it, you know, stop doing it, but uh, it's just bad news. Uh by the way, I will mention there's the the congressman from Alaska, I think I say this right, Nick uh Beck. It's either Beckich or Beckish. But uh but he's a uh biblical citizenship grad, guys. So uh he actually learned about the uh proper use of Congress and what powers they have through our classes together. And uh and actually that's how he won Mike Lee's endorsement because when Mike uh met him, he was running for office, and Mike asked him about uh what powers does Congress have. And he quoted from Article 1, Section 8, and Mike Lee said, I never do this, but I'll endorse you on the spot. So anyway, that'll be an interesting one to watch. I don't know how close that race is, uh, but we'll we'll find out more in the coming days.

Break And A Book Worth Talking About

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, Troy Jackson will be with us. So he's a pastor over at uh New Beginnings in Bedford. Great church there. Larry Hawkett, just a fantastic supporter of Israel and does great work. We do a lot of our flashpoint events there. And uh Troy has a great book that we're gonna be talking about called Battle Tested. It's uh uh the power of a praying man in a nation at war. Stay with us, Troy Jackson, our guest today on the Wall Builder Show.

A Second Amendment Founder Quote

SPEAKER_04 13:39

This is Tim Barton from Wall Builders with another moment from American history. The Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees to every individual the right to keep and bear arms, has been targeted for years now by those who are determined to dismantle the individual right to self-protection. Opponents argue that only the militia, the military, and law enforcement are to have and use firearms. But those who wrote the Second Amendment genuously disagreed, including founding father Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration, a president of the Continental Congress, and one of those who actually framed the Second Amendment. He declared, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. For more information about Richard Henry Lee and the history of the Second Amendment, go to wallbuilders.com.

The Story Behind Battle Tested

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. My brother Troy Jackson, pastor at New Beginnings. Uh, just a phenomenal church, which has hosted us many times for Flashpoint, for Constitution classes, for all kinds of good stuff. Troy, love you, brother. Thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Love you, Rick. Thank you for having me, my brother.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Well, when we were there a couple of weeks ago, you handed me your book, Battle Tested. First of all, I love the cover and uh everything about it. We need to be reading, studying, learning, and uh talking about out there for folks that are looking for ways to be effective in the culture and the power of a praying man in a nation at war. Can't think of a better message.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yes, yes, indeed, and that's where we are. And you know, there's a there's a unique story behind the cover, Rick, that I learned later. So the young man that that designed the cover, he had been battling a homosexual lifestyle. And he wanted to read the the manuscript while he was trying to design the cover. And he actually accepted Christ through reading a manuscript while designing the cover. So if the book was for nobody else but him, God's will has been done.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Amen. Amen. That's awesome, bro. Awesome. Well, listen, let's let's let's first talk about I mean, you're involved in so many different issues. Um your church and you and Larry have just been such a good friend to Israel, so y'all are very involved on that. Uh, but also just constant cultural engagement. What made you decide to do this one specifically about the power of prayer?

SPEAKER_01 16:11

You know, I think it comes from many conversations that I have with many friends like yourself, and we talk about how one thing we don't see a lot of is men prayed. We don't see a lot of men standing before

Why Men Must Lead At Home

SPEAKER_01 16:25

God in a public um persona or um the there's there's because we have different appetites, and you know, I believe that a battle-tested man or a biblical manhood requires responsibility. And so, because the first question God asked fallen humanity was not, who did you vote for? It was Adam, where are you? And I believe God is asking American men that question again right now. And and so I think that is very strategic because a battle-tested man must first lead at home. And he leads at home through prayer and intercession and and believing God for his family. He a battle-tested man prays with his family, he teaches scripture to his family, he protects his marriage, he disciplines his appetites, he controls his temper and he honors his commitments, he he works diligently, keeps his word, and he models repentance, but he also prepares the next generation for the battles that they have yet to face. And I think we don't see a lot of that in the culture today where men are stepping up. Who do we see doing everything? Women. And then you have this whole initiative where people say, Well, the women is supposed to be silent. Well, if the man is silent and the woman is silent, who's speaking up for our nation? Who's speaking up for our children? Who's speaking up for God? You notice when when men show up at school board meetings, things change? When men show up at city council meetings, things change. It's because the women have always been showing up. But when the men show up and they're they're they're they're men of prayer and men that have been warned in the spirit, and they and they they've they've got on the armor of God and they're going into the civic arena and they are they're exercising their constitutional rights in America, it starts to create some shaking in the legislatures and in those legislative bodies, whether it's a school board or a city council or uh a state legislative body. When you have a bunch of men show up, it's like, okay, we're messing up because the men haven't been showing up. So we got to get this right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Yeah. Yeah. Well, in fact, it's funny you talk about the shaking. I just got to interview Petra uh over the last few days. So I remember that song, Everything That Can Be Shaken will be shaken from within. And uh Dave and Tim, when they they hear this, they're gonna make fun of me some more because I sounded like a middle school girl interviewing those guys. I was

Shoes Of Peace And Moving Without Panic

SPEAKER_02 18:50

so excited. Um I I I gotta fast forward you'd later in the book you talk about how to pray and you talk about armoring up. And you say something about the you know, feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and you talk about being able to move. Move without panic. That's what it was. It's like solid ground.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Talk about that. And so that is very crucial because many times we're moving and we're panicking because we don't see the hand of God, like what you and I were talking about before the show began. And so we don't see the hand of God moving, but God's hand is moving. But when we move in in a prayerful spirit, we are at peace that God is who like the Bible says, he who hath began a good work in us will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ. And so we are at peace that the God that is at work in us is performing his work no matter what the ground is doing all around us, no matter what the tension in the atmosphere is, we recognize and we honor that God is with us in this whole situation. And so we are we're not focused on the ground that we're standing on in the natural, we're focused on the ground that we're standing on in the spirit that is making us uh able to withstand and able to continue to wage war on the enemy.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Man, that's so good. I have always when I pray that part, and and I learned from Larry Lee, you know, 35 years ago on could you not tarry one hour, you know, and and so I've always gone through the armor, but on that one I always taught I thought more in terms of I'm standing on the solid truth and all that's true, but I didn't think about what you just described and how these storms going around me, because of these shoes of peace, I can be in peace even in the middle of the storm. That's powerful.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yes, it and and that's that part of that our feet being shod with the preparation of the gospel. Because if we have if if the the gospel becomes our foundation, why are we concerned about what's happening? Because our that's why it's our it's right there at our feet. I think that's the strategic piece of that being the the foot part of the armor. Because that that having that standing, that fortitude, and you know you probably don't know it, but you do this very well. You you are a person that stands firm on God's words, even word, even when things are shaking in your life, when things are shaking with the with the initiatives that God has has given you. I've noticed that when I talk to you, you always got the word of God to lay out. Even if your life is shaking,

God Put You In This Generation

SPEAKER_01 21:35

the word of God is your firm foundation.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Amen, brother. Amen. So good. Well, I I picked a favorite part. What would you pick out of the book that you'd want to highlight before we go I had to go and bring David and Tim back in?

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Yes, no, I I I think one of my favorite parts that I would highlight is that where I'm talking about God didn't accidentally play. You in this generation. Because you might I talk about in the book, you may not hold public office, you may never preach in a pulpit, you may never have a national platform, but you have a sphere of responsibility. There is a family to strengthen, a child to discipline, a neighbor to reach, a church to serve, a community to influence, and a nation whose liberty must be stewarded. So the the the story for the men that are listening to this is get back to your post, get back to prayer, get back into the word, take responsibility, and become the man that God can trust in the battle. Because the question is not whether the battle is coming, the the battle is already here. The question is whether you will be found faithful.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Man, so good. That's a clarion call right there, brother. Clarion call battle tested. The power of a praying man and a nation at war. Troy Jackson. Now, Troy, best place. I know you can get it at Amazon. Is that where you want to send people or where we're gonna do that?

SPEAKER_01 23:01

We'll send them to Amazon because more people use Amazon than anything. They but you can find them anywhere books are sold, Barnes and Nobles, all of that. But most people use Amazon today, which is fine for them to go to Amazon and pick it up.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Got it. Battle tested. Power of a praying man and a nation at war. Troy Jackson. Appreciate you, brother. Let's get you back soon. Love you. Talk to you soon.

Where To Get The Book

SPEAKER_02 23:20

You two stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barr.

Meet The Declaration Signers

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Okay, we want to let you know about a new product we have here at Wall Builders called Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor, The Signers of the Declaration. Like most Americans, you might be someone that you recognize some of the names of the Founding Fathers, but do you know their story? We want to help remedy that. My dad and I have written biographies on all 56 signers of the Declaration to help reintroduce people to the men who literally sign their names on the line for the sake of the nation. When they did this, they knew that they were essentially signing their death warrants. They were risking everything for the hope that they might be able to purchase freedom for the rising generation with their lives, their fortunes, and sacred honors. In spite of the hardship that every one of them endured, none of them recant or backed away. Now, if you don't know their story, you can get to know all 56 of them. Go to wallbuilders.com and look for the book Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor, the signers of the Declaration.

Encouragement From The Gen Z Trend

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Troy Jackson for joining us and for the book Battle Tested: The Power of a Praying Man in a Nation at War. And of course, guys, just like Troy was talking about, I mean, this is this is how you save a nation. You got to get men to step up and lead in their house, their church, their community, and and of course, just putting those biblical practices into action in school boards and everything else in the community, not just inside the four walls of the church. So important.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

It is so important. And one of the things, Rick, as you guys were talking, I was so encouraged, thinking, you know, not that not that we don't need to encourage more and more men to stand up, but I'm encouraged that I am seeing this happen so much more. Uh, and then again, this is not to say, like, don't go get his book. No, you go get the book, read it, be encouraged, because we do need men to step up and lead in significant ways. We we need men that will pray with their wives, that will pray with their families, that will be the prayer warriors. Life is way more spiritual than most of us realize. So this is a very important concept. But in the midst of it, where he said, you know, for so long women have been leading, that that's true. But I see a shift in culture. It's it's one of the things we're seeing right now with the young men that are the highest percentage of individuals attending church are the Gen Z young men. There is a resurgence happening in our nation right now. And unfortunately, uh the young women are not following the lead of the young men going back to church. The girls are following more of the culture uh that is very anti-God and anti-biblical. And I say this as a whole, but for the young men, I I a lot of things that Troy is saying and encouraging we need more of, we do, but I see a lot of the underswelling that that gives me encouragement in the midst of what's going on. So his book was only further encouragement for all of

Final Takeaways And Next Shows

SPEAKER_04 26:20

us that want to continue to lead spiritually. Uh, but I am encouraged because I do see God raising up young men in significant ways.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Amen. Amen. Well, good stuff, guys. We're out of time for today. Let's see. Tomorrow we got Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Don't want to miss that. And then on Friday, we'll have good news for you. Don't miss good news Friday. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to the Wallboarder Show.