Rick Green [00:00:07] You found your way to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders Show, Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton, and it is a bittersweet day for sure. This is the one year anniversary of the loss of our friend, Charlie Kirk, the assassination of our friend, Charlie Kirk, an absolutely horrific day a year ago. A friend to all three of us on the program, a great influence on the WallBuilders audience, on the Patriot Academy students, on all the people that we work with. But that influence has not stopped, it continues. And David, Tim of course, you know, we have a lot going on, David's at the convention There's a lot we still do just like Turning Point has gone on and still doing a lot of great work. But we do stop for a moment today and remember Charlie Kirk as our friend and a great impact on this country 

Tim Barton [00:00:54] Yeah. And one of the things too, we want to play a clip in just a minute, that really embodies a lot of who Charlie was. You know, obviously when he started at 18 and, and goes into his early thirties, of really ministry was what he was doing, shepherding, discipling kids on college campuses. The last several years and, and we've talked about this, lots of people saw it. It was so evident where Charlie recognized that the, the deeper problems in our nation weren't something that could be solved with just political legislation or political movement. You actually have to go back to the spirit, the soul. People need God, they need Jesus. We need a Bible in America. And Charlie really had that shift in a lot of what he did. And so this is a little montage clip of some interviews that Charlie was in the last year of his life where he was just pointing to some of what he had intentionally shifted towards and what he wanted people to know. So we'll play that and then we'll talk a little bit more and then certainly get into a lot of what's happening with the convention. But we wanna honor our friend for a minute and remind everybody a little about who Charlie was. 

Podcaster 1 [00:02:08] If you could be associated with one thing, how would you wanna be remembered? 

Charlie Kirk [00:02:11] I want to be remembered for courage for my faith. That would be the most important thing. The most important is my faith in God. I believe that we are the inheritors of a Christian society, and I do not believe we can have a free society if we are no longer back towards some belief in a higher power. And so I want bring us back to a free society, but that's not just political, it's just one manifestation of that. I'm trying to get to the cause. And the cause, I believe, is what happens in our university campuses, what happens on the broad culture, what happens and how people consume information. And I see us making a massive difference in that every day. The better way to teach the gospel is, here's the 10 commandments. How many of these are you violating? That is the proper way to evangelize. And so I realized the stakes in fifth grade. I was like, oh my goodness, I'm a sinner. I'm selfish, I am broken. And only thanks to Jesus' perfect sacrifice, coming and living a perfect life that I get something I do not earn, but has been given to me this free gift of eternal life. You would say that Jesus is here to save us. Save us from what? 

Podcaster 2 [00:03:13] Ourselves. We're dead people walking. 

Charlie Kirk [00:03:16] Okay, so you have to tell people about the death first, right? 

Podcaster 2 [00:03:21] You're very good at your job. You're good at your job, sir. 

Charlie Kirk [00:03:24] This is a rescue mission, but you must teach people what you are rescuing them from. 

Podcaster 2 [00:03:29] I got it, I guess, oh god. 

Charlie Kirk [00:03:31] The gospel becomes sweeter and your relationship with Christ is real and truer when you understand the stakes of the damnation that you were saved from. So what is the right message and what sign should they have? Is it Jesus loves you or is that God condemns you? It should be that you need Jesus. That's the sign. The sign should say is you need Jesus. You cannot live a fulfilling, beautiful, deep, Christ-centered life. One that is truly joyful, and violate his teachings or his commands. You ultimately do the things not to get saved, you do them because you are saved. That once you are saved, you DO those things because of that free gift of eternal salvation. And so, I want to live in a free society. 

Rick Green [00:04:21] Wow, guys, I mean, that's that is that is epic Charlie Kirk right there, you know, and I think that's why a lot of people who thought he was just talking politics, they missed the fact that he was discipling people with every answer, whether on a college campus or like most of those clips and, and interviews. And the maturity, the spiritual maturity that he gained because he was willing to listen to Rob McCoy and, and you know Jack Hibbs and, and all three of us and Bill Federer and all these people, and then turn around and articulate it better than maybe anybody in our in our lifetimes, but I'm just so amazed at the legacy that he left at such a young age where most people, and I mean 99.999% of people, if they'd been in his position with that much money and power and organization and the President and everything else, it would have gone to their heads. And he seemed to get more humble and more grounded as he went. Just beautiful, beautiful clips. 

Tim Barton [00:05:13] Yeah, incredible. I was with Rob McCoy yesterday. We were both speaking at a pastor's luncheon. It was a really great event, but he said a couple of things that I thought were just so profound. He said, the left accused Charlie Kirk of hate speech, but the reality was they just hated his speech. If you watch his talks, and also one of the things Rob pointed out what was incredible is in the decade plus of Charlie Kirk's ministry, you know of Turning Point's history, they had gained tens of millions, hundreds of millions of views. But since Charlie's death it is now gone times ten with how many views have been watched. Even when I was trying to figure out what videos would be a good fit or what the audio clips we've taken from videos that would be good fit for this. I mean, I watched so many videos and I just was encouraged. You know a little sad at times, too. But going man, so impressive. But this is what's great is how many more people have now turned to some of these videos and are being discipled by Charlie even after he's gone. And just incredible to see the way that God has used him. Now with that being said, we do know that Charlie was also a a political monster in so many ways. He was so engaged had it not been for Charlie, and I feel this and think this very deeply, had it not been for Charlie helping to reach the rising generation, the Gen Z, that the young millennials, I don't know the president Trump would.... And I mean, obviously God would have done. God would've moved if that's what's God's plan. But God used Charlie Kirk. Without his effort, I don't think President Trump will be in the White House today. And I say all that knowing that if Charlie was here, he, Dad, he would be at the convention with you. He would be, actually one of the speakers, but he would be encouraging all of the people that were there, the speakers that were there. So knowing he would be very invested in this, so Dad, I'm curious, you were there all day yesterday What was the tone of the room? Rick and I were watching some social media posts and some clips and we're seeing highlights and we're all texting back and forth, but there were several that you texted us and you're like this speech is incredible Are you guys watching this? Dad, what stood out to you the most? Maybe what were some of the more defining moments and what were some of the better speeches you heard yesterday? 

David Barton [00:07:36] Well, I would say that first off, I have to start with the mea culpa because I got this thing totally wrong. We talked about this leading up to the convention. I did what I thought was gonna happen and it turned out I was totally wrong on what happened because I love the term, Rick, that you used yesterday, this kind of boutique messaging that they've got 36 different topics, 109 speakers, as the work they're gonna do is hit some of everything so that whatever race you go into, there'll be sound bites on that. I was wrong. What they did was they get every one of those topics and said, look how extreme and radical the Democrats are on this. The word I heard more than anything was radical, radical and extreme and, and how far out they were on so many issues. And it was just issue, after issue, after issue, after issues. And the issues all came together. And the one adjective that kept popping out is look how extreme, how extreme, how extreme. And so it was, it was quite fascinating to see that there was so much communication messaging done, and I have to admit it is absolutely brilliant. They put this together in a way that just kind of blows my mind. They took so many different things, put them all together under the same word, and that word is radical, radical or extreme. I say that, if you have a thesaurus, you can probably find five words for radical. They used all of them over and over and over, but that was the messaging that came through. And... I pulled some clips from yesterday because I thought they were really good. Let's play one from Tim Scott here. Tim Scott is a senator from South Carolina. He is now the senior senator since Lindsey Graham has recently died. So he's a senior senator, but he is also the guy in charge of funding all the Senate races. He's over the senatorial campaigns. And so all these places where we're looking at races that maybe Republicans pick up, maybe if they lose a seat here or there. Tim is the guy that's up with all these, and just kind of listen to the way that he puts out with each of these different Senate candidates how radical the opposition is on the Democrat side. It's a great clip. 

Senator Tim Scott [00:09:43] Not a single Democrat had the courage to put American security first. Not a SINGLE Senate Democrat would support Voter ID. Unbelievable, not a single Senate Democrat would vote to cut taxes on a single mother like the one that raised me. And if you think this group is really bad, this midterm, we face the most dangerous, radical, and frankly, weird Democrat candidates in American history. Here in Texas, you got James Talarico. James is terrible. James Talarico claims there are six genders. He believes God is non-binary. He thinks God needs special woke pronouns. But Texas, we know who God is. We're talking about Jesus. I said the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. That's our God. That's America! We love our God! Amen! I got to turn my attention to Georgia because John Ossoff wants to let boys play girls in sports. And then in Alaska, you got Mary Peltola. Now, Mary's a special one. She said that Joe Biden was the smartest, sharpest person she ever met. Seriously? Well, let me say this, in Michigan, Where's Michigan in the house? There you are. Michigan, take care of Mike Rogers because your candidate over there is a wonderful man named Mike Rogers, but he faces dangerous, radical, and weird. Abdul El-Sayed. Abdul El-Sayed says, football is racist. Have you seen the NFL? I mean come on. He says, Fourth of July fireworks suck. He hates part of his own state. He's not sure Israel should exist. And when it comes to the American dream, he prefers the Canadian dream. But worst of all, Abdul El-Sayed panders with terrorists. He panders terrorists. You can see why this election is so, so important. The only way to keep dangerous, radical, weird out of the Senate is a united Republican party! 

Rick Green [00:13:44] Wow, man. I mean, talk about calling them out specifically on, on each of those, on some of those it's kind of like what we talked about yesterday, guys, when we had Chad on, you know, just the fact that they are so crazy and they've done, so the Democrats have taken so many crazy positions. Are we branding them with that? Are we labeled? And what you're saying, David is they did that over and over and over again, and Tim Scott obviously did it in those Senate races. 

David Barton [00:14:06] It was real funny because it was, again, it was fascinating. The two extremists that they kept pointing to the most, El Said up in Michigan, the Democrat Socialist for America guy who is anti-Fourth of July kind of stuff, and Talarico was the other one that they keep putting up there. And they found so much with Talarico, the guy running in Texas against Ken Paxton, and they just kept using his own soundbites. And you're going, wow, they're not having to piece things together and make fake commercials. These guys really said this stuff, and it really is radical. And so they start going through how the guy in Ohio, the Democrat in Ohio, he wants boys to play in girls' sports, and they would go through senator after senator that's running against these Republican challengers or incumbents. And you go, wow! They really are radical. And that was one of the points they made is look, we're not just pulling the radicals out. We're just pointing out Democrats are radical now. This is where they are. We talked before about how that since 2019, they've elected 250 Democrat Socialists of America. And these are the ones that have a platform to abolish the Constitution. And they've been elected as Democrats. So it's not like you're having to pick and choose. You've got a lot of ground here. And there were just so many good soundbites from what happened in the convention. And I really was quite fascinated, by the way, I'm gonna have to see what all the papers are today, but I'm betting that Trump actually got the Dems to do something that I didn't think they would do, and that's lose their ever-loving mind. He was having so much fun last night in his speech, and generally, when he gets away from the teleprompters, you can count on an hour and a half, two hour speech. He just, he runs, he rambles, he makes fun of everything, and he made so.... 

Rick Green [00:15:56] He does the weave. 

David Barton [00:15:57] Yeah, it is and he made so much fun of Democrats that they're going to be ballistic because they don't know how they don't know how to laugh. They don't have humor. Everything is a crisis and everything and so I think he was just really, really baiting them in so many ways and so I think you'll even see more extremism from them responding to what he did last night. And I mean he even had he said one of the funny moments of the night was with Ken Paxton. So Ken Paxton running against Talarico and you know, Trump earlier in the week had talked about Ken Paxton and the thing that Dems and others picked up on is Trump criticizing him that he doesn't dress all that well. And so, you know Trump making these comments, Trump makes comments about everything all the time. And so, you had Ken Paxton who spoke last night and it was okay. I mean, and when Trump got up, he just started going ad lib. And he said, now my, my guys told me not to say this. He said, but I'm going to say it. He said. Ken Paxton really doesn't dress that well. He just doesn't look that sharp. And you know, he really doesn’t' talk that sharp, he's just, and he went through three things, he said, but I'll tell you this, he's the best attorney general in the history of the United States. If it wasn't for Ken Paxton, we wouldn't have the wall on the southern border. And he just started, he said I don't care how he looks, I don't care how talks. He said I do goofy things too. He said but this guy's got the best policy, and it was the best backhanded endorsement I think I've ever heard. And it was something the Democrats thought they could use because, you know, he's talking about the way he doesn't dress proper, doesn't speak proper. But then he laid it on the policy and it was just, it was so many surprises to me last night where the Trump was outside of the box and I think got some terrific stuff accomplished. It's going to be very hard for the Democrats to deal with.  

Rick Green [00:17:44] Well, let's take a quick break guys, we've got some more clips to play, we'll be right back, you're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:18:55] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us talking about the convention from yesterday more going on today, of course but David you had us listen to Tim Scott who was another one that you thought was worth playing 

David Barton [00:19:06] Well, there were two that really stood out. Brandon Gill was one, and Brandon, I was surprised that Brandon is now a household national name. When he came up to speak as a congressman from Texas, and we in Texas are very familiar with the brilliant brain he has, and how he just, man, if you got a goofy witness or somebody doing something stupid, he will take you down just by asking questions. He doesn't have to embarrass you, he makes you embarrass yourself. And when he stepped up, I mean, it was rousing, loud ovation from all 50 states. I thought, wow, you know, Brandon's now got a national standing, which is great. So listen to a couple of clips of Brandon. You'll see how sharp he is on this. It's really good stuff. 

Brandon Gill [00:19:46] Good evening. It's an honor to be here at the Republican National Convention in the great state of Texas. Now I think it's only appropriate that we kick this convention off properly with a land acknowledgement. I'd like to acknowledge that we stand here today in the great state of Texas in the United States of America. The ancestral homeland of great American patriots, pioneers and explorers who put down roots, fought for freedom all over the globe, and bled and died to build the greatest civilization ever known to man. (applause)

Brandon Gill [00:20:53] My friends, we live in the finest country in the history of the world. And we're no longer going to apologize for that. We're hosting this midterm convention so that we can talk directly to you about our record and President Trump's accomplishments so that you can hear exactly what's at stake for our country this November. This election is very clear. It's the mainstream versus the extreme. Because there's another political movement in our country right now that doesn't believe that America is? Or ever was great. They sometimes call themselves socialists. Some even call themselves communists. But most of them simply go by Democrats. They're the ones who will tell you that your love for America is nothing but bigotry, that our heritage is rooted in white supremacy, and that your Christian faith is patriarchal and needs to be dismantled. That's extreme. They're the people like Democrat Congressional nominee Daria Eliza Chevalier, who tweeted, quote, I forgot to get napkins, so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me. And later said, quote, this country is a effing disgrace. That's extreme. There are people like Democrat Congressional nominee Flair Valdez, who described American foreign policy as one of, quote, white supremacy and capitalist exploitation. That's extremely. And here in Texas, we have James "God is non-binary there are six genders we need to dismantle capitalism" Talarico. It's somebody who will hollow out your most deeply held Christian faith and wear it like a skin suit. That's extreme. And now, as we near the 25th anniversary of 9-11, Democrats are nominating Abdulrahman Mohammed Al-Sayed, an extremist who sympathized with terrorists and who campaigned with a man who says America deserved 9-11. That's extreme and deplorable. Now, we have to admit that every party has their crazies. The difference is that the Democrat Party is nominating theirs for Congress. 

Rick Green [00:23:59] Wow. Yeah. He's, he's good in committee, but also good on stage guys. That's, that's phenomenal. So, man, David, I know you'd picked out some other folks that you thought just did an outstanding job, we're not gonna have time to play them. Maybe we can play some more on, on Friday, but you feel pretty good then after the first day. 

David Barton [00:24:14] Yeah, and you heard in that rhetoric how extreme they were, you know, wiping your hands on the American flag. And it's not like he had to look for this stuff. This is stuff that they're talking about and they post on social media themselves. And they're so radical that it seems normal to them. And I think that that's going to be maybe they're undoing this. Now it's all dependent on whether you can get this information out to voters, whether they can see this stuff, hear this stuff whether they'll turn out, whether they get and realize how extreme these guys are. Because if Trump loses either the House or Senate and can't move forward for the next two years, it is not gonna be a pretty picture for at least getting rid of the stuff. But there were so many good things that came out and I thought it was an excellent evening last night. 

Tim Barton [00:24:59] Well, Dad, too, this is where I would remind everybody as, uh, you know, one of the ladies we talked about probably coming from this convention is they're trying to encourage, the get out the vote, especially in some of these states where there is a divided Republican community on some of these candidates, but what I think is so great backing up to what Trump said about Ken Paxton is you look at the record. And one of the things we have to, first of all, remember as Christians is that we have a stewardship, we have a responsibility, we've a duty to show up and let our voice be heard because we the people are in charge. We are leaders in the nation that God has placed us in because that's what having a vote and a voice means. So we have the show up in vote. Well, if people are looking, going, man, I don't like any of these candidates, you vote for the one that the policies will do the most to advance biblical truth and freedom and those principles, or you vote for the ones whose policies will do the least damage to freedom and those principles, whatever it is, we have to be strategic, show up and vote and then vote for the best policies. And that's what President Trump was saying about Ken Paxton. When you look at what he's accomplished, what those policies are that he advocates, This is the best candidate for that position is what President Trump was saying. So show up and vote and vote for policies, not just personalities. 

Rick Green [00:26:15] Yeah, and let's build some momentum going into the election. So share today's program with your friends and family and definitely take a moment today to pray for Erica Kirk and the family, the Turning Point team, all of those who today obviously is going to be a very, very difficult day, but we know that God will hold them up and we know the God is already continuing to work and use Charlie's voice in an even broader platform than when he was with us. Thanks for listening today. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.