Ep 1341 | 'Trust Your Instincts': Our Journey Parenting A Child With Autism | Ron Simmons

Summary

Podcast Summary: Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey – Ep 1341

Title: ABC and NYT Normalize Leftist Calls for Violence | Ron Simmons
Date: May 2, 2026
Host: Ron Simmons (guest host for Allie Beth Stuckey)
Special Guest: Lisa Simmons

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Episode Overview

This insightful weekend edition of Relatable, hosted by Ron Simmons, tackles the normalization and downplaying of violent rhetoric by influential media and public figures, especially from left-leaning outlets. Ron examines recent events—including the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting—discusses the role of media rhetoric on political violence, highlights concerning recent statements from public figures, and closes with practical family discussions on autism, relationships, and faith, joined by guest Lisa Simmons.

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Major Segment Summaries and Insights

1. White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting

[00:00–15:08]

• Event Recap: Ron describes the chaotic shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner in D.C., noting the historical coincidence with where President Reagan was shot ([00:34]).
• Over 2,500 major political figures and journalists were present. A radicalized teacher from California attempted to breach security, shot a Secret Service agent (the vest saved them), and is now charged with attempted assassination ([02:35]).
• Discussion on the shooter’s planning, manifesto, and strong anti-Christian sentiments; emphasis on the planned, ideological nature of the attack, not an impulsive act ([04:00]).
• Ron draws analogies to biblical misinterpretation by those driven by evil. He emphasizes Christian responsibility to protect, not passively turn the other cheek when harm is imminent ([07:26]).
• Security Weakness: Shares personal experience with international security protocols, contrasting them to the event’s security lapses in D.C. ([08:32]).

Noteworthy Quotes

• Ron Simmons:
  • "People that are on the more extreme sides of both parties... going from talking to shooting is not a big step for them." ([11:49])
  • "These people always take little pieces of biblical information and turn it around because they're being controlled by Satan. That's what Satan does." ([07:13])

Key Points

• Radicalized voices (particularly on the left, in Ron’s view) are emboldened by irresponsible rhetoric from leaders and media.
• Ron draws attention to the lack of condemnation from some prominent Democrats and media members, referencing President Obama’s non-committal remarks about the shooter’s motives even after the manifesto was out ([13:43]).

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2. Media Rhetoric and Responses

[13:43–22:59]

• Media Framing: Criticizes media and political figures (e.g., Anna Navarro of The View) for comparing their experience at the shooting to schoolchildren—argues that these talking points miss the real issue of dangerous public rhetoric and personal responsibility ([13:43]).

• Presidential Reactions: Airs and discusses President Trump’s interview on 60 Minutes regarding political violence, the pervasiveness of hate speech, and the need for calm, not fear-driven leadership ([15:38], [16:54]).

  Quote – President Trump:

  • "I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats, much more so, is very dangerous. I really think it's very dangerous for the country." ([15:38])
  • "It's very important that they do it again [the dinner]. I think that's right… He does not govern out of fear." ([17:02])

• Security Funding Debate: Criticizes Democrats for reluctance to fully fund DHS and related agencies, arguing underfunding puts officials and the public at risk. Plays a statement from Press Secretary Levitt condemning Democrat obstruction ([19:40]).

• A Texas Political Note: Highlights a Senate race; criticizes Democrat James Talarico for not denouncing violent rhetoric from his own pastor.

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3. Jimmy Kimmel, ABC, and Normalization of Vitriol

[22:59–29:18]

• Plays and reflects on Jimmy Kimmel’s controversial “expectant widow” joke about Melania Trump, denouncing it as crossing a line by making light of presidential assassination ([23:15]).

• Shares Melania Trump's social media response, calling it “hateful and violent rhetoric” and urging ABC to take disciplinary action ([24:22]).

• Asserts this isn’t satire but hate speech, referencing Kimmel’s previous mockery of other high-profile attacks ([25:37]).

  Quote – Melania Trump (read by host):

  • "Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn't comedy. His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America." ([24:22])

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4. Platforming and Escalation: Hasan Piker and The New York Times

[29:18–31:13]

• Points to left-wing commentator Hasan Piker, whom the NYT has platformed, for openly justifying violence and even advocating for the killing of political and business figures ([27:46], [29:18]).

• SOTs played of Piker advocating the murder of U.S. Senator Rick Scott and celebrating property violence.

  Notable Quotes – Hasan Piker:

  • "If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott. … Let the streets soak in their red capitalist bloods." ([29:18–30:12])
  • "I'm pro piracy all the way, like across the board. Would you pirate a car? Yes." ([28:35])

• Host decries the NYT for legitimizing such voices: "If they're a legitimate journalistic output, they shouldn't be platforming a guy like this."

Major Concern:

The normalization of callous or even violent rhetoric in mainstream media, with the assertion that leftist rhetoric in particular is being dangerously excused or downplayed rather than condemned.

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5. Faith, Hope, and Perspective

[31:13–34:10]

• Ron reminds listeners that God remains in control despite cultural and political upheaval:
  • "Redemption of God's plan is going off without a hitch. Never ever, ever forget that God is in control and he knows all, he sees all." ([31:45])
• Brief update on the Iran Strait of Hormuz and nuclear negotiations: U.S. refuses to let Iran control nuclear diplomacy or regional sea lanes ([33:05]).

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6. Autism Awareness: Family, Faith & Advocacy

Guest: Lisa Simmons
[34:10–56:55]

Personal Family Journey

• Lisa and Ron candidly share the story of their son Daniel’s autism diagnosis and journey—his early development, speech delays, education, and challenges ([36:53]).
• Emphasis on parental instinct, early intervention, and persistent advocacy for proper diagnosis and services ([39:30]).
  • "Trust your instincts. That's what I always tell moms, if you think something's wrong, there probably is something wrong." – Lisa Simmons ([42:09])

Advice to Other Parents

• Push for proper medical and educational evaluation despite initial dismissals.
• Don’t accept defeatist predictions from experts; strive to provide opportunity and challenge assumed limitations (e.g., Daniel learned to ride a bike and even played hockey despite medical skepticism) ([44:24]).
• Advocating spiritual inclusion for special needs kids:
  • "When Jesus says, let the children come to me, he meant every child, no matter what the disability." – Lisa Simmons ([48:11])

Practical Guidance

• Fight for proper education and therapy in schools, leverage new state-level funding (e.g., Texas school choice for disabilities).
• Recognize the challenge of finding resources and support for adult children with disabilities; community and social programs must be sought out proactively ([54:13]).

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7. Listener Q&A – Life, Faith, and Practical Advice

[56:55–66:18]

Dating Red Flags (for girls without father figures):

• Assess school/work conduct, friends, how the person treats parents and others; watch for controlling versus leading behavior.
• "Control should be a red flag. Leading is through influence, control is through force." ([57:42])

Faith and Lawsuits:

• Biblical history supports seeking justice but only after reconciliation attempts ([59:20]).

Special Needs & Adult Investing:

• Invest in activities and passions (for Daniel: art, painting).
• Set up financial trusts for long-term needs ([60:53]).

Capitalism vs. Socialism (Teaching High Schoolers):

• U.S. provides higher median income and more opportunity; socialism redistributes downward, limiting achievement.

Fatherhood without a Father:

• Find diverse mentors for different life areas; recommend the book “Fathered by God” by John Etheridge ([64:40]).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "Never ever, ever forget that God is in control and He knows all, He sees all." – Ron Simmons ([31:48])
• "You got to do it. That's the responsibility we have—to give your kid the best opportunity to reach his maximum or her maximum potential." – Ron Simmons, on fighting for special needs children ([50:19])
• "If you got to know the difference between someone who wants to lead versus control, okay, you don't want someone… A control should be a red flag." – Ron Simmons ([57:42])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–15:08: White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting – overview, security, and cause analysis
• 13:43–22:59: Media responses, leftist rhetoric, President Trump’s interview
• 22:59–29:18: Jimmy Kimmel’s joke controversy, normalization of violent rhetoric
• 29:18–31:13: Hasan Piker & The NYT – platforming radical rhetoric
• 31:13–34:10: Christian sovereignty, Iran nuclear standoff
• 34:10–56:55: Autism acceptance month—Simmons family journey, advocacy tips
• 56:55–66:18: Listener questions—dating, housing, finance, faith, and more

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Tone & Closing

The overall tone is earnest, passionate, conversational, and deeply rooted in Christian/conservative worldview—both urgent about cultural dangers and encouraging about the power of faith and family resilience. Lisa Simmons’ guest segment adds vulnerability and warmth, particularly with emotional reflections on their autism journey. The episode closes with resource recommendations and gratitude for engaged listeners.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Hello. Hello. This is our WEEKEND edition of Relatable, which, as you remember, I'm doing a couple times a month. Thank you, Allie, for allowing me to do this. It's always a good time. And we have interesting subjects. We got a great show today. I'll tell you. In fact, we've got a special guest later in the show you're not going to want to miss. I promise you, it's going to be awesome. So hang with us through all of this. It's going to be really, really good. Now, first of all, when this comes out, we'll have had a few more days after the biggest what really is the biggest news event of the last week, and that is the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting. You all remember that this past Saturday night, there was a shooting at the Washington, D.C. hilton, which is kind of spooky because that's also where President Reagan was shot, actually just outside of that while he was exiting the building in 1981. And they had the White House Correspondents Dinner, which is a dinner they have every year, I think, just kind of celebrating they call it celebrating the First Amendment. But all the White House correspondents from all the media outlets are there and a lot of political figures are there as well. Obviously, the president was there this time. I don't think he went last time, but he was there this time and his wife and a lot of the Cabinet secretaries and a lot of members of Congress were there. So it was like 2,500 people in this essentially basement ballroom. And as you as was reported, there was a gentleman or not. Actually, gentleman's not the right way to even say that there was a scumbag who charged the security area. Now, it was in a different level above where the ballroom was. So he hadn't gotten to the ballroom, but charged that area and then started shooting and actually shot a Secret Service agent. Luckily, it hit their bulletproof vest and they're okay. And then he was tackled by Secret Service, and now he's in custody. He actually was arraigned this past week in a hearing and is going to be charged with attempted assassination of the president. President which carries a life sentence. And you can see on this video that's coming up about the chaos that was going on. You can imagine. In fact, I was listening to Bill O'Reilly yesterday, and he was talking about he was standing towards the back of the room. He and his son were there and he could hear the shots. But you can see the chaos that's going on. And the Secret Service as they come in to protect the President and the other people, what they call protectees that they're protecting. The speaker of the House was there as well. So it was mayhem. And if you don't know what's going on on chaos is what, what, what happens when things like that occur. And, you know, the President got back to the White house safely about 10 o' clock Eastern Time, and of course they canceled the event, although we'll see in just a couple of minutes that the President Trump has called for that being rescheduled. It was the third attempt on President Trump's life. I don't know how many attempts on lives that there have been for presidents in the past. I know that President Ford had a couple attempts on his life, and I'm sure there a whole lot more that we don't even know about. But to have three attempts on this President's life is pretty amazing. And it's amazing how he responds to it as well. I'm always impressed on his response to that. So there's a couple of other things that went on, is that as you saw some of this, we have a full screen that shows a picture of one of the President's closest aide, Stephen Miller, and you can see he's protecting his wife along. He's probably got protected people there. And then behind him to the left, if you're watching this is Hexith and he's standing over his wife as well. And you can see they're facing the stage and the back of where the shooter would come in, if he could have gotten through, would have been behind them. So they're definitely putting themselves in harm's way. And that's the type of people they are. I hope every husband would do that. I hope that you wouldn't pull a Doug and Carrie on the show of King and Queens, which, if you're not a King and Queens follower, you won't get that joke. But it's a pretty funny episode if you find it. Here's a little bit more information about the suspect. He was a teacher from Torrance, California. And so he wasn't just some drifter or some unemployed homeless person or anything like that. Now, he had been radicalized, there's no question about that. But he planned this out very well. If you've read any of his manifesto and some of the other things he's written on social media, this was not something that just he thought about doing overnight. In fact, he took a train from LA to Chicago and onto New York in order to be able to not go through this levels of security that he would have had to go through had he taken a plane. He checked into the hotel the night on Friday night before. And that hotel has about three. You can put about 3,000 people in that hotel. So I'm not sure having an event like that at a hotel that's coast so public is the right thing to do. I'm sure they'll reassess this. Of course, one of the things to do is get the ballroom finished so that they can have that totally secure and be able to protect all of the people that are in attendance at these types of events. He had a manifesto. Here's a few things that were on the manifesto. His intent was, was to take down administrative officials for some reason, not the FBI director, Mr. Patel. I'm not exactly sure why that is. And he wanted to prioritize it from the highest to the lowest. So the highest ranking administrative official is who? The President of the United States. Obviously he would have liked to have killed the President and then all the way down to whatever the lowest official was that was there as far as the hierarchy is concerned. He also was anti Christian. He had a whole bunch of anti Christian posts in his past. And you know, he talks about turning the other cheek and what have you. Well, you don't turn the other. If somebody is trying to commit violence on your friend or your family, you're not supposed to turn the other cheek and let them do that. You're supposed to be a protector. And that's what we're called upon to do. So again, it's just, it's always. These people always take little pieces of biblical information and turn it around because they're being controlled by Satan. That's what Satan does. If you've read any of CS Lewis's stuff, especially Screwtape letters, you'll see how Satan turns around or you see how Satan even did that in the Bible when Jesus went 40 days into the wilderness. And how Satan used little tidbits of what was, you know, what was biblical truth of the past to tempt the President. I mean, to tempt Jesus. And of course it was just half truth, not all truth. And that's what happens in these situations as well. The hotel security we have discovered the perimeter was probably not as broad as it should have been. I remember I used to do. I did some ministry work for an organization and I traveled to Romania a couple of times. And one of the times I went, I got stopped about a mile or two from my hotel, which was in the city center, kind of like this hotel. And I was not driving. I had. There's a driver, obviously like a taxi cab or Uber driver type person in front of me. And we had to get out. And they took all our bags out, searched all our bags, searched the car, everything, wanted to know who I was, you know, and where I was going. And I was staying at the JW Marriott in downtown Bucharest. And the reason that they had done this, not just for me, but for everybody coming within a mile or two of this hotel was because that's where they were having the. Either the G8 or the G20 summit. And it just so happened that all of the American delegation, including the President, President George W. Bush at the time, was staying in that hotel. And so I had to be searched way outside before we ever get into the hotel. And then when I got into the hotel, the. There was a Secret Service or some type of security person that was on the elevator every time you got on the elevator. And they wanted to know where you were going and who you were with, that type of thing. Now I will tell you the funny aside. I did get off the elevator one morning and snuck in and had ate the breakfast buffet with all of the delegation there, not the president, but all the State Department people and all that that were there. I just snuck in like I was one of them. So anyway, this was several years ago, but that was kind of funny. The guy also had. And we have some. We have some posts that he talked about on Blue Sky, Blue sky, which is a liberal kind of Twitter thing. He just, he said, you know, this is. And this is some of the stuff that you hear. We put a known traitor in the office who ran on revenge, who screwed up the response and has known connections to the murderous guy and the Kremlin, although he used different language than that. I mean, but it's the same thing that you hear in some of these protests, right? And this leads me, I just got to tell you guys, that when, when I was in the state legislature, I had dinner one night with a friend got friend that I had made there, a guy named Rusty Kelly. And he brought a couple of guys with him to the dinner and they were former Secret Service people. And this would have been in probably 2015. And even then, what they were telling me is they said, ron, people that are on the more extreme sides of both parties, whether it's the right or the left, going from talking to shooting is not a big step for them. Different than maybe how you and I would. We may argue vehemently and talk and Talk and talk and disagree and all that type of stuff. But the idea of taking that argument to the next level of bombing or shooting or harming someone is just not in our psyche. It's not our vocabulary. But these people that become radicalized that, that hear all of this talk that's being promoted in most cases today by the left on saying things, and we'll look at some of those in just a few minutes. Things like Hakeem Jeffrey said the other day about, you know, we're in a total warfare, right? And things like that, they take that and they say, well, if I go, which I think this guy, if you'll read his manifesto, if I go and act out on this, you know, you know, kill the president, then I'm going to be a hero. Now, I don't think that's what Congressman Jeffries intended, but I will tell you, it does add to. Does add to it. And if you look at all of the attempted assassinations and shootings that have happened in the last several years, they have almost all been done by the left. People on the left that have been radicalized in one way or another. All right. Through the stuff that they're reading on social media, the stuff that they're hearing their leaders talk about. And do I think that the right could calm down the rhetoric as well? Absolutely. I think we say some wrong things also. I know Allie's very careful not to do that, and she does a great job at disagreeing without being disagreeable, but most people don't do that. But this guy was obviously radicalized, made out a plan to do it, sent a thing to his parents and family right before he did it. You know, the brother called it into his local police department, but at that time, it was too late. Just luckily that no one was hurt. I mean, we're very, very, very fortunate. But, you know, the other thing is, though, some of the other leaders just didn't. Didn't look at it the same way we did. And here's what former President Obama put on on a post from X, it says, although we don't yet have the details about the motives behind last night's shooting. Now, this is, this is already after the manifesto had been out. So President Obama, either himself or through the people that he has around him, would have already known what the guy was saying. So to say that we don't know what his motive was is just. That's derelict, in my opinion. That is just not responsible and disappointed that he did that. I am glad that he made a comment about the courage and sacrifice that Secret Service does every day. Of course, he's still, he still has Secret Service protection, so he probably ought to treat them pretty well. But some other people in our media didn't even were worse than that. And here's sat one from the views, Anna Navarro. So that room was full of some of the most important political leaders in the country right now. Right now they know, they've lived it in their own flesh, the fear that

[B]

our school children go through.

[A]

Now they know what it's like to have to jump under a table the way that school children jump under a desk. Maybe now that they have felt the fear themselves, yeah, they will do something. Now, I don't know who they are that Anna's talking about. I think she's talking about a different they than I'm talking about the they should be. All of those correspondence in there and the rhetoric that they use day in and day out in attacking President Trump even before he was elected this last time, they spent basically all of Biden's term attacking President Trump as well. And so, yeah, I'm with you, Anna, if you're talking about the correspondence, you know, dialing down their rhetoric. Absolutely. And you know what? It should start with you and your friends on the show. Now, Anna, if you ever want to come on here and talk about that, you and I can have a nice conversation. You're welcome anytime. We'd love to have you come on and have a discussion with Allie or myself about your policy beliefs and how you think that the rhetoric should be taken care of. Now, President Trump did an interview with 60 Minutes, which I'm surprised that he went and done it, but you know him, he'll, he'll, he'll just do it. So he did an interview with 60 Minutes, and here's a little bit of what he talks about related to threats that happened. I mean, this, what happened in the White House correspondents dinner and threats of the past.

[B]

So also at the dinner last night was your secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His sister Kerry Kennedy was there. They've both witnessed their father and their uncle be assassinated. Erica Kirk was there. The House Majority Leader, Steve Scalise was there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Political violence has touched so many people in that room. Is there something that you as president can do? What can be done to change the trajectory?

[A]

You know, you go back 20 years, 40 years, 100 years, 200 years, 500 years, it's always been there. People are assassinated, people are injured, people are hurt. And I'm not sure that there's any more. Now than there was. I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats, much more so, is very dangerous. I really think it's very dangerous for the country. Yeah. I would disagree with the President on the fact that I do think it's more prevalent now and some of that could be that we're more aware of it because of the way 24 hour news cycle works. But if you think about the one she mentioned on the people that were have been killed or assassinated, it's all been by people that were at least aligned with the Democrat Party, which is really pretty disappointing. And you know, they talk about gun violence and all that, yet it's the people that align themselves with the Democrat Party that, that uses guns to cause harm to conservatives, which is kind of crazy. Another sot from President Trump about the actually rescheduling the correspondence dinner. I thought this was pretty good.

[B]

I know the White House Correspondents association very much appreciates you going last night and honoring a commitment to do it.

[A]

I hope we're going to do it again. Nora, tell him to get it going and we should do it within 30 days. And they'll have even more security and they'll have bigger perimeter security. It'll be fine. But tell them to do it again. We can't let something. It's not that I want to go. I'm very busy. I don't need that. I think it's very important that they do it again. I think that's right. And you know President Trump, he doesn't, he does not govern out of fear. And it would be the easiest thing for him to do is just, okay, let's just blow this off this year. But that's not who he is. And I think that was great. I wish we had the new ballroom done. We could do it there. But wherever they have it, they're going to end up having it. The security will be better. And I am interested to see as they analyze this security scenario, I'm sure they did this security like they've done it at that hotel in the past. But as they analyze this, I think they'll come up with some different protocols for perimeter security. It's really kind of crazy that this guy was able to get even down to that level. The other thing that we have to remember in all of this, remember we still don't have full funding of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees all of this, Secret Service, overseas border Security, tsa, all of those. We still have the Democrats unwilling to fund those offices. Now. We found some temporary funding which is getting Ready to run out. But the Democrats absolutely want to basically get rid of the ice. And the Republicans are never going to agree to that. They're never going to agree to that, nor they should. Now, are there some protocols that maybe we need to change to make it safer for everybody? Yes, but we can't make it such that trying to make it safe for everybody puts the people that work for ICE at more risk. You cannot do that. All right. People that go in there, like those unfortunate people that passed away as a result of the shootings from ice, but as, but what started with their own activities, people have to know that when you're involved in a law enforcement activity, if you're interrupting that, that there are risks to you. All right? And we don't want anybody to get killed, but there are risks to you. And you need to be a law abiding. It's one thing to protest peacefully, verbally, but when you cross that line, you're putting yourself and others at risk. So they need to fund. And Press Secretary Levitt talks about that.

[B]

These men and women are heroes. They perform their duties daily and they have children and families too. And they do it despite the political turmoil surrounding their agency. Make no mistake, this defunding of DHS should be a national security scandal. If Republicans defunded DHS and we saw in another attempted assassination on a Democrat president, I would hope that the media coverage would be relentless and unforgiving and I hope that it continues to be. Now with the World Cup, America 250, the 2028 Olympics and a presidential election all ahead, the Democrats obstruction is placing an enormous and totally pointless burden on the Secret Service that can get more people killed. Enough is enough.

[A]

Amen to that. Amen. One last thing on this, and this is mainly for people that are live in Texas, but as you know, we have a U.S. senate race that's going on and James Talarico is the, is the Democrat and again he's been invited on this show as well. Ali wants to talk to him, but they keep avoiding us. So hopefully, if you're listening out there, anybody that knows him, some of my former colleagues in the legislature know him, we need to get him on the show and talk about his quote, unquote, biblical worldview and what that, what he really means. But Senator Cornyn, who is his opponent and Cornyn is still in a runoff, but if he wins the runoff, he'll be against Talarico in the general election, talked about what Talarico's mentor and pastor said because his pastor in the Service on Sunday basically was, although he didn't promote violence, he didn't denounce it either. And that was pretty disappointing. And I'm glad that Senator Cornyn came out and called him out and called Representative Talarico out on that as well.

[C]

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[A]

Next subject we're going to talk about is Jimmy Kimmel. And this is a little bit related to the White House Correspondents Dinner, but it's about a joke that he told the night a couple nights before. It's in SOT 5. Our first lady Melania is here. Look at Melania. So beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow. Wow. Wow. Now, first of all, Melania wasn't where this guy was. Obviously, they, they, they put in a picture there of her at another event. But for him to say that you look, you have the glow of an expectant widow, seems to me that he. Well, I don't think Jimmy is telling somebody to go out there and kill somebody. I, I do think that he is making light of what has been, as we already know from the two previous assassination attempts, attempts on President Trump's life and the fact that, you know that we should be happy if he's dead. In fact, even his wife would be happy if he's dead is what he's implying there. And of course, Kimmel did not walk it back. He continues to stand by it as satire and First Amendment and all this type of stuff. But I'm like President Trump. I think President Trump said this too. He ought to be fired immediately. In fact, Melania Trump responded on X calling for ABC to take a stand. And this is what she said. She said Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn't comedy. His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel should, shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward. Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. And they have. But enough is enough. It's time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior at the expense of our community? I tell you what, you get a mama bear riled up, they will tell it like it is. And I appreciate her, I appreciate her doing that. Also the President Trump on Truth social talks about it as well. And you can see here I won't read the whole thing, but essentially what he says at the bottom, I appreciate. So many people are incensed by Kimmel's despicable call to violence and normally would not be responsive to anything he said. But this is something far beyond the pale to Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC and always like what the President does. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. Trump always appreciate his sign off on that. So anyway, I agree with that 100%. Jimmy Kimmel is a leech on society, there's no question about that. And he has been a. He's got Trump derangement syndrome as bad as anybody out there. And he's been anti Trump since day one. And he continued, remember, he also made fun of Charlie Kirk's assassination as well and totally not allowed. There is. Free speech is one thing. Hate speech is another thing. And that's what he is doing now. Speaking of hate speech, if you think that's something, I also wanted to bring this up and the reason that we talk about these things, of course, this is what just happened in the news this past week. So that's important for you to have a view of that and an understanding of that. I so much appreciate President Trump's bravery. And he's not, you know, scared away by things like this. So good that that's the type of leader that we have. But also there are other people out here that are inciting things that we need to pay attention to. And you need to make sure you're listening to because maybe your kids are listening to it, even if you're not. So you need to be aware of it. And this Hassan Piker, all right, Hasan, and I wasn't totally familiar with him, but then I saw that the New York Times basically platformed him, allowed him to participate in some of their communications. And this guy is, he's even worse than Jimmy Kimmel. A few days before the correspondence dinner, Piker was interviewed by the New York Times where he suggested the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was justified, claiming Thompson had participated in social murder. So he thinks, here's the challenge folks. People like Hassan Piker and these other people, they believe that the ends justifies the means no matter what. And as you can see on SOT 6 here, what Piker says about the, the actual cold blooded murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

[D]

Engels wrote about the concept of social murder. And Brian Thompson as the United Healthcare CEO was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder. The systematized forms of violence, the, the structural violence of poverty, the, the for profit paywalled system of, of health care in this country. And the consequences of that are tremendous amounts of pain, tremendous amounts of violence, tremendous amounts of deaths.

[A]

And that's, that's incredible. And of course he didn't show it on this one, but two ladies sitting there with him were just sitting there agreeing with him. And then also he thinks it's okay if he comes and steal your automobile or any, basically anything that you have listen to sat7.

[D]

I'm pro piracy all the way, like across the board. Would you pirate a car? Yes. You know, if you could, if it was just a classic thing back in the day, the government funded anti piracy initiatives would be like, would you steal a car? Yeah, sure, if I could get away with it. If it was as easy as, you know, pirating ip, I would do it.

[A]

I mean that's just, that's ridiculous. I mean that is just crazy. But unfortunately that's not even the worst stuff he said he has called for the direct murder of people. And here are two SOTs, SOD 8 and SOT 9. We're going to play them back to back. And then I'll talk about them.

[D]

If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott. Ok? You wouldn't make Rick Scott former governor of Florida Rick Scott. You wouldn't make him the current, what is his current office? What is he? He's the. Richard Lynn Scott is an American attorney, businessman, politician, Navy veteran, serving as the senior United States Senator from Florida seat he has held since 2019. And also I believe this past election cycle he was literally the head of the, what was it like the Senate committee or something. Hurt poor people that they can, they, they can afford housing in Berkeley. I don't know how that. Well, my understanding is that the property owners who have properties there choose just

[A]

not to rent it at all. Yeah, kill that result in the street.

[D]

Let the streets, Let the streets soak in their red capitalist bloods.

[A]

Okay? Now people can say, he can go online and say that if he wants to, although that probably is borderline threats and part of a. Could be linked to a conspiracy to do some harm. But the New York Times, if they're a legitimate journalistic output, they shouldn't be platforming a guy like this. I mean that's just way, way, way over the line. In fact, he also has said in the past that the US deserved 911 on a Twitch stream. He's a big twitcher. So anyway, this guy's a nut. In New York Times, you just continue to show when you say that it's all the news that's fit to print. Are you kidding me or is it really nothing that's fit to print? Because when you give a guy like this a platform that's not worth it. But we need to be aware of that. Cause your kids grandkids might be on Twitch, they might see some of his stuff. We can't just assume that they're not seeing that. That's why you have to be informed of it. So anyway, we got a lot of stuff going on out there. But as Ali says, and as my little water cup, coffee cup here says, it says redemption of God's plan is going off without a hitch. Never ever, ever forget that God is in control and he knows all, he sees all. But if you go through the Bible, there's always times of ups and downs and turmoil and what have you. And part of that is that he continues to be calling us. How do we purify ourselves? How do we become more Christlike, how do we strive to do what's commanded for us to do? And those are the types of lessons that we need to learn and we need to share with others as things are going on around us that maybe are not very comfortable at all. All right, the Iran, just real quickly on Iran, they have a new proposal in which is not even that great of a proposal. It's kind of stupid. They said, okay, here's what we'll do. If you will open up the Strait of Hormuz, then we'll talk to you about getting rid of our nuclear stuff. Are you kidding me? I mean, do you really think we're going to do that where we're going to let you can, you know, get all the money that you need, kind of like President Obama sending you all that money in that airplane that time, and then you want to agree to talk to us about your nuclear stuff? Do you not realize that that's not going to happen, that we're not going to stop short of you agreeing to get rid of your nuclear materials, allow inspections in there on a regular basis, and then not treat the Strait of Hormuz like your private river because it is not. And if that takes our Navy being over there for a long period of time, then we'll do it. As I told you last time we had an episode. We've done that in the past. And we'll do it. We will do it again. So I don't think this is going to have any headway. I do think they'll keep talking. I think, again, that we still have the leverage on this and that it'll eventually work out to our advantage, but we're not going to go backwards and allow them to control their ability to have a nuclear warhead. So we'll keep you informed on that. And we're going to keep that blockade in place. All right. Now, coming up next is going to be your surprise guest, and we're also going to talk about a really cool subject that I talked about a little bit last time. And then we're going to take some some listener questions. So we'll be right back. Welcome back. And as I promised earlier in the show, we have a special, special guest who's been on the show before with Ali, but it's been a long time. We have Ali's mom and my wife Lisa with us today.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Glad to be here.

[A]

Yeah. Thank you for being here, Lisa. I know this is not necessarily your favorite thing to do.

[B]

No.

[A]

Although you do communicate a lot.

[B]

Well, I like to communicate in different ways. I like to write and I like to, you know, sing and write music. So that's my.

[A]

Yeah. And Lisa is, you don't know this. Lisa is a great songwriter. And maybe somewhere in the show notes, we can put how to find some of Lisa's songs that have been recorded by some people. We don't have a number one hit yet, but we're moving in that direction, right?

[B]

Oh, hopefully.

[A]

Yeah, that'll be good. That'll be awesome. So anyway, but I wanted Lisa to come on. First of all, we are going to. At the end, we're going to answer some of your questions that you've always send in for us. And actually, when I answer these questions, a lot of times, I've already talked to Lisa about some of them. So a lot of the answers you get from me, really, Lisa had input on. And she'll be here directly for that today. But what I first wanted to do last time that I was on, we talked about autism. This is autism awareness or autism acceptance month here in the month of April. This actually will probably come out on May 1st. And we have had a journey with autism in our family, as you know. We have our son, allie's brother, Daniel, 41 years old, and he is on the autism spectrum. In fact, I told you about a book last time that Lisa wrote called I Would have Said yes and offered free copies if you wanted one. We had a limited number at home, and in 24 hours, I got 50 requests. So all of those were sent out. We did find that you could actually still buy it on Amazon. Even though it's been over a decade, you could still be able to get that. And so what I just thought with this type of response, we need to have a conversation. So I asked Lisa to come in with me today, and we're just going to talk about our experience. Give you. We are by no means experts. Okay? Lisa is much more of an expert than me, but no means expert. So we're going to have a conversation for the next few minutes and talk about our journey with autism. Maybe give you some ideas, some thoughts on what we've learned and maybe what we would even have done different if we could do it all over again. So, Lysa, what a. Let's start out just by talking about, you know, you were educated as a teacher. All right. And of course, I believe that God made you primarily to be a mom. Cause you have great mom instincts. And. Oh, let me just tell y' all up front, I'm a leaker, so I could start crying during this. I just want you to know that up front, that's just. That's just the way it is. But tell us about you know, the pregnancy with Daniel and kind of when he was first born, just kind of what, what you saw, what you thought.

[B]

Yeah, our, the pregnancy was normal. I had no issues. This is our second pregnancy. We had a three year old when Daniel was born. And so there's, there was nothing to alert me that something could be wrong. But as I think all mothers have sort of this instinct when as soon as you put that baby in the mother's arms, at least for me, I just had a sense that something's wrong, something's not quite right. And I don't know if it was the furrowed brow that he came into the world with just like, what in the world just happened?

[A]

And you know, I was perfectly happy where I was.

[B]

I was perfectly happy. And so I don't know if it was that or just some kind of sense that something was not right. And as he progressed through the stages that babies go through, he was always on the tail end of the scale. And, you know, the doctors kept telling me, I'm just comparing him to Justin, don't compare your kids, don't compare your kids to other kids. But you, you kind of have to, you know, if you're a mom and you see that your child is still just laying there on the ground and everybody else is sitting up and they're playing with things and they're interacting, that's, that's okay to compare that, you know, that something's wrong. So, you know, we went through all of those things until he was almost three and then finally a doctor, because he wasn't talking, he was saying words here and there, but he wasn't talking. As a almost three year old, you

[A]

would expect, which is definitely unusual based on the fact that we have a two year old granddaughter now.

[B]

Yes, very verbal and Justin was very verbal. And again, I tried not to compare, but you kind of have to. This doctor finally said, well, let's get his hearing tested. And that is what set us on the road to finding out, okay, what kind of, exactly what we're dealing with. Although really the word autism was not spoken, there was no genetic testing to be done at that time.

[A]

The only thing we knew about autism was Rain man, the movie, I think had been out.

[B]

We're talking. Daniel was three in 1988.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we're, you know, early on in this journey and knowing anything. And anyway, it turned out I knew he had perfect hearing because he understood what I said. Anything I told him to do, he did it. So he understood. Language just wasn't coming out. And I Think providentially. You had just started a job where your boss's daughter was a speech therapist.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we started going to her three days a week. Goodness gracious.

[A]

Yeah, we started going to her three days a week to try to get his speech going so he could communicate.

[B]

Yeah, we did that for a year. And then it was like a, you know, a light bulb moment. He started talking and he never stopped. It has not stopped. And you know, so there's been all the ins and outs of that.

[A]

I mean, what should moms look for? Right. I mean, because we know that early intervention is critical to how far they can progress. And so what? And a lot of moms, we don't want anything to be wrong with our kids. Dads too. Okay. And we only talk about moms because they're generally the primary caregiver. But what should they be looking? Because we know that it looks like at least nowadays you can actually have. And again, testing for autism is non invasive or anything like that, and you can actually have some pretty accurate testing done by age 3 or 4. What do you think they should be looking for?

[B]

Well, as it said, if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. So everybody's journey is going to be different, just as everybody's child, whether they're autistic or not, is different. But, you know, there are some things. Usually kids on the spectrum tend to be more, what we call floppy. They don't have a lot of muscle tone, they tend to just be a little later. Some is more exaggerated. They, you know, their fine motor skills are, their fine motor skills are just delayed. And so just looking at those things, it doesn't always mean it's autism.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You could just have, you know, a learning difference and that's not autism. So autism has been, you know, sort of broadly defined these days. But, you know, I think, again, trust your instincts. That's what I would. I always tell moms, if you think something's wrong, there probably is something wrong.

[A]

And just because your doctor says it's not doesn't mean that that's true. And it's nothing against doctors, but you have to push, right? Because no, you gotta remember when you leave the doctor's office, when you leave the therapist office, they're not thinking about your child. As wonderful as they might be, you're the one that's thinking about your child and you're the one that has to be the greatest advocate.

[B]

And on the other hand, when a doctor tells you something, oh, your Child is never going to be able to do X, Y or Z.

[A]

Talk about that with Daniel a little bit.

[B]

When, when we left our first real testing, Daniel was about 5.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the doctor said, you know, according to his test, he has PDD nos,

[A]

which is they don't know what the heck it is.

[B]

Pervasive Developmental Disorder, not otherwise specified, which means we don't know what the heck it is. And, but whatever it is, it's affecting his whole body. So we. He gave me sort of a list. I remember him sitting right beside me and he had Daniel for, you know, now you see how he's running and how his gait is, you know, that means he's, he's never going to ride a bike. He's never going to, you know, just do all the, all the kid things. And so I shook my head like I, you know, okay, I hear you. And he got a bike for Christmas. And because I wasn't going to let my five year old, who. I just wasn't gonna take that as an answer.

[A]

We weren't willing to say no at the time.

[B]

We were going to treat him as like a typical five year old as

[A]

much as we could without putting him in danger. That's right.

[B]

Right. And so you just, I think again, that's an instinct. And if you allow the doctors who, yes, they've had maybe more education than you've had, they've had maybe more experience working with these kids than you have. But you know your child and you know your ability to work with your own child. And so we got that bicycle, put the training wheels on it, propped the training wheels up on bricks so they could pedal. So it was like a stationary bike. And I held his feet on the pedal and just. And we did that until he got muscle memory in his legs. And then he rode and he rode. He rode a two without training wheels. He was actually on a rollerblading hockey team at one point.

[A]

Yeah, that's right.

[B]

I didn't remember that. Don't just take the first answer.

[A]

Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. And you know, one thing you said earlier was about that they understand more than they can. Can communicate. And Daniel's always been that way. Still that way. Today he understands more than he can sometimes enunciate. Talk about how parents, maybe Lisa should think about sharing Christ. With their kids. Right. How should that. I mean, obviously we shouldn't back off from that. Right? I mean, we know Christ loves them.

[B]

Your special needs child, whatever, if it's autism or whatever special needs, they have they need to know Jesus in whatever capacity that they can. And for Daniel, at about age 6, we used to listen to a Dallas radio station, Christian radio station, KCBI 90.9. And we would listen to that going to school. And one day he heard somebody. I didn't even know he was listening. And I certainly didn't know if he could comprehend or understand something as deep as a spiritual need for a savior. And he was sitting in the backseat and I'm just driving, listening. And he said, mom, am I going to go to heaven? And everything in me wanted to say yes, because I wanted and I did believe that God was gonna protect him. And because he couldn't understand probably, you know, I wanted to say yes, but I didn't. I said, daniel, would you like to ask Jesus into your heart? And he said yes. And he wanted me to stop right then. And I said, well, we need to get on the toll road. We need to get to a parking place. So we pulled into his little school and in the parking lot he got down on his knees in the backseat of that Suburban. And gave it up and asked Jesus into his heart. And I believe that that was real. And I know that God saw that little, you know, child who we thought maybe couldn't understand big concepts. But when Jesus says, let the children come to me, he meant every child, no matter what the disability area.

[A]

So don't ever give up on them. And if you have to fight at your church to get proper teaching and those types of things, then make sure that you're doing that, okay? It's okay to do that. We've struggled with churches, okay? And we go to some really, we've been to some really good God fearing Bible preaching churches and they're much better now than they used to be. But man, they struggle with really knowing how to minister to them. But don't give up on that because a lot of families with kids with disabilities, they end up not going to church, okay? And again, I hate to say this, but that's part of the spiritual warfare that's out there that's fighting us every single day. And Satan uses all the tricks, all the arrows in his quiver and we can't allow that to happen. Now talk a little bit about what would we do different if we had to do it all over again. We already know we said yes, but what would we do different? I mean, we went down a lot of rabbit trails and I'm not sure we should or shouldn't have. I just don't know.

[B]

Well, we didn't really have a choice, because there wasn't. We had no Internet. There was, you know, this is again, late 80s through the 90s. And so there was nothing. There was no way other than just word of mouth of how to find therapists. Were there even therapists? I didn't know any of that.

[A]

There wasn't such thing as ABA therapy at the time that we knew about,

[B]

not that we knew about. And so just whatever you heard from somebody, you're like, okay, we'll try that. And so we tried a lot of things that were. Probably had great intentions, but that didn't help us anyway. You know, we were kind of the guinea pigs on the biofeedback that had just started when Daniel was about 12 or 13 years old. And yeah, and it was very expensive.

[A]

It was super expensive. We were blessed to be able to afford things, but even then, you know, we weren't super wealthy. And we sacrifice to do it. And that's why I want to tell you dads, you know, if it takes you going out there and getting a second, third job, then you got to do it. You got to do it. I don't care. I don't really don't care what you think about it. That's something that we need to do. That's the responsibility we have to give your kid the best opportunity to reach his maximum or her maximum potential, for sure.

[B]

And you were really good at. At fighting insurance companies. We got things paid for that probably they wouldn't be able to.

[A]

And most insurance companies will say no the first time. Remember that. And then you just have to keep fighting and fighting and fighting, because most people will not fight. They just will not. Just like your local school district, when you go in for your individual education program and your outside people are telling you, your therapist and everything is, hey, he needs, you know, 30 minutes of speech therapy a day. And your IEP says, oh, you need 30 minutes of month. Don't accept that. You have to fight, okay? And you have the right to fight for that. The school, the government says that every student should be given the education opportunity on which they can best learn. And if that means that your school system has to pay for your child to go to a private school because they can't do it, then that's what they have to do. Now in Texas, we just put this new school Choice program in, $500 million a year set aside. And the first people that are eligible, it's tiered because you're going to run out of money in a state. Biggest Texas are people with Disabilities that can get up to $30,000 a year for private education so that the ones that specialize in it. Now, you may have a public school that's really good at it, and if so, I encourage you to stay with them, but stay on top of it. You can't assume, because everybody says they're good at it that your teacher's going to be good. How, how many stories do we have to hear about school teachers abusing special needs children before that we can convince parents that you can never, ever, ever not be paying attention to that. I know in Texas you can even request that there be cameras in the room and what have you. So what are some of the resources or anything else that you want to say about this? Lisa, before we get into the questions,

[B]

reiterate what you just said about staying on top of it in the public schools while they are required to have that IEP and do what's best for the child, it doesn't always play out that way. And so it's exhausting to have to call up there, but you have to be a pest. Now, I will say also be an encourager. If you're only calling to complain, that's going to get old. So if you can call sometime and say, you know, my son came home, he was so happy today. Could you call the teacher and tell them that and be an encourager, but also stay on top of that. And that is year to year. You can be in a great school this year and that same school next year totally fails for your child.

[A]

What type of resources do you have that maybe they could.

[B]

Well, the hard, you know, we'll try

[A]

to put some of these in the shop.

[B]

And getting through childhood is hard. And you think, and I thought this, let's just get to adulthood. Let's just, you know, it's so hard. It's hard making friends. It's hard, you know, all the social, you know, hurdles that you have to go through. It's harder being an adult because all those programs are gone.

[A]

Yeah, that's right.

[B]

And so now you've got to figure it out really on your own. And it's gotten a little better. And there are like, I think about the school for teaching technology, how to do, you know, create games and all the things at Non Parel Institute, which is in Plano. And I think they have some other campuses as well. But. And we'll put their link. But it's just for adults on the spectrum, they have to be post high school to be able to go there. There are places where they can get a job, and you can talk about the Texas workforce, how they help with that. But there's places like Biddy and Bo's, which is a coffee shop, and there's hugs cafe in McKinney. You know, those are just little local places.

[A]

Same types of things in your communities. Those of you have to go look

[B]

for those, but you got to look for them. Yeah. And then there are other adult, just social programs. And my friend Brooke Henson let me look up what. What hers is called, All My Friends. All My Friends. And she does a great job of. Of helping adults on the spectrum connect. And there are these types of programs probably in your city. And then if you can find Christian education for your child and if maybe you can get some parents together and start one, that would be awesome. Those are very hard to do.

[A]

I would say I wish somebody would do this, that somebody has to be us.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's not fun either.

[B]

That's not fun.

[A]

You know, that's really not fun.

[B]

But anyway, those are just a few. And we'll put. We'll put those links in the show notes.

[A]

So good. Anyway, I just wanted y', all, you know, thought you'd enjoy a little bit about our journey. As you can tell, it's still emotional for us. Daniel's 41 years old now. He's really into painting. Poor painting is what he does. And, you know, a lot of cool things we could talk about in the future, too, of what he's done when he's been an adult that are touch points as well that I think you all appreciate. But let's get to a few questions from the audience. Lisa. All right, number one, what's the best advice on red flags to be aware of when dating men? And this is for a girl whose dad left. So no relationship with their dad. So what. What do they need to look for, Lisa, in, you know, when they're dating someone or getting ready to date someone?

[B]

Well, it depends on kind of their age. I mean, if we're talking about a teenager, you know, obviously you're going to want to look at their school conduct and how they perform in school and that kind of thing. Their friends, who they hang around. If we're talking about a grown man, then you're also going to want to look at who their friends are, how they treat other people, how they treat their parents. And that goes for the teenagers as well. Does he have a job? If it's a man, you know, if he doesn't. Why.

[A]

Yeah, that's the reason.

[B]

That's a Big one.

[A]

He's on a career path to just keep getting educated.

[B]

Yeah, no, that's a red flag.

[A]

The thing I think is if you got to know the difference between someone who wants to lead versus control, okay, you don't want someone. A control should be a red flag. And I've struggled with this my whole time because my deal is, okay, if we do it my way, it'll all work out fine. Right. But there's a difference in controlling and leading. Leading is really through influence. Control is through force. And so you want to watch how he operates in that scenario. Okay, this one for me, if interest rates fell to the 5 and 5% or so, the price of homes are still unattainable for many. What's my opinion? I agree with you on that. Again, as I talked about, I think last time, it's going to get better. We still have a housing shortage, and a lot of that was caused by the illegal immigration influx over the last four years. But that's now kind of gone down to a trickle. So I do think it'll get better. The other option, though is can you move to a place that's less expensive as far as maybe a different town or a different state and still be able to be gainfully employed? You should look into that because the, you know, if you live in California and you make 100,000 a year, but you got to buy a million dollar house then, and would you be better off living in South Carolina, making $60,000 a year on a $200,000 house, which is the same type of house? You have to think about those types of things. Is it wrong to file a lawsuit? As a Christian, I would say the answer to that is no. But it shouldn't be your first option. You know, back in biblical times, God set up judges and people would take their grievances to judges and the judges would determine what the answer was. And sometimes the answer was, hey, you need to give that person some of your crops or some of your livestock or something like that. So the end result was the same. And I've had to be involved in lawsuits. It was not anything that I enjoyed or was pleasant. But sometimes that is the only answer at the end. But you should always, especially against a fellow brother or sister in Christ, you should always try to resolve that outside the courtroom. Okay, what kind of things do I and Lisa invest in for Daniel? Autism as an adult? And I can talk about the investment. What else, though, would you say as far as what should people invest in their time when their child is now an adult that's on the spectrum.

[B]

Well, you definitely have to invest in things they're interested in. Right now Daniel's very interested. And since really, since COVID before that, it was photography for him. But all of a sudden, during COVID he came and asked me if I had any paint, which I've always liked crafts, so I had a ton of craft paint and I gave it to him. He had never expressed any interest in painting before, but he suddenly comes out with these like really good abstract art. And I was like, wow, okay. And he's never stopped. And so we've invested a lot in canvases and paint and art classes and all of the things.

[A]

So this is mostly kind of abstract. In fact, I don't know if we can get this on camera or not, but this is a picture of a flag that he has painted for his older brother because his brother asked him to do it. And you can see it's not going to be detailed, but it's abstract. And his brother, who is a U.S. attorney, is going to put that in his office at the Federal building, which is kind of, kind of cool. And that's an oil paint. He said, dad, now it takes a week to dry. So he had to tell me that last night. But as far as investing, if it's talking financially again, you want to look at what their needs are long term and invest accordingly. If it's a long term need, we have a trust set up for Daniel. So right now, while he doesn't have to have the money in that trust to live on, that's invested more in the equities market, kind of like an S&P 500 index fund. He has to live on. You got to make sure it's more conservative than that. All right, just a couple more. What have been the ramifications, good or bad, for cutting usaid? Remember that usaid, that's where we sent all this money to foreign countries and what have you? Well, one of the biggest things is we've got 14,000 less federal employees, right? So 14,000 less federal employees. That means it saved tax dollars. It also what we did is we didn't get rid of all those programs. We realigned them them so that they're more in align with our interest. We were funding some crazy things. We were funding dei, we were funding abortion related services overseas and all that. And so those are being revamped and we were doing that at the tune of 60 to 70 billion dollars a year. That wasn't doing anything for America. And so those are being revamped and making sure that if we do do these aid programs that they follow what we believe and are basically our Judeo Christian values that our country was established on. So that's a good question and I think it's going well. The other thing it says, I would love positives about capitalism over socialism. Trying to teach a high school freshman. Well, there's just a couple of things. One, so most people would a purely socialist country is like China and Korea and what have you, but what we call democratic socialist, which is what most of the people that own that line in our country are about. It's a country like Sweden. And I think your high school freshman would relate to this. Sweden or Germany. Here's really all you need to know. The average family income in the United States is $80,000 a year. In Sweden, it's $45,000 a year because the government still takes most of it. Also, the average cost of a home in Sweden is $360,000 a year. All right. In the US it's a little higher, $380,000 a year, but you make almost double the money in the US that's the difference between capitalism and socialism, right? Is that you're going to be much better off financially because you're going to be able to achieve as much as you can achieve as opposed to kind of, okay, I'm going to lower my achievement level down to the median and we're all going to kind of achieve the same. It doesn't work like that. You know, we're a sports culture a lot of wise. We're a sports culture and we don't really like ties, right? We like winning or losing. We like the winner. Sometimes we are the underdog. We want to build up the person that doesn't have a chance and maybe they'll overcome it sometimes. But in socialist countries, it's not like that. You have to give up your excellence in order to help to move yourself down to the average. And that's not something that you're going to to want, want to do. All right, last one I'm going to read is for a young man who wants to be a great dad but has no father figure. Where do I start? I can relate to this in a way. As you know, my mom and dad divorced when I was 17 and my dad, our relationship, while it's okay, has not been close. So what I would recommend that you do is buy the book by John Etheridge called Fathered by God. That's a really, really good book. Really good book. And Then also I think you have to look for other mentors. I made it. I made a point to look for other mentors in different areas of my life and learned I didn't look at one mentor to mentor me in everything. I wanted different spiritual mentor than a financial mentor. And they changed over time too. You know, I have different mentors throughout different stages of my life. So that's what I would do with that. On the next show, the person that had the question about the census on Wall Street Journal article, I will talk about that. Or either you can email me any question ronsimmons.com and if you want to get my book, you just order it off of Ali's website or you can email me and I think 20 bucks I'll send you a book, signed and everything. Don't forget to get Allie's book. This is a great book. It's so important right now. What she's talking about right now is so, so important as far as toxic empathy in this book. And it's not about about being empathetically toxic. It's about how the left uses our empathy against us. Make sure you do that right after you buy your tickets to share the arrows, which is coming up in October. Thanks again. I know we went a little long today, but hope you enjoyed the conversation. Lysa, thank you for being here. I hope you enjoyed it. We almost kept it together.

[B]

That's hard for us to do these days.

[A]

Take care, Sam.