Who Is the REAL Lindsey Graham? | Guest: Christopher Bedford | 7/17/26

Summary

Steve Deace Show — “Who Is the REAL Lindsey Graham?”

Date: July 17, 2026
Host: Steve Deace
Guests: Christopher Bedford (Editor-in-chief, The Blaze), Todd Erzin, Aaron McIntyre

Episode Overview

In this episode, Steve Deace and his co-hosts welcome Blaze Editor-in-Chief Christopher Bedford for their weekly “Dacecrew” panel and “Feedback Friday.” The core theme revolves around public and conservative reactions to the death of Senator Lindsey Graham, the complexity of his legacy, as well as broader cultural and political fault lines within America. The show mixes sharp conservative critique, snarky humor, and listener engagement on issues ranging from education to faith.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Opening: “Issue One — Bleep Lord Nefarious” (00:36–12:05)

A satirical media montage is played, stringing together recent left-leaning political and cultural soundbites, sparking the panel’s critique.

Main Discussion Points:

• Homeschooling Critique: The panel is disturbed by a woman's anti-homeschooling comments, using harsh language and voicing discomfort with parental involvement in education.
  • Chris Bedford (05:10):
    “The worst was that bird creature saying she hates to be around her children ... because of all those people, she is the least likely I would ever want to have a beer with.”
  • Steve Deace (07:14):
    “There is a window to the soul of why you see much of what's in Aaron's montage. Just a completely diametrically opposite worldview, diametrically opposite priorities, and so unhappy because of that...”
• Medical Authority & Gender Debates:
  • Criticism of medical professionals and institutions unwilling to clearly define biological sex.
  • Todd (08:43):
    “A formal setting like you, that should be, like, automatic. You're fired ... Like, it's a math expert. What's one plus one equals two? Rutabaga. Oh, you're fired.”
• Transgender Asylum Anecdote and Modern Discontent:
  • The group dissects the contradictory rhetoric of a trans person seeking asylum for safety but criticizing both U.S. and abroad.
  • Aaron (10:41):
    “Seems like a bit of a selling point, so maybe you should upgrade your language from ‘things aren’t great’ to ‘actually, things are kind of great actually.’”
• Montage Takeaway:
  • On a scale of 1–10, the “level of depravity” in current events is rated a unanimous 10 by all panellists, with Chris highlighting the despair underlying progressive rhetoric this week.

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2. Main Theme: Lindsey Graham’s Complicated Legacy (12:11–29:57)

The crew digs deep into Lindsey Graham’s political journey following his sudden passing, dissecting the reasons for his polarizing reputation among conservatives and the D.C. establishment.

Discussion Highlights:

• Divergent Opinions and Legacy:
  • Deace openly expresses his detestation of Graham’s legislative legacy:
    “One of my proudest moments is when I nicknamed him the first trans Republican. ... That being said ... we're not going to sit here and pounce on a guy when he's dead. ... My restraint … has been tested.” (14:13)
  • Bedford notes Graham’s affable nature and his unique ability to survive in D.C.:
    “He was charming and affable, and his first love in all of life was politics and politicking, and it's all he did. ... The second Trump administration is neocon adjacent.” (16:39)
  • Todd compares Graham to Littlefinger from Game of Thrones:
    “Maybe he understands the game in the matrix more than most people. ... He kept doing it over and over and over again in South Carolina.” (18:02)
  • Aaron theorizes that Graham would have been more accepted as a moderate Republican from a blue state (19:16), but emphasizes Graham’s hawkishness as a defining trait.
• Was Graham Corrupt?
  • The team gives rare credit to Graham for not enriching himself (net worth only $1.5M).
    Bedford (22:00): “In a city that's as corrupt as Washington, for politicians amass incredible amounts of wealth ... he was not one of those. That speaks well to his character.”
• The Real Secret to Graham’s Survival:
  • Steve posits Graham’s success as rooted in his ability to treat people well, gaining him leeway others would never get (25:18).
  • Todd questions if this was genuine or manipulative.
  • Aaron declares Graham a “politician out of time” whose style no longer fits either party (27:00).
• Exit Question (28:18):
  • Which current politicians would provoke complicated legacies if they died suddenly?
    • Bedford: Mike Pence
    • Aaron: John Kennedy

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3. Nixon’s Rehabilitation and “Nixon-maxing” (30:08–45:16)

In a sharp pivot, the panel riff on the Gen Z-led renaissance of Richard Nixon’s image (“Nixon-maxing”). Chris Bedford, a Nixon apologist, gives the historical context and personal defense.

Key Points:

• Historical Revisionism:
  • Bedford explains the Boomer “cathedral’s” mythologizing of Nixon as evil (33:01).
  • Notes Nixon’s working-class background and enduring elite distaste for him.
  • The deep state’s role in taking down Nixon is heavily emphasized as a precedent for Trump.
• Policy Ironies:
  • Steve draws attention to Nixon’s progressive domestic record: EPA, price controls, expanded welfare, Keynesian economics, and affirmative action (38:29).
  • Todd and Aaron use this to illustrate that the deep state/establishment will eat its own, even if you give them what they want domestically, so long as you threaten them in core areas (40:17).
  • Chris: “He went after Hiss, who was the best friend and darling of the American left, ... and it turned out to be the top communist ever outed in the US.” (41:29)
• Lightning Round:
  • Eisenhower beats Nixon for “best president” (44:22).
  • On legacies to redeem: McCarthy (“wasn’t wrong, just early”).

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4. Feedback Friday — Listener Questions & Advice (50:08–88:16)

This section features several listener questions tackled with characteristic Deace Show candor:

Notable Moments and Guidance:

• Drawing the Line in Family and Faith (53:44–58:05)

  • Responding to a question about Alistair Begg’s controversial advice regarding a family member’s “trans” wedding:
    Steve: “You should never, ever, ever, ever ... You can't do what God says is wrong to try to serve God.” (57:03)
  • Panel reinforces the bright line between loving family and celebrating sin.

• Why Christian Conservatives Should Stay Involved in Local Education (58:05–62:36)

  • Listener Ryan Owens is praised for running for school board even though his own kids are privately educated.
  • Todd: “There's way too many conservatives who just write off public education as not my problem. ... It is absolutely your problem.” (60:43)

• Young People’s Path into Politics (66:49–72:30)

  • Advice: Get involved, volunteer, build relationships even if the candidate isn’t ideal.
  • Aaron plugs “American Moment,” an organization credentialing young conservative staffers.

• The Public School Teacher’s Lament (73:38–75:03)

  • Kevin from Illinois talks about fighting the “long defeat”; the panel reassures him of the mission’s value regardless of size of impact.

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5. Responding to Millennial/Gen Z Political Apathy (78:09–88:16)

Andrew Story, a young man frustrated with job woes, political failures, and a sense of aimlessness, asks why he should care or fight for Republicans.

Aaron’s Compassionate Response (81:32–88:03):

• Go outside, clear your mind:
  “Go touch some grass. Go breathe fresh air … Enjoy God’s creation in person, not through your phone.” (81:32)
• Bathe in God’s Word:
  “... Are you bathing your mind in God’s word every day?” (81:32)
• Pick up responsibility wherever you find it:
  “... The number one driver of aimlessness is a lack of responsibility. There's responsibility laying all around you if you'll just have eyes to see.” (81:32)
• Find meaning in service:
  “... The more you take on, the more you realize ... people and systems could actually use people like you...” (81:32)

Steve: “That was equal parts compassionate, encouraging, challenging. We might make a dad out of you yet, brother. That was good. Very well said.” (88:05)

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6. On Tucker Carlson, Deconstruction, and Anti-Semitism (88:22–95:46)

Mason asks about Deace’s claim that Tucker is “deconstructing.” Steve doubles down, pointing out:

• “Tucker never talks about sin, salvation, redemption, repentance, restoration.”
• Recounts Carlson’s efforts at revisionist history regarding Hitler and anti-Israel rhetoric:
  “Tucker is absolutely an anti-Semite. ... If you preceded with trying to reimagine Hitler and then went to [criticizing Israel], what's that typically kind of symbolize?” (89:44)
• The panel dismisses counter-arguments referencing foreign officials and emphasizes America-first priorities.

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Notable Quotes

• Chris Bedford (on Graham):
  “He was charming and affable ... his first love in all of life was politics and politicking, and it’s all he did.” (16:39)
• Steve Deace (on Graham’s eulogization):
  “Watching 4 Days now of just un. I mean, retcon, gaslighting, slurping. Okay, about this guy, like he was some kind of MAGA hero...” (14:53)
• Todd (on institutional authorities and gender):
  “You’re brought in to be an expert, and you cannot … What’s one plus one equals two? Rutabaga.” (08:43)
• Aaron (on Nixon):
  “This time around there's much less of a trust of institutional truth telling this time around. There's much less of a trust in institutions...” (36:37)
• Steve (on serving others):
  “You have to love your neighbor as you love yourself and the kids that are in that school district that can't escape it... So to me, I think you're doing this exactly right, brother.” (60:08)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:36–12:05 | “Bleep Lord Nefarious” montage and panel reaction
• 12:11–29:57 | Lindsey Graham’s legacy — critique, contextualization, and what it means for conservatism
• 30:08–45:16 | Nixon’s image rehabilitation, Gen Z “Nixon-maxing,” and the allure of anti-establishment figures
• 50:08–88:16 | Feedback Friday: listener questions about faith, public service, education, political engagement, and purpose
• 88:22–95:46 | Tucker Carlson, “deconstruction,” and the show’s response to claims of anti-Semitism

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Tone & Takeaways

The show balances principled conservatism with caustic humor, direct language, and ethical seriousness. The recurring motif is a generational divide — both in critiquing the left and holding the right accountable, and wrestling with legacies that aren’t easily sorted into hero or villain columns. Listeners are encouraged to serve, to volunteer, and to “fight the long defeat” even in the face of larger cultural decline.

Memorable Moment:
Aaron’s heartfelt, concrete advice to a frustrated young conservative (81:32–88:03), urging him to “touch grass,” soak up scripture, and look for responsibility to counter the malaise of the current era.

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Transcript

[A]

And greetings. Happy Friday. Welcome to the Steve Day Show. That would be me alongside Todd erzin and Aaron McIntyre. Coming up in the next hour of the program, it's going to be your turn on a feedback Friday. We got a lot of good stuff to tackle that I'm looking forward to tackling. But first, it's time for the day scru. And we are joined this week on your weekly look at the week that was by the editor in chief here at the Blaze, Chris Bedford. Good to see you again, brother. How are you?

[B]

I'm great. It's good to be back.

[A]

Good to have you back. Of course you are dressed to the nines. I'm wearing a superhero T shirt but what else is new, right?

[B]

I envy it, especially in this weather.

[A]

Are you there in D.C. is that your excuse to why you have to dress like that?

[B]

Yeah, we have to maintain the tie. We. The last, the last holdout against Barack Obama's full on assault on men wearing ties is Washington, D.C. i've heard in Manhattan, in finance they even gave up, but not here.

[A]

Well, it's good to have you back, my friend. Let's, let's get it going. Your weekly look at the week that was begins as it always does with issue one bleep. Lord Nefarious says

[B]

I am going to be working on our behalf. I am going to be telling the stories on our behalf. And you better believe I'm going to

[C]

be doing it with a little bit

[A]

of joy, a little bit of enthusiasm,

[B]

a little bit of energy and a

[A]

little bit of sick it to them.

[C]

So would you like to abolish the Senate?

[B]

That's, that's part of our platform. And we don't think that's extreme. We think it's, it's a change that would help make this country more democratic.

[A]

We designed a system, a machine over the course of the last half century to make it more difficult to build. It was intentionally designed. It wasn't by chance, it wasn't by happenstance.

[D]

It was designed not to build.

[B]

Our goal is to reframe politics around class lines in the United States, which is what the ruling class has been doing forever. We want to transfer power from the 1% of the working class and to replace capitalism with socialism.

[C]

Rape and felony assaults are concerning to her in terms of those numbers.

[B]

What I think is important to know is a lot of the increase in rape also comes from an expanded definition of what counts as rape as well

[D]

as survivors coming forward for acts that took place years prior.

[B]

I just think homeschooling is a bad idea. From soup to nuts. I don't care if you're a nuclear physicist.

[A]

I think it's just weird as, of course, the vast majority of pregnancies are in women. And I have absolutely no problem with using the word pregnant women. I use it myself. Has a non biological woman ever had a baby? A transgender person can. That's not a biological woman. Has a non biological woman ever had a baby? I would reiterate. I think it's just weird as that

[B]

you want your kids around you all day, every day and all night.

[A]

I just can't think of very many

[B]

good things about homeschooling in terms of looking at nature as if it's some sort of CIS heteropatriarchal structure is absurd and that this gender binary that we've created is nothing but a quaint little myth.

[A]

The other thing that we blocked yesterday was the SAVE act, right? Which was literally, Literally allow this administration

[C]

to rig our democracy so that it

[A]

would be hard for any Democrat in

[C]

any state to win any election.

[A]

Between here and there is a bunch

[C]

of Algerians and Moroccans or whoever who

[A]

think that queer people should be beaten. I think that this system where you

[C]

have people just living out here that

[A]

are unhappy is not good.

[D]

Yeah. And do you think it's safe here?

[C]

No, I don't like that.

[A]

Oh, it's scary. It's legitimately scary. I decided that my mental health is degrading so substantially being here that I just need to get out. And the situation that I have in the US as a trans person, not good. Right. But here I will be hurt or killed. I actually think I would be a really good president of the United States.

[B]

Okay, like you're being serious.

[D]

Seriously.

[B]

No, I'm being totally serious.

[A]

That, my friends, is what is described as a target rich environment. Holy moly. Wow. So, Chris, per tradition, the guest always gets the first crack at it. What was the. And good luck singling one thing out. What was the most detestable thing you just witnessed and why?

[B]

I think the worst of it all was that bird creature saying that she hates to be around her children and doesn't want them to be educated by their parents at all. And the reason I chose that is not just because it's so awful and it portrays. It shows how awful she is inside, but because of all those people, she is the least likely I would ever want to have a beer with. I mean, that first woman running for office in Michigan. She's probably funny after three or four beers. Obviously, Don Lamond is Probably hysterical, as long as he doesn't grab you after a couple beers. So I had to choose her.

[A]

That. I think, you know, the worldview differences between the two sides is highlighted every week in this montage that Aaron does. But, but, but there have been very few clips that Aaron has shared that provide more of a window to the soul as to why those differences manifest and exist than the homeschooling clip there. The. The idea of, first of all, again, just a lady just casually dropping F bombs in a, In a setting. And I'm, I'm. I'm just never going to get over that. I don't. Call me an old. Call me a fuddy duddy. I remember the time they brought me in for an interview on MSNBC to replace Pat Buchanan. True story. That's a true story, Chris. I was brought in because Buchanan would not stop dropping wet backs on the air, and so they finally had to let him go. True story. And I was one of the contributors there. And so as they're a token conservative, there was about three or four of us they brought in to interview at 30 Rock and was a female executive producer at MSNBC. And she just flat out told me, listen, if Romney wins, we're probably gonna move a little bit more to the middle like we used to be, you know, 20 years ago as a network when, like, Alan Keys worked here. And she says, if Obama wins, though, we're just going to go hard left. So we're just interviewing, you know, people to see what, you know, who we may hire after the election. And it unnerved me. She just dropped F bombs and the Lord's name in vain in a job interview, a formal job interview, just like it was a conjunction in a sentence, man, over and over again. So I'm never going to get over the idea that, no, it's. There's something unnerving about hearing women just talk like this in a public setting. There's.

[B]

It's gross.

[A]

It's just. That's a good word for it. It's kind of gross. And then to use it, if anything, and applicable to time you want to spend with your own children. And to me, that's that. I would, if, if, if, if I were asking me the question, Chris, I'd have chosen the same video you chose because of that. Because to me, there is a window to the soul of why you see much of what's in Aaron's montage. Just a completely diametrically opposite worldview, diametrically opposite priorities, and so unhappy because of that, you're going to be unhappy when you are attempting to operate anathematic to the hard wiring of the creator of the universe. There's just no way to avoid not being unhappy when that is the case. Todd, what about you? What stood out?

[D]

Well, so much of this madness is amongst people who have cultivated a certain kind of audience, and they count on the audience being as mad as them. So you can say all manner of things, even though they know it's gonna be picked up by everybody else. But I'm always amazed by people in the medical profession and then people in the medical profession that go testify before Congress like that one guy did, and they keep putting on the record that they don't know what a woman is.

[C]

That's not a medical. That's the chancellor of UC San Francisco.

[D]

Oh, he's not a doctor. He's a doctor.

[C]

Maybe, Maybe San Francisco. UC Medical School.

[D]

But a formal setting like you, that should be, like, automatic. You're fired. You have no more credentials. You're. You're brought in to be an expert, and you cannot. Like, it's a math expert. What's one plus one equals two? Rutabaga. Oh, you're fired. You never get a job again. That's right. And yet round and round and round we go.

[A]

That's good, too.

[C]

And, Todd, you stole mine. I just want to. I just want to. If you can recall that clip, if you are watching it, you can tell that man, chancellor of UC San Francisco, he is nervous as I'll get out. But you can also tell in kind of the tone of his voice that he's like, okay, I'm going to give you something. I'm going to give you the moderate position here, is that they're not going to like this back in San Francisco, but I'm going to give you the moderate position here. Okay, here we go. The vast majority of all of all pregnancies come from women or whatever he said.

[A]

We met you halfway.

[C]

Yeah, we'll meet you halfway here. That's like the moderate position in San Francisco. The vast majority of people who are pregnant are women. It's just. You can tell.

[B]

So brave.

[C]

Yeah, so brave. But you can tell how bathed certain sectors of our culture is with absolute, abject, maybe unrecoverable nonsense. But since Todd told us, you know, chose that guy, how about the trainee who got asylum or was seeking asylum in the Netherlands? Ending on the note. Yeah, things back home aren't so great for me because I'm a trainee, but here I'll get killed or beaten or seriously hurt yet again. I do think you understate things. Training. You're not going to get killed or beaten back home. That seems like a little bit of a, maybe like a 95 to 100% upgrade, so maybe.

[A]

Seems like a bit of a selling point.

[C]

Seems like a bit of a selling point, so maybe you should upgrade your language from things aren't great to actually, actually, on second thought, things are kind of great actually.

[A]

Trolling is greater than dying.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Actually, yes. Back to the the professor. And I love the way you characterize that. The halfway point. Riley Gaines in response to this this clip tweeted out last night. If your doctor can't emphatically say that men cannot get pregnant, I implore you to find a new doctor. All right? To which I responded, imagine telling your 1996 self that this would be considered prophetic commentary in 30 years. It's truly amazing. It truly is. Let's get to the exit question, like, amazingly tragic. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being how likely it is, Candace Owens would be able to say Jesus is Lord and 10 being how unlikely it is Candace Owens knows when to use its or their in a sentence rank this week's level of total depravity. Todd, that's a 10. That's a 10.

[C]

Aaron Architecture.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

And then Chris, I'll give a 10. It's, you know, it's a little bit. Some of them are sadder than normal sometimes. There's some. Lord Nefarious has some really funny clips. This one, like we talked about, it was a window into the soul. So that's a 10.

[A]

100%. All right, man. I've been avoiding this topic all week, but let's get to it.

[C]

Issue two, Lindsey's legacy from bitter enemies in 2016. He's a jackass.

[B]

And he gave me his number and I found the card.

[A]

I wrote the number down.

[B]

I don't know if it's the right number.

[C]

Let's try it. 202 Donald Trump is most unelectable Republican I've seen in my lifetime to apparently closest of allies 10 years later.

[B]

Do you think he was President Trump's

[A]

closest friend in all of Congress? Because I believe he was.

[B]

Yes. Yes. Hands down. I mean, he talked, you know, we sort of jokingly called him the Trump whisperer. I mean, he would talk to Trump early in the morning, he'd talk to him late at night, he'd talk to him on the golf course.

[C]

Lindsey Graham's relationship with and feelings toward Donald Trump have run the gambit But Graham's lasting legacy will be one of the consummate known quantity in D.C. for better or worse. Staunch foreign policy hawk.

[B]

I'm calling on President Trump today.

[C]

Join Israel to attack Hezbollah and amenable to working with Democrats on certain alien to Graham's own base. So I go up to Lindsey Graham, and I'm a brand new senator determined to do something about mass incarceration. And I hear through Dick Durbin and others that he's the guy to work with. And I say, Mr. Graham, sir, I'd like to work with you on criminal justice reform.

[A]

He seems almost amused by what I said.

[C]

He goes, cory, do you understand I'm

[A]

in a primary right now, and I'm

[C]

running against a guy who is bat crazy. I can't even so much as talk to you right now. Get out of here, man. Come back to me after my primary. And I laughed and came back to

[A]

him after the primary.

[C]

And true to his word, he rolled

[A]

up his sleeves and we went to work.

[C]

And thanks to him and Dick Durbin and some other Senate heroes, our bill became the first step act after years. Two presidents, two Congresses, and became law. Lindsey Ram passed away late last Saturday at the age of 71.

[A]

So I have largely avoided this topic.

[C]

All right.

[A]

I detested Lindsey Graham for many of the reasons Aaron articulated in the video you just saw. I don't think you even included Elena Kagan reminding everybody that she's a Supreme Court justice because of Lindsey Graham. She did that this week. They didn't even make the cut. Right. So, I mean, that's cool. Okay. You know, and yeah, I know he did the whole Brett Kavanaugh thing, but remember why we did it? We noted at the time, why is he doing this? Because they weren't supposed to do this to Brett Kavanaugh justices. They were only supposed to do this to the justices we liked. It's okay to lynch the ones we like, but the Brett Kavanaugh, Carl Rove in a black robe, you're supposed to just let those guys slide through. You can't. Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, that. That's, that's why he found a second testicle that he hadn't demonstrated on literally anything for the previous 25 years. Then there's all the amnesty and everything else. I detested Lindsey Graham. One of my proudest moments is when I nicknamed him the first trans Republican. And Dana Bash in 2016, when he was running for president, asked him live on cnn, what do you think about this Iowa guy, Steve Dase, labeling you a trans Republican. Seriously, one of the proudest moments of my entire career. That being said, you know, I don't wish death on him, just wished an end to his Senate career. Would have preferred maybe another method than dying suddenly. You know, that's not cool. So we're not going to sit here and pounce on a guy when he's dead. He's got loved ones and everything else. It's a sudden death on top of it. But I will tell you guys, my, my, my, Iowa. Nice. Has been absolutely tested. My restraint, which I'm known for. My restraint. Everyone says this. It has been tested. Watching 4 Days now of just un. I mean, retcon, gaslighting, slurping. Okay, about this guy, like he was some kind of MAGA hero. Watchmen on the wall. What are we doing here? Okay, so, Chris, what are we doing here?

[B]

I've actually kind of kept quiet myself. And I'm like you because it's good to have manners. I suppose when somebody passes away, you didn't agree on very many things at all. I think it's really fitting that the Senate has decided to honor his legacy with a foreign policy. Sanctions against Russia. That's a foreign issue as opposed to domestic issues were always his concern. But I have seen some really.

[A]

Listen, Chris, he died after going to Ukraine. So he died doing what he loved. He at least died doing what he loved.

[B]

Yes, doing what he loves. A lot of people could learn from him. If you're trying to get your position across. I mean, he was one of the main neoconservatives, and so many neocons took their ball home and went and became Democrats or went crazy. You got the Bill Kristals, you got the. The Remnant or whatever they call themselves, the Bulwark. All these different guys who just went completely batty or reporters who lost their minds. He was a never Trumper who completely came around, and he was charming and affable, and his first love in all of life was politics and politicking, and it's all he did. And because of that, the second Trump administration is neocon adjacent. This committing the foreign policy wishes of what the media wants and what the Democrats want, what the Unit Party wants, and doing that across the board. So it's. If the populace and other folks like myself, at least, who really disagree with a lot of what Lindsey Graham's political stances were, can look at that and say, man, a smile and a joke can really get you a long way. And being willing to work with people who sometimes you don't like.

[D]

Todd, my Favorite memory of him is when I first started with you, that very first family leader summit back in the summer of 2015, was it?

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And every he was, every question that was asked of him didn't matter the topic. He managed to somehow turn it around and talk about bombing something in the Middle East. It was remarkable. But obviously here your question is it, is it simple or complicated? I think it's simple and it's ultimately a version of the people are the problem. He's not he, he was elected how many times to both the House and the Senate in again checks, notes see New York, no, South Carolina, over and over and over again. And I'm reminded of Littlefinger in Game of Thrones. And he's chaos is a ladder Lindsay just created. He had a recipe. He understood and he said he understood he could play the people and politicians just like Chris talked about. He knew like maybe he was ultimately pound for pound, maybe he understands the game in the matrix more than most people. It doesn't mean that I'm honoring it. But listen, there's no way he should have survived based on a lot of rubrics that we claim on this show that matter. But he kept doing it over and over and over again in South Carolina.

[C]

That's kind of where I was going. I think some of what you're seeing, Steve, this week is I think you can maybe chalk it up to kind of the human reaction that I articulated a little bit on Monday's show, which was this guy has been such a fixture in Washington, D.C. he has run for president at least once, once or twice. He's been such a fixture in right wing political commentary circles. He's been this show's favorite rhetorical punching bag ever since even before I got here. He's been, he's always been there, he's always going to be there. And I think it's just the human reaction when somebody dies suddenly just like that, that you're like, oh my goodness, you're kind of coming on some level to grips with your own mortality to some degree. So I think maybe that has something to do with this. But I think, I think mostly what makes his legacy so simple is that if it was Lindsey Graham, US Senator from Maine, he would be much more beloved, even if it was kind of in an arm's distance kind of a way. If it was Lindsey Graham, U.S. republican, U.S. senator from like Oregon, Maine, blue, purple state, something like that, hinges on blue, I think he would be much more beloved if not in a kind of arm's distance away because even in a state like Maine, or even in a state like Oregon, or even in a state like that's purple or something like that, there's people in there who really just believe in bombing the, you know what? Out of America's enemies. Today, tomorrow, forever. Amen. Okay. Love it or hate it. Agree, disagree. There's something charming about that. Okay. May we all be as hated by America's enemies as Lindsey Graham seemingly was on some level. And that's about the best thing that I can say about him, because the rest of them, the rest of that energy, the rest of that political capital, the rest of that working across the aisle, I wish that would have been directed in much more productive ways to my way of life than I think Lindsey Graham ever did. So that's kind of the compliment to me. That's the, that's the most complicated that it gets. But I do think it's pretty simple. I think he was kind of a known quantity in D.C. and that was one of being a political animal.

[A]

All right, let me, let me try to be fair. One of the things, and I probably won't be very good at it. I'm just going to warn you, okay. One of the things I'm seeing to laud Lindsay posthumously is that his net worth was only $1.5 million, which means he was in the Senate all those years, but wasn't using his posture and position to enrich himself by proving to be an uncanny level of day trader like so many other members of Congress. Right. Okay. So is that a reach? Is that legit? Is it true? Let's go around the horn on that one. Chris, what do you think?

[B]

Yeah, he's one of those politicians. I was talking to some staff who've known him and his staff for decades, just at lunch earlier and worked for Senator Jim DeMint. And those were two examples of senators from the same state who just never actually played the money game. And it's kind of shocking because Lindsey is a big enricher of the arms industrial complex. There's a lot, lot, lot of ostentatious mansions all around Washington, D.C. that I'm sure he was a visitor at multiple times that are paid for with the work that he did in Washington, D.C. but, and I've seen people using it as a backhanded compliment, like, well, you know, at least he died poor. But it actually, in a city that's as corrupt as Washington, for politicians amass incredible amounts of wealth over periods of time that they're supposedly in public office. He was not one of Those that speaks well to his character.

[A]

On the other hand, Todd, if you're unmarried and childless, $1.5 million does go a lot further. I'm trying, I told you, I'm, I'm gonna try to be fair. I'm just probably not gonna be very good at it. But that is a fact. If you've got no wife and kids, that $1.5 million net worth does go further, right? It does. But your thoughts, if I may? Sorry, I'm not trying to lead the witness.

[D]

Broaden out your point a little bit. Ultimately, I have no idea. As long as he was there, I really don't know what Lindsey Graham was ultimately all about. I, I have no idea. So I, I, I agree with you, at least in part. Like, if it's not the money, if it's not family, like, but. And you're seemingly rooted and grounded enough to not be overtaken by this stuff, why, and why is bombing everybody in the Middle east the thing. Why is it, to be fair to

[A]

Lindsay, there are plenty of people in the Middle east that do deserve to be bombed. Listen, I'm just, I'm just keeping it real here.

[D]

That is, like, why is it his passion project? Why is it this really? What? I don't, I don't know.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. That was good. Aaron, what do you think?

[C]

So I kind of, I'm more inclined to agree with Chris, with the caveat, which I'm sure on some level you would, you would probably assent to too. Don't want to put words in your mouth, but, you know, in a more healthy political system, and, you know, east of Eden, there's not gonna be a political system that's 100% healthy. But in a more political, Healthy political system, you know, not doing the day trading that we've seen so many do, that would be a low bar to clear. But it seems like Lindsey Graham did indeed clear that.

[D]

Is he doing really well on the Ukrainian stock market? I don't know. I mean, there's all kinds of money. The money places, the money could be. I have no idea.

[C]

Why are you putting this through this struggle session, Steve?

[A]

Because I'm going through one, and I don't want to suffer alone. That's why I've been going through one all week long. I mean, I have been silently suffering for five days now.

[C]

See, okay, it took me 15 minutes, 15 minutes to write the very last sentence of the introduction to this topic, because I try to put those together as non editorial as possible. And I was like, I don't Want to lead anybody? So I just ended with Lindsey Graham dead at 71 late last Saturday.

[A]

Let's see if we can come up with something constructive though, for real. I think Chris kind of alluded to it a minute ago, a few minutes ago that I do think particularly for those of us who are ideologues, if there is something constructive non ironic here to take from Lindy's. Lindy's. From Lindsay's success in surviving and being for as long as he did as a politician. There is something to treating people well and that if you are, if you do treat people well, the amount of rope they're going to give you compared to if you don't, regardless of what differences there may exist between the two of you is pretty extraordinary. There is an extraordinary difference there. I, I think there is a lesson that we could all learn there even, especially those of us who are ideologues because maybe it's even more incumbent on us to treat people well because we are going to push people ideologically in ways and that are going to, you know, fray nerves and make people uncomfortable. Maybe, maybe that's something that can constructively be learned from Lindsay Todd, if that's

[D]

what it really is. But it goes back to my first question. Is he just, did he know he was surrounded by rubes and is he just learned how to manipulate them? I mean that's not treating people well. That's just like seeing a sucker and then moving forward accordingly. I mean South Carolina, we talk about it all the time. What that state makes no sense. So he's, he's what. What's the story about blind. A blind man in a. Or one eyed man in a.

[A]

In the land of the blind the king.

[D]

Well isn't that. It's kind of Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, apparently.

[A]

Aaron?

[C]

I think maybe, I mean, sure, I think maybe the one synthesizing idea that kind of puts. That makes sense of Lindsey Graham is that he's just on some level a politician out of time that the neocon foreign hawk fill in the blank foreign policy is just so anathema to much of the political discourse right now in America. Really on both sides of the aisle, using both sides and scare quotes. For those of you listening, that the idea that. And I'm trying to put lipstick on a pig here. Maybe, maybe what I'm saying is accurate about what really drove Lindsey Graham. But best case scenario, he was just a guy who thought America is the greatest, most powerful country on the face of the planet and we should rule the planet with an Iron fist. That just doesn't. That's not simpatico in this day and age that Maybe in the 80s somebody like him would not have been out of time. But in this day and age, he just increasingly so with each passing year.

[D]

I think the consensus we've come to here is we just like with Hamilton, we need Lindsey Graham the musical. I think that's what we need. We won't know the truth until there's song and dance to it.

[A]

I think Lindsey Graham was likely a great fan of show tunes. Let's get to the exit question.

[B]

Guaranteed.

[A]

Yeah. Name another politician for whom if they suddenly passed away, it would also be a very complicated legacy for our base. Chris.

[B]

Oh, geez. That's a difficult one. You know, I think it'd be interesting to see what would happen if God hope this doesn't happen. But Mike Pence is someone who was an absolute darling of the American conservative. Right. Some people still really like him and over the last six years has become someone who has turned on a lot of that. But if you were to look back at a complicated Christian legacy of someone who's a governor and a congressman and the vice president, a lot of the people who have negative things to say would probably have to sit on their hands. I don't think the president would.

[A]

I think that's. That's a guarantee. But that's. That's a good answer. That's a very good answer. Can you top that?

[D]

No.

[A]

That's a good one.

[D]

It is a very good.

[A]

That is a very good one. Going to be. We have a complicated response in this show. I know that. What about you, Aaron?

[C]

No, that is a great answer. I was going to say John Kennedy because I think immediately if.

[A]

That's another good one, man.

[C]

If they, if John Kennedy died suddenly, we would be immediately struck with how many votes maybe or how many issues or lack thereof that he did not lead on. But all of the quips at the same time and the endearing personality kind of some of the same stuff that we're talking with Lindsey Graham.

[A]

The highlight.

[B]

Funnier.

[A]

Yeah. The highlight quips of John Kennedy would be voluminous. The key votes that he in fights that he led on. Real short montage. Real short montage. That one short one. We'll come back more in a moment. Stay tuned.

[B]

The steve day show.

[A]

All right, back here on the Steve Day show with Todders and Aaron McIntyre. Join this Week for the Day Scoop, your weekly look at the week that was by editor in chief here at the Blaze, Chris Bedford. Let's continue on with issue three. To Nixon or not to Nixon. I want to jump over to this. So Richard Nixon is back. Thanks to the creative team at the Nixon Foundation, Gen Z is rehabbing Tricky Dick's image.

[C]

They call it Nixon maxing.

[A]

This is Nixon now on the front and has this design on the back

[C]

now more than ever.

[D]

Hat.

[A]

A pink Nixon at hat, which actually

[C]

matches is my favorite political button that

[A]

I own that says get to know a nixonnette. I have this one, which is Nixon and Agnew, and this one, which is

[C]

the counterpart to my favorite pin that I was telling you about earlier.

[A]

Get to know a Nixon air. I am so tickled by all of this stuff. So, Chris Nixon is back.

[B]

It's incredible and it's so long deserved. The Nixon foundation has been doing great work, putting great funny music to break up the image that you've had that the Boomer Cathedral has built over the years of this scowling Nixon. Completely different person from the most popularly elected president in American history. He won 49 states. But it's not just the incredible social media work that's going on. It's declassification that we've been talking about. There's been new scholarship. We've learned that the smoking gun tape was not real, that Watergate was a frame. There's a complete change in the media landscape. Like we're talking about this. Who founded Fox News? Roger Ailes. Roger Ailes was the public publicity adviser for Richard Nixon.

[A]

He saw the way the media acted

[B]

and he said, this can't continue. There needs to be different voices in the room. So now we're able to talk about it. You see people looking back and they're understanding, wait a second, there's lawfare. There is a deep state. There are people willing to try and overthrow a president. This is new. Which seems familiar at the same time. And then finally, if you look back 50 years later, Richard Nixon's a president who thought in terms of decades, not in terms of crises. So he still speaks to us. Now he's on the COVID of our magazine, Frontier magazine, because this is exactly what's happening right now. A total renaissance for a great president.

[A]

Okay,

[B]

you guys are gonna be mean.

[A]

What's that?

[B]

You guys are gonna be mean to me?

[A]

I am fat. Let me say this. I'm not gonna speak first because I am truly fascinated by this. I mean, you're not alone. There is a trend line right now on the right of resurrecting Richard Nixon for sure. I mean, go back to Trump's first you know, convention speech in 2016, the I alone speech. That's very reminiscent of the speech that Nixon gave in 68, for example, with all the turmoil going on in the country. So there's clearly a modern day effort to resurrect Nixon. I am fascinated with why. So, Chris, I'm going to give you the first crack at it.

[B]

Well, some of the reasons I just went through in that clip. Thanks for playing it. I'm glad I didn't wear the same tie today. That would be very awkward. I think one of the things that's made it so kind of hip is especially in the young people younger than me, gen zers and such. There's a real dislike for the baby boomer generation and what they've done, for the political legends that they've told, for the squandering of the nation's wealth and its future, for the selfish level of our politics to where we are right now. And there is no bigger boogeyman hiding under the bed of the baby boomers and all of their legends than Richard Nixon. He is the emperor who was elected for 49 states, an absolute landslide, who they buried and said, never let this monster out. He's the most popular American president in modern history. We destroyed him in 21 months with a novice reporter who happens to be connected to American intelligence all the way back to his career in naval intelligence over a crime that Richard Nixon had nothing to do with, using a smoking gun that his own accusers later admitted was firing blanks. It's important to them that no one ever goes in there and seeks the myth because then the monster could escape. So, yeah, there's a lot of things to quibble about in his domestic politics. Of course, keep in mind, he had massive Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate, which is not something modern Republicans have had to deal with. So he had to have a little more liberal tact and go on a more foreign policy basis. But it's something that also attracts folks from Washington, D.C. to him on the GOP side, as he is the first Republican, last Republican president, probably before Donald Trump, to be really willing to use power domestically and to try to reform the presidency. Everyone's been pushing along the peripheral Barack Obama did, Joe Biden did, George W. Bush did. But that term, the imperial presidency, is one of the famous books of boomer scripture that makes up this myth that the only democratically elected person in America, the president, should be working for the bureaucracy instead, should be working just for the Congress instead. And there's a pushback And a willingness to actually wield power on the right that was pushed out by the libertarians that Nixon represents that is attractive to a lot of conservatives today.

[A]

I like a lot of that answer. I'm going to have a follow up but let me ask Todd and Aaron what they think first. Go ahead.

[D]

Well, the thing that resonates with me the most is when you were being interviewed, Chris, on, on Fox News and when you said there is a deep state, that really is why Richard Nixon, if you understand his legacy in full, everything about it and Henry Kissinger is attached to that. There was growing up, there was just such a cartoonish ridiculousness to he was like uniquely evil. Listen, his own personal insecurities clearly got helped hang him in the end. He didn't know how to fight back in the right way a lot of times. But I do agree with Chris. This is everything we're dealing with now in terms of deep state. It absolutely tracks back to the left and all of the institutions that had increasingly been co opted decided to align in that moment and do what they've been doing ever since. So the fact that the rubber band is bouncing back a little bit and saying, you know, maybe we need to look through here, look at a flawed man with new eyes, utterly fair, Aaron.

[C]

So I think kind of the echoes of history which Chris spelled out there, several examples, the echoes of history just, you know, not that many decades ago to what we're seeing today. I think that's one of the reasons why there is a renaissance of Nixon except this time around. This time around, unlike the previous iteration this time around there's much less of a trust of institutional truth telling this time around. There's much less of a trust in institutions this time around. But I think maybe a crucial difference as well. I tend to agree with Vice President J.D. vance who spoke, I believe with the Nixon foundation just a few weeks ago. He said to the degree, and I'm paraphrasing here, but to the degree that anything untoward actually did happen, that is the responsibility of Richard Nixon and or the team around him. To the degree that there was anything untoward that happened, it would be like a 12 hour news cycle in the year 2026. Now I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. If we've become so desensitized or the scale or scope of what we were told back then really wasn't as big as what we were told throughout the history books as it pertains to Richard Nixon and Watergate and heck Everything is now gate, gate now. So I think those are two things that are different. Is that. Yeah, to the degree everybody.

[D]

That's a.

[C]

There's no nobody that has been punished for Covid. Of note, there have been some people who have been punished in one way or another, but the. The Anthony Fauci of the world, what he did, what he foisted upon this planet, or anybody in his employ, any of his schemes that really hasn't been punished, and we want to look back at Nixon and say, yeah, that was a really bad guy for what? Some of the things that Chris detailed have been kind of disproven that we've been told about that narrative. I don't know. I think that's why he needs a second look or third.

[A]

Okay, so you guys have. Aaron and Chris, you guys have both attacked this question from the angle of him being unfairly persecuted by our enemies. And I'm totally sympathetic to that, but because I'm an ideologue, I hadn't even considered that because I actually just, you know, because I'm an ideologue, just looked at Nixon's record in office. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, much of the environmental bureaucracy that has been, you know, used essentially as a. A USAID for communist in our government. He created that. He gave us the Keynesian economics ascendant by taking us off the gold standard. Nixon actually tried a universal base, a form of universal basic income with Daniel Patrick Moynihan for poor families with children to no longer get welfare, but minimum income. And that actually didn't even pass the Democratic Congress at the time it was considered to be. So left wing, greatly expanded the Voting Rights act, which the Supreme Court in the last. One of the few things that they. They were right on that was difficult is they got rid of much of that that this current Supreme Court did. Greatly expanded affirmative action, greatly expanded the. The Great Society. Is there a more interventionist foreign policy wonk than Henry Kissinger? I mean, he's literally the architect of American intervention. Interventionist post World War II foreign policy. So I get the angle that you guys are coming at this from, but I, I've always kind of viewed Reagan as the correction of. Of pseudo liberalism under. Under Nixon. Am I wrong?

[D]

No, you're not wrong about that. But that makes Chris's point, which stuck with me about there is a deep state. Nonetheless. Why wouldn't the left work with that guy? He want the. They had to kill him anyways because. Right.

[A]

This is the argument comedian Whitney Cummings is using about Trump. He'll give you every compromise you want if you just work with him. Yeah.

[D]

No. So the left has been documenting ever since then that they are a party of assassination.

[A]

I didn't mention price controls, rent controls. He tried to do rent and price controls nationwide.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Now he tried to do the rent controls with New York City nationwide. The price controls against the early advent of inflation. Why did we have an early advent inflation? Well, he took us off the gold standard. So we're doing all kinds of Keynesian economics.

[C]

Let's follow this all the way to its conclusion, which I think Todd is pointing at. Why did they off him then?

[A]

Yeah, that is a good question.

[D]

Well, because the deep state is right, Chris. The deep state exists. And beyond that, and those issues, they've got all kinds of nefarious. That they use those issues to get the really dark stuff to happening.

[C]

What you're insinuating, for sake of argument, which I appreciate what you're insinuating is he's basically a leftist. He's proto, a modern progressive. Okay, why did. Why?

[A]

I would say he's more of a bull moose Republican. For sure. Sure.

[C]

Then why did they offer.

[B]

They always hated him. He was the most hated man in Washington because the elites, whether they're Ben Bradlee or the Kennedys, looks down their nose at him. He was a poor boy. He was from Whittier, California. He was born in a house that his father built with a kit he got from a catalog on a lemon ranch that went bust. And he's buried right next to that right now. It's cool. There's a tree that his father planted, a lemon tree on one side. And the other side there's a tree that his wife Pat brought back from the White House from Andrew Jackson's magnolia. And he came to Washington D.C. by knocking out Jerry Voorhees, who was a congressman, beat him, the Democrat. He had been voted the year before as the most popular politician by the press. The reporters there loved him. They always talked to him. And then when he ran for Senate, he ran against Helen Gahagan Douglas, who was a glamorous Broadway Communists, who was so commie that they hated that the Kennedys worried about her and actually took out opposition research on her. That's where you get the, I think pink underwear line from. He went after Aldra Hiss, who was the best friend and darling of the American left. And it turned out to be the top communist ever outed in the United States.

[A]

See, now we're getting how. I would answer Aaron's question. There are two things Two things that Nixon was hard. Right. Hard anti establishment on crime, had zero tolerance for. Remember what was going on at the time he was president? Why was he elected?

[C]

Riots.

[A]

All the riots. All the. All the. That was the proto versions of the stormtroopers we all live with today. Came out of the 60s. And Nixon was. Was. Was absolutely relentless against those kinds of elements. Crime and punishment and. And staunchly anti communist. In other words, he would play around. He would play around with them in much of their domestic agenda. But. But he was anathema to the heart and soul of the origin of their agenda. And that's why. Yes, okay. But I would actually think there's. I. Again, we. We can. Maybe. This is a more fascinating subject than I thought because we're already almost 20 minutes into it and we have to go, but I almost compare him more to Amy Coney Barrett giving them what they want half the time and then being shocked that they tried to kill him the other half of the time. You can't give these people half of what they want. They'd have done everything to Richard Nixon that they still try to do. If he would not have taken us off the gold standard, if he would not have done all this deficit spending, if he would not have done the rent controls, price controls, they'd have done it all to him anyway. So then what was the point in cashing in with them on anything at all?

[D]

That's true. But just think about the lessons we've learned about whatever Realpolitik is here in the last 10 years. He's a child of. When was he born, Chris? He was operating in the 50s and 60s. It was a different time.

[A]

All right, we gotta do this.

[B]

And he went out to CIA is the last thing. Three presidents in American history have done that. John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump.

[A]

All right, last. We got to get through bullet or lightning around now. Exit question. Just a one word answer. Who was a better president, Nixon or Eisenhower?

[D]

Eisenhower.

[C]

I'm still Eisenhower.

[A]

Bedford, you're going to be Nixon.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Okay, Who's a kicker topic? Quickly. Whose legacy would you resurrect to redeem if you could?

[D]

The ncaa.

[A]

I like how you're already talking like they're dead. Aaron, go ahead.

[C]

Man, this is a tough one. But since we're already on the topic, I think Eisenhower is better just because he got to serve in office longer. But so I would do Nixon just for the symbol alone.

[A]

Okay, Chris.

[B]

Other than Nixon, Nixon ran Eisenhower's domestic policy. So I think he deserves that shot in the Arm. And that's why he's on the COVID of Frontier magazine right now. I have to come up with another politics.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Can you come up with another one? Can you come up with another one?

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Douglas MacArthur. Not Douglas MacArthur.

[A]

McCarthy. McCarthy for sure. That would be my answer.

[B]

McCarthy.

[A]

Yeah. The McCarthy wasn't wrong. He was just early. That would. That would be my answer. Yeah. All right, let's get to predictions. Todd.

[D]

Go Connor. Stallions, tired of being a lone patsy for the malfeasance in the University of Michigan at every level, is going to redeem himself by suing the University of Michigan for cause.

[A]

I love you, Todd. Aaron, go ahead.

[D]

I believe I'm trying to help Connor.

[A]

I know.

[D]

I got his back.

[A]

I'm sure you are, Aaron, go ahead.

[C]

Mark Wayne Mullen will not be the DHS secretary by the time Trump's term in office is done.

[A]

Yeah, that seems like a position where it's getting really hard to please people. Yeah. Because we're not. We're getting more than we've ever gotten before, but we're not getting what we voted for at the same time, which means, like, nobody's pleased.

[D]

Okay.

[A]

It's too much for the system, and it's not enough for those of us who hate the system. Yeah, well, it's kind of Nixonian, what we were just describing, frankly. Go ahead, Chris, go ahead.

[B]

Maybe Ralph Northam ends up being the Senate candidate to replace Lindsey Graham once everyone realizes that it's illegal in South Carolina law for people who have won their primaries to drop out for political reasons and still be replaced. So every other congressman is being floated. They can't run unless you want Democrats to take that seat.

[A]

I had not heard that. So that's good reporting there. Thank you, Chris. My prediction is that you guys just saw the story that Matt reeves, the Batman 2, was just delayed till 2028. I'm going to predict that it was done because of the failure of Supergirl and that James Gunn's next Superman movie is the only thing they're putting out Warner Brothers next year for D.C. because that's guns Ride or Die. That that thing has to be Wrath of Khan. Good. Or they're scrubbing the whole universe. They don't want the Batman franchise with Matt Reeves. It's very popular to be tainted by that. And so if it doesn't land next year, they'll scrub the whole thing. They'll reboot the entire universe behind Matt Reeves and his thing and gun. The Ellisons will come in and run gun. And that entire operation I think super goal. It may end up being the most self destructive film in the entire history of Warner Brothers. Unless a gun can redeem himself next summer. Good to see you, Chris. Thank you, brother.

[B]

Great to be here.

[A]

You bet. All right, you guys ready for some feedback Friday?

[D]

You tell us.

[A]

I think we got some good ones. I'm, I'm looking forward to it. I think we'll have, I think we'll have some good stuff to discuss for sure. I mean, I've got to pee really quick, so I hope that's. Is that okay? I'll have to go.

[D]

You do?

[A]

But I think when we're done we can get to it.

[D]

I have no part of that part of your life.

[A]

No, you're not. No, I'm just not. I gotta run out of here. I'm just letting you know. Back with hour two. Stay tuned, Sam. All right, back here with hour two on a Friday here on Blaze tv, radio and podcast. I am Steve Dase with Todd erzin and Aaron McIntyre. Let us know what you think about what we think via the stevedace.com inbox by emailing the show. Steve dace.com d e a C E like us on Facebook. Me, we and Gabby. Follow me at Steve Daeshow on X Instagram and TikTok. You can also subscribe to our new Rumble channel at Steve Dace on Rumble. That's at Steve Dace on Rumble. Also don't forget you can subscribe to the podcast if you hit the subscribe button. Except for Apple itunes, it's follow instead. That makes sure that you never miss an episode because it's for sure right there in your podcast feed. And then also make sure to leave us a five star review as tens of thousands of you have. We appreciate all of those, so thank you and we would also appreciate it if you would add yours today like we appreciate our friends over at Patriot Mobile. They offer you premium priority nationwide service on any of the three major US networks. Switching anytime is easy for free. You can switch networks, you move to a different part of the state, different part of the country where one network is better for you than another. They will make that, that switch happen with their outstanding US based customer service team. And you're switching to Patriot Mobile. They make that seamless as possible as well. Keep your number, switch your number, keep your phone, upgrade your phone, whatever you want to do. They can make it all happen in just a matter of minutes@patriot mobile.com Steve and if you use the promo code Steve, you'll get started today. With a free month of service. Use the mobile phone provider our family's been using for six years and counting. Patriotmobile.com Steve Code Steve. That's code [e-mail] Steve For a free month of service to get started with Code Steve at patriot mobile.com/steve. All right, are we ready for some feed from for some feedback Friday? Easy for me to say.

[D]

Let's go.

[A]

All right.

[C]

You bet.

[A]

Hey, I've learned. This is from Steve to Steve. He says I've learned a great deal from you these past five years. I've appreciated your candor about many topics. One opinion, however, continues to be inconsistent, and that's your diatribe against Alistair Beg that all three of you conducted for days last year about the counsel that he gave a grandmother concerning her tranny granddaughter. It seemed to me that you and your team never dug deeper to discover the entire truth about his counsel to hear to her than what you heard over social media. That said, imagine my surprise when this week you gave a very similar response to Brad, a struggling parent of a tranny child in their 30s after not seeing his son for the past two years. My question is, Steve, have you knocked the pharisaic edges off your previous criticism of Beg by saying to Brad there may be an avenue to lead him back into the light? Or did I misunderstand your counsel to this struggling father? Sincerely, Steve. Steve, sincerely, you have misunderstood my counsel. If you go back and listen to it now. I think you do bring up an important distinction, which is why I wanted to address it here on the show. One of the reasons I thought that I encouraged Brad, I think that might have been his name. I can't remember, but I'll take your word for it. The reason that I encourage Brad to try to see if he could normalize relations with his son to some degree is because his son's age, and therefore his own age, may be offered an opportunity from a maturity standpoint. Remember what I said next. To engage his son without violating his own belief system would Alistair Beg encouraged a mom to do or a grandmother to do is to violate her own belief system. Under no circumstances, if Brad had written me or I mean Todd nor Aaron, pick a name, any name, literally any name that's ever been thought of in the history of this species, if that person were to contact me and ask me should I attend my my son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter's niece or nephew's trainee wedding, would my answer be yes. In fact, I'd almost view it as I failed as a I failed in my mission. If you sent me that note thinking that there was a possibility, I would tell you to entertain it like, I've failed you or it's your first day listening. It's either your first day listening or I just truly failed. What Beg urged someone to do is to take part in a ritual that is demonic in nature. That's anathema. That's what Beg urged someone to do. To take it, to take. And if you think that terminology is too strong, how about we at least go with sacrilegious. To take something that is sacred, set aside and ordained by God and go ahead and be a part of a complete and total bastardizing of it, a complete and total irredeemable aspect of it. To some degree, all of us are sinners when we approach the marriage altar, correct? Yeah, we have sinned to some degree. Whether we've sinned in that relationship, we have fornicated with that person, whether we. Whether that relationship in and of itself. My wife and I's relationship was birthed and sin. We were fornicators. So whether or not you and that and. And the other person you approach the marriage altar with, that relationship in and of itself was birthed in sin or whether or not it wasn't, but you yourself are a sinner. We're all sinners when we approach the marriage altar, correct?

[D]

Right.

[A]

So there is no perfect example of a marriage or marriage ceremony to go to and to and to be a witness of. Right?

[D]

Right.

[A]

But there are certainly irredeemable ones. Correct. If someone is standing up there and says, in order for you, I mean, what are the last words of every marriage ceremony? I now pronounce you what?

[D]

Man and wife.

[A]

Man and wife. How would we know who that is in a trainee true wedding? Who. How do we know? So therefore the entire construct in and of itself is irredeemable, is it not?

[D]

Right.

[A]

And let's take it outside of a context. Let's take it outside the context of a hot. I, I like to do this a lot with these questions because a lot of times our, our fake empathetic responses to them are based on the political pressure or cultural pressure that may surround that particular pet sin. You know what I'm saying? Like if a woman email. If a woman emailed Alex. Alistair Begg or anybody else for that matter. I think Alistair Begg, by the way, is a great preacher of the word. I've listened to many of Alistair bank sermons, which is why I was so disappointed in what he said. If. But if a woman emailed Alistair Beggar anybody else for that matter, and said, hey, my son changed his name, my grandson changed his name, his name to Aleister Crowley and he's now decided do without Wilt is the code of his life. And he's getting married in a pagan occultic ceremony to a, a known witch, which. Will you see where I'm going with this? Would Alistair beg, do you think? Say. Well, maybe if you consider going that you, you might have a chance to, you know, maintain that relationship. Would he probably urge that person to go, do you think?

[D]

Well, I would have definitely said no before this part. I don't know how far he's willing to push the line on this now.

[A]

But, but it's very likely that the

[D]

answer is still no.

[A]

Still no. Why? Why was it okay to say no in one context but yes to the other? There's no societal pressure on the other one. Now here's the thing. There were eras where there were lots of societal pressure. We just studied the book of Romans, right?

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Eating meat, sacrifice to idols. Idols. So there was all kinds of. Because there was pressure to go to the Aleister Crowley ceremony in, in, in Corinth and Rome.

[D]

Sure.

[A]

And Galatia and, and, and, and Colossi. Right. There was that kind of pressure in these places. Right. To take part in the Greco Roman paganism of the era that Aleister Crowley hearkened himself back to hundreds of, not a thousand and, or 2,000 years later. Right, right, right. So there was societal pressure to conform to that. That's why it had to be addressed. Same thing here. There's no societal pressure to go to a spirit dinner and conform to some occultic practice or demonic ritual out in the open. No, the societal pressure is to do so with the ones that are very subversive, you know, like trune weddings you do it at. I don't think there's any chance whatsoever Alistair Begg urges this grandmother to take part in anything that doesn't have the social pressure that this event does. And I think the only reason that he did in this event, Steve, is because of the social pressure. Softens us up, destigmatizes things for us. What's the question you've been asking about Christopher Nolan recently, Aaron? What's the question?

[C]

Did he trans himself or did someone around him trans themselves?

[A]

Right. Because otherwise why is he doing what he's doing. Exactly. So no, I didn't offer the same thing at all. I want to make it very clear. You should never, ever, ever, ever, ever. You can't do what God says. Is wrong to try to serve God. You can't do that. What do we see on this show all the time? Do everything it takes to win. Except what? That which violates God's word?

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Short of that. Do everything it takes to win. Does a true wedding clearly, clearly violate God's word?

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

So then don't do that. It's not really the same thing at all. Steve, you guys good with that? Should we move on?

[D]

Yeah. I don't. There's no nuance to this. I would go to the ends of the earth to help my broken child in whatever way I possibly could.

[C]

But going to a trune wedding is not helping.

[D]

If they're. If their ultimate destination got parked there, I would not take any part of that. And I don't know why that's complicated in any way, shape or form. Both are called love.

[A]

Ryan Owens writes. I've been an avid listener to your show since Rush passed. Thank you. I've heard you, Todd and Aaron advocate for getting off the couch and actually doing something. I have three and soon to be four children that my wife and I send to a private school in our community. We do this because we don't trust the government school in our area. However, what good am I doing by complaining about the school system, sheltering my kids from it, and not even attempting to change it? I don't regret not sending them to public schools. I do it for good reason. But what if there is something I can do to help remedy the why for the other families? There are approximately 5,000 other kids enrolled in the public schools in my district. If I can take a few hours out of my very busy life to try and make a difference each month, why wouldn't I? Recently, Indiana changed the law where you could announce party affiliation on the ballot for school board. I don't know if that will end up working out in my favor or not, but I can promise you it probably won't. But I'm excited about the journey and I want to thank you guys for the motivation. I'm running for the Vandenberg County School Board in Indiana District 1. If any. Pardon me, if any of your other listeners are in the area, I would appreciate the support. That's from Ryan Owens. Ryan, well done, good and faithful servant, Ryan. The first time we ever use this program for mobilization was to put my friend, my. My. My late friend Jonathan Narciss on the Des Moines School Board. And he ended up becoming the first ever black member of the Des Moines School Board. And I think he won that race by like 15 or 30 votes or some crazy low number. Now, how many government school classrooms, all three of my children are grown now, how many government school classrooms during the school day did any of my three children ever set foot in? 0.0. Never happened. Yet I invested a good deal of my time and energy in local education issues because I have to love my neighbor as I love myself and the kids that are in that school district that can't escape it. The way I'm able to help my kids escape, not be first. We didn't have any money at first. My wife was just willing to stay home and homeschool the kids. Then we had the money to send Noah to a really nice private school. A lot of those kids don't have those options. They don't have parents that can stay home, both have to work. Can't afford a. And this is preschool choice in Iowa, so can't afford a private school. So I wanted to fight for them too. They're made in the image and likeness of God as well. So to me, I think you're doing this exactly right, brother. I mean, you're protecting your own children and then you're fighting for the children who can't be, who aren't being protected. You're a dude.

[D]

Totally agree.

[A]

You're just a total dude.

[D]

There's way too many conservatives who just write off public education as not my problem. It's. It is absolutely problem because of the soulless spirit of the age missionaries that the schools are creating to come and attack your worldview. If from just a taxpayer perspective, pound for pound paying teachers is where most of your tax money goes, there are a hundred very prudential reasons why no matter what you choose to do with your own children, you should absolutely be involved in solving the problem of what our current school, public school system is doing to our kids and our pocketbooks.

[A]

Amen.

[C]

Yeah. Well done. Well done. That was kind of the encapsulation. If you could take a snapshot of any minute of any show that we do, if we could be told, hey, it's going to end up with this guy doing what he's doing, running for what he's running for, that would be worth it all. And I love to hear stories like this. I think it's an encapsulation as well, of not just in the debate over Israel and Jews and things like that. Your constant reminder to love your neighbor as you love yourself. This is an example of that. Even if you're homeschooling your kids, all of those kids in the Public school, they're hurting, they're broken, they probably come. There's a lot of broken and hurting families in those schools as well. Probably a lot of families who are intact but could use a little bit more help from people like you, people who listen to the show to make sure that their children have somebody looking out for them who really is looking out for them. Not the definition from the teachers union of taking care of your kids. So well done.

[A]

Yes. And I don't know how many of these people we still have, you know, but if you're still in that group of I can't even where Trump is concerned, get offline. None of your posts will make any difference. Is Trump up for reelection anytime soon or not? Oh, so he's going to be president for a while. He's going to be making the decisions around here for a bit, right? Yeah. Okay, so you're just wasting your time then, right? You're just, you're doing nothing. Right. So get offline, stop wasting your time and take that energy and do things like Ryan run for school board. There's all kinds of ways to, to, to, to prove that you really are the conservative movement wing of the non existent conservative movement by Trump is God. He's an omnipresent being. There's no other avenues or places you can go and fight that do not require you to kiss his ring. It doesn't happen anywhere else. You have to just do this. You know, who thinks Trump is God is often the people. Isn't that what the people you're mocking think? I mean, if you're acting like you can't possibly get off the couch, couldn't get offline and stop posting your rants with your gators, okay, that have no impact and will make no choice, will not impact anybody's choices at all. But getting involved in your local school board and your local community could make a lot of difference, right? So get offline and, you know, find something to go fight for right there in your own community and state. Ryan is doing it. There's all kinds of ways and there's all kinds of battlefields where if you don't want to kiss Trump's ring, you don't have to. Or you could just stay online and bitch and moan and complain. How's that working out so far?

[D]

Yeah, it's day to day.

[A]

Wesley Thiessen, fellow patriot, he says, writes the following. I want to do everything in my power to leave this country better than I found it so that my future children and grandchildren can live with the same freedoms and prosperity we now enjoy. I know this duty can be carried out in all kinds of careers, but I have found in recent years that I'm extremely drawn to the realm of politics. Within the last year, I've had the opportunity to gain experience in this field through an internship with a policy institute and door knocking for conservative candidates in state and federal elections. These experiences have only intensified my desire to conserve what makes the country great. Policies that promote faith in the family as God designed it are the foundations of America. Without such a foundation, our people and institutions suffer. A harsh truth that we are witnessing today. When Christians refuse to act and join the fight, everyone suffers as a result. As a young person wanting to pursue a career in politics, do you have any advice, suggestions or known opportunities that I could pursue or should be seeking? I know your time is valuable and limited, so I appreciate any guidance in the matter. Again, that's from Wesley Thiessen. Well, Wesley, I would say you are already doing what I would suggest. So, you know, relationships are, are, are everything. The old adage is not what you know, but who you know. And relationships matter, especially in politics. So you're the reason I wanted to read your note is because we get lots of notes from young people asking or even people that are our age now who are like convicted by stuff like what I just said a few minutes ago. And you're like, you're right, I gotta get, I gotta get in the game. Where do I even start? I would tell them, and I would say to you to start exactly where you have. You're doing it right. Get involved. People always need volunteers, always need help. You'll be folks, you will be shocked how much access you could get to the system just by being willing to serve it. They're always looking for help. Always. I was 22 years old for the Polk County Republican Party. I'd have forgotten all about this. I was 22 years old and I got to go to a the West Des Moines, Iowa mayor's house for a birthday party for Pat Graham. And then a dinner held that night

[D]

that

[A]

Elizabeth Dole showed up to on behalf of Bob Richard Luger, the Indiana senator showed up too. A few other Orrin Hatch, the Utah senator showed up too. People that were thinking of running for president and getting involved in the Iowa straw poll for that summer for 1996. I did this all in one day as a 22 year old just by volunteering for the Polk County Republican Party and they needed the help. So they sent me to one place. I was single, had the day Off. So they sent me the one place to help them, you know, staff the birthday party for Phil Graham and send me to the dinner they had that night for the other guys. I got to meet all these people in one night. 22 years old, they didn't know me from Adam. I sat there and broke bread with them. This is a volunteer. You'll be amazed how much access you can immediately. You can, you can pretty quickly get if you're reliable. Because a lot of people get into politics believing in the Aaron Burr school of government that, you know, government exists to line my pockets. If you get into this because you have causes to serve, man, there's a dearth of you. They will, they, you will be getting opportunities you would not have otherwise expected. So I, I just keep doing what you're doing, my friend. That's what I would do. What do you guys think?

[C]

So I don't know if you've ever heard of this organization, but I think it is a necessary organization. I'm not going to, on behalf of Steve or anything, give it the full throated endorsement. Endorsement. But the more that I've seen from it and researched on it, it seems like it's exactly up your alley, Wesley. And by the way, you are three for three on the Steve Day Show. Two buy seller hold submissions that have been right on.

[A]

Oh, is it the same guy?

[C]

Yeah, and this one as well. But this organization is called American Moment and it's headed up by a guy named Nick Solheim, who actually he and I went to the very same college, University of Northwestern St. Paul. Now don't let that scare you away though. Based on what I've seen about unwsp, from what I've seen from Nick and I followed his work now for a while, he's based out of Washington D.C. he's deadly serious about implementing, in a public policy machinery way, our way of life. Because the number one problem that Republican presidents have had and will have in the future is that yes, they will take over the government. They will take over the executive branch. Now what are you going to do to staff it? Because it's still filled up with the same career bureaucrats, the same staffers that various presidents from various political persuasions have actually implemented their policy with. And that's not necessarily a good thing. So Nick Solheim was so serious about fixing this problem that he created American Moment. I'm just going to read the mission statement. Founded in 2021 to identify, educate and credential young Americans who will implement public policy that supports strong families, a Sovereign nation and prosperity for all. Priority is the number one priority that American Moment. And again, maybe there's something, but it seems like a really good organization. The American family, rooted in faith and tradition, is the bedrock of this nation and must be supported. That is the number one priority of this organization whose stated purpose is to credential young Americans to actually implement the policy that some of our elected leaders, many of our elected leaders actually campaign on and then fail to actually follow through on, at least at the federal level because the staffing is so poor. So American Moment might be an organization that you could look into. I'm not sure what the process is of getting involved, but it might be something for you to research.

[A]

That's good. That's a good lead.

[C]

No doubt we should get Nick Solheim on the show at some point too to talk about this.

[A]

You good.

[D]

Also don't make the perfect the enemy of the good when you're just starting out. For example, even if the Republican candidate is not exactly your cup of tea, as long as there's nothing against nothing in your like Steve talks about the closed hand philosophy, no problems there. But if you have an opportunity during like campaign season to go out and door knock you the skill set, you will learn about talking issues, just the grind of it all because you got to be honest about this business and what it is. You have to be idealistic, but you also have to be have a nose for how the sausage is made. So I would find a Republican candidate and even if they're just like kind of meh, but going out and door knocking and then talking about the issues with real people learning about that because you know you're not going to be indicted for supporting that person if they lose necessarily. But talking with the issues, seeing what real Republicans who live there, you're going to be have a lot of people. I know Steve gets intel, I get intel from people door knocking. Like this is, we think this issue is really big based on X. The people on the ground are talking about this issue and they won't stop talking about this issue. So you got to get in there. Don't just you need head knowledge and heart knowledge and that takes a certain amount of doing in a lot of different things.

[A]

That is a very important point. That very important point that Todd just made is even if it's a Republican, that's not your cup of tea. You could just use them as a means to an end.

[D]

Exactly.

[A]

Build relationships, networks. Right. So I mean you're not, you're not being asked to like you Know, character witness form or anything.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We're just talking about whether you're gonna, you know, help clean up afterwards, set the table, you know, I mean, make sure no near. Do wells get near them. I mean. I mean, you're just building a resume, man. You're just building a network and a contact list. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a very important point.

[D]

We'd all like to go to work for Thomas Jefferson or something, but it doesn't always happen.

[A]

Doesn't always happen. Yeah. But doing things like this make it more likely that one day you'll get to. Yeah. Kevin in McComb, Illinois, says I'm an anomaly as a teacher. I'm a conservative. You're right, but there's more to the note. I voted for President Trump three times, many times in the trenches of public education. I feel like Captain America after a whooping, putting the broken shield back on, walking out to face Thanos before everyone shows back up. Your recent Theology Thursday bit about making nefarious and why you made it, plus the. The folder of grateful emails that make your endeavor worthwhile really hit home for me in a good way. Many times, especially in our country's education system. I feel like I'm fighting a long defeat. Why keep doing this? I have similar letters, emails, etc. From former students who acknowledge what they learned in my class as well as what I wanted them to learn about respect, making good choices, and the impact I had on their lives in general. It's not volumes, but it relates to what you said, and thank you for that. Even if we can impact, guide and encourage a few or a handful, then it was worth it. Pray for me as a teacher in our public schools. Again, that's from Kevin and McComb, Illinois. You're nodding your head yes to that?

[D]

Well, same answer as the guy who wants to be on the school board. You know, I. I wanted to be a teacher as well. And early on, as a, you know, young man in my 20s, I was in the middle of the process, and I just knew, like, there. You're never gonna last. I. I really would have. And I. I was being honest with myself. We. We need good men. Like, now. I think there's even, you know, maybe down the road as a senior citizen or something, if there's avenues to get involved, I still would, because I do believe this is that important. What? How? This is why I talk all the time about what grown men are doing and what their kids are seeing them doing. Because all of life is an education and we are failing the next Generation. That generation of young men. Steve, Gosh, made such a great point yesterday about how with Nick Fuentes, we have it, what? In reverse. We're pushing people to the Nick Fuentes of the world. Because what we have to offer, whether you're. Whether it's the schools or the dads or whatever, we are just doing a very poor job of the broad definition of education. So God bless you for standing in the gap and doing what you can. You clearly have people who are grateful for it, and we are in your debt.

[A]

I think. Most of us are not working for nonprofits, right? And it's like the line in the Dark Knight Rises when elderly, broken Bruce goes to Alfred and says, well, why aren't we funding the orphanage anymore? And he says, well, you let the business go, sir. So, you know, no profits, no. No donations, no charity. You know, pretty simple, right? So the money's got to come from somewhere, right? You know, so I'm not against profit. None of us are here working for free. But you have to. You almost always have to put mission ahead of money. In fact, I would say you do always have to do it, because the times that you would think you don't, you're probably thinking that because of the mission, like you're thinking of, well, you know, we're starving and we need to eat. Well, that's part of your mission as a father and a husband, is to provide. Right? Okay. So missiology has to be ahead of, you know, fiduciary all the time. But fiduciary is still pretty high on the list. Like what we say about, you know, love your neighbors, love yourself. We've completely distorted it in this last era of seeker friendly nonsense and made that the greatest commandment. When the greatest commandment is to love you, Lord, your godly hearts will strengthen mind, right? But love your neighbor as you love yourself and then be a number two. Still pretty dang high. I mean, that's. That's still pretty important being number two, right? So it still does matter a lot. So, you know, money does matter a lot. One of my low key favorite lines in It's a Wonderful Life, when Clarence the angel and. And Jimmy Stewart's character George Bailey digs him out of the icy river. And. And they're. And they're drying out. They're drying out afterwards. And Bailey's kind of lamenting some of his circumstances, and Clarence points out he has no id, has nothing, has no money. And George is like, what do you mean you have no money? He says, well, I'm from Heaven, you know, it doesn't. Money's of no use up there. And George Bailey says, well, comes in pretty handy down here, bub. That's a great line. All right. We need money. All right. Now, the love of money is the root of all evil, but the acquisition of it isn't. So it's going to take money to do virtually anything good that we want to do to some degree, but it can't ever be number one on the list. Mission has to always be number one. And, and if you do make mission number one over and over again, then you're going to have the perspective that Kevin and McComb just wrote into with. And I can promise you this, too, you're going to live a more joyful and contented life as well. More in a moment.

[B]

The steve day show.

[A]

All right, back here on the Steve Day show, you guys ready to roll on with some feedback?

[D]

Friday, let's close the deal.

[A]

This one from Andrew Story. And Aaron, I think I'm going to let you maybe take the lead on this one. Okay.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I used to be heavily involved in politics. Andrew writes. I worked for Americans for Prosperity, was active with Turning Point USA and followed about five different shows every day to stay on top of the news. But just a few months now into Trump's second term, I started feeling apathetic about everything happening in the country. Once I graduated, began looking for a job, those feelings got much worse. I've spent the better part of a year searching for work with no real success. I would like to own a house one day, but that goal feels more unrealistic with every passing day we've had. By the way, let me add as an aside, 36 consecutive months in America where housing prices were more than they were the previous month. And is that because it's some of some accompanying economic boom that's going on, gentlemen? Is it?

[C]

No.

[A]

No. So it's other factors, correct?

[D]

Yes.

[A]

And those factors, because there's good reasons why houses would go up for 36 months in a row, right?

[D]

It could be.

[A]

And then there's bad reasons. This is more than likely not good reasons. Yeah. Okay. Just to give him. Just to add some local color there to Andrew's note. I'd like to own a house one day, he says, but that goal feels more unrealistic with every passing day. I didn't have much luck with dating in college and eventually gave up on it to focus on school and other priorities. Now I see the policies Republicans are prioritizing and very little addresses the problems my friends And I are facing the border is a problem, but we still haven't seen the mass portions of those already here. Not a single prominent Democrat has gone to jail for the crimes we know they've committed. Not a single rioter screaming about how it's still illegal to kill white people or still legal to kill or yeah, it's still legal to kill white people in Texas after the Carmelo Anthony verdict has been arrested. The right acts like mission accomplished and declares woke dead. Yet it's still clearly everywhere. I'm at the point where I can't find a job, can't buy a house, have no real prospects of having children or buying a family. I don't have much reason to care about the world beyond my own well being and I hate feeling that way. Meanwhile, all I hear from Republicans are the usual campaign talking points. Fight for veterans, be God fearing Christians, pointing how stupid the Democrats are. Slogans aren't going to change anything. I don't see anyone seriously trying to make things better for my generation, the one that will live with the consequences the longest. So here's my question. Why should I go out and vote for Republicans or even care about stopping Democrats when the people who claim they'll fight for that fight them so often end up voting like them or doing nothing once elected? I know this is, I know this was a lot, but I'm deeply frustrated. Nobody in power seems willing to do anything meaningful about the real problems. I'm at the point where I would vote for the fascist Hitler like figure Democrats keep calling Trump if it actually meant jobs would go to Americans first, Democrats and criminal activists would face real consequences in jail time and the media would be held accountable for knowingly lying to benefit the left. We're facing a left that's fighting a war and has openly talked about Nuremberg style trials for conservatives and Trump supporters if the best Republicans seem to offer us temporary grace periods before we resume our sprint towards something like Islamic communism. Thanks for you. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I appreciate what you try to do for the country. I hope to hear back Andrew's story. So Aaron, it's probably obvious now why I wanted you to tackle this first

[C]

because you and Todd don't have the stones.

[A]

But, but you are closer in age to Andrew, okay Than the two of us are. So I wanted to give you the first crack at responding to what he had to say here.

[C]

So the number one thing that I would say, and I'm serious about this because of the totality of everything that was in that Note and I'm not saying this in a way to troll. I'm not saying this in a condescending way at all. I'm saying this because I think our creator, our maker, who knows us better than we know ourselves, designed us in such a way that I think there's it would be best if everyone were able to have this like once a week, this opportunity like once a week. But I really think that you should go to the nearest if you're near a national park or you're near a beautiful state park, leave your phone at home and go walk and touch some grass. And I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that as a troll, like I said or condescending. Go touch some grass, go breathe some fresh air, go get some sunshine. I know it's really hot right now all over the country for large swathes of the country, but I think it's really important to just get out and enjoy God's creation in person, not through your phone. That would be the first thing that I would do. Leave your phone at home. Second thing, I would assume on some level you've been involved in various organizations like Turning Point usa, which the main organization is not explicitly faith based, but its founder, I mean that it exuded from him he was doing this, all of this for the Lord. So I assume on some level, on some stripe, you are a believer. Are you bathing your mind in God's word every day? Or at least when you get up, at least some regular part of the day, are you bathing your mind in God's word? Number two, that's number two. Number three, you asked what are other people going to do to make sure or focus on my generation. Now, I'm not going to give you the boomer, pull yourself up by the bootstraps thing. But there's one practical reason I think you're seeing this and then another practical thing that you can do. Number one, it's not going to be this way for much longer. But it's kind of, when you put it into these terms, it's kind of understandable why you're seeing this or why you feel this way or whether this is the reality. Who has been the number one in terms of demographics, the number one voting block across the political spectrum for the last going on now, however long, half a generation, it's been the boomers. It's been the boomers. So it's just human nature. If that's again, generally speaking in general terms, who are politicians mostly going to gear their messaging, mostly going to gear their reward system towards. It's likely going to be that generation. That's just the way it is. And most politicians for the better part of the last 20, 25 years have been boomers. So that's one practical thing. But to the other part of your question, this is kind of what I was talking about the other day. I know it's hard to find a job. I understand I'm lucky to have the job that I have. The friends in my small group, they would tell you the same thing as well. They're pretty much the same age that I am, same life circumstances that I am. Married, have a house, have kids. We're all very, very blessed by God and would say that one to a T. There are other though, other realms where you can take responsibility. This was the number one driver I said, and this was getting back to Wesley's Buy, sell or hold submission, Wesley Thiessen's submission the other day. The number one driver of aimlessness. And I hear a lot of aimlessness. I'm just going to be really blunt with you. I hear a lot of aimlessness in your notes. No doubt the number one driver of aimlessness is a lack of responsibility. There's responsibility laying all around you if you'll just have eyes to see. And that's. I don't mean this to come off as pull yourself up by the bootstraps. I assume you have a, a roof over your head somehow, some way. But have you tried volunteering at church regularly? Making that. As you try to look for a vocation, look for a good job, making that part of your vocation where God wants you. If that's not really, you know, if that's, if you've already done that or you already are serving in some way. Have you tried volunteering at say a local library, helping out around there, helping out with local youth sports teams? Have you tried maybe volunteer if that's not really your stripe, you could always minister at an old folks home. Again, none of this is really sexy, is it? No, it's not. But the more you take on, the more you realize how much people and systems could actually use people like you. Whatever your giftedness is, you can just put it to use. I'm not going to say that this is going to be a silver bullet for you, but I think it might help. You might realize after volunteering at Fill in the Blank, hey, that actually God's using that somehow. I need it as much as I put into that. I needed that myself. That's one way. Even outside of a job, which is really important and you should not stop looking. And you should try to find one that uses the intersection of your marketability and giftedness as much as possible. But until that happens, there are other ways that you can get involved. And yes, that does mean giving of yourself a lot. But I think there's other ways that you can pick up the responsibility that I think is all around you. And maybe, just maybe the aimlessness that I kind of hear out of that note, maybe you'll realize, hey, there's actually a lot of things around me that's worth fighting for that I can fight for. I might not be able to make the Hollywood or storybook ending happen in Washington, D.C. or on the southern border or lands far away. You know what? I can do the best that I can do with the time God has given me today in my immediate sphere of influence. So number one, go touch some grass a little bit. Seriously, go out and enjoy God's creation and enjoy the Maker who made that and made you. Number two, bathe your mind in the word of God. Number three, look for responsibility all around you and then pick it up.

[A]

I think that's really well said.

[D]

That's a banger. Aaron.

[A]

Yep, I think it was good. It was equal parts compassionate, encouraging, challenging. We might make a dad out of you yet, brother. That was good. Very well said.

[C]

Got news for you.

[A]

Very nice. Oh good. Yeah, we got time for this. This is from Mason Balicki. I've been a listener for going on seven years. I've been listening to you talk about Tucker Carlson Dean Constructing. I'm wondering what you mean by this. I also rarely ever miss an episode of Tucker and I'm not connecting this with what I see. Rather than continuing to troll your comment sections, I would like to know why you believe this. Tucker has more and more frequently quoted scripture, invited faith based, guest on and aligns almost everything he talks about with what he sees as the teachings of Jesus. This is markedly more evident than even a year ago. How could someone be deconstructing while also seeming to get closer to Jesus? In the last year Tucker has talked about the book of Esther being about Persian genocide. He has become an open proponent of Islam. I Tucker never talks about sin, salvation, redemption, repentance, restoration. Am I missing something? Tucker can't tell you what church he goes to.

[D]

That's a biggie.

[A]

That's kind of important thing. Says he doesn't go to church because just too many Christian leaders are terrible people. I also have been constantly hearing Tucker, J.D. and others get smeared as Anti Tucker is an absolute anti semi. I don't even think there's a debate about that. I mean, I. What would you typically call somebody in any other context who has spent the last two years trying to retcon Hitler one year and year two, attempting to make it look like Israel is the center of evil in the world? Now, if you're just doing number two, I wouldn't say that person's automatically an anti Semite. They might be right, they might be wrong, but I wouldn't say they're an anti Semite. Right, Right. But if you. If you preceded with trying to reimagine Hitler and then went to spot number two, if that's. If that's the. If that's the order of events here, what's that typically kind of symbolize?

[D]

Nothing good.

[A]

If it wasn't anybody you knew, nobody you previously liked, and his name's just Joe from around the way. Joe from around the way was talking about how Hitler was misunderstood and Israel's really bad. What would you think of Joe from around the way? Todd, what would you probably think? Joe from around the way is if you put those two things together, Semitic. Anti Semitic. So that's why I'm saying Tucker is absolutely an anti Semite. Now, in fairness to Mason, this note was sent a few weeks before we had the entire discourse we had at the top of the show. So I'm trying to be graceful where that is concerned. Okay. Because that might have illuminated some things for him. And I'm just going to tell you, brother, that if you and most of your conservative friends are thinking the things of Tucker, you're just wrong. And someone needs to tell you that. And consensus isn't any more of an argument for truth where your opinions are concerned, as they are with people who say we've got a consensus of climate scientists that we're all going to, you know, fry unless you stop using fossil fuels. I've been frustrated because truth and decency are the ciphers I use debase if I'm on the right side of things. We have. We have. We have exposed numerous untruths that Tucker has told, including earlier in this very episode. In fact, maybe it's my algorithm, but I'm constantly seeing people like Mark Levin, Laura Loomer, we're big Laura Lumafari fans. I think everybody knows this about us. Right. Constantly promoting her work. Are we.

[D]

We are not.

[A]

Yeah. Referring to people like Nazi scum, mental patient, pos and more. Listen, with all due respect, that while I'm not necessarily A fan of that? I. I'm not really sure much of the so called new rights language is maybe the place to go as paradox of virtue. Thoughts?

[C]

No, probably not.

[A]

Okay, Then there's the full on American Jewish accounts posting stuff way worse. You have statements. Here we are. So I think, I think you have sentiments from Israeli cabinet. First of all, you know what? I have no idea what Israeli cabinet members are posting. I couldn't tell you. Do you know why? I don't have an idea of what Israeli cabinet members are posting. Can you guess why? I don't know. What would you think the issue would be? The reason would be. I have no idea what Israeli cabinet members are posting.

[C]

You're not a Lebanese.

[A]

I'm not. Yeah, I'm not a Lebanese. Guess what? I'm also not an Israeli. An Israeli. I'm an American. So I follow America. I'm America first. So I follow America first. I follow America. Honestly, I had to look up. I heard all this talk about Ben gvir. I had to look him up. I had no idea who he was. I started hearing people posting all this stuff about Ben GVIR a few months ago. Had no clue who. I had to look it up. I didn't know who he was. Didn't know. I think he's the Israeli head of Department of War or something. I. I don't know. I'm not Israeli. I must confess, I. I'm not well versed in the names of foreign governments outside of the leader. I don't. Couldn't tell you. I don't know because I'm American. After doing a deep dive into Christians being killed in Lebanon. Where'd you do the deep dive? Where's your sources? Because I could point to you that the Lebanese government is actually encouraging the Israelis to continue. I mean, then again they could be beholden to the Jews too. I mean, I don't. I don't know. It's possible. This. I agree. I really don't know what's happening or has happened in Gaza either. Neither do I. I mean a given day I can see videos of all kinds of dead bodies. I can also see videos of all kinds of also Gaza. Ites just hanging out at a deli, eating lunch, you know, getting Hillel. So I, I don't. You know why? I also don't know exactly what's going on in Gaza. Can you guess why? I don't know precisely what's happening in Gaza. Can you guess?

[D]

You live here.

[A]

I don't live in. I don't live in Gaza. I don't Are we being asked to fight some war in Gaza?

[D]

Can we all agree you don't kill the Ayatollah?

[C]

You guys. You guys remember Aaron Bushnell though, right?

[D]

No.

[A]

No.

[C]

Come on. You remember Aaron Bush now, right?

[A]

No.

[C]

You don't?

[A]

No. Who is that?

[C]

Oh, he is the US service member who self immolated in protest of Gaza. This is who the letter writer is on the same side of. You don't remember the guy who lit himself on fire for Gaza?

[A]

I don't. I don't.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I wasn't aware I was being asked. My country is being asked to fight a war in Gaza. Are you aware of a war we're asking to fight in Gaza?

[D]

No.

[A]

So if we're not being asked to fight in Gaza, then why would it be any of the our responsibility then?

[D]

Only the Ayatollah knows.

[A]

I thought we were America first. I don't know. When are we America first and when are we not? When you guys want me involved in foreign entanglements and when you don't. It's fascinating to me. Go hard. Romans 8, 28.