A (0:04)

It's Wednesday, November 19, 2025. I'm Albert Mohler, and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. There is simply no doubt what the big headline news is in the United States in this news cycle and likely for some to come. And that is the decision that was made in terms of action by the House of Representatives and then summary action by the United States Senate on the same day in which you have overwhelming. And that's an understatement. Only one representative, one member of the House of Representatives, voted against the motion to require the government to release all its files on Jeffrey Epstein. And if you look at America's historic context, you could just say, okay, there are moments in which there were significant turns. There was a before and an after. You can point to certain dates when something was politically plausible, and then instantly it wasn't, or something was implausible, and then suddenly it becomes plausible, something was acceptable, and now all of a sudden, it is unacceptable. And when it comes to the government release of this information and with the legislation that would require the Trump administration to do so, you can see an overwhelming change in the American public's moral conviction on the issue. And that's really what you see in the action taken yesterday in the House and in the Senate. It wasn't that all of a sudden, members of the House and members of after a long period of moral and political reflection, decided that November 18, 2025, was the date in which this would happen. No. In the course of the public unfolding of this event, it just turned out that yesterday was the day that turns out to be the Fulcrum. There's a before and after. Before yesterday, there was a debate about whether or not all these files should be released. After yesterday, there is overwhelming support. So much so that There was only 1 out of 435 members of the House of Representatives who voted against the release. And the Senate simply took action through a summary action responding to the action in the House. It didn't even require the kind of roll call vote. And that shows you how quickly all this has taken place. The big question as of early afternoon yesterday was, what will the Senate do after the House action? Well, you know, the Senate didn't leave any time between when the question was asked and when the question was answered. The story at Axios released yesterday, one sentence gets right to the point. Quote, the Senate on Tuesday unanimously passed a bill to compel the Justice Department to release all files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, sending it to President Trump's desk. Okay. Now, the president said on Monday that he would sign the bill, and there's virtually no political possibility he will not now sign the bill. There are some, including Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, has been kind of a thorn in the Trump administration's side on this. Congressman Massie has said that he and others are worried that the launching of new investigations will create another obstacle to the release of this material. But you know what? At this point, it's just really clear. The American people want the material released. They want the material released today. They want the action to take place, and they want their elected representatives to get the message fast. And here's a big moral lesson for us. Just look how fast this lesson was received. As of Sunday, wasn't so clear as of Monday, wasn't so clear as of Tuesday. Wow. Were things clear so clear that the vote tally shows only one negative vote out of the entire House of Representatives? And the Senate just took this summary unanimous action. Let's just get this thing done. So, in terms of moral change, how do we explain this? The political side's a little easier to explain. It's just a matter of the public's demand. But beyond that, looking at moral change, here's where I think we need to see that there's a point at which the American people simply says, enough of this. We need moral clarity. Enough of this speculation, enough of this finger pointing, enough of this innuendo, enough of this suggestiveness. We need to know the bottom line. Okay, so here's one of the morally frustrating realities. Given the complexity of our system of government, given the realities of human sin, given how many people have been involved in this or may be involved in this, the American people may never be satisfied that they know enough. And that's just a real issue of frustration. And the President himself made reference to that this week when he said, look, we released the files on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. People aren't satisfied. Released the files on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. People are not satisfied. Well, here's a wake up call for us all. The people will never be satisfied. And that is not to say that their urgency is not right. It is to say that, frustratingly, when you have a loss of credibility on the part of something like the federal government, it's very difficult to gain that credibility back. And at the very least, credibility requires that this material be released. And the American people are so clear on that that between the House and the Senate, there was only one single individual who dared to vote no, only one that tells you a whole lot. But for that one, it would have been unanimous action in both the House and the Senate. Now, obviously, we're talking about heinous crimes here. And let's just understand at a deeper level than perhaps what's going on in the national conversation. Let's, as Christians, take a biblical and theological analysis of this. Number one, why such clarity and urgency on this issue? Well, I think it is because we understand as Christians that when you're talking about a sex scandal like this, and you're talking about an organized sex scandal like this, and then you add the fact that this is the abuse and exploitation of young women and girls, and then you add to this the fact that so many powerful people are connected to Jeffrey Epstein, and then you add to this the fact that you had this man brought up on charges, and somehow those charges were minimized to the extent he was able to re enter, let's just say, polite society. And then everything fell apart with further accusations and further investigation. And then he commits suicide in prison so that he never actually faces the bar of justice. You look at all of this and you can see the American people are filled with righteous indignation. But why the moral urgency? And I think it is because you add all this up and it is simply something that is so morally compelling to the American people. There is so much ugliness and dirt and horrible stuff here. There is so much righteous moral judgment against this kind of sexual exploitation and concentric circles of people who must have known something. This leads to what University of Chicago philosopher Leon Cass has referred to as the yuck factor. It is moral disgust. And I think Leon Kass, who's a major Jewish intellectual, I think he's absolutely right. There's something deeply biblical about this. There are things that no sane moral person can hear about, can talk about, can read about without the automatic response of moral disgust. And not just moral distaste. This is another indication of a basic Christian biblical principle, and that is that we are moral creatures because God made us that way. The Creator made us in his image. And at least a part of that is that we have a knowledge, we have a moral consciousness, we have a conscience that cries out that certain things are just wrong. And then other things are not only wrong, they're horribly wrong. Other things are horrible wrongs piled upon other horrible wrongs. And thus disgust is not the wrong response, it is profoundly the right response. But I think it's important that we as Christians understand that when that is rightly applied, it doesn't come from cultural influence or cultural conditioning. It comes from the conscience, which comes from the creator. I think secondarily, as we look at this, there's some other big issues here, and that is that character always matters. Right? And so I'm going to talk about just one individual because this individual is at the heart of some of the revelations in the emails in the congressional release. And that's very much a part of headline news. And part of the reason is because he's actually been working for some of the media sources that are now having to report on this. I'm talking about Larry Summers, who was the Secretary of the treasury under President Clinton. He was also a former president of Harvard University. He is, or at least was as of Monday. He was seated on many of the most powerful corporate boards and corporate organizational boards in the United States. But now they are running from him fast. So, for example, here is the story from the Crimson, that is the campus newspaper at Harvard University. Listen to this. Quote, former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will step back from all public commitments in an effort to, quote, rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me. Secretary Summers released this in a statement Monday evening, as the Crimson reports, quote, the announcement comes less than one week after seven years of correspondence between Summers and disgraced financier Jeffrey E. Epstein were released by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. The document showed Summers and Epstein continued to exchange messages until July 5, 2019, just one day before Epstein was arrested on new sex trafficking charges. We're talking about really horrible stuff, more horrible than I can get into in detail on the briefing, but it involves not only the banter between two men who obviously had a relationship, but in the most pathetic of exposures, Larry Summers is here, as he's well known. He is exposed as having asked Jeffrey Epstein for romantic advice about what apparently would have been an adulterous relationship. And it just adds layer of disgust upon layer of disgust. And here's a very interesting moral point. Larry Summers is now he's done in terms of public influence. It once added to an institution's prestige to have him on the board of directors. Now they have to do everything they can to get as far away from that yuck factor as possible. Now, I mentioned that this is from the Harvard Crimson and the Harvard's at the center of this. And Larry Summers has been a controversy there for a long time, but he was very much a figure in the Democratic Party. He had influence in the Obama administration, he had influence in the Biden administration. And of course, he had the Cultural cache, former president of Harvard University, former secretary of the Treasury. I mean, we're talking about major, major roles in our society. In the statement released Monday, Mr. Summers said, quote, I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein. That was in a statement to the Crimson itself. Just in terms of his involvements. Well, let's just look at the statement for a moment. Number one, he does take personal responsibility. He uses a very important theological word here, a very important Christian word. He says, I'm deeply ashamed of my actions. Okay, so here's a great issue of confusion in the modern world. You have guilt and shame. Are they the same thing, or are they different? Are they separable? The biblical worldview helps us to understand that guilt is an objective truth. Shame is often a subjective expression. That is to say that someone can be objectively guilty. And yet, well, here's the word we use for it. Shameless can apparently not take moral responsibility for what he or she has done. But the biblical worldview also tells us that shame and guilt will ultimately be combined. And on the day of judgment, both shame and guilt will be fully demonstrated, and there will be no sinner able to stand that judgment. And that's why, again, we understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ makes all the difference. Because on that day, those who are in Christ will not be judged for our sins. Although it would be rightful that we would be. It is also righteous that we are not. Because the righteousness of Christ is imputed to those who come to Christ by faith and believe. So it is not our unrighteousness that will be seen on that day of judgment, but rather Christ's imputed righteousness. And thus there is no shame on that day. But it is also clear that the Bible refers to acts of shame. So the sin is still shameful. But Christ bore our guilt and our shame and the just punishment for our sin on the cross. But this does remind us that in the world around us, we see constant reminders of what is at stake. Constant reminders constantly. This is the kind of explosive story that, of course, is salacious. At one level, the national media just can't stop talking about it. We have to talk about it, because there are such deep issues revealed in this. And there is no happiness at all. There is no happiness in seeing sin exposed for all of its sinfulness, but there is a sense of righteousness in it. The sense of righteousness is that when such a thing is exposed, it is very important that the right moral response would come. I think that's indicated in the shift in public opinion. It's indicated in the political actions taken in both houses of Congress on Tuesday. I think it's indicated by the way the public is talking about this issue. It's also indicated in the fact the public finds it disgusting to talk about this issue. Okay, next, while we're thinking about big changes in the society, let's understand that there is something new in, in the political scene, particularly in the Democratic party, and that is the rise of candidates who openly identify as Democratic socialists. Now, there have been Democratic socialists who've served in Congress. The interesting action right now is at the municipal levels, at the level of city elections, most famously the election of Zoram Mamdani as the next mayor of New York City. And so we're talking about a young Muslim from a very liberal family, by the way, and a very young man who is an openly identified Democratic socialist who was elected mayor of the nation's largest city. But on the other coast, it also turns out that something very similar was happening, and that's in the city of Seattle. So the headline in the New York Times, Seattle elects mayor in shift further to the left. Okay, so let's just stop there for a moment. The headline, shift further to the left. Okay, so if the New York Times on the front page says that the election means that Seattle is shifting further to the left, well, that's a very interesting little marker that we're talking about a liberal city which is even in the view of the New York Times, shifting even more liberal further left. Anna Griffin wrote the lead story for the New York Times, quote, a community organizer and first time candidate who pushed for higher taxes on the wealthy will be Seattle's next mayor, unseating the incumbent who conceded following one of the tightest elections in the city's history. Katie Wilson wasn't expected to win. And as a matter of fact, she wasn't leading in the electoral results until a certain point at which it became clear she was leading and eventually she had won. Now, she is not a charismatic personality. She is very much a person of the left. She also identifies with a democratic socialist platform and I'll say perhaps even more the socialist part from what I can understand. It's also clear she's not really a charismatic personality. Zram Mandani as a political phenomenon is an incredibly charismatic figure. One person who was cited in the piece in the New York Times said about Katie Wilson, quote, katie is, let's just say, dry okay, all right. So in other words, she wasn't elected because of her exciting personality. She wasn't elected because of charisma. She was elected because of her ideas. And that really tells you something. She had been involved for a long time in community activism there in Seattle. Okay, so we need to stop for a moment, because conservatives often read a term like that, and they don't understand all that's behind it a lot. That is behind that is a big movement that began particularly at the local level, the community level. And it was community organizing. It really was an action in the new left. Saul Alinsky, one of the major figures in the new Left. So think critical theory, think transformation of Marxism. All that was taking place. Community organization. The community organizer became a figure in the United States in the second half of the 20th century. One of the major figures you need to keep in mind in this is Barack Obama, who was a disciple of Alinsky and very much of the Chicago model of community organization. He was deeply involved as a community organizer before he went into teaching law and becoming a political figure, an electoral figure. And so that tells you a lot about who Barack Obama is and was, because it comes out of that matrix. Alinsky was calling for new rules for radicals. He was calling for a radical change to the left, a great shift left. But he wasn't, first of all, trying to do it in terms of, say, a presidential election nationwide. He was trying to start where Marxism says things of a revolutionary nature should start, and that is in community organizations, in the coming together of people at the local level. Katie Wilson in Seattle is very much a part of that. And so even as she had never run for any electoral office before she was elected, albeit it was a close election, but she unseated an incumbent there in Seattle. And it's because, guess what? The community organizer had evidently organized the community. When it comes to Katie Wilson, it really is a fact that she's very much a person of the left, so much so that the New York Times would say further to the left. And her election does represent a shift. It's a shift that she says is at least in part, about affordability. Again, that was a major theme of Zeram Mandani's candidacy as a Democratic socialist there in the city of New York. And I'll simply say that as a matter of political fact, affordability is a big issue. It's just hard to imagine how someone on the left can actually address the issues of affordability without some kind of coercive government action, which almost never actually leads to lower Prices, it almost always leads to bigger government. And when it comes to community organizing, you'll also see that on both coasts. Now, in Seattle and in New York, you have democratic socialists whose answer is to tax the rich. And you know, that's a very appealing thing when it comes to talking to the masses. Let's tax the rich. But you know, when you take the United States income tax right now, and then you take even a municipal, a metropolitan setting like New York, the rich already pay a very large part of the tax base. And as a matter of fact, an awful lot of people in New York effectively don't pay any income tax at all. And that's true in the United States. Millions of people in the United States don't pay any income tax at all. As a matter of fact, there is even a benefit to some persons below a certain income level. They get effectively money from the government net. And so you look at this and you say, well, that raises a huge question. Britain right now is going through many of the same issues and questions. The labor government in Britain is going to have to raise taxes again. They had basically said, we're going to raise taxes on the rich. But you know what? You can only get so much money from the rich for two reasons. For two reasons. Number one, the rich have options when it comes to their money, and the rich also have options as to where they live. So you can say, we're going to tax the rich, but the rich might just decide to put their money elsewhere or even to move elsewhere. And furthermore, when it comes to business and investments, it's very easy to say tax the rich. But when it comes to income inequality and all the rest, it's always more complex than it looks. And so, for example, and you say we're going to beat up on Wall Street. Well, the problem is many of the people who are deeply invested in Wall street, whether they know it or not through their retirement funds, are school teachers in Los Angeles or people who are working as hourly employees in business. It turns out that they too, school teachers are a big example. They're all deeply invested in the stock market through the investment funds and their retirement funds. And so they can say tax the rich. But when it comes to at least a lot of the ways that investments work, their future, it really counts on a lot of rich people making themselves and others richer. On the social issues, once again, we're just talking very, very liberal. And that's the reason why when you talk about both coasts, especially when you talk about cities like Seattle and New York on The LGBTQ issues, on just the abortion issue, virtually all the issues of social liberalism, they're all there. And frankly, in some places, they're now beyond political question. And so in a city like New York or in a city like Seattle, the pro life argument just basically has no traction at all. And the government is even contrary to the federal government in many ways. It's going to extend the LGBTQ logic all the way to where the activists want it to go. This leads to all kinds of social pathologies. But it is interesting that there's enough political pressure, enough frustration in cities like New York and Seattle that they have elected Democratic socialists. It's going to be a very interesting experiment. I don't say that as if. I don't think I know where this is going. But still, even as we think we know where it's going, it's going to be very interesting when on both coasts, in Seattle and New York, socialists actually have to manage the city. That means they have to take responsibility for their policies, which means it is going to be very interesting. So stay tuned. Also, while we are watching things political, the recent announcement in New York that the grandson of the late President John F. Kennedy, and his name is Jack Schlossberg, he is going to run for the congressional seat that is now open because of the retirement of Gerald Nadler, a very, very liberal Democratic member of Congress who's also rather old. And he, rather than taking the course of many of his colleagues and just staying in, he decided that he would retire from the House. And he did so in such a way that was timed in all likelihood to allow a former staff member to move in and gain that seat. It's a very liberal district. So it's kind of like talking about Nancy Pelosi on the West Coast. It's not a question of whether a liberal Democrat's going to be elected in that district. It's a question of which liberal Democrat. And now Jack Schlossberg, the son of Caroline Kennedy Slasberg, that is the late president's daughter, he has declared he's going to run. Now, here's the thing. His current job, if I guess is the best way to put it, is that he is known as an Internet provocateur. In other words, he's an Internet influencer. He's famous, as Daniel Boorstin, the late Librarian of Congress, said, basically, for being famous. And he's famous because he's the grandson of John F. Kennedy. He's famous because his mother is Caroline Kennedy. He is famous because of the Kennedy brand. And he's famous insofar as he's famous online for some antics that are just, I'll just say bizarre, weird, not exactly Kennedy esque in the 1960s sense. He's a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, but he's not famous for being a lawyer. He's not famous for his professional life. In that sense, he's only famous and has media attention because he's the grandson of John F. Kennedy and because of his Internet antics. It's going to be very interesting to see what Democratic voters are looking for. It's likely to be a hotly contested race in that congressional district for Nadler's seat. It's really interesting at this point in worldview analysis to see how many people who and how many news sources and commentators with a lot at stake for the Democratic Party, they are not greeting this with joy at all. They do not see Jack Schlossberg as a serious figure. And that tells you something. It tells you that the Kennedy mantle doesn't just fall as people might expect. And it is clear that the only qualification this young man has is that he is the grandson of the late US President. How far that gets him in this congressional race among Democrats, well, time will tell, but it is very interesting to see how many Democrats are saying they're not getting on this bandwagon. It is always true that we can make too much of politics. It is also true that we can make too little. When things get interesting in worldview terms, we need to pay some interest. But it also is the fact that a lot of these things are unfolding stories. So insofar as we're talking about this candidacy, well, obviously we've got some time to wait. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website@albertmohler.com you can follow me on X or Twitter by going to x.comalbertmohler for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to spts.edu. for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.