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Tim Whitaker
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April K. McCullough
See for yourself@botoxcosmetic.com you're listening to a new evangelicals production, the Tim and April show, where we unravel faith, politics and culture.
Tim Whitaker
I love that.
April K. McCullough
It's like my theme music when I'm doing something mundane in my head. It's like I'm like, yeah, right, right. It's like my show.
Tim Whitaker
Yes. Yes. Shout out to scrawny music. That's a friend of mine who actually wrote that whole song. We license it from him. But friends, good to be with you. Welcome back. Another episode of the Tim and April show coming your way. And woo. This is gonna be a doozy because we're covering. Oh my gosh. Okay. We're covering CPAC and Nazi salutes and Trump as a third. As president for a third term. We're going to be covering, of course, the Trump Gaza Weird video. I mean, there's so much to talk about with that video and we're going to talk about the rebellion. People are pushing back and they're saying no, like, we're not taking this lying down. Even some of Trump's supporters are pushing back now against some of his postings, which is a good sign. Okay, a good sign. I'm looking for the hope.
April K. McCullough
There's a line. There's actually a line.
Tim Whitaker
There's a line. Right. Have we, have we possibly found the red line with some. With some Trump supporters, Some being the.
April K. McCullough
Keyword here, not the majority by any means.
Tim Whitaker
That's right.
April K. McCullough
And we're going to introduce a new segment that will become a recurring thing at the end. And we're not going to tell you what it is, but I made a jingle for it.
Tim Whitaker
Yes, you did. You're going to be the jingle queen of this show.
April K. McCullough
Jingle queen. Jingle all the way.
Tim Whitaker
If you are just joining us on podcast, welcome in. We do this live on Mondays and Thursdays on YouTube, 12:00 Eastern. So if you're listening, post that time frame. Thanks so much for tuning in. It means the world. Like I said, we have so much to get into. April, it's good to see you as always. And yeah, I feel maybe I'm happy that we're doing this show twice a week. I feel like next Monday is gonna be the first real week where we're doing this Monday, Thursday format covering content. Last this week or this past Monday, we covered our stories. We just shared how we went from Christian nationalists and in that world to deconstructing our faith, maintaining our allegiance to Jesus, and then starting, in my case, the new evangelicals and you blowing up as an influencer online. That led us to join forces and start the Tim and April show so people can go back and listen to that if they want to hear the whole story, get all the context. But I'm pumped now to kind of get into the rhythm of things and start covering the important stuff.
April K. McCullough
And maybe one day our shows will not go two hours when we can actually cover news Monday and Thursday. I mean, who knows? Yeah, we already had to cut out stuff that we were going to talk about today. Like we can't just do this for a Lord of the Rings length movie.
Tim Whitaker
So, well, full transparency, right? You and I met on Tuesday and we kind of show prep because we're trying to get a little more official. We're trying to put some more thought into the show. And we said, okay, let's try and have some flexibility for whatever happens between Tuesday and Thursday. And again, so many things happen, including this Trump Gaza video and also Trump announcing that, that he wants to sell $5 million, $5 million gold passes to the country. Like it's like it's called a green card. Plus, I think is his idea. And so it's like, oh my God, two huge things that we didn't prep for that now we have to make room for. We'll do our best to cover all that today.
April K. McCullough
Yeah. But first, before we get into that, let's do our egg price golf tracker.
Tim Whitaker
Let's do that. We're going to bring prices way down.
April K. McCullough
He said he would lower the price of eggs on day one. What are the price of eggs currently?
Tim Whitaker
Ah, well, okay, so according to TrumpGolfTrack.com the price of eggs are $8 and 6 cents up almost. We're getting close to up a dollar in the past 25 days. And don't forget what he said. We're going to bring prices way down. Okay. So far that has not happened. And he's been in office for 38 days. He has spent the past or he spent 10 days of that time golfing, giving him a percentage rate of 26% of his time as president. He's been golfing.
April K. McCullough
And we went live on Monday and on Monday that number was nine. So between Monday and Thursday, he golfed again.
Tim Whitaker
He got.
April K. McCullough
Again, yeah. And just for full transparency, Biden, Joe Biden did golf in his first hundred days, but in his first hundred days he golfed one time.
Tim Whitaker
That's. Yes, yes. And one of the reasons, one of the reasons I bring up or we're covering the Trump golf track thing is because a big pain point for many right wing media pundits when Obama was in office or any other Democrat was how often they go on vacation. They're not really working for you. They're too busy going on vacation, living the high life. Right. And here we go. You know, they're, they're champion in chief. Their messiah in chief has spent the past 10 days out of 38 days in office golfing. So a quarter of the time it's just, it's unbelievable. So, yeah. And eggs are not down. So that's the update for that. And again, just to hear from Trump's mouth, we're going to bring prices way down. Bring them way down.
April K. McCullough
Indeed, way down. And maybe it was opposite day when he said that or he had his fingers crossed behind his, like, no, I don't think he actually thinks about how often he lies because that would require him to think all of the time.
Tim Whitaker
I agree.
April K. McCullough
You had a story that you wanted to share with your neighbor, correct?
Tim Whitaker
Yes.
April K. McCullough
Do you want to tell us about that real quick.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah, it's actually kind of going viral right now. So I found out. So I live in New Jersey by Philadelphia. So essentially, it's a bunch of little towns. We're all kind of a suburb of Philadelphia. And I got news. I got wind of a story that a family who owns a local shop called Jersey Kebab in Haddonfield, New Jersey, ICE raided their business and arrested the mother. So what I did was I actually visited the location. It was actually shut down, and I made a reel on it. I think I'm going to just share the reel so people can kind of hear the story. But this is one of those things where, you know, New Jersey is a very blue state. You'd think that this stuff won't happen where you live. And it happened 20 minutes from me. So here's the story. I posted this on Instagram, by the way, if you follow the New Evangelicals or my personal account, Tim Whitaker speaks on Instagram. If you can give this story a share, it would be so helpful to get this out to other people. A lot of folks have been sharing it, which is amazing, but I want this thing to go mega viral because people need to know that this is not about law and order. Here's the full story. Here you go. So I'm at a place called Jersey Kebab in Haddonfield, New Jersey. You see here that they actually give free food to anyone who's disabled or homeless. And this business is shut down because ICE raided it yesterday and took the family away. Here's the full story. On February 25, ICE agents stormed the Jersey Kebab and detained Salal and Amin without a warrant. Now, according to their son, Mohammed Amant, an ICE agent armed with a machine gun tried to stop him from entering the store. When he finally got inside, he saw his mom already handcuffed by a female officer. Now, what's the crime that they committed? Waiting for nearly a decade for their green card application to be processed. That's right. Nine years of waiting on the government to do its job. And while they waited, they built a business, they paid taxes, they raised kids, and they gave back to their community, especially the ones in need the most. And how does the Trump regime thank them for all of this? By storming their business and handcuffing them in front of their kids. Now, the doors of Jersey Kebab are locked. Their main source of income is gone. Their family is torn apart. Their youngest son, Hamza, who has autism, is struggling without his mother. And Amin, she's locked in a detention center awaiting a bond trial, separated from her husband, her children, and the life she's worked so hard to build. This is not about law and order. Salah and Amin have no criminal record, no deportation orders, no reason to be ripped from their home. This is about a broken system that punishes people for trying to do the right thing, the right way. And if you call yourself a Christian, you have to ask, where would Jesus stand in this story? Would he have been with the agents tearing apart a family? Or would he be with Amin, locked away, afraid and desperate to return home to her children? Would he stand with the ones who enforce unjust laws? Or would he be with the family who has spent years feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, and living out the very gospel he preached? If we take Jesus seriously, then we have to stand with Amin and her family. Anything less is not Christianity, its complicity with the empire, something Jesus actively warned his followers against. ICE raids don't just take people. They take away businesses, communities, and the very values we claim to stand for. Salah and Amin aren't just cases. They're our neighbors, and we have to stand up for them, Period. So there you go. That's the story. I mean, literally 20 minutes away from me, I saw the shop. A lot of the footage that you saw in that video, if you watched it on YouTube, was my own footage. And it's, it's just so frustrating, right, because we knew all along that this mirage, this propaganda of we're just trying to get the criminals out of our country was just a dog whistle to deport people who don't look or think or talk like Trump and his MAGA folks, right? And this is a great example of that. They, they are not criminals. They've done nothing wrong. They are waiting on the government to give them a court date to continue the immigration process. They've been allowed to start a business, they've been allowed to pay taxes, and, and they're a staple in the community. People love them. And the thanks that they get is ICE agents raiding their small business and taking them away in handcuffs. I believe that, that, that, that the Father Salal currently has an ankle bracelet on him to monitor his location. This is, this is what right wing Christian MAGA voters voted for. You know, and they'll tell you that, that, no, we didn't, we didn't want this to happen. But people like you and me, April and many others have been doing our best for the past year. That's actually what started. That's what gave us the idea of this show to, to warn people of what Trump and the Christian nationalist regime, if they got power, would want to do. And this is just one very clear example of that.
April K. McCullough
Yeah. And there's, and that the idea that they're only deporting violent criminals is just blatantly false too. And that's like, that's what I keep hearing whenever I talk about how are you all okay with this? I'm like, well, how are you okay with. And then they say some egregious thing and say it with them doing it to like my children. It's like it's all sensationalized to get you to dehumanize anyone who is an immigrant. And there was also that other story. I, we don't, we're not going to spend a lot of time on it because we've got a packed show. But there was a group of Iranian Christians who came here seeking asylum, who were just deported to Panama. They literally would be killed if they get sent back to Iran because of actual, because of actual Christian persecution happening in Iran. Not the made up stuff that you hear about in America. And you know, they, they talk about like, where's the outrage on that alone? Like, it's. So we could go off on that. But thank you for sharing that.
Tim Whitaker
Good. For sure. For sure.
April K. McCullough
We'll keep highlighting stories like that as well too. So when you're, you know, at the dinner table with your MAGA family and they bring up immigrants, you'll have knowledge and know stories of people who are just people doing the best that they can and doing it the right way, applying for a green card, this they literally are doing, right?
Tim Whitaker
I mean, that isn't the rhetoric. Just do the right thing the right way. They're doing that. I will tell you if my mother, who is the sweetest woman in the world, who is only a lover, right, loves to give and, and take care of her kids and her friends and her neighbors, if, if she got arrested for absolutely no reason and taken away to a detention center an hour and a half away from here, I would not be nearly as patient as, as Muhammad and his family has been. I would be absolutely freaking fur. And it's just, it just goes to show that again, it's not about this supposed law and order or trying to protect us from quote unquote illegals or criminals, because two reasons to that and then we'll move on. Number one, we know that undocumented immigrants are half as likely to commit violent crime as their native born counterparts. So if you want to really stop crime. There are other people and other groups of people to look at. Hint, not undocumented immigrants. And number two, this family and many others that are going through the asylum process, the refugee process, the green card process that are waiting and limbo because our courts are so disoriented, disorganized, underfunded. And no one's really tried to get things streamlined. Now they're paying the price. Right. For the government's missteps. So it's not about trying to stop crime. It's about trying to stop certain types of people who look a certain way, maybe that aren't super white from not being here anymore. Ultimately.
April K. McCullough
Yeah, no, you're. You're absolutely right. Yeah. Okay, so CPAC was this past week and, oh, it gets worse and worse. It was like another cpac. Did you know I've been to CPAC before?
Tim Whitaker
What? No. No.
April K. McCullough
Yeah. So fun fact. It was 2013, Beecher and I were dating and we got hired by then, who we were friends with at the time, Todd Starnes, to do video interviews for him. This is back when he still worked for Fox News, but, yeah, it was a. Interesting experience.
Tim Whitaker
Well, CPAC is for those who don't know. It's the big conservative, you know, like, event. This is the place in 2021 where the Golden Trump statue first came into existence that people were wheeling around someone. Actually, there's a picture of a guy bowing down and, like, worshiping it. So CPAC is known to be a place where a lot of controversy comes.
April K. McCullough
Comes from. And, and this year was no different. And we, we could honestly probably do an entire show on cpac, but we have other things to cover. So we're going to highlight just a couple things. One being a new Nazi salute.
Tim Whitaker
We have that. Yeah, I have that right here.
April K. McCullough
You want to play that? Yeah. Steve Bannon.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah. So this is like a little two minute clip from Inside Edition. They kind of went through the pattern here. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'll just play this and we'll give our comments, but God, I just can't believe that we're here in America. We're actually trying to have this conversation. Nazi salutes being given by public figures is not a good idea. And unfortunately, most of them either claim to be Christian or claim to be like, like a cultural Christian. So here we go. Yeah, we're not gonna quit. Fight. Fight. Oh, my God. Amen.
April K. McCullough
Steve Bannon joins Elon Musk and others in using a salute. Okay, pause.
Tim Whitaker
Some say Inside Edition. Like, like, damn it, please call it. What it is. Some say it's controversial. It's a stinking Nazi salute. Like, you cannot mistake this. Yeah.
April K. McCullough
Call it a Nazi suit.
Tim Whitaker
Just.
April K. McCullough
Just a salute that is a little bit controversial, depending on who you ask.
Tim Whitaker
A little bit of joy, you know? Yeah. Cheese. Okay, we'll keep going.
April K. McCullough
Anti Semitic and dangerous. While on stage at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference taking place just outside Washington, D.C. former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon rallied the crowd for the 47th president.
Tim Whitaker
Are you prepared to fight for Trump? Are you prepared to fight for this republic? Are you prepared to fight for this country?
April K. McCullough
This straight right arm gesture that Elon.
Tim Whitaker
Musk used after Trump's inauguration? Look, we've talked about the sane washing of Trump by, like, mainstream media sources and how they downplay the reality of things with Trump. And I think part of that's because they don't want to get lambasted by the power of the right wing media ecosystem for being biased. But because of that, they actually are not truth tellers anymore. Like, they are. So. They are so sane. Washington. And I want to be so clear to the audience. A Nazi salute, like, you cannot. You cannot miss. And for those out there, I can hear my dissenters. Oh, Tim, you're being so extreme. Well, all the white nationalist Nazis out there, like Nick Fuentes, all called it a Nazi salute. That, that part of the world loved when Elon Musk gave this hand gesture. They loved when Steve Bannon gave this hand gesture. And they knew what it meant. So please, let's stop pretending that this was something other than what it actually was. Oh, it's so frustrating to hear them, oh, my God. About it in such a timid way.
April K. McCullough
It'd be like. It'd be like giving someone the bird. And then inside editions, like, an interesting display of the middle finger coming up above the rest. That's clearly a bird.
Tim Whitaker
The finger two from the right of his hand.
April K. McCullough
Like, you mean the middle finger accidentally just throw out a bird.
Tim Whitaker
Some might call it a controversial statement, some. No. We know what it means. All right, here we go. My heart goes out to you.
April K. McCullough
Has been compared to a Nazi solution.
Tim Whitaker
There we go.
April K. McCullough
The Anti Defamation League, a more than 100-year-old non governmental organization that fights anti Semitism and extremism, defines the Nazi soldier salute as, quote, raising an outstretched right arm with the palm down. But the organization says Musk's arm movement was a, quote, awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm.
Tim Whitaker
A copycat. An awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm. Okay, is that what we call it now, is that the new name for the Nazi salute? An awkward gesture sparked out of a moment of enthusiasm. Oh, no.
April K. McCullough
You know what's funny? The, the one where Steve Bannon kind of does it. Like, clearly we know what he's doing because. And he knows what he's doing because this has been in the news and people. I mean, this guy, this father right here lost his father.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah. Calvin Robinson.
April K. McCullough
Yeah, Father. Was he Anglican? Some. I don't remember what.
Tim Whitaker
He was part of a really conservative Anglican sect. He's actually, he's this guy actually on the screen. Calvin Robinson has been kicked out of, like, several different denominations. Most people don't even see him as like a real priest. And he was kicked out of a far right Anglican denomination for doing this. Which, by the way, props to them, like, thank you for having a red line somewhere. But yeah, it's unreal.
April K. McCullough
Steve Bannon, he looks hesitant when he does it. Like, it's like he knows he's doing it so he doesn't do it quite so forcefully, but he still wants to do it. Like, say it with your chest, Steve.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah, it's showing it, bro. We all know.
April K. McCullough
Gesture at a pro life rally, lost a Michigan priest his job.
Tim Whitaker
And my heart goes out to you. God bless.
April K. McCullough
Steve Bannon's words and salute garnered a standing ovation from those attending the cpac.
Tim Whitaker
And we're not going to retreat, we're not going to surrender, we're not going to quit. Fight, fight, fight. Wow. A standing ovation.
April K. McCullough
God bless you and the anti Defamation.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah, right. And then God bless you. If you, if you talk to any legitimate, like, German historian, they will tell you how the church got in bed with this kind of stuff. Like, they, they, they made it a very Christian thing to be a part of, you know, and it's just so uncanny. It's so scary to see the same thing happen again. But now in 2025America, and it's, it's, it's, it's presented under the form of. Oh, we're just trolling. Oh, we're just kidding. But what's the joke? Like, what, what's funny about this? Like, where's the humor in giving a Nazi salute? Right. It's just a way to, to get people to normalize what used to be completely unacceptable. I mean, literally during, like, I don't know, I'm thinking of like 2002, when Bush was, was in office. Right. If anyone did what these men are doing publicly, conservative, Democrat, libertarian, it didn't matter. Widespread. Absolutely not. Like, what are you doing? And here we are in 2025, and it's now giving. Being given standing ovations after. After a speech loaded with this kind of rhetoric.
April K. McCullough
Wow, it is wild.
Tim Whitaker
All right, let's finish this video real quick. I think it's almost over. Told Inside Edition Digital.
April K. McCullough
Quote, Steve Bannon's long and disturbing history of stoking anti Semitism and hate, threatening violence and empowering extremists is well known and well documented by ADL and others.
Tim Whitaker
We are not surprised, but are concerned.
April K. McCullough
About the normalization of this behavior. Just putting it lightly for Inside Edition Digital.
Tim Whitaker
There you go. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that you're a little concerned about the normalization of such behavior because. Wow. Oh, my God.
April K. McCullough
If you are on the side of normalizing a Nazi salute, you're on the wrong side.
Tim Whitaker
I. I completely agree.
April K. McCullough
Period, 100%. So another thing happened at CPAC.
Tim Whitaker
Oh, sorry. Before you. I know which one you're going to. We didn't cover Elon Musk with the chainsaw. This also happened at cpac.
April K. McCullough
Oh, right. I forgot to put that in the rundown.
Tim Whitaker
I haven't heard. Can we. Can we just. We look at that really quick? Because again, I mean, it is. It is so weird. Elon Musk is. He's a very bizarre person. And the way he behaves is. It just is like super creepy. It just is. And so he also at cpac and he was gifted by the president. Argentina. Sorry, not Venezuela. Excuse me, Argentina. A chainsaw. And I. If you're watching this on YouTube and just look at Elon and how he behaves, it just screams insecure little man child. Like, this is the world's supposes, you know, richest man. And also so brilliant, so smart, so genius. And I think inside he's just looking for his dad. Like, honestly, I just think that's what he's doing here. So here's a little montage. This comes from news first of kind of what happened on the stage. It's so weird. Here we go.
April K. McCullough
President. President Milei has a gift for me.
Tim Whitaker
Javier Milei from Argentina. You guys know who that is, right? Why don't we bring him? So for those who can't watch, the president of Argentina brought out a chainsaw. And Elon's in, like a black trench coat, sunglasses. So weird. Oh, so weird. The chainsaw for bureaucracy. Chainsaw. Oh, my gosh. Like, what are we, like, just. I want to describe this to the podcast audience. Elon Musk is wearing an all black outfit with like a Hot Topic Style T shirt, black pants, really weird sunglasses, a black hat and a trench coat. He's holding a chainsaw over his head and he's like shouting as he does it. And then he says, this is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. And the crowd's eating this up. Like somehow this is, this is great. This makes complete sense. Everything's fine, everything's normal. The world's greediest man, who only made his wealth by exploiting others, somehow has the best interests of the average American at heart as he quote, unquote, guts the government. And we'll cover that in a minute. It's just a bizarre thing to look at.
April K. McCullough
It is incredibly bizarre. I think Tim Walls nailed it when he called MAGA weird because that's, I mean, that is what they are. And there's just this misconception too, that he's actually like the numbers, he's saying that they are cutting of quote, unquote fraud and waste. So much of it has just been lies or mistakes like they, they accidentally fired or got rid of the department that prevents Ebola that they had to quickly put back in. They've. They accidentally fired the engineers that do that work on our nuclear weapons that they had to put back in. Like, these are not things that you make mistakes on. You, you think these things through. They're just coming through and slashing and not thinking about anything. And it's gonna lie.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah, so. So according to many sources like Wall Street Journal, the ap, the amount of so called cuts aren't actually even accurate at all. They're not giving actual documentation. You know, we have a second. Can I can. I think this is a good place to play this video that I found of someone going through the propaganda of like the Doge Twitter account and showing how it's very evident that like no one in that world actually understands what they're doing. And the people who think that Elon is like cleaning up our government are actually being completely duped. So I think this could be a good, a good time to play that video. So let's go ahead and do this. Okay. This is a two minute video. It's really good. It's really good. And just listen to this guy go through. So what he's doing is he pulled a tweet in December from December 19, from the, the official Doge X account. And the, the tweet reads this. What does the US Government use taxpayer dollars for? And according to The Doge account, $6.9 million. Studying smart toilets that recognize the user's anal print. 2.3 million for the NIH to inject dogs with cocaine. 118,000 to study if a metal, metal replica robot of Marvel Comics Thanos could really snap his fingers. So they're trying to make it seem like, oh, my God, look at what we're spending money on. This is so ridiculous. This is so stupid. Well, let's listen to an actual fact checker. Go through this piece by piece. It's really enlightening. Here we go. For unethical scientists today, we'll see what the US Government really uses taxpayer dollars for. What a sadistic abuse of taxpayer money this is. Per Musk's Department of Government efficiency, first up, $6.9 million studying smart toilets that recognize the user's anal print. This grant was actually studying systems that could be added to toilets to monitor for early signs of disease, for example, colorectal or urologic cancers. However, I have to give Doge credit, calling this anal print recognition is much funnier than saying new technology to catch cancer early, which sounds entirely too useful. Well, first of all, some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. So nobody's going to bat a thousand. I mean, any. You know, we will make mistakes, but we'll act quickly to correct any mistakes. Up next, $2.3 million for the NIH to inject dogs with cocaine. Doge is rehashing a Fox News segment with this one. Dr. Anthony Fauci's National Institutes of Health has taken your money and used it to fund dozens of twisted experiments.
April K. McCullough
Here are just a couple.
Tim Whitaker
They've spent over 2.3 million injecting beagles with cocaine. Mm. What kind of twisted researchers would force dogs to take cocaine for no reason? I wonder what the study was actually investigating. Ah, it turns out this was a safety study of a new potential medication to help people overcome cocaine use disorder, which currently has no medical treatment. And by the way, cocaine overdoses kill tens of thousands of of people every year in the United States alone. Maybe not a pointless study after all. Up next, 118 grand to study if a metal replica robot of Marvel Comics villain Thanos could really snap his fingers. After just a couple minutes, it became clear that this one is straight up deception. There was no metal replica robot of Thanos, and in fact, there was no metal glove involved. They did study snapping with various materials over fingers, including different types of gloves, and in one condition, a thimble. That still sounds like a dumb study, you may say, but their actual interest was studying the friction and the biomechanics of Snapping fingers. Why might that be beneficial to society? As it turns out, friction can be used as a method of fine tuning the motion of a system, for example, to improve prosthetic designs, or for soft robotic systems to improve their ability to manipulate objects. Ah, better robots. There we go. Clear, direct relevance to technological advances that could fundamentally change entire sectors of the economy. Are these the best critiques they've got? We're in the era of narratives over facts, and the narratives, quite honestly, are winning. Make sure you. There you go. So, I mean, that, that I. I found that video so compelling because it's like you. You see these short tweets, oh, my gosh, what does this mean? But the reality is all of those things had real benefits for humanity and for society that were being researched to help us be pushed further, including detector cancer, detecting cancer earlier, helping find a solution for any kind of, you know, maybe cocaine addiction, and looking at how friction works in a better way to help people with. With prosthetics. Right. But those things are now cut, presumably because Doge is on some kind of rampage to root out the government fraud. Like, it's literal propaganda. It's. It's complete bs. But this is what this, you know, this creator says. Narratives are winning over facts, and that is very frustrating.
April K. McCullough
You know who the name of that content creator was?
Tim Whitaker
Yes, it is. I have it here, actually. I can find it. Let's see. I will find it. I'm not sure where it went. It's somewhere here.
April K. McCullough
Okay, cool. We can put it in the show notes or something.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah, it was great. And we need that, right? We need the fact checking because you do not want to trust Elon or anyone in his orbit. Even the Doge website that's been fact checked, those receipts are not accurate. They're not even real receipts sometimes. These people are not truth tellers. They are not in the business of truth telling, April. And what's frustrating is watching white evangelicals support it as truth. That's what I hate the most.
April K. McCullough
I know. Between the propaganda and the twisting of stories to the outright lies, like the condoms being sent to Hamas. Right, And Gaza, which is not even true. And it was never condoms anyway.
Tim Whitaker
Right?
April K. McCullough
And they just keep pushing it despite being fact checked.
Tim Whitaker
Right. Anyway, I mean, Trump, Trump pushed it, right? Remember, we shared it. Was it last week, actually a week ago today, we shared the video of Elon Musk admitting that they got that fact wrong in front of Trump. And then Trump, the following day or two, was repeating the same lie about $80 million for condoms in Gaza. This is how we know that they are not truth tellers and they should not be trusted at all.
April K. McCullough
So let's move on to the other interesting thing that happened at cpac. You mean this, April?
Tim Whitaker
You mean this?
April K. McCullough
Yes. So they sprinkled throughout the crowds of CPAC were a lot of people wearing Trump 2028 stickers. I, I know that is coming from this push. I think a representative in Congress proposed some legislation named Andy Ogles to basically get it to where Trump could run again in 2028. And they're calling it the third term project. This is real. And Trump himself has been flirting with this idea and hints at it and speeches regularly.
Tim Whitaker
I just want people to know that I absolutely hate this timeline. I hate everything about it and I hate that in at CPAC this is a real thing that was allowed to happen and that someone is in Congress. Andy Ogles, I think is a congressman introduced legislation to make this a reality. And I just want to point out we have to say it. Every accusation from these people about how Biden's a tyrant or how COVID lockdowns were tyranny is simply a confession. These are the tyrants. You are looking at them. There was no one in any reality in progressive left wing spaces who thought that we have to add some kind of amendment to our Constitution to allow anyone to run for a third term, let alone Joe Biden. So that's just not. That is not the reality. But in this space, in this messiah complex, Trump worshiping space, I cannot wait to get to Trump Gaza. We're going to cover that in a minute here. This is a real thing. The third Term project is a reality. And this guy is going to break it down for us. Are you ready, April?
April K. McCullough
Play it. Yeah, do it.
Tim Whitaker
Let me know when you want me to pause. There's a lot here. I am the campaign lead for the third Term project. Our stated goal is to ensure that President Trump can get the third term that we believe the public demands that he receive. Representative Andy Adoles of Tennessee has introduced a constitutional amendment that would amend the Constitution to allow President Trump to get a third term. The forces of evil that he's going to war against are not going to go away. They might be dormant for a while, but they're going to be waiting to get right back in there as soon as, you know, President Trump is out of office. Okay, just pause for two things that we have to pick up on. We often tell people that Christian nationalism and this right wing world, they don't care about democracy, they don't care about pluralism and they don't care about working together. And that statement from this guy really solidifies that right. To him, the other side of the political spectrum is evil and should never be allowed back in office because they're evil. Right. They hate and insert culture war piece here. Right. They want to trans your kids. They, they, they, they, they hate men, et cetera. And so we have to keep in mind that like, these are not people who are thinking about how do we maintain the health of our democracy or our democratic process. These are people who want to rig the system so their guy is always in power no matter what, even if the majority of Americans don't want that person in power. Right. And so just keep that in mind as we're going through this, that, that these people are very serious and they do not care about the democratic process, period. And most likely, statistically speaking, both of these men in the screen are probably either Catholic or born again Christians and believe that they have a God given mandate to take over the country, which makes it even scarier.
April K. McCullough
Yeah, rules for thee, not for me. Continue.
Tim Whitaker
So we believe that with a third term, he'll be able to remake the government. He'll be able to take a wrecking ball 2 the bureaucracy, stop the deep state, stop the institutional bureaucracy, stop the administrative state and restore freedom to the people. What about Obama? Obama could run again. Well, what we're asking for is a modification to the 22nd Amendment, which would be that a president can serve two consecutive terms and no more. So in President Trump's case, he served one term, the second term was interrupted.
April K. McCullough
And now has another term.
Tim Whitaker
And so she should be allowed to effectuate his agenda with the second term. A lot of pressures. When they won once, they won again. So did you catch that his second term was interrupted? Isn't that what he just said?
April K. McCullough
Yes. No, he lost. He lost the election.
Tim Whitaker
No, he, he, yeah, he lost. But in this guy's mind, his second term was interrupted. And also this only accounts for consecutive terms. So no, Obama can't run again. See how it's always going to be rigged? It's always going to be.
April K. McCullough
I know, right? Well, and here. Continue. I've got thoughts, but let's finish this video does run in 2028.
Tim Whitaker
It could be that he does not elect him. We're just saying that he should have.
April K. McCullough
The opportunity to be elected.
Tim Whitaker
Why are you portraying Trump as Julius Caesar? Well, we believe that, you know, Trump is the Caesar figure that America has needed. You know, Trump is the Napoleonic figure that has emerged to lead our country out of perdition and into greatness. We love, we love the idea of Trump as our Julius Caesar type figure. We're pushing that hard for weeks and months to come. Wow. Wow. We love Trump as our Julius Caesar. And again, for folks watching on, listening on podcasts, they have. Part of their sign is a figurehead of Julius Caesar.
April K. McCullough
Yeah, Trump as Caesar. And then at the bottom it says Trump 2028 and beyond.
Tim Whitaker
To infinity and beyond.
April K. McCullough
Like, so I was wondering, I looked this up because the way they're framing it, it's like, oh, you could basically have limited unlimited terms as long as it's not consecutive. You know, I don't, I don't know if you had weird rules at Christian college, but one of the Christian colleges that I went to had a three second kissing rule where you could only kiss your date for 3 seconds and 3 seconds only. And so literally we were like, well, I mean, obviously, how are they going to know who were like, okay, well, you just kiss for three seconds, then you take a breath and then you can go back in. It's like a loophole. So, like, you just do this forever. But according to Andy, I don't know if it's ogles or ogles, the resolution that he called for, it means it would take the term limit from 8 to 12, but no more than two consecutive, which would take out President Obama. Because honestly, there's a piece of me that's like, Obama could run again.
Tim Whitaker
Right, right.
April K. McCullough
Who would wipe the floor with Trump? I have no doubts about it. Well, and also, I'm against it because I don't. We don't want a king. Like, the entire point of the founding of our nation was because we wanted to get away from a monarchy. We didn't want a king. We wanted power to the people. What they are proposing through their twisted logic, even though they're saying because it's what the people want, but you're you. That's not true. Majority of Americans still did not vote for Trump. If you take out most of the people that did not vote in the election for one, and then for two, it's literally in our constitution for a reason. We don't want kings, we don't want dictators. But here they are saying, we want Donald Trump to be our Julius Caesar. They are saying the quiet part out loud, but then trying to gaslight us by saying, but it's totally constitutional. It's just giving power back to the people because we're fighting bureaucracy, suddenly the entire existence of our government for the last hundred or so years, they're calling a bureaucracy. What the. What are they talking about?
Tim Whitaker
I. I just want to be so clear that, like, data matters. The federal government actually has not grown much over the past, like, 25, 30 years. You look at the actual data, like, all this language about bureaucracy and a wrecking ball. It's. It's code for, we need. We need to remake the American government in our image. That's what they're saying. And I, I think that we have to point out here the obvious, that for Christians, you know, one of the things I learned very early on in my evangelical days was that when the, when St. Paul says that Jesus Christ is Lord, he's making a political statement. He's saying that it's not the emperor, it's not Caesar, that's Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. And to watch these men take Julius Caesar be like, we need a Caesar like figure in America. It is as blatantly Antichrist as. I mean that literally as you can possibly get. Like, it's such a clear violation of the Christian ethic of who's actually in charge. Don't forget, April. These were. This. This is the same group that a year ago was like, there's no king but Christ. No king but Christ. No king but Christ. And now that Trump is like, maybe I'm the king. They're like, you know what? Maybe he is, guys. Maybe he is like, hey, maybe. Maybe we actually need a Caesar. Maybe we need a king to rule us after all. And I say this because people once again need to realize there's no ethic of integrity or truth or. Or moral principle that undergirds this movement. What undergirds this movement is the quest for power and control. This is why they'll talk about the Constitution when it comes to abortion, right? Well, look, guys, the Supreme Court ruled that the. That the Constitution does not support abortion. And that's what our founding fathers would want. But now it's actually, we need to amend the Constitution, right? Maybe the founding Fathers weren't right on this. We have to amend the Constitution so, so we can keep our guy in power. You're not going to find any kind of rhythm of consistency or integrity. You're just going to find whatever gives them power and control at any given point. And it is infuriating. It makes, it makes me just quake in my little boots. That's not true. I actually have pretty big feet. But my. In my big man boots, I quaken them out of anger because this is because these Christians who raised me on These so called values are the first ones to capitulate them. It drives me up a wall.
April K. McCullough
Well, the more, the longer I'm out of those circles, the more obvious the hypocrisy is on just about every single level and layer that they talk about. It's just 100%, but they spin it in a way where if you're not aware and you're not educated, it sounds good, sounds great, because people don't fact check like they. We're at a point where people who support Trump, the die hard Magaz of the world, will take whatever Trump says as fact. The amount of people in my comment section that bring up the condoms to Hamas line, I'm like, that's not true. And they're like, yeah, but they found $50 million of condoms. Why are we doing this fraud. I'm like, oh my go gosh. Like you can't reason with people who have made up their mind. I mean it really is, it's a cult. I mean the way the behaviors are very similar to a cult. It's a high control group. You don't believe outside sources. You believe one main source of truth, which is Donald Trump and I guess a little bit Elon Musk right now. We'll see how long that lasts. But you can't reason with people who do not take facts as truth.
Tim Whitaker
That's right. And look, to put it just bluntly, it's like arguing with a flat earther. There is, there's a whole ecosystem of Flat Earthers on YouTube who have these arguments to convince people that the earth is flat. And whenever they're confronted with data, they always have a way around the so called data in their mind. That's what we're doing here. Everything you say that could be researched or has data behind it will be diverted to another talking point and you end up in these loops of just responding to talking points that actually have nothing behind them. It's so frustrating. Yeah.
April K. McCullough
So we, I actually have us on a rundown today. I made a timeline and so we are 10 minutes behind currently.
Tim Whitaker
You are bossing me around and I love it. I know.
April K. McCullough
Let's quickly go to an ad break and then, then we will come back and we will dissect that weird ass Trump Gaza video. What makes a great pair of glasses at Warby Parker? It's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95 including prescription lenses plus scratch resistant, smudge resistant and anti reflective coatings and UV protection and free adjustments for life to find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses, or contact lenses. Or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker.com hi all.
Tim Whitaker
My name is Rhiannon and I live in Central Oregon.
April K. McCullough
I have been a TNE donor for.
Tim Whitaker
The past year or so.
April K. McCullough
I stumbled across the new Evangelicals on Instagram a little over a year ago. TNE has helped me through one of.
Tim Whitaker
My darkest chapters in the church and.
April K. McCullough
Has allowed me to have grace with myself as I wrestle with and challenge.
Tim Whitaker
The way church is being done in mainstream evangelicalism. As I slowly make my way out of the basement, T and E is bringing so much light and hope that we can all be better and do better. I support TNE because I find tremendous.
April K. McCullough
Value in what Tim and team are doing. It is so important to recognize that.
Tim Whitaker
We do not have to live under the current norms, but instead we can.
April K. McCullough
Challenge those norms and be the change.
Tim Whitaker
I am grateful every day for the new evangelicals and encourage anyone who can to support this important work.
April K. McCullough
I just want to say that we were on track to having a somewhat decent length of a show, according to our Tuesday meeting when we were show prepping. And then Wednesday morning you text me that Trump this Trump Gaza video, and we're like, okay, pivot, we have to talk about this.
Tim Whitaker
I I, yeah, yes. God, I don't know where. I'm not even sure to start with this one, April. I mean, you know, my friend Melinda Hale tweeted a few weeks ago, like, is there any, like, is there any level to the embarrassment that MAGA will go through? Like, is there any bottom in sight? And you always think every day, yes, and we just found it. And then another day happens and you go, nope, yesterday's bottom was not the bottom. And this is a, this is another one where I go, I don't know how I can get much worse than this video because this one's real bad. This one's real bad.
April K. McCullough
It honestly might be the most hun unhinged thing I've seen. And I grew up going to youth group in the 90s and I saw some weird youth group games and I've.
Tim Whitaker
Done some weird youth group stuff. I mean, so should we just play the whole thing through and then kind of dissect it? Because there's a lot of layers here. If you're listening to this on podcast, we're going to, we're going to recap it and go through some of the different shots in this video. I'm sure You've seen it, though, on your social media channels. It went, it went mega viral for all of the wrong reasons. Let's just play this video and I will kind of give some context to it and what's going on, and then we'll go from there. So this is. Trump did not, as far as I know, him and his team did not make this video, but he did reshare this video on all of his social media channels. And it has, I think, over a million shares right now.
April K. McCullough
And it is very clearly AI, very.
Tim Whitaker
Very much everything about it. All right, here we go. Brace yourself.
April K. McCullough
Bringing the light for all.
Tim Whitaker
To see no more tunnels, no more fear is finally here Truck. Gaza shining bright golden future Bright feast and dance the deal is done Trump guys are number one. Trump, Gaza shining bright golden future A brand new light Feast and dance the deal is done. Trump Gaza number one. Oh, boy.
April K. McCullough
So for those listening on the podcast, just go watch the video somewhere if you can. You know what? It took me, like, the second or third watch that I recognized the lyrics where he's talking about Trump, Gaza shining bright. Like, oh, my gosh. Like, well, Trump, Gaza will set you free. Or very.
Tim Whitaker
It's horrible. It's horrible. It's, it's, it's atrocious. So, you know, for those of you who follow us on the New Evangelicals, we've been covering the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people for over a year now. We've done a lot of content on it. We, we did a four part series unpacking the history of Israel, Palestine, what kind of launched all of this in the beginning. I don't have time or, you know, we, we just, there's not time or energy to recap the whole thing. It's a very, in a lot of ways, a very complicated history that kind of gets us here. But what, what we do know is after October 7th, Israel, in partnership with the US dropped the equivalent of two atomic bombs on Gaza. Right now, Gaza has the highest concentration of child amputees out of anywhere in the world. The whole place is decimated. Healthcare systems are wiped out, schools are wiped out. There's widespread famine in the region. And Joe Biden and his administration helped make that a possibility. I mean, they funded that over and over and over and over again. And so we knew that while a lot of us were not a fan of Harris and her position on Gaza and Israel, we knew that a Trump regime would be infinitely worse. And we discovered that within a few weeks of his presidency, when Trump said that, hey, we should just Take over Gaza, drive out the indigenous people there, AKA the Palestinians, and we'll just make it into a great place where the whole world wants to go. And fast forward to today and this crazy video comes out of, of, of Trump resharing an AI generated image or mock up of what would actually happen if the colonizers colonized. And I think it's important to call it out because we often talk about April, right. The, the, the history of colonization, how early settlers wiped out the indigenous community in America and they colonized the land. But we don't, we don't always have the eyes to see it happening in real time. And what we're watching right now is a real time playbook of how colonization functions. What, you know, going from, you invade, you take over, you wipe out the population and then you kind of rewrite the history of, oh, we're going to make it great again. Who wants to live there? We don't want Palestinians living there anymore. It's a total, it's a total dump because we caused that. That's what we don't tell you. So let's just, let's just remake it in our own image. And then we get this really weird video trying to do that. And it has some really weird images in it. I mean, some very bizarre ones that.
April K. McCullough
I mean, tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians who are not Hamas.
Tim Whitaker
Right.
April K. McCullough
Have been bombed and died here. And this video is the, is like basically turning a giant graveyard into this resort for rich people.
Tim Whitaker
That's right. That's right. Like, this shot here looks like an Elon Musk type of figure.
April K. McCullough
That's definitely supposed to be Elon Musk.
Tim Whitaker
100% just sitting and eating whatever he's eating at the beach in Gaza as if like, nothing ever happened. Like, no, we didn't drop the equivalent of two atomic bombs on the region. No, no, we, we didn't cause all this death and chaos. Everything's great now. We, we, we've remade it.
April K. McCullough
And like, it's just so insensitive and disgusting because Palestine is still decimated, like, currently. And Trump and Elon Musk just cut USAID that was sending aid to Gaza.
Tim Whitaker
Yep.
April K. McCullough
Palestinians need food and shelter and water. Not this colonizer's weird wet dream.
Tim Whitaker
Right, Right. And it is a weird wet dream, emphasis on weird. In this video is this shot.
April K. McCullough
This. It appears to be women with beards or.
Tim Whitaker
Right.
April K. McCullough
Trans women or trans men or drag queens. Definitely someone who is gender non conforming.
Tim Whitaker
I would agree.
April K. McCullough
I don't know if anyone else sees this or not. And this could just be my brain, but both of them look like Trump Jr. To me.
Tim Whitaker
And they're belly dancing.
April K. McCullough
They're belly dancing? Yes, they're belly. I mean, I have no idea what that would mean. The whole thing is weird af, but.
Tim Whitaker
I would, I mean, again, I just wonder, like, for all the talk about getting rid of trans people, I, I don't know why Trump would reshare this video with what looks like, you know, maybe two trans women or two trans men or someone, you know. Either way, like, this is a, this is very non gender conforming shot. Right? Like, there's no way to kind of like see it otherwise. And so it's like, okay, this made it into the video and people are resharing it like, like, what. What's going on in this video? It's so wacky. But there's another shot too. I wanted to get to that. That, I mean, for me was just like, okay, this is the one. It's a child holding a balloon. That is Trump's golden head.
April K. McCullough
Yeah.
Tim Whitaker
What are we doing? Why would Trump re. Share this? Yes.
April K. McCullough
Like that's, that's reminiscent of the Mickey Mouse balloons that you would hold to Disney World as a kid.
Tim Whitaker
Right. And then, and then there's this picture of Donald Trump dancing with a belly dancer who's not his wife, by the way. And I will say to the far right trad crowd, she's not modestly dressed for the.
April K. McCullough
No, she is not.
Tim Whitaker
She's not.
April K. McCullough
She does a little turn and there's a. Wearing a sheer thing and there you can definitely see some booty.
Tim Whitaker
It's almost like Trump saw this and goes, wow. So many things that I know my constituents are against are in this video, but they love me so much. They'll just gloss over this. They'll just gloss over me dancing with someone who's not my wife. Like, no big deal. They'll just gloss over, you know, trans men in belly dancer outfits dancing on the beach because they love me so much. And he's right. Like most people in his team have just been sharing this thing like crazy. And then I think what really got me though, I mean, here's one of like an Elon looking guy throwing money. Like the amount of disrespect right to the Palestinian people with this video is, is immense. And I have, we, we've had friends on the show, Daniel Bonanora, a good friend of mine, Christian Palestinian. This is just like a, a massive slap in the face. We've, we funded your genocide and now we're going to make AI videos celebrating us stomping on the graves of your loved ones. That's what's going on here. And Trump reshares it. The, it's, it's unbelievable. There was one more shot, though. Trump Gaza is so stupid. This one right here.
April K. McCullough
Yeah. This is the one giant golden Trump statue in the Holy Land.
Tim Whitaker
Yes. Thank you. Think about that for a second. Just think about that. It's like a 30 foot tall golden statue of Trump. The narcissism of this man, this man, he sees himself as a messiah. That, that's what's going on here. And we've, we covered this, I think last week on the show. There's a whole messiah complex happening in the right wing maga space. And we saw it years ago. There were books like Donald J. Trump, the Son of Man, the Christ being released. There were, there were all these kinds of different connections about how Donald Trump, he was almost assassinated and God moved his head at the last minute. All this talk about this stuff. And now he's posting videos of us, of him, a golden statue of him in the Holy Land. And again, there is some outcry that will get to you, but not a whole lot. This is like antichrist stuff. This is antichrist stuff, April. It's unbelievable.
April K. McCullough
It's offensive to not only Christians, if you follow the book, but also to Jewish people and Muslims.
Tim Whitaker
Yes.
April K. McCullough
That live there 100%. So much of this video goes against so many of the religions. Abrahamic specifically. Yeah, I don't even. What?
Tim Whitaker
I just discovered something. So this shot, I didn't notice this. Do you know who that is on the right?
April K. McCullough
Yeah, it's Netanyahu.
Tim Whitaker
I just didn't see it till now because I haven't had time to pause on it. So the last shot is a picture of Donald Trump shirtless in a bathing suit. And then to his left is Netanyahu and they're on some resort with the word Trump Gaza behind it. Oh my God. Like, it's just so clear. It's so clear what is going on in this video. It's so clear. I.
April K. McCullough
They're drinking. The only reason I know that Trump didn't make this video is that he has a little bit of fat on him in this picture. So I know he just saw it and posted it. Like there's a piece of me that wonders like a narcissist would do, because I think the most honest thing that Donald Trump has said was that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and he wouldn't lose supporters there's. A piece of me that, that wonders if he is just feels absolutely invincible. And I mean, I would feel invincible if I were him too. I mean, he has done heinous things and really hasn't been held accountable. He got elected again. So part of me wonders if he knows, oh, I know this will make some people mad, even some of my own people. And I'm going to post it anyway, just because I can.
Tim Whitaker
100%. 100%. The good news though, can we call even good news? I mean, okay, I'll put it this way. There is. So we talked a lot. April, is there a red line, right, for Christian nationalists, for people who support Trump, people who voted for Trump? Is there a red line for some people, I've seen a red line. I want to cover two examples of this. These are both from people that I do not agree with, I actually fight with pretty often on social media. The first one is from an account called Amy Maine. Now, Amy has kind of blown up over the past like six to eight months. If you see her videos, she's always kind of yelling and she's very like fundamentalist. She's one of these people who's like, you know, just read your Bible. More like just, you know, trans people don't exist. You're whatever. And her and I have gone back and forth in DMs. I've invited her on the show many times. She will not come on. But even for someone like Amy, who is, by the way, a Daily Wire, like an influencer, she gets paid by the, by the Daily Wire to promote their stuff. She actually said, to her credit, on, on Instagram, if the recent AI video the President put out has you unsettled as a conservative Christian, you are not alone. There is no scenario where a professing Christian, especially a leader, should depict themselves as a golden statue in the middle of a war torn nation. It's insensitive, inappropriate, and should never be excused. And honestly, I gotta say, Amy, yes, I agree 100%. And I told her that. I put it in the comments. I was like, hey, this is great. This is awesome. Because she's absolutely spot on here. So. So there are Christians, even conservative ones, who might be starting to see the light a little bit.
April K. McCullough
Here's my question though. Tell me with this. If the election were held again tomorrow, I don't think they wouldn't vote for Trump again. Like, would they change their vote?
Tim Whitaker
I know, I know.
April K. McCullough
That's because what I've seen. I asked the question too on my Twitter because that's where I get more interaction from conservatives because the algorithm there pushes my stuff to right wing people specifically. But I love you over there. I post, yeah, I posted the picture and I just said, hey, Christians, who voted for Trump, is this your king? And if not, will you call this out and repent for putting an antichrist person in power? And most of the people that responded to me, only one person said, I voted for Trump and this is absolutely inexcusable. I do not support this. And I was like, thank you. Everyone else was either saying, oh, he wouldn't actually post this and thought I was lying, that Trump posted that said, oh, it was just a joke. It's not like it's not a real statue. Or they were saying, well, it's still better than Biden. Which is interesting that I keep seeing people saying better than Biden, like Biden wasn't the one running, but.
Tim Whitaker
Right, exactly, exactly. And to. I mean, I think, I think that, I think that's a fair point. I also do want to highlight, though, in the spirit of, you know, fairness, honest youth pastor, another account that I banter with a lot who we don't see eye to eye on almost anything. Even he realizes this discrepancy because he reshared a video from Charlie Kirk of President Trump's first cabinet meeting opening in prayer, which we're going to play that audio because it's something. And he said in response to this, I see a lot of Christians talking about the prayer at the cabinet meeting and a very few talking about Trump's truth. Social posts. You can't have it both ways. Honestly, it's insanity. I think he is spot on here. I think he is absolutely on the money. It is. What is frustrating to me is that we've been warning people for a long time and we were written off as woke or as progressive or not real Christians, when in reality, like we were looking at the sycophantic nature of Trump, of the Trump cult and saying, guys, it's getting to a point where it's looking like you might see him as a, as some kind of messiah figure. No, that's ridiculous. No, that's crazy. And now Trump is completely playing into that, right? He's completely playing into the godlike complex, the chosen one, God has his hand on Trump. God is moving the nations because he has his hand on Trump. And now all of a sudden, some of them, not many, but some are starting to see, yeah, maybe, maybe it's too close to the sun here for us. It's like, dude, what Gave it away. Was it the golden statue in 2021 at CPAC, or did it take you three and a half years of seeing this nonsense over and over before you finally woke up to it?
April K. McCullough
I want to show you one response that I got on my tweet. I put it in the folder. It's titled his Policies Follow Christ. And while you're pulling that up, I did go and look at Truth Social, because Trump also posted it on Truth Social, the video and the majority of the responses there were. It was mostly people saying I couldn't be a bigger Trump fan, but this isn't it. And, like, there were a lot of people that were. It was interesting. It wasn't a, like, straight out rebuke, like, they weren't going to stop being a big fan because they were always. They were prefacing it with me, like, I love you, Trump, but this is insensitive. You should probably delete this. This, like, that was it. And I'm wondering if, because it was Truth Social, they felt more comfortable saying what they actually thought about it, because in their head, that's like an echo chamber. So they're not calling him out in front of people that would agree.
Tim Whitaker
Right.
April K. McCullough
Anyway, I thought that was interesting, but so I. This guy responded to my tweet where I asked the question, is this your king? And he said, definitely not a king. He has multiple failings and faults. His intended policies more frequently align with Christ's following beliefs than his opponents. So I said, which policies align with the actual teachings of Jesus? Because I have found that when people say Christ following beliefs, they are never actually talking about the teachings of Jesus. They're talking about stuff from the Hebrew Bible or they're talking about stuff from the Apostle Paul. Always taken out of context.
Tim Whitaker
Yep.
April K. McCullough
So, but this guy. But he responded and he said that these were the policies that Trump has that align with the teachings of Jesus.
Tim Whitaker
This. Go ahead.
April K. McCullough
Protection of life and the unborn, fighting against human trafficking, only two genders, removing fiscal fraud and waste, just to name a few off the top. And the last one, I laughed because, like, oh, yeah, I remember all the times Jesus railed against fiscal fraud.
Tim Whitaker
You, Caesar, and your fiscal irresponsibility. It's right there in the Bible. Right.
April K. McCullough
But when they talk about protection of life, they're only talking about abortion. Because they wouldn't say this when it comes to protecting the life of an immigrant child or protecting the life of a child in school who's getting shot up.
Tim Whitaker
That's right.
April K. McCullough
And also, Jesus didn't say anything about abortion. So moving on, I do see the sex trafficking thing brought up a lot. And I, and I asked a few people, what policies does Trump have against sex trafficking that do not already exist? Democrats are also against sex trafficking.
Tim Whitaker
Right.
April K. McCullough
And I, I have yet to hear. It's usually some. They, they equate it to immigration, that immigrants are coming in and trafficking people and that it's so convoluted. But regardless, they're not the teachings of Jesus. They scream, he has more Christlike policies. And when you press them, they just make up that aren't actually the teachings of Jesus. I know, I did a cuss.
Tim Whitaker
You curse, you said. Yeah. Wait, wait. I don't have an applause button. Dart. Yay.
April K. McCullough
Honestly, though, I think I'm entering my cussing era.
Tim Whitaker
I love it.
April K. McCullough
I feel like this time, if there were ever a time to take up cussing, now is that time.
Tim Whitaker
I. Friends, by the way, I know that we titled this video the Rebellion and People are Fighting Back, and we're setting that up. Okay, we're getting into that in our next segment. So we're just trying to give you what's happening in the news and then we're going to get to people pushing back on this stuff. One quick last thought on what you just said regarding fighting against human trafficking. Wasn't it Trump who pinged Matt Gaetz as the possible Attorney general, the guy who's, like, under fire for human trafficking charges? So, yes, to your point, April, there is nothing here of. Of note because notice how Jesus talks a lot about the rich. He tells the rich to sell all their possessions. He tells people that it's harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. That's not what we're talking about. Those, not those teachings. Right? No, no, no, no. It's. It's made up things. Protection of life and the unborn. Hmm.
April K. McCullough
Yeah.
Tim Whitaker
You mean abortion. And Jesus never once, ever in the four Gospels talks about abortion, period.
April K. McCullough
Right. So they just, they're like Andrew Tate fans, too. Like, as a total side, a lot of the Republicans, like, they just got sent another. He just boarded a private flight yesterday from Romania. I don't know. I have suspicions on who paid for that flight, but fair enough. Regardless. Also, I want to comment, I just want to reply. There was a comment that says everyone with like two brain, everyone on the planet knows that there are only two genders. Fact check. False. Because there are not only two genders, and not everybody knows that. And if you actually follow the science. There are multiple chromosomes that someone can have. Beyond the fact that intersex people exist, you cannot say there are only two genders. Because I know that you're only talking about biological sex, but biologically, you can be born with both parts. Intersex people make up 1 to 2% of the entire population. And to just act like they don't exist is stupid. Beyond the fact that it also goes into your own chromosomes and makeup that can lead someone to be transgender. So you're just scientifically and factually and biblically wrong. Because when Jesus talked about male and female, he was rebuking divorce and quoting the creation story in Matthew 19. He was not freaking talking about trans people. So stop weaponizing scripture to be a transphobic bigot.
Tim Whitaker
Were you gonna say bitch? Were you gonna say a transphobic bitch?
April K. McCullough
No, I just. I just stumbled. No, no. I could have said it, though. I probably would have fit.
Tim Whitaker
It's fair. Don't forget, by the way, Jesus says in that same passage to be like the eunuchs. Okay. Which is really seen as like a non gender conforming person in that time. So one would think. Yes, you would think. Let's play this prayer and then we'll get to the rebellion that's happening. Because again, I want to. I want to set all this up. This is important.
April K. McCullough
I also want to preface this in defense of the golden statue. They were like, well, Donald Trump couldn't be someone who's Antichrist. And when I say Antichrist, I mean the antithesis of Christ. He is the opposite of who Jesus was. But people were using this video because Trump had someone pray to open his cabinet meeting, which, by the way, he had Elon Musk join, who is not a cabinet member.
Tim Whitaker
It's unbelievable.
April K. McCullough
But anyway, they were using this to somehow defend the fact it's okay if he posts videos of him as a golden statue, because, look, why would. Why would an Antichrist person have a prayer to a Christ? I want you to watch Trump in this prayer, though. He looks so uncomfortable.
Tim Whitaker
I'll full screen it. Also to Trump's left is Pete Hegseth, which is just unreal for so many reasons. Let's listen into this prayer and see what we think about it. Here we go. This is the first cabinet meeting. Thank you very much.
April K. McCullough
Thank you, Mr. President.
Tim Whitaker
Let's pray.
April K. McCullough
Father, we thank you for this awesome.
Tim Whitaker
Privilege, Father, to be in your presence.
April K. McCullough
God, thank you that you've allowed us.
Tim Whitaker
To see this day. The Bible says that your mercies are new every morning.
April K. McCullough
He's speaking. Father God, we give you the glory. Thank you, God.
Tim Whitaker
He literally went like. He looked up and, like, looked around.
April K. McCullough
No, he's gonna keep doing it.
Tim Whitaker
Also, this prayer is so evangelical. This prayer is so performative. I'm reminded of the verse where Jesus says, these people honor me with their lips, with their hearts are far from me. To Trump's left is Pete Hegseth, a man who has crusader iconography tattooed on him, who loves the teachings of Doug Wilson, a man who says that slavery was a great time of racial harmony. A man who married off a serial sexual abuser to a woman in his church, who was then found guilty of abusing his own child. That's who Pete Hegseth finds compelling as a theologian. And here we are praying to God, thanking him for this opportunity. Oh, my God, I just want to vomit. But we will continue on President Trump. Father, for appointing us. Father God, thank you for anointing us.
April K. McCullough
To do this job.
Tim Whitaker
Father, we pray you will give the President, the Vice President wisdom.
April K. McCullough
Father God, I pray for all of.
Tim Whitaker
My colleagues that are here, around the.
April K. McCullough
Table and in this room.
Tim Whitaker
Lord God, we pray that we would.
April K. McCullough
Lead with a righteous Father God, as we serve the people of this country and every prospective agency, every job that we have. Father, we would humble ourselves before you.
Tim Whitaker
And we would lead in the manner.
April K. McCullough
That you've called us to lead and to serve.
Tim Whitaker
Father, the Bible says that blessed is a nation whose God is the Lord.
April K. McCullough
Well, Father, we today honor you and.
Tim Whitaker
In your rightful place. Father, thank you for giving us this opportunity to restore faith in this country.
April K. McCullough
And be a blessing.
Tim Whitaker
I'm sorry, faith, it's never been gone. Like, what are you talking about? This prayer makes me want to vomit, April. It does. It makes me so nauseous. Whatever God they're praying to, I want nothing to do with, like, nothing if there is an all powerful God out there. And this God elected Donald Trump intentionally because this God's hand of blessing was on Trump. I'm out. I'm out. No, we're in hell. We've. We've reached hell. Oh, God, I hate it. Okay, let's finish it. 10 seconds. And Lord God, today in our meeting.
April K. McCullough
We pray that you will be glorified in our conversation.
Tim Whitaker
In Jesus name. Amen. So performative. And of course, Charlie Kirk, who shared this. President Trump's first cabinet meeting opens in prayer. Amen. Generations of Americans of America's leaders have leaned on the leading and providence of God. We need God to lead us now. Oh, it's just, it's evident. It's evident that for them, God is a white man. God is a white man who blesses white supremacy, white colonization, and who blesses their violence. That. That. That's the guy that they worship. I mean, flat out. Flat out. And I hate it. I hate every word from that man's mouth to Trump's ears. It's. I. It's just repugnant to me. It's gross.
April K. McCullough
I. Who was the man leading the prayer in the image? He. I couldn't tell who he was.
Tim Whitaker
Scott Turner, 19th Secretary of the U.S. department of Housing and Urban Development.
April K. McCullough
Got it. So. And I don't think it's. I think it was very intentional that they had a black man also giving the prayer as a little nod to be like, look at us, look at us. We see we're not racist 100%, but also how stupid it is that they would use the fact that Trump's just in a room where a prayer happens to show, like, look how godly he is. Show me a video of Trump praying like himself. Yeah, I want to. I want to see that.
Tim Whitaker
You're never going to see it, because this is a man who doesn't like to ask for forgiveness. This is a man who lies through his teeth. You know, it's funny, I was always taught in my church that praying a prayer isn't enough. You have to show it by. By the actions. Right? It's the fruit of your life that demonstrates that you're really saved. Trump has negative. A billion fruits. Like, he's. He's so far in the red, and every day he. He just, he shows how all of his beliefs, how his words, how his actions are completely Antichrist, and yet these men get around him and go, thank you, God, for ordaining and for blessing us with Donald J. Trump. Or we can restore faith to America. As if faith left Biden's. Biden's a more devout Christian than Trump ever was. And these men have the audacity to be like, no God ordained Trump. We're going to bring faith back to America with Trump. What?
April K. McCullough
Well, and we've talked. We've talked about it. It's because they don't actually value action. They value belief. And as long as you line up ideologically and that someone will push your beliefs and your ideology so that you can gain power, they don't care what you do. Action wise. They don't care if you're propping yourself as a king. Let's not forget that a week ago, before that golden statue of Donald Trump was Posted in that Gaza video, he posted a fake Time magazine of him as king that said, long live the king. From the official White House Yes. Account.
Tim Whitaker
Yes. Yes.
April K. McCullough
These people would have worshiped the bunny.
Tim Whitaker
Hell, yeah. If you get that reference, just consider us great friends. Of course.
April K. McCullough
The bunny. Oh, I love the burning.
Tim Whitaker
Yes, exactly. I mean, it's amazing that. That vegetables. Talking vegetables taught me what to look out for. And who knew it would be so valuable in 2025? I saw it right away. I'm like, wait, that's the bunny? That's the bunny.
April K. McCullough
Phil Fisher was right. You don't worship false idols.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah. Don't do it.
April K. McCullough
Like, you don't Bible 101. You learn it in first grade Sunday school.
Tim Whitaker
It is literally 101.
April K. McCullough
Okay, let's get to some good news, though, because obviously there's a lot. There's a lot of bad things that are happening. No doubts. There's some. It's a very scary time. We're not trying to downplay that, but people are fighting back. They are there. There have been protests across the country, even the world. There have been people going to Republican town halls and just screaming at them and. And being very angry. Rightfully so. I personally, in person, let. This past Saturday, came across a anti Trump, anti Elon Musk protest that was saying, no dictators, no kings, save democracy. This is America. And I. I went in. I went and joined them for the last, like, 10 minutes of the protest because it was ending, and I found out they're protesting four times a week, and every Monday, they go and protest at Mitch McConnell's office in Lexington. So there are people doing stuff, and I'm going to join them this Saturday.
Tim Whitaker
I love that. Where do you want to start? We have so many clips here that we can share that are worth it. Do you want to start in the city of Roswell?
April K. McCullough
Sure.
Tim Whitaker
Okay. So this is. What's this guy's name? This is a. I'm blanking. McCormick.
April K. McCullough
Oh, McCormick. Yeah. Rick McCormick, I believe.
Tim Whitaker
Yes. So this is him at a town hall getting destroyed by his own constituents who voted him in because they are sick and tired of what Elon Musk is doing. Just listening to a few minutes of this. It's so good.
April K. McCullough
It's Rich McCormick I miss.
Tim Whitaker
Thank you, Richard.
April K. McCullough
Yeah. And a man has declared himself our king. So I would like to know, rather the people would like to know what you congressmen and your fellow congressmen are going to do to rein in the megalomaniac in the White House.
Tim Whitaker
I'm liking that. This is Georgia. They're all standing up. And she's right. He's a megalomaniac. What's your response here? When you talk about tyranny, when you.
April K. McCullough
Talk about presidential power? I remember having the same discussion with Republicans when Biden was elect.
Tim Whitaker
You hear the crowd.
April K. McCullough
What are you talking about?
Tim Whitaker
The funny thing is. The funny thing is. The funny thing is you're sitting here and com. A lot of you would probably say, those January sixes who are yelling just as loud as you. Wow. Who are upset just like you. Wow. This guy's delusional and not listening. Hey, hey. Let's restore some order. Let's restore some order. Hey, hey, hey. Let's restore some order.
April K. McCullough
So yelling at me is not gonna get any answer. Okay.
Tim Whitaker
I don't think executive privilege should be as strong as it is. I think we're out of balance right now. I think your direct representation, whether you.
April K. McCullough
Like me or not, I'm the closest.
Tim Whitaker
Thing you have to a representative. Your senator's not gonna be as representative as me, and the president's not gonna be as representative as me. When it comes to you, the people in this district, likewise, I think state.
April K. McCullough
Government needs to be more powerful than federal government.
Tim Whitaker
It used to be that federal funds only made up one third of the money spent and states was two thirds. It's more representative of your money and your money spent. That's better. Always push government down to the local level because you'll get better representation. I don't want to see the president.
April K. McCullough
Make all the decisions.
Tim Whitaker
I don't. I didn't want to see. How do you feel about it? Do you not want to hear that? I just said. I answered it directly. I said, I don't want to see any president be too powerful. Oh, you don't? Have you seen what Trump's been doing? Like, where have you been, bro? The man is on an executive order. The man sign an executive order his first day in office, trying to literally rewrite our Constitution when it came to birthright citizenship. Are you for real right now? Like, do you think Biden did that? Has anyone ever done that, like, ever in the history of America? Just on day one, say, by decree of the new president, by executive order, I now rewrite the Constitution, declaring this null and void. Signed the new president. No, but Trump has, and these people are having it.
April K. McCullough
He's not the only one. There are a lot of Republicans trying to frame what Trump and Elon are doing as something that, like, oh, well, this has been done before. Biden did it. Too. Because I made the comparison.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah.
April K. McCullough
If Joe Biden or if Kamala had one and they had a billionaire like Bill Gates or George Soros come in and make the cuts and give that kind of power that Trump's given to Elon Musk, they would storm the Capitol again. Capitol for way less.
Tim Whitaker
We'd also be furious. I don't want George Soros in the freaking government that close to Trump. I don't Biden or to Harris. I don't want him in the Cabinet meetings. I don't want a press conference in the Oval Office with George Soros talking over the President of the United States of America telling America how we're going to function as a government. I don't want billionaires within a thousand miles of our government. Right. I don't. So it's not like, you know, we want just a certain kind of billionaire. I want none of them. Because billionaires make their wealth unethically. It's built on exploitation. Full stop.
April K. McCullough
Full stop. And that's where you get a budget that benefits the wealthy and takes away very essential needs.
Tim Whitaker
Yes.
April K. McCullough
For the lower and middle class of our country. But it's interesting, when I made that point, there were several people in my comments that said that George Soros did have that kind of power. It just wasn't public.
Tim Whitaker
Oh my God.
April K. McCullough
These conspiracies, it's just unreal.
Tim Whitaker
It's unreal.
April K. McCullough
I know. It's like you can't, you just can't have. You can't have a conversation with people that believe George Soros did everything that Elon Musk is doing now.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah, I agree. Let's go to another clip from that same town hall. This is covered by, I think MSNBC here on Tick Tock. Check this out. We now have a better sense of.
April K. McCullough
What will oppose Donald Trump and his anti democratic overreach. What Newton's law for every action an.
Tim Whitaker
Equal and opposite reaction might look like in our country. And sounds like things like this.
April K. McCullough
Will you make sure hungry kids get.
Tim Whitaker
Fed and 5 year olds aren't picking berries? Or are you going to. I take education very seriously. I think AI can be transformers. Why is this being jammed down the pipe? So rushed and. And sloppily so. They are mad. They are mad.
April K. McCullough
I understand that when you say you.
Tim Whitaker
Have this many employees that you have to cut. That organization decides who they're going to cut now. They make major pushback. It's clear from all the writings of.
April K. McCullough
Our founding fathers that our great republic was never meant to be ruled by a dictator. Nor a king.
Tim Whitaker
Spot on. I mean, that is. That is a spot online, right? And they see it. Don't forget. Again, I don't. You know, April, you ever have those moments where you keep saying the same thing and not understanding how you're not being, like, heard? And that's how I feel like doing this show and hearing conservatives be like, you guys are too extreme. When we're showing you pictures that the president himself pushes of him being a king. And then they're like, well, it's not what you think. It's like, dude, the man himself is calling himself a king. This is talk radio. I was raised on talk radio. They warned me about men who want to be kings and tyrants, and now they're endorsing one. I'm not the crazy one here. You are the ones who have given in. You are the ones who have lost your minds. You are the ones who have moved your integrity and your moral values away from wherever. You told me I needed to plant my feet. Because this man who runs the White House not only is sharing videos of him being a golden statue in the middle of the Holy Land after he recolonizes it, but he's calling himself King of America. And you damn well better be sure that him and his administration totally endorse a third term option for him. That's a tyrant, that's a king, that's a dictator. And to this woman's point, the Founding Fathers absolutely never intended for such a thing to happen. It's unreal.
April K. McCullough
But some good news. This town hall had a positive impact on McCormick, because just a few days ago, after this town hall happened, he went back to Congress and urged Trump to slow down his pace of firing. Yes, it was happening too fast.
Tim Whitaker
So. And listen, this is. This is important, right? Like, obviously, as Christians, as people who believe in finding a better path forward, we don't believe in violence. We don't believe in doing violent things. We have to go through some kind of channels and talking to your representatives directly, going to their town halls, letting them feel the pressure, letting them feel heckled and feel like, no, what you're doing, what you're supporting is ridiculous. It does have an impact, because selfishly, those people usually don't want to give up their seat. Usually they want to get reelected. And so they want to listen to the people as much as possible. And I love this. I love that there are Christians and non Christians all across the US Standing up and saying, absolutely not. I'm not taking this stuff standing. I'm not taking it. Sitting down. One more thing. One more video I wanted to share. We have a few more, but one more I definitely want to make sure we get time for is this one. In Iowa, there are people protesting transphobic bills trying to be passed through the government. Here's a little excerpt from that if you're watching on YouTube. You can see it if you're listening on podcasts. The crowd is chanting, transphobia has got to go. Listen in. Oh, I played the end of that. Try it again. Hundreds of people are protesting the Iowa bill ending transgender civil protections. It's packed. The Capitol building is packed in Iowa polling signs. Trans rights or human rights. I love this.
April K. McCullough
It is disheartening and it is terrifying.
Tim Whitaker
Many queer and transgender and gender non conforming Iowans have felt this.
April K. McCullough
And that is while our rights are protected, this body agreed in 2007 to.
Tim Whitaker
Project gender queer individuals like myself under.
April K. McCullough
The Iowa civil rights rack.
Tim Whitaker
Removing these protections is itself a violation of our civil rights and it won't hold up in court. So what are we doing here? Why are we wasting time? I love, I love that shot right there, April. I'll back up in a second here. Just a place full. I like this. The state capitol building is full of people peacefully protesting, chanting, using their voices, holding up signs for the sake of their trans neighbor, which I absolutely freaking love. We need way more of that, but I'm glad to see it happening.
April K. McCullough
Yeah, and it's going. It's going to be happening more and more. And this does make a difference. I mean, look at the civil rights movement and any big revelation revolution in history started with people going to the people in power and protesting and chanting and doing sit ins and there, there is civil disobedience that we can do that is nonviolent but is effective. And it's happening across the country. And a huge story that happened in the last week was with Dr. Teresa Bornpohl in Idah, who she refused to leave as was her civil duty. She didn't break any laws. She was at a town hall in Idaho and started yelling among other people who were yelling in the crowd and the security team that was there. And I think it was an off duty police officer assaulted her basically and dragged her out.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah.
April K. McCullough
And she stood her ground. If anything, it was very disappointing at how no one stood up for her in this crowd. But if you want to play that.
Tim Whitaker
Video, sure, it's a little chaotic for friends listening on the podcast, but essentially the caption is, a woman is forcibly removed from Idaho Republican town hall on Medicaid and reproductive rights. Now remember, these are the people who are the free speech absolutists. Right? Like free speech don't infringe on my freedom. Free speech. Of course they don't really mean that when it comes to dissent that they, that they don't like. It's about a minute and a half long clip. Here we go.
April K. McCullough
Women are dying.
Tim Whitaker
You're just crazy people. What we're doing right now is so there's security guards coming over to this woman just assaulting me. This man is assaulting now.
April K. McCullough
Let's go.
Tim Whitaker
This man is assaulting me. Is this your deputy?
April K. McCullough
Is this your deputy?
Tim Whitaker
No, don't touch us. Is he a deputy? So these are so right now. So there are two men in black in this shot for those who can't see this. And they have not, they have not identified themselves and they are just grabbing this woman and the sheriff is telling these people, go get her essentially. And she's screaming, who are you? Like identify yourself. And they're not. Now a third man is in the mix. She's on the floor now being dragged out by her legs and her feet.
April K. McCullough
Who the are these guys? Who are these guys?
Tim Whitaker
Show your badge. Who are you? Who the. Just cooperate. It'll be 100 times.
April K. McCullough
Yeah, that's what they say to you. Refuse to identify yourselves. Who are you? Who are you? Thank you for coming. But the problem is.
Tim Whitaker
So she's literally being. I mean she's being assaulted. There's no way around it. Like in that video, she's assaulted by men physically drag her 100% and they zip tie her. They're. They don't identify themselves. They turn out to be private contractors. I believe now have lost their license to practice security in the state over this. They have unreal.
April K. McCullough
And, and I believe the police chief condemned that what the sheriff and the security team had done as well.
Tim Whitaker
But wasn't the sheriff the one yelling?
April K. McCullough
The sheriff was the one yelling. It was whoever is above him. Like the official department released a statement say and they dropped. They originally charged her or we're going to charge her with resisting arrest. And something else. I don't remember what it was but they dropped those charges and said she didn't do anything wrong. But she did not.
Tim Whitaker
Okay. Interesting. Yeah.
April K. McCullough
Obviously she has. Someone started a GoFundMe for her for her own re legal fees to sue the crap out of the city and it currently has over $300,000.
Tim Whitaker
Good, good. I love that. I mean the people need to rise up, right? I mean there was also the Story of the ex NFL player who spoke at like, I think it was like a town hall event for his local municipality. And he said, I'm now going to engage in nonviolent protests. And he kind of rushes the stage and collapses to get arrested. Like, this is the rebellion we talk a lot about with the new evangelicals. How we are trying to form a rebellion of love, empathy and hope. And part of that is civil disobedience. It's not saying yes. It's not complying with tyranny and seeing people all across the country challenge their own representatives, stand up for what they believe in, and be willing to put their own body in the way, I think is so important. And unfortunately, I think we're going to need more and more of that because this regime that we're currently witnessing is not going to stop. The people who animate what's happening are militant Christian nationalists. Russell Vogt is a militant Christian nationalist. Tom Holman, viral, not viral. He is a vile person when it comes to his anti immigration sentiments, et cetera. Pete Hegseth has crusader tattoos all over him and believes in taking over the country, et cetera. So all of these things, there's a real threat here. And we've been trying to warn people about this. This was my concern with the Trump regime. It wasn't even so much just Trump himself. I mean, he's obviously dangerous. It's the people behind him who now have a lot of access to the levers of government. And it's going to take the people working together, building new coalitions and saying, no, we're not taking this lying down for the sake of our trans neighbors, our immigrant neighbors, our bipoc neighbors, our disabled neighbors. I mean, we covered at the beginning of the stream April in my own neighborhood, right? ICE raided a local business and arrested the mother and the father and the mother still being held as of this recording in a detention center. That's not okay, right? We need people to stand up and to start rebelling. And it feels really good to see that there are people all around, all around the US saying, we're absolutely not taking this line down. We are going to fight back. That's just so important to me.
April K. McCullough
I do just want to clarify. Dr. Borampol was initially given a battery citation because she bit one of the men who were dragging her out. But they dropped, they dropped all the charges that were against her. I just want to say too, do you have the video from the governor of Maine going head toe to toe with Trump?
Tim Whitaker
Oh, did you give it to me. If you did, I have it then.
April K. McCullough
I thought you were downloading it before, but I have it regardless. I. There are a lot of men obviously, standing up, too, but props to the women. There are some bold women standing up. Up to this tyrant. I think it's. It's fair to call him that at this point.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah. What else would you call him? He's certainly not a benevolent president. Yeah, he's a bully.
April K. McCullough
This exchange happened last week. Trump's giving a speech to the governors of the. The nation, and he directly calls out the main governor over trans people in sports, which is a. There are more people with measles right now in Texas than there are trans people in college sports.
Tim Whitaker
Oh, my God, you're right. Oh, I hate to hear so.
April K. McCullough
Which is also another story that we're not covering today, but the first death, the first child died from an unvaccinated kid died from measles this week. A preventable disease.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah, yeah.
April K. McCullough
Anyway.
Tim Whitaker
Yeah. Right.
April K. McCullough
I'm sure that'll be a topic another day, but this video. Is the governor of Maine standing up to Donald Trump? Two weeks ago, I signed an executive.
Tim Whitaker
Order banning men from playing in women's sports. Many Democrats are fighting me on that.
April K. McCullough
I hope you continue because you'll never win another race.
Tim Whitaker
That's the only thing we're checking. Are they receiving this art is a little wonky. Here we go. The governor of Maine. Are you not going to comply with it? I'm complying with state and federal. Well, I'm. We are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't. And by the way, your population, even.
April K. McCullough
Though it's somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports.
Tim Whitaker
So you better come. You better comply because otherwise you're not getting any. Any federal funding. Every state. Good. I'll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a really easy one. Love. I love this woman. Like. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
April K. McCullough
Her name is Mills. Janet Mills.
Tim Whitaker
Hell yeah.
April K. McCullough
Governor Mills.
Tim Whitaker
Governor freaking Mills. And also. What a bully. Again. We. We have to say it. April. If Joe Biden said that to DeSantis at this meeting. Well, if you don't comply with our. Whatever it. Mandate. Mandate, mandate it's going to be. If you don't comply with these new rules that we're enforcing, we're going to give you no federal funding. Oh, my God. You would. Ben Shapiro would Be having a hissy fit. Matt Walsh. This is the most demonic, evil regime we've ever seen in American history. Who. What kind of tyrant does this? Ali B. Stunky. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. If Biden, or if it was President Harris and she said that to insert any Republican governor, it would be all over the freaking news. Don't forget, these are the same people. Remember a couple of years ago when Biden gave that speech and there were the red lights behind him and he called out white supremacy for the first time? And Ben Shapiro is like, look, he hates you. Look at. Look. Look at how vile and evil this shot is. They freak out. They are the world's biggest snowflakes. They are the world's biggest cry. You know, crybabies, man child, whatever. But if Trump does it. Oh, yeah, no, yeah, yeah. Trump, stick it to Maine. No federal funding. What? Are you kidding me? Dude, you are a freaking narcissistic, megalomaniac bully. I'm so glad this woman said, we will see you in court. Hell yeah, we will. We'll see you in court.
April K. McCullough
And these court, these lawsuits and what's happening in court is working. It is slowing Donald Trump down. There were several court orders that blocked some of Trump's executive orders this week. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, the governor, he sued the administration, and it never even went to court because the. The government unfroze $2 billion of aid of federal funds to the state of Pennsylvania already. So they are working. And on top of that, I'm just trying to do Cliff Notes. This is just a more fun one. Tesla stock is down 8% globally. It's like one of the lowest it's been in quite a long time. So. And Elon Musk's network has net worth has gone down $15 billion, which is insane. Like, that's an insane number that he can just lose $15 billion, and that is like, nothing to him.
Tim Whitaker
We're gonna have to do a full, like, segment on just how much money a billion is compared to a million. I think that our brains can't comprehend, like, the scale of going from being a millionaire to a billionaire. And we really don't understand how much money someone like Trump or someone like Elon. Excuse me. Has accumulated and how much they hoard their wealth at the expense of other people. It is. It's clear to me more than ever that there is no ethical or moral way to become a billionaire. Like, hard. Stop. These people worship Mammon. They are worshipers of Mammon. That is their God, and they suck up all the wealth at the expense of the middle and lower class, period. And we've been doing this for a long time in this country. It's not like it's some new phenomena, but we're really seeing it come to fruition and really bloom under the Trump administration. Seeing someone like Elon in the, in the government, you know, gutting everything or Trump's cabinet, I think, has the most billionaires in US History. We are in a very dangerous spot because these people, all they care about is sucking up wealth from everyone else, and they'll do it as unethically as humanly possible. It's actually quite antichrist. Right? We know that the Bible is so clear on this particular topic when it comes to greed and power and wealth. James 5 is a damning critique of rich people who hoard wealth at the expense of their workers not paying them a fair wage. And in James 5 it says, you're fattening yourselves up like cattle for the day of slaughter. It's pretty damning language. But again, for your Bible believing evangelicals, those verses don't count. You don't understand the text. It's totally fine. Thank God, though. In America, we only now have two genders. That's how we win.
April K. McCullough
Well, the. The Bible also says that the love of money is the root of all evil. Can all come down to the love of money. But because these men love money, that is how we can fight back too. Do not buy Tesla. And a lot of people are selling their Teslas and not buying Tesla, and that's why it's down. And it's not just in America. The world nations, unless you're one of the dictator ones, are fighting back too by not buying Tesla going against Elon Musk. So we're a little bit over time, but I think we can go to a quick ad break and then we'll have. We have one final segment. It won't be too long, but it is a brand new segment. This is a fun one. Yeah, we're gonna end on a fun note, so we're gonna have some fun.
Tim Whitaker
Okay, take a break. Goodbye. All right, we're back. Before we move to our last segment, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has been tuning into our lives or listening on podcast. This is a brand new show for us. It actually spins out of the new evangelicals podcast. April and I were doing a weekly recap on Fridays and it was so successful and also there was so much to cover that we thought about, what if we spun this off into its own show under the TNE network to do this. So this is really, I think, our third stream, and it's been really great. So just seriously, from my heart, and I know from April's too, a sincere thank you for tuning in, friends. Make sure to give this video a like if you're listening to this episode on podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Here we are working on developing this show more and more, so your feedback means a lot to us. You can email podcasthenewevangelicals.com to give us your feedback on what we could do better or what you really like. I know these are longer streams, and frankly, April and I will tell you there's a lot of prep that goes behind the scenes to kind of get up to speed and pull all the clips and get them ready. It's worth it, but it is a lot of work. So thank you so much for your support and I'm excited, April, to unveil a new segment that we're going to be doing pretty often. I'm. I'm pumped.
April K. McCullough
Yeah. Do you want to. Do you want to introduce it? Do we say it first or do we play the jingle?
Tim Whitaker
I'm just playing the jingle. Yeah, we gotta. Here we go.
April K. McCullough
Here we go. We Christian.
Tim Whitaker
Weird Christian. It's a brand new segment of just us picking up on just some of the weird things that we see out there that Christians are doing these days. And there's a lot. I mean, we can pull from the world of prophecy, we can pull from the world of weird Christian influencers. We can pull from anywhere. And April, we've been sitting on this one for a little bit.
April K. McCullough
Yeah, we actually had it queued up, I think, our last two shows, and we just didn't get to it.
Tim Whitaker
So do you want to set. You want to set us up or do we just play it and let it go?
April K. McCullough
Yeah. This is a Christian influencer online. I had several people send me this video in the last few weeks. It's a woman who is. It's on the screen. It says, pov, you're desperate enough for Jesus to pour grape juice all around your property and let's just play it. She narrates what she does in the video. So.
Tim Whitaker
And this is real, right? This. This is not satire.
April K. McCullough
This is real. This is not satire. I went and looked at her page. She is 100% being for real.
Tim Whitaker
Here we go.
April K. McCullough
Did I just spend a freezing cold afternoon walking around my yard in the snow, pouring grape juice along the entire perimeter of my Property. Yes, I did. And also, I know what you're thinking. She's finally lost it. But hang in there with me. I heard another Christian talking recently about how we use the oil to anoint our homes and our people. But what we really need for protection is the blood. As in the blood of Jesus. She said, if your house is filled with chaos, yelling, fighting, things breaking, just pure madness, then honey, you might need to break out the Welches. And I was like, say less. Except I went with the Kroger brand because budget. She told this story about how things in her own life were spiraling out of control. And a pastor friend had suggested that she anoint her property with the blood of Jesus. And she did it. And bamboo. Peace, blessings, testimony galore. And listen, the way things have been going around here lately, I figured, why the heck not? If nothing else, I get a little workout in tromping through the snow and some fresh air. I already know some of y'all are gonna go wild over this. Like the time I threw my crystals out to be nearer to him. But honestly, I don't care. At worst, I wasted $6 on grape juice. And at best, my house is protected by the blood of Jesus. And we finally hop off this wild, chaotic, awful roller coaster that we've been stuck. So here's to blessings, peace and divine protection. And maybe some confused neighbors too, wondering why the heck I'm out here baptizing my yard in grape juice.
Tim Whitaker
Why? What are we doing?
April K. McCullough
It's always so funny to me. The this is definitely falls into more Pentecostal charismatic camp. That is tip. That is very anti witchcraft. Like you heard her mention in the video, she threw out her crystals.
Tim Whitaker
Right.
April K. McCullough
To be closer to God.
Tim Whitaker
Demonic. Because they're demonic.
April K. McCullough
Right, right. Because I believe crystals or incense and all those things are witchcraft. But literally the whole idea that you are protecting, like you're putting a barrier of protection around your house, that's witchcraft. That is a type of witchcraft.
Tim Whitaker
A hundred percent. This is very, this is very evangelical. It's kind of like when I discovered Under Oath for the first time when they were still Christians. I'm like, oh, this is great. They're really heavy and they scream. So it's the same thing as the secular bands I can't listen to, but they kind of say God in one song. So it's all good. It's the same thing. I, I, I'm allowed now. Like magically I'm allowed. It's the same idea. Like, well, we couldn't call this a seance or we couldn't call it anything that isn't Christian. So let's just take Christian language and do the same thing that other people in other religious or spiritual traditions might do, and then we'll just call it Christian. Like pouring grape juice around my yard as if it's some kind of, like, spiritual or mystical hedge of protection to protect me from, like, unclean spirits or, like, bad energy or something. But I'm calling it the blood of Jesus, so it's automatically okay.
April K. McCullough
Also, I don't understand, like, I know why a lot of churches moved from using wine in communion to using grape juice that I like. I. I understand the logic there, but if you're going to be literal about it, Jesus didn't use grape juice when he said, this is. This is my blood that I poured out for you. It was wine. The Catholic Church uses wine. Protestants were like, no grape juice. But I. I feel like if you're gonna go, like, ritual with it and try to make it as close to the blood of Jesus as possible, that you would actually just use wine because you're not drinking it. Also, if you're doing this to. To protect your house and you're, like, honoring Jesus in this way, you can't buy the name brand, right?
Tim Whitaker
Like, doesn't Jesus deserve your best?
April K. McCullough
You gotta save 20 cents, right?
Tim Whitaker
Right. Like, you couldn't go, like, the organic Welch's route. You had to go with, like, the. The knockoff brand. Like, I thought. I thought God deserves our first fruits.
April K. McCullough
Just saying.
Tim Whitaker
Just saying.
April K. McCullough
Yeah.
Tim Whitaker
What if Jesus sees that and is like, oh, it's not Welch's, Forget it.
April K. McCullough
No protection. In fact, less protection, less.
Tim Whitaker
God. I mean, the sad part about this, though, is that this sets up this really, like, terrible situation. If things get worse for her, it's only going to make her want to strive more to please God. And so, like, it just kind of creates, like, this really unhealthy cycle. Because what happens, like, you know, the big thing is, especially in the more charismatic space, what happens when God doesn't answer your prayer? And, April, you started part of this. You shared your story on Monday with your dad passing away. And, like, you know, the prayer side of that and how it was, like, you know, a really, really, like, jarring thing that happened, and people started, like, reworking the tragedy to kind of fit why God maybe either did answer the prayer in a different way or, like, just didn't. And that's what happens with things like this. Like this. For all we know, and I don't know this person, she could be going through some real stuff, like some really heavy stuff. Maybe it's marital, maybe it's with her kids, maybe it's health. And she's doing this maybe out of desperation to try to find something to help her. And what happens when it doesn't work? What is it? What does it tell you about. About the God that is supposedly good and loves you and has this reckless love and follow, you know, and cares about you. And now this God doesn't answer that prayer. Like that diagnosis actually is confirmed and you did this anyway. It just sets up a really. It set you up for failure, in my opinion.
April K. McCullough
Right. Or her life gets better and then she equates it. Oh, it was the Welches. And now she starts pouring Welches all over her house all of the time, and next thing you know, she has a major ant problem.
Tim Whitaker
Well, to be fair, if that's all it takes, I will buy truckloads of it, right?
April K. McCullough
Yeah.
Tim Whitaker
That's what it takes to get this. This show off the ground and get us some good fortune and go viral. Sign me up, baby. We're buying Welch's.
April K. McCullough
Yeah. I mean, she seemed self aware enough to know that what she was doing was a little bit bonkers.
Tim Whitaker
Just a little.
April K. McCullough
I mean, just a little bit. But. So I come from that world and it is an exhausting way to live. Like, I mean, I knew people and I even doubted it at some points, too. You in my life, Beecher, will tell you that I've rebuked evil spirits that might have accidentally come into our house because of what we watched on tv. Yep, yep, I know. It's. It's. It's a thing you believe. Like, remember The Hocus Pocus 2 lady from Texas A few years ago, she made us this whole viral post about how you shouldn't let your kids watch the straight to Disney plus Hocus Pocus 2 because it would. This is a quote. Unleash hell on you to your children.
Tim Whitaker
So true.
April K. McCullough
Like, they would come through the tv. I mean, it's just exhausting. It's an exhausting way to live.
Tim Whitaker
Can we just point out too, how.
April K. McCullough
This looks like a crime scene?
Tim Whitaker
Looks like it looks like she murdered a deer on her property. Like it looks terrible. It looks horrible.
April K. McCullough
And you have to do it in the snow. Like, it's clearly. Wow.
Tim Whitaker
Well, that's it for this. This segment. I'll play the. The jingle now. Ready?
April K. McCullough
Yep. We Christian.
Tim Whitaker
There you go, friends. That's. That's this episode's version of Weird Christian shit. So, April, we did it. I mean, two hour long live, but.
April K. McCullough
We got through everything. We did not stay on my timeline.
Tim Whitaker
What did you estimate?
April K. McCullough
I I had us ending at 140.
Tim Whitaker
And it is 17 minutes. That's not terrible. Terrible. That's not terrible. It's not terrible. We covered a lot and going doing the Monday live and Thursday should hopefully help us a little bit. Which, you know, knock on wood. Knock on wood will help us. So.
April K. McCullough
Yeah, here's hoping. Well give us video a like go leave us a review. Rate us on Apple or Spotify, podcasts, subscribe on YouTube, all the things. Thank you so much for being here. And we'll be back on Monday.
Tim Whitaker
See you Monday.
Podcast Summary: The Tim & April Show – Episode 3: Donald Trump is Lord and The Rebels Fighting Back
Release Date: February 28, 2025
Introduction
In Episode 3 of The Tim & April Show, hosted by The New Evangelicals, Tim Whitaker and April K. McCullough delve into the tumultuous intersection of faith, politics, and culture. This episode tackles the controversial actions and rhetoric surrounding former President Donald Trump, the rise of Christian nationalism, and the grassroots movements resisting these developments.
Trump's Golfing and Campaign Promises
The episode opens with a critique of Donald Trump's time in office, highlighting his frequent golfing trips. Tim notes, "[...] he has spent the past 10 days of that time golfing, giving him a percentage rate of 26% of his time as president" (05:09). This behavior contrasts sharply with his campaign promises to reduce prices and cut government bureaucracy, specifically referencing his pledge to lower egg prices, which has yet to materialize.
ICE Raid on Jersey Kebab, New Jersey
April shares a heart-wrenching story of an ICE raid on a local family-owned business, Jersey Kebab, in Haddonfield, New Jersey. Tim recounts, "ICE raided their business and arrested the mother" (07:17). The family, Salal and Amin, had been residing in the U.S. for nearly a decade, contributing to the community by providing free food to the disabled and homeless. Their sudden detention highlights the harsh realities of immigration policies under the Trump regime.
"This is not about law and order. It's about a broken system that punishes people for trying to do the right thing." – Tim Whitaker (11:15)
Controversies at CPAC: Nazi Salutes and Third Term Push
The Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) event served as a focal point for multiple controversies. Steve Bannon was caught making a Nazi salute, which both hosts unequivocally condemn as an attempt to normalize extremist ideologies.
"A Nazi salute, like, you cannot miss. And for those out there, I can hear my dissenters. Oh, Tim, you're being so extreme." – Tim Whitaker (16:13)
Additionally, the discussion shifts to Trump’s ongoing efforts to secure a third term. Representative Andy Ogles introduced the "Third Term Project," aiming to amend the Constitution to allow Trump to run again in 2028. Tim vehemently opposes this, stating, "We have to say it. Every accusation from these people about how Biden's a tyrant... are simply a confession." (34:41)
Analysis of Trump's "Trump Gaza" AI-Generated Video
A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting the viral "Trump Gaza" video, an AI-generated piece portraying Trump in a colonizing role over Gaza. The hosts express deep concern over the imagery, which includes depictions of trans individuals and a monumental golden Trump statue, symbolizing authoritarianism and disregard for Palestinian suffering.
"This is antichrist stuff. It’s antichrist stuff, April. It's unbelievable." – Tim Whitaker (56:47)
The video is criticized for its insensitivity and portrayal of Trump as a messianic figure, further fueling fears of Christian nationalism crossing into dangerous political territories.
Rebellion and Public Resistance
Despite the alarming trends, Tim and April highlight growing resistance against Trump and Elon Musk's influence. Protests have erupted across the country, with citizens actively challenging their representatives in town halls. In Roswell, Georgia, residents confronted Congressman Richard McCormick, expressing outrage over Musk's actions and Trump's authoritarian tendencies.
"We need people to stand up and to start rebelling. And it feels really good to see that there are people all around the US saying, we're absolutely not taking this lying down." – Tim Whitaker (81:14)
Additionally, demonstrations in Iowa against transphobic legislation showcase a unified front advocating for human rights and protection against discriminatory policies.
New Segment: Weird Christian
In a fresh addition to the show, Tim and April introduce the "Weird Christian" segment, spotlighting unconventional and often misguided practices among certain Christian influencers. A featured example includes a woman pouring grape juice around her property as a form of spiritual protection, conflating Christian rituals with practices akin to witchcraft.
"It's always so funny to me. This is definitely falls into more Pentecostal charismatic camp." – April K. McCullough (102:14)
This segment underscores the blend of faith with fringe behaviors, questioning the authenticity and understanding of Christian teachings among some followers.
Conclusion and Call to Action
Tim and April conclude the episode with a call to action, urging listeners to engage in nonviolent protests and civil disobedience to combat the rise of authoritarianism and protect vulnerable communities. They emphasize the importance of grassroots movements in safeguarding democracy and uphold Christian values of love, empathy, and justice.
"We are in a very dangerous spot because these people, all they care about is sucking up wealth from everyone else, and they'll do it as unethically as humanly possible. It's actually quite antichrist." – Tim Whitaker (81:14)
Notable Quotes
Final Thoughts
Episode 3 of The Tim & April Show presents a critical examination of the current political landscape, especially the intertwining of extremist ideologies with mainstream politics. Tim and April advocate for active resistance and vigilance to preserve democratic values and Christian ethics, making this episode a compelling listen for those concerned about the direction of faith and politics in America.