4. Putin & Human Traffickers: Trumps True Allies

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Tim & April Show – Episode 4: "Putin & Human Traffickers: Trump's True Allies"

Release Date: March 4, 2025

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Overview

In the fourth episode of The Tim & April Show, hosted by The New Evangelicals, Tim and April delve deep into the intertwining realms of faith, politics, and culture. This episode focuses on the controversial interactions between former President Donald Trump, Senator J.D. Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a recent White House meeting. Additionally, the hosts explore the troubling case of Andrew Tate's return to the United States amidst allegations of rape and sex trafficking, scrutinizing the broader implications for Christian nationalism and Republican values.

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1. Personal Experiences at Protests

April's Kentucky Protest ([05:01] - [07:33])

April recounts her participation in a local protest in Lexington, Kentucky, aimed at raising awareness about the perceived threats to democracy. Carrying dual-sided signs with messages such as "Elon Unelected Doge Unconstitutional, Trump Unfit" and "Trump or Jesus Can't Serve Both," she encountered hostility, including being flipped off by passersby. Despite the antagonistic responses, April shares a poignant moment with an older man who, after reading her signs, engaged in a respectful conversation, showcasing a rare instance of understanding amidst tension.

Tim's New Jersey Protest ([07:33] - [13:30])

Tim describes his involvement in a protest against ICE's actions in Haddonfield, New Jersey, where immigrants Jalal and Amin were unjustly detained. Highlighting the community's solidarity, Tim illustrates the emotional and moral complexities of immigration enforcement, juxtaposed against the Trump administration's hardline stance. He emphasizes the hypocritical nature of supporting policies that target law-abiding, family-centric immigrants while advocating for strict measures against alleged human traffickers like Andrew Tate.

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2. Trump’s Golfing Habits and Egg Prices

Trump Golf Track Segment ([13:30] - [15:20])

In a satirical segment titled "Trump Golf Tracker," Tim humorously examines President Trump's golfing frequency as a metric of his administration's priorities. Referencing Trump's promise to reduce egg prices, they note a minor decrease from $8.12 to $8.05, mocking the administration's selective achievements. The segment underscores the contrast between high-stakes political negotiations and Trump's leisure activities, questioning the genuine commitment to Republican family and pro-life values.

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3. In-Depth Analysis of Trump-Vance-Zelensky Meeting

Introduction of Dr. Kevin Carnahan ([17:35] - [18:14])

Tim introduces Dr. Kevin Carnahan, a professor of philosophy and religion with expertise in international politics and Christian ethics. Kevin provides critical insights into the recent seven-minute exchange between Trump, Vance, and Zelensky, setting the stage for a thorough analysis.

Breakdown of the Exchange ([22:09] - [56:16])

Kevin meticulously dissects the confrontational dialogue, highlighting Zelensky's condemnation of Russia's repeated breaches of ceasefire agreements and Trump's dismissive, power-centric responses. Notable quotes include:

• Zelensky: "He [Russia] broken the ceasefire, he killed our people, and he didn't exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn't do it. What kind of diplomacy, J.D. you are speaking about, and what do you mean?" ([22:09])

• Trump: "I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country." ([22:25])

Kevin argues that the interaction exposes the Trump administration's lack of moral compass, emphasizing realpolitik over ethical considerations. He points out the ideological alignment between American Calvinism and Russian Orthodoxy, suggesting that both systems support authoritarian leadership and regressive social policies.

Implications and Broader Context ([56:16] - [63:02])

Tim and Kevin explore the consequences of such interactions, including Russia's official statements aligning US foreign policy with Russian interests post-exchange. They discuss the potential influence of Russian interference in American politics, citing instances like the Tenant Media case, where Russian funds allegedly supported right-wing media personalities.

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4. Andrew Tate's Return to the United States

Examination of Andrew Tate's Case ([64:22] - [73:20])

Tim and April tackle the contentious issue of Andrew Tate's repatriation to the US despite ongoing charges of rape and sex trafficking in Romania and the UK. They highlight:

• Andrew Tate's Admissions:

  • Tate acknowledges using manipulative tactics to control women, stating, "I was trying to get women to obey me. And I realized that's easier if they like to have sex with me." ([67:30] - [68:20])

• Trump Administration's Role:

  • According to Time magazine, the Trump administration lobbied to facilitate Tate's return to the US, raising alarms about the administration's priorities over the safety and rights of women.

• Governor DeSantis' Response:

  • Florida Governor Ron DeSantis distances himself from the decision, stating, "We have no involvement in that." ([72:37])

The hosts critique the Republican Party's hypocrisy, emphasizing the contradiction between advocating for women's safety and supporting or enabling individuals like Tate who perpetuate misogyny and abuse.

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5. Influence of White Evangelicals and Christian Nationalism

Throughout the episode, Tim and April scrutinize the role of white evangelicals in supporting the Trump administration despite its controversial actions. They argue that the alignment of Christian nationalism with authoritarian politics fosters environments where misogyny and dehumanization thrive. The discussion includes:

• Support for Trump Despite Ethical Lapses:

  • Tim laments the inconsistency of white evangelicals supporting Trump, who not only has a history of demeaning women but also endorses figures like Andrew Tate who embody extreme misogyny.

• Ideological Overlaps:

  • Kevin points out the shared ideological ground between American Calvinism and Russian Orthodoxy, particularly in their support for strong, authoritarian leadership and traditional social values.

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6. "Weird Christian Shit" Segment

Elaine Beck's Controversial Views ([90:34] - [94:57])

In the final segment, Tim and April address comments from Elaine Beck, a conservative Christian commentator, who argues against socialism based on selective Biblical interpretations. They critique her stance by referencing Matthew 25, emphasizing the importance of caring for the "least of these" and challenging her rationale for opposing governmental assistance to the poor.

Notable points include:

• Selective Biblical Interpretation:

  • Beck cites obscure verses to justify opposition to socialism, which Tim and April counter by advocating for a broader, more compassionate reading of Christian teachings.

• Hypocrisy in Policy Stances:

  • The hosts highlight the contradiction between Beck's stated values and policies such as cutting free lunches for children while supporting figures like Trump who enable misogynistic individuals.

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Conclusion

In this provocative episode, The Tim & April Show critically examines the intersections of faith, politics, and culture within the current American socio-political landscape. By dissecting high-profile political exchanges, scrutinizing controversial figures like Andrew Tate, and challenging the ethical foundations of Christian nationalism, Tim and April offer a scathing commentary on the state of Republican values and their real-world implications.

Notable Quotes:

• April on Her Sign Encounter ([07:33]): "You can't serve both. Pick one."
• Tim on Trump's Integrity ([26:09]): "No, no, no, no, no, guys, this is the party of biblical values."
• Kevin on Trump's Worldview ([30:03]): "Trump is a man of integrity, obviously."
• April on Andrew Tate ([64:52]): "Why waste any political capital on the Tate brothers?"
• Tim on Christian Nationalist Hypocrisy ([75:48]): "People just lie consistently. For some reason, that has gained a lot of power, especially in the white evangelical and white Christian space."

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this summary reflect the discussions between Tim and April as transcribed and do not represent the assistant's opinions.

Transcript

[April]

You're listening to a new evangelicals production, the Tim and April show, where we unravel faith, politics and culture.

[Tim]

What up, party people? How was that high energy? That was so muted.

[April]

I know. Rookie mistake.

[Tim]

All right, take it from the top.

[April]

I was just saying. It's Monday.

[Tim]

It's Monday. What is up, everyone? Welcome back to the Tim and April Show. We have a jam packed episode for you. We're talking about, of course, what happened in the White House a few days ago between Trump and Zelinsky. We're also talking about, and I don't want to talk about this person, but we're going to talk about Andrew Tate today. And also the bigger theme as we answer the question, are Republicans actually pro family and pro life? And we're going to demonstrate today how maybe that is not very true because Andrew Tate. Anyway, we'll get into that. I have some, some bits and some rants saved up over the weekend to unload on this Monday episode. So welcome in friends. April, how are you doing today, my friend? Happy Monday.

[April]

Happy Monday. I'm doing swell. Did you watch the Oscars last night?

[Tim]

No. No, I did not. Did you?

[April]

Actually, I didn't either. I mean, I watched clips after the fact, but I. Sunday nights are when we watch our. Usually our HBO show, which right now is White Lotus. Have you watched White Lotus?

[Tim]

No. April, I. Whenever you ask me these questions, I tell you the same thing. I'm a born again, Bible believing Christian. I don't watch worldly shows, I don't watch the Oscars, I don't watch White Lotus. Okay, I don't have time for that. I'm too busy reading my Bible show, prepping, trying to get people saved and back to Jesus, so.

[April]

Totally.

[Tim]

Did I miss anything important, though, yesterday? Anything important actually happened?

[April]

Nora won Best Picture, but I haven't seen that.

[Tim]

Right. Cool.

[April]

Have you, have you seen any of them on the best picture list? I've seen four.

[Tim]

Okay. What. What are they? What are the movies?

[April]

Amelia Perez.

[Tim]

Nope.

[April]

A complete unknown.

[Tim]

Nope.

[April]

Conclave?

[Tim]

Nope.

[April]

Nickel Boys.

[Tim]

Nickelback.

[April]

Nickel Boys is what it says here. I've never heard of it nor seen it. Wicked.

[Tim]

Yes, I have seen Wicked.

[April]

Oh, look at you. What about Dune Part 2? No, of course not, because that's Timothy Chalamet and we already know. You don't know who that is?

[Tim]

No. Who's that?

[April]

The substance? Nope, I'm still here. Anora and the Brutalist. I'm just going to say that because I know you haven't seen them.

[Tim]

No, no. But can I give Can I give you an honest reason why? I mean, you know, when. When I'm not trying to save people and, and be separate from the world. The reality is me and my amazing partner have two children under four, and we're also trying to do all of this work every day. So the reality is that I have no time or energy to watch any kind of long form movie, Especially ones that are like two and a half hours long. The fact that me and my partner made time to go see Wicked in movie theaters was like a once a five year. Once every five years this happens. But there's just. There's no more, you know, brain space in this, albeit limited brain already. There's no more space in here to keep up with, like, Oscars and pop culture stuff, Unless it's related to Christian nationalism.

[April]

Yeah, that's fair. Although with the Pope currently having health problems, you, conclave was really, really good, and I think you might find that interesting. Yeah, every year, though. This year we didn't and we've kind of got out of the habit. But Beecher and I met at a film school. Just sidebar, so. And they actually teach filmmaking at the college level. So we would always try to watch all the best picture nominees every year, but obviously we didn't get to that this year.

[Tim]

Yeah, that's fair. I will say, though, one show I've been making a lot of time for is Severance. I love Severance.

[April]

Oh, I've been watching Severance as well.

[Tim]

That. That is a. I will watch it as soon as I can in its entirety. I don't even check my phone. I'm so hooked. So. And for the record, I started season one before it got real popular. So I. I've been following it since the beginning.

[April]

Wow.

[Tim]

That might be the best show on tv, period. Maybe in the past five years in my estimation.

[April]

It is good. But you also have never seen White Lotus or have you seen Fargo?

[Tim]

I don't need to watch those shows. I know that Severance is better. Oh, okay.

[April]

Spoken like a true Christian nationalist.

[Tim]

That's right. Why go beyond my bubble?

[April]

April, we know what world you came from. This is my experience, so it has.

[Tim]

To be true for everyone. Everyone else. That's exactly right.

[April]

What did you do this weekend? I feel like you and I did something very similar.

[Tim]

We did. We were good. Are we progressive Christians? I don't know, but we were good. Love our neighbor Christians. Because this weekend both of us partaked. Partook in. We partooketh in. In protests. Me in New Jersey and you in Kentucky, do you want to go first and share your background? And I'll give you kind of my story, what I did on Saturday.

[April]

Yeah, so last week, I had shared how I had seen some protesters the previous weekend at a really busy intersection on a Saturday. And I went and I met with them, and they gave me their name. They protest, like, four times a week. So I joined them this past Saturday, and it's just a general protest, really, to spread awareness of how democracy is really in danger at the moment. So there's. It was kind of a generic protest. So you had, you know, signs about LGBTQ people, about immigrants, about against Elon, Musk and Doge, and then just no kings, no dictators, that sort of thing. So I made a sign. I made two. I made one sign, but on the front and the back said two different things. The one side said, elon unelected Doge unconstitutional, Trump unfit. And then my other sign said, trump or Jesus can't serve both. Because, I mean, we're. I'm in Lexington, but Kentucky is still very red and very.

[Tim]

Oh, for sure.

[April]

You know, Christian.

[Tim]

It's like Bible Belt territory, right?

[April]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would. I would definitely say so. But it was really funny. I got flipped off way more for my Trump or Jesus sign. And it would be funny because we were at it. We're obviously out, like, an intersection. So we're standing there when people are parked at a red light, and I have my sunglasses on so I can. I'm watching people's faces, like, as it registers what my sign says. And you could see the moment that they realized what I was saying. And so many of them got so mad, and then they'd flip me off. But there was one interaction that has really stuck with me, and there was this older man and a truck and a hat, and he read my Elon unelected, Doge unconstitutional sign first. And he was just shaking his head and giving me a thumbs down, and it was a long red light. So I flipped it to do the other side where it said Trump or Jesus? Cancer of both. And he kind of shrugged and gave me a thumbs up. I mean, we just had a whole conversation.

[Tim]

I don't know. I mean, again, call me. Call me crazy, April, but I don't think it's that controversial. So you can't serve two masters. It's almost like Jesus himself said that in the Bible that you can't serve two different types of people, or you can't serve money and God, or in this case, Trump or, I mean, you can't listen, you can't serve Jesus or Joe Biden. Yes. Yeah, I would agree. Like, thumbs up. You can't serve both. Pick one.

[April]

Right. It's like, it's really not that controversial unless you have made Trump an idol, which a lot of them had. Which, honestly, I loved when I got flipped off for the Trump or Jesus sign because I'm like, prove the point. Prove the point. Thank you, Bow. Just wave and smile. So how about your protest?

[Tim]

Yeah. So we shared last week on the show a really terrible story that happened right in my backyard in New Jersey. In Haddonfield, New Jersey, a family who owned a business called Jersey Kebab, their immigrants, ice raided their place of business and arrested the mother and father, Jalal and Amin. Jalal has an ankle bracelet on him and is home. And Amin got taken away by ICE agents to a detention center up in North Jersey about an hour away. There it was. There was no warrant. They're not criminals. They're currently in limbo waiting for their immigration status to be approved. It's been 10 years, by the way. And they've obviously allowed that. Meaning by they, I mean the state of New Jersey and the federal government have allowed this family to start a business, pay taxes, and be a. A thriving member of the community. And so when this happened, I actually made a video about it. And I listen, I don't say this very often because I think it's super pretentious, but I'm really glad that this video went viral. Like this one did take off. It went mega viral on Instagram. A lot of massive accounts with millions of follow commented on it and shared it. Katie Couric commented on it. I was like, oh, my gosh, Katie, my face on screen. That's crazy. So it really took off. And so the community organized and they had a really big event just showing solidarity for the Amante family, I think. I think that's how you say their last name. And so I went, me and my. My pastoral friend Cricket, she's on the left there in her clergy attire. And I just took a lot of pictures and I. I did another video on it. Kind of a montage. I'm not going to play it here because I used a song that will probably get copywritten. Plus people listening on podcasts won't be able to see these pictures anyway. You can go to the new Evangelicals Instagram page or my personal page at Tim Whitaker Speaks to see the full video. But over a thousand people showed up protesting this injustice by ICE agents. And as. As cars were driving through the street. They were honking like crazy. Honestly, this gave me a little bit of joy. It was really great to see people holding like. Like, this is one of the pictures that I picked up here. For us, the sign says, Jesus was a refugee. He welcomed the stranger, you know, And I was like, yes, it's so great to see my neighbors holding signs like this. So it was really powerful. I actually met Muhammad. That's the son who's been kind of holding, holding, holding down the fort as this is all happening. He saw my video. He loved it. I said, hey, let's talk more. And he shared some of my other content. And now we're in talks to maybe do an interview with him and his family when his mom get. Gets released. I actually asked him, I said, hey, man, I do a lot of content online. Would love to bring a camera crew into your place of business and. And. And tell the story now. And you know what he told me that was so fascinating? He said, well, I would love that, but our lawyers have advised us not going super public because they're afraid of Republican retribution making the case prolonged and delayed. And I said, yes, no, I totally get that. Let's. Let's not make this too big of a deal right now. Let's get your mom home, and then let's have the conversation. So, yeah, I mean, Sarah came with me. It really, you know, she was really emotional about it. And I think one of the most powerful moments of that vigil was the response of the family. And, you know, again, who owns a kebab shop to. Was to make food for everyone and feed them for free. So can you just imagine you're. You're looking at someone whose mom was ripped out of their arms, is currently being held in a detention center an hour and a half away north. No warrant, no court date still. And Amin, who's the one being held, she has. She has no access to outside technology. She has no clue what's going on. No access to tv. It's very. It's very terrible. And so here I am watching this happen, and I'm like, wow. And their response is not anger. Their response on the first day of Ramadan because they're Muslim, is to make tons of food for the community and feed us at no cost as a way of saying thank you. It was a really powerful day. So, yeah, it was. It was super powerful. And I felt really proud to be, of course, someone who lives in New Jersey, which I'm very proud of my state anyway, but I felt really proud to be a New Jerseyan and to watch that happen. And I'm really happy to see the content I made on it go really mega viral because this story needs to be out there. Right. It's a, it's a great example of it's not about doing things the right way for this administration. It's about targeting certain types of people for absolutely no reason. Law abiding citizens who are doing good, who are feeding people. And what's the response by the Trump regime? Let's arrest the mother. I mean, not a pro family take, in my opinion. And again, we'll get into this later on. Considering that, that the Trump admin just pressured the Romanian government to bring back Andrew Tate, a human trafficker, we have to really ask ourselves, what the hell are we actually doing? So, but yeah, that's, that's, that was my, that was my weekend. It was powerful and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next, you know, to get aman free. And we go from there.

[April]

Yeah. Gosh, I hope that the government corrects that.

[Tim]

I would love that. Hey, before we move on though, we do have to get to our, our golf tracker, the Trump. Yes. Price of eggs. You know, let's not forget what Trump has always said.

[Kevin]

We're going to bring prices way down.

[Tim]

That's right. And are we doing that? Is Trump bringing prices way down? Let's check, let's check the data on our Trump Golf track brought to you by TrumpGolfTrack.com so, April, some good news. As we know, eggs are skyrocketing. They are through the roof. But they did come down. They came down. Hold on. 7 cents over the past.

[April]

Nice. So what's the average now?

[Tim]

$8.05. Yeah, so it was $8.12. But hey, like Trump said, we're going.

[Kevin]

To bring prices way down.

[Tim]

That's exactly what he's doing. Prices of eggs are down by 8. 7 cents. 7 cents.

[April]

Miraculous.

[Tim]

Miraculous. Yes. And as far as, as, as his golfing days, hey, not a good look because I think it was last episode we said he got about 25% of the time that number has gone up. Trump has now spent 28.57% of his time golfing since being in office as of January 20th.

[April]

So 42 days ago when we streamed Thursday.

[Tim]

Yeah, thank you. Update us.

[April]

That number was 10. So he's golfed two more times since today's Monday, man. So in the last two days, I guess that means he golfed Saturday and Sunday, which I guess, you know, that is the weekend.

[Tim]

So yeah, no, right. I mean, I guess when, when, when, when you're telling off the presidents of a war torn country, you have to go relax somehow, right. And go golfing while you send that guy back to his, his war zone. Because again, pro life, right? You can't make it up, friends.

[April]

You can't make it up privilege.

[Tim]

You know what?

[April]

That's a great segue. Speaking of that conversation, we are going to talk about that bizarre meeting with Trump, Vance and Zelensky. And did you also know that there was a Russia media person in the Oval Office that the White House claims wasn't supposed to be there?

[Tim]

Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. Can I. But we have a guest.

[April]

Do you want to bring in our guest?

[Tim]

Yes, let me intro our guest. No, you're totally good. I want to just say one thing, and we're going to start hammering this. Often, I don't know why the American culture gives the benefit of the doubt to people who lie consistently. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, his regime, they lie all the time. So when they say, oh, that Russian asset wasn't supposed to be there, why do we default to being like, well, maybe they're telling the truth. No, they're not. They are liars. They are liars. They lie more than they tell the truth. So I do not trust anything that comes out of these people's mouths, including that notion that it just so happened that our president and vice president told off Zelensky and also happened to have, you know, a Russian media agent there. So, so here's what we're gonna do. I, I saw what happened, and I go, you know what, April? Unlike some of our Christian nationalist friends and our old pastor friends, we know that we're not, we're not experts in everything. Right? We are not always the most qualified voices to speak on certain cultural moments that are happening. Because I'm not a historian, I'm not a scholar, I don't know the nitty gritty about what's going on. And we want to be able to bring you all trusted commentary on news stories that, you know, come from credible places. So I called up my good friend Dr. Kevin Carnahan. He's been on the New Evangelical show multiple times covering all kinds of things. Most notably, he was the first person I had on after October 7, helping us break down the history of Israel and Palestine. That episode went mega viral. And since then, Kevin's been just a great friend that I can call and say, hey, bro, you want to come on and talk about some of this stuff in a more Credible way. So let's bring him in now. Hey, Kevin, how are you?

[Elaine Beck]

I'm doing well. How are you doing?

[Tim]

It is good to see you, my friend. Thanks again for making time. I, I think what we should do is go ahead and introduce yourself briefly to the audience and then we're going to actually go through the seven minute long exchange between Zelinsky, Vance and Trump and kind of give your, your thoughts, you know, based on what, you know, what you study, etc. On what's actually going on here.

[Elaine Beck]

Okay. I'm Kevin Carnahan. I am a professor of philosophy and religion at Central Methodist University, former co editor of the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. And I'm really interested in international politics. Really politics and Christian ethics.

[Tim]

Awesome. April, any other thoughts before we get into this thing? We got a lot to cover.

[April]

Yeah, let's, let's dive right in. Thanks for being here, Kevin.

[Tim]

Yeah, it's great to see you as always. So I guess to cue this up and maybe, Kevin, you can fill in some blanks here. My understanding is that this exchange that we're going to watch was part of a 49 minute long meeting that people are saying was cut short. So I don't know if like this was towards the end of it or if there was more to discuss. Can you give us some background on what, on what led up to this conversation that we're about to watch?

[Elaine Beck]

Yeah. So, I mean, background, of course, is the war in Ukraine that's been going ON really since 2022. And Ukraine has received aid from the United States under the Biden administration in large part because we feel that Ukraine's cause is just against Russia who invaded their country. The Trump administration came in. Obviously, the Trump administration has a very different take on this. They decided that the, the aid that Ukraine has received from the United States are really more like loans, their investments. And so the Trump administration feels that Ukraine ought to be paying back the United States, at which point it proposed this deal for mineral rights that the Ukraine should hand over to the United States. And so this meeting was really part of getting that deal signed and final negotiations on the deal. So Zelensky came over to the United States. They had had prolonged, negotiat negotiations about the deal. And then this was supposed to be the build up to the signing of the deal. About 40 minutes of the meeting actually went pretty straightforward, no big glitches. Zelensky just had to correct Trump on a few things that Trump stated that were incorrect. I think that might have annoyed Trump to get started, and then all hell broke loose in about the last nine minutes of the meeting.

[April]

Can I ask, is it fair to say that Trump also doesn't like Zelensky because of the quid pro quo and the reason he was impeached during his first term? Because wasn't Zelensky the person he supposedly was trying to bribe and that's why he got in trouble?

[Elaine Beck]

I think that Trump's unease with Zelensky goes back in lots of different things. I mean, the most immediate is the fact that Zelensky came to the United States and came to Pennsylvania during the presidential election, and Trump saw that as a kind of endorsement of Kamala Harris. And so the most immediate thing for Trump, I think, is that he feels that Zelensky was already kind of unloyal to him even before he was president. But, yeah, I mean, he's got a lot of history going back with Ukraine and a lot of his political problems there.

[Tim]

Okay, that's helpful to know, and that makes sense because Trump, as we know, is a loyalist, right? He cares about your loyalty to him. He doesn't care about principle or, you know, what's. What's most important, even for the good of the country. If you. If he feels like, like someone's betraying him or not loyal, he will punish them as often as possible. Including, I mean, he said the other day, right, that. That Ukraine started the war. And it's like, dude, you know that, like, even Twitter has all the receipts of how that is not the case. So, yeah, I think that's really a really important piece to point out. So let's go through this video. Kevin, stop us when you feel necessary. It is a seven minute long clip, and I felt like one of the benefits of long form is that we can take our time and kind of go through this piece by piece. So. And friends, I did add subtitles. Some of you have been asking us for subtitles on our content. So I did that. Let's start this conversation, see how it goes. And Kevin, let me know when you want me to pause and we'll get ready to do that. All right, let's get into it.

[Kevin]

He broken the ceasefire, he killed our people, and he didn't exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn't do it. What kind of diplomacy, J.D. you are speaking about? What do you mean?

[Tim]

I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country. Yes, but if you. Mr. President, Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to.

[Elaine Beck]

Litigate this in front of the American media right now. You guys are going around there.

[Tim]

Sure.

[Elaine Beck]

So. So from the very beginning, what's at stake here is whether Russia is a trustworthy actor, whether Russia is a moral actor in the. In the framework of what's going on. So what. What Zelenskyy is highlighting is the fact that from 2014, Russia came in, they took over Crimea, they took over parts of the Donbas, and. And since then, there have been 20 ceasefire agreements with Russia. Russia has broken every single one of them. And Zelenskyy's overall point is that, like, Russia is not a moral actor. You can't trust Russia. And now what you're trying to do is to negotiate another ceasefire agreement with them, but you're not giving any actual guarantees that you will back us up if Russia breaks those ceasefire agreements. So his point is, you're asking me to hand over the mineral rights for my country, but you're not actually giving anything to my country that would be useful, because Russia's tendency is to just use a ceasefire agreement to restock their weapons and then be able to come back into their country. And so this is his question to JD Vance is what kind of diplomacy are you talking about? Because you're not talking about any actual type of diplomacy that's going to stop Russia from. From re invading my country. To which J.D. vance just goes back to. Well, I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end this war. Of course, that just means bringing about a ceasefire agreement. So he's not really answering the question. And this is just going to keep going. They're going to keep disagreeing with each other, really having completely different worldviews of what's going on.

[Tim]

Is it fair to say, in layman's terms, that Zelensky essentially calls out the US and their bullshit and propaganda to their face, and JD Vance doesn't like that and goes, absolutely not. You can't call it our propaganda in front of the American people. Now I'm mad at you. Is that, is that a fair, like, summarization of what's going on here?

[Elaine Beck]

Yeah, I think it's a. It's a little bit more than that. I really think that the Trump administration and Zelensky have completely different worldviews when they're approaching this. Zelensky has a worldview that says, Russian imperialism is bad. Russia has invaded my country, violated our autonomy. What they've done is unjust, and they ought to be resisted on that basis. Right. This is a fundamentally moral argument that Zelensky is making.

[Tim]

Right.

[Elaine Beck]

The Trump administration doesn't seem to recognize moral reasons as anything whatsoever for the Trump administration. As it becomes really clear Trump is worried about raw power. And that's the only question. The question is, are you the one lacking power in this situation? And if so, shouldn't you really, like throw yourself on the ground in front of us who have power and kind of grovel in front of us? Because if you don't have power, why would we care? Right. That's the kind of. So they have fundamentally different views of the world that are going on here. The Trump administration just doesn't have a moral compass in its. Anywhere in its view, really.

[Tim]

No, no, no, no, no, guys, this is the party of biblical values. We all know this. They are grounded in morality. Trump is a man of integrity, obviously. Haven't you listened to like Ali Stuckey or something? All right, here we go. We'll keep going.

[Elaine Beck]

Forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the President for trying to bring it into this conflict.

[Kevin]

Been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have?

[Tim]

I have been to come once. I have actually, I've actually watched and seen the stories. And I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour. Mr. President, do you disagree that you've.

[Elaine Beck]

Had problems bringing people into your military?

[Tim]

And do you think that it's respectful.

[Elaine Beck]

To come to the Oval Office of.

[Tim]

The United States of America and attack.

[Elaine Beck]

The administration that is trying to prevent.

[Tim]

The destruction of your country?

[Kevin]

A lot of questions. Let's start from the beginning.

[Tim]

Sure. Really quick. Can I ask a question here? I mean, I. It just seems. Let me ask you this, Kevin. Do you think this was like a pre planned thing from Vance? Because I've heard some rumors of like they were kind of waiting for this moment to kind of call out Zelensky to his face and kind of bring this up. I don't think it was super off the cuff, but what's your thoughts on this?

[Elaine Beck]

So this goes back to the question that you always have about the Trump administration, which is, is it mal or is it just incompetent? And that, that's, that's a running question. I think we can also ask the question like how, how much is Russia actually influencing this in the background, there are constant questions about that. Whether Trump is. Obviously Trump is manipulated by Russia, but how direct is the manipulation by Russia that's going on in the background here? Now, I tend to think that incompetent, you don't need malignancy when incompetence is a perfectly good answer. I do think that the first 40 minutes, the fact that there weren't disagreements for the first 40 minutes suggests that they, that this wasn't like a rhetorical trap that they were definitely going towards. But I don't think that Trump and Vance have any problem with finding any reason to give Zelensky problems. Both because ideologically they line up better with Russia. Just that worldview of, you know, might makes. Right. Power is all that matters. It's a kind of dictatorial worldview. And Russia lines up with that better than, I mean, Europe or Ukraine or any of those leaders. Yeah, so. So, I mean, just ideologically, they immediately line up better. Russia knows better how to play Trump, how to keep him going, kind of placating him, making him feel like he's a really important person in the United States. I mean, under the thing that makes that argument hard is the United States is so pro Russia under Trump. I don't know if you guys have followed, but, like, most recently, the Department of Defense has, like, yes, lowered our protections against cyber threats from Russia, which is absurd. Right.

[Tim]

Under Pete Hegseth.

[April]

Yeah.

[Elaine Beck]

This is. So that's the only thing. Those are the things that make you go, okay, is this not more direct like Russia, like, manipulating somebody like Trump? But I think at this point, it's mostly just that the. They were already upset with Zelensky, and Zelensky had corrected Trump a couple of times before this, and it ultimately, ultimately came to a head in this exchange. I don't think you need for it to be planned ahead of time. I just think that this is an utter breakdown in how they view the world in comparison to each other.

[April]

And to further prove your point, the Kremlin, official Kremlin in Russia, after this exchange came out and said that US Foreign policy now, quote, largely aligns with their Russia policy.

[Elaine Beck]

Yeah, okay. Which is not surprising. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tim]

Okay, let's keep going.

[Kevin]

First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the future.

[Tim]

God bless.

[Kevin]

You don't know that. God bless. God bless. You got a war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying, trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you because you're in no position to dictate that. Remember this, you're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel. We're going to feel very good. We're going to feel very good and very strong. You will feel influenced. You're right now not in a very good position. You've allowed yourself to be in a very bad position. And he happens to be right about it from the very beginning of the war.

[Tim]

You're not.

[Kevin]

Not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now with us, you start having cards right now. You don't have your playing cards. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War Three. You're gambling with World War.

[Elaine Beck]

Yeah, so. So, again, I think this is a telling moment because you can. Because you can tell the metaphor that Trump uses to make sense out of this. Right? You're playing cards. Of course, playing cards is not a situation where you're in a situation where one player is just and the other player is unjust. You're not in a position where one person is invading another person. You're not in a fundamentally moral situation. I mean, if you think about, if, if cards is your metaphor for how the world plays out, well, then bluffing, lying, all of these things are perfectly acceptable in a game of cards. And all that really determines things is whether you have a strong hand and whether you play that hand. Well. This is, this is the Trump administration's perspective. And you can see Zelinsky trying to push back on this, like, I'm not playing cards, right? Yeah, It's. It's the actual people who are members of my country that are getting killed here. This is not a game of cards. But Trump's worldview just doesn't allow for that. He's. He's conceiving this all in terms of power plays. And even he says, you didn't put yourself in a good position. As if Ukraine was ever, you know, able to ante up and get a new hand of cards or something like that.

[Tim]

Right.

[Elaine Beck]

As if they weren't the ones that were invaded by Russia. But, but Trump's metaphor really gives away how he thinks about the world. And it's just not in terms of morality or, or even as long as. So Zelensky's trying to bring up the problem of Russian imperialism. Right. Russia will not stop. If they are successful in Ukraine, they will continue to press Russian imperialism in other places. And he says, you will feel that. To which Trump's answer is an answer of realpolitik, power. Right. We won't Feel that we will feel very strong. This is all that, all that he's able to kind of process here is, you know, American exceptionalism. We're strong, we're strong enough. We don't really care about anything else. And really, at the end of the day, since we're strong, shouldn't you really be suffocating? Like, why, why are you not just laying down on the ground in front of me? That's Trump's basic question here.

[Tim]

I can't help but think it's just uncanny that 80% of white evangelicals voted for this administration. And by the way, like, none of this was a surprise. I mean, Trump and really the right wing media ecosystem has been turning on Ukraine for probably two or three years now. Why are we funding Ukraine? Why are we doing this? We shouldn't be supporting them. So it does make you wonder, and I have no evidence of this directly, I haven't read it, read anything directly on this. But it does make you think, like, how much Russian money or interference is being funneled into these systems. Now we do, actually, now that I think about it, we do have one example right there is the whole Tenant Media case where the Department of Justice found that this organization, Tenant Media, was actually a shell company for Russian interference. They were paying right wing media influencers. I think it was Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and one or two others. Hundreds of thousand dollars of one, thousands of dollars an episode to keep pushing pro Russia talking points. So it just makes you wonder, like, what's really going on behind the scenes here and how much currently this new regime and Putin are actually working together to create this narrative that is changing the American view that supporting a country that was unjustly invaded is somehow the wrong position to have. Right. It's just, it's very unreal to watch then to watch white evangelicals be like, well, hey, we stand on truth and we believe in biblical values. So go Trump. Like, it doesn't really add up when you actually unpack what's going on. It's crazy.

[Elaine Beck]

Well, I would want to say there is an ideological overlap between American Calvinism and Russian Orthodox.

[Tim]

Oh, shoot.

[Elaine Beck]

Because the Calvinist view tends to think that God puts the leader in power and things are going to run. And as a matter of fact, the government should function at one with the church. And so you end up with easy forms of Christian nationalism that can form out of American Calvinism. The Russian Orthodox system runs parallel, although along slightly different lines. With the Roman Empire, you got the emperor that was functionally the head of the church. And so Russia sees itself as the continuation of kind of the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire through the Byzantines. And so they think of themselves. They like to use the imagery of the Church tied together with the nation as a kind of element for Russian nationalism. And both of those, you would think that they might clash with each other because one's American nationalism, one's Russian nationalism.

[Tim]

Right.

[Elaine Beck]

But they actually overlap with each other, especially when Trump comes out in a dictatorial way, trying to support the most kind of regressive stances on LGBT in Russia and things, and trumpeting that that is a position of the Russian Orthodox Church, you do get an overlap. And I think that there are Americans who look at that and think, yeah, that's actually the model that we want. Right. We want a strong leader who does what the Church says and is going to enforce these things. So I think there's an ideological overlap, even though it doesn't seem like that seems likely, it's there in the background.

[Tim]

Fair. Okay, we have some more to get through here, so let's keep it going. I know April is like, we got to keep going, Tim. We're on it. Run a time crunch. I'm like, I'm with you, April. I'm with you. All right, here we go.

[Kevin]

Or three. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country. That's back to you. Far more than a lot of people said they should have.

[Elaine Beck]

Have you said thank you once in this entire meeting?

[Tim]

Have you said thank you?

[Elaine Beck]

You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for.

[Tim]

The opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president.

[Elaine Beck]

Who'S trying to save your country. Okay, this is.

[Tim]

Wow.

[Elaine Beck]

This is kind of. It's surreal in the middle of a meeting where they're asking Zelensky to basically hand off mineral rights to the United States. I mean. And again, this goes to their view. I mean, it really is. If the United States is going to support you, you either have to make it a business transaction. Right. So you should be giving us something back in exchange.

[Tim]

Or.

[Elaine Beck]

Or. And. Or you should be supplicating to us. You should be kind of in front of us and being kind of menial in showing your. And of course, Vance wants to throw out this. This claim about the election, which is going to bring up then Trump, which. This is the thing that he's been doing throughout this is constantly going back to Biden and Obama and, like, slandering them as he's had this meeting because of Course, they're never past the election. They're never actually over any past people that disagreed with them. So it just keeps going like this.

[Tim]

All right, let's keep going here. This is where things really start devolving.

[April]

Now would be a good time for a quick ad break if you're trying to get two in for the show.

[Tim]

Oh, okay. Let's go to an ad break.

[April]

Just saying.

[Tim]

Hi, my name is Leonard Stevenson. The seeds of my deconstruction go back.

[April]

To 2016, but I started deconstructing in.

[Tim]

A big way from Christian fundamentalism in 2019. Since then, I've been continually searching for.

[April]

More information and resources to help me.

[Tim]

Understand the Bible and Christianity better. I first discovered the New Evangelicals podcast and Facebook group about a year ago.

[Elaine Beck]

And found it to be a tremendously good resource for both information and for online community.

[Tim]

Before encountering the New Evangelicals, my deconstruction.

[April]

Journey had been primarily intellectual.

[Tim]

It was through the New Evangelicals Facebook.

[April]

Group that I began to slowly understand.

[Elaine Beck]

All the pain that so many were.

[April]

Feeling coming from fundamentalism.

[Tim]

This gradually opened my eyes to the.

[April]

Systemic problems with fundamentalist theology that had always been there, but that had been.

[Tim]

Nearly invisible to me before.

[April]

Like others in the community, I'm still.

[Tim]

Devoted to seeking God and the Christian tradition, but doing so in better ways. I continue to find the New Evangelicals to be good resource for doing this. Thank you. Welcome, friends. Welcome back to the show. We are joined here with Dr. Kevin Carnahan responding and going through the recent debacle, the shameful debacle of this conversation between zelensky, Trump and J.D. vance. Let's keep going. Glad you're here with us. Let's get back into it. Here we go.

[Kevin]

You think that if you will speak.

[Tim]

Very loudly about the war.

[Kevin]

He's not speaking loudly. He's not speaking loudly. Your country's in big trouble.

[Tim]

Trouble.

[Kevin]

Can I wait a minute? No, no. You've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.

[Tim]

I know.

[Kevin]

You're not winning. You're not winning this.

[Tim]

I.

[Kevin]

You have a damn good chance of coming out okay? Because of Mr. President, we are staying in our country, staying strong. From the very beginning of the war, we've been alone, and we are thankful. I said thanks. You haven't been alone in this cabinet. You haven't been alone. We gave you, through this stupid president, $350 billion dollars.

[Tim]

You.

[Kevin]

We gave you military equipment. And you men are brave, but they had to use our military.

[Tim]

Did he just really call Joe Biden a Stupid president. I just have to point out, and we will always do this, that if it was the opposite, in fact, we know how sensitive these right wing MAGA folks are because remember was it a couple of years ago when Joe Biden gave that, that address where there were the red lights behind him and he called out just the white supremacists in the country and they all freaked out. Joe Biden hates you. They hate you. So disrespectful. And here's this man calling a former president, despite your agreements or disagreements, one of the highest, you know, calls that a US citizen can do in America. Calling him stupid is so disrespectful. And we know that the MAGA crowd absolutely loves that. It just burns me up to hear the dehumanization and utter nonsense of this man. And again, knowing that most white Christians in America voted for this. Gosh, it's terrible.

[Elaine Beck]

Yeah. Let me note also that Trump has just repeated one of his most frequent lies about Ukraine, which is that the United states has contributed $350 billion to the defense of Ukraine. That's not true. He's overstated the United States contribution and understated Europe's. The United States has contributed about $119.7 billion to Ukraine, which is actually behind Europe's contribution, which is around $138 billion. He likes. For some reason he has shot this entirely out of a context. I have no idea where he gets the $350 billion reference for. And nobody from his administration has been able to show any source that he's drawing on. He appears to just be making stuff up.

[Tim]

All right. Yeah. Again, not surprised.

[April]

I wonder if one reason they got so triggered here, like clearly they're responding like little children, but I feel like they are threatened by the actual masculinity. Not to be toxic masculinity, but like, like if anyone is a quote unquote alpha male in that room, it is Zelensky, who's actually in a real time war right now where neither Trump nor Vance have ever seen combat and like at all. And it's just, it really just. I mean we've talked about this, but just the audacity. Like Trump, Zelensky goes back to a war zone after this meeting and Trump went golfing.

[Tim]

Yep, yep.

[April]

And they're playing like they're somehow on equal footing and it's just, it's so infuriating.

[Tim]

April, is it just me also or do these men seem a little over emotional? I thought it was the women that were emotional and Wants, you know, people to get all hysterical. But I don't know, I mean, Trump, Trump seems a little, I mean, Trump, calm down. Okay? Don't get too emotional about this. Like, just control yourself. We don't want to, you know, act on emotions. We want to be fact based. These men. It's unbelievable. All right, let's keep it going.

[Kevin]

What about if you didn't have our military equipment? You invited. Didn't have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks. In three days. I heard it from Putin in three days.

[Tim]

This is maybe less in two weeks. Of course.

[Kevin]

Yeah. It's going to be a very hard thing to do business like this.

[Elaine Beck]

I tell you again, the metaphor is business, right? It's going to be very hard to do business like this. This is a card game. This is business. This administration doesn't seem to have a good grasp of ideas of like diplomacy or politics. It does. Just doesn't even think in those categories, which has to be. It's incredibly frustrating, I think, for the rest of the world that is trying to think in terms of liberal democratic order, right. To have all of a sudden this, this rhetoric coming out of the White House 100%.

[Tim]

Except that they're accept American. Except that there are disagreements and let's.

[Elaine Beck]

Go litigate those disagreements rather than trying.

[Tim]

To fight it out in the American media.

[Elaine Beck]

When you're wrong, we know that you're wrong.

[Kevin]

I think it's good.

[Tim]

Didn't JD Vance start the fight? Like Vance started the fight, Right? I try and be careful. I don't want to think that everything is Darvo, you know, but like this, that's like a classic. Like, he started the fight and he's like, hey, you know what? Let's start fighting out in front of the American public. Let's go litigate it. And Lizzie's like, what are you talking about, dude? You picked this fight. All I did was tell you the facts. And you and your president freaked the hell out and started arguing with me about things that are blatantly untrue. It's unreal.

[April]

But also just arguing a stupid, like, retort too. Like, well, did you even say thank you right 10.

[Tim]

Of course they said thank you like a thousand times.

[Elaine Beck]

The rhetoric there is seriously like the rhetoric of a three year old. He says, look, there are disagreements, let's go litigate those. Not in front of the media because you're wrong. And it's like, hold, hold on. Didn't you just say, let's not argue this here? And then you say, because you're wrong. That's not avoiding the disagreement here, right?

[Tim]

100%. Yeah.

[Elaine Beck]

It's absurd.

[Tim]

It's absurd.

[Kevin]

Can people to see what's going on. I think it's very important. That's why I kept this going so long. You have to be thankful you don't have the cars. You're buried there. Your people are dying. You're running low on soldiers. Listen, don't. You're running low on soldiers. It would be a damn good thing. Then you. Then you tell us, I don't want a ceasefire. I don't want a ceasefire. I want to go and I wanted this. Look, if you could get a ceasefire right now, I tell you, you take it so the bullets stop flying. And you meant stuff getting killed. Of course we want to stop the war. But you're saying you don't want to see. I want to see guarantees. Because you'll get a ceasefire faster than any. Great. Ask our people about ceasefire, what they think. That was for you, what was here.

[Elaine Beck]

And this is. I mean, this is exactly going back to the actual substance of the disagreement. Right? It's not about whether Ukraine wants a ceasefire. Of course Ukraine would love to have an end to this war, but Ukraine only wants an end if it is with guarantees that this is a substantive peace, that this is a just peace. And this is exactly what Trump is not allowing them. And what Trump keeps repeating is you don't want to cease fire. When that completely misses the. The Ukrainian position, because they want to cease fire. They would just like a. Just cease fire. They don't want a cease fire. That's simply going to allow Russia to rebuild and reinvade their country.

[Tim]

Right.

[Elaine Beck]

And Trump is entirely ignoring that.

[Tim]

Makes complete sense. Because again, let's not forget, Russia invaded Ukraine. So it makes sense that the people being invaded are like, wait, if we're going to stop this, which we want, we need some guarantees that Putin isn't going to try this again in like three years, five years, 10 years. And Trump's essentially saying, nah, I think.

[April]

They would want to cease fire too, in a way that doesn't give their land to Russia.

[Tim]

Yeah, that would make sense with me.

[Kevin]

That was with a guy named Biden who was not a smart person. That was your. That was with Obama.

[Tim]

It was your president.

[Kevin]

Excuse me, that was with Obama. Who gave you sheets. And I gave you javelins. Yes, I gave you the javelins to take out all those tanks. Obama gave you sheets. In fact, the statement is Obama gave sheets and Trump gave javelins. What you got to be more thankful, because let me tell you, you don't.

[Elaine Beck]

Have the cards with us.

[Tim]

Yeah, yeah. It's just making shit up. This man is making shit up.

[April]

What does he mean when he says sheets there?

[Elaine Beck]

I. So it's going back. So Obama. So first of all, going back to Obama would be before we have the current war with Russia, it's going back to history. So it's talking about the kind of support that Obama gave to Ukraine. And so he's saying Obama didn't give you military supports, especially when Russia came in in 2014, they annexed Crimea. So they did come in, like previously, and the United States decided that they did not want to support a Ukrainian military opposition at that point. As a matter of fact, coming into Crimea and. And the parts of the Donbas that Russia had come into, Russia had a very favorable Ukrainian populace that they were taking over. The ability of Ukraine to fight and take back that land was not very probable. And so the United States decided that they didn't want to get involved in a military conflict at that point. It was only when Russia then invaded further and started taking over land that didn't have populations that were sympathetic to Russia that the United States started supporting military resistance against Russia.

[April]

Gotcha.

[Elaine Beck]

So that's what's behind this.

[April]

Yeah.

[Elaine Beck]

The idea that you would just make it into a saying is absurd and strange and completely out of context.

[April]

I just did a quick Google and it said that he was referring to the $600 million in non lethal assistance that include blankets. So he meant literal sheets. Like in my head, I thought surely he means something else, but. No, he means like some kind of.

[Tim]

Weaponry that we call sheets. Yeah, he means.

[Elaine Beck]

He means humanitarian assistance.

[April]

How dare you.

[Tim]

How dare you, you terrible President Obama. How dare you? Is it. How long ago was it? It's almost 20 years ago Obama got into office. Right. 2008. It's just. Oh, gosh, it's unreal.

[Kevin]

All right, you have the cards, but without us, you don't have any cards.

[Tim]

One more question, Mr. Vice President. I'm sorry.

[Kevin]

It'll be a tough deal to make because the attitudes have to change.

[Tim]

What if Russia breaks ceasefire?

[Kevin]

What if Russia breaks. What do you do that?

[Tim]

What if Russia breaks the ceasefire is the question.

[Kevin]

What are you saying?

[Tim]

She's asking, what if Russia breaks the ceasefire?

[Kevin]

What if they. What if anything? What if a bomb drops on your head right now?

[April]

Okay, why have they broken what child?

[Tim]

Sorry, I didn't see this part. Did he really just say that? What about the ceasefire? What if a bomb Drops on your head right now. Yeah. What if when you walk out of here you're shoelaces untied, your trip on it and go down the stairs? I mean what, what, what happens? I don't know. What are we talking about? Dude?

[Elaine Beck]

Again, Russia has broken 20 ceasefires since two since 2014. If people had been had drop bombs dropped on their head in the Oval Office 20 times since 2014, I think we would have done something more serious about it than, than the situation. Yeah.

[Tim]

No, this, this man truly reflects the Christian right that voted for him. Anti intellectual, like not willing to accept any responsibility for their actions, consistently thinks that somehow their bubble of the world that they occupy is the only right way to function. Dogma over data to kind of quote Dam McClellan over here. It's just, it's unreal. It is unreal to me that, that the, that the tradition that taught me to care about truth and objectivity and data and facts put this man into office and is so mum about him like it is. It's unreal to watch. It is still all these years later, absolutely jaw dropping. This man is an ignoramus, but he's a fool. And the Bible says you don't answer a fool according to his folly. And instead evangelicals said why don't we just vote him into office. Here we are watching this stupid ass conversation because Trump is so ridiculous. Ok, calm down Tim. We can do this. All right? We're almost there.

[Kevin]

No, they broke it with Biden because Biden didn't respect him. They didn't respect Obama. They respect me. Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. You ever hear of that deal? That was a phony. That was a phony. Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam Hillary Clinton.

[Tim]

Okay, is he.

[Elaine Beck]

Yeah.

[April]

It is factual that Russia interfered with the 2016 election and the 2020 election. They even helped spread misinformation about the recent hurricanes. They, they came out that they were paying really, really big conservative influencers. So it is just factual that Russia has been interfering with American politics, specifically pushing propaganda in right wing circles.

[Tim]

It's just.

[Elaine Beck]

Yeah, it is.

[Tim]

That's real.

[Elaine Beck]

And then he's, I mean he's just in by this point, he's into a long rant and then all of a sudden we're on Hillary Clinton and Adam Schiff and Hunter Biden and like how you make these connections. It's just like a wonderful mind but not Wonderful at all that he's just random idea generating out of this. Yeah.

[Tim]

We got about a minute left. Let's finish this bad boy up and then we can give our final thoughts.

[Kevin]

Schiff. It was a Democrat scam and he had to go through that. And he did go through it. We didn't end up in a war, and he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden's bathroom. This is just came out of Hunter Biden's bedroom.

[Tim]

What is.

[Kevin]

It was disgusting. And then they said, oh, oh, the laptop from hell was made by Russia, the 51 agents. The whole thing was a scam.

[Tim]

And he had to put up with that.

[Kevin]

He was being accused of all that stuff. All I can say is this. He might have broken deals with Obama and Bush, and he might have broken them with Biden. He did. Maybe. Maybe he didn't. I don't know what happened.

[April]

You think you wouldn't break him with me? If you're the third he wants to.

[Tim]

Make it, you would think you would. Absolutely.

[Kevin]

I don't know if you can make a deal. The problem is I've empowered you to be a tough guy, and I don't think you'd be a tough guy without the United States. And your people are very brave. But you're either going to make a deal or we're out. And if we're out, you'll fight it out. I don't think it's going to be pretty, but you'll fight it out. But you don't have the cards. But once we sign that deal, you're in a much better position. But you're not acting at all thankful. It's not a nice thing. I'll be honest. That's not a nice thing. All right, I think we've seen enough. What do you think?

[Tim]

Yeah, we can pause there. Jeez.

[Elaine Beck]

So, just to go back, I mean, I think again, what you see in Trump's language there is his worldview, right, that he believes that all that matters is really powerful. He believes that he's very powerful. He believes that Putin's very powerful. But Putin will respect him because he's got power, apparently, power that Biden and Obama and Bush did not have for some reason. And so this is. This is just his worldview. He doesn't seem to realize that he's being manipulated by Russia this entire time, that he has basically flipped the entire country in the interest of Russia as he's doing this. His worldview just doesn't allow him to process that. And this is what I say, like, I don't think you have to have that Trump is like a literal shill or like they have information on him. I just think his psychology is so simplistic that if you are a dictator, it's not hard to play Trump against his own and his own country's interests.

[Tim]

Yeah, no, I agree. I do. Kevin, before. Before I let you go, I think maybe one moment of just a little bit of humor in all of this. I mean, it's still very serious. Is. Did you see Marco Rubio during the press conference? So you know Marco Rubio. April, we should start a new segment called Rubio versus Rubio. Because hearing him talk even like nine years ago about Trump and I have clips on this, too. It's just unbelievable. Now I think he's the Secretary of State to the Trump administration. So I found this clip of him of. Let's see. Is this the right one? There we go. I found this clip of him talking about when Ukraine. Sorry, when Russia invaded. I think it was Crimea. And then I will fast, I will flash to a clip of him sitting in that same conversation that we just saw with his, like, him looking so shell shocked. So while a reporter. While a reporter, if you can call them, that asks the most ridiculous questions I've ever heard. So let me just play this clip first. Here's Rubio, I think a few years ago here, 2015 or something like that, talking about when Russia tried to take over Crimea. If in the 21st century, a country is allowed to invade a neighbor, lie about it and lie about the reasons for it, and they can get away with it without significant costs, we have created a dangerous precedent with which we are going to have to live. Okay, so really quick. That's exactly right. I mean, you could take that, you could take those words from that back then and put them right now, and it would still apply to Russia. Here's Marco Rubio. Rubio, a few years later, in on that conversation with Zelensky and Trump and J.D. vance listening to a reporter. I'm not even gonna. You just listen to this. It's so ridiculous. And then just watch. Marco's body language is so telling. Why don't you wear a suit? You're the highest level in this country's.

[Elaine Beck]

Office and you refuse to wear a suit.

[Tim]

Just want to see if you. Do you own a suit?

[Kevin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tim]

Problems. A lot of Americans have problems with you.

[Kevin]

I don't have such office. I will wear costume after this war.

[Tim]

Will Finish. Yes. Maybe look at his face.

[Kevin]

Maybe something like yours. Yes, maybe some, something better.

[Tim]

I don't know. So, so to be clear, what's happening for folks who can't see this is that Zelensky was, was told by a reporter, why don't you wear a suit? Which is, by the way, don't forget Elon Musk wore no such suit in the Oval Office when he gave his propaganda laden speech while Trump sat down. No one talked about that. But Zelensky, leader of a country that's currently being invaded by Russia, wore all black to a meeting. A reporter asked him that stupid question. And Rubio sitting there like, how did I mean his face to me says, how did I get here? Like, his hands are folded, he has a scowl on his face, he's slouching. And yeah, Rubio, like, how did you get here? Probably by compromising your own moral integrity, which you yourself have said on the record that Trump's a con man. Trump's trying to take over the, take over the Republican Party. I actually, you know what, while we're here, while we're on the raid, I have a 30 second clip about this that I think is just worth really highlighting because my gosh, like these people have really capitulated their own moral integrity and I think it's worth. This is from nine years ago. Okay. This clip I'm going to play, I pulled it from YouTube. It's a nine year old clip of Marco Rubio back in the day when he was running for the 2016 presidency. Listen to how he talks about Trump back then. Let's see. Here we go. Well, I don't know what you're talking about. I can just tell you that a con artist is about take, take over the Republican Party and the conservative movement. And we have to, to put a stop to it. Donald Trump has portrayed himself now consistently as fighting for the working people. And he has a record of sticking it to working people for 35 years. There is no way we are going to allow a con artist to take over the conservative movement. And Donald Trump is a con artist. So what do you think a Trump.

[Kevin]

Government would look like, Senator?

[Tim]

It would be chaos. No one knows. But it would look probably like the positions he's held for all these years. He is wholly unprepared to be President of the United States. He refuses to answer questions on any specific public policy. Okay, there you go. Now, I'm just letting you all know that Tim Whitaker today, Tim Whitaker, who's deconstructed, now more progressive, totally agrees with Republican Senator Marco Arrow of 2015. Like, he's absolutely spot on. But only one of us changed, and it wasn't me. Marco Rubio is now in the Trump administration, you know, singing its praises. It is. It is really unbelievable to watch.

[April]

I just want to interject an important point. The reporter who asked that question of why aren't you wearing a suit? Is Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend.

[Tim]

Oh, my God.

[April]

Also, I would love for a reporter to ask that question to Elon Musk the next time he's in the Oval Office.

[Tim]

100%.

[Elaine Beck]

100%. This is what happens when you allow the Trump administration to decide who it is that gets to show up from the press in their decision making. What can you say? It's a complete moral catastrophe. Washington, at this point.

[Tim]

Yeah, I agree. Listen, Kevin Carnahan, it was great having you on the show for this segment. Thank you for making time. It means the world. I'm sure we'll see you again. Take care of yourself, friends. If you enjoyed Kevin's commentary, please give this video a like. And, Kevin, I'm sure we'll talk to you soon. So thanks for being here.

[Elaine Beck]

All right. Thank you.

[April]

Thanks, Kevin.

[Tim]

Well, there you go, April. One segment down, one segment on time.

[April]

We are way behind, but that's okay.

[Tim]

Someone in the comments said April is a good conductor, though she has a difficult job keeping the Tim train on track.

[April]

I know, because I don't want to interrupt, but I'm also like.

[Tim]

But now I feel like, like, low key, insulted. Like, come on, bro. No, I'm just kidding. I understand. I know, but there's so much to cover.

[April]

When you're on a roll, you're on a roll. And so I get that.

[Tim]

Yeah.

[April]

Let's go to our final ad break, and then we'll come back and we will talk about Andrew Tate, and then we will end on our weird Christian beat.

[Tim]

I'm in. All right, see you in a minute.

[April]

Welcome back to the Tim and April Show. I have to say, when I first made that ad for the book, I was like, oh, I'm gonna throw in this Jim Baker clip, because it'll just prove that I really was a Christian nationalist. Because I get a lot of comments that are like, you never were conservative. But the downside is now every show I have to rewatch me on the Jim Baker show with my crispy, hard hair because I put so much gel in it, like, straight out of the shower, because that was the style back then.

[Tim]

Look, I mean, I. We all have our things from back in the day I had a very large Mohawk, so it was so big I couldn't fit in my car if I had it up. So, yeah, I get it.

[April]

Yeah. All right, well, let's move on to our next topic. Topic number two.

[Tim]

Oh, gosh.

[April]

Of the show, Andrew Tate, who is a very well known misogynist. He has been stuck in Romania for a while now on charges of rape and sex trafficking. And he was just let back into America, like, years ago, literally. I think it was either the day or the next day after our last live because we're like, oh, it's just happened.

[Tim]

I hate to really even talk about this person. And frankly, April, you and I have a very strong, you know, no tolerant policy when it comes to dehumanization. We don't want to dehumanize people. And I will tell you that out of all the humans in the world, this man is the hardest one not to call very vile names because he is a, frankly, a horrible human being. There's just no way around it. I would even go so far as to say is that he is an evil man. I hope that he repents. Anyone can change. He's a very evil person. I want to also give a trigger warning to people out there that some of these clips that we're going to play are very intense and deal with sexual assault and Andrew Tate just saying really terrible things. I, I, what I did was I thought about, about the audience. I don't want to be too intense. I pulled like a minute and a half clip of him talking about something. It's, it's not the most intense stuff he said, but it gets the point across of how he operates because he's a very terrible human being. And he actually has amassed billions of views online. He's a really well known person in the red pill movement. And there is some, the hard part about, about Andrew Tate is that Andrew Tate says things that a lot of, like, conservative Christian men are going to push back against. They're going to say Tate is too far. However, he operates in the same orbit that these men operate in. And Tate said that he's a big fan of the Trump family and that the Trump family knows him well. So he is very much tied into this Trump manosphere type of attitude that has shaped the minds of millions of young men. And I don't think that, frankly, white evangelicals and faith leaders, especially conservative ones, push back nearly as hard against this person. So here's what I'm going to do to kind of just tee us off on who he is. I have this clip here that I'm going to play. This is him talking about his accusations and what the Romanian government is charging him with and then denying the allegations. And then it's going to play another clip of him talking about exactly what he does to women from 10 years ago. So you can hear how this man, again, he lies straight through his teeth to people. So if you are sensitive to this kind of stuff, maybe this is. This is the part where you might want to skip. It's a minute and 20 seconds long. I'm going to play the whole thing. It's a montage. And then we'll come back. Here we go. So they come along and they said.

[Elaine Beck]

Oh, you're a human trafficker. I said, well, I've never transported anyone, I've never kidnapped anyone, I've never restricted anyone, I've never held anyone. Said, no, but you're human trafficker by the lover boy method.

[Tim]

I said, what's that?

[Elaine Beck]

It's where you pretend to love them. So what? Being nice? So I was nice to some girls 10 years ago. Is that my crime? Maybe I did love them, but we're not together anymore.

[Tim]

So what? I pretended. Who said I pretended?

[Elaine Beck]

Prove I pretended to love. And then what did I pretend to love them to achieve?

[Tim]

Okay, so really quick, just want to paraphrase that for the audience. What he's saying is that the government is, is telling me that I'm employing the lover boy method, which is essentially a way to manipulate women into. Usually they engage in like webcam activity, things like that, based on really abusive and narcissistic behavior. Tate denies this, but this clip from five years ago will tell you otherwise. Here's Tate from 2020. So yeah, on corporate.com I have my.

[Elaine Beck]

PhD program and that is PhD is a pimpin hose degree that teaches basically how I got girls, how I met.

[Tim]

Girls, how I got girls to like me, how I got girls to fall in love with me, to work on webcam for me. Because that's what I did.

[Elaine Beck]

That was my. My MO was fine.

[Tim]

Girls, make them love me and make.

[Elaine Beck]

Them work for me. And that's how I got rich. I was all about trying to get paid. Like my whole. I used sex as a tool to.

[Tim]

Make women love me so they'd obey.

[Elaine Beck]

Me and live in my house and make me money. That that's what I wanted. So I was a pimp in that sense. Like I was not trying to have sex with women. I was trying to get women to obey me. And I realized that's easier if they like to have sex with me. If they don't like having sex with.

[Tim]

Me, it's pretty hard to make them listen to me. Okay, and now this is him back in the current moment talking about this is, this was when he was still in Romania. What he's being accused of, the case.

[Elaine Beck]

Against me is that I pretended to love girls to make them do tik tok for money.

[Tim]

There you go. So he actually, he actually admits in the past to doing the very exact thing that he now says he never actually did. And April, once again, this just proves in my mind how this entire world of right wing everything is based on people who tell lies consistently. I think that, I think that's kind of the through line. I'm realizing Trump is a liar, Elon Musk is a liar, Andrew Tate is a liar. People just lie consistently. And for some reason that has seemed to get gained a lot of power, especially in the white evangelical and white Christian space. So that's Andrew Tate. He is not a good person. And by the way, those were the light clips, those were the less triggering clips of things that Andrew Tate has said about women. He's also caught on camera beating up a girlfriend at the time, from a, from, from, from years ago. He also, by the way, is accused of money laundering. Like this guy is not, he's not a good person by any stretch of the imagination. He's been held in Romania for a few years on, on human trafficking charges and also on grape charges. His brother, Tristan Tate is also being held on human trafficking charges. The Trump administration, according to Time magazine, lobbied to bring him back to the US and that is exactly what happened. So Andrew Tate, a man who is under suspicion of human trafficking, a man who on camera talks about how he has a quote, pimping hose degree program where he teaches men how to do what he does. The lover boy method is back in the US because the Trump administration put pressure again, according to Times magazine, to bring him back to America. I don't know, April. I mean, I'm pretty sure, wasn't it the Republicans it wasn't it Trump who, who ran on the campaign promise of getting rid of the vile human traffickers, the undocumented immigrants who come over here to traffic children. Wasn't that part of what got him elected was trying to clean up the crime ridden America because immigrants are just poisoning the blood of society? Am I wrong on that or is it just me?

[April]

You're not wrong. Even remember the, our last show, I asked a Trump supporter what Christ like policies does he have? And he included fighting sex trafficking as one of the Christ like policies which where because Trump just let in a very well known trafficker into America who.

[Tim]

Also has a massive online platform that influences young men to be like him. Right. According to Times Magazine, diplomatic lobbying by the Trump administration that enabled Andrew Tate to flee from Romania to Florida could lead to a three way international legal battle to secure his prosecution for sex crimes. The misogynist social media influencer and his brother Tristan are under investigation in Romania and the UK for alleged sexual assault and human trafficking relating to an online sex cams business. What are we doing here? This is the same administration that went after my neighbors who are running a small business whose immigration status is in limbo because of the government's mismanagement of their case. That mother is currently being held in a detention center under the Trump administration. But the same Trump administration pressured the Romanian government to bring back one of the most vile, misogynistic, violent men towards women. And now that person is back in Florida. And by the way, to be clear, to be so clear about this, even a lot of Republicans, ones that I would strongly disagree with, like, like Governor DeSantis, are ticked. So I do want to give credit where credit is due. Governor DeSantis was asked, did you guys know that Andrew Tate was being flown back to Florida? Here's what he said. We have no involvement in that. I read about it through the media.

[Elaine Beck]

Clearly the federal government has jurisdiction whether they want to rebuff his entry into the United States.

[Tim]

And I have confidence that whether it's.

[Elaine Beck]

Pam Bondi or Kristi Noem, that they.

[Tim]

Will be looking at that.

[Elaine Beck]

I do know our Attorney General, James.

[Tim]

Uthmeyer, is looking at what state hooks.

[Elaine Beck]

And jurisdiction we may have to be.

[Tim]

Able to deal with this.

[Elaine Beck]

But the reality is, is no, Florida is not a place where, where you're.

[Tim]

Welcome with that, with those, that, that.

[Elaine Beck]

Type of conduct in the air.

[Tim]

And I don't know how it came to this.

[Elaine Beck]

We were not involved.

[Tim]

We were not notified.

[Elaine Beck]

I found out through the media that.

[Tim]

This was something that was happening. Great. Good, good. Thank you. Thank you, DeSantis, for saying the obvious, but I'm glad that you said it. He's not welcome in Florida and you're looking into what you can do to get him the hell out of there, because guess what? But unlike trans women in sports, Andrew Tate is an actual threat to women everywhere. Yeah, he's an actual threat. And the Trump administration did some bullshit. Pomp and circumstance. We're going to protect Women in women's sports, right, Trying to ban, like, literally 10 potential trans players in the NCAA. Trump did an executive action banning those people so they couldn't play in sports in the name of protecting women. And then welcomes back alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate, who bragged on camera about his pimping hose degree, who brags on camera that he abuses and assaults women. Do we. A real question, April. Like, when will white Christians realize that the man they voted for has been this way all along? Like, of course he would be. He would bring back Andrew Tate. Of course he would. Like, why are. Why are conservatives so shell shocked that a man who was found liable of sexually assaulting a woman would bring back a man who is found liable or who is under alleged suspicion and also caught on camera assaulting women?

[April]

I mean, why are we surprised? That is the disappointing thing. And, I mean, there's a lot of disappointing things in this, but I have seen, like, Ali, Beth Stuckey and a few other pretty big. Trump supporting Christian nationalist upset about welcoming Andrew Tate. Which is great, which is great. But are they going to actually stop supporting Trump over that? No, they don't have a line like they're going to still cheer him on. I mean, Ali Bestucky also, quote, tweeted that whole exchange with Zelensky and just said how much she loves Trump because of what he did. So, yes, that is. That is. There's no actual line, right? That's right. I'm glad that they're calling him out on some things. I hope that they continue to do that because. But here's the thing. Trump has always been like this. Literally, in 2015, before the 2016 election, the access Hollywood Tate dropped, where he bragged about assaulting women. Bragged about it.

[Kevin]

It.

[April]

Andrew Tate brags about assaulting women, how he gets women to obey him. And let's be clear, they. I'm glad some Christian nationalists and conservatives are calling this out, but their ideology actually lines up with a lot of what Andrew Tate is saying. They want women to obey their husbands. They want women to submit to their husbands and do what their husbands say. That is no different than what Andrew Tate is saying. They would disagree with the means, but the ends are the same. And when you have that ideology, it makes room for evil men like Andrew Tate to completely abuse and assault women without any sort of accountability. And here we have again, he's getting out of accountability because Trump, who is a danger to women himself, that administration fought for him to be here. So you can miss me on any sort of narrative that you want to say that conservatives are trying to protect women, that they're actually for women's rights, that they're fighting because trans women are so dangerous to women. No. If you're going to not only let in Andrew Tate, but you elected an assaulter of women. Miss me? You do not care about women.

[Tim]

You have no leg to stand on. You have zero leg to stand on. Don't come into my DM saying how we are not true Christians, how we've given ourselves over to the world. Look at who you support and endorse. I completely agree with you, April. And we've been saying this since the beginning, right? For many of us, when we heard the Access Hollywood tape, we went that, no, like, of course not. This man is bragging about assaulting women. And then here we are a few years later, and suddenly conservatives are like, wait, why would Trump do this? Maybe because Trump is Andrew Tate. I mean, think about the correlation. Andrew Tate sells courses that to be a real man, right, is to take as much power, control as possible, to exploit others, to step on other people, to lie, to never take responsibility for your actions, and to assault women. Does that sound familiar at all? That's who America mainly white Christians elected into the Oval Office. Why are people suddenly so surprised that a serial sexual assaulter is going to support and bring back a serial sexual assaulter? Why? Why? They don't care about women. They don't care about the safety of little girls, because look at who they bring back. And by the way, now again, there is pushback on this, and we're going to cover. I want to respond to Ali Stuckey's take on this because I'm so angry with her, I'm so frustrated with her. But here is just. Just a little glimpse the. The Tampa Bay Young Republicans, according to their own Twitter, formally welcomes Andrew Tate and Tristan Sait to Florida as free speech absolutists. The Tates haven't been formally convicted of any crimes and are welcome to speak to our group. We're old enough to remember when a convicted felon won the presidency. Exactly. At least they're being consistent. They are being so consistent because Trump is a convicted felon and you guys still voted for him, right? All they're doing is saying, we're just following the line of logic to his conclusions. Why wouldn't we welcome Andrew Tate? Why wouldn't we? He's a Trump supporter. He believes in, quote, unquote, free speech, which we know is such a cover, Right, for allowing nonsense like this to go on. Because people like Elon Musk, they censor people all the time. But, I mean, of course, why. Why is any. Let me try and put this in the language of my old conservative evangelical Christianese.

[April]

Bring it on.

[Tim]

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try and speak to those people gently. You know, you do reap what you sow. And my question is, when you're sowing seeds of anger and of lies and of dehumanization and of misogyny and of anger, you're not sowing the fruit of the spirit. You're sowing the opposite. You're sowing what you might call are the seeds of the enemy. And now you're surprised that Trump would do something like this? No. No, you shouldn't be surprised. We've been trying to tell you for a very long time that Trump does not care about anyone except for himself, especially when it comes to women. Especially when it comes to women. So my question to you conservative Christians is, are you going to live by the values that you claim, our objective truths of the universe when it comes to the fruit of the spirit, Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Is that. Is that anywhere in your orbit of thought when you think about who you support politically? I don't think it is, because you are arguing and you're advocating for an administration that consistently does this. Let's not forget, April, that Trump wanted Matt Gaetz as the Attorney General, a man who was found in a House committee report to have paid for sex, including someone who was underage, which doesn't make it consensual. You don't pay for sex with someone underage. You grape them, Right? This is who Matt. This is who Trump wanted to be the Attorney general. Now, one more story I want to point out here, just to kind of, you know, bring this up to a head, that again, there's a pattern here. Okay? So I don't know if you all know this, but another story dropped because there's so many of them. Washington, D.C. police are investigating assault allegations against Republican U.S. representative Corey Mills of Florida. Officers responded to an incident of Mill at Mills residence involving a female victim with no weapons reported. No arrests were made, and the investigation is ongoing. Mills denies any wrongdoing and expects a swift revolution resolution. Now, here's where it gets really fascinating. Buckle up, friends. Buckle up. Interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin, appointed by former President Trump. Trump declined to sign an arrest warrant for Republican Congressman Corey Mills, who was accused of assaulting a woman Martin previously involved in. Stop the steal efforts has also dismissed other cases against Trump allies and terminated prosecutors handling of January 6cases. This pattern raises concerns about the impartiality of the U.S. attorney's office under his leadership. Literally, we have people in Congress assaulting women. And because they're Trump loyalists or allies, the Attorney general will not sign arrest warrants to get that man away from that woman. What. What will it. What will it freaking take for white Christians who supported this BS to wake up and realize that they've been complicit in supporting one of the most inhumane, dehumanizing administrations in maybe the history of the US if not, of course, in our lifetime time. It's unbelievable to me. What are we doing here? Where are the fruits of the spirit? Where's the teachings of Jesus? They're nowhere to be found.

[April]

I hope they wake up. I love my. When we grew up, did you watch all the Left Behind Rapture, like, straight to VHS movies and read the books and all that stuff?

[Tim]

Watched a few of them, yeah.

[April]

We talked about this a couple weeks ago, so I don't need to bring home the point, but it's hilarious to me that I remember, like, watching Left behind, talking about the Antichrist and people, you know, and in the films, it's like, oh, well, some Christians fall for it. It's like, what Christian could ever fall for it? Like, clearly they would know. Like, we could see the Antichrist coming. Like, if there was a clip in a Left behind movie where the Antichrist posted a video of himself with a golden statue, I'd be like, no Christian would ever fall for that. Like, that's so on the nose. And so obviously.

[Tim]

And now obvious.

[April]

Oh, it was just a joke. It was just a joke.

[Tim]

He's just trolling you Just a troll. Just a troll.

[April]

Just trolling. Well, he's not. He's just a baby Christian. He just doesn't know better. And, oh, my gosh, it's so like Megan Basham. She literally tweeted that she couldn't be upset with Trump for the thing because she doesn't think he's biblically literate enough to understand what that means. Okay.

[Tim]

People are so deeply on. Like, they're so deeply unserious. Why don't we respond to this Ali Sucky take on Andrew Tate briefly? Then we'll do our weird, weird shit. Wait, we're Christian shit. And then we'll wrap it up. I just think it's really telling because Ali Stuckey is someone who is very loud about protecting women, especially when it comes to Gay people or groomers. She is someone who. Who beat the drama about Lake and Riley. A tragic story of a woman who was brutally murdered, which is totally wrong and terrible, by an undocumented immigrant, and thus making it seem like all immigrants are. Are just as bad as this person. Right? So now. Now she has a problem because now she has a president who she has advocated for and even said that you really can't be a Christian and vote Democrat. Right? So for her, this is like a salvific issue. But now she has a problem where that guy just brought back one of the most vile humans of all time back to the U.S. making this country less safe for women. Right? So what's she gonna do here? Is she gonna stand on principle? Is she gonna denounce the Trump administration? Let's just hear how she talks about this, right? And it's gonna sound coded, you might think, oh, that wasn't too bad. But I'm gonna unpack for you. Why? It's actually pretty terrible. It's about a minute clip. Here we go.

[April]

I don't understand using any political capital whatsoever on the Tate brothers. I know that they're pro Trump. I know they say things that we agree with. We've done entire episodes detailing all of their confessions, the confessions to the crimes that they are being accused of. And so we don't have to go through all of these things now, but they have admitted to being pimps. They have admitted to rape. They have admitted to abuse. They have admitted to having sex with statutory rape type of minors. We have played those videos. We have looked at those transcripts, okay? Why waste any political capital on the Tate brothers? I thought we were deporting sex criminals. I thought we were deporting the rapists. What did Donald Trump say a few years ago? Oh, they're not sending their best. Okay? Romania is not sending their best. I don't want the Tate brothers here, okay? And I don't want us applying pressure to countries to try to release the Tate brothers, who have admitted on tape to a lot of what they are being charged with.

[Tim]

Okay? So here's the thing, right? Some of what she says is good. Yes, I would agree. But I noticed the language of Ali whenever she talks about stories that include, like, for example, there was a story a while ago of a gay couple who adopted children and ended up, like, pimping them out. Like, for real. Like, it was a tragic, horrible story. Right? Right. She called those people evil, vile, disgusting, and called for capital punishment. She called for their heads, literally. But she admits on her own show that the Tate brothers are child rapists, that they are pedophiles, that they are all these things, and yet the language isn't that strong, is it? It's not. They should be ex. They should be executed. It's not. They're evil, vile, disgusting people. And notice how Ali always tied Lake and Riley in the other stories, too. Back to the Biden administration. This is what happens when the Biden administration, when progressive ideology takes over, right? This is the sin of toxic empathy. And here, not one mention of Trump doesn't at all say that the Trump administration is evil or that this is the fruit of patriarchal nonsense that she actually believes in. Nothing like that at all. It's. It's honestly a softball. Because what she can say now is she can say, look, no, I did critique the Tate brothers. I'm not a big fan. While still endorsing the regime that actually enables all of this. Ali just admitted that she knows the Tate brothers Grape children, and she's still not going to critique or condemn the Trump administration to the point where she says, I regret voting for them.

[April]

Right.

[Tim]

And that is how dogma works. That is how dogma works. Just like how April, you and I talked about with Palestine and Israel. We were so outspoken that what Joe Biden was doing was evil and inhumane and terrible and had to be stopped. I sat with the uncommitted movement at the DNC on the outside because they weren't allowed to speak on the inside in protest of what was going on. We said often on the show during the 2024 election that we are not people who think. Think that somehow the Christian obligation is to vote for whoever you think it is when it comes to Biden or Harris because of this issue. It was a huge issue many of us were really struggling with. What do we do here, right? Trying to weigh out, like, would Trump be better on Palestine? Shocker. He wouldn't. Right? To see Ali really kind of be like, they're terrible people. I'm not sure what we're doing, but they're not evil enough for me to call for their execution. It's just so telling. It's just so telling for me of how she actually thinks about this. It's unbelievable. It makes me. It just enrages me. She's incredibly disingenuous, this woman. Incredibly. So now we can say by her own logic, that she supports administrations who welcome back child sex traffickers to the US Making her making this country less safe.

[April]

I know it is very frustrating. We're not even talking about two, which is kind of in line with the trafficking. The Epstein files, the GOP Judiciary Committee, their official Twitter account tweeted out like, here are the Epstein files. And they had a, a link and it was literally a Rick roll. They Rick rolled their own base. And a lot of people were really pissed, which I, that sentence alone is just really funny. But Donald Trump's name is in the flight logs of Jeffrey Epstein. And they're always like, oh, like I keep hearing, like, oh, all the left, all the Hollywood people that are going to be in the Epstein files. I'm like, okay, yeah, so it's Trump. But they, when you, they don't mention Trump at all.

[Tim]

Of course not. Again, like he's been found liable of assaulting a woman. He is the very thing that they claim they're protecting America from. He is that person. So it's hypocrisy. It's, it's not serious or anti intellectual. And the cost of their propaganda is that now we have a megalomaniac in the office who is doing terrible things, whether it's bringing sex traffickers back to the US or it's fighting with Zelensky and denigrating him in front of the whole world on based on Russian propaganda. Like, it's unbelievable. It truly is. Shall we get into our final segment?

[April]

Final segment. Let's do it. We Christian shit.

[Tim]

All right. Let's do today's video. Let's have some fun.

[April]

Let's do it.

[Tim]

Weird Christian shit. April, what's this video we're about to watch?

[April]

This is from a lady named Elaine Beck. She is a older woman who has a show called It's Not About Us on cpac. Now she identifies as a philanthropist and God and country is like her whole shtick. She's very. Pushes Christian conservative values. So she's a Christian woman and she. I think this is a clip from her show. Someone's asking her a question.

[Tim]

Right? Here we go. 14 second clip. Buckle up. Would you push the button to end global poverty. But all governments would shift to socialism. No. Good answer. No, because the reality says in the Bible, it says there will always be the poor. The Bible also says to liberate the oppressed. And I don't know, Jesus also said what you do to the least of these, you do unto me. And then he warns people that don't do that, that they're going to go to hell. Like, I don't know, lady. You're telling me, oh my gosh. You're telling me that if you had the choice to end. It was a. Was it poverty or was it hunger? What did he say? End global poverty. But all governments would shift to socialism. Would you? No. Why? Why would you? Because that would mean that socialism fixes the problem, right? That would mean socialism is the best way to promote the human flourishing of all of our neighbors. And this lady is so dogmatic and her head is so far up her rear end, she's like, no. And then quotes obscure Bible verse as proof text that what she's saying is true.

[Elaine Beck]

Jeez.

[April]

Also just like, well, the Bible says the poor will always be with us, so we need to make sure there are always poor people. Because the Bible tells me so. Like, you just imagine, like, would you rather have world peace, but every government is socialist? Like, no, no. We need more ironic, because I don't know if you grew up this way, because I was raised by baby boomers who grew up in the Cold war era. Very anti Russia, very anti Soviet Union and communism and socialism, which they often conflate those two things where like, socialism is just pure evil, always bad. We hate Russia because they're at bad. And communists and all these things because those are always lumped in together. And it's just very ironic now to see those same people be rah, rah Putin.

[Tim]

Oh, I know. It's like there were end times books written on why Russia is like the, The. The. The fifth head of the seven headed dragon. Like there was crazy stuff.

[April]

Antichrist and Left Behind Russian. Nikolai Carpathia.

[Tim]

Oh, hold on, we gotta look it up. Wasn't he the ant? Hold on. The Antichrist in Left behind, was he Russian movies. I want to Russian.

[April]

I feel like he was, but maybe not. There was some.

[Tim]

There was, okay, there's a wiki, there's.

[April]

Some rapture movie where the rush. The Antichrist was definitely Russian.

[Tim]

I don't know if it says it here.

[April]

Let's see. Nikolai Carpathia, he can.

[Tim]

He can fluently speak over nine languages, including Russia. That's what says in the wiki here. But I'm not sure if that's true. I'm just so curious. We should do a watch party, which we can definitely start doing.

[April]

The whole movie is on YouTube.

[Tim]

That's what I'm saying. We could easily do that. That'd be. That'd be a great little fundraiser.

[April]

It would.

[Tim]

Because we are a non profit organization, so. Oh, wait, hold on.

[April]

I think it says, okay. According to Left Behind, a character analysis study guide, Nikolai Carpathia was from Romania.

[Tim]

Oh, okay.

[April]

But he spoke Russian.

[Tim]

Okay, yeah, fair. Well, there it is, friends. If you could solve global poverty but have to enact socialism everywhere, would you? The Christian biblical answer is no. No, you would not. You should not do that. It's unbiblical because you always have the poor with you. Says obscure verse in Deuteronomy.

[April]

That logic makes sense why Republicans are taking away lunch, free lunches for kids in school, and are against, like, any government assistance whatsoever. Like, no, you have to be poor because the Bible says so.

[Tim]

Should I just end this on a little passage from the Bible to kind of just demonstrate how stupid her quote was and then we'll end the show? Does that work for you? Okay, this is Matthew 25. Okay, this is Jesus talking in theory. We'll start with. With verse 32. It's A. It's a couple of verses here, but here's what. Here's. Here's what the Bible says. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? The king will reply, truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for these. Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and imprisoned and you did not look after me. They will also answer, lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you? He will reply, truly, I tell you, whatever you did for the one of the least of these you did not do for me. They will then go away to eternal punishment. But the righteous to eternal life. The Bible is clear.

[April]

I don't know, Tim sounds pretty woke.

[Tim]

You're telling me. That was a fun show.

[April]

Yeah, it was fun.

[Tim]

Thanks for being here, friends. We will see you all Thursday, 12:00 Eastern. Goodbye.