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The World and Everything In It
4.8.26 Changing the attorney general, Hungary’s pivotal election, and breaking the cycle of addiction
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- [00:06]
Anchor 1
Good morning.
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Lindsay Mast
The Department of Justice is looking to move forward after the firing of the attorney general.
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Nick Iker
That's ahead on Washington Wednesday. Hunter Baker is standing by. Also today, world tour, the face of Europe's new right is facing a tough political challenge as Hungarians head to the polls. And later, a story of addiction, exploitation and a family cycle that needed desperately to be broken.
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Victoria Faith
Those generational curses can be broken. They definitely can be broken through the power of Jesus Christ.
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Nick Iker
And world commentator Janie B. Cheney on the bad bet America is making on gambling.
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Lindsay Mast
It's Wednesday, April 8th. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio, I'm Lindsay Mast.
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Nick Iker
And I'm Nick Iker.
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Kent Covington
Good morning.
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Lindsay Mast
Up next, gaming. Kent Covington has today's news.
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Kent Covington
A potential dramatic reversal in the Iran war. President Trump last night announcing a two week ceasefire just ahead of his deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. He's calling that agreement a quote, double sided ceasefire with both the US And Israel standing down while peace talks continue. And Iran's foreign Minister Abbas Iraqchi confirmed Tehran's acceptance of that deal, saying that Iran will allow commercial ships safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz and provided strikes inside of Iran are halted. Trump had threatened massive strikes against Iranian infrastructure if that did not happen. And former State Department anti terror adviser Morgan Wright says that ticking clock may have been a powerful motivator.
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Nick Iker
I think the other thing too is I think the Iranians realized is that we had more.
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Kent Covington
We had more than bombs and bullets.
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Nick Iker
We've got a complete cyber capability. The Israelis were inside their network tracking the ayatollah. So I don't think it was necessarily bombs and bullets. It might have been keyboards and mice, you know, mouse to take out their infrastructure.
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Kent Covington
President Trump says all military objectives have been achieved in Iran and that a long term peace deal is within reach. Intense last minute diplomacy by Pakistan was reportedly key. Iran also handed TRUMP A 10 point peace proposal which the president called his words a workable basis on which to negotiate. Peace talks between the US And Iran are now expected later this week in Islamabad. Ahmed Shirawi is a senior analyst with the Iran program at the foundation for Defensive Democracies. He says a major key in those peace talks is whether Iran is willing to move off of its maximalist demands. But for now, there should be a
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Hunter Baker
healthy degree of skepticism about whether Iran will fully adhere to its terms, especially when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz.
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Kent Covington
This would mark the most significant pause in fighting since the war began six weeks ago. But of course, that assumes that the fighting actually pauses in Israel. Last night, air raid sirens sounded once more in Tel Aviv after Iran fired a fresh wave of ballistic missiles at Israel just 10 minutes after President Trump announced the cease fire. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Iranian forces also launched drones and missiles toward US Military bases across the region. And earlier in the day in Istanbul, authorities say three gunmen armed with rifles and pistols attacked police outside of the Israeli consulate. Eyewitnesses say the firefight lasted for more than 15 minutes, and when it was over, one gunman was dead and two others were wounded. Israel, though, had already withdrawn its diplomats from the consulate amid security concerns. In a speech, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attack, calling it a heinous act of terror. Artemis 2 astronauts continue their trek home this morning after making history once again. On Tuesday, the crew made the first ever radio call between a moonship and the International Space Station. Integrity, this is the International Space Station. How do you hear?
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Harrison Waters
Hey, International Space Station and Jessica, we
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Nick Iker
have you loud and clear.
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Kent Covington
The two spacecraft were more than 200,000 miles apart. The Artemis crew, of course, also made history on Monday, venturing deeper into space than humans had ever traveled while rounding the moon. The capsule is expected to splash down off the coast of San Diego on Friday. Vice President J.D. vance is in Hungary today in a show of support for Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of Sunday's election. World's Harrison Waters has more.
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Harrison Waters
The vice president says the Eastern European nation remains a strong US Ally in Europe under Orban. He also called out the European Union for pressuring social media platforms to flag, possibly misleading or deepfake Hungarian posts.
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Kent Covington
Why are bureaucrats in Brussels telling social
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Nick Iker
media companies what information they're giving to Hungarian voters?
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Kent Covington
I think the voters of Hungary are adults.
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Harrison Waters
Vance's visit comes after Orban endorsed President Trump in each of his presidential campaigns. The prime minister has led Hungary for 16 years and is a vocal critic of the EU's generous support for Ukraine against Russia. In February, Hungary vetoed a loan of more than $100 billion to Ukraine and blocked sanctions on Russia that Orban says would hurt European taxpayers. Hungary relies on Russia for about 90% of its oil. Orban's challenger in Sunday's parliamentary election is Peter Maillar, a former loyalist who vows to steer Hungary back in line with the EU if his party wins. Reporting for World, I'm Harrison waters.
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Kent Covington
More than 80 migrants are missing after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean. The vessel was carrying about 120 people when it left the coastal town in Libya on Sunday and overturned in rough weather. A merchant vessel and a tugboat were able to rescue 32 survivors. The UN migration agency says 2026 is the deadliest start to a year for Mediterranean crossings in more than a decade, with nearly a thousand deaths recorded so far. I'm Kent Covington. And straight ahead, Hunter Baker is standing by for Washington Wednesday Plus World tour. This is THE WORLD and Everything in it.
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Lindsay Mast
It's Wednesday, April 8th. Glad to have you along for today's edition of THE WORLD and Everything In It. Good morning. I'm Lindsay Master.
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Nick Iker
And I'm Nick Iker. Time now for Washington Wednesday. Joining us is political scientist Hunter Baker. He is a World Opinions contributor and our Washington Wednesday regular. Hunter, good morning.
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Hunter Baker
Good morning.
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Nick Iker
Well, Pam Bondi's tenure as attorney general officially came to an end April 2nd. The New York Times reports that the day before she had a car ride with the president to the Supreme Court for oral arguments and the birthright citizenship case. And there she made a final appeal for a more graceful exit from the Justice Department. That effort ultimately, of course, fell short. The president moved very quickly, installing her deputy Todd Blanche as acting attorney general the same day. Bondi says she will remain on through the end of the month to help out with the transition before she moves into into the private sector. So with that transition well underway, Hunter, the question now is who's next? And we're hearing a range of names, from Todd Blanche to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, to Assistant Attorney General for civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, and to the U.S. attorney for D.C. jeanine Pirro, formerly of Fox News. So what does that list tell you about what the president's looking for?
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Hunter Baker
These are all Trump loyalists. I think at least two of them have served as his personal lawyer. I think that that was true of Todd Blanche in the past for sure, and I think of Harmeet Dhillon as well. And, of course, Lee Zeldin, really interesting, highly effective in the cabinet as the EPA administrator. He's gone after a lot of regulations that he thinks are counterproductive and a drag on the economy. Also a guy who was able to get elected to Congress in New York and, you know, made a really serious run at the governor's office. Harmeet Dhillon is fascinating, just as sort of a you might almost call her an antisocial justice warrior or something like that on the question of civil rights, which is to say she fights for what I would call the traditional understanding of civil rights instead of maybe what we call kind of a woke understanding of the, of civil rights. And she's been effective, I think, in kind of bringing that issue to the fore, basically. You know, how do we understand civil rights? Do we understand it as something that allows courts and institutions to discriminate in favor of a protected class of people, or is it kind of designed to protect everybody? She's embraced more that latter interpretation. Can't help but notice that Jeanine Pirro is under consideration. And when I see her name, it's just like a return to Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. She was in the past one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. And so, you know, and a couple of different times had those judge shows, you know, Judge Jeanine, you know, people's court type shows. And here she is, she's a U.S. attorney right now. And so, you know, of course we have Pete Hegseth over in defense. So we're kind of getting a celebrity, sort of a cabinet here. If she becomes the Attorney general.
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Lindsay Mast
Well, let's talk about what went wrong for Bondi. You've got frustration over the pace of prosecutions, especially involving the president's political enemies. You've got questions about how she handled high profile issues like the Epstein files. Then a broader concern about her effectiveness as a communicator, both inside the administration and on television, which is a big deal for President Trump. How do you see it, Hunter?
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Hunter Baker
I think that Attorney General is a really tough role to fill in a Trump administration. If you look back to his first administration in 2016, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions was a big supporter of his, and he gets in and you immediately have the Russia probe, and Sessions recused himself. Trump was furious. He was absolutely beside himself that Sessions recused himself. Instead of basically acting as a kind of a, a shield or protector for Trump himself from that probe. Robert Mueller was able to load up his team with partisan Democrats, even though Mueller himself had been a career Republican. And they really went after the president on the Russian probe. They ate up a nice chunk of his first administration doing that. And Trump never forgot it. He was really angry. Bill Barr then took over, who had at a previous point been the Attorney general. And I think that he actually did a tremendous job. I think that he helped Trump to navigate that situation with the Russia probe. And I think he was a good ag. But he had a falling out with Trump over the 2020 election because Barr was not willing to say that there had been election fraud or that he was aware of any. And that's, you know, the result was kind of the death of that relationship. And Trump's respect for Barr. So then you bring in Pam Bonney, total Trump loyalist, somebody who comes into office just, you know, attached to his hip. But he was very dissatisfied because, a, he felt that she didn't do a good job with the Epstein files. You know, most notably, she made the mistake of saying, I've got the list of his clients right here on my desk, and of course, did not have any such thing. And that that created all kinds of cynicism and skepticism and bad feeling when that happened. I think he feels rightly, that during Biden's administration that he was targeted with a number of legal actions. I think that the term lawfare is a fair term to describe what happened to him during that interim period. And he kind of decided that when he gets back into office, there's gonna be payback. And I think that he has wanted Pam Bondi to sort of act like his chief instrument of payback. But the problem with that is that we still have a legal system that, by and large works. And if she doesn't have the goods, she's not gonna be able to get people, and she hasn't been. And I think that Trump grew frustrated and he wants to try somebody else.
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Nick Iker
I have to say, Hunter, there was one name missing from that list that really came as a surprise to me. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. I thought he might be the guy for AG to lead the Justice Department, particularly given that he had just approved legislation to start the of renaming Palm Beach International Airport after Donald Trump. It's a nice little airport right across the lagoon from Mar a Lago, and it appears it is well on its way to changing from airport code PBI to DJT. So, in all seriousness, why do you think DeSantis is not a part of this conversation?
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Hunter Baker
I Wonder if Ron DeSantis wants it. But the other question is, is how does Trump feel about DeSantis? I mean, in 2024, a lot of us, including me, I think, thought that DeSantis would effectively challenge Trump in the primaries. And, you know, Elon Musk, with his new Twitter, which would become X, seemed to be on DeSantis side and kind of promoting his run. Obviously, it didn't work out. He was not able to overcome Trump. But let me say this. I mean, there is a case to be made that Ron DeSantis is the best governor in the United States of America. He may be the most effective politician of any kind in the United States. When you look at what he's done with Florida, I mean, just look at how the Voters feel you're talking about a guy who came in on the thinnest of margins. And through his subsequent actions, which included taking on Disney and fighting sort of the COVID consensus became vastly more popular. He turned a state that was clearly purple, Florida, went for Obama at least once into a solidly red state. And I think that's just because of his performance and his shrewdness as a governor. So I'm sorry that he's not being considered for AG but again, I'm not sure if it's the right thing for him.
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Lindsay Mast
Well, he is term limited. So if not Attorney General, where does DeSantis fit right now or in the near future? Do you see a realistic move to something like the federal bench or even the Supreme Court, depending on how the timing works out? He certainly has the education for it, if not the precise resume.
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Hunter Baker
It's a really interesting question. You know, in the past, you would see major politicians appointed to the Supreme Court. So, for example, maybe the most famous liberal Supreme Court justice ever, Earl Warren, had been the governor of California. And we could find other similar examples for that matter. Sandra Day o' Connor was in the Arizona state legislature prior to becoming a Supreme Court justice. But for a long time now, we have had sort of like almost a legal aristocracy of merit where everybody understands who are the biggest brains in law on the left and who are the biggest brains in law on the right. And they go on the different lists, and then when somebody becomes president, they tend to defer to those lists. And I think that Trump did that with the Federalist Society recommendations in his first term. But now I think that he's thinking again about what he would want to do. So maybe there's an opening for somebody like a DeSantis or a Cruz.
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Nick Iker
All right, well, let's shift to Europe. Hunter. The vice president arrived in Hungary yesterday to give a political boost to Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He is facing a serious challenge, and after more than a decade in power, parliamentary elections this weekend, and he is running behind. What do you think is at stake in that election? For Hungary and for the broader conservative
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Hunter Baker
movement in Europe, there's really a clash of political philosophies at stake. So Orban has kind of, you know, constantly thumbed his nose at the European Union. He has not wanted to take in refugees and immigrants. And his logic has been that there is something like a Christian national, Hungarian culture in his mind. If you don't manage immigration properly and there are concerns of this type in the United States, you hear it in our own debates. If you don't manage it properly, then the idea is that that native culture, that Western civilization based culture somehow will be overcome by people who have different values, different ideas, or who just don't care about your culture at all. So he has continuously maintained this stance, whereas the EU has had more of an internationalist, modern liberalism, sort of a view of the human being that is less concerned with maintaining those local cultures. So that's what's at stake. He's been very successful so far. And I think the reason the vice president is trying to help him is because he has identified himself with that same sort of view of culture. And I think that if he were to run for president later, he would probably embrace that same sort of attitude.
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Nick Iker
Hunter Baker is provost at North Greenville University. Hunter, always great to chat with you each week. We'll talk to you next time.
- [18:37]
Hunter Baker
Thank you.
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Kent Covington
Additional support comes from Pensacola Christian College Academic Excellence, Biblical Worldview, affordable cost go pcci.edu world from ambassadors Impact Network, where entrepreneurs raising capital find investors who celebrate their redemptive mission. Ambassadors Impact. And from Asbury University, committed to the formation of students through discipleship calling and career preparation. Asbury.
- [19:18]
Lindsay Mast
Edu Coming up next on the World and Everything in It World tour. As we said a moment ago, Hungarians will be going to the polls on Sunday. Here's some of what Vice President J.D. vance said as he showed his support for incumbent Prime Minister Orban.
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Hunter Baker
I am here for a simple reason,
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Nick Iker
because I admire what you are fighting for. You're fighting for your freedom. You're fighting for your sovereignty.
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Hunter Baker
And I am here because President Trump and I wish for your success.
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Nick Iker
And we are fighting right here with you. But after more than a decade in power, the leader of Europe's new right faces meaningful opposition. World's global desk chief Jenny Lynn Schmidt has the story.
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Janie Lynn Schmidt
Prime Minister Viktor Orban faces his most serious challenge ever to his 16 year rule from a former protege. Opposition candidate Peter Magyar's Tisa party is also conservative, like Orban's Fides. But Magyar says he wants to fight the corruption he claims has taken over Orban's government.
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Harrison Waters
The movement of the vast majority of
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Hunter Baker
the Hungarian people against corruption, lies, propaganda, autocracy.
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Janie Lynn Schmidt
Orban has been Hungary's Prime Minister for 16 years and before that he also held the office from 1998 to 2002. Some analysts say he has stayed in power this long by understanding what the electorate wanted to hear and by working and changing this system to his advantage. But recently, under a stagnating economy and high inflation Voters have become dissatisfied. Younger people are leaving the country to build a future elsewhere. Now, many hope Peter Magyar can bring change.
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Marcel Dakos
So there's a new generation of voters, Those born in 2008 who will vote after spending almost their entire life under the current government.
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Janie Lynn Schmidt
Marcel Dakos is a Hungarian international relations expert and theologian based in Budapest.
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Marcel Dakos
And so for some of these younger voters, there is usually just a very strong desire to see a change in power and maybe an improvement in quality of life. And that alone can lead them to support the opposition, even if they don't identify as liberals or they don't hold very like anti conservative views.
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Janie Lynn Schmidt
Bakosh says there are differences that give this opposition candidate a real shot. At 45, Maggior has a younger face than Orban's. He's also worked hard to tap into Orban's nationalist base. At rallies, Tiza flies Hungarian flags. Past opposition parties flew the European Union flag. Most of TISA's members are new to politics, without past associations with communism or Fidesz. And Magyar's last name literally means Hungarian. Meanwhile, Orban has campaigned on staying out of the war in Ukraine and says Magyar would draw the country in.
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Marcel Dakos
However, TISA supporters would obviously see Peter Magyar's victory as a bold step to reinforce Hungary's ties with NATO and also to distance Hungary from Russia.
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Janie Lynn Schmidt
TISA positions itself as a moderate right wing to centrist party, and it's made a point of steering clear of controversial topics like abortion, migration or LGBTQ issues. The country is only about the size of the US state of Indiana, with a population of 10 million, but the election has international implications. Orban has had outsized influence as the leader of Europe's new right. He's positioned himself as an ally of US President Donald Trump. But he's also had cozy ties with Russia, China and Iran, skillfully playing the superpowers off of each other.
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Ivana Stradner
Orban is an opportunistic leader and he's a veteran in politics, so he really understands how politics work.
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Janie Lynn Schmidt
Ivana Stradner is a research fellow at the foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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Ivana Stradner
So that's precisely why he has made very close ties to Russia, China and also the United States for his domestic audience to portray Hungary as a great Hungary and being an important player in global political agenda, and to portray also Orban as the one who is able to balance between all those powers.
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Janie Lynn Schmidt
Stradner says those other countries value Orban's willingness to disrupt dynamics in the eu. But while President Trump has supported Viktor Orban, Orban has not responded. Likewise, regarding the Iran war, Orban started
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Ivana Stradner
immediately weaponizing that, talking about some concerns about Trump's war. He basically raised Hungary's terror threat level, talking about the triggering of migration from Iran. He also, you know, complained of the conflict related to energy sector.
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Janie Lynn Schmidt
Meanwhile, Bakos says the choice for Hungarian Christians is not clear. Under Orban, the government has enacted legislation aligned with Christian values. The principles of only two genders and life beginning at conception have been written into the constitution. And the government has rejected proposals to legalize euthanasia. But Orban has also opposed protections against abortion or regulations for in vitro fertilization. Critics also accuse him of restricting justice and squelching the free press.
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Marcel Dakos
So many Hungarian Christians have been disillusioned from the current government, especially following the different scandals that have taken place, all the corruption charges and also a poorly performing economy, which we just had in the past few years. But on the other hand, they actually don't trust the new guy either, especially because he doesn't really deal with questions that are deemed civilizational from a Christian perspective.
- [25:27]
Janie Lynn Schmidt
Stradner says it's important for the international community to watch the selection closely. And even if Magyar does win, that doesn't necessarily mean that Orban will leave quietly.
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Ivana Stradner
After so many years in government, Orban is not going to give up easily. He will fight. So be prepared for that. I would not be surprised that he will use some hybrid efforts that are not fully democratic to undermine the elections.
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Janie Lynn Schmidt
Polls in Hungary close Sunday evening at 7pm and results are expected soon after. That's this week's world tour. I'm Jenny Lynn Schmidt.
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Nick Iker
We'll file this one under When Animals Attack Canada edition. In the capital city, Ottawa, a man was walking home from work one day when suddenly he found himself outnumbered and being followed. Michael Bourgeon says these were some wild turkeys.
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Hunter Baker
They started coming at me.
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Harrison Waters
I was just like, okay, whatever this
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Hunter Baker
is, I don't want it.
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Nick Iker
Yeah, you don't know what they've got. At first he tried crossing the street, which didn't work out very well. They stayed right on him. Then he tried a display of aggression, which seemed to make things worse, as described to Rebecca Zandbergen of CBC Ottawa.
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Victoria Faith
At one point, you turn around and
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Amy Etchison
kick some snow at them.
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Harrison Waters
Yeah, because at this point they were
- [27:01]
Kent Covington
like, they were starting to, like, get up, like they were getting. They were giving me the business.
- [27:05]
Nick Iker
Giving him the business. A corroborating witness captured the scene with his phone camera.
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Hunter Baker
Happen to look over and see these, these two turkeys kind of attacking this poor guy.
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Nick Iker
Yeah. So a good samaritan offers a ride, Bujean hops in, and just like that, the turkeys were out of business. It's the world and everything in it. Today is Wednesday, April 8th. Thank you for turning to world radio to help start your day. Good morning. I'm Nick Iker.
- [27:42]
Lindsay Mast
And I'm Lindsay Mast. Coming next on the world and everything in it, escaping the grip of meth. This story contains an element some parents may find too strong for younger listeners. We'll pause for just a moment. For one young woman in Kentucky, meth addiction led to years on the streets and a life she couldn't seem to leave behind. Until an unexpected encounter opened a different path. For privacy reasons, we've chosen not to use the woman's last name. Name. World associate correspondent Amy Etchison has the story.
- [28:17]
Amy Etchison
When she wasn't snorting, smoking, or shooting up meth, Victoria Faith worked at a sex shop in Louisville, Kentucky. Her father was a single parent who tried but couldn't help his teenage daughter.
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Victoria Faith
My dad's always, like, always, always been my safe place. I think it just got to a point where, like, he just kind of had to cut me off. And he just told me, I mean, you can stay here, but you can't use. You can't use drugs. So I made the decision myself to be homeless and live on the streets.
- [28:45]
Amy Etchison
By age 18, she was living in a tent, pitching it in parking lots, under bridges anywhere soon, she was doing too much meth to work or to sleep.
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Victoria Faith
I ran the streets all the time. Like, I didn't. I had no purpose. I was just literally just seeking my next high.
- [29:03]
Amy Etchison
She tried to get sober but felt trapped. Sometimes she'd do anything for a fix.
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Victoria Faith
It was selling my body to get what I thought I needed to survive. So, I mean, I hung out with a lot of drug dealers and I just traded my body for what they had.
- [29:22]
Amy Etchison
Victoria was heading down a path paved by her mother, an addict who abandoned her and her dad when Victoria was nine months old. But her life took a strange turn. One spring night on the way to a liquor store, she argued with the driver and jumped out of his car. All her belongings scattered onto the pavement.
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Victoria Faith
And this lady approaches me and she's like, oh, hey, can I help you? And, like, I look up and I'm like, no, lady, I'm fine. I'm good, you know, and it really wasn't good. I really was in actually a very, very bad space.
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Amy Etchison
Next thing Victoria knew, she was in the car with a woman and her husband answering questions about her life. About Victoria's Bible. She'd covered it in notes and gel pen drawings.
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Victoria Faith
You know meth addicts, and they love to draw and they love to stencil and they love to color. And it's like you get an obsession, right? Like you have. You want. You want your thoughts to be out because you're such a prisoner to the mind. And so they write and they write and they write.
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Amy Etchison
Victoria was writing prayers to a God she didn't know in a Bible her grandmother had given her. She hung onto it because something about it made her feel safe. When Victoria refused help, the woman handed her a card with a phone number
- [30:31]
Victoria Faith
and said, you call this number if you need anything, if you need clothes, if you need food, if you need a job, Anything you need, you call this number.
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Amy Etchison
Victoria called her dope dealer instead, then disappeared into the rainy night. But months later, she was desperate to find a job and place to live after 10 years on the streets. So she called that number. A different woman answered. The founder of a ministry called Scarlet Hope. The staff saw Victoria for what she was, an addict who was being exploited and trading sex for survival. And those trades made her a victim of trafficking. Heather Jenkins, Scarlet Hope's director of outreach in Louisville, says that traffickers look for people on the fringes of society, loners or addicts, and use provision to draw the person in. A lot of the women who are doing survival sex are homeless. You know, they're bouncing from shelter to shelter, home to home, or living on the streets, she says. This sad cycle is hard to break. The Scarlet Hope team helped Victoria onto the road to sobriety. They connected her with Christian counseling, community Bible study, fitness classes, and job training. That job training required her to pass repeated drug tests. This combination clicked for Victoria. 12 step recovery programs had not.
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Victoria Faith
I mean, when I walked in there, like, you looked at me like you. Like I was crazy. I was fit as a rel. I was strung out. And, I mean, those women looked at me and they loved me because that's what Jesus would do.
- [32:07]
Amy Etchison
Giselle Ward, a substance abuse counselor, says recovery stories are as diverse as addicts themselves.
- [32:14]
Victoria Faith
A spiritual component of recovery is pretty common. What that spirituality looks like is contingent upon the person, but I know that's an integral aspect of recovery.
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Amy Etchison
I spoke with experts who say there's a connection between addiction and trafficking. Most survivors have substance abuse as well as other mental health issues. Ward says it takes grit to grapple with what got them addicted.
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Victoria Faith
Everybody for themselves has to find out what works for them, it has to be willing to face the pain that kept them in escapism. And not everybody's willing to do that or not everybody is capable of doing that.
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Amy Etchison
Victoria was willing. By December 2019, she had been clean for a year and a half. She started an internship that led to a long term office job. Today she has a house, a truck, a Christian community, a whole new life.
- [33:14]
Victoria Faith
If that lady wouldn't have approached me, my life probably would have never changed.
- [33:19]
Amy Etchison
This particular Thursday night, Victoria is going with Heather Jenkins to the strip clubs of Louisville. They pray, prepare food and hygiene bags, and then they go out in pairs.
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Victoria Faith
If my testimony can help, you know, one of the women in the clubs or anywhere on the streets, if it can help anybody, like I'm all about that. I know exactly where they were at. I felt all the feelings that they feel.
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Amy Etchison
Now she's one of the church ladies walking boldly into a strip club. They're places of particular importance to both Victoria and Jenkins. Victoria's mother worked in one and Jenkins family owned one. Here's Jenkins again. We see a lot of generational sin when it comes to this kind of work. Moms did it, aunts did it. Victoria says that legacy stops with her.
- [34:06]
Victoria Faith
That says that the sins of the mothers and fathers will be passed along. But those generational curses can be broken through the power of Jesus Christ. I know that. For me personally, I definitely feel like that God has broken the chains on my generational curses.
- [34:19]
Amy Etchison
She's grateful her dad and grandmother have lived to see their prayers answered. And she still clings to that beaten up bible her grandmother gave her a dozen years ago. It holds the legacy she wants to focus on. She points to the dedication page she tucked inside after it fell out long ago.
- [34:36]
Victoria Faith
Here's what it says. Tutori because that's what my grandmother calls me. Anything you need to know about life is in this book. When you pray, always say one for me. I love you. Let's always stay close.
- [34:50]
Amy Etchison
Reporting for world I'm Amy Etchison.
- [35:21]
Lindsay Mast
Good morning. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported world radio. I'm Lindsay Mast.
- [35:26]
Nick Iker
And I'm. Hi, I'm Nick Eicher. A journalist set out to understand America's sports betting boom by stepping into it himself. Despite deep moral reservations about gambling, world commentator Janie B. Cheney says what followed reveals more than just how betting works.
- [35:47]
Anchor 1
McKay Coppins is a respectable Mormon dad. Last summer, his editors at the Atlantic made an intriguing offer related to his upcoming article about American sports betting. They would stake him $10,000 to wager on the 2025 NFL season. Coppins hesitated. Both by temperament and conviction, he's not a gambler. His bishop was not keen on the idea either. But since it was an assignment and not his own money, permission granted. What happened? The title of the resulting article should give us a clue. Sucker My year as a Degenerate Gambler. It's not like he wasn't warned. Nate Silver, the well known statistician, told him that if he came out one penny ahead, he would be in the top 2% of sports gamblers. Sharing his experience with Hanna Rosen on Radio Atlantic, Coppins admitted, everybody loses money gambling.
- [36:51]
Hunter Baker
You can't really win. And we I knew that intellectually, right? The house always wins. This is like the one thing everybody knows about gambling. But what's kind of amazing in retrospect is that I didn't really believe him. Like I heard him, but I was like, but I could be in that 2%.
- [37:10]
Anchor 1
During the season, he became more obsessed, anxious, angry and irrational. Around Christmas time, he went ballistic when a bad call during a Cowboys game lost him $500. Experiencing a state known as on tilt. As he explains, this is a term
- [37:29]
Hunter Baker
that I learned in the course of my reporting and then experienced I was on tilt. On Tilt describes kind of the emotional, frenzied state that a gambler gets into when they start making really unwise decisions. And for the next two weeks, basically I was on tilt.
- [37:46]
Anchor 1
Finally, after a grueling super bowl game on which he'd placed 22 bets and won two, Coppin signed a self exclusionary form removing himself from all sports betting platforms. Since 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down federal laws prohibiting sports betting, online gambling has exploded. FanDuel and DraftKings now control over 70% of the market, relentlessly pushing apps that allow viewers to place bets even while watching the game. Americans who aren't interested in sports can still scratch their gambling itch on polymarket and Kalshi, where users bet on virtually any geopolitical or cultural event. According to Tarek Mansoor, co founder and CEO of Kalshi, the long term vision
- [38:38]
Hunter Baker
is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.
- [38:43]
Anchor 1
He predicts betting markets will soon supplant social media. Meanwhile, credit scores sink and bankruptcy claims rise. Recent studies indicate that problem gamblers have a higher rate of suicide attempts than alcoholics or drug addicts. But the main problem isn't gambling. It's coveting and idolatry. In Exodus 20, the Lord speaks directly to his people, pronouncing the Ten Commandments in a voice of thunder. Commandments 2 through 9 address actions. You shall do this, you shall not do that. Commandments 1 and 10 aim at the heart. You shall have no other gods before me, and you shall not covet. Displacing God and desiring unearned goods are the origin of sin. Eve was first tempted to be her own God. Then she coveted forbidden fruit. Breaking those two laws led to breaking everything in between. For as it happens, the first and the last commandments are impossible for humans to fully keep. Other gods trespass on sacred space. Unlawful desires lurk in back rooms and byways. We will do everything the Lord has commanded his people. Promise then and now. Accept the first thing and the last. When a nation becomes wealthy and self indulgent, it craves ever more wealth and self indulgence. The United States is not uniquely sinful. But our system, so conducive to freedom and prosperity, was the first to make covetousness pay off. Freedom and prosperity are the very things God promised his people if they kept his commandments. That was a big if, then and now. But we can look to our perfect commandment keeper and guard our own hearts against subtle and not so subtle temptations. For world, I'm Janie Buccaney.
- [40:53]
Lindsay Mast
Tomorrow, uncovering Medicaid fraud across the country. We'll have a report Also, a pastor's unlikely journey to Christianity and his testimony to seminary students in Nepal. That and more tomorrow. I'm Lindsay Mast.
- [41:07]
Nick Iker
And I'm Nick Icker. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The Bible says, lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. Verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 90. Go now in grace and peace.