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War powers or warped powers? · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:28
  This show coming to you over Out Loud Network, America Out Loud Network.
• 0:33
  We're talking about this morning the war.
• 0:36
  You know, America is at war.
• 0:37
  Or uh maybe we're not at war.
• 0:39
  Or are we now at war?
• 0:41
  It's an on and off of the very confusing thing going on here with the war with Iran.
• 0:47
  But this morning, we want to look at the question from two perspectives.
• 0:51
  We want to look at the constitutional issues involved in this war with Iran.
• 0:56
  And we also want to examine the biblical standard regarding war as God, the creator of the universe has established his uh law in his holy word, the Bible.
• 1:08
  Well, this is the show.
• 1:10
  Uh don't imbibe the Kool-Aid.
• 1:13
  That's right.
• 1:13
  Don't imbibe the Kool-Aid.
• 1:14
  And the idea is that there are a lot of things out in the world today that might deceive us, like one of those poor folks in Jonestown that did imbibe the Kool-Aid, not knowing what was in that Kool-Oid.
• 1:28
  And here on Don't Imbibe the Kool-Aid, we look at all things from the cultural's perspective to look at how should we evaluate this thing to know whether it is uh Kool-Aid or it's not Kool-Aid.
• 1:41
  We'll be using two standards by which to measure.
• 1:44
  You might saw uh see these as a kind of two litmus tests by which you can test something as to whether it's Kool-Aid or it's not Kool-Aid.
• 1:53
  And those two litmus tests are, first of all, the Word of God, the supreme law of the universe, what our founders call the laws of nature and nature's God given to us in the Word of God.
• 2:04
  And the second litmus test that we'll use is to test by our founding documents, that is the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, those things which our founders crafted.
• 2:17
  And so as we look at issues of the day, this morning looking at the issue of war, we want to examine it from both of those litmus tests, both the word of God and our founding documents.
• 2:28
  Well, I'm your host, Pastor David Whitney.
• 2:30
  I serve as the senior instructor at Institute on the Constitution, teaching both the U.S.
• 2:35
  Constitution and the Maryland Constitution.
• 2:37
  And my wonderful collaborator on Friday mornings is Dr.
• 2:40
  Brian Shelley.
• 2:41
  Brian, welcome to our podcast.
• 2:44
  Thank you, David.
• 2:45
  It's good to be here.
• 2:46
  Look forward to our time together today.
• 2:49
  And when we, as as uh I've studied the U.S.
• 2:53
  Constitution, Maryland Constitution, Dr.
• 2:55
  Brian, he's an expert on not only the U.S.
• 2:57
  Constitution, but the Pennsylvania Constitution, we have taught many, many students the principles of our founders, and those principles are all rooted in the Word of God.
• 3:09
  And so when we talk about war, we need to understand war from the perspective of both the supreme law of the universe, the word of God, and also from the perspective of our founders.
• 3:21
  So it's very interesting when it comes to war because our country was well birthed in the midst of a war.
• 3:27
  A war that in a sense uh our founders did not choose.
• 3:31
  They were objecting to a number of things that King George the Third uh had been doing and was continuing to do.
• 3:38
  And uh they actually appealed to King George the Third to, well, putting it biblical terms to repent.
• 3:45
  They said this oath of office, by the way, the king at his coronation would take an oath of office, promising uh to uphold the laws of England and uphold God's law.
• 3:55
  This was his job description.
• 3:57
  And so as he did so, though that brought him to a standard of commitments of things that as a king he would do and things that he would not do.
• 4:09
  And the colonists were uh objecting to a number of things the king was doing that were in violation of that oath of office that he had sworn before Almighty God.
• 4:20
  And they uh posted those uh uh objections to him, uh the Owl Branch petition and a number of other petitions that they sent from Congress when Congress assembled and and wanted to communicate with the king, and they had no response from the king at all, except the king began to send soldiers, more and more soldiers, uh and so the war erupted when the king decided the best way he could put down what he called a rebellion.
• 4:48
  Our founders did not call it the rebellion, they called it a restoration of uh the constitution that they were under with King George the Third, and uh the rebellion, he attempted to put down the rebellion by confiscating the guns of the people in Lexington and Concord, and that's where the first shot was fired that began the war, but the war was not because the colonists wanted the war, they wanted a restoration of government that actually obeyed the rules.
• 5:18
  And again, we're in the midst of a war.
• 5:20
  The question we're gonna be asking this morning, Brian, is well, are we as a uh people obeying the rules that we have agreed to uh or we sort of in a situation uh like our founders?
• 5:32
  Well what do you think, Brian?
• 5:34
  Yeah, exactly.
• 5:35
  That's what we need to answer.
• 5:37
  And uh this has been a a debate for a long time.
• 5:41
  What is a for example, the biblical response to war.
• 5:46
  And uh for uh the mo past thousand years, there has been uh much discussion about this, and uh there's uh uh a lot of disagreement about what constitutes being able to go to war, who's able to do it, and it has gotten kind of murky over the last uh several uh decades as we have tried to determine whether or not we're going to go to war, who's gonna declare war, can you go in uh without a declaration of war?
• 6:17
  What can the president do?
• 6:18
  When's it over?
• 6:19
  And uh it's just uh not been very clear, and uh we'd like to try to clear some of that up this morning.
• 6:26
  Amen.
• 6:27
  And you're right to bring up the whole uh biblical doctrine of just war.
• 6:32
  And uh uh Christian theologians for centuries have wrestled with this whole idea, and uh they've studied scripture carefully and and discovered that the scripture does say there is a time for war.
• 6:44
  In fact, uh there's the famous uh pastor, John Peter Gabriel Muhlenburg down in uh uh Virginia, who uh got up at his pulpit uh one Sunday morning there uh in 1770, uh I think it was 1776, the beginning of 1776.
• 7:00
  He preached a sermon based on Ecclesiastes chapter three, that famous passage that says there is a time for peace and there is a time for war.
• 7:00
  He preached a sermon based on Ecclesiastes chapter three, that famous passage that says there is a time for peace and there is a time for war.
• 7:08
  And he concluded his sermon by saying, and now is a time for war.
• 7:08
  And he concluded his sermon by saying, and now is a time for war.
• 7:14
  This is after Lexington and Concord had taken place and uh what was happening with Boston, the blockade of Boston.
• 7:14
  This is after Lexington and Concord had taken place and what was happening with Boston, the blockade of Boston.
• 7:19
  So he said uh he was calling on the young men of his congregation to join him.
• 7:19
  So he said he was calling on the young men of his congregation to join him.
• 7:24
  Actually, uh in those days, the preachers all wore black robes.
• 7:24
  Actually, uh in those days, the preachers all wore black robes and uh uh when he took
• 7:28
  And uh when he took off his black robe, it was discovered that he was wearing the continental officers' uniform because he was enlisted already in the army under uh George Washington, and he enlisted that day there in Woodstock, Virginia, he enlisted three hundred of his young men in his congregation that were joining him in a regiment, uh, eighth regiment of Virginia, I believe it was, that uh went to war to fight for our independence.
• 7:57
  So he clearly had an understanding that there is such a thing as just war, and uh a just war, according to the studies of scripture, would mean that there is a cause that God agrees ought to be fought.
• 8:12
  And uh in our our colonial experience, the king, one of his one of his sworn oaths that he swore before God as he he became king, is that he would fulfill all the covenants, all the charters that he was committed to fulfill, not only himself but his father and his grandfather had made.
• 8:31
  And those colonial charters were part of the issue of what led to that war for independence, because in those colonial charters, the protection of the colonists was something the king was committed to doing.
• 8:45
  Now, instead of protecting the colonists, uh April 19, 1775, he began attacking the colonists.
• 8:53
  And not only there at Lexington and Concord, we know that many towns were burned, uh ransacked by uh the British soldiers, and the war was being fought in uh in opposition, direct opposition to what the king had sworn before Almighty God that he was committed to do, that he was committed to protect the colonists.
• 9:14
  Instead, he's going to attack the colonists.
• 9:17
  And so uh uh when you are being attacked by an enemy, directly attacked, in this case on in your own homeland, on your own soil, in your own towns and your own houses, you're being attacked by an enemy.
• 9:33
  You have a God-given right, in fact, we would say a God-given duty to defend your own life, to defend the life of your family, your friends, your community, your church.
• 9:43
  And essentially that's what they were doing at Lexington and Concord.
• 9:47
  Uh the militia there, by the way, all the militia were members of the church there.
• 9:51
  I visited Lexington, didn't done a tour of the uh the Lexington Green, and they were all members of the church.
• 9:57
  They were all part of this company of militia formed of the young men and and the old men of that church, and they were instructed uh uh by their commander not to fire the first shot.
• 10:09
  In fact, not to even offer anything, but when they were commanded, lay down your arms, they knew that that was an unbiblical command.
• 10:19
  Jesus in uh uh Luke 23, uh he they're in the upper room, he's instructing his disciples as to what they are to do uh with the change that's going to take place when he died on the cross, was buried, resurrected, and ascended to heaven.
• 10:34
  Their mission was now going to require some new things that were not part of the mission they had before Jesus died on the cross, was buried and resurrected.
• 10:44
  And he said one of the things that was going to change is they now needed to purchase a sword.
• 10:49
  If they didn't own a sword, they were to purchase a sword, and that's not that Jesus was wanting them to be revolutionaries and overthrow the government.
• 10:56
  No, the purchase of the sword was for their protection, that they had a duty to protect their own life, a duty to protect the lives of uh other innocent people uh and in life.
• 11:10
  And so uh that's a command that scripture gives us the right to life is something that we ought to be committed to protecting, especially our own life or the life of our family or life of our friends, the life of those uh that we are able to protect.
• 11:26
  Yeah, and there's also uh biblical precedent for offensive attacks in response to an imminent threat.
• 11:33
  Uh in Judges 11 and 12, the Ammonites uh were called to arms by their king, and they camped outside uh Israel and Gilead, and the Israelites assembled and camped at Mizpah, and then they attacked first before they were actually uh set upon by the opposing army uh in 2 Kings 6.
• 11:54
  Uh uh Aram uh set up camp threatening invasion of Israel.
• 11:59
  So Israel attacked and the invasion stopped.
• 12:02
  In fact, that was uh quite a uh uh interesting war where God blinded the opposing military.
• 12:10
  Uh uh God also used Israel as what he called his war club to drive out the idolatrous people of the promised land.
• 12:19
  And that that and uh the first cogent argument for determining it.
• 12:26
  The first cogent argument for determining a just war was presented by Thomas Aquinas a thousand years ago.
• 12:33
  And he said that it can only be waged as a last resort.
• 12:37
  You have to try to talk your way to settle something.
• 12:40
  It can only be waged by a legitimate government, it can only be fought to redress some wrong suffered, and self-defense is considered a wrong.
• 12:50
  It can only be just if it's fought with a reasonable chance of success.
• 12:55
  If you're gonna be beaten in this, don't you better figure out a way to get peace.
• 13:00
  Uh the peace, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.
• 13:09
  And the violence used has to be proportional to the injury.
• 13:13
  The weapons used must uh discriminate between combatants and noncombatants.
• 13:18
  And I would add three more.
• 13:20
  They must be distinguishable from noncombatants based on the Geneva Conventions.
• 13:25
  Uh there must be a withdrawal strategy.
• 13:28
  There must be a definition of victory before going to war.
• 13:31
  And George W.
• 13:32
  Bush, before going into Iraq, went through and outlined all ten of these, saying this is why this would be a just war.
• 13:41
  But of course, the Congress never really declared war on Iraq.
• 13:46
  But it has to meet these criteria.
• 13:48
  If it doesn't, it's an unjust war.
• 13:50
  And uh, as we look at what's going on now in Iran, the Iranian regime uh are terrorists threatening to wage an unjust war because they can't meet these standards, and for over 45 years, they have intentionally targeted civilians with acts of war and vicious violence uh to cause fear in the general public, and Donald Trump has decided maybe it's time to respond.
• 14:00
  Meet these standards, and for over forty-five years, they have intentionally targeted civilians with acts of war and vicious violence to cause fear in the general public, and Donald Trump has decided maybe it's time to respond.
• 14:16
  Yes.
• 14:16
  Yes, and and by the way, some of those terrorist attacks have taken out the lives of Americans uh uh in in the Middle East, uh, service members as well as we're not uh completely certain about some of the terror cells that may be here in our
• 14:16
  And and by the way, some of those terrorist attacks have taken out the lives of Americans in in the Middle East, uh, service members, as well as we're not uh completely certain about some of the terror cells that may be here in our own country.
• 14:30
  And again, some of this information we we don't have completely available to us because it's one of those uh national security kind of issues that uh we we are not privy to.
• 14:40
  But uh there is, as you're saying, very clearly a biblical standard that can be established as what is a justifiable war to engage in versus another war.
• 14:52
  There's you know, uh history of wars uh replete with uh uh starting back as early as we have recorded human history, one of the things recorded is wars, wars have been fought again and again, but many of those wars have not been just wars, and uh that that's a problem we need to understand.
• 15:09
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• 15:11
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• 16:24
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• 16:43
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• 17:04
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• 17:15
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• 17:23
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• 19:46
  In fact, when the debates were taking place in and uh forming our Constitutional Republic, there were a group of people who are called the Federalists, they were for the Constitution as it was proposed.
• 19:55
  But there was a group of people who were called the anti-Federalists.
• 19:59
  That is, they opposed the ratification of the Constitution.
• 20:02
  They had various objections, and one of those objections, interestingly enough, was this whole issue of war.
• 20:08
  They felt that it was uh dangerous to place the power of going to war in the hands of the same body of people that were going to fund the war.
• 20:19
  That is Congress has both the authority uh to declare war and the authority to fund the war.
• 20:27
  Article 1, section 8 of our Constitution, probably the most important section that you need to understand to know what the limits are that we the people, we the people who created this government, we the people place these limits on what Congress could do and what Congress could not do, and we gave Congress the power to declare war and the power to fund the war.
• 20:49
  And uh the NFederalists said that that was a dangerous thing to put both of those powers into one hand.
• 20:56
  The reason why, of course, is they understood the biblical principle that says, for all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that all men uh are uh going to have some element of a sin nature, even if they have been born again, even if they are moving forward in sanctification, they still have a sin nature, and therefore uh our founders are very careful not to place unchecked power in the hands of any one person or any group of people.
• 21:00
  Says, for all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that all men uh are uh going to have some element of a sin nature, even if they have been born again, even if they are moving forward in sanctification, they still have a sin nature, and therefore our founders are very careful not to place unchecked power in the hands of any one person or any group of people.
• 21:28
  They wanted multiple checks and balances.
• 21:28
  They wanted multiple checks and balances, and so they built some checks and balances here into the whole idea of going to war.
• 21:36
  First of all, the war had to be decided on to go to war uh by the body that represented the people, uh both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
• 21:46
  That was the first check on the second check was the funding for any war had to be reauthorized every two years.
• 21:54
  So if Congress voted to go to war, uh they went to war, every single congressman in the House of Representatives was going to stand for re-election before that two-year point in turn time was reached, which means the election itself could sort of be a referendum from the people on the war.
• 22:15
  Did the people want the war?
• 22:16
  Did the people not want the war?
• 22:18
  Well, when they voted for their representative in the House, they could voice whether they wanted the war to continue or they wanted the war to stop.
• 22:27
  So if the uh their Congressman had voted for the war, uh they could boot him out of office and say, nope, we want the war to stop, or if they had a congressman voted for the war and they wanted the war to continue, they could return him uh to office.
• 22:38
  So very careful structure built here, the two-year limit on the funding for the war, and the declaration of war had to be uh authorized by Congress.
• 22:49
  Now, we know that kind of changed.
• 22:51
  Uh Brian, do you want to fill us in on what happened with the the war powers act uh back in nineteen seventy-three?
• 22:58
  Yeah, that uh became pretty interesting as far as uh the government deciding that they needed to do something.
• 23:06
  We had been in Vietnam uh for quite some time, and uh at this point uh there was this uh vague permission given by the Congress to engage in battle in Vietnam.
• 23:22
  Uh they authorized the use of force to protect U.S.
• 23:26
  interests in Vietnam.
• 23:27
  Of course, this happens after LBJ lied and said that uh there had been uh an attack by Vietnam on our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, and then he has his first act of president uh sent our troops to war, and that war is going to last ten years, it's gonna escalate, a lot of different things are going to be happening that uh people did not know about here in the States.
• 23:52
  Well, when Richard Nixon came to power, he authorized these secret attacks on uh Cambodia, and it goes on for more than a year, and it took uh uh another uh year or so till Congress figured it out what was going on and they decided that's enough of this.
• 24:13
  So they come up with the war powers resolution that said that if there was an imminent threat, yes, the good the president could go to battle for sixty days.
• 24:27
  Then he has to come to Congress, he has to get approval to continue or get a 90-day extension.
• 24:33
  And that was trying to limit uh the authority of the president to just carry out war uh for years after years after years, because the Vietnam War went on for ten years without any real declaration of war.
• 24:49
  And as a result uh of all of that, uh the war powers resolution tried to reign some of that in and uh in 1973, that's what they did.
• 25:00
  However, the Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of the war powers resolution, and I don't know if they ever plan to.
• 25:11
  Yeah, that kind of puts us in a quandary because, well, it hasn't been tested, so uh obviously that would mean uh we operate as if it is legitimate and constitutional.
• 25:22
  I mean, uh we can't uh go back and uh query our founders specifically on uh whether this war powers act really meets what they were designing, but we do know their design was always that there would be multiple checks and balances.
• 25:36
  So in a sense, uh uh when uh a war is engaged in as uh this current war with Iran, we're in a little bit different situation altogether than than we were in the Indo-Chinese wars that uh, as you say, lasted for ten years without any uh congressional approval at all.
• 25:54
  Now, uh in this current uh situation, uh President Trump has uh issued a letter uh to Congress on May 1st, which actually meets the 60 calendar day uh after March 2nd report, which is when he he put the initial letter to Congress saying, okay, we are now engaged in war, and that was just one uh two days after uh the fighting began on on uh February twenty-eighth.
• 26:19
  But his message to Congress Congress was uh that uh the war has ended.
• 26:24
  Um that the uh uh his exact language is this.
• 26:29
  Let me let me read his exact language.
• 26:31
  The ceasefire has since been extended.
• 26:34
  There has been no exchange of fire between the United States forces and Iran since April 7, 2026.
• 26:39
  The hostilities that began on February 28th, 2026 have terminated.
• 26:44
  Uh so very good, okay.
• 26:46
  The w the war is over, but uh there's still a blockade going on of the uh all all the shipping in and out of uh Iran, and uh the purpose there I think is pretty clear.
• 26:58
  Uh uh as with any siege, if you surround a city, uh a walled city and you uh just stay there and don't let anything come in or anything go out, eventually they'll run out of uh food and they'll run out of perhaps water and uh they'll surrender because they they can't survive.
• 27:15
  And I think that's sort of strategy here that um Iran is absolutely dependent on its oil exports.
• 27:21
  That's it's one major business that brings uh currency flowing into their country and without their oil exports being able to leave because all of their ports are are blockaded.
• 27:33
  Uh the intent is that Iran suffering, I think uh I hear the number in the billions uh per week that they are losing by not being able to ship out the oil uh from their ports, that that is going to bring them to a point of collapse financially so that they uh were not be able to continue that war.
• 27:51
  And by the way, one of their uh biggest customers is China.
• 27:55
  Uh and so China is directly affected by this as well because uh their uh I think is about at least half of the oil uh they need to run all of the factories and keep all of their their economy humming.
• 28:00
  uh their uh I think is about at least half of the oil uh they need to run all of the factories and keep all of their their economy humming half of that comes uh uh uh directly out of Iran.
• 28:08
  Half of that comes out uh uh directly out of Iran.
• 28:11
  So the question is is the blockade no shots are being fired is the blockade a continuation of the war or is it just uh uh a sort of stalemate taking place there and again there have been those who uh uh believe that this is not proper and those who are arguing that it is proper interesting theory uh proposed by the vice president well no no no it wasn't vice president was uh Secretary of war uh Pete Heggseth is that when the ceasefire began that actually put a pause on the sixty days that the war powers resolution requires and I I don't think that's personally I don't think that's a proper uh understanding of the statute about that and uh uh that there's is it's uh because the language of the war powers act says that within sixty days calendar and so it doesn't suggest the idea of the clock stopping uh when a ceasefire begins it's saying is the war on or is uh the war off.
• 28:11
  So the question is is the blockade no shots are being fired, is the blockade a continuation of the war, or is it just uh uh a sort of stalemate taking place there?
• 28:22
  Um and again, there have been those who uh uh believe that this is not proper, and those who are arguing that.
• 29:11
  So there is the possibility, however, that Congress could vote as as you mentioned, Brian, for an extension that uh there could be an additional extension beyond the sixty day deadline uh and uh yet at this point in time it it seems that Congress has made multiple attempts to vote on the war.
• 29:29
  Uh various bills have been put forward and and none of them have yet uh reached uh a majority in either the Senate or the House that would say that Congress is united on whether the war should continue and a declaration of war should be issued or whether uh the war should cease.
• 29:46
  So it's kind of a a a question mark here as to what's going to happen next.
• 29:52
  Yeah and uh the Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons uh has posed this existential threat uh not only to Israel but also to U.S.
• 30:02
  forces in the region and the American homeland uh and the International Atomic Energy Agency report said Iran has continued uranium enrichment which violates treaties it is signed.
• 30:16
  And so the U.S.
• 30:17
  strikes targeted military nuclear infrastructure uh not civilians which was consistent with the just war principles of proportionality military necessity.
• 30:29
  Uh Republican leaders have strongly backed the president here.
• 30:33
  Uh House Speaker Mike Johnson said Trump quote fully respects the Article one power of Congress and acted in line with the history and tradition of similar military actions under presidents of both parties.
• 30:48
  Senator majority uh leader John Foon confirmed Trump acted within constitutional bounds.
• 30:55
  But as you said we're at that sixty day limit and uh the House narrowly voted in March to reject a congressional progressive caucus resolution that would have restricted the war in Iran one day after the Senate blocked a similar war powers resolution.
• 31:14
  There was another Democrat effort to stop military operations in Iran just uh last week.
• 31:20
  Uh so far uh two resolutions have come to the floor in the House, six more in the Senate, but all of them have been blocked by Republicans who have warned that any effort to restrain U.S.
• 31:33
  forces amid the conflict will only empower Tehran's Islamic regime at the expense of America's national security.
• 31:42
  And Republicans argued the conflict never rose to the level of a war, disqualifying the need for congressional consent.
• 31:51
  They also maintain that even if it did meet that distinction, the current ceasefire has effectively ended the shooting part and uh that's where we get into this has uh the threshold of sixty days been reached, hasn't it?
• 32:06
  But these failed House and Senate votes to stop Trump and our troops represents an implicit authorization by Congress for Trump to carry on his military strikes against Iran if necessary.
• 32:20
  In fact he said he would do so if he has to in essence they have been approving that the attacks.
• 32:27
  However, after sixty days of hostilities have been reached, Congress must either stop the military, they must extend the tax for thirty days, or declare war if they determine this would be a just war.
• 32:43
  So that really brings it back to we the people, doesn't it uh Brian uh that we the people need to speak to our representatives in the House and uh our one representative in the House for our congressional district and our two senators so there's three phone calls or three letters of uh which whichever method we uh would see w would make sense because there is this threat uh nuclear threat uh by a a country that with all uh honest uh evaluators say this this country is the sponsor of state terrorism uh this country has been not only uh sponsoring terrorism throughout the Middle East but uh far beyond the r range of of the Middle East uh and interesting to me that many of the other countries who've joined the Board of Peace are Mohammedan countries that have been attacked by terrorists from Iran.
• 33:33
  So it's like even other Middle Eastern Mohammedan countries recognize the danger uh that Iran poses to all of them and and to peace and stability in in the region there.
• 33:44
  Uh and well now that we're uh talking nuclear then of course we're talking uh the threat to our own homeland and whether that be a missile that incoming uh which you know there's debates about whether they have that capability but certainly a dirty bomb uh coming across the border and may already have come across the border with uh Iranian terror cells that uh during Biden's four disastrous years of uh open border we have no idea what came across the border.
• 34:14
  We have no idea how many terror cells may be in our land today uh in fact when we look at the what we know about what took place during those four years of Biden's open border policy the vast majority of those coming across the border were young men of military age.
• 34:32
  And that should trouble all of America and I I am pleased that uh Trump has been working diligently and ICE has been rounding up many, but there's still many more that they've probably have not yet rounded up and of course there's the protests against the the work of ICE but we see the danger uh to our own homeland right here uh at present so i it's it's a shame that we don't have a uh unanimous Congress saying yes this is a war that needs to be fought and we need to uh stop the the uh particularly the nuclear program of the nation of Iran yeah and Iran uh has attacked Americans at least forty three times since nineteen seventy nine uh they shout death to America and they've been doing so for over forty five years.
• 35:00
  needs to be fought and we need to uh stop the the uh particularly the nuclear program of the nation of Iran yeah and Iran uh uh has attacked Americans at least forty three times since nineteen seventy nine uh they shout death to America and they've been doing so for over forty five years then they build nuclear weapons and it seems according to uh War Secretary Heceth that the the operation that was launched was launched in response to an imminent threat from Iran's nuclear power and to defend U.S.
• 35:22
  Then they build nuclear weapons.
• 35:24
  And it seems according to uh War Secretary Heckseth that the
• 35:38
  forces and our ally Israel and it was to eliminate a growing danger.
• 35:44
  But then planning as they seem to have uncovered an imminent nuclear strike calls for an offensive strike from us as self-defense.
• 35:56
  Curious yes and we know that uh when we're in this situation the difficulty is in the in the what's often called the fog of wars to get all of the the facts straight down.
• 36:08
  Of course if you look at the media and the response of the media we find that it uh it's a whole lot of additional fog is being added uh to the understanding of the American people and uh you know the left media is very clear they're completely opposed to this they're calling Trump all sorts of names here when we see that Trump is actually seeking to defend our Republic and and help us we the people protect our life our liberty and our property from attack if a nuclear uh device were to be detonated on the soil of America uh Americans would wake up in a hurry but the problem is once that's happened the the cat is out of the bag and it's pretty hard to undo it at that point in time.
• 36:51
  Well we're coming up on a hard break here this is uh don't imbibe the Kool-Aid America out loud talk radio we play on iHeart Radio Network you can listen to us on your media player from any web browser anywhere in the world we have the best in class apps available on Apple, Android and Alexa, where we are streaming 247 and now you can also hear those podcasts on on every podcast on each of those apps all of our shows go to podcast the very next day after the broadcast is heard on talk radio our broadcast 7 a.m on Friday mornings and you can hear that broadcast on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, tuned in, iHeart Podcast, and many many more so we would invite you to subscribe and also invite you to rate the show.
• 37:38
  We'd love to hear your comments by the way my uh personal email is D Whitney D W H I T N E Y at the AmericanView dot com if you want to communicate with us directly and we encourage you to make out loud America out loud news dot news your daily stop for all the latest news and happenings we all in these days must do our part to get the word out across our land.
• 38:03
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• 38:49
  Welcome back welcome back from the break this is don't imbibe the Kool-Aid and here on our show we have two litmus tests to help our listeners look at the things that are being spoken to us in our day that the things that we're hearing not just around the water cooler but the things that we're hearing on the news the things that the newspapers are all that there's two tests by which we can detect whether it's Kool-Aid or it is not Kool-Aid.
• 39:16
  The first test is what our founders call the laws of nature nature's God which is God's word the Bible the second test of course is our founding documents the Declaration of independence the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and by the way we're coming up here on July 4th of the 250th celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence which we ought to be reminded the opening paragraph state that there is a creator God and that's the God of the Bible.
• 39:42
  Our rights come from him and from him alone and thirdly the only purpose of human civil government is to protect those God given rights.
• 39:52
  And of course one of those protections of our God given rights is the protection of our borders the protection of our land from attack or invasion by a foreign army or attack were invasion from just marauders who like the four years of Joe Biden came crawling across our border in multiple millions some say 10 million maybe more than 10 million came in into this country many of them criminals we know that Venezuela opened all of their prison doors and sent every last single prisoner criminal from Venezuela and their parole requirement was this take up residence in the United States.
• 40:31
  And if they did not take up residence in the United States they were going to be rearrested and put in prison but they sent all other criminals their entire criminal class they sent to our shores and they walked freely across the border.
• 40:44
  Thank you, Mr.
• 40:44
  Biden and so we are uh have been invaded by criminals, rapists, murderers, thieves, obviously fraudsters of Minneapolis, Minnesota being one uh outlandish example nine billion dollars stolen from the American people by illegals who are not legally in our country.
• 41:04
  So yeah when somebody breaks uh that law they come into your country illegally why wouldn't they break other laws?
• 41:11
  Why wouldn't they seek to get away with any crime they could commit stealing nine billion raping and pillaging whatever they want to do.
• 41:20
  So very dangerous thing when the government does not protect the borders and the government when the government fails to protect us from imminent threats uh that are coming our way as we're talking about here with the nation of Iran.
• 41:34
  So Congress has a duty to protect us the president we uh have already talked about is acting to protect us but we're now up against the war powers 60 day which uh could be extended and actually could be uh declare if the Congress were to declare war then there would be uh open-ended uh thing the problem that we face is that I think that the leaders of Iran they know our uh government structure they know about the war powers act they know uh about Congress approval of a war all those things and so from their perspective all they have to do is sit and wait because as the time and the clock ticks on uh the the options become fewer and fewer yeah and let's uh let's talk a little bit about how the sausage was made because protecting the country was very important to the framers of the Constitution and that the
• 42:00
  government structure, they know about the war powers act.
• 42:02
  They know uh about Congress approval of a war all those things.
• 42:06
  And so from their perspective, all they have to do is sit and wait.
• 42:10
  Because as the time and the clock ticks on, uh the the options become fewer and fewer.
• 42:18
  Yeah, and let's uh let's talk a little bit about how the sausage was made because protecting the country was very important to the framers of the Constitution.
• 42:29
  And that the Constitutional Convention in 1787, uh the first draft said Congress can make war, meaning only Congress can initiate armed conflict.
• 42:41
  Charles Pickney uh objected that legislative proceedings were too slow for the safety of the country in an emergency since back then Congress would rarely meet.
• 42:53
  Madison Eldridge Jerry moved then to replace the words make war with declare war, quote, leaving to the executive the power to repel sudden attacks.
• 43:07
  Their motion carried seven states to two.
• 43:10
  In 1862 the Supreme Court ruled if there were an invasion that the president is not only authorized but he's bound to resist force by force without waiting for any special legislative authority.
• 43:24
  Now Article 2 designates the president as the commander in chief empowering him to defend American interests.
• 43:32
  Article one section eight grants Congress the power to declare war.
• 43:38
  But this has never been interpreted to require authorization for every military action.
• 43:45
  Article one section 10 clause three is rarely talked about but it says no state shall engage in war unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay and any time these people are coming across our border that's an invasion and the states should declare war on that.
• 44:06
  And if that's true for states it should be true for the commander in chief for the country.
• 44:12
  In 1787 the only way for America to be attacked was by soldiers basically on foot using muskets and cannons.
• 44:21
  But now with aircraft carriers, nukes, satellite weaponry, waiting for Congress to respond to an imminent attack even if they're in session could be foolish waiting for Congress to declare war shouldn't result in a suicide pact uh that would be the death of millions of people in this countr in this country.
• 44:45
  So the war powers act has to come into effect uh Congress has passed this as I said in 73 presidents have sought declarations of war eleven times in our history.
• 44:58
  Congress has only said yes five times the last time was World War II or as someone in Congress said World War eleven, but we won't get into that.
• 45:09
  Presidents have also sought and received quote authorization for the use of military force eleven times which is congressional permission to send a military into battle without invoking the words declare war.
• 45:24
  So the war powers act says the president can initiate conflict that goes along with what the f the framers decided could happen but it can't go past of course this 60 days of Congress without congressional approval.
• 45:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 45:39
  Interesting the Article one section 10 there the restriction on the states going to war that uh unless they're invaded and and you're absolutely right a southern invasion across our our southern border has been happening uh off and on for decades now I remember I think it was when Obama was in office uh the state of Arizona basically declared that you know they had an invasion going on and so they were going to use I don't think they have a state militia there but they're going to use the state police and other police forces uh to uh you know deal with the problem of the illegals invading uh and uh what the Obama administration did if I remember correctly is they sued the state of Arizona for protecting their own border outrageous because it's it's the job of the federal government to defend the borders and the federal government failing to do so the state obviously has you know has recourse to defend their own border at Article 1 section 10 uh specifies that as well it's kind of like if uh you know you have somebody invade your house uh do you have to call the police and just sit there and and basically be their prisoner until the police arrive often the police arrive you know twenty minutes later whatever it might be and uh you're suffering this home invasion that might actually take not just your property but might take your life no the biblical standard is your house is your castle and if somebody invades your house like they've invaded a castle you have the right uh to dispatch them if they are threatening your life by being in your house.
• 47:12
  In fact you ought to uh be able to threaten your life I had a friend who's uh whose aunt very peaceful peace loving woman that no never harmed to flee but she had a shotgun beside her bed upstairs second floor and one night she woke up in the middle of the night and she heard breaking glass and obviously somebody was breaking into her house so she quickly got out of bed grabbed the shotgun and and uh waited in the hallway upstairs and just the action of pumping the shotgun you know the Brian that makes a very distinct noise when you pump a shotgun well she didn't fire anything she just pumped the shotgun and the person downstairs who had broken in the house could not get out of the house faster.
• 47:53
  In fact it went through a screen broke through a screen with their body because they left blood on the on the screen on the way out the door they were scared to death because they knew the person in this house is going to protect their life and I am a threat to their life if I don't leave now my life is going to be taken from me.
• 48:12
  And it's so the same principle that applies to an individual homeowner certainly applies to a state certainly applies uh to a country when that country has been invaded.
• 48:22
  And and Brian this just you know to me it's smacks of treason that we have had multiple presidents mentioned Biden mentioned Obama but others as well who have had a policy of open borders without vetting the people who are coming across those borders which means we have many enemies around the world we clearly have enemies people who hate America you were talking earlier about the the the endless chant in Iran for 45 years death to America these people obviously hate us they want to destroy us and so allowing their terror cells to just waltz across the border and set up shop here in America that's that's outrageous and I I believe really an act of treason on the part of of those presidents who instead of protecting us and defending us at the border of our country sold us a lie that to be a good American we must accept anybody from around the world without vetting them at all including known terrorists allow them to come onto our soil.
• 49:00
  That's that's outrageous.
• 49:02
  And uh I I believe really an act of treason on the part of those presidents who instead of protecting us and defending us at the border of our country sold us a lie that to be a good American, we must accept anybody from around the world without vetting them at all, including known terrorists, allow them to come onto our soil.
• 49:24
  That that's a suicide idea.
• 49:24
  That that's a a suicide idea.
• 49:27
  I agree and uh I hope someday that these people
• 49:27
  I agree, and uh I hope someday that these people are arrested for that, but we'll see what happens.
• 49:33
  But you know, we hear a lot that what Trump is doing is unconstitutional, he has no authority to do it.
• 49:40
  Uh let's look at a little bit of American precedent uh to see that the presidential use of force uh fits one of three categories.
• 49:48
  Uh first presidents have used military force when specifically authorized by Congress.
• 49:54
  Uh authorization may have come from a formal declaration of war, but it can also come from a more informal statutory authorization.
• 50:05
  For example, after September 11, uh Congress authorized the president to use force against those who launched the attacks and on those who supported or assisted them.
• 50:17
  Uh sometimes they're less specific as when Congress authorized the use of force to protect U.S.
• 50:23
  interests in Vietnam, whatever that even means.
• 50:26
  Uh second, presidents have used independent authority as commander-in-chief to use military force in response to attacks on America.
• 50:36
  And I believe it includes response to attacks on U.S.
• 50:39
  embassies or our armed forces abroad, uh, even using uh offensive measures against threats of attacks backed by a reason belief that they would soon be carried out.
• 50:51
  Uh and third presidents have used commander and chief power to deploy U.S.
• 50:56
  forces in situations that don't really amount to war.
• 50:59
  Uh Obama waged strikes for eight months in Libya without congressional approval.
• 51:05
  Uh he also expanded operations against ISIS without new authorization.
• 51:10
  Congress said nothing.
• 51:12
  Uh but since World War II, presidents of both parties have repeatedly used force in response to national security threats without congressional approval.
• 51:22
  Uh there's been no declaration of war since World War II, and of course the world has been safe since then, right?
• 51:30
  But in 1950, uh Truman deployed U.S.
• 51:33
  forces to South Korea without congressional authorization.
• 51:38
  1963, uh Corby J sends troops to Vietnam.
• 51:43
  83, Reagan ordered the liberation of Grenada to eliminate a Marxist threat in the Western Hemisphere.
• 51:50
  In 93, Clinton sent troops to Somalia and uh I'm seeing to Bosnia to stop genocide.
• 51:58
  He also sent troops to Somalia in 2011, Obama authorized 542 drone strikes in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan.
• 52:09
  And interestingly there, Obama said he got, quote, authorization from a UN resolution to use military force against Libya, and he didn't need to follow the war powers act crickets from Congress.
• 52:25
  The use of the military just listed was not even in response to an imminent threat.
• 52:30
  And Congress didn't stop them.
• 52:32
  But Trump's authorization of precision U.S.
• 52:35
  air strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites last June and the bombing of Iran in February follows this established pattern.
• 52:45
  However, unlike those other military uses, Trump was addressing a direct and imminent threat to U.S.
• 52:53
  national security.
• 52:54
  And so the strikes in Iran embody the legitimate use of commander-in-chief powers to address serious threats and align with established precedent, and those Democrats who say they're going to call for his impeachment for this have no constitutional or legal grounds to do so.
• 53:12
  Oh, thank you, Brian, because that point needs to be made so very strongly.
• 53:16
  Where uh what we what we have seen, as you've just given us a good history lesson on all the examples of this, is that there were uh Democrat presidents doing this, and nobody complained.
• 53:29
  In fact, uh the press supported them 100%.
• 53:32
  So you're curious as to why the uh the current press and and uh the current uh left wing uh pundits are all opposed to this.
• 53:43
  Could it be, Brian, that they're opposed to our national security?
• 53:47
  They would like to see uh uh us attacked and the nuclear bomb de uh devastating America.
• 53:53
  And they're the ones that have the authority to declare war, and I'm not sure that they would ever do that, because I don't think that they they care that much about uh the safety of Americans that care about their power, and that's pretty much it.
• 54:08
  It's sad because you kind of see uh if this were put this on a very local scale in the house, uh the homeowner, let's say the father of the house decides he's gonna not keep any locks on any doors, and he's gonna actually invite criminals to come into the house, which will endanger the life, liberty, and property of all those who reside within the house.
• 54:32
  When you bring it down to that local level, it becomes very apparent that that father is not doing his duty as a father to protect his family and to protect his home.
• 54:43
  I thank God that uh President Trump sees his duty uh very clearly as president that he is to protect the God-given rights of we the people, and those God-given rights go far beyond the the short list there in the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, which by by the way, that phrase pursuit of happiness includes the ownership of property, but also includes the whole idea of pursuing virtue.
• 55:08
  No one should be able to stop you from doing what God commands you to do, pursuing virtue.
• 55:15
  And indeed, when you look at what our founders framed our constitutional republic to uh accomplish, it was so that Christians could live out their Christian faith.
• 55:25
  They could walk the walk that Jesus calls us to as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that no one would have any power to stop them from doing that.
• 55:36
  And of course, that includes life, liberty, and property.
• 55:39
  Well, this is uh the the show where we on Friday morning, 7 a.m., we come to you to talk about don't imbibe the Kool-Aid.
• 55:49
  And we come to you on America Out Loud Talk Radio, which plays on iHeart Radio Network.
• 55:55
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• 56:00
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• 56:05
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• 56:08
  We invite you to comment on our show, and uh we invite you to go to the browser uh America Outloud.com and America Outloud dot news, where you can be connected with a true view on what's happening, not the left, not the right, but the true view of what's happening in the world around us, because we desire to bring you.
• 56:08
  We invite you to comment on our show, and uh we invite you to go to the the browser uhmericaoutloud.com and AmericaOutloud.news, where you can be connected with a true view on what's happening, not the left, not the right, but the true view of what's happening in the world around us, because we desire to bring you that litmus test that can help you examine the ideas that you are being presented with every single day.
• 56:37
  And that litmus test is based upon the Bible as God's Word, the laws of nature and nature's God, and based upon our founding documents, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
• 56:47
  We invite you to join us again next Friday morning, 7 a.m.