Latest / The Stan R. Mitchell Show / The Stan R. Mitchell Show — Iran, Ukraine, and political headwinds | July 23, 2026

Transcript

The Stan R. Mitchell Show — Iran, Ukraine, and political headwinds | July 23, 2026 · The Stan R. Mitchell Show

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is going on, everyone?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to The Stan R. Mitchell Show.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Stan,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: and this week we are going to mostly talk about Iran and the war happening there,
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: which is a big deal, and it's not going away.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's bigger than it's ever been.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to primarily talk about that,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: a few other subjects as well,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: so there will be timestamps if you want to jump to those.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm hoping you enjoy the entire show.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: By the way,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: if you haven't signed up for the email list on the Substack web address
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: that you can find in the episode notes, make sure you do that.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's free.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can support the show for $5 a month if you want to,
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: but mainly, I just would love to have your email address.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be honored to have it,
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: and that will allow me to reach you if we were to send out A short briefing here
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: or there based on something big that happens with the Iran war
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: or something happens somewhere else.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to have the ability to reach you with a free email from time to time.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like a short article or a few little links.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is just something that as time goes on I'd like to do a little bit more of
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: from time to time.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just a supplement to keep you guys in the loop on the news and everything that's happening.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right now my Full-time job is super busy,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: so it probably won't happen in the short term
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: unless something big happens news-wise,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: but in the future, I'd love to be able to reach you guys a little more frequently.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, just put your email address in by following the link to my Substack page.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Don't have to pay,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: although the show does take some time and effort to produce,
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: so it would encourage me and I would be honored if you did,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: but again, you don't have to.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And for those crazy, awesome supporters who already do so, I'm very grateful for your support.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get to the war in Iran, which President Trump this week called a skirmish.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's called it a detour in the past.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: One word he hasn't called it is a trap,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: although I would argue that's increasingly a word he potentially should consider.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are probably starting to pick up on this,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: but it sure seems to me that the mood is souring on the war in Iran.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't just me.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'll mention a survey in a second.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: But we are now into the 12th day of strikes going back and forth between
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: the United States and Iran.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny, I just was doing some editing and heard myself say that.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I know some people call it Iran.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: But down here in Knoxville, down in the south, I think most folks just call it Iran.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's Iran on this show,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: and unfortunately it doesn't look like there's any way that we can Iran or we ran
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: from Iran because we are in it, and it sure seems like a trap.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, we're in our 12th day of renewed strikes.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are in month five of a little detour that was supposed to take, you know, four to six weeks.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hard to believe that, but way back in March, that's what the president was saying.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: it's even more,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: it's kind of funny to see people almost break out of the matrix this week.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: On Fox News,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: the host Maria Bartiromo went a little viral because she was doing a segment
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: and she says, quote,
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand how Iran has the capabilities to fight this way because the U.S.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: has obliterated Iran's military and the president continues to reiterate that.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, a lot of folks were like, she's this close to almost getting it.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And of course we've talked about for months now about reporting in
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: the New York Times and other media outlets that don't just print what
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: the president wants them to say.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: That Iran had reconstituted much of its missile capability.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: They had dug out many of the tunnels where their missiles and drones were dug
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: and buried in the ground.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the articles,
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: like the New York Times had said a few months ago,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I remember reporting on this,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: that they had almost like 70% of their pre-war ability to fire.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we've seen that the past couple of weeks.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: They've been hitting countries across the Middle East.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And sadly, casualties are beginning to happen even on our side.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's being reported that as of the day I'm recording this,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: on July 22nd, We're now up to 18 American service member deaths.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: We've had four die in the last week.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: We've had 100 plus wounded in the past week.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: So total wounded is over 480.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we're getting up there on the number of wounded.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: There are folks who say the Pentagon and the Department of War or Department
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: of Defense, however you want to refer to it, are underreporting some of this stuff.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: But either way, the costs are increasing.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And The Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War, again, whichever way you want to call it.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Pete Hegseth had to go to Congress this week talking about the cost.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And American voters are increasingly starting to pay attention,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: and they don't like what they see.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is starting to show up in polling.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: There was a Reuters-Ipsos poll that shows that four-fifths of Americans...
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Think the war will last for an extended period.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So an extended period, that was the term they selected.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Nearly half of them thought it would grind on for a year or more.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's also an Economist YouGov poll out.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: The net approval for President Trump's decision to attack Iran now stands
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: at negative 30% among Americans.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: That number is striking.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And more importantly,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: it's interesting because the Vietnam War took six years to become as unpopular as
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: the Iran War currently stands.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So negative 30%.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the Iran War, Vietnam took six years.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: The Iran War in six months is at the same level.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: in an Economist article,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: they talked to Professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he talked about the speed at which this lack of approval has set in.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, quote,
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: He said the longer it goes on,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: the more the costs will mount,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: and one of the costs will be support for President Trump and the GOP in
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: the midterm elections.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think most people would agree that's the case.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And just as a little historical background,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: when we first attacked the Taliban back in 2001 in Afghanistan,
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: nearly 90% of Americans were in favor
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously that was after September 11th.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: We, you know, the Twin Towers had fallen.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it took 13 years after that for the invasion to go below 50%.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And by that point, we had lost 2,000 Americans killed in action, 20,000 wounded.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've had far fewer losses in the Iran War.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: But as I've said on the podcast before,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: the reality is,
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: is President Trump He did not,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: and this is one of the most frustrating parts of this war for me,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: is that the president never prepared the American people for the possibility
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: that this could be long or difficult or costly.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Worse than all that,
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: he undersold it all,
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: but then there was no serious effort to bring Congress on board.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was no broad effort to build support among our allies
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: and There was no honest conversation with the American people that our operations
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: against Iran might require real sacrifice and involve an uncertain timeline.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, like I said earlier, it was called a little detour.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And as someone who's worn the uniform,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I believe our major conflicts deserve more than optimistic slogans.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: They deserve strategic planning,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: coalition building, and honest candor with the American people.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: As you guys know, we got practically none of that.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And, as you guys have probably seen in the news,
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: the Institute for the Study of War had an article about this.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Iran is adapting to our defenses.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're firing high speed maneuverable missiles at U.S. bases in the region.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: They've hit one of our bases in Jordan where some of the casualties are happening.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're taking out some of our helicopters that were parked there.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're obviously killing some Americans.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean war always has a cost.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: But we sold this as a low cost option.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't really sell the war.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: We were riding on the coattails of the Military operation in Venezuela
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: which had no casualties and seemed so easy.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the dirty,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: ugly reality of this war is increasingly becoming just out in the open and the truth
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: that we have to accept.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: This week...
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: You could see a lot of that truth out in the open because,
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: as I said earlier,
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Joint Chiefs Chairman,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: General Dan Cain, had to go to Congress.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: They went to Capitol Hill.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: They tried to make the case for the war in Iran.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they were very clear that the Pentagon needs additional money.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: They argued for an additional $67 billion.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Pete Hexeth said this was urgent,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: that it was a necessary injection of funds.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so, again, Hexeth and Cain, they go to the Capitol Hill,
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: they're explaining all this.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Congress wasn't real happy to hear this, as you probably can imagine.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Pete Hexeth said that the cost of the war up to today is $37.5 billion,
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: so we've
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: spent to that much.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's up from $29 billion, which was the last estimate.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And again,
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: we need a large infusion,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: $67
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: billion, to replace some weapons, buy some weapons, etc.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So the president didn't originally make the case to Congress,
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: but now Congress has to get involved because obviously Congress is
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: the funding mechanism of our government.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so P-Dexeth, Dan Cain, General Dan Cain go to Capitol Hill.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: They make their case.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it was a little ugly at times.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what one Democrat had to say, and this isn't a bomb thrower as far as Democrats go.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is Congressman Pat Ryan from New York.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's a U.S. Army veteran.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: He literally represents the district that houses West Point.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, it's not a place you can be super far left.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what he had to say.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Again, so this is a veteran from the U.S. Army, and here's what he had to say.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's clear this is at a cover-up status from the administration.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: What we learned this week on the wounded in action and
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: the casualties really validates what a lot of us have been feeling on the committee.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's gone from them not sharing information to them actively sharing Right at
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: the same time that they're asking for $1.5 trillion in this defense bill that we're
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: about to vote on with just no transparency.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think they're underreporting the costs, the casualties, the injuries?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: We believe,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: and I think credibly,
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: and I'm talking to folks in the service,
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: in the Pentagon, they're underestimating everything.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Casualties, costs,
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: they're underestimating just the ability of our adversary
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: to I looked up his district.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's the New York 18th district.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's in the last presidential election.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was plus three for Harris.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a pretty divided district.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: But
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Congressman Pat Ryan has apparently handled himself pretty well because
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: the Republicans haven't put much up of a race against him.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: They canceled their primary.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: There is someone who is proceeding against him, but...
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much everything I've read said that he's expected to win because he had won
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: by, I think it was 14 points on the race before.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So he's pretty popular there, especially being a veteran, as you can imagine.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm getting a bit off point,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: and the larger point is it wasn't just Democrats that were beating up
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: on Pete Hegseth and Chairman Dan Cain.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to Republican Senator Kennedy out of Louisiana.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: By the way,
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: this clip went pretty viral,
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: so if you've already seen it, just fast forward about two minutes in the podcast.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Here is Senator Kennedy grilling both Pete Hegseth and General Dan Cain.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Will they put tolls on the straight?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, sir.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's a decision that's a hypothetical and will depend on what happens in the future.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's not hypothetical.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: We've got a blockade to stop them.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: We do, sir.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's putting economic pressure on you.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not asking you for, I'm not trying to get you in trouble.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: I know your advice to the president is private.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: But this is serious as four heart attacks and a stroke.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what happens if we come home and end the blockade to the world?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Sir, Iran has the potential to continue to be a threat,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: and we will need to prepare military options to do that.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Will they toll the strike?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Sir, that's a hypothetical question, and I don't know the answer to that.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's not hypothetical.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: We come home.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's not going to be hypothetical.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know that, General, and I do too, and I appreciate your discretion, but we're down to it.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: We need some hard answers and some straight talk.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: What will happen, Pete?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Senator,
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: I would agree with the chairman,
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: but the likely outcome is they would try to impose their will on the waterways
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: in ways that the world would not like.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Call it a toll, call it a fee, call it an exchange, call it control.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: They would do something that they would try to hold to that issue.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Would they try to commence development again of a nuclear warhead?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: Part of the reason President Trump had to have the courage to do what he did
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: after Midnight Hammer is that they didn't give up their ambitions even
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: though their nuclear sites had been obliterated.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a regime hellbent on nuclear ambitions.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Guys, we need straight answers.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: We need straight answers.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Do we have the ability to destroy whatever is underneath Pickaxe Mountain?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Senator,
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of our capabilities are classified,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: but if anybody in the world can reach anything on God's green earth,
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: it's the United States military, the most powerful military in the world.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's all about options and trade-offs.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I looked around a bit on the right and on the conservative media channels.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Conservatives and Republicans are currently arguing that the war
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: in Iran is necessary and that if the U.S.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: pulled back now,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: you heard this partly in that clip,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: that Iran would clearly charge tolls in the Strait of Hormuz
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: and they would likely reconstitute its nuclear program,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: which is why I said earlier we're in a bit of a trap.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: We can't exactly get out of this now.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think clearly everyone should be hoping that we win,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: that somehow the Iranian economy collapses or perhaps the people rise up.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit of a Hail Mary
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: at this point because...
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: As we begin to bomb civilian infrastructure,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that a lot of those protesters who back at the end of last year
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: and beginning of this year wanted regime change,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have probably ruined our welcome with a lot of those folks.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I need to wrap up this section on Iran,
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: but sadly,
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: as I'm recording this on Wednesday night,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: it appears as though the war could get even worse.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is currently being reported that the Iran backed Houthis
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: in Yemen are saying they are going to do their own version of a blockade in
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: the Red Sea.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: President Trump is downplaying any threat of this.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: He said the United States will, quote, take care of things if the Houthis try to do this.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to remind you,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: just as a bit of a memory reset,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know names of these countries and what has happened in
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: the past can run together very quickly.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: But we have already tried to deal with the Houthis under two different presidents.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them is sitting in the Oval Office as we speak.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: We conducted years of airstrikes
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: and military operations against the Houthis
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: under both President Biden and President Trump.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember,
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: President Trump famously said at one point that they were some tough people,
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: and they shot down a bunch of our Reaper drones, those $200 million drones.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Stan R. Mitchell Show.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: No one died in that, but...
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't some small group that's easy to take care of.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to reset that in people's minds.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have tried under two different administrations to deal with them,
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: and we were way less stretched out back then
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: than we are now.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just keep that in perspective.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I do want to mention one other final thing.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Not really mention.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to put out there that there's a great map in the
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: episode notes.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to take a look at Iran,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Saudi Arabia, good map of where Yemen is, where the stronghold of the Houthis are.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: The New York Times put out a great graphic.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can look in the episode notes and you can see,
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: you can
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: even see it has some of the pipelines.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: I will mention one other thing I saw
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: a defense analyst say I thought was pretty good,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: which is that the strength of the tolls,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: so to speak,
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: of the strategic asset of the Strait of Hormuz that Iran controls,
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: that the value of it is slowly but surely decreasing.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is a waning asset because the world is trying to figure out how to deal with
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: a new reality where Iran controls it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so from building pipelines to getting oil from places like the United States
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: and other countries, the world is trying to adapt because that's what countries do.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: We do need oil.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: We know about a quarter of it goes through the Strait of Hormuz.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: While in the short term this is going to be painful and nasty,
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: the world will probably try to find a way to move on if we can't keep that Strait
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: of Hormuz open.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: But again,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: as I'm recording this,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: the situation is getting worse,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: not better, because the Houthis in Yemen are serious.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Saying they will conduct their own blockade and about 5% of oil goes through the Red Sea.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you're now looking at both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf being controlled
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: by Iran or Iranian-aligned groups.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, we're going to take a break when we come back.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about Ukraine and then we'll get some political news in.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So stick around.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: A small monthly subscription is one option, or you can even do a one-time gift.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, I'm grateful you're here.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: So let's move now to Ukraine.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to start with a little bit of kind of bad news because it seemed weird
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: for the past week.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll get into the good news.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And even the bad news is kind of,
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: I believe, at least at this point, it's still kind of developing.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I believe it's turned into good news.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the bad news, I'll just set this up.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: The bad news is that there was this former defense minister.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: He was the current defense minister up until a week ago.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And his name was Fedorov.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Incredibly popular guy.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he had helped with drone warfare and done some really cool things.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he was fired last week after getting into it with the Army General.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately I started noticing some of the defense analysts
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: that I follow saying this was like a huge mistake.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: That President Zelensky,
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: who I think a lot of, had made just a big mistake firing this guy named Fedorov.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now I don't know the various commanders very well,
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I try to follow the war as closely as I can,
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: but it's not like I live there, and I don't know the various folks.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: But apparently there had been some kind of disagreement between the head of
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: the Commander-in-Chief of Ukrainian Armed Forces, a guy named General Sarisky.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sarisky, I believe is how you say it.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I don't speak Ukrainian, but Fedorov was fired because he got into it with this general
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: that had been pretty
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: popular, been there for a long time.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: He had helped in the defense of the capital city of Kiev back
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: when Russia first did its full-scale invasion in 2022.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Although,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: if you're a very astute,
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: I guess,
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: historian or person that just keeps up with defense news,
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know Russia originally invaded in 2014,
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: so this was the second invasion of recent time.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: But, The massive one happened back in 2022,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: four years ago,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: and this general had,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Srisky, had essentially helped lead the defense of the capital.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: He was kind of an old-school Soviet-trained military commander,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: and eventually he started using drones to make up for the lack of artillery
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: and just taking in some of the cutting-edge So Fedorov gets fired.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's a younger guy.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's super popular because he gets in a disagreement
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: with this old school guy named General Srisky.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Immediately there are protests.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I see defense analysts that I follow saying, oh, this was a mistake by President Zelenskyy.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Protests begin to break out in Ukraine, and they happen for like five days straight.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: They just will not stop.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so President Zelensky realizes he's made a mistake.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: He starts offering some positions to this guy named Fedorov,
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: who's very popular,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: the guy who innovated much of the drone warfare and who had been arguing
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: with General Sriskie.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And in the end, to alleviate probably the mistake he made, this general has been fired.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to play a couple of clips from someone far more in the know than me.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a defense editor with The Economist.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Shashank Joshi and just knows the subject far better than me.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: He was recently interviewed on The Economist podcast and here's what he had to say
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: about the situation.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start at the beginning.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: What's going on and why did Fedorov leave?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: So Fedorov,
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: to take a step back,
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: was appointed as defense minister at the very beginning of this year.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: And he was previously minister of digital transformation.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: He was a young, very well-regarded minister among Ukraine's allies.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I met him A few years ago, his office was covered in drones.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_03: He had done a huge amount to scale up Ukraine's use of drone technology,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: but also reform the way in which these things were procured.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: For example,
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: creating incentives for different brigades to hit more Russian targets
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: that would get them more drones and more ammunition.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: So he was pretty well regarded in that respect.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: But he had clashed repeatedly with the army,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: and particularly with Sersky,
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: the commander-in-chief,
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: who was viewed as a kind of very Soviet-style, rigid, disciplinary in general.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: The Stan R. Mitchell Show.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: Fedorov tried to channel resources towards those units and brigades that were doing
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: the most interesting things with technology,
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_03: and he would find that Zersky had basically taken some of those units and put them
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: into assault regiments, which had So there's some background on the situation.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: Again, Fedorov is being asked to come back into the Ukrainian government and
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping that happens.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's been offered some various positions.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime,
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: probably to get him back,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: at least as of this recording,
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: the person he mainly clashed with has been fired, this
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: General Sriskie.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so here's a little bit about his replacement.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is from the defense editor with the economist Shashank Joshi.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: The other question is Sersky's successor, who is Mihailo Drapati.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: And he has been responsible for Ukrainian defenses in the northeast of the country.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that his appointment is going to go down well in the army.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: He is viewed...
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's a kind of new generation.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: And he had a public post last week and he said he believed
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: the Ukrainian armed forces needed new technology, needed to protect people.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that phrase will be seen as a kind of coded rebuke
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: to Sersky's I think all of that will be seen as an indication.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: He is much, much more in tune with the kinds of reforms that Fedorov was seeking.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's going to be encouraging.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: So there you go.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a little bit about the new general that will be in charge.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: So again,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: this all began as maybe a bit of a mistake,
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: but I think President Zelensky has navigated and listened to the people.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm hoping that Ukraine has a new commander that the public supports and
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: that they can get Fedorov back in there and that essentially the
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: The enormous recent progress that Ukraine has been making across both
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: the fighting along the front and many of these deep strategic strikes will continue
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: because Ukraine has definitely been on a roll.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to start talking about some of that positive news now.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: The first big thing is,
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: as you may have
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: seen, Ukraine has hit some major warehouses inside Russia.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it began back on Sunday,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: July 19th,
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: just a few days ago,
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: when Ukrainian drones hit two warehouses in Russia that are owned by
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: a company called Wildberries.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Wildberries is Russia's largest e-commerce company.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: They're kind of like Amazon.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they had these just enormous warehouses.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even really describe how big these things are.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can look in the notes if you wish,
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: episode notes, you can see just how big these fires are from these warehouses.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: But Ukraine hits them.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: The President of Ukraine,
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Volodymyr Zelensky,
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: said that the warehouses were being used to make drones that were being used
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: against Ukraine.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: So Ukraine hits them,
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: and they continue to hit some of the ships in the Sea of Azov,
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: as I mentioned last week.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: So these are big strikes that are really starting to hit the Russian economy.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: But interestingly, people...
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Normal people who have not kept up with the war at all are starting to see some
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: of this and they're like, man, it looks like Ukraine is starting to win.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I put in the notes just the link to someone that's just
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: an average social media account and she says,
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think Putin is losing this war and it went pretty viral, you know, like 22,000 likes.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was shared, you know, a thousand plus times, lots of people commenting.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I mentioned then that these strikes by Ukraine,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: this is something, I mean,
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've been saying for years that I thought Ukraine was winning,
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: but what Ukraine is doing is Is that they are hitting things that actually matter.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: That affect Russia's war capacity.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or its ability to fight.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or to create weapons.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: Or to store oil.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas Vladimir Putin just keeps bombing civilians in high density apartments.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he's terrorizing the citizens for sure.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: They had a huge ballistic and cruise missile attack recently.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: It lasted more than five hours.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the largest of the war.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they're getting hit with 300, 400 missiles per night.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: But Vladimir Putin's just striking civilians.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's foolish.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's obviously cruel in a war crime, but it's ineffective.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Ukraine is hitting things that actually matter.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Not only is that the moral thing to do and the right thing to do, it's actually effective.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: All of this,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: in fact,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: is becoming so effective that some of the harshest critics of the war
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: against Ukraine are starting to come around, if you will.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now, who or what am I referring to?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you asked.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, Laura Loomer, who is...
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: A far-right political activist.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: She is one of the, really, I mean,
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: she's almost like a whisperer into the presidency,
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: or she's got numerous
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: people fired if they were She's never been a fan
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: of supporting Ukraine.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's often said she didn't care what happened there,
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: that Ukraine was full of Nazis, and it's not our war.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, interestingly, she goes on a
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: trip to Ukraine this past week.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to read part of her post.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: The first one,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: this first one is from July 20th,
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: a couple of days ago on the night I'm recording this.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: She goes into, it's kind of long, so I'm just going to read a part or two of it.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: She says she's not going to delete her past post, even though she's realized she's wrong.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: She says, quote, I was living in a media echo chamber.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I was propagandized by Russian media on social media to believe those things.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I came to Ukraine to see the country for myself.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: I am going to try to find the evidence for the propaganda I've been fed.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if I don't find it, I will let everyone know so that they too can come to see the light.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: On day one, I've already seen photos of dead priests in Bukha murdered by Russia.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw the mass grave where the bodies of murdered Christians were placed
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: after Russia sent forces from Chechnya to massacre innocent people.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: I spoke with officials who rescued POWs and they showed me photos of Ukrainian POWs
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: who had swastikas engraved into their forehead by Russians.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Who are the Nazis?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was lied to for years.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then she goes on to say, I realize Ukraine...
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: And President Zelensky are not the jihadi apologists.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, Russia and Putin are.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was wrong.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I have a responsibility
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: to correct the record.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Russia is very good at information warfare.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: So she says that two days ago.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: that Went very
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: viral for a lot of reasons,
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: but I mean, she's literally completely changing her position.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: That got almost 2 million views.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I said at the time that to me, and there was a lot of criticism.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some people said, what's she up to?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or don't trust her.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let her into Ukraine.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or this is all a hoax and she's going to try to trash
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: the Ukrainians or hit them
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: with some hit pieces or whatever.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: But it seems sincere.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: She's made some posts since then.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I said at the time that to me this is better late than never.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I welcome people who want to support Ukraine.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Ukraine has fought and bled and sacrificed tremendously for the West.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly for Europe.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: To a large degree for the United States.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: They have been defenders of the West against Putin's aggression.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And they have not had near as much support as most people think they have.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: They've been standing mostly alone.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: So she says that a couple days ago.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: She then follows it up with another post.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: She said she just experienced,
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: or I'll just read it, she said just experienced my first air raid in Ukraine.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sirens blaring.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is every day for every Ukrainian.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like such a,
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: we'll just say butthole,
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: she uses a different word,
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: for minimizing the struggle of Ukrainians for the last five years.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: I often said I don't care.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Looking back, that wasn't very nice of me to say.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Which, by the way, is a point I made a few weeks ago.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, as a Christian...
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: You don't watch someone get beat up in the street while you're in the safety
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: of your home and do nothing.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: That is not what we do as Christians.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly what we don't do as Americans.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate her saying that actually.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: That, you know, that it wasn't nice.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: She says she feels like a jerk for minimizing the struggle.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: For saying she didn't care.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: For looking back, she says that wasn't very nice of me to say.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: She says,
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to keep reading,
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: There are people in Ukraine who have to run to a bomb shelter every day and some
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: of us had the audacity to say Russia wasn't wrong because we believed the lie
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: that Ukraine is a country full of Nazi sympathizers.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: We have been so propagandized by Russia and we don't even realize it.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Then she goes on to say a few other things, but
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting change.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now I've seen some critics say she realizes Ukraine is winning and she has to change her views.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen folks say maybe she's going to get a job with a defense contractor.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen various thoughts on why she may or may not be doing it, but again, I don't care.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: I welcome everyone to And with my podcast,
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: if I'm wrong about an issue,
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: I try to be, you know, I just try to be honest about it and say, hey, I was wrong.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't have said that or I didn't see it that way.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: There are some increasingly some issues that I'll probably talk about more in
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: the future that I realize in the past I was wrong about.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: But.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's like Christianity.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: I welcome late converts.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: So would it have been nice to not have a very powerful voice on
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: the far right destroying Ukraine online for the
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: past four plus years?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it would have been very nice,
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: especially since she was a Trump whisperer and probably helped stop some of the aid
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: that Ukraine desperately needed, especially the military aid.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I am so thankful that she was honest enough to be willing to travel there and
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: to admit she was wrong.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I say welcome, Laura Loomer.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for supporting the Ukrainian people.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: They have fought so valiantly,
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: so hard, and they have suffered enormously the past four plus years.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, so let's do just a little bit of politics before we get into the faith section.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: As you guys probably know,
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: last week,
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: the President had a big address to talk about what he claimed,
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: and these were unsubstantiated claims,
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: that the 2020 election was rigged against him,
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: even though he was President at
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: the time.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: But he does this huge presidential address,
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: and let's be very, very clear, it absolutely bombed.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Almost nothing, of course, Democrats attacked it.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to use it to press Congress to pass the Save America Act,
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: which is a bill that requires voters to provide proof of citizenship
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: when registering to vote.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: But the speech was very poorly done.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: And not only was it low energy,
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: some of the documents that they put on the White House website for people
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: to investigate of this fraud were Some of
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: the documents literally undermine their own statements,
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: so lots of media was covering that the next day.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Fox and Friends.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is the Fox News show.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Fox and Friends in the morning completely ignored the Trump election speech.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't even mention it once in a three-hour show.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's basically how bad the speech bombed.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it shows the president is losing the ability to control the narrative on things.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Fox News did not cover it the next day for three hours.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of folks were talking about it because, I mean, Fox News had this clip.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: I thought about playing the audio,
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: but it's just 16 seconds and it's not really worth
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: because I don't feel like doing the editing to play it.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put it in the episode notes so you can hear it yourself.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: They literally have a little audio clip.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: Fox News has not seen the evidence yet and is not in a position to evaluate
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: the accuracy of the president's statement and claims.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: And people are like, I wonder why they put that.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then everyone's reminding you,
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: reminding everyone that Fox News,
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Brett Baer read that statement,
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: by the way, that Fox News, but back to the point, Fox News had lost a lawsuit.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: For $787 million.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so they didn't want to go down this road again.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so most Republicans, the senators and House members, they don't want to live in the past.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: And as I've covered in previous episodes, they don't want to pass the SAVE Act.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was never going to pass.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: The president bungled an easy layup to just pass the Housing Act.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, he's held it hostage for the past few weeks.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: And this week, the final nail in the coffin came.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just like I told you guys,
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: there was almost no chance that the Save America Act would pass,
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: no matter how hard the president tried to ramrod it through.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: And this week,
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said she would vote against the Save America Act,
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: which is the final death knell.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: It will not pass, as I said weeks ago.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even like I'm that smart.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: Every political analyst was like, there's no chance this is passing.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: They want to address some of the reasons that folks are...
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: Opposed to it,
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: they wanted to push it through,
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: and they gave this big speech, and it completely bombed.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Two of the stations,
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: two of the big NBC, CBS, ABC, two of the three didn't even cover the speech.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because they felt confident it would be full of many falsehoods.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so the president couldn't even get all the networks to cover him.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then the very next day Fox News ignores it for three hours.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: And no one's even talking about it now.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: And on top of all that the Save America Act is done.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: A very rough week for the president.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, the trap of Iran is getting worse.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: It is going to be a very rough fall, meaning the next few months.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Not fall as in they're falling down, but a rough fall for Republicans.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Although maybe the double play on where it works,
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: which was accidental, but it will be a fall for many of them.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, all House members have to be up for election time.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: Even though there are fewer competitive seats,
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know, it could be 20, 30 or more of them lose their seats.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: The House is going to probably become Democratic.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Gas prices are going back up.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: The Iran war is no closer to being done.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the president,
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: the last Hail Mary attempt to try to pass the SAVE Act,
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: control the narrative to get people riled up, it failed.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw...
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: Joe Scarborough, the former Republican congressman, say it best.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: he said the president constantly and those on the far right blame the deep state
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: for everything.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is the Republicans control the Senate,
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: the House, the Supreme Court, and both the CIA and the FBI.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who is even moderate or anywhere near left has been run out.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: Those who remain are keeping their heads down or keeping their mouths shut.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: There is no deep state.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: The deep state is gone.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: The Republicans control everything.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: And for those who voted for Republicans,
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think most are a little disappointed in the lack of results that have happened.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're a little disappointed in where the country is right now.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: And yet still in the past week, there have been comments made about Cuba and Greenland.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: Potential military action and at least threats of in both of those.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if it's to rile up the base.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: I really don't know exactly what the point is.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we're digging a pretty deep...
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to say grave.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just go ahead and say we're digging a pretty deep grave for ourselves
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: in Iran right now that we have to fight our way out of.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: While we're still...
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: Making allies mad about Greenland.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I get Cuba.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's been like a Republican, I guess, target for a long time.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly one for Marco Rubio.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe it'd even be good for the island.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like you'd think you'd end one war before you got into another one.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: They may see things or know things that I don't know as far as how this may
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: or may not affect their political support.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: But certainly seems like the Trump administration is digging a just a deep political hole.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they have just a few months to turn all this around or the president's going
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: to have a lot of Democrats investigating him and saying,
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: Really controlling the narrative for the next two years.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: It is going to be miserable for him when the Democrats win the House and especially
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: if they win the Senate.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: Just one final footnote on the Senate.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: They obviously did a good job going after Graham Plattner,
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: but the Democrats have successfully managed to replace him with a new candidate.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: And as many political strategists said,
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: the Republican attacks against him were almost too early.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so they gave the Democrats a chance to replace him with someone
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: that has had no ammo fired against them.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: And they have a new face.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so the Republicans would have been better off to have left Plattner in place and
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: then really destroyed him after there was no chance to replace him.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: But instead, they put all their firepower on him.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: The Democrats have replaced him.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's another name there now.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: The guy's run statewide before.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, on the downside, his fundraising's behind.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, beating Susan Collins is always very challenging, but she is getting older.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: But the Democrats still have a chance in Maine.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: Race is very tight.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: The Republicans probably would have been better off waiting just a little longer
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: before putting all that heavy fire on Plattner and getting him to step out.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: But the Democrats have managed to get most of the candidates to step out.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: They've got a single person on the list,
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: and whether that's good or bad,
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: I know that Republicans are saying there's no real chance for the people to select,
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: but it is what it is,
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: and that'll have to be the argument that they partly try to make.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: I do have to say just one more small comment that this is probably going to come
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: across as mean.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: But if you've seen much video of Susan Collins lately,
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: and it's the same thing with the senator running in Tennessee or Senator Blackburn,
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: but I am just increasingly,
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care if it's left or right, and I can name a ton of Democrats too.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not trying to be mean or like ageist or any of those things,
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm sorry, there are people, like Susan Collins does not look good on video.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: She just doesn't.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we've got to quit putting so many old people in Congress and in the Senate.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: No one's even seen Mitch McConnell other than a photo.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: But we have so many senators.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: There was the one, I can't remember the Democrat's name that was in California for a while.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, there's just way too many old people.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know if I'm creating a rule.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm definitely, proudly not a part of either party.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I'm starting to increasingly lean towards some type of rule where
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: if you're above like 65 or 68, you should...
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe a very healthy early 70s.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're still jogging.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: Video evidence of you jogging.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: Super energetic.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know people in their 70s that are that way.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: There aren't many.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: But unless you're in that category, and this, like I said, it sounds mean.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm sorry.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't think you should be in the Senate or in Congress.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have way too many people that have been there for way too long.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they are too old.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that sounds terrible,
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: but I also think most people listening to me right now agree with that.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: I often think about, you know, I'm 48.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: When I started my little weekly newspaper and I was 27,
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: I ran that thing for nine years with a ton of,
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: so little sleep,
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: but just a ton of adrenaline and joy to some degree,
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: but energy and I don't have half as much energy at 48 as I did at 27.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not even close.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: 27 year old Stan would run marathons around 48 year old Stan and I still exercise like a madman.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: But there's just something about as you get older,
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: you're just, you do not have the juice you used to have.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: And your memory starts to slip a bit.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: My memory slips a bit.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: 21-year-old Sergeant Mitchell would have run circles around 27-year-old Stan,
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: the entrepreneur who was working insanely 16,
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: 18-hour days, like running on fumes all the time.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: I pulled several all-nighters.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: Many times we had so little staff, I had so little money with that little newspaper.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: There were multiple times where I did almost two to three day marathons of almost no sleep.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: Pure adrenaline because I knew the company could close at about any time.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have money, couldn't take out more loans.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was horrific and I was fighting my guts out.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I just know that 48 year old Stan could not do that.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: So...
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to be ageist or whatever the term is, but I'm sorry.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: Age matters.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, experience is good, but there are too many old people in Congress and in the Senate.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: And if we could maybe get some presidential candidates that weren't like
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: the last couple between President Biden and President Trump,
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: we've got folks who are too old to be running for an executive position.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: I know it sounds mean.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure I'm taking it back though.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: Before we wrap up, I want to take a minute to come back to something deeper.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: We spend a lot of time each week talking about the country,
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: where we are, where we're headed, what's at stake.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: But if that's all we look at, it'll just wear you down.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because a country is only as strong as its people.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: And people are only as steady as what they stand on.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is,
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: most of us don't think much about faith,
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: or even about what really matters, until life forces us to.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: When we get that phone call,
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: or that doctor's report,
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: or the job that you thought was secure is suddenly gone,
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: those are the moments that cut through the noise, that wake us up, that frighten us.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the part of the show where we step back,
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: open scripture, and remind ourselves what actually matters.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's not politics.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not personalities.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's something stronger than that.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's wisdom from God, carried across thousands of years.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest,
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't always believed it,
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: but my life has gone better when I've turned to it,
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: listened to it, and tried to follow its way.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't care,
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to share a little from it, and I hope you'll stick around and listen.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, here is the first one this week.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from Dr. Jonathan Heron.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: He shared a quote that I thought was just amazing and great, and I had to share it.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: He says, The people who have changed me the most are the people who never tried to change me.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: They just loved me.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, it's God's job to change people.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's our job to love them.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: Man, that is so good.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'll read it one more time.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: The people who have changed me the most are the people who never tried to change me.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: They just loved me.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, it's God's job to change people.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's our job to love them.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's just so good.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the second one comes from Henry Nowen.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he, unfortunately, is a theologian who's passed.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: But there are folks who share his quotes.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: He has tons of books out there.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: But this is from one of his books.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: The quote is, To pray...
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: Again, to pray is to enter into the infinite love of God.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that was such a good quote.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's from his book With Open Hands.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: But again, to pray is to enter into the infinite love of God.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think what it's referring to,
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't read that book,
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: I have read one or two of his books,
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: but I think what he's saying is that when we pray,
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: when we stop doing things with our own strength,
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: when we slow down, Slow down and make time for God.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: It is at that point that we enter into just almost like the embrace and
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: the incredible love of God.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: And there is that verse in Matthew 7,
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: verse 11,
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: where Jesus himself says,
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children,
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him?
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now again,
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: it's not that God will always answer our prayers,
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: and I don't think He's going to answer your prayer if you ask for a brand new car
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: or something that is not of His will.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think more often than not,
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: it's because we don't pray that we don't see bigger and better things happen to us,
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: from healing to just wisdom.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus Himself tells us to pray.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus Himself prays a lot, even the night before He's crucified.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we do ourselves a disservice when we are not praying.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the quote again is, "...to pray is to enter into the infinite love of God."
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, so we've read a couple of easy, soft ones.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of warmed everybody up.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of want to read one that is much tougher.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was reading the Bible this week.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, this came from the day I'm recording this on Wednesday.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was reading John, the Gospel of John.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was in chapter 3.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: And John the Baptist is the one who obviously came to prepare the way for Jesus,
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: to tell folks to
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: repent that the Messiah is coming.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: And in chapter 3,
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_01: John the Baptist,
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: his crowds are getting smaller,
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: fewer people are being baptized,
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: and his followers are saying to John,
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: like, you know, this isn't good, boss, like, what are we going to do?
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: And John is telling them that, hey, he must increase, I must decrease.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, beginning in verse 31, the following, He has come from above, he being Jesus.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: He has come from above and is greater than anyone else.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: We are of the earth and we speak of earthly things.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: But he has come from heaven and is greater than anyone else.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: He testifies about what he has seen and heard, but how few believe what he tells them.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who accepts his testimony can affirm that God is true.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: For he, he being Jesus again, for he is sent by God, obviously the Son of God.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: He speaks God's words.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: For God gives him the Spirit without limit.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously Jesus healed tons of people.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: It goes on to say, The Father loves His Son and has put everything into His hands.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now we get the soft verse right here, which is verse 36.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: And anyone who believes in God's Son has eternal life.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds great.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it was the next line that I've read the book of John a number of times in my life.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember this line.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: So again, the soft line is, And anyone who believes in God's Son has eternal life.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: The next sentence reads,
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who doesn't obey the Son will never experience eternal life,
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: but remains under God's angry judgment.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'll read it again.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who doesn't obey the Son will never experience eternal life,
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: but remains under God's judgment.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now that is from the New Living Translation.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: The NIV version says,
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: The ESV, English Standard Version, says, Again, I read the New Living Translation.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: I will read the King James Version for those who are big King James Version fans.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: It reads, Now the terrifying thing is...
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was reading that today,
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: and I was thinking of we all know so many people who,
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm speaking to mostly the Christians here,
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: who had that experience as a child,
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: that powerful experience where they had that moment where they said they believed
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: in God.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: I had that moment as a child.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: I obviously walked far away from the faith, studied lots of stuff, had some church hurt,
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: But that is a terrifying verse because the scripture says that,
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know, even the demons believe and they tremble.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can believe in Jesus and not follow his commands.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: And as the disciple John is writing,
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: anyone who doesn't obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: under God's angry judgment.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: I hear a lot of folks at my church and other pastors say, like,
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: root creates fruit,
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: which means that if you've had a genuine conversion, you will act differently.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: You will be more generous.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a works thing.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that you do this out of obligation or to prove anything, but you love Jesus.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: You love the Father.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_01: You love His Word.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: You want to tell people about Jesus.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I know people stray sometimes.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know we go through seasons.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I read that today.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a terrifying verse.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know there are folks that are listening who had an experience.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_01: We all know people who maybe made that decision decades ago or years ago.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't see anything.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe they had a genuine experience.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was an emotional experience.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's between them and God.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: But that is a terrifying verse that I read.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who doesn't obey the Son will never experience eternal life,
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_01: but remains under God's angry judgment.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was also reminded as I was reading through John today that Even the Pharisees,
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: those who didn't believe in Jesus, no one argued that he didn't do miracles.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: They argued that he did them because he was a demon or that he had dark powers.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: And their big frustration was that he'd do a miracle like on Sunday.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: Their big frustration was that he would say, I am the Son of God.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that was blasphemy as they saw it.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: And reading it again in just a fresh set of eyes,
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just reminded of just how angry they must have been
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_01: that this guy would say these things and heal people, and they couldn't heal.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so they had to say,
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: you're obviously a demon,
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_01: or you are of Satan, or I decided to just pull up that section of the Bible.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: And this comes from Matthew chapter 12.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: The little section is called Jesus and the Prince of Demons.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it starts in verse 22.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_01: He healed the man, he being Jesus, Jesus healed the man so that he could both speak and see.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_01: The crowd was amazed and asked, Could it be that Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah?
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_01: But when the Pharisees heard about the miracle, they said, No wonder he can cast out demons.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_01: He gets his power from Satan, the prince of demons.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus knew their thoughts and replied, This is verse 25.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: They cast out demons too, so they will condemn you for what you have said.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: But if I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God,
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_01: then the kingdom of God has arrived among you.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I just read that because they didn't even deny the miracles that they were seeing.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_01: They just slandered him and said,
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_01: you must be someone of Satan, that you get your power from Satan.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_01: But again,
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_01: the scary verse,
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: just something for, you know, if you're a Christian, just examine your heart.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you've been born into new life, there should be some fruit.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you're angry at God or you've just, life's gotten busy.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: That stuff happens.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: But that verse should terrify you.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_01: That John, the one Jesus loved, The only apostle who wasn't martyred.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he was also the one who was given the divine vision for the book of Revelation.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: That John, the apostle John, is the one who wrote that.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so these are serious words that I hope you will take to heart and
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_01: that I hope will move you a bit to take your journey a little bit more seriously.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't want to end on too dark of a note,
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: so let's end with a couple of lighter things from the book of Colossians 3, verse 2.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_01: Just a reminder.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_01: Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a reminder to the Christians out there listening.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_01: Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a quote from C.S.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis I wanted to read.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: No great wisdom can be reached without sacrifice.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_01: Again, no great wisdom can be reached without sacrifice.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_01: Just a reminder that we should, as Christians, be spending time in the Word of God.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that is where we find wisdom.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: It obviously begins with,
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_01: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom,
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: but the scriptures are just crammed with wisdom,
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: and we should almost thirst and yearn for them.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_01: One final one, just a quote, or just a bit of scripture from 2 Corinthians chapter 13.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is Paul's final greetings to the Corinthians in that book.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he writes, Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these words.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: Be joyful.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Grow to maturity.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Encourage each other.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Live in harmony and peace.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Then the God of love and peace will be with you.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Again, that's verse 11, 2 Corinthians chapter 13.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'll read it one more time.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Be joyful.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, are you joyful?
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_01: We should all be joyful.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Grow to maturity.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's obviously talking about spiritually.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_01: The only way to do that is through spiritual study, listening to sermons.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_01: So grow to spiritual maturity.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Grow to maturity.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Encourage each other.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: We should be encouraging each other.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely our fellow believers, but also those who are struggling or who are not believing.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_01: We should be reaching out to them, showing love, just like the first quote I mentioned earlier.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's God's job to change people.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's our job to love them.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Even Jesus says to love your enemies.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's no one you shouldn't love.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, encourage each other.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Live in harmony and peace.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think if that was written today, it would say, don't watch four hours of political news.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Live in harmony and peace.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Don't hate your neighbor.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So live in harmony and peace, and it ends with, then the God of love and peace will be with you.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a good one to end the section with.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I like to end the faith section each week by saying that if you're skeptical
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_00: or you're not sure if what I've shared is true or not,
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to encourage you to read the Bible for yourself.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not secondhand, not through headlines or arguments.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just open it and read.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've linked a Bible resource page in the episode notes that talk about translations
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_00: and a good place to start.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't want to click anything or take the time to read
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_00: that short explanation I provide,
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_00: just start with the book of Mark in the New Testament.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then read a little bit of Psalms or Proverbs each day.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let the text speak for itself.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's all a bunch of hooey or drivel,
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_00: then you'll know pretty quickly that I'm off my rocker.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's the Word of God...
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then I think God will speak to you through the text.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if you're unsure, you shouldn't be afraid to read something.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know I've read many texts about Buddhism,
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Islam, other faiths, Hinduism, and none of those texts spoke to me.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the Bible did speak to me.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so my challenge is,
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_00: open the book yourself,
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_00: read it as a skeptic,
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_00: and see If it's full of absolute truths and feels like the Word of God.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't own a Bible or don't have one handy, there are free apps on your phone.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_00: There are bazillions of websites that have the Bible on it.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you can read it from your phone.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_00: One final word.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a veteran and you're dealing with depression,
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_00: PTSD, or thoughts of suicide, please check out the link in the resource notes.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_00: We need you in this fight.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you cannot give up.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_00: After all, who is going to take care of your family someday?
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do you really want your military friends to feel guilty they didn't check on you more?
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's taboo to say that it's selfish, but it is selfish.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_00: There is a purpose for your life,
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_00: and you're just dealing with a lot of pain right now that feels overwhelming.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_00: It can get better,
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: and I believe it will start to get better if you listen to the resource link
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_00: that I have in the episode notes.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then start moving toward God, community, and your true purpose in life.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you're at the end of your rope,
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_00: you have nothing left to lose by listening to my voice a little longer
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: and trying something different.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Our country needs your strength, perseverance, and wisdom.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me this week.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to support the work, there's a link in the episode notes.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I always like to end each episode by saying that as you head into the coming days,
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_00: try to be just a little kinder, both online and also out in the world.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that most Americans are good people, even if they vote differently than you do.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Aim to be a little bit more disciplined this week than you were last week.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Mentally, physically, and spiritually, raise the bar just a little.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be perfect.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to aim to be a little better than you were last week.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you fall short, forgive yourself quickly.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Start again.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when the news discourages you,
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_00: and I believe it will,
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_00: because even on the best of weeks, the media is looking for bad news.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_00: But when the news discourages you, Don't give up on this country.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Try to remember that division weakens us.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Unity strengthens us.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is wisdom.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also biblical.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So guard what you feed your mind and your spirit.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_00: What you take in and absorb will shape what you become.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Don't ingest poison.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's mostly what cable news is.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a person of faith,
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_00: make sure you make some time this week to spend time in your Bible.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not, try reading the Bible this week for the first time.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or for the first time in a long time.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know what kind of results you're getting with what you've been doing.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_00: It might be time to try something new.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before we leave,
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I need to mention on the off chance that you don't know that I am an author
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_00: in addition to being a podcaster.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I write compelling stories that matter about courage, faith, and the fight for what's right.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've written a dozen books to date and They are military thrillers,
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_00: police detective mysteries, or whodunits, war literature, a western.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is even a motivational self-help book.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been fortunate to have sold more than 70,000 copies to date.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you if you're one of those who have purchased one of my books.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_00: All of my books are available for sale on Amazon,
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_00: but if you go there, the list can be a little overwhelming.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_00: So people say, what book do you recommend, Stan?
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would recommend one of my top-selling books called Little Man and the Dixon County War.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is a fast-moving western.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_00: It has tons of action.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it has one of the best unexpected endings that you will ever see.
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was blessed enough that at one point this book climbed as high as number 16 on
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_00: the Amazon UK paid list in the United Kingdom.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that was with no outside marketing, no book publisher pushing it, nothing.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was word of mouth and people talking about it on social media.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the book I recommend when people say, Stan, what book should I start with?
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I should also say before we end the show that if you believe what I'm doing
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_00: on this podcast matters in this moment for our country,
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_00: you can partner with the mission to help keep the show independent and steady.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that through either a monthly or one-time gift,
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_00: and there are several ways to support the show in the episode notes.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: No pressure to do so, just huge gratitude if you do.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Stay hopeful, stay humble, and keep working to be the light in your corner of the world.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to The Stan R. Mitchell Show.