>> Donald Trump got more than 80% of the evangelical vote, and he's probably gonna do fine with
them come 2020, but he just lost at least one evangelical and that is the person who
wrote in Christianity today an article about why Donald Trump should be removed from office
wanna read some of that for you.
And bear in mind this is the magazine that's been around for some time.
Wrote about and supported the impeachment of both Nixon and Clinton before them and
they talked about that in this article, but then go on to say whether Mr. Trump should
be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election that is a matter
of prudential judgment that he should be removed.
We believe it's not a matter of partisan loyalties, but loyalty to the creator of the ten 10 commandments.
>> Wow.
>> And so through the course of the article, the writer Mark Galley goes through some of
the evidence in the Ukraine scale, but mostly focuses on his moral deficiencies.
Was leading up to the scandal, but in particular what this scandal represents?
And one little brief overview I will give you.
I am gonna give you a few articles.
It's a few paragraphs at some point, but they say this President has dumbed down the idea
of morality and his administration.
He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals he himself
as admitted to immoral actions in business and its relationship with women about which
he remains proud.
His Twitter feed alone with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders
is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.
I just want to briefly say it is amazing how many of his associates and aids and employees
are in jail or serve their times like Shawn Hannity spends his entire career trying to
craft the idea that people like Barrack Obama have as much sheer criminality around them.
The fact that if he's a republican that makes them not care, but no president that I can
think of had this many just admitted criminals, convicted criminals on a constant basis.
>> Yeah, well, I mean, look, two things about that and then we'll get back to the this article.
One is that Donald Trump has all these now convicted criminals around him, but his former
lawyer is in prison right now for a crime they committed together and said Trump should
also be impeached for.
But what did they have on Obama?
He's from Chicago.
That's all they had.
That he was from the city of Chicago.
Do you remember how many times he would say that?
This is the kind of Chicago mentality that Obama has, doing what?
>> Yeah.
>> Right?
>> And really, fast, a bit of a disclaimer, we fully understand that both Trump and Obama
have done tons of stuff that should be appalling and illegal, perhaps war crimes as well.
We're talking about things that we have any chance of getting people like on cable news,
people in congress to actually admit as a crime.
There's some stuff that we all accept is criminal behavior, but they're never going to.
>> Yeah, the Democratic, this also shows Democratic parties and conference.
Unfortunately for the 100th time in a row or the millionth time in a row, Donald Trump
with all this should be at a 12% popularity rating.
I mean, can you imagine if Obama or Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton half of her cabinet was
in prison or convicted criminals and had broken five different laws, and had lied 13,000 times
and it was proven by the Washington Post my he would have been absolutely obliterated
run out of office tarred and feathered at a 9% approval rating, but the democrats are
so incompetent that Donald Trump is sitting at like a 43% approval rating.
That's outrageous.
It's outrageously high.
Even though it's very low for president it's outrageously high given what kind of a criminal
he is and so that it goes back to this editorial finally going, hey, listen, man, I know you
want me to say that the emperor has no clothes on, but he doesn't.
I'm just gonna say he's a deeply immoral man.
Thank you finally someone said it.
>> I mean, definitely what we have here is a factory or a house full of criminals.
And what we see occurring here in relation to the story has a lot to do with really what
religion and Christianity itself specifically mean in this country.
I think that's a really interesting point right?
What Christianity means in different countries, in different cultures can be completely different
things.
Christianity can be used as an anticolonial movement, or a liberation theology movement.
>> Mm-hm.
>> But here in this country for some reason because of certain interpretations of religious
freedom and definitely the pro life side of things.
It has had a stranglehold as an evangelical sort of voting block or identity.
>> Yeah.
>> I wonder what this editorial board this is not just the author but this is the an
editorial board of a well known, you know, not necessarily right wing but you know, well
known evangelical magazine.
Whether that means this support is fraying because on every measurement of Christianity,
I'm not actually a Christian myself, but in every measurement of Christianity, Trump is
essentially the opposite of that.
>> Yeah,far more so than in traditional sense is that Obama was who was attacked as a secret
Muslim.
So it's weird how that works out.
More of the article goes into what why Christians should be especially evangelical Christians
should be worried about the long term damage that can be done to public perceptions of
evangelical Christianity.
If they don't speak out against Donald Trump.
I'm going to skip one graphic but I want to read one more for you.
It really goes into, yes, there are short term wins for evangelicals.
There are, Trump is incredibly deferential to them in terms of their social goals, judges
that will support them and things like that.
But you should be able to differentiate between government goals that you want and your attachment
to your faith.
The writer says no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing
with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical and incompetence, and just what do
you think it's time to push all of our chips to the center of the table.
That's when the whole game will come crashing down.
It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world's understanding
of the gospel.
And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our
concern.
I would add to the atheist there's also a lot of current problem
>> Without Donald Trump that you should deal with but yes, I can understand that concern.
>> Yeah, I mean I have been thinking a lot about this especially since I have been joining
you all and I think a lot of what Trump does is he has this sort of two-tier strategy right?
All the policies support, elites billionaire corporate interests, right?
But a lot of the other kind of rhetorical approaches and at times policy approaches,
especially with judges, pro life judges, support culture, war interest, right so a lot of the
populace, the mass block of voters tend to be quite poor, right and tend to kind of adhere
to this sort of warped, I would say interpretation of the evangelical Christianity.
So it's part of this overall strategy and I am just hopeful that we see the framing
of this with examples like this that are actually applying a Christian ideal litmus test.
To someone whose actions represent the absolute anti Christian approach
>> Yeah but you know so that that religion and state unfortunately have totally merged
it within the Republican Party.
And it's the same exact message think about it.
A lot of evangelical leaders now are pushing prosperity gospel.
What is prosperity gospel?
The poor give to the rich.
>> That's true.
>> Like literally, the pastors are incredibly wealthy.
They demand two, three different private jets from their flock.
And the folks are middle class and poor, give money to the incredibly wealthy pastors and
they said that's okay is God wants the pastor to be rich he wants them to be insanely rich.
Which is the exact opposite of what the Bible says.
It's not even close.
>> It's not.
>> Right, and then they said, don't worry, then you'll get it in heaven.
Or if you give me a buck now, you get ten bucks later.
It's just a total scam.
And what is the Republican party?
Tricking poor people into giving to the rich, redistribution of wealth to the top.
The tax cuts that Trump passed, $2 trillion in tax cuts, 83% of them go to the top 1%.
Most of us voters are poor.
He does the best with people who do not have a college education.
That's his number one demographic.
So the folks who have the least amount of money enabled Donald Trump to give all the
money to the rich.
It's the same exact thing is the prosperity gospel.
>> Yeah, it makes me think about whether we can think about the evangelical population
in this country, not in a vacuum as an inherently right wing republican constituency right?
Could there be a way to counter mobilize that population?
>> Of course.
>> According to the actual principles?
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, maybe not the Bible, but just in some political calculus.
>> I would argue it's different.
It's difficult though because hypothetically within Evangelical Christianity, there's any
number of different issues that they could mobilize on, vote on.
Some of them might lean more conservative, some might lean more progressive, but they've
been taught that there is one, maybe two, we have issues with gay people too, but it's
mostly abortion and that's it.
That's the only thing you should think about.
Forget all of those other values.
Forget 99% of what Jesus said, even about abortion in the Bible, not Jesus, but the
Bible is very clear that.
So don't think about any of that.
Just abortion.
Until you break that I don't see how you get a significant portion of them to cross over.
But we do have a reaction to that Christianity Today article coming from Donald Trump who
says a far left magazine or very progressive as some would call it, which has been doing
poorly and hasn't been, he checked their distribution.
He checked before he wrote that he checked to see if it was down.
So they're doing worse, he checked, because he cares.
Which has been doing poorly, and hasn't been involved with the Billy Graham family for
many years.
Christianity Today knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call
and would rather have a radical left nonbeliever who wants to take your religion and your guns.
Then Donald Trump is your president.
No president has done more for the Evangelical community and it's not even close.
You'll not get anything from those Demos on stage.
I won't be reading ET again.
>> Entertainment Tonight.
>> I guess.
>> That's the best case scenario.
>> Talking about Entertainment Tonight.
>> There's just a typo.
Like it just doesn't care.
>> Yeah.
>> It amazing.
Okay, and never fixes it.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
So, are they far left?
Of course not.
Okay, they are very anti choice proudly the choice, the same editorial board supported
not just Nixon's, but Clinton's impeachment saying it was be he was immoral.
They said we use almost the same exact standard for Clinton as we did for Trump.
And if you are principled of course you would come to the same conclusion and they said
we love what Trump is doing on what they would call the pro life issue on abortion, we love
what he's doing in terms of what they call religious freedom right.
But he's like it the marchelli explain.
When you take all of his deep immorality, it tips the scales in favor of no, it can't
justify what he's doing in terms of his policy, so they're not remotely far left.
All that is of course lies he didn't check whether the subscriptions are going up or
down.
But the aim in his mind if someone is getting bad ratings, that means they are bad person.
>> Yep.
>> Because he is a clown and that's in he performs in a circus, so he thinks that circus
is everything.
>> Yep.
>> It's notable though, that this magazine has decided to elevate other issues that Trump
represents the absolute abomination of in terms of morality, integrity toward women,
service toward people and poor people.
It's decided to elevate those things over the pro life category.
So I mean, this is, you know me, I'm pretty, I'm a hopeful person.
So I'm sort of seeing this as maybe like a A blueprint for a new ledger of mobilizing
people against someone who's the most anti-christian.
>> We see that isn't that interesting that it if you elevate women and other human beings
to the same level as anyone else, that's it, not above them but at the same level so that
everybody's equal.
Donald Trump and his followers find that so offensive that they say that's a far left
position that women would have the same rights as men is so far left that these guys are
even though they're anti choice, etc are hopeless.
>> Yeah.
>> I know, it's a small point, but I think it's weird how when he's trying to communicate
because remember, he's a Christian, the Christian we tried to communicate with Christians, he
said they're gonna take your religion and your guns.
It's just the weird mixing up of old school right wingers and evangelicals.
What about like your guns being taken away is supposed to be incredibly scary at the
people who believes the Jesus said if you're stuck to tyranny of cheek.
It's like turn the other cheek and pull out your AR and blast away.
And yet, you just all mix it together, because the direct pronouncements of Jesus are supposed
to be ignored.
You're supposed to care about abortion, and that's about it.
>> Yeah, it's a great example of what I was trying to say earlier that what religion means
through the matrix of place and culture and history can be more different than similar.
>> Yeah.
>> Right?
>> A 100%.
>> And we see that here.
>> Well, this is, I hate to do it again but it's another issue of the Democrats in the
media falling asleep at the wheel.
If we had an effective democratic party that had courage, they would challenge these things
that are ridiculous and absurd.
But it's religion, so no, no, no, no, no, runaway runaway, we don't want to talk about
religion or that'll help to the right wing, no you won't if you actually said the things
that Jesus said it wouldn't help the Republicans, it would deeply hurt the Republicans because
they're against what Jesus said.
But they have no courage and the media simply Amato no, no it's gonna affect religious people,
I'm gonna lose readers, I'm gonna lose ratings.
I don't want to get have Donald Trump say I'm poor ratings.
So, I'm not gonna touch it at all, and we're gonna have black and white discussions of
religion that have no nuance, no intellectual context, no background.
Just, they're the worst.
So they just sit there and go, okay, if they say the only thing that's in the Bible is
that Jesus hated abortion.
Again, the Bible's actually they're like, it doesn't matter that it's not true.
I'm just not gonna touch it, what do you think I am?
Journalist?
>> I think we, because he had tweeted these two things early in the morning, and then
he returned to the topic.
I think we have one more tweet, if we can bring that up.
I guess the magazine, Christianity Today is looking for Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders,
or those of the socialist and communist bent to guard their religion.
How about sleepy Joe the fact is no president has ever done what I've done for evangelicals
or religion itself.
>> Come on man.
I mean, how is that not blasphemy?
>> And obviously offensive in lots of ways right that kind of common thing that we're
going to see moving forward with the way progressives are labeled as called communists though a
socialist is actually someone who supports public education.
The post office, social security, you guys have covered this better than anyone.
But I think it's also the point that religion, at least, I, you know, I'm a Bernie Sanders
surrogate so full disclosure.
But at the end of the debate, in his last words, Sanders said yesterday I want this
to be about love.
And I was like dang, that's what religion actually in its ideal form should be about.
>> Yeah, they've turned it on its head.
It's they proved George Orwell right a thousand times in a thousand different ways.
>> Exactly.
>> He literally said give away all of your possessions.
All of your possessions.
Your thereby redistribution of wealth and give it to the poor and the needy.
Who is that message of the republican party there are a bunch of unbelievable liars and
the idiot Democrats and the incompetent media in this country have totally let them get
away with it.