Walker Wildmon: Religious freedom is about people of faith being able to
>> Walker Wildmon: We inform Religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions no.
>> Walker Wildmon: Matter where they are.
>> Jeff Chamblee: We quit.
>> Walker Wildmon: Sacred honor is the courage to speak.
>> Trey Dellinger: Truth, to live out your free speech. We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character.
>> Jeff Chamblee: This is at the core on American Family Radio.
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome to The Core here on American Family Radio.
>> Walker Wildmon: Walker Wildmon here with you.
>> Walker Wildmon: Glad to be here on the program.
>> Walker Wildmon: On this live edition of At the Core You're listening to American Family Radio, and there's a litany of opportunities to keep up with the program and subscribe to the podcast. You can listen live24.7 using the American Family Radio app and afr.net both of those have a live streaming option for the audio here on American Family Radio. If you want to keep up with the program and watch it live, you can go to Facebook at the Corps. On Facebook, you can also go to stream.afa.net stream.afa.net to watch the program live there each and every weekday. And lastly, you can subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, you can subscribe to the podcast whichever platform you use to podcast, whether it's Apple, Android, Amazon, Alexa, Spotify, all the various podcast platforms out there, we're on all of them. And you can click the subscribe button once you search, the show and the latest episode will be in your library each and every day.
Registration for AFA's Activate Summit 2025 ends on May 11
Let me remind you of a few events and then we'll jump into our news story, news stories of this segment. And then we've got guests in the second and the third segment. We have our Activate, summit coming up in June, the 12th through the 14th. Registration does end on May 11th. Now, we've already past the, discounted pricing, so you're gonna have to pay full price for the Activate Summit. But nonetheless, we still have registration open and the official cutoff, which I haven't really let you know until now, but the official cutoff is in about two weeks, on May 11, registration will end for the Activate Summit 2025, our first ever Activate Summit. Biblical bedrock is our theme, building on the authority of scripture. Once again, the dates are June 12th through the 14th. You can go over to activate afa.net activate.afa.net to check out more information on that. We've got a couple events coming up in the fall. In October is a weekend with afa that's in the early part of October. That's going to be here in Tupelo, Mississippi. And then at the end of October.
>> Walker Wildmon: Is AFA at the Ark.
>> Walker Wildmon: So the Ark Encounter Creation Museum. We're going to be back there in the Cincinnati, Ohio area for AFA at the Ark.
>> Walker Wildmon: Let's jump into some of the news.
>> Walker Wildmon: Stories I want to hit on before we, have guests in the next few segments.
The Department of Justice has launched an anti Christian task force
The Department of Justice, through an, order by President Trump, has launched an anti Christian task force, really looking to uncover and expose and stop the anti Christian bias that exists in the government, specifically in the federal government. So let's listen to the Attorney General Pam Bondi at the first inaugural meeting, the inaugural meeting last week of this anti Christian task force being headed up by the Attorney General and the Department of Justice. This is going to be clip 2.
>> Pam Bondi: We're excited to be here for the launch of the task force to eradicate anti Christian bias as outlined in the President's executive order. Joining me today are members of the task force and individuals who have been impacted by the anti Christian bias. Together, this task force will identify any unlawful anti Christian policies, practices or conduct across the government, seek input from the faith based organizations and state governments to end anti Christian bias, find and fix deficiencies in existing and regulatory practices that might contribute to the anti Christian bias. As President Trump has stated, the Biden administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians while ignoring violent anti Christian offenses. The President is right. Biden's Department of Justice abused and targeted Christians. Pro life Christians were arrested and imprisoned for peacefully praying outside abortion clinics. The FBI spied on traditional Catholics in their parishes. President Biden declared Easter Sunday to be transgender Day of Visibility no longer.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, there you have it.
>> Walker Wildmon: That's the Attorney General Pam Bondi. And some of you, you would.
>> Walker Wildmon: Really have to totally have your head.
>> Walker Wildmon: It's sad to think that this is not a problem talking about anti Christian bias.
>> Walker Wildmon: But for those of you out there.
>> Walker Wildmon: Who, just haven't been paying attention, this is a problem. This is a systemic, embedded problem within the federal government where there's been this culture, against Christianity. And you can see what happened under Biden where you had the FBI surveilling Catholic churches, you had, the FBI surveilling Christian parents at school board meetings. You had the, FBI and the Department of Justice targeting pro lifers that were peacefully protesting on the sidewalks outside of abortion clinics and just throwing the book. Everything, every single charge possible being thrown at Christians around the country under the Biden administration. I mean, it was it was open War on people of faith. And on a similar note, we saw a lot of the similarities with Jewish, people in our country with Jews in America on these college campuses. Jews didn't feel safe going to class, that they were, shouting Muslim, anti, Jew rhetoric, on college campuses. So a lot of this is coming to an end and this task force is going to help, stop a lot of this anti Christian bias that exists in the federal government. Now remember that this stuff doesn't happen overnight. We didn't get to this place where Christians were penalized in the federal government, overnight. This took a lot of time. Obama started this and Biden really saw it, a step farther with his, executive agencies and his executive branch having really a zero tolerance policy for people of faith. And so President Trump is putting that to an end through the Attorney General and we'll continue to update you on that and some of their findings.
>> Walker Wildmon: With that task force.
Tom Holman: President Trump has dramatically improved border security under his administration
>> Walker Wildmon: Another thing I wanted to mention, we're heading into the 100th day of President Trump's presidency and it feels like it's been about six months, but it's only been three months, not even three months. And the, a little over three months. And the hundredth day is actually tomorrow.
>> Walker Wildmon: And the White House is basically,
>> Walker Wildmon: Taking people through the first 100 days. And the amount of work that has been done is absolutely phenomenal. Specifically looking at the border numbers. Remember Biden opened, we talked about this last week. Biden opened our border to everybody and their mom and their brother and their third cousin and then their neighbor from every country, not just in Central and South America, Mexico, but all around the world. You had people just pouring into our border and the Department of Homeland Security through Customs and Border Patrol, they were.
>> Walker Wildmon: Really, being forced to.
>> Walker Wildmon: Poor agents. I feel bad for them, and I'm not denigrating the profession, but they were being forced to facilitate a mass human smuggling operation. That's what was happening here. And they were there. I was under the guise of processing illegal immigrants, but they were making it easy to enter our country illegally. And they were facilitating one of the most, one of the largest, if not the largest, human smuggling operations in world history. Ten million people smuggled into America in four years. And President Trump has just cut the spigot off. One of the shocking numbers that you're going to hear in this clip is President Biden. Remember Biden, through the Department of Homeland Security, through Customs and Border Patrol, they were releasing hundreds of thousands of illegal illegals into our country. So they were processing them, doing their fingerprints. These are the ones that they apprehended. There's hundreds of thousands that they didn't even apprehend. Then they were releasing them into the. To the homeland, into the interior.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, President Trump has cut off that policy.
>> Walker Wildmon: He's completely stopped it. And they're in 90, roughly 98, 100 days. There's only been nine releases into the interior. Nine releases into the interior. Under Biden, there were hundreds of thousands of releases into the interior. Let's listen to clip three. This is the White House on it.
>> Pam Bondi: Speaking of Joe Biden, it was his awful open border policies that recklessly allowed more than 10 million illegal aliens to invade the United States over the past four years. Innocent Americans like Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nongray, Rachel Morin, and so many others were viciously murdered, murdered at the hands of these illegal aliens as a result of Biden's dereliction of duty. That's why one of President Trump's central campaign promises was to secure the border and end this invasion in just under 100 days. 99 now, to be exact, the President has overwhelmingly delivered on that promise. America's borders are now secure because of President Trump. He has restored the rule of law, enforced our immigration laws, and defended America's sovereignty. The President immediately declared a national emergency on the southern border, deployed the U.S. military and border Patrol to repel the invasion, and ended reckless catch and release policies. The results have been nothing short of extraordinary. Between President Trump's inauguration in April 1st of this month, only nine illegal aliens were released into the United states, a staggering 99.99% decrease from the more than 184,000 illegal aliens who were released into the country under Biden during the same period last year. The number of unaccompanied illegal alien children arriving at the border has also hit a record low. Total attempted illegal crossings at the southwest border hit a record low in February, only to fall to another new record low again last month in March. Just listen to these incredible numbers. In March 2024, under Joe Biden, Border Patrol encountered approximately 140,000 illegal aliens at the Southwest border. One year later, in March 2025, under President Trump, Border Patrol encountered just over 7,000 illegal aliens at the Southwest Border. That's another 95% decrease from the prior year.
>> Walker Wildmon: There you have it. Those are just the sheer numbers, folks. And as I said before, and I'll say it again because it's worth repeating.
>> Walker Wildmon: This was 100% on Biden under his four years of, the disastrous open.
>> Walker Wildmon: Border policy that can only be described as an anti American policy. I mean when you look at it.
>> Walker Wildmon: There's nothing good about it.
>> Walker Wildmon: There's absolutely nothing good about it. And Tom Holman, who's the border czar.
>> Walker Wildmon: Listen to what he had to say.
>> Walker Wildmon: This is a quote. When 96% less people are coming across the border, how many women aren't being sexually assaulted by the cartels, how many children aren't dying making the journey, how many women and children aren't being sex trafficked into this country, how many known and suspected terrorists aren't making into this nation, and how many pounds of fentanyl isn't getting into this country to kill young Americans? Biden told us, he told us in front of the cameras on national television.
>> Walker Wildmon: That the border was a complicated problem.
>> Walker Wildmon: And he just had to get Congress involved. Without Congress, he can't do anything.
>> Walker Wildmon: He said, my hands are tight, he said.
>> Walker Wildmon: President Trump comes in and drops the catch and Release numbers by 99.99% from 184,000 people in a 90 day window last year caught and released at the southern border, 184,000 during the same three month window under Trump. Nine single digit nine were released into the country under President Trump.
>> Walker Wildmon: So this is staggering and infuriating.
>> Walker Wildmon: Infuriating. And here we have, you know, with some of these policies and some of.
>> Walker Wildmon: This political talk, it's hard to.
>> Walker Wildmon: Get good comparisons, it's hard to get apples to apples.
>> Walker Wildmon: But here we literally have within a.
>> Walker Wildmon: 12 month window, Biden, three months of Biden early 2024, three months of President Trump early 2025 and numbers to compare one against another and drastic improvement at.
>> Walker Wildmon: The southern border because the Customs and.
>> Walker Wildmon: Border Patrol and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, both of them able to actually do their job not having their hands tied behind their back. And that's what's happening under President Trump. So the American people, yes, they ought.
>> Walker Wildmon: To be relieved that the border is under control, but they all also ought to be infuriated that that was allowed to happen for four years.
>> Walker Wildmon: The damage that has been done is.
>> Walker Wildmon: Going to be very difficult to reverse.
>> Walker Wildmon: Some of it is actually irreversible when.
>> Walker Wildmon: You look at the lives lost,
>> Walker Wildmon: By the cartels and otherwise, very, very infuriating.
>> Walker Wildmon: And that's why the, the election in.
>> Walker Wildmon: Last November was such an overwhelming majority is because of the frustration with the last four years.
>> Walker Wildmon: We'll be back in a few.
Preborn Network provides free ultrasounds to women seeking abortions
>> Walker Wildmon: When a woman experiences an unplanned pregnancy, she often feels alone and afraid. So many times her first response is to seek out an abortion. But because of the generosity of listeners like you, that search may lead her to a Preborn Network clinic. Preborn offers God's love and compassion to hurting women and then provides a free ultrasound to introduce them to the life growing inside of them. This combination brings the ultimate miracle of life to life and doubles a baby's chance at life, which is why preborn saw over 67,000 babies rescued last year alone. Meet Maddie. Maddie was in a tough situation and she wasn't sure who the father was. But after receiving counseling, prayer, and a free ultrasound at a Preborn Network clinic, everything changed. Maddie discovered she had twins and found the strength she needed to choose life.
>> Maddie: After my first visit here, and I ended up finding out that I was pregnant with twins. And I was a little unsure in the beginning because I just had a very rough situation going on, not knowing, you know, just between two different fathers, I ended up deciding that I was going to have my twins because my, sister and her husband, you know, just prayed for me and pretty much told me that I can do this. I am strong. I was prayed for over these ladies here, and it was just overall an amazing experience that helped me decide that I was willing and I was able to go through this by the grace of God. I ended up having them when I was seven months.
>> Brad Raffensperger: Yeah.
>> Maddie: So this is Analia and this is Alicia. Analia means by the grace of God and Alicia means gift of God. I, you know, I'm super grateful that I came here because I would not have probably had them. And, yeah, I'm super grateful for this facility.
>> Walker Wildmon: Your tax deductible donation of $28 sponsors one ultrasound. How many babies can you save? Please donate your best gift today. Just dial £250 and say the keyword baby.
>> Walker Wildmon: That's £250, baby.
>> Walker Wildmon: Or, go to preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr.
>> Jeff Chamblee: At the core podcast are [email protected] now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.
American Family Radio welcomes Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to the program here on American Family Radio. Walker Wildmon here with you on the show. Well, here shortly we're going to jump to our, first guest for the program. today we're going to be talking to Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger about some of the, election law and election regulations in the state of Georgia and also some other topics as well. Let's, jump straight to our guest, Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger. Welcome to the program.
>> Brad Raffensperger: Glad to be here.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, let's, first, talk about, Georgia elections, because obviously as Secretary of state, that's under your purview with, the powers delegated by the legislature. But in recent years, specifically after the November 2020 election, the, state legislature really got in there and made some fixes, if you will, to how Georgia's elections are carried out. And of course, you've had a couple of different elections take place, both statewide and federal, since, the, legislature jumped in there and the governor and did some revisions to the election law. So tell us kind of where you are today and how confident you feel about Georgia's elections.
>> Brad Raffensperger: Thank you. Well, Georgia has a great story to tell. If you look at the last several years with the Election integrity Act of 2021, which was SB202. Well, first off, I have to do point out that, Stacey Abrams made up all sorts of stuff about what the law did, and it didn't do any of what she was alleging. We actually have had record registrations, record turnout. But number one is we had photo ID for all forms of voting. So if you vote absentee now in Georgia, it was based on photo id, the same forms of identification that we use for in person voting. We are real ID compliant state, and we partnered with the Department of Driver services for over 15 years now, because we are real ID compliant, we virtually have eliminated the possibility of having non citizens from ever voting in our state. In fact, I've done two citizenship audits since 2020, 2021, to verify that only American citizens are voting because only American citizens are on the voter list. Number two, we finally had put into law accountability for the counties because counties ran the election, but there was no direct accountability measure. No, one could fire them. No one under review.
So we finally gave the state election board that authority. So you can make sure that the counties were running a smooth, fair, accurate, election. And we've seen great improvement from some of the counties who had struggled in the past. We also put into state law that the lines had to be shorter than one hour. We think that voters show up to, up to vote. We, we should respect, their commitment and keep those lines shorter than one hour. And then we tracked it. We tracked it really beginning in 2022, the average wait time was three minutes. In 2024, average wait time was two, minutes. We've actually, now since then, we passed another measure in 2023 with state, Senate Bill 189, which said that all the early voting and we have 17 days of early voting in Georgia. All of that voting that happens before election day has to be reported one hour after the polls close. All the absentee voting has to be reported one hour after the polls close in Georgia. That's 80% of all the vote totals were started being uploaded on our site on election night. So it was very, very fast. And as Jonathan Turley said on election night on Fox News, Georgia and Florida run the best elections in the entire country. We've actually been ranked number one or number two by Heritage foundation for the past several years. It's either us or Tennessee who are number one. We trade jockey back and forth one and two. We're really proud of that, really proud of that achievement. because at the end of the day it's about voter trusting the process, also having a great time when they vote because you're not staying in lines for a long period of time. And right now, UGA did a poll after the last election and when their poll was done, they said that came out that 94% of all Georgians trusted our process, trusted their poll workers. And we think that's really very important when you have a polarized society.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. Once again, we're talking to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about a Georgia election law and Georgia election processes. one more question about elections and then I do want to go on to a recent statement, you put out regarding, some of the, Afghan Christians and the deportation plans or removal plans.
Georgia does not use what's called ranked choice voting
But before we move to that topic, the, subject of ranked choice voting. We've tried to cover this as often as we can on the program and it gets a little convoluted. It's definitely not easy to understand, which is red flag number one. but Alaska does this and a few other states, do what's called ranked choice voting. And it's this convoluted process of basically process of elimination through multiple stages, where you end up with, with a couple individuals on the final ballot to be chosen by the voters. but what's your position on that? Because a lot of Democrats want to go this direction and everywhere where, they've deployed it. It's very confusing for the voters. When you try to ask the voters, hey, what is ranked choice voting? Or how would you go about it? Very difficult to articulate. So what's your position on this, so called ranked choice voting?
>> Brad Raffensperger: I think that what we found is that there's really no appetite in the General assembly to move it forward. I understand that what people are thinking they'll get better outcomes. At the end of the day, Georgia has an open primary. And what we've really found is that we're getting great choices in the November races that, you know, we have people that, you know, there's a choice on the left, there's a choice on the right. And, it just so happens that almost most of the time statewide, it's the people on the right are winning because this state is a center right state. I just don't see it changing here in Georgia. I think that we'll continue to do what we're doing. It seems to work well for us.
You wrote a letter to Homeland Security regarding possible removal of Afghan Christians
>> Walker Wildmon: you put out a statement recently, a letter rather, to the, Department of Homeland Security, regarding some of the removal plans, or potential plans for removal for some Afghan Christians. what's your position on that and what's the, essence of the letter? Summarize it for us, please.
>> Brad Raffensperger: Well, briefly stated, these people are twofold. They're people, Afghanis, that stood alongside the US Military, risking their life to really, allow us to be able to get our message out, and really helped defend America's interest. After 9 11, we were looking for bin Laden, and these people came alongside of us at great risk to their lives. Then after Biden, you know, his hastily withdrawal, and I'm being charitable by saying that it was probably one of the biggest embarrassments of American history, but, it was so haphazardly done. But many of these people were left behind that, you know, exfiltrated afterwards. These people stood with the US Military. If we don't stand with them now, what happens if we ever had a situation, in some other country down the road, and the locals come alongside of us, and then as we're leaving, they feel that they need safe harbor someplace. We don't stand with these folks, we won't find people in the future that will stick their neck out to come alongside our military, provide a very valuable service to save American soldiers lives.
And number two, they're Christians. The Taliban is not friendly to Christians, let's call it like it is. And so these are Christians. I'm a Christian, you're a Christian. And I think that, we need to stand together. These, are people of faith, and I just think that they'd be facing torture, imprisonment, and potential death. and because the Taliban has not changed, they may say they've changed. At the end of the day, you know, the skunk doesn't change its stripe. And so they're going to come back to their form at some point in time once they somehow move through this situation. And so I just asked for a 90 day pause. Let's really do a deep dive on this. These are Christians and, they're also people that stood with our US Military. So on both cases alone, I think it would Warrant, a 90 day pause to really do a deep dive and review of this.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. And this is when you look at America's immigration laws and policies, M this is like exhibit A of how it should be used, meaning giving some type of temporary asylum or refugee status, to people who face genuine threats, based either on their religious beliefs or their ideology or political viewpoints. and unfortunately, we've had this kind of catch all approach to giving everybody asylum or at least assuming everybody qualifies for asylum, which goes back to this whole catch and release and President Biden's temporary, protected status, which I would argue is illegal. And the President can't just unilaterally, give everybody temporary protected status who's here illegally. but in this case, these are Afghan nationals that were brought over here.
>> Walker Wildmon: During the withdrawal or prior to the.
>> Walker Wildmon: Withdrawal or otherwise have made it over here. and they do face genuine threat, they face genuine threat over in Afghanistan because the Taliban is still in charge, unfortunately. And to your point, many of them, if not all, helped our, troops and helped our dignitaries and helped us, allies on the ground there in Afghanistan. So we'll keep track of this and see what, Christian, and the Department of Homeland Security have to say about it.
Brad Raffensperger is Georgia's Secretary of State
once again, we've been talking to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger out of Georgia. Secretary, before we wrap it up, I didn't even, tell, you I was going to ask you this.
>> Walker Wildmon: But what are some things that your.
>> Walker Wildmon: Office is working on? The Secretary of State does several things at the state level. but other than elections, what are some things that you guys are working on that you would like to see.
>> Walker Wildmon: Done differently or better in the state.
>> Walker Wildmon: Of Georgia before we let you go?
>> Brad Raffensperger: Well, we also register corporations. And I implemented a bill that I introduced when I was in the statehouse. we passed that my last year in the House became Secretary of State. You can now renew your corporation for up to three years. One, two or three years. And 25% of all Georgians are using the multi year options. So we're trying to be a pro business state. We always have been. And what can we do to really further the strong business climate that we have in Georgia. We, just got passed House Bill 579, which is licensing reform. We're trying to reduce barriers on hardworking Georgians that require a professional license, be it a hairdresser, a cosmetologist, barber, electrician, plumber, architect, geologist, whatever it is. And so we've got two things in there that are very important. Number one is that we can administratively issue a license when the board doesn't meet as often as it needs to. We just go ahead. You've done all the paperwork. We can issue that without requiring that board. Number two, the governor does put all these board members on the board, and if one goes rogue or one goes to sleep on the job and just doesn't do their job, he had no legislative, no legal process of removing them. We believed he should have the authority, and this bill gave him the authority, and we think that's a good thing. So it's more accountable to hardworking Georgians.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely.
>> Walker Wildmon: And we've got a lot of listeners, thousands of listeners in Georgia, multiple radio signals, there throughout the state. So those folks are listening now. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has been our guest today. Secretary of State, thanks so much for joining us.
>> Brad Raffensperger: My pleasure. Thank you. God bless.
>> Walker Wildmon: Thank you. Appreciate that. So, there you have it. That's the Georgia Secretary of State on a couple of different items. Election integrity, election, law, what his office is doing on that front. Also the, Afghan Christians that are in our country, under, a temporary status, temporary refugee or temporary asylum status, there. And what to do with that situation as the Trump administration begins to weigh out all of our options. And, on that note, let me just say this. There are so many people in our country illegally. There are so many people in our country illegally, at this point, looking at removing Afghan Christians should be towards the bottom of the list for the Trump administration. As far as list of priorities, we've got 10 million. Just in the last four years, we've let in 10 million illegal immigrants through.
>> Walker Wildmon: The southern border, and we haven't even.
>> Walker Wildmon: Put a dent in that through, through deportations and removals. And the reason is, is, number one, there's a capacity issue. But number two, you've got these court cases tying President Trump's hands behind his back, and we've got to get through that. We've got to get through this lawfare, and the Supreme Court's going to have to step in here and give the president his rightful authority, his rightful duty to deport illegal immigrants. Also, we also need to have the conversation and we need to have this conversation sooner rather than later. But there's this assumption in our talking points, there's this assumption as we discuss the issue of illegal immigration that, well, only those who have committed crimes while in America or committed violent crimes in America or committed ah, murder, for example, only those should be deported. Well, that's not a legal and constitutional argument. That might be an emotional argument, but that's not a legal and constitutional argument.
>> Walker Wildmon: If you come into this country illegally.
>> Walker Wildmon: You're eligible for deportation. You're eligible for deportation immediately according to the laws on the books. So I think we need to start having this conversation about what do we do with people that are here illegally. Maybe they haven't committed a felony since they've been here in the states, but nonetheless they're non citizens, they're not legal citizens here, and they went through the process by avoiding the process and crossing the border illegally. And they should be eligible and on the table for deportation as well. And I know that Tom Holman has stated such, and I'm glad he did, but the rest of the White House and the executive branch needs to make it clear that every illegal immigrant is eligible for deportation.
>> Walker Wildmon: You don't have to be a murderer.
>> Walker Wildmon: Or a drug trafficker to be eligible for deportation. Everyone is eligible for deportation. Another way that this is going to impact our future, as a country is this is more of a secondary issue and not, not the primary issue, but the economics of illegal immigration are, they don't, they're not justified. You know, a lot of the talking points you'll get from the Democrats, and this really shows their lack of knowledge and lack of depth on the issue, but they'll say, well, who's going to work these jobs? Who's going to work these blue collar jobs? Who's going to work on these, you know, these agricultural jobs, which number one is rather degrading, and dehumanizing, to draw a conclusion that the only jobs that you know, Latinos or other immigrants are good for is agricultural jobs. I mean if we were to say that about any, any other ethnic group, we would be called racist and demeaning and every other name in the book. But that's what the Democrats do. But we're America's headed into a very high tech manufacturing, period in our country where there's going to be more robots, more high tech and less actual workers needed to get the job done. Now don't get me wrong, there's plenty of labor need out there, but it's not going to be near what it was maybe during the Industrial Revolution. And so my point in saying that is, is the whole argument that we've got to have all these immigrants, whether legal or illegal, for jobs is just not going to be the case. That's just not going to be the case in the future because of how the economy is changing and how manufacture, manufacturing is changing. So that's going to be a problem too, that the administration is going to have to work through. And that is what you do with all these immigrants, both legal and illegal, that are here to work, that are beginning to not have jobs, because the economy is changing and the way we manufacture and the way we produce, crops, all of that is changing. And the laborer's needs just aren't there like they used to be. So we'll continue to keep an eye on that. Alright, folks, At the Core, we'll be back in just a few minutes. Stay tuned.
Preborn Network offers counseling, prayer and a free ultrasound to pregnant women
>> Walker Wildmon: When a woman experiences an unplanned pregnancy, she often feels alone and afraid. So many times her first response is to seek out an abortion. But because of the generosity of listeners like you, that search may lead her to a Preborn Network clinic. Preborn offers God's love and compassion to hurting women and then provides a free ultrasound to introduce them to the life growing inside of them. This combination brings the ultimate miracle of life to life and doubles a baby's chance at life, which is why preborn saw over 67,000 babies rescued last year alone. Meet Maddie. Maddie was in a tough situation and she wasn't sure who the father was. But after receiving counseling, prayer, and a free ultrasound at a Preborn Network clinic, everything changed. Maddie discovered she had twins and found the strength she needed to choose life.
>> Maddie: After my first visit here and I ended up finding out that I was pregnant. And I was a little unsure in the beginning because I just had a very rough situation going on, not knowing, you know, just between two different fathers. I ended up deciding that I was going to have my twins because my, sister and her husband, you know, just prayed for me and pretty much told me that I can do this. I am strong. I was prayed for over these ladies here and it was just overall an amazing experience that helped me decide that I was willing and I was able to go through this by the grace of God. I ended up having them when I was seven months.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Maddie: So this is Analia and this is Alicia. Analia means by the grace of God and Alicia means gift of God. I, you know, I'm super grateful that I came here because I would not have probably had them. M. And yeah, I'm super grateful for this facility.
>> Walker Wildmon: Your tax deductible donation of $28 sponsors one ultrasound. How many babies can you save? Please donate your best gift today. Just dial #250 and say the keyword baby. That's #250, baby. Or, go to preborn.com/afr that's preborn.com/afr
This is At the Core
>> Jeff Chamblee: On American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.
American Family Radio would love for you to subscribe to the podcast
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to the program. Third segment now underway here on American Family Radio. Once again, I'm Walker Wildmon. We would love for you to subscribe to the podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, just type in the name of the program at the core, click the subscribe button, and the show will be queued up in your library each and every day. Another thing I want to mention before we jump to our guest is the various spiritual heritage tours that we're offering coming up, this, fall and, into early next year. A few of them specifically. We have our, annual D.C. Washington, D.C. Williamsburg tours that are coming up. June's already full, but the next one will be in September. I'll be there. My brother Wesley will be there as well. Boston is a brand new trip that we're taking in October. We're going to do the Freedom Trail. We're going to go to Plymouth Rock. We're going to go to John Adams home in State Park. We're going to do the Mayflower Replica. There's a lot we're going to do there in, Boston rather, for about four or five days. And then lastly, I'll mention Greece and Israel. Greece would be footsteps of Paul. Israel is the Holy land, of course, the land of the Bible. We're going to do both of those in early 2026. So go to wildmangroup.com and, check those out.
Walker: Trey Dellinger is senior legal fellow at AFA Action
All right, I want to introduce our next guest, who's also my colleague Trey. Dellinger is with us. He's a senior legal fellow over at AFA Action, which is our governmental affairs affiliate. And Trey works with our team there on policy and legislation for, states and even at the federal level. Trey, welcome to the program.
>> Trey Dellinger: Hi, Walker. Great to be with you.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, Trey, one thing that you guys, well, there's a lot that you work on with, Jamison Taylor on the policy and legislative front, but a lot of folks don't know all the stuff that you guys do. I mean, you're mostly behind the scenes. Occasionally, you know, you'll write op eds or do media interviews. But I want to highlight, before we jump into kind of the nuts and bolts, I want to highlight the work that you guys do. It's just so excellent and praiseworthy and noteworthy, but not, everybody knows, what's going on. But we're doing a lot of work in legislative, in the legislative realm and the policy realm to protect and defend America's families.
About 19 states have passed age verification legislation for pornographic websites
And on that front, Trey, let's start off with our age verification legislation. This has been, actually passed in multiple states. It's currently being litigated right now. But give us a little background on what exactly is age verification legislation.
>> Trey Dellinger: Yeah, that was a wave of legislation, sort of refer to that as the first wave of anti, pornography, anti obscenity legislation that we've had in the 21st century, era, that goes back to federal legislation that passed in the late 90s, that required users that access, websites that contain pornographic content to verify that their users are adults. so the people under 18, kids are not accessing this kind of content. the first wave of that was federal legislation again that passed in the late 90s. The pornography industry challenged that before the Supreme Court, which unfortunately was struck down by a narrow 5 to 4 majority in the early 2000s, tragically, and an opinion that was not well reasoned and not well decided. And because of the more conservative makeup of the court that we have now, states decided that they would try again. And then in the last several years, we've had a wave of age verification legislation, that passed in the states beginning with Louisiana and then Mississippi, and Texas and ultimately about 19 states passed this, legislation requirements firing, ah, commercial websites that have pornographic content to verify the users are actually adults before they can access that kind of harmful content.
>> Walker Wildmon: States have had, laws on the books for some time now stating that you have to be an adult, you have to be 18 years or older to view pornography. And it used to be, where it was almost like this honor system. And that's actually not a good word for this subject. But it was somewhat of a, you know, it was a wild run west basically, where there was no accountability, where minors, had access to pornography. All they had to do was say they had to lie basically. And they're already doing something that they shouldn't be doing. So lying's not a problem. And they would say, yeah, sure, I'm 18. And then they would boom. They would have access to pornography just like that in a, in a split second. But these age verification bills that are now laws, as you mentioned, in over 19 states, what I like about them, not only the purpose behind them is noble, it's right, it's virtuous, but it actually has teeth to it. I mean these are actual verification, features that are causing some porn providers to just to shut down their IP addresses in various states. So talk about the enforcement mechanism if you will.
>> Trey Dellinger: Yeah, most of the, many of the, what I call that, first wave in the 21st century of age verification legislation, which kind of differentiates it from the federal legislation that came in the late 1990s. Most of that state based legislation for age verification, imposed civil penalties that could be instituted by the Attorney General. That's the approach that Texas took, or some states like Louisiana and Mississippi, created a civil cause of action so that private individuals could go retain an attorney and if they're harmed or had a child that's harmed by this material or exposed to this material, they can get a private attorney and sue the commercial website and get substantial money damages. it's a little bit like the approach that was taken with the, tobacco industry. You know, for years we tried to regulate that through the FDA and that never really worked. But private, lawyers are such a force multiplier that using them can really make a difference. So that's the model that Louisiana, Mississippi, and some other states have used is civil liability. We think that holds great promise for age verification and the obscenity legislation that we'll talk about, before we're done.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, on that note, before we move to the obscenity legislation which, for those who don't know, and this is, this is a topic that unless you're kind of in the field of protecting minors and protecting families and in the field of studying this pornography epidemic that we have, a lot of people don't know this terminology, but obscenity, and pornography are not necessarily the same thing from a legal vantage point. And the law actually, differentiates between the two.
False notion that First Amendment protects pornography has permeated for decades
But before we move on to that, Trey, I wanted you to speak to this false notion and this false legal theory that has permeated for decades that for some reason that the First Amendment protects pornography, the First Amendment protects obscenity, etc. Talk about how that's not how our founding fathers view this issue.
>> Trey Dellinger: Sure. Well, you know, the, the Founding Fathers certainly would be shocked at the notion that sexually graphic content was protected by the First Amendment. That certainly was not the original understanding of the text of the First Amendment. sexually graphic, publications were not legal under English common law. That goes all the way back to the 1600s and 1700s which kind of laid the foundation, that of, of law and legal understanding that the founders operated in. That was the atmosphere that they operated in was set by the English common law. And so you can tell this from the contemporaneous activities that happened at the time. Connecticut passed an anti sexual publication law that outlawed obscene speech in 1808, less than 10 years, approximately 10 after the ratification of the first amendment. So you know, that makes clear that. And it was never challenged, that makes clear that the First Amendment was never intended to address that kind of material. And other states quickly followed. And by the time of the Civil War period, over 20 states had passed state based legislation that outlawed these sort of sexually graphic publications. And then you had the federal Comstock legislation in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War that made this, this type of content illegal under federal law. And all the way up through at least the 1940s Supreme Court decision in the Shaplinsky case. The Supreme Court recognized that the lewd and obscene had never been considered protected, speech. The Court said that that kind of content, contributed nothing to the contest of ideas, which is what the First Amendment was intended to protect. The First Amendment was intended to protect rational argument, an appeal to the mind, not an appeal to the urges of the body, which is what pornography is. They, the Founders would be shocked, absolutely shocked that people are now trying to misuse and misconstrue the First Amendment to protect this kind of material. Now you know, for clarification, I should add, as you noted, unfortunately later decisions of the Supreme Court began to protect what they call pornography. but they said that obscenity, which is a particular legal definition, is not protected by the First Amendment. And kind of a layperson's idea of understanding that is the really, really hardcore pornography qualifies as obscenity and does not get First Amendment protection. The Supreme Court established that in the early 1970s and that has been in place for more than 50 years, that obscenity and child pornography are not protected speech.
>> Walker Wildmon: On the obscenity topic, you, and by the way, the history of AFA working on this topic goes back to my grandfather in the late 70s, early 80s, he was A leader in this movement against pornography and against obscene material at that time on cable television and in magazines and on bookshelves. But, before we wrap up, we've got about three or four minutes left.
Trey Walker helped shepherd legislation through the Mississippi legislature on obscenity
Trey, tell us, the latest legislation that you and, and Jamison and others helped shepherd through the Mississippi legislature that the governor signed just last week on obscenity and the civil right of action. Give us an update on that.
>> Trey Dellinger: Right. We've been very blessed with good results there in Mississippi this last session. I want to thank Representative Price Wallace for, authoring and, taking the lead on passing House Bill 599 in Mississippi that creates a civil cause of action so people who are harmed by child pornography or obscenity can sue these big porn companies and get damages. And, we want to say that that message is we don't want this stuff in Mississippi. And we think we're making headway there. Representative, Joey Hood and Senator Bryce Wiggins, who are the chairman of the two respective committees in the Mississippi House that shepherded that. I want to give thanks to them. And Lieutenant Governor Hosemann and Speaker White. They really did yeoman's work to push that legislation through. You would think that this would be common sense and easy, but anybody that's worked in legislation knows there's no easy, no easy legislation that you can pass. And we want to thank them for their leadership there.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, and these, these big porn providers and, and. And these really host of, obscene material. They, have massive lobbying dollars and they even hide behind, this, the facade of free speech, if you will. And in Texas, for example, the party that is suing the attorney general there over this, over their age verification legislation, is called the Free Speech Coalition. Well, that sounds good, right? Free Speech Coalition. But if you ask people, do you think free speech includes obscene and pornographic material, they would go, probably not, or they would object to that term.
>> Trey Dellinger: Free Speech Coalition is just a euphemism for the pornography industry. That's all it is.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And they're hiding behind that name. But, Trey, this is, you know, there's a lot of momentum here, and people have been victimized, not just children, which is our primary purpose in some of this legislation is to first to begin protect minors, but then of course work our way up and protect adults as well. Because across the board, the data, not just morally speaking, is it reprehensible, it's wrong, it's immoral. But the data is on the side of us as well. I mean, the damage that pornography does to the mind and the body and the heart and the soul, is very, very bad. And you can look at divorce rates for people who get, hooked on pornography. You can look at all the trauma that people go through, women that are victimized. I mean, the list goes on. Trey, absolutely appreciate your work on this topic and, thanks for coming on and talking with us.
>> Trey Dellinger: Thanks for having me today, Walker.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely.
>> Trey Dellinger: Always good to talk to you.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely.
Trey Dellinger: The pornography epidemic is the ignored epidemic
Thanks, Trey. That's Trey Dellinger, our senior legal, fellow over at AFA Action. And for those who don't know, AFA Action is the governmental affairs affiliate of American Family Association. We're working day in and day out over at AFA Action in, the policy realm and the legislative realm, in states all around the country on these very, very important topics. And we've made a lot of headway on this topic of pornography and obscene material. And this is the ignored epidemic. I'll tell you, this is the epidemic that is ignored. And, the big government, bureaucrats want to talk about all these other problems like so called climate change. And, they want to talk about, all the other parts of our life and aspects of our life that they should regulate. But, they're completely ignoring, I'm talking at the federal level. They're completely ignoring the elephant in the room. And the elephant in the room is a pornography epidemic. And when you look at the data on this, and this is not just coming from Christians folks, or people of faith, this is coming from the social science realm. The epidemic of pornography is just tearing this country, apart. It's tearing this country apart. You look at the addiction, data, you look at the marriage, issues that arise from this, you look at even the sociological and psychological, damage that is done through pornography, folks, it is bad, bad news. And you know, the left and the Marxists like to use this word, victimless crime or victimless activity are, you know, a lot of the libertarians want to say, you know what, what other adults do in their, in the privacy of their home shouldn't affect you folks. how we conduct ourselves and what we put into our mind does, affect us. And it affects all of society. And pornography is no exception. Thanks so much for joining us, folks. Thanks for joining at the core here.
>> Walker Wildmon: On American Family Radio.
>> Walker Wildmon: We'll see you next time.
>> Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
