Preborn performs ultrasounds to help pro-life mothers decide on life
>> Walker Wildmon: We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection and the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without your help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com afr. We inform Religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions no matter where they are. We quit.
>> Rick Green: Sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.
>> Don Wildmon: We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character.
>> Walker Wildmon: This is at the Core on American Family Radio.
American Family Radio podcast features Walker Wildman and Rick Green
Welcome to the corps here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on this edition of at the Core. Walker Wildmon here with you. The show is hosted each week by myself and Rick Greene, America's Constitution coach. And, for today's episode, you have myself, Walker Wildmon. Good to be with you here on American Family Radio. As a reminder, you can subscribe to the show to the podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, just type in the name of the program at the Core in your podcast library, click the subscribe or the follow button and the latest episode will be queued up in your library, ready to go each and every, day.
Acts chapter one describes Jesus' ascension into heaven
jumping into the scripture, Acts chapter one is where we are this week. Acts one, nine, ten. Now, when he had spoken these things while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel. And then reading on a verse 11 here, who also said, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus who is taken up to you, from you into heaven will also come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven. So that's Acts chapter one, verses nine through eleven here where we get this description of the ascension of Jesus. Also, we have the foretelling by the, angels here. It says in white apparel that tell us how Jesus will return. It says in the same manner he will return to, earth. And so that's how, that's how we get the theology and the belief that, Jesus will come and, return to earth in the same manner in which he departed and ascended into heaven. Acts chapter 1, verses 9 through 11.
The US and Israel are no longer bombing Iran, at least for now
Well, the Iran conflict has, at least temporarily eased, since the announced two week ceasefire and then the following negotiations that took place last weekend in Islamabad, Pakistan, that obviously didn't produce, lasting results, at least any kind of quote unquote deal. But nonetheless, the missiles have stopped. The US and Israel, for the time being, are no longer bombing Iran. And so the kinetic warfare has ceased, at least for the time being. Once again, this is an ever changing environment. We could come back on the air next week and we're back in a heated conflict. Kinetic war with Iran. You just don't know. Only the President, knows what the plans are, at least for the short term. But nonetheless, as of right now, the United States is in a pretty strong position. There's been times throughout this conflict over the last four to five weeks where I've doubted whether there's a long term plan here. And right now the President's decision making in recent days and weeks has been very good, in my opinion. Once again, this is just commentary. This is my opinion. Some people out there probably disagree and think, you know, we, we should be still bombing Iran or we should have never done this to begin with. But let me just tell you why I think we're in a strong place. All right? This is. The kinetic warfare has at least temporarily stopped, which, gives the ability for both parties to cease the continued escalations. All right? The fact that Iran is not firing missiles and drones anymore is a very big deal. Very big deal. Simultaneously, the President showed he's willing to negotiate, he's willing to peacefully reach a deal with Iran. That's why he sent the Vice President to Pakistan. But they said no go, they said no thanks, they want nukes. All right? So they further showed the entire world that they are bent on nuclear weapons, which most people don't think that's a good idea. the second thing that was an absolutely brilliant move was this blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, by the way, both. this naval blockade is an absolutely brilliant move. And here's why it's brilliant. Number one, it's non kinetic. All right? At least it's mostly non kinetic. Now, you could get into a kinetic fight militarily, over the blockade, but at least initially, primarily it is a non kinetic means of exerting influence. So right now, President Trump, through the US military is turning away every vessel that attempts to shore in Iran and depart Iran. There is no commercial or otherwise traffic from the sea going in or out. Of Iran. We're talking between 4 and $500 million per per day in commerce, in economic activity that has gone over the last 48 hours to effectively 0,500 million to 0 in 48 hours. Meanwhile, the strait itself is being reopened as we speak. We're going from dozens to now hundreds of tankers and other cargo containers passing through the Strait of Hormuz. So international trade, international shipping is currently reopening in the Strait. Meanwhile, the President, through the US Military, has completely closed down all Iranian ports to and fro. And once again, no bombs involved, no airplanes involved, no boots on the ground involved. Absolutely brilliant move. No Tomahawk missiles being launched, etc. Meanwhile, Iran's not firing a shot. And so the estimates are that Iran can go roughly 10 to 14 days on holding oil exports before their wells start running into serious problems. All of their infrastructure in 10 to 14 days is going to start having serious issues if they can't get that oil out of Iran. And oil makes up probably two thirds of that economic activity I just mentioned, because just Carg island alone, you're looking at $300 million a day out of the 500 million total. So, this is no doubt going to drain Iran dry economically. And this is a country that is already struggling. They have already been struggling in the years leading up to this. And so I think it has the potential to really probably either bring Iran back to the negotiating table, or at a minimum, it has the potential to drain their military dry of funds. Because once again, Iran is a terrorist state. They use all of this economic, activity to prop up the military, to prop up the missile program, prop up the nuclear program. And meanwhile, President Trump says, look, hey, we're locked and loaded. We can go back to Connecticut if we need to. but right now we're not allowing ships in or out of Iranian ports. Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Getting the strait back open to international traffic is a very, very big deal. Meanwhile, I can tell you who hasn't been very helpful here, and that is NATO. NATO has been an unmitigated disaster on multiple fronts, specifically within this conflict. And it's not as if they've taken this neutral, nonpartisan. We don't want to pick a side stance. They've been actually anti America in some of their statements and in some of their actions. And we're going to talk about that.
President Trump says NATO was not there for Ukraine conflict
But let's play President Trump's assessment of NATO here in clip one.
>> Donald Trump: Well, they're coming up. They're going to be Coming up. But I'm very disappointed in NATO. They didn't do this. They weren't there for us. We paid trillions of dollars for NATO and they weren't there for us. Remember what I. NATO was not there. Now they want to come up, but there's no real threat anymore. But NATO was not there for it.
>> Reporter: Are you going to punish the countries who would have helped?
>> Donald Trump: We'll see what happens. But you know, we spent trillions of dollars on NATO to help them guard really against Russia. When you think of it, we're guarding against Russia and I've long thought it was a little ridiculous, but we spent trillions of dollars doing it. And I think, that's going to be under very serious ex.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. So NATO has not just gone neutral here, they've gone anti America here in some of the NATO member countries, not all. Some of the NATO member countries, specifically Spain, and there's others, but for lack of time here. Spain. Let's talk about Spain. So not only did Spain tell the US Military you can't land in Spain on the way in transit to Iran or that region. You can't even fly over Spain over their airspace. And so it isn't as if we were expecting all of NATO to show up with their, their navy destroyers and their bombers and their boots on the ground and let's all go into Iran. That wasn't what the expectation was. And as a matter of fact, there really wasn't much of an expectation for NATO to get directly involved in, in the Iranian conflict anyway. I think the US military prefers to handle it on its own, maybe with a little help from Israel. But, you know, running, running operations with multiple militaries, multiple countries, that gets overly complicated for such a fast paced, quick, relatively, quick conflict. We're talking a four to five week conflict. So I really don't think that President Trump was wanting NATO involved, at least on the onset. Now clearing the Strait of Hormuz, it would have been nice to have some help there. But my point is, is the ask wasn't monumental here, if any. We were just trying to fill up our aircraft on the ground transiting Europe on the way to the Middle east. And Spain said, no go. They said, no thanks, you're not even landing here. Matter of fact, you can't even fly over Spain. So we were having our entire, fleet of tankers and aircraft and everything else. We were having to do this, zigzagging around Europe, avoiding airspace that these NATO member countries said, no, you can't come to. You can't fly over here. And so it's very disappointing and frustrating and raises a question, what are we doing in NATO here? All right, let's compare it to Ukraine. Ukraine, number one, is not a NATO member country. So. But we're acting like it is, and we funded it like it was NATO. Ukraine is not a NATO member country. And, we were there for them, for better or worse. And I actually criticized it the whole way going, but we were there for Ukraine. Now there's actually investigations and questions into a lot of fraud and kickbacks and money laundering involved with Ukrainian funds. Nonetheless, we were there for Ukraine, for better or worse, we were there for Ukraine. But billions of dollars, over $100 billion in hard cash and other billions of dollars in military equipment with the US Stamp on it, we sent it to Ukraine, not even a NATO member country, but because there are NATO interests at stake. And the Ukraine folks, if you want to talk about what's a threat to America and what's not, the Ukraine conflict with Russia, is probably one of the farthest things away from us, not just geographically, but the effect on us, on the U.S. i mean, very minimal, very minimal here. The actual NATO member countries in Western Europe were the ones that, ought to be concerned. The ones in that vicinity were the ones that ought to be concerned. But once again, we were there for them. We weren't telling them, no, we're not going to send you anything. We're not going to help out. this isn't our fight. This isn't our war. No, we were there for them, and, we helped them. And here we are wanting to simply land airplanes and refuel them. We're not asking for bombs, we're not asking for pallets of cash. We just simply want to land and let our airmen refuel and rest. And they're denying us that ability. That is a very, very big deal when it comes to our historical alliances and the ability to cooperate with NATO and the justification of NATO. And what's so just shocking, once again, this is all historically speaking, what's so shocking to me, as if you would have told people 30 years ago or 50 years ago that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, and others in that region, Egypt, Jordan, that they would be more helpful, more friendly, more cooperative from an economic and military standpoint than most of Europe. You would have been told you were crazy. You're speaking nonsense. And here we are. And our Arab allies in the Middle east are in some instances way more helpful economically and militarily than Europe. Right now, the voices in our culture are loud, but truth is often silent. And today preborns need you to to help speak that truth. 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That's pound 250 and say the keyword baby dot or visit preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr at the core podcast are [email protected] now back to at end the Core on American Family Radio.
Alex Adams is assistant Secretary for Family support at Homeland Security
Welcome back to the Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us. On the second segment of today's episode here on American Family Radio, afr.net is the URL. Well, joining us now is Alex Adams. Alex is assistant Secretary for Family support within the Administration of Children and Families over at the Department of Homeland, Health and Human Services, rather not Homeland Security, same acronym, but hhs. Alex is with us. Alex Adams once again is with us. Alex, welcome to the program.
>> Alex Adams: Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Alex Adams: HHS is working to rescind a rule on foster care placement
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, Alex, there's a rule that was put forth, by Biden that since the Trump administration and HHS has since moved to rescind the comment period on it closed on the 6th of this month. And so this is a very, trending news topic if you will, when it comes to your efforts and the efforts of HHS to rescind some of the Biden era, rules that they put forth that were horrendous on multiple levels that we can talk about. but before we do, let's give our audience a little bit of background or a little bit of context into these, specifically this rule on foster care placement that Biden put forth and actually put into place that you guys are working on pulling back.
>> Alex Adams: Yeah. Well, first, things first. I'll, start at the beginning. Nationwide, we have too few foster families. If we have 100 kids coming into the foster care system today, we only have 57 homes to care for them. We can do better, and, we must do better. It's not just numbers on a piece of paper either. When we don't have enough homes for children, those children get placed in government offices, if you can believe it. They get placed in Airbnbs, they get placed in hotels. Just locations that are not conducive to child rearing. They're not conducive to the stable, loving relationships that many of us and many of your listeners were, fortunate to grow up with. So we have to be very intentional about the policies we put in place and the message that they send to prospective foster parents. the Biden administration had adopted a rule called designated placements, where it had, basically states were going to have to segment foster, families into those that they considered LGBTQ friendly. And those who by default, were not, sent the wrong message. Eastern District Court of Texas had invalidated the rule. They said that the Department of Health and Human Services did not have legal authority to adopt that rule and had, other, rationale. So that designated placement rule from the Biden administration is sitting on the books. It's just cluttering the books because it has no legal force and effect. But by sitting on the books, it sends the wrong message. It creates the perception that prospective foster parents might get segmented into different categories. Why that's important is, like I said, we already have a national shortage of foster families. 57. For every 100 kids coming in, the most likely family that's going to raise their hand and volunteer and run towards the foster care system is families of faith, families with sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions. So anything that is deterring a member of faith from stepping forward because they believe that they're going to be put in situations that conflict with their sincerely held beliefs, they might have to commit to certain medical procedures, or they might have to commit to using certain pronouns. Those deter good qualified families from stepping forward, exacerbates the shortage, and therefore, could, lead to children sleeping in untenable locations. So, as you noted, we propose to get the rule off the books formally. We do have to review the comments, respond to the comments, and then make, a thoughtful, final decision. But, as I noted, the courts have already invalidated the rule and said it's up to legal force. In effect.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. What I want our audience to understand and not get too in the weeds here is that this rule in effect under Biden, once again, this is a Biden era rule over at the Department of Health and Human Services would, basically put a stigma on faith based households and couples, married couples that were fostering and if they weren't, quote, LGBTQ affirming. And once again, all that's in air quotes. That's their language that they use. but they basically wanted to continue pressuring faith based families to bow the knee to the LGBTQ agenda. but, Alex, the, the repercussions here. Once again, we're talking with Alex Adams at the Department of Health and Human Services. He works within the, he's the Assistant Secretary, for family support within the division that handles some of this stuff. Alex, the downstream effects of the rule, though, are ultimately detrimental to the children. And that's what you alluded to here, is by passing this rule, there's no way that the Biden administration did know the implications here, but the fact that they were able to, that they were willing, not just able, but willing to put their ideological agenda over the needs of the children. Knowing that, number one, as you alluded to and pointed out the stats, there's already a shortage of households and families that are, willing to foster. Then you're going to add this other barrier, ideological, based barrier that is going to further shrink the available homes. I mean, ultimately this is not just harmful for faith based families, but ultimately it's harmful for the children that are actually in the foster system.
>> Alex Adams: I mean, you captured it. Well, we already have a shortage of foster homes. The message we send will either facilitate or, constrict the ability to close that shortage. And we believe that that rule constricted it. And we've heard that loud and clear from members of the faith community. it's part of our broader effort, what we're trying to do as an administration. President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have elevated the importance of foster care, have laid into this issue personally and directly through an executive order. In fact, as we speak, First Lady Melania Trump, is on Capitol Hill today talking about some reforms needed for foster care. That's how much this family cares deeply about these issues. What we're focused on at ACF is, our campaign is called A Home for Every child. And we're trying to increase the ratio of foster homes relative to the number of foster kids. Give States two targets to shoot at. They can either increase their number of homes or they can shrink the number of kids coming into the foster care system. By wrapping around families, supporting families, preserving families, members of faith are going to be absolutely critical to both sides of that equation. We've seen a lot of success. I know Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, a lot of the southern states have already signed on to this home for every child campaign and they're starting to align their policies to increase the ratio of homes to kids. My guess is you're going to see a flurry of activity, redoubling down on efforts to recruit members of, the faith based community. You know, nationwide. If every house of worship in the country just had one family that was fostering, our ratio of homes to kids would be four to one. which would mean we have homes waiting on kids instead of kids waiting on homes, which is what the status quo is. so you can see quite clearly the message we send to the faith community is going to be absolutely critical. And this is administration, committed to protecting the sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions of families of faith.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, this hand in hand partnership that you're talking about between the Department of Health and Human Services and obviously the entire Trump administration with the first lady making this a priority, working hand in hand and being on the same page is critical. And I think success according to the statute, as mentioned, for example, if every church, would have at least one family willing to foster, those are very attainable goals. This is not lofty, far fetched dreamland goals here, but you can't have a hostile federal government in the way. And that's what was happening under President Biden, and it's an utter shame. And the setback here, Speaking of the setback, the timeframe here, what timeline are we looking at on the rule? I mean, the comment period is closed, but when can you put this one officially in the history books?
>> Alex Adams: Well, under federal law and the Administrative Procedures act, we do have to consider the merits of each comment and be responsive to the merits of those. So I don't want to shortchange the notice and comment period. I don't the response to it. so, you know, I'm hoping in the very near future we will have a final rule that has properly considered and responded to, each of those. But your listeners, can feel confident in the meantime, a court has already invalidated it. So the rule has no force and effect. there's no federal enforcement. In fact, to the contrary, we've, sent letters to 13 states that we believe at the state level have imposed, licensing restrictions, on foster families that were constricting families of faith. You guys are fortunate. You're blessed to live in a state that has not made those mistakes that some of our North Eastern counterparts have made. But you know, always remain vigilant.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, absolutely. once again we're talking, just a couple minutes left, we've got Alex Adams with us, Assistant Secretary for Family Support within the Administration of Children and Families over at HHS Department of Health and Human Services.
Alex Adams: One of my priorities as Assistant Secretary is clearing out regulations
Alex, last question. We've got about three or four minutes left. are there any other Biden era rules or policies or directives that are lingering around that you guys, are going to work on here shortly? Or does this, is this kind of the last stone to turn over from the Biden era hhs?
>> Alex Adams: Well, one of my priorities as Assistant Secretary is clearing out all of the gunk regulations and sub regulations. So I came from the state level. At the state level I had pioneered something called zero based regulation, where you start with the presumption none of your regulations or guidance documents are necessary until proven otherwise. So basically we have, taken, I said I wanted a regulatory bonfire. In the six months I've been here, we've gotten rid of 74% of all guidance documents and we've just published our fifth deregulatory document. I think we've already gotten rid of 30% of all of our regulations. So no, this, this rule alone is not the edge of the universe of what we're focused on. We're trying to get back to basic principles. The child protection system has an important role to play. The best foster care system is one that's not needed. Let's wrap around families, let's provide prevention, but when it is needed, let's have stable, loving families able to take care of them. Anything that's standing in the way of that, you can rest assured, is on our radar screen and we're going to take a look at. And in the final minute, I would be remiss if I didn't thank, your state, Mississippi for the partnership. Mississippi, one of our other priorities is ending the orphan tax. Too many states were, taxing orphans in foster care who had survivors benefits from their parents and saying, we'll take that, we'll use that to offset our own state costs. Mississippi stood up and was one of the first states to end it. So we appreciate that partnership. Mississippi, Louisiana, Nebraska, a lot of states have Said, no, let's do right by kids. I'd be remiss if I didn't thank the leadership of the governor's office, of your legislature and the, in state advocacy groups top to bottom. that was a huge decision that will put real money in the pockets of some of the most vulnerable kids in your states and, secure a future for them that does not involve the government dole.
>> Walker Wildmon: Amen. Yeah. That 74% of directives being rescinded or done away with gets me excited. That's almost unheard of in dc. everybody, I know everybody's wanting to just add, more. Let's add more, more regulations. And, I love the, anti bureaucracy approach, that the entire administration is taking in Washington D.C. alex Adams has been with us. He's at the Department of Health and Human Services serving as Assistant Secretary for Family support within the administration of Children and Families. Hey, Alex, thanks so much for being on. Thanks for your work and fighting for families in, Washington.
>> Alex Adams: Thanks for having me. God bless.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. Glad to have you on.
Alex Adams: Federal court has already invalidated Obama-era foster care rule
That's Alex Adams, with us, talking about the Biden era rule that is currently being rescinded, in the process of being rescinded, before the Trump, administration and Department of Health and Human Services. It's a process, a rulemaking process. And then in order to rescind rules, you have to go through a very similar process and have a comment period and, go through what the statutory requirements are for that. And so that process is ongoing, the comment period has closed. And Lord willing, in the near future, in the next few months, that rule will eventually be rescinded. And of course, as he mentioned, a court, a federal court has already invalidated it. So it's just on the books, so to speak. And they're attempting to get it off the books. That's the, latest in Washington D.C. and, there's no reason we should over complicate are place these left wing ideological standards on foster care. I mean, there's the whole side that the LGBT agenda is wrong. It's promoting sin, unhealthy lifestyles, unnatural. That's just broadly speaking. but how wicked do you have to be to then insert this into a system like foster care? I mean, to show how idolized this homosexual and transgender agenda has become. This is not the talking point that they gave before Oberg, fell in 2015. Live and let live. This is about two consenting adults making their own decisions. I mean, all these, as we know, fake talking points. That were meant to mislead. But this movement, this wicked movement is meddling around in things like foster care and adoption and wanting to place a stigma on faith based adoption and foster care and then prioritize these two dudes or two gals wanting to foster. And this is totally messed up. The data is not there. Actually, the data and all the studies and research show that putting kids and kids being raised by two people of the same sex is a terrible idea. All the research, all the data is there. And so we know what the outcome here is. The outcome of putting kids in adoption and foster with, quote, LGBTQ couples is a bad idea. And not only does it warp the child's view of human sexuality and marriage and family, but it also can lead to abuse, sexual and otherwise. So it's a bad idea. Doesn't need to happen. And we need to be partnering with, with the faith based community to ensure that these children are taken care of in the foster care system. That is what the Trump administration is working on. Policies and elections have consequences. We'll be back in a few. This is at the Core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.
American Family Radio welcomes Trey Dellinger back to The Core
Welcome back to the Core here on American Family Radio. We have the video up on facebook and stream.afa.net on, facebook and stream.afa.net you can watch the program live and get past video episodes as well. Trey Dellinger is with us. Trey is senior legal fellow over at AFA Action, which is the government affairs arm of afa, of which Trey and I are colleagues over there at AFA Action. He's with us now. Hey, Trey, welcome back to the Core.
>> Trey Dellinger: Great to be with you, Walker.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, Trey, you, and, Dr. Jamison Taylor and the rest of the team over at AFA Action are always busy getting stuff done. One of the things you helped shepherd, through recently is this Keeping Kids Safe Online act, which everything that we're passing here in Mississippi and other states is working as a model, to hopefully pass in other states as well. So it's somewhat of a testing ground, if you will. but a very, very good testing ground.
Trey Walker thanks Representative Joey Hood for introducing Keeping Kids Safe Online Act
but, Trey, tell us about this Keeping Kids Safe Online Act.
>> Trey Dellinger: Yeah, well, first off, Walker, thank you for having me. I want to start off by congratulating, and thanking the author of this Keeping Kids Safe Online Act, Mississippi House Bill 1224, Joey Hood. Representative Hood, is the chairman of the House Judiciary, A committee and the chairman of committees, play a very important role in the legislative process as you and most of your listeners know, a bill is not going to get out of committee without the chairman, being in favor of that bill. This chairman wield enormous power. And for a chairman of the committee to author a bill and sponsor it, really gives a boost to any legislation that you're, that you're trying to do. And so Chairman Hood reached out to us at the beginning of the session and said that a number of his constituents were reaching out to him, concerned about their kids and their grandkids. They're hearing more and more about threats from social media. And he wanted to do something about it. And he wanted us to explore some good, solid, constitutional, enforceable ways to pass, legislation that would help keep kids safe online. And then I also want to thank Senator Bryce Wiggins, who led the effort on this bill in the Senate. He's the chairman of the companion committee in the Senate Judiciary. A, Senator Wiggins was really a champion for us over there. Without the leadership of those two guys, this wouldn't have happened. Having been chief of staff, for the Mississippi speaker of the House, Philip Gunn, I really understand how key it is to have legislative, leaders like that and committee chairman who are dedicated to doing something good for their constituents back home. And their commitment to keeping kids safe online is absolutely key. This would not have happened with, without them. So Representative Hood came to me at the beginning of the session and wanted a solution. We looked at a number of different, we looked at a number of different designs for the bill, and ultimately settled on a design that was based in large part on a legal framework that had given rise to a verdict back in March. Ah, a landmark verdict. The largest its kind ever in NewSong Mexico. And it was followed the next day, within that same week by another significant verdict in the state of California. So we looked at the legal framework that both of those states had used to bring these social media companies to account for the harms that they're doing to children. And we used that same legal framework to craft this legislation and did it very carefully. The NewSong Mexico case, a jury in that case rendered a $375 million verdict against Facebook for the harms they had done to NewSong Mexico kids. And then in the California case, it was a six million dollar verdict for a single plaintiff. There was a young lady that was known just by the initials KGM M. And they referred to her as Kaylee during the trial. she testified to the harms, the psychological harms, and severe emotional distress and difficulties that she had had in her teenage years because of being addicted to these addictive social media platforms. And the jury in the California case awarded $3 million in actual damages and an additional 3 million in punitive damages for a total of 6 million. This is very significant because, a damage award that large for one plaintiff, coupled with the NewSong Mexico verdict of 375 million, which represented $10,000 each for 37,500 plaintiffs verdicts, these large really get the attention of these social media companies. And we wanted to be able to use that same framework to try to drive legislation in Mississippi.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, the litigation and this double standard that these tech companies have is what I want to highlight out of this. Because, obviously, not many people are fans of trial lawyers unless. Or ambulance chasers, unless maybe you're the one getting the settlement payment. But nonetheless, the point here is not necessarily to create a more litigious society. There's plenty of frivolous lawsuits. Some of us have been victim to them in the past. The point here is to force these companies to be accountable to the consumers and to the markets. And in the past, Trey, they haven't been. They've been exempt in the vast majority of circumstances under section 230ah, of federal statute. They've been leaning on that to not have to offer a good product and be held accountable. But every other industry under the sun, whether it's the energy industry, whether it's retail, whatever we're talking about, whether it's auto manufacturers, they all have to make sure and ask the question, is this product safe for the public? Is it safe for consumers? We have vehicle recalls every day because an airbag doesn't deploy or the headlights go out, etc. But tech, on the other hand, they've been in this kind of bubble where they can just do whatever they want and it doesn't matter whether it harms consumers or not. So talk about that and how what we're trying to do here is not create this litigious society, but mainly just make these companies be held accountable to their products.
>> Trey Dellinger: Sure, absolutely. Well, as you alluded to, Walker, you know, we in the conservative movement, we just don't initially like the notion of, giving a lot of means for trial lawyers to go after, ah, certainly legitimate businesses, we don't like that. As you, I'm sure you know, I spent the first 20 plus years of my professional career defending businesses, and insurers against many, of which were frivolous lawsuits in the court. So I woke up and Rolled out of bed every day defending business people. Good, honest, hard working business people whose livelihoods could be wiped out in a moment. just because somebody you know, comes in a store or a restaurant and they're not watching where they're going, not, not acting responsibly themselves and you know, trip over a shopping cart, and claim that they're entitled to a lifetime of damages. so there are a lot of frivolous lawsuits against that, like that, that harm legitimate, upstanding business people. I want people to understand that what these tech companies are doing to kids is far, far outside of the, the category of what you would consider to be a legitimate, honest business in the community. The allegations that were brought forward and the proof that was brought forward in the NewSong Mexico case, detailed how these social media platforms are vectors for child rape, for human trafficking, and for child pornography. And if any of your listeners were to read the 300 plus page complaint from the NewSong Mexico case, they would see that these are not legitimate businesses. These are in a different category. The NewSong Mexico AG's office, they did a great job of doing this investigation. It was an investigation that took many years. What they did was they created a Facebook account, ah, of a fictional character that they called Issa B. And what they did was the fictional mother of this character who had the appearance of about a 13 or 14 year old girl. The mother, the fictional mother created a Facebook account. And sadly we live in a society now. Much of this comes from technology where there are actually parents who pimp their children out to sex traffickers and to predators and perverts who are into, have a sexual predilection for young girls. And so this fictional mother's account was created and within days she got more followers than she knew what to do with. And then the fictional daughter created her own account and claimed that she was an adult. Claimed she was 20 or 21 years old, which is an adult in NewSong Mexico. And within three days she had the maximum of 5,000 Facebook followers. and the comment strings that are on these fictional characters, Facebook profiles would absolutely disgust you and revolt you. Thousands of men were trying to contact this fictional girl believing that she was an underage girl to contact her, to for her to be trafficked for sex. To them though, this is, this is a common problem that's going on on the Internet and these platforms know that this is going on. Yeah, they're put on notice and they have refused even though they, they claim to, they've refused to put safeguards, in place that are sufficient to prevent this from happening. This is happening to real kids in real life and it has to be stopped.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, here's what my theory is and there, there is some evidence to suggest this. Some of the testimonies of like engineers and developers and others in some of these trials would back up what I'm saying here. But my theory is that this isn't as much about Meta or X or Google being just a flat out evil company that is, that is bent on victimizing as many people as possible. I don't think it's quite as cynical as that. I think that any, I think that any measure, what we would call safety measure, that would possibly limit the number of users to the platform, I think they're against that because this is, this is purely about growing the platform, growing the user base, growing the numbers and things like, hey, let's make sure 13 year old girls aren't on the platform being contacted by 40 year old men. Well, what does that mean? That means that at least one person, in that example is not going to be using Meta or not going to be using Google. Fill in the blank. So I think this gets into growth, growth, growth. We've got to beat out all the tech companies and then this, this notion that they're hiding behind Section 230 and other immunity and so they're putting profits over the safety of children. That's what I think is going on here, just based on the information we have. But at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what their motivation is, whether it's profit or not, or whether there's something more cynical going on. The fact of the matter is when you offer a product to the public, you're accountable to that product and the harms that it does to the public. let me ask you one more question.
Trey Dellinger: Going after the design, not the content
We've got about two minutes left, Trey. what made these cases different in NewSong Mexico and California and Los Angeles? Because people and litigants have been trying to kind of breach this immunity barrier with Big Tech and they failed. For years they failed. But finally these cases got through to a jury. So explain that, please.
>> Trey Dellinger: Sure. The key difference is most of the former, state laws and litigation cases that have been brought against these companies were based on the content that was on the platform, the harmful content. But the legal theory behind these cases and the legal theory that we incorporated into the Keeping Kids Safe Online act was to go after the, the design of the platforms themselves. And because once you attack the design of the platforms themselves, the addictive algorithmic design, of the platforms, section 230 does not insulate companies from m, defective designs of products. and so that, that is the real distinction. Going after the design, not the content, is the way that, this, these cases got to the jury and avoided immunity, under section 230 and running, into problems with the first amendment. So it's all about the design.
>> Walker Wildmon: Fascinating. whoever, whichever lawyer came up with that approach, just, is brilliant and just opened up a, legitimate way to hold these companies accountable also through statutes, updated statutes as well, at the state and federal level. Trey, Dellinger, senior counsel over at AFA Action, thanks so much for being with us.
>> Trey Dellinger: Great to be with you. Always enjoy it. Walker.
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. Glad to have you on.
Trey Dellinger: States are where a lot of major policy moves occur
That's Trey Dellinger, senior, legal fellow and attorney over at AFA Action. He and Dr. Jameson Taylor and others, ah, are working day in and day out on model legislation and policies, etcetera, all aimed at protecting America's families and advancing, biblical values in the area of civics and government. And so that's just a quick update from him on the work that they're doing. And that Keeping Kids Safe Online act that we just passed in Mississippi, signed by the governor recently. And we hope that it will be a model for other states as well. And, this is what we have to do, folks. Yes, there's a lot of good going on in Washington. Yes, we're thankful that President Trump's in the White House. But simultaneously, we cannot keep our eye off the fact that states and localities are where a lot of the major moves are from a policy standpoint that affect our everyday life. So we have to continue pushing conservative policies, agencies, legislation, judicial rulings at the state and local level, to keep moving the ball in the right direction. That's what we're doing over at AFA Action. You can check out our work at AFA Action.net thanks so much for being on the program with us today. We'll see you next time. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
