Tim Wildmon: Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening to AFR. Today is Tuesday, October 20, 2026. I'm Tim Wildmon, and in the studio with me is Ed Vitagliano. Good morning, Ed.
Ed Vitagliano: Good morning, Tim.
Wesley Wildmon: Good morning. Glad to be back.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. You took a little trip.
Wesley Wildmon: The fall break trip, and then I took a work trip, a combination of that. I was out for about eight workdays, but I'm back and looking forward to being on Today's Issues. While I was away, my wife went out of town, and I had a couple of days of babysitting.
Tim Wildmon: Wow, you had your hands full babysitting.
Wesley Wildmon: You know what? You get those babies, and you come on.
Ed Vitagliano: You have spouses. You don't babysit your own kids.
Wesley Wildmon: I see what you do.
Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, I see what you do.
Wesley Wildmon: I was hoping Chelsea was listening because I'm about to get a text.
Ed Vitagliano: Right. You call it babysitting like you're going above and beyond, when all you're doing is being the parent.
Wesley Wildmon: That's called parenting.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. She's right about that.
Wesley Wildmon: She is right.
Tim Wildmon: Brother Fred Jackson is here with us.
Fred Jackson: Good to be here. It was a rookie mistake, though.
Tim Wildmon: When?
Fred Jackson: The first baby, first kid.
Tim Wildmon: You're not a rookie.
Fred Jackson: No, no, no. Eleven years in. I have an 11-year-old.
Tim Wildmon: Well, good to have you back. I was out a few days myself, and you've been here.
Fred Jackson: I've been holding down the fort.
Tim Wildmon: I hope so. Ray Pritchard has been here.
Fred Jackson: Right. He's in Chicago this week. He'll be back next week.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, so he's in Chicago.
Fred Jackson: Yeah. He hopes he's going to be back.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. Ray Pritchard is on with us, too. He's in churches most of the time, and he's also a traveler of the country. He pastored for a long time.
Fred Jackson: He did 20 years, I think he said.
Tim Wildmon: He says he remembers every winter.
Ed Vitagliano: You don't forget winters in Chicago.
Tim Wildmon: All right, thanks for joining us, everybody. I appreciate you listening to the show. Again, Tim, Ed, Wesley, and Fred. You can determine who's the smartest at the end of an hour and a half here.
Ed Vitagliano: We're pretty much all in the same bucket.
Tim Wildmon: Are we in the same bucket?
Wesley Wildmon: I think we're all in the same bucket.
Ed Vitagliano: But even in the same bucket, there could be slight differences.
Fred Jackson: There are labels on that bucket.
Wesley Wildmon: That's where we all get tossed in.
Tim Wildmon: We're on the same boat.
Ed Vitagliano: Boat or bucket?
Tim Wildmon: We're proving my point right now.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes, we are.
Tim Wildmon: By killing time.
Fred Jackson: Absolutely.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Fred. What's some happy news going on in the world today?
Fred Jackson: This is the all-good-news program, folks. You'll learn that pretty quickly. We take a sunshine approach to life on planet Earth. Every day is a Friday.
Tim Wildmon: I can predict with about 100 percent certainty that two weeks from today on this program, we will be talking about elections.
Fred Jackson: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: Because it will be Election Day. That night, November 3rd, we're going to be covering the results. We're going to come in at 6 p.m. Central Time that evening, and as the results unfold in the only poll that really counts, we will unveil what the American people have decided as the time zone moves across the country.
Ed Vitagliano: What if I don't like what they decide?
Tim Wildmon: You will tell us that.
Ed Vitagliano: So tune in and we'll see.
Tim Wildmon: We live in a free country. You will be allowed to complain about what the American people decide.
Ed Vitagliano: Can I whine?
Tim Wildmon: You can whine.
Fred Jackson: We know why.
Tim Wildmon: All right, we are covering the election live on AFR, so mark it on your calendar.
Fred Jackson: There have been times in elections past when we've been here until 11:30 or midnight.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah.
Fred Jackson: And we're going to have a lot of special guests on with us throughout the program as the results come in. It's going to be a big night, folks.
Ed Vitagliano: Anybody listening over the last several months has heard all the stories about what the polls are saying and what this election is all about. President Trump has been very busy. He's in a different state every day at rallies. We talked a little bit about the polls yesterday. Tim, you sent out a story overnight from what is called a poll expert, Nate Silver. He's the founder of FiveThirtyEight. I would say that in the past, at least, we've regarded Nate Silver's polling predictions as fairly accurate. So if you're a Republican, you may not like the latest results coming from him. His latest model gives the Democrats a 94 percent chance of winning the House and a 75 percent chance of taking the Senate. Those numbers are an increase from some of the predictions he was making about a month ago.
Tim Wildmon: I'm switching to charismatic mode. I do not receive that information.
Ed Vitagliano: You rebuke it?
Tim Wildmon: I rebuke that information. Nate Silver is pretty accurate most of the time, if that's his reputation.
Ed Vitagliano: Okay.
Tim Wildmon: I don't mean to be doom and gloom for conservatives here, but the House of Representatives is going to flip. It's going to flip from Republican to Democrat.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't need Nate Silver to tell me that.
Tim Wildmon: That's going to happen.
Ed Vitagliano: I think, if I'm wrong, tune in on election night.
Wesley Wildmon: Are you discouraging the vote, then?
Tim Wildmon: No, I'm not. Go out and vote. It doesn't matter. You don't know. Upsets happen, and predictions are wrong, so go out and vote. I'm not saying don't vote because the die is already cast. I'm saying that historically, the party out of power in the White House picks up a lot of seats in the House of Representatives in the midterms. That's just history. It doesn't matter who the president is.
Ed Vitagliano: When Obama was president, the Republicans swept in.
Tim Wildmon: Now Trump is in, the Republican, and there's a very slim margin in the House of Representatives anyway. It's like four seats or something like that. So I don't think it should be a big surprise if the Democrats take over the House of Representatives.
Tim Wildmon: However, as I mentioned before, the Republicans have a 50-50 chance of holding the Senate. That would be critical for this reason: The president of the United States, whoever he may be, appoints federal judges, and they are confirmed or rejected by the United States Senate. So to me, going forward, at least domestically, the top priority is that Republicans hold the Senate so President Trump can appoint conservative judges to the federal bench, including potentially Supreme Court seats that may become open. Does that make sense?
Ed Vitagliano: It does. I would also add that there are plenty of down-ballot races.
Tim Wildmon: That's true.
Ed Vitagliano: That's another reason for people to vote. There are a lot of gubernatorial races.
Tim Wildmon: Please do not stay home. Go to the polls and vote. First of all, it's your civic duty. As part of your fulfillment of being salt and light, according to the Scriptures, this is what Jesus says Christians should be. It can sometimes make a difference even if a leftist wins a seat. If it's by a narrow margin, that encourages people to hold on to biblical values. But there are down-ballot races, even down as far as your school board, mayors, and state offices. There are all sorts of races where you need to be there to leave your mark.
Tim Wildmon: The prognosticators have a job to do, and we have a job to discuss it, but your job as a voter is to do your civic duty, go out and vote, and let the chips fall where they may.
Ed Vitagliano: Good gambling analogy there at the end.
Tim Wildmon: I was talking about spiritual commentary.
Wesley Wildmon: Potato chips. Sometimes they just toss potato chips and let them land where they may.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't know what you're taping that exactly.
Tim Wildmon: What flavor?
Ed Vitagliano: I'm interested now.
Wesley Wildmon: That's a waste of potato chips, the way I look at it.
Tim Wildmon: Well, that's part of the lesson.
Wesley Wildmon: That's part of the lesson, Tim. You don't want to waste potato chips, and you don't want to waste your vote. Use our voter guide. We have a voter guide out there. We've been promoting it in different states leading up to the election, primarily through email, but we'd also like to tell you about it on the radio.
Wesley Wildmon: Especially on Election Day, I get four or five texts from friends locally who say, "Hey, who do you recommend?" I get my information from working here at AFA and things like that, but we'll also send them the link. Have that link close by so you can send it out: iVoterGuide.com. iVoterGuide.com is the place to go to get your information. For a lot of states, it goes down pretty far on the ballot, so you want to check it out.
Tim Wildmon: That's AFA's voter guide. We acquired it about five years ago, maybe a little longer, and AFA Action has worked really hard to make it the top-tier voter guide in the country. Millions of people use it. It has grown from one million users to two million, and they're expecting between three and four million this midterm.
Ed Vitagliano: Then we'll just have to deal with the cards that are dealt our way.
Tim Wildmon: We're going to have to eat the sandwich that is handed to us.
Tim Wildmon: Fred, anything else to wrap that up before we move on?
Fred Jackson: As I mentioned, President Trump is out in a different state every day campaigning. He is using the riots and looting we've been seeing in France to tell the American people, "If you switch to those socialist, communist Democrats, the stuff you're seeing in France is going to be here in spades." Here's a little bit of what he's been saying.
Donald Trump: This is a very sad situation, what's happening in France, because what's happening in France has to do with immigration, not schools, not anything. It's immigration. I told President Macron, "Close up your borders." I told him the first time I met him, which was years ago in my first term, "Close up your borders. You're going to have nothing but trouble." They've got a lot of trouble. They let people into their country that don't love their country. They don't love their buildings, they don't love their art. I said, the first time I met Macron, "You've got to close up your borders. You're going to ruin your country." They've ruined their country. It's going to be hard to get it back, but hopefully France will come back.
Fred Jackson: That was President Trump commenting on the riots, demonstrations, lawlessness, and anarchy taking place in France right now. I don't know where that's going to end or what they're going to do to stop it. I'm talking about the authorities and Macron, the president.
Tim Wildmon: Is he president? Is that what he is?
Fred Jackson: Anyway, joining us, as he does as frequently as he can, usually once a week or every other week, is our good friend Frank Turek from CrossExamined. He joins us now. How are you doing, Frank?
Frank Turek: I'm just fine. iVoterGuide.com is a great site. In fact, we link to it on our site, VoteYourFaith.net, which not only links to iVoterGuide.com but also has a bunch of reasons why Christians need to vote. Half of Christians will not vote. Half. If Christians voted, and voted biblically, our country would be in much better shape.
Tim Wildmon: Absolutely. We're doing everything we can, and you're doing everything you can, to encourage Christians to get out and vote. Your family, your friends, your fellow church members, especially in Texas and Michigan, are going to be important. Those races are going to be razor-thin, it looks like, to determine who controls the United States Senate. Everywhere, go out and vote.
Tim Wildmon: You wanted to comment on Sharia law. There was a Rasmussen Report out. Talk about that, Frank.
Frank Turek: To show you how crazy our country has gotten, particularly with young people and what they believe, Rasmussen put out a poll last week. It found that Sharia law is approved by 43 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24. Let me read this paragraph: "Positive views of Sharia are much higher among younger voters, including 43 percent of voters age 18 to 24 and 39 percent of those age 25 to 29. By contrast, just 16 percent of those 40 and older view Sharia positively."
Frank Turek: I'm surprised it's that high among people 40 and older. You've probably heard the statement, "If you're not a liberal when you're 20, you don't have a heart. If you're not a conservative when you're 40, you don't have a brain."
Tim Wildmon: I don't know how 16 percent of people over 40 think Sharia law is a good thing.
Ed Vitagliano: Do people know what Sharia law is?
Frank Turek: That was my question. Do they know that if you convert to Christianity, you'll be executed? Do they know that if you leave Islam, you'll be executed? Do they know that women are second-class citizens and can be beaten on their beds, according to Surah 4 of the Quran? Do they know that you can't even have a dog under Sharia law? Do they know that people will be executed for certain sexual sins under Sharia law? Do they know that your freedom to preach and live the gospel goes away under Sharia law? And yet people think this is a good thing?
Tim Wildmon: You're reciting the Rasmussen poll, which is a very reputable polling firm, and it showed that 43 percent of young people, defined as 18 to 24, had a favorable view of Sharia law. I would guess they are ignorant of the things you just mentioned. But that's on us, Tim. That's on our education system.
Tim Wildmon: How do people not know this? We put out a video about six months ago where I went through what Sharia law is. It's about two minutes on our YouTube channel, and it got over a million views. People were shocked. They said, "They didn't know this?" You don't know what goes on in Iran? How do you not know this? How do you not know jihad, which has been going on for 1,400 years? How do you not know that someone like El-Sayed, who is running for Senate in Michigan, is actually someone who thinks Sharia law is a good thing? In fact, his whole family is tied into the Muslim Brotherhood, which is all about imposing Sharia law on every single population they can. Islam means submission, and this guy wants to be in the United States Senate. It's crazy.
Wesley Wildmon: We know historically that a lot of things, such as Sharia law and socialism, usually have something spent on them or something soft that introduces them and gets ignorant people interested in them or wanting to try them. Later on, what we know to be true historically is that they fail for a lot of reasons. In this particular case, you lose a lot of religious freedom, or all your religious freedom. Are you aware of what the soft spin is, or the way they're trying to twist it to make it appealing to young people?
Frank Turek: It might be cultural Marxism that people are buying into. Anybody who is a non-Christian, anybody who is LGBTQ, anybody who is a non-citizen, anybody who is a person of color is automatically oppressed. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is where you get "Gays for Gaza," where you get people siding with one another who are really at odds. If gays go to Gaza, they're going to be murdered because of Sharia law. Yet they think, "A Muslim is somehow oppressed, so I'm going to look favorably on what they believe." The term "useful idiot," I think, may have come out of the Iranian college students in the 1970s who wanted to get rid of the shah and invite in the ayatollah.
Frank Turek: When Jimmy Carter greenlighted that in 1979, the shah got out of Iran and the ayatollah came in. What did the ayatollah do to the college students who wanted him to take over? He murdered many of them because they were useful idiots for him. They said, "Wait, we were for you. Why do you want to kill us?" He said, "I'm in control now. I don't care if you were for me. You're an infidel. You're going to be executed." People don't seem to understand that when Islam takes over, the freedoms we enjoy and the respect we have for human life go away.
Ed Vitagliano: But is that really a threat to the United States? There are places such as Dearborn, Michigan, a school here and there, and what happened in Texas with people trying to have their own town where they govern themselves. I'm talking about Muslims under Sharia. Those are just tiny pockets.
Frank Turek: They may be tiny pockets, but they have political clout. There is a Muslim mayor in Dearborn, and now the call to prayer is going over the loudspeakers there. Sharia law is being implemented in some neighborhoods, if not in Dearborn, certainly in the United Kingdom. In Texas, they're building mosques left and right, and they're politically active. Ninety percent of Muslims will vote, while only 50 percent of Christians will vote. If you want to protect your freedoms, you better get out and vote, Christians. Don't vote for Sharia law. Don't vote for people who want to open our borders. Don't vote for people who are sympathetic to Sharia law. Vote for people who are going to support our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That's the oath you're supposed to take when you go into the military or Congress.
Frank Turek: Sharia law is incompatible with the United States Constitution.
Tim Wildmon: I totally agree with that. You look around the world where Muslims are a majority and where Sharia law is implemented. Look at Iran. These are totalitarian states. They are not communist states, which are atheistic, like China, for example, but they are controlled by the mullahs. Look at Afghanistan and the Taliban.
Frank Turek: There are a few Muslim-dominant countries that are more free and open, such as Jordan and, to some extent, Turkey. But where they take over, they outlaw any other kind of religious practice for the most part. I don't understand the LGBTQ community being for Sharia law, or being for their own demise.
Ed Vitagliano: I'm not sure this Rasmussen poll indicates that young people are in favor of implementing Sharia law. I think they look at it as being a good thing or not a threat, which is naive, as Frank has been saying. They think, "I think Sharia law is fine." Part of the reason young people are thinking this way is because white, male, heterosexual, Christian, or someone who believes in capitalism, is considered part of the basket of deplorables. Whatever is outside the basket, whatever is a minority, including a minority religion, is automatically applauded and receives their tender feelings. I think that's part of the useful idiocy Frank is talking about. If they ever allow Marxists or Muslims to take charge, they'll find out in a hurry that they are the ones on the outside.
Wesley Wildmon: I've seen some of the videos of the local boards or councils in Dearborn where people are saying, "I'm tired of this call to prayer."
Tim Wildmon: You mean over the loudspeaker?
Wesley Wildmon: Over the loudspeaker, yes.
Tim Wildmon: They really do that?
Wesley Wildmon: Five times a day.
Tim Wildmon: They do. Hey, Frank, can you hold on?
Frank Turek: Yes, sir.
Tim Wildmon: We'll be back with Frank Turek after this break.
Tim Wildmon: Frank is the host of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. You can hear it live each Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Central Time, usually live, right here on American Family Radio. We also air that show Sunday afternoons at 4 p.m. Central Time. Frank, are you on the road this week, or are you at home?
Frank Turek: I'm going to be in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday for the Summit Conference. Otherwise, I'm here. I just got back from the trip yesterday.
Tim Wildmon: The Summit Conference in Columbus, Ohio. That's at Ohio State University, isn't it? Are you going to be on the campus there?
Frank Turek: No, I'll be on the Ohio State campus in March for that. I usually go to Ohio State at least once a year, but this is a different event.
Tim Wildmon: You know the quarterback's hurt, right? The quarterback for Ohio State.
Frank Turek: Yeah.
Tim Wildmon: I was thinking maybe you could help him out there.
Frank Turek: I could jump in there.
Tim Wildmon: Go by the football office and tell them you're available this weekend. You still have some years left.
Frank Turek: I have eligibility if they want a 64-year-old quarterback.
Ed Vitagliano: Maybe a couple of years of eligibility left, but in terms of hairs on the top of his head, not so much.
Frank Turek: I was talking about football.
Ed Vitagliano: I just speak facts. I wasn't making a negative observation.
Frank Turek: I think you look good, Ed.
Ed Vitagliano: It was a morally neutral observation.
Frank Turek: By the way, I was just at Green Valley Baptist, not far from you.
Tim Wildmon: How did that go?
Frank Turek: It was great. What a great church. I saw J.J. Jasper there.
Tim Wildmon: J.J. Jasper was there. That's his church.
Frank Turek: Ed was ten minutes from there but couldn't get off his sofa to come see you, Frank.
Ed Vitagliano: I do not have a subscription to Netflix. It was a hockey game.
Tim Wildmon: Since you've been outed.
Ed Vitagliano: I had plans to go, Frank. I'm just going to be honest. I completely forgot. I took a nap in my recliner. When I woke up, I thought, "Oh my goodness, Frank's thing."
Frank Turek: Tim was just 20 minutes away. You came all this way to this neck of the woods. Where was the president of the ministry where your radio show appears?
Ed Vitagliano: I was down in my back.
Tim Wildmon: He was out evangelizing, Ed. That's what he does.
Ed Vitagliano: I had a twinge in my back. I couldn't go there and sit in the pew and make everybody else get up and down. I was thinking of others.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Frank, what's your website, and what's there?
Frank Turek: CrossExamined.org. There's a lot there. This weekend on the American Family Radio Network at 9 a.m. Central on Saturday, I'll be interviewing Jay Richards, who wrote the book Money, Greed, and God, the best book you'll ever read on economics and how only the free-market capitalist system can bring the most people out of poverty. People think poverty is the exception. No, poverty is the rule. Prosperity is the exception. You can be impoverished by doing nothing. As Proverbs says, "A little folding of the hands, a little rest," and poverty will be on you in a heartbeat. People think they deserve prosperity. No, prosperity is something you have to work for.
Frank Turek: We're going to talk about socialism, communism, and why young people are buying into this socialism and Marxism nonsense. That's going to be this Saturday on the American Family Radio Network.
Tim Wildmon: If you're unable to listen Saturday, you can download or listen to the podcast. A lot of the topics you cover interest people, but they may miss it on Saturday. You have it marked somewhere, don't you?
Frank Turek: Wherever they get podcasts, they can find the I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist podcast. Or they can go to our YouTube channel, CrossExamined. We put out a video version as well. The CrossExamined YouTube channel, two words, CrossExamined. You can listen to it at your own convenience.
Tim Wildmon: That's what I do. One last thing before we let you go. You have a new book out this year. Tell our folks about it.
Frank Turek: I have two new books. One is called The War on Reality, which deals with all of the craziness we have in our culture: people denying reality, people saying men can have babies, people claiming math is racist. That just doesn't add up. People claim that if you're a Christian, you're somehow an oppressor, the oppressed-oppressor stuff. People say Christians ought not be involved in politics, as if only atheists are qualified to run the country. I don't know where they come up with that.
Frank Turek: The update to I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist comes out next week. After 22 years, we've updated the book. There are new chapters and a lot of new evidence.
Tim Wildmon: So now you really don't have enough faith.
Frank Turek: I really don't have enough faith to be an atheist.
Tim Wildmon: Exactly.
Frank Turek: It comes out October 27th.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Frank, take care.
Frank Turek: Thank you. God bless you guys.
Tim Wildmon: You too.
Tim Wildmon: Dr. Frank Turek joining us from North Carolina. Fred, what's your next story?
Fred Jackson: Have you guys been keeping up with what's been going on with Squad member Ilhan Omar? Homeland Security raided her house in D.C. a week ago yesterday, and we're finding out what they found. They were able to get a DNA sample, her cell phone, and a few other things in that raid.
Fred Jackson: There is now a belief, and leading up to that they went to two judges who work in the D.C. Circuit and are known to be very liberal, left-wing judges, because the charge has been made that this is weaponization against a political effort.
Tim Wildmon: What are the points of the raid?
Fred Jackson: The point of the raid is that there is a belief among Homeland Security and the Department of Justice that she lied when she entered this country about her age. She came from Somalia with her dad in 1995, I believe, when they immigrated here. The belief is that she was actually 18 when she came into this country instead of the 17 she put on the form.
Fred Jackson: If you're 18, you have to make your own declaration. If you're 17, you come in under your parents. That's the allegation. It's important that these two left-wing judges apparently signed off, finding probable cause to allow this raid.
Fred Jackson: They're also talking to Ilhan Omar's sister, whose name is Sarah Noor. So they're talking to both of them. Carrie Urbahn, one of Fox's legal experts, was asked about all this this morning. She had some interesting things to say.
Carrie Urbahn: We have to remember a really important fact here. At this point, two different judges have signed off on seizing information and materials from both a sitting member of Congress and that sitting member's sister. Two different judges, two different areas. This is not something to be overlooked. Judges are typically really reticent to delve into the personal stuff, so to speak, involving people who are in Congress. Then you throw into that the fact that it could be perceived as a Donald Trump project. Judges are going to be looking at this skeptically. The fact that you have two sign-offs indicates to me that whatever was presented to them was pretty compelling in terms of evidence, or they would never have said yes to it.
Carrie Urbahn: What would this mean for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar if it is found that she lied? She could lose her citizenship, and she could be deported back to Somalia.
Tim Wildmon: Does it involve her marrying her brother?
Fred Jackson: That's been out there.
Tim Wildmon: The accusation is that she married her brother in order to get him into the country.
Fred Jackson: That's a different matter. I'm not sure that's part of this one.
Tim Wildmon: The accusation in that story is that she pretended her brother was her husband so that it was an illegitimate marriage used to circumvent the rules and laws.
Fred Jackson: This started under the Biden administration, did it not?
Tim Wildmon: It did, but it didn't go very far.
Ed Vitagliano: Are you saying that if she is guilty of changing her birth date and was 18, not 17, she could actually be deported?
Fred Jackson: Yes. Even though she's a sitting United States representative, she would lose her naturalization. She wouldn't be a citizen any longer. If you lie on an immigration form, you can be deported. It's probably a federal crime, too. You could also have to pay a fine or go to prison.
Tim Wildmon: That's a story to watch. She's a leader, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of the far-left Squad. If she's going to be deported or found guilty of this, it's going to be big news.
Tim Wildmon: There's a great deal of tension right now between President Trump and Ukraine. About ten days ago, President Trump announced that he had made a deal with Vladimir Putin, head of the Russian government, to allow Russia to sell its oil on the open market. Russia had been hit with sanctions preventing it from selling oil because of its war against the Ukrainian people, where thousands of people have died. President Trump said, "Okay, you can sell your oil on the open market."
Tim Wildmon: Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader, is not happy about that. There are also reports that the United States has slowed down giving Ukraine intelligence about when Russian missiles are coming into the country. In fact, that's part of a meeting today. Zelensky is meeting with some U.S. representatives in Norway to discuss this.
Tim Wildmon: Yesterday, as President Trump was headed out to Marine One to go on another campaign trip, he was asked about the tension during a talk with reporters. This is what he had to say about Zelensky.
Donald Trump: Zelensky is a man who should have had this war settled a long time ago. If he would have listened to me, he would have made a much better deal a long time ago, and he'd have a million people living on his side. To be honest, I think it's time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine.
Fred Jackson: There's a lot of tension right now. Apparently, the argument from Zelensky is that allowing Putin to sell oil on the market gives Russia a lot of income to continue the war against Ukraine. It's very complicated.
Tim Wildmon: No, it's not really.
Fred Jackson: Excuse me?
Tim Wildmon: I'm about to share my opinion, which doesn't come from the Bible, so I don't think we have to call and ask.
Ed Vitagliano: This is not a biblical issue.
Tim Wildmon: Biblical principles may be involved in terms of human life. And by the way, Fred, it is complicated. I mean, I wanted to sound smart there.
Fred Jackson: That's okay.
Tim Wildmon: You're right. It is complicated on one hand, and on the other hand, it's not. Can I share my heart yet?
Ed Vitagliano: It's time to share.
Tim Wildmon: This is wrong. What President Trump is trying to do is wrong. Again, this is my opinion. We can still be friends if you don't share it.
Tim Wildmon: Remember what happened here. I know a lot of people in the MAGA movement and the America First movement don't want us involved in the Ukrainian-Russian war at all, period. That's fine. I understand that. Foreign wars, stay out of them as much as possible. But let's remember what happened here. Russia started a war with Ukraine, its neighbor. That's undisputed. They physically went in with tanks and military forces and started killing people and destroying things.
Tim Wildmon: In Ukraine, it would be like the United States and Canada, although that's a bigger border. Let's put it this way: It would be like the state of Washington and British Columbia. British Columbia is a mighty power, and it starts attacking the little state of Washington. Does that make sense?
Ed Vitagliano: Right.
Tim Wildmon: The Ukrainian people didn't have much of a military, so they started fighting back and using guerrilla warfare tactics and begging the world for money and support to fight off this giant army that was coming to take over their country.
Tim Wildmon: Remember, Trump said, "I can solve this in five minutes" once he became president. He bragged about that over and over again. Well, he was dead wrong. He didn't solve it in five minutes. He didn't know how to solve it.
Ed Vitagliano: He did try.
Tim Wildmon: Yes, but he said, "I can solve it." He bragged about it over and over again.
Ed Vitagliano: He said he could solve it in 24 hours.
Tim Wildmon: Right.
Fred Jackson: The Ukrainian people have been fighting back against Russia taking over their country for four years now. It has been a bloodbath on both sides. The Ukrainians have been sending drones in, and I don't know where all they're getting their money. They've been using some U.S. intelligence and other support to fight back against Russia. Russia has also been launching missiles into Kyiv and killing innocent people by the thousands. It's been horrific.
Tim Wildmon: It's been out of the news because other events in the world have taken over. Every day there's Russia versus Ukraine.
Fred Jackson: I think President Trump has tried to stay neutral as much as possible on this.
Tim Wildmon: Once he realized he couldn't broker a deal.
Fred Jackson: That's right. He tried to stay neutral. But now he's siding with the Russians by letting them sell oil so that gas prices will go down in the United States. I understand the reason for it, but the reason for implementing sanctions against Russia in the first place was to punish them for starting a war with their neighbor, Ukraine.
Fred Jackson: Now Trump has said, "I'm going to let Putin make some money here." He doesn't seem to criticize Putin nearly as much as he does Zelensky. He seems to want Zelensky, the leader of Ukraine, to surrender land to end the war. How much land?
Tim Wildmon: It seems to me that Zelensky and the Ukrainian people are saying, "No, we want to fight to the death. Instead of letting Russia take over our whole country, we want to fight for our land." It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that Trump is saying they need to give away half of it or two-thirds of it in the name of peace.
Tim Wildmon: This is going to split up the Republican Party, too, and the Democrats, because many of them are going to see this as Trump taking the side of the Russians. That's the best way to describe it.
Tim Wildmon: Ed, what have I said here that is out of line?
Ed Vitagliano: I agree that it is complicated and not complicated at the same time. The action of Trump saying, "I'm ready to buy oil from Russia, and Russia needs to be able to sell it," is not complicated to understand. The complications Fred mentioned concerning the war itself are not easy to unravel. I will say that.
Fred Jackson: I'm going to go back even further, and I'm going to do this very briefly, to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The West, led by the United States, punished Russia in the aftermath rather than trying to draw Russia into Europe and say, "Listen, we've been enemies a long time. We need to be friends now."
Fred Jackson: Instead, they tried to punish Russia and expanded NATO. The countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were created to resist the Soviet Union and its allies. We began expanding the countries in NATO and creeping ever closer to Russia's borders. Russia kept saying, "Don't do that. We've already suffered in World War II. We don't want enemies on our doorstep or on our borders. Stop coming closer and closer."
Fred Jackson: Ukraine was going to be brought into Europe and NATO. Ukraine was told by the West, "Give up your nuclear weapons left over from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and we will bring you into NATO." I think we forced Russia's hand.
Fred Jackson: Now, Vladimir Putin is a thug. I'm not denying that. In 2008, Russia expanded and took Georgia, not the state but the region on the Black Sea. Then in 2014, under Obama, they took Crimea, and then they launched this attack on Ukraine.
Fred Jackson: The options after having isolated Russia were for the United States to stay out of the war between Russia and Ukraine. We weren't doing that. We were taking sides with Ukraine and giving them weapons. I think the simple part now is that President Trump has chosen to make a deal with Russia in order to bring prices down here. Maybe that's just out of the goodness of President Trump's heart, or maybe it's political pressure because of the midterms. He has put the squeeze on Zelensky on a number of occasions to make a deal, which in essence is to give up some of the best land in Ukraine to the country that took it.
Tim Wildmon: Why didn't he make the same demands of Putin?
Fred Jackson: That's the problem. I don't understand that.
Fred Jackson: Russia has been treated as an enemy since the collapse of the Soviet Union. I'm criticizing Republicans, including George W. Bush. They tried to punish Russia instead of trying to bring Russia in. Now Russia is friends with China.
Tim Wildmon: They could have been friends with the West.
Fred Jackson: I'm not saying it's our fault. I'm saying it was a political miscalculation. I think they let the desire for vengeance against Russia cloud their thinking. Russia says it is doing what it has to do to protect its nation from NATO on the border by recruiting thousands and thousands of North Korean soldiers.
Tim Wildmon: They're fighting to win.
Fred Jackson: They're going to fight to win.
Tim Wildmon: Ukraine has to fight to win, too.
Fred Jackson: Yes, and you've got to let Ukraine do that.
Ed Vitagliano: Picking sides is the problem here. I don't think negotiating to get oil from another country to help our economy is a terrible thing.
Tim Wildmon: It's too late for that to affect the midterms.
Tim Wildmon: Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening to AFR. Today is Tuesday, October 20, 2026. I'm Tim Wildmon, and in the studio with me is Ed Vitagliano. Good morning, Ed.
Ed Vitagliano: Good morning, Tim.
Wesley Wildmon: Good morning. Glad to be back.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah. You took a little trip.
Wesley Wildmon: The fall break trip, and then I took a work trip, a combination of that. I was out for about eight workdays, but I'm back and looking forward to being on Today's Issues. While I was away, my wife went out of town, and I had a couple of days of babysitting.
Tim Wildmon: Wow, you had your hands full babysitting.
Wesley Wildmon: You know what? You get those babies, and you come on.
Ed Vitagliano: You have spouses. You don't babysit your own kids.
Wesley Wildmon: I see what you do.
Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, I see what you do.
Wesley Wildmon: I was hoping Chelsea was listening because I'm about to get a text.
Ed Vitagliano: Right. You call it babysitting like you're going above and beyond, when all you're doing is being the parent.
Wesley Wildmon: That's called parenting.
Tim Wildmon: Okay. She's right about that.
Wesley Wildmon: She is right.
Tim Wildmon: Brother Fred Jackson is here with us.
Fred Jackson: Good to be here. It was a rookie mistake, though.
Tim Wildmon: When?
Fred Jackson: The first baby, first kid.
Tim Wildmon: You're not a rookie.
Fred Jackson: No, no, no. Eleven years in. I have an 11-year-old.
Tim Wildmon: Well, good to have you back. I was out a few days myself, and you've been here.
Fred Jackson: I've been holding down the fort.
Tim Wildmon: I hope so. Ray Pritchard has been here.
Fred Jackson: Right. He's in Chicago this week. He'll be back next week.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, so he's in Chicago.
Fred Jackson: Yeah. He hopes he's going to be back.
Tim Wildmon: That's right. Ray Pritchard is on with us, too. He's in churches most of the time, and he's also a traveler of the country. He pastored for a long time.
Fred Jackson: He did 20 years, I think he said.
Tim Wildmon: He says he remembers every winter.
Ed Vitagliano: You don't forget winters in Chicago.
Tim Wildmon: All right, thanks for joining us, everybody. I appreciate you listening to the show. Again, Tim, Ed, Wesley, and Fred. You can determine who's the smartest at the end of an hour and a half here.
Ed Vitagliano: We're pretty much all in the same bucket.
Tim Wildmon: Are we in the same bucket?
Wesley Wildmon: I think we're all in the same bucket.
Ed Vitagliano: But even in the same bucket, there could be slight differences.
Fred Jackson: There are labels on that bucket.
Wesley Wildmon: That's where we all get tossed in.
Tim Wildmon: We're on the same boat.
Ed Vitagliano: Boat or bucket?
Tim Wildmon: We're proving my point right now.
Ed Vitagliano: Yes, we are.
Tim Wildmon: By killing time.
Fred Jackson: Absolutely.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Fred. What's some happy news going on in the world today?
Fred Jackson: This is the all-good-news program, folks. You'll learn that pretty quickly. We take a sunshine approach to life on planet Earth. Every day is a Friday.
Tim Wildmon: I can predict with about 100 percent certainty that two weeks from today on this program, we will be talking about elections.
Fred Jackson: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: Because it will be Election Day. That night, November 3rd, we're going to be covering the results. We're going to come in at 6 p.m. Central Time that evening, and as the results unfold in the only poll that really counts, we will unveil what the American people have decided as the time zone moves across the country.
Ed Vitagliano: What if I don't like what they decide?
Tim Wildmon: You will tell us that.
Ed Vitagliano: So tune in and we'll see.
Tim Wildmon: We live in a free country. You will be allowed to complain about what the American people decide.
Ed Vitagliano: Can I whine?
Tim Wildmon: You can whine.
Fred Jackson: We know why.
Tim Wildmon: All right, we are covering the election live on AFR, so mark it on your calendar.
Fred Jackson: There have been times in elections past when we've been here until 11:30 or midnight.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah.
Fred Jackson: And we're going to have a lot of special guests on with us throughout the program as the results come in. It's going to be a big night, folks.
Ed Vitagliano: Anybody listening over the last several months has heard all the stories about what the polls are saying and what this election is all about. President Trump has been very busy. He's in a different state every day at rallies. We talked a little bit about the polls yesterday. Tim, you sent out a story overnight from what is called a poll expert, Nate Silver. He's the founder of FiveThirtyEight. I would say that in the past, at least, we've regarded Nate Silver's polling predictions as fairly accurate. So if you're a Republican, you may not like the latest results coming from him. His latest model gives the Democrats a 94 percent chance of winning the House and a 75 percent chance of taking the Senate. Those numbers are an increase from some of the predictions he was making about a month ago.
Tim Wildmon: I'm switching to charismatic mode. I do not receive that information.
Ed Vitagliano: You rebuke it?
Tim Wildmon: I rebuke that information. Nate Silver is pretty accurate most of the time, if that's his reputation.
Ed Vitagliano: Okay.
Tim Wildmon: I don't mean to be doom and gloom for conservatives here, but the House of Representatives is going to flip. It's going to flip from Republican to Democrat.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't need Nate Silver to tell me that.
Tim Wildmon: That's going to happen.
Ed Vitagliano: I think, if I'm wrong, tune in on election night.
Wesley Wildmon: Are you discouraging the vote, then?
Tim Wildmon: No, I'm not. Go out and vote. It doesn't matter. You don't know. Upsets happen, and predictions are wrong, so go out and vote. I'm not saying don't vote because the die is already cast. I'm saying that historically, the party out of power in the White House picks up a lot of seats in the House of Representatives in the midterms. That's just history. It doesn't matter who the president is.
Ed Vitagliano: When Obama was president, the Republicans swept in.
Tim Wildmon: Now Trump is in, the Republican, and there's a very slim margin in the House of Representatives anyway. It's like four seats or something like that. So I don't think it should be a big surprise if the Democrats take over the House of Representatives.
Tim Wildmon: However, as I mentioned before, the Republicans have a 50-50 chance of holding the Senate. That would be critical for this reason: The president of the United States, whoever he may be, appoints federal judges, and they are confirmed or rejected by the United States Senate. So to me, going forward, at least domestically, the top priority is that Republicans hold the Senate so President Trump can appoint conservative judges to the federal bench, including potentially Supreme Court seats that may become open. Does that make sense?
Ed Vitagliano: It does. I would also add that there are plenty of down-ballot races.
Tim Wildmon: That's true.
Ed Vitagliano: That's another reason for people to vote. There are a lot of gubernatorial races.
Tim Wildmon: Please do not stay home. Go to the polls and vote. First of all, it's your civic duty. As part of your fulfillment of being salt and light, according to the Scriptures, this is what Jesus says Christians should be. It can sometimes make a difference even if a leftist wins a seat. If it's by a narrow margin, that encourages people to hold on to biblical values. But there are down-ballot races, even down as far as your school board, mayors, and state offices. There are all sorts of races where you need to be there to leave your mark.
Tim Wildmon: The prognosticators have a job to do, and we have a job to discuss it, but your job as a voter is to do your civic duty, go out and vote, and let the chips fall where they may.
Ed Vitagliano: Good gambling analogy there at the end.
Tim Wildmon: I was talking about spiritual commentary.
Wesley Wildmon: Potato chips. Sometimes they just toss potato chips and let them land where they may.
Ed Vitagliano: I don't know what you're taping that exactly.
Tim Wildmon: What flavor?
Ed Vitagliano: I'm interested now.
Wesley Wildmon: That's a waste of potato chips, the way I look at it.
Tim Wildmon: Well, that's part of the lesson.
Wesley Wildmon: That's part of the lesson, Tim. You don't want to waste potato chips, and you don't want to waste your vote. Use our voter guide. We have a voter guide out there. We've been promoting it in different states leading up to the election, primarily through email, but we'd also like to tell you about it on the radio.
Wesley Wildmon: Especially on Election Day, I get four or five texts from friends locally who say, "Hey, who do you recommend?" I get my information from working here at AFA and things like that, but we'll also send them the link. Have that link close by so you can send it out: iVoterGuide.com. iVoterGuide.com is the place to go to get your information. For a lot of states, it goes down pretty far on the ballot, so you want to check it out.
Tim Wildmon: That's AFA's voter guide. We acquired it about five years ago, maybe a little longer, and AFA Action has worked really hard to make it the top-tier voter guide in the country. Millions of people use it. It has grown from one million users to two million, and they're expecting between three and four million this midterm.
Ed Vitagliano: Then we'll just have to deal with the cards that are dealt our way.
Tim Wildmon: We're going to have to eat the sandwich that is handed to us.
Tim Wildmon: Fred, anything else to wrap that up before we move on?
Fred Jackson: As I mentioned, President Trump is out in a different state every day campaigning. He is using the riots and looting we've been seeing in France to tell the American people, "If you switch to those socialist, communist Democrats, the stuff you're seeing in France is going to be here in spades." Here's a little bit of what he's been saying.
Donald Trump: This is a very sad situation, what's happening in France, because what's happening in France has to do with immigration, not schools, not anything. It's immigration. I told President Macron, "Close up your borders." I told him the first time I met him, which was years ago in my first term, "Close up your borders. You're going to have nothing but trouble." They've got a lot of trouble. They let people into their country that don't love their country. They don't love their buildings, they don't love their art. I said, the first time I met Macron, "You've got to close up your borders. You're going to ruin your country." They've ruined their country. It's going to be hard to get it back, but hopefully France will come back.
Fred Jackson: That was President Trump commenting on the riots, demonstrations, lawlessness, and anarchy taking place in France right now. I don't know where that's going to end or what they're going to do to stop it. I'm talking about the authorities and Macron, the president.
Tim Wildmon: Is he president? Is that what he is?
Fred Jackson: Anyway, joining us, as he does as frequently as he can, usually once a week or every other week, is our good friend Frank Turek from CrossExamined. He joins us now. How are you doing, Frank?
Frank Turek: I'm just fine. iVoterGuide.com is a great site. In fact, we link to it on our site, VoteYourFaith.net, which not only links to iVoterGuide.com but also has a bunch of reasons why Christians need to vote. Half of Christians will not vote. Half. If Christians voted, and voted biblically, our country would be in much better shape.
Tim Wildmon: Absolutely. We're doing everything we can, and you're doing everything you can, to encourage Christians to get out and vote. Your family, your friends, your fellow church members, especially in Texas and Michigan, are going to be important. Those races are going to be razor-thin, it looks like, to determine who controls the United States Senate. Everywhere, go out and vote.
Tim Wildmon: You wanted to comment on Sharia law. There was a Rasmussen Report out. Talk about that, Frank.
Frank Turek: To show you how crazy our country has gotten, particularly with young people and what they believe, Rasmussen put out a poll last week. It found that Sharia law is approved by 43 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24. Let me read this paragraph: "Positive views of Sharia are much higher among younger voters, including 43 percent of voters age 18 to 24 and 39 percent of those age 25 to 29. By contrast, just 16 percent of those 40 and older view Sharia positively."
Frank Turek: I'm surprised it's that high among people 40 and older. You've probably heard the statement, "If you're not a liberal when you're 20, you don't have a heart. If you're not a conservative when you're 40, you don't have a brain."
Tim Wildmon: I don't know how 16 percent of people over 40 think Sharia law is a good thing.
Ed Vitagliano: Do people know what Sharia law is?
Frank Turek: That was my question. Do they know that if you convert to Christianity, you'll be executed? Do they know that if you leave Islam, you'll be executed? Do they know that women are second-class citizens and can be beaten on their beds, according to Surah 4 of the Quran? Do they know that you can't even have a dog under Sharia law? Do they know that people will be executed for certain sexual sins under Sharia law? Do they know that your freedom to preach and live the gospel goes away under Sharia law? And yet people think this is a good thing?
Tim Wildmon: You're reciting the Rasmussen poll, which is a very reputable polling firm, and it showed that 43 percent of young people, defined as 18 to 24, had a favorable view of Sharia law. I would guess they are ignorant of the things you just mentioned. But that's on us, Tim. That's on our education system.
Tim Wildmon: How do people not know this? We put out a video about six months ago where I went through what Sharia law is. It's about two minutes on our YouTube channel, and it got over a million views. People were shocked. They said, "They didn't know this?" You don't know what goes on in Iran? How do you not know this? How do you not know jihad, which has been going on for 1,400 years? How do you not know that someone like El-Sayed, who is running for Senate in Michigan, is actually someone who thinks Sharia law is a good thing? In fact, his whole family is tied into the Muslim Brotherhood, which is all about imposing Sharia law on every single population they can. Islam means submission, and this guy wants to be in the United States Senate. It's crazy.
Wesley Wildmon: We know historically that a lot of things, such as Sharia law and socialism, usually have something spent on them or something soft that introduces them and gets ignorant people interested in them or wanting to try them. Later on, what we know to be true historically is that they fail for a lot of reasons. In this particular case, you lose a lot of religious freedom, or all your religious freedom. Are you aware of what the soft spin is, or the way they're trying to twist it to make it appealing to young people?
Frank Turek: It might be cultural Marxism that people are buying into. Anybody who is a non-Christian, anybody who is LGBTQ, anybody who is a non-citizen, anybody who is a person of color is automatically oppressed. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is where you get "Gays for Gaza," where you get people siding with one another who are really at odds. If gays go to Gaza, they're going to be murdered because of Sharia law. Yet they think, "A Muslim is somehow oppressed, so I'm going to look favorably on what they believe." The term "useful idiot," I think, may have come out of the Iranian college students in the 1970s who wanted to get rid of the shah and invite in the ayatollah.
Frank Turek: When Jimmy Carter greenlighted that in 1979, the shah got out of Iran and the ayatollah came in. What did the ayatollah do to the college students who wanted him to take over? He murdered many of them because they were useful idiots for him. They said, "Wait, we were for you. Why do you want to kill us?" He said, "I'm in control now. I don't care if you were for me. You're an infidel. You're going to be executed." People don't seem to understand that when Islam takes over, the freedoms we enjoy and the respect we have for human life go away.
Ed Vitagliano: But is that really a threat to the United States? There are places such as Dearborn, Michigan, a school here and there, and what happened in Texas with people trying to have their own town where they govern themselves. I'm talking about Muslims under Sharia. Those are just tiny pockets.
Frank Turek: They may be tiny pockets, but they have political clout. There is a Muslim mayor in Dearborn, and now the call to prayer is going over the loudspeakers there. Sharia law is being implemented in some neighborhoods, if not in Dearborn, certainly in the United Kingdom. In Texas, they're building mosques left and right, and they're politically active. Ninety percent of Muslims will vote, while only 50 percent of Christians will vote. If you want to protect your freedoms, you better get out and vote, Christians. Don't vote for Sharia law. Don't vote for people who want to open our borders. Don't vote for people who are sympathetic to Sharia law. Vote for people who are going to support our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That's the oath you're supposed to take when you go into the military or Congress.
Frank Turek: Sharia law is incompatible with the United States Constitution.
Tim Wildmon: I totally agree with that. You look around the world where Muslims are a majority and where Sharia law is implemented. Look at Iran. These are totalitarian states. They are not communist states, which are atheistic, like China, for example, but they are controlled by the mullahs. Look at Afghanistan and the Taliban.
Frank Turek: There are a few Muslim-dominant countries that are more free and open, such as Jordan and, to some extent, Turkey. But where they take over, they outlaw any other kind of religious practice for the most part. I don't understand the LGBTQ community being for Sharia law, or being for their own demise.
Ed Vitagliano: I'm not sure this Rasmussen poll indicates that young people are in favor of implementing Sharia law. I think they look at it as being a good thing or not a threat, which is naive, as Frank has been saying. They think, "I think Sharia law is fine." Part of the reason young people are thinking this way is because white, male, heterosexual, Christian, or someone who believes in capitalism, is considered part of the basket of deplorables. Whatever is outside the basket, whatever is a minority, including a minority religion, is automatically applauded and receives their tender feelings. I think that's part of the useful idiocy Frank is talking about. If they ever allow Marxists or Muslims to take charge, they'll find out in a hurry that they are the ones on the outside.
Wesley Wildmon: I've seen some of the videos of the local boards or councils in Dearborn where people are saying, "I'm tired of this call to prayer."
Tim Wildmon: You mean over the loudspeaker?
Wesley Wildmon: Over the loudspeaker, yes.
Tim Wildmon: They really do that?
Wesley Wildmon: Five times a day.
Tim Wildmon: They do. Hey, Frank, can you hold on?
Frank Turek: Yes, sir.
Tim Wildmon: We'll be back with Frank Turek after this break.
Tim Wildmon: Frank is the host of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. You can hear it live each Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Central Time, usually live, right here on American Family Radio. We also air that show Sunday afternoons at 4 p.m. Central Time. Frank, are you on the road this week, or are you at home?
Frank Turek: I'm going to be in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday for the Summit Conference. Otherwise, I'm here. I just got back from the trip yesterday.
Tim Wildmon: The Summit Conference in Columbus, Ohio. That's at Ohio State University, isn't it? Are you going to be on the campus there?
Frank Turek: No, I'll be on the Ohio State campus in March for that. I usually go to Ohio State at least once a year, but this is a different event.
Tim Wildmon: You know the quarterback's hurt, right? The quarterback for Ohio State.
Frank Turek: Yeah.
Tim Wildmon: I was thinking maybe you could help him out there.
Frank Turek: I could jump in there.
Tim Wildmon: Go by the football office and tell them you're available this weekend. You still have some years left.
Frank Turek: I have eligibility if they want a 64-year-old quarterback.
Ed Vitagliano: Maybe a couple of years of eligibility left, but in terms of hairs on the top of his head, not so much.
Frank Turek: I was talking about football.
Ed Vitagliano: I just speak facts. I wasn't making a negative observation.
Frank Turek: I think you look good, Ed.
Ed Vitagliano: It was a morally neutral observation.
Frank Turek: By the way, I was just at Green Valley Baptist, not far from you.
Tim Wildmon: How did that go?
Frank Turek: It was great. What a great church. I saw J.J. Jasper there.
Tim Wildmon: J.J. Jasper was there. That's his church.
Frank Turek: Ed was ten minutes from there but couldn't get off his sofa to come see you, Frank.
Ed Vitagliano: I do not have a subscription to Netflix. It was a hockey game.
Tim Wildmon: Since you've been outed.
Ed Vitagliano: I had plans to go, Frank. I'm just going to be honest. I completely forgot. I took a nap in my recliner. When I woke up, I thought, "Oh my goodness, Frank's thing."
Frank Turek: Tim was just 20 minutes away. You came all this way to this neck of the woods. Where was the president of the ministry where your radio show appears?
Ed Vitagliano: I was down in my back.
Tim Wildmon: He was out evangelizing, Ed. That's what he does.
Ed Vitagliano: I had a twinge in my back. I couldn't go there and sit in the pew and make everybody else get up and down. I was thinking of others.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Frank, what's your website, and what's there?
Frank Turek: CrossExamined.org. There's a lot there. This weekend on the American Family Radio Network at 9 a.m. Central on Saturday, I'll be interviewing Jay Richards, who wrote the book Money, Greed, and God, the best book you'll ever read on economics and how only the free-market capitalist system can bring the most people out of poverty. People think poverty is the exception. No, poverty is the rule. Prosperity is the exception. You can be impoverished by doing nothing. As Proverbs says, "A little folding of the hands, a little rest," and poverty will be on you in a heartbeat. People think they deserve prosperity. No, prosperity is something you have to work for.
Frank Turek: We're going to talk about socialism, communism, and why young people are buying into this socialism and Marxism nonsense. That's going to be this Saturday on the American Family Radio Network.
Tim Wildmon: If you're unable to listen Saturday, you can download or listen to the podcast. A lot of the topics you cover interest people, but they may miss it on Saturday. You have it marked somewhere, don't you?
Frank Turek: Wherever they get podcasts, they can find the I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist podcast. Or they can go to our YouTube channel, CrossExamined. We put out a video version as well. The CrossExamined YouTube channel, two words, CrossExamined. You can listen to it at your own convenience.
Tim Wildmon: That's what I do. One last thing before we let you go. You have a new book out this year. Tell our folks about it.
Frank Turek: I have two new books. One is called The War on Reality, which deals with all of the craziness we have in our culture: people denying reality, people saying men can have babies, people claiming math is racist. That just doesn't add up. People claim that if you're a Christian, you're somehow an oppressor, the oppressed-oppressor stuff. People say Christians ought not be involved in politics, as if only atheists are qualified to run the country. I don't know where they come up with that.
Frank Turek: The update to I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist comes out next week. After 22 years, we've updated the book. There are new chapters and a lot of new evidence.
Tim Wildmon: So now you really don't have enough faith.
Frank Turek: I really don't have enough faith to be an atheist.
Tim Wildmon: Exactly.
Frank Turek: It comes out October 27th.
Tim Wildmon: All right, Frank, take care.
Frank Turek: Thank you. God bless you guys.
Tim Wildmon: You too.
Tim Wildmon: Dr. Frank Turek joining us from North Carolina. Fred, what's your next story?
Fred Jackson: Have you guys been keeping up with what's been going on with Squad member Ilhan Omar? Homeland Security raided her house in D.C. a week ago yesterday, and we're finding out what they found. They were able to get a DNA sample, her cell phone, and a few other things in that raid.
Fred Jackson: There is now a belief, and leading up to that they went to two judges who work in the D.C. Circuit and are known to be very liberal, left-wing judges, because the charge has been made that this is weaponization against a political effort.
Tim Wildmon: What are the points of the raid?
Fred Jackson: The point of the raid is that there is a belief among Homeland Security and the Department of Justice that she lied when she entered this country about her age. She came from Somalia with her dad in 1995, I believe, when they immigrated here. The belief is that she was actually 18 when she came into this country instead of the 17 she put on the form.
Fred Jackson: If you're 18, you have to make your own declaration. If you're 17, you come in under your parents. That's the allegation. It's important that these two left-wing judges apparently signed off, finding probable cause to allow this raid.
Fred Jackson: They're also talking to Ilhan Omar's sister, whose name is Sarah Noor. So they're talking to both of them. Carrie Urbahn, one of Fox's legal experts, was asked about all this this morning. She had some interesting things to say.
Carrie Urbahn: We have to remember a really important fact here. At this point, two different judges have signed off on seizing information and materials from both a sitting member of Congress and that sitting member's sister. Two different judges, two different areas. This is not something to be overlooked. Judges are typically really reticent to delve into the personal stuff, so to speak, involving people who are in Congress. Then you throw into that the fact that it could be perceived as a Donald Trump project. Judges are going to be looking at this skeptically. The fact that you have two sign-offs indicates to me that whatever was presented to them was pretty compelling in terms of evidence, or they would never have said yes to it.
Carrie Urbahn: What would this mean for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar if it is found that she lied? She could lose her citizenship, and she could be deported back to Somalia.
Tim Wildmon: Does it involve her marrying her brother?
Fred Jackson: That's been out there.
Tim Wildmon: The accusation is that she married her brother in order to get him into the country.
Fred Jackson: That's a different matter. I'm not sure that's part of this one.
Tim Wildmon: The accusation in that story is that she pretended her brother was her husband so that it was an illegitimate marriage used to circumvent the rules and laws.
Fred Jackson: This started under the Biden administration, did it not?
Tim Wildmon: It did, but it didn't go very far.
Ed Vitagliano: Are you saying that if she is guilty of changing her birth date and was 18, not 17, she could actually be deported?
Fred Jackson: Yes. Even though she's a sitting United States representative, she would lose her naturalization. She wouldn't be a citizen any longer. If you lie on an immigration form, you can be deported. It's probably a federal crime, too. You could also have to pay a fine or go to prison.
Tim Wildmon: That's a story to watch. She's a leader, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of the far-left Squad. If she's going to be deported or found guilty of this, it's going to be big news.
Tim Wildmon: There's a great deal of tension right now between President Trump and Ukraine. About ten days ago, President Trump announced that he had made a deal with Vladimir Putin, head of the Russian government, to allow Russia to sell its oil on the open market. Russia had been hit with sanctions preventing it from selling oil because of its war against the Ukrainian people, where thousands of people have died. President Trump said, "Okay, you can sell your oil on the open market."
Tim Wildmon: Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader, is not happy about that. There are also reports that the United States has slowed down giving Ukraine intelligence about when Russian missiles are coming into the country. In fact, that's part of a meeting today. Zelensky is meeting with some U.S. representatives in Norway to discuss this.
Tim Wildmon: Yesterday, as President Trump was headed out to Marine One to go on another campaign trip, he was asked about the tension during a talk with reporters. This is what he had to say about Zelensky.
Donald Trump: Zelensky is a man who should have had this war settled a long time ago. If he would have listened to me, he would have made a much better deal a long time ago, and he'd have a million people living on his side. To be honest, I think it's time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine.
Fred Jackson: There's a lot of tension right now. Apparently, the argument from Zelensky is that allowing Putin to sell oil on the market gives Russia a lot of income to continue the war against Ukraine. It's very complicated.
Tim Wildmon: No, it's not really.
Fred Jackson: Excuse me?
Tim Wildmon: I'm about to share my opinion, which doesn't come from the Bible, so I don't think we have to call and ask.
Ed Vitagliano: This is not a biblical issue.
Tim Wildmon: Biblical principles may be involved in terms of human life. And by the way, Fred, it is complicated. I mean, I wanted to sound smart there.
Fred Jackson: That's okay.
Tim Wildmon: You're right. It is complicated on one hand, and on the other hand, it's not. Can I share my heart yet?
Ed Vitagliano: It's time to share.
Tim Wildmon: This is wrong. What President Trump is trying to do is wrong. Again, this is my opinion. We can still be friends if you don't share it.
Tim Wildmon: Remember what happened here. I know a lot of people in the MAGA movement and the America First movement don't want us involved in the Ukrainian-Russian war at all, period. That's fine. I understand that. Foreign wars, stay out of them as much as possible. But let's remember what happened here. Russia started a war with Ukraine, its neighbor. That's undisputed. They physically went in with tanks and military forces and started killing people and destroying things.
Tim Wildmon: In Ukraine, it would be like the United States and Canada, although that's a bigger border. Let's put it this way: It would be like the state of Washington and British Columbia. British Columbia is a mighty power, and it starts attacking the little state of Washington. Does that make sense?
Ed Vitagliano: Right.
Tim Wildmon: The Ukrainian people didn't have much of a military, so they started fighting back and using guerrilla warfare tactics and begging the world for money and support to fight off this giant army that was coming to take over their country.
Tim Wildmon: Remember, Trump said, "I can solve this in five minutes" once he became president. He bragged about that over and over again. Well, he was dead wrong. He didn't solve it in five minutes. He didn't know how to solve it.
Ed Vitagliano: He did try.
Tim Wildmon: Yes, but he said, "I can solve it." He bragged about it over and over again.
Ed Vitagliano: He said he could solve it in 24 hours.
Tim Wildmon: Right.
Fred Jackson: The Ukrainian people have been fighting back against Russia taking over their country for four years now. It has been a bloodbath on both sides. The Ukrainians have been sending drones in, and I don't know where all they're getting their money. They've been using some U.S. intelligence and other support to fight back against Russia. Russia has also been launching missiles into Kyiv and killing innocent people by the thousands. It's been horrific.
Tim Wildmon: It's been out of the news because other events in the world have taken over. Every day there's Russia versus Ukraine.
Fred Jackson: I think President Trump has tried to stay neutral as much as possible on this.
Tim Wildmon: Once he realized he couldn't broker a deal.
Fred Jackson: That's right. He tried to stay neutral. But now he's siding with the Russians by letting them sell oil so that gas prices will go down in the United States. I understand the reason for it, but the reason for implementing sanctions against Russia in the first place was to punish them for starting a war with their neighbor, Ukraine.
Fred Jackson: Now Trump has said, "I'm going to let Putin make some money here." He doesn't seem to criticize Putin nearly as much as he does Zelensky. He seems to want Zelensky, the leader of Ukraine, to surrender land to end the war. How much land?
Tim Wildmon: It seems to me that Zelensky and the Ukrainian people are saying, "No, we want to fight to the death. Instead of letting Russia take over our whole country, we want to fight for our land." It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that Trump is saying they need to give away half of it or two-thirds of it in the name of peace.
Tim Wildmon: This is going to split up the Republican Party, too, and the Democrats, because many of them are going to see this as Trump taking the side of the Russians. That's the best way to describe it.
Tim Wildmon: Ed, what have I said here that is out of line?
Ed Vitagliano: I agree that it is complicated and not complicated at the same time. The action of Trump saying, "I'm ready to buy oil from Russia, and Russia needs to be able to sell it," is not complicated to understand. The complications Fred mentioned concerning the war itself are not easy to unravel. I will say that.
Fred Jackson: I'm going to go back even further, and I'm going to do this very briefly, to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The West, led by the United States, punished Russia in the aftermath rather than trying to draw Russia into Europe and say, "Listen, we've been enemies a long time. We need to be friends now."
Fred Jackson: Instead, they tried to punish Russia and expanded NATO. The countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were created to resist the Soviet Union and its allies. We began expanding the countries in NATO and creeping ever closer to Russia's borders. Russia kept saying, "Don't do that. We've already suffered in World War II. We don't want enemies on our doorstep or on our borders. Stop coming closer and closer."
Fred Jackson: Ukraine was going to be brought into Europe and NATO. Ukraine was told by the West, "Give up your nuclear weapons left over from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and we will bring you into NATO." I think we forced Russia's hand.
Fred Jackson: Now, Vladimir Putin is a thug. I'm not denying that. In 2008, Russia expanded and took Georgia, not the state but the region on the Black Sea. Then in 2014, under Obama, they took Crimea, and then they launched this attack on Ukraine.
Fred Jackson: The options after having isolated Russia were for the United States to stay out of the war between Russia and Ukraine. We weren't doing that. We were taking sides with Ukraine and giving them weapons. I think the simple part now is that President Trump has chosen to make a deal with Russia in order to bring prices down here. Maybe that's just out of the goodness of President Trump's heart, or maybe it's political pressure because of the midterms. He has put the squeeze on Zelensky on a number of occasions to make a deal, which in essence is to give up some of the best land in Ukraine to the country that took it.
Tim Wildmon: Why didn't he make the same demands of Putin?
Fred Jackson: That's the problem. I don't understand that.
Fred Jackson: Russia has been treated as an enemy since the collapse of the Soviet Union. I'm criticizing Republicans, including George W. Bush. They tried to punish Russia instead of trying to bring Russia in. Now Russia is friends with China.
Tim Wildmon: They could have been friends with the West.
Fred Jackson: I'm not saying it's our fault. I'm saying it was a political miscalculation. I think they let the desire for vengeance against Russia cloud their thinking. Russia says it is doing what it has to do to protect its nation from NATO on the border by recruiting thousands and thousands of North Korean soldiers.
Tim Wildmon: They're fighting to win.
Fred Jackson: They're going to fight to win.
Tim Wildmon: Ukraine has to fight to win, too.
Fred Jackson: Yes, and you've got to let Ukraine do that.
Ed Vitagliano: Picking sides is the problem here. I don't think negotiating to get oil from another country to help our economy is a terrible thing.
Tim Wildmon: It's too late for that to affect the midterms.
Tim Wildmon, Ed Vitagliano, and their guests examine election polling, the importance of voting in the 2026 midterms, and the stakes of congressional and down-ballot races. They discuss the potential impact of Senate control on judicial appointments and point listeners to voter resources.
A guest from Cross Examined discusses a Rasmussen poll reporting favorable views of Sharia law among younger voters. The conversation considers religious liberty, constitutional government, Islamic law, and why Christians should understand the issues before voting.
The program also covers allegations surrounding a federal raid connected to Rep. Ilhan Omar and debate over President Trump’s approach to the war between Russia and Ukraine, including oil sales, sanctions, intelligence sharing, and pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Live
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