MikeSlater
Politics • Spirituality/Belief • Culture
Tucker Fired from FoxNews!
April 24, 2023

Today's episode of Politics by Faith is about FoxNews firing Tucker Carlson. There is a relevant story for us here about betrayal, courage and contentment.

We're now including the transcript below, (hopefully, you find that of value) in addition to the podcast here on Locals before it's available on iTunes etc.


Welcome to Politics by Faith, I'm Mike Slater. Thanks for being here. Tucker Carlson no longer at Fox News. Dan Bongino was also fired or let go or left Fox News. Also as I'm recording this podcast here, Don Lemon was fired from CNN. What is going on? We're gonna focus mostly on Tucker today. One of the difficult parts of this podcast is what story to pick. I was going to do it on Joe Biden announcing that he's gonna run for president again, which is just bonkers to me, and a new NBC poll said 70% of Americans do not want Biden to run for a second term.

0:00:43
70% of Americans are like, don't do it, but he's gonna do it anyway. But we'll save that for another day. I'd rather talk about Tucker Carlson. Again, Don Lemon wrote this. He says, I was informed this morning by my agent that I've been terminated by CNN. I'm stunned. After 17 years at CNN, I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly.

0:01:08
At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I've loved at the network. And he was given like a week off for some misogynistic things he said. They're like, everyone knew you were on the fritz, Don. It's clear that there are some larger issues at play. With that said, I want to thank my colleagues and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's Don Lemon. I don't care about Don Lemon. And Bongino, it seems like they left on fine enough terms. I don't know.

0:01:35
But the Tucker is what I'm most fascinated by. He is the number one cable news show. Number one show. Fired. That is something. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm in the industry. I'm a guppy compared to Tucker. So maybe I'm extra fascinated by this or it's because I'm a big fan of Tucker. I was not a fan a couple years ago and then maybe I was just jealous, I don't know.

0:02:02
And then I became a bigger and bigger fan over time. And now I think his opening monologues are wonderful, terrific. And I'm fascinated by him as a person, which we'll get to in a little bit as well. But I still think this is relevant for all of us because we all watch cable news, or we all watch the news. But also, any of us can be fired at any moment. There's a story there, too, and that causes anxiety.

0:02:30
The idea that you get laid off tomorrow, and be like, oh, last day was on Friday. That causes anxiety, and that's what we are here to try and alleviate, that anxiety. So let's get to it. Let's talk about Tucker Carlson. What's going on? So a couple things are interesting about Tucker Carlson's childhood. First, his dad was an orphan, grew up in the home for little wanderers, that's a real name, and then went on to become a successful business man.

0:02:59
His mom and dad divorced when he was nine years old and his mom moved to France. No, excuse me, when he was six, Tucker was six, and his mom moved to France and that was it, they never talked to each other. Never talked to each other ever since then and she died relatively recently and he got a phone call about how she died and part of him was worried that maybe he'd like have a breakdown because of his like non-existent relationship with his mom but he didn't at all and he said over decades I came to terms, came to peace with the fact that I don't know this woman and she's not my mother. His dad remarried and that woman it became her mother And he never talked to his mom ever again, but he learned a really important lesson from from that abandonment I think Turned it into something as good as one could turn it into here He is talking to Megyn Kelly and so I didn't want that I wanted a totally happy family where everyone's close and everyone's named after someone else and like everyone gets together all the time.

0:04:02
And I've had that. And it's the greatest thing in my life. And I really do not take that for granted. And the second thing is criticism from people who hate me doesn't really mean anything to me, I think. It really doesn't. I care what the people I love think. I care deeply. If my wife is upset with me, I can't even function because I care so much about what she thinks.

0:04:21
And my children, same thing. My close friends, I have a bunch of lifelong friends, people I work with, I feel that way about them, too But like some random, you know, the ADL doesn't like me or something. Mm-hmm Partisan who runs it like I don't care. Why would I care? I'm not giving those people emotional control over me Well, I've been through that I live through that as a child. I'm not doing that again One thing that I admire of Tucker's he grew up upper-class He'll tell you that and that's my point, he'll be the first to tell you that and he doesn't pretend otherwise. You get a lot of people in politics who grew up wealthy and they pretend to be the coal miner.

0:04:58
Joe Biden literally talks about how he or his parents were like coal miners. They weren't, they literally were not coal miners. But they do this game, right? And Tucker's like, no, I grew up really wealthy and I therefore know these people. I've interacted with these people, I've lived next to these people, I've spent time with these people, I know these people and they're not good people and they're not people who we should be in charge, let in charge of our country.

0:05:26
I admire that perspective and that honesty from him. He's been all over cable news, CNN, had a show on MSNBC, the whole thing. I heard an interview with him a while back and the person said, oh, here we've got Tucker Carlson, number one show on cable news, and Tucker interrupted and said, yeah, well listen, I've also hosted the lowest rated show on cable news. Right now I have the highest rated show. I've also hosted the lowest rated show.

0:05:52
And he talked about, just, you know, sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down and it's just the timing of it all and who knows. Isn't that wild? I mean, Tucker Carlson used to host the Fox and Friends weekend. Like, I don't know, like, and then he gets the 8 o'clock show, and he's the number one by far. Very interesting.

0:06:13
But he talked about how you can't be prideful when you're up, or depressed when you're down. You just keep going. Now, even when he's up, I mean, his show, about three million people would watch his show every night, about three million. Number one on cable news by far. A lot of cable news shows are two or one million. That's nothing compared to broadcast news. You know the number one broadcast news?

0:06:40
I don't even know what time it is, six o'clock? Is it six o'clock news, seven o'clock news? ABC News, David Muir, 7.5 million people. So more than twice as many people who watch Tucker Carlson watch ABC World News tonight I haven't seen a broadcast news In like 20 years. I don't know what time they're on I've never even seen a clip of one like clips from the broadcast news don't even make it Out of the broadcast news. I don't even on Twitter or Facebook. I don't even see like oh, did you see a segment the other day I say nothing I didn't even know they existed. And over two times as many people watch ABC World News Tonight as Tucker Carlson.

0:07:23
So, again, that speaks to Tucker's like, yeah, I'm number one, but I could get fired any day now. And he did. There's plenty of verses in the Bible about contentment. But I really like this one from Philippians 4.11. I've learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. I like that from Paul. Paul, he didn't just speak about being down, he spoke of abundance.

0:07:47
He knows contentment in times of abundance. Paul knew how to properly abound. When Tucker was number one, it seems like it didn't get to his head because he knew what it was like to be at the bottom and in the middle and then back at the bottom and then unemployed and then start your own thing, the Daily Caller, and then leave that and then, oh, look, you're number one. And it's like, oh, I could get fired.

0:08:11
And he did, and he seemed always okay with that. Another thing I valued about Tucker is his connection to nature. He lived in Maine. He did the show from Maine. And I think that changes a person. I think, I've always said I think Fox should be headquartered in Tennessee or Oklahoma. It's got to get out of New York City. It changes you.

0:08:34
New York City changes you. It changes you when you live there, the producers who live there. It can't not affect the content that comes out of the camera to the TV. And Tucker was in Maine. I think that gave him a disconnect from it all. He also didn't have any social media or anything. So he could just do his own thing. And I valued that. And he seemed content. And it took time to go hunting and spend time outside with his dogs and all that.

0:09:05
I think that affected, I know that affected his show. It had to have. So that's a little about, anyway, he got fired. So I don't know what he's going to do now. But what's really going on here? Before we get to the broader lesson for all of us, I think there's a bit of a cautionary tale. So why was he fired? We don't know. If I had to guess, it's probably because his boss had to pay $787 million in a settlement with Dominion Voting Machines.

0:09:30
The billion-dollar settlement probably had something to do with it. So the claim from Dominion Voting Machines is that Fox News defamed the company by saying the election was stolen when the Fox News hosts knew that it wasn't really stolen. And through court order, they were able to get text messages that they say proved that the Fox hosts knew that the election wasn't stolen, but they would keep going on the air and saying it was. And we have all these text messages from Tucker. In one text to a producer, he said, there wasn't enough fraud to change the outcome. And he said, Sidney Powell was lying. This is a private text.

0:10:07
He said he was done with Trump and his unfounded claims of a rigged election. This is just a little bit before, it was two days before January 6th. We're very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can't wait. At another point he said, I hate him passionately. I can't handle much more of this. He says we're all pretending we've got a lot to show for it, the Trump presidency, because admitting what a disaster it's been is too tough to digest. But come on, there really isn't, there isn't really an upside to Trump. So Tucker then said in a radio interview about this, he says, I think this is in the text, and those were all grabbed completely illegitimately, in my opinion, in this court case, which I guess I'm not allowed to talk about, but I'm enraged that my private texts were pulled. So there's context to all of these. He said one of the context when I was speaking badly about Trump was that some idiot called him an idiot on the Trump team sent Tucker names of dead people who voted in Georgia to prove the voter fraud and turned out not to be true. Tucker says we went and I repeated them on air and it turns out some of them were alive so I felt humiliated. So we felt burned by Trump's team from that.

0:11:15
He says, there was no doubt that, this is in the text, there's no doubt that there was fraud in the election, but at this point Trump and Lin and Powell have so discredited their own case, discredited their own case, and the rest of us to some extent, that it's infuriating, absolutely enrages me. On November 9th, Carlson was talking about Dominion and said, the software, crap, swear word, is absurd. But then on TV that night, he said, we don't know anything about the software that many say was rigged. We don't know. We ought to find out.

0:11:46
So you see the claim from Dominion. Like behind the scenes Tucker was saying, it was nonsense, but on air, he's like, oh. There's other text. Laura Ingram wrote to Tucker and Hannity, we are officially working for an organization that hates us. That's my favorite one, I like that too. Anyway, he was probably fired because Rupert Murdoch couldn't have the guy on air who was a part of costing him a billion dollars.

0:12:14
Even if he was the number one show. I've actually, I've been surprised that Tucker was ever allowed to stay on the air. The fact that he was on at all, and the fact that he was on, I guess made me think that they would never fire him. Like if they haven't fired him already, just because of the provocative things that he says that I've never heard anyone else say on TV. I just thought he was bulletproof, but alas.

0:12:40
Also in the text messages, Tucker swears a lot, and he says the C word a lot. Having a foul mouth is in the Bible as well. Ephesians 5.4, let there be no filthiness or foolish talk, nor crude joking. Ephesians 4.29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Colossians 3.8, but now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Last one, 2 Timothy 2.16, I like this line, avoid worldly empty chatter.

0:13:18
Another version has, avoid irreverent babble. For it will lead people into more and more ungodliness. The context here is to avoid false preachers. But I like the idea that the words you say, other people hear. And the words you say can lead people away from what is good, beautiful, and true. Other people overhear you, and you are responsible for that, for what you say. Not necessarily how people interpret it, that's up to them, but the things you say.

0:13:44
And that's why David, Psalm 141, three says, "'Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. "'Keep watch over the door of my lips.'" Especially when people are gunning for you. When people are looking for ways to take you out, and obviously talk at the number one show, he had a huge, like all of media matters, every day was constantly trying to destroy him, right? So when people are looking to do that, you can't give them more reasons.

0:14:16
You gotta be above reproach. So anyway, that's probably why he was fired was the Dominion stuff and I bet some of the foul language was like a little cherry on top of they could say, oh he was creating a toxic work environment, something like that they could probably get away with. Alright, let's lament here for a little bit. to tell the truth in, actually, let's take a break here. Let me tell you about Public Square. This is perfect timing.

0:14:50
Public Square is an app. You can download it for free. And it connects you with people who run businesses that share your values. Did you see the other day the VP at Bud Light who was responsible for the whole Dylan Mulvaney thing is on a leave of absence, should probably get fired, which is great. It's like the first conservative boycott I've actually seen make any real inroads and last for longer than a day.

0:15:26
So that's awesome. Go well, go broke, man, that doesn't happen as much as I'd like it to. So we need an alternate parallel marketplace where we do business with people who share our values. And that's what Public Square does, it connects you with those people, locally and then also nationwide. And I know Michael, the founder of Public Square, and it's a company of people who tell the truth. That's what I just thought of them right here.

0:15:53
I lamented how difficult it is to tell the truth, and Michael is a man who tells the truth. And he's created this great app and this great company that's thriving, they're going public, it's awesome. So jump in early on it. PublicSQ.com. You can read the five values that every business owner has to agree with. And you can download the app for free. Public Square.

0:16:10
And they're the first sponsor of this podcast. I'll never forget that. And I've been a user of theirs. I was at their launch party a couple years ago. They're great. Public Square, free download. So I lament how difficult it can be to tell the truth. In the media world, there is a strong pressure for a host to say what they think the audience wants to hear.

0:16:31
There's a huge financial incentive. It makes sense, right? If I don't say what my audience wants to hear in an entertaining way, then no one will listen. And then we won't sell advertisements and then I lose my job and I can't pay my mortgage. Like, right now, you're like, well Slater, you just did an advertisement. Yeah, I'm not, I think I don't even know how much, I've never even been paid, I haven't even been paid a penny for this podcast.

0:16:56
I don't even know what that, what I'm getting paid for that podcast, for that advertisement, I literally don't even know. Maybe, maybe, maybe like a thousand bucks over the year. I really don't even know. But if, the bigger you get, the greater that incentive is to make sure you don't lose your audience. Make sure you don't say something that will destroy the business.

0:17:20
And then if you are running a big company with employees, now you got those families. Like what you say, you can lose everything. And then all these other families are going to be hurt. Oh, the pressure. I wish people wanted to hear the truth. That's it, right? There's always going to be that pressure to say what your audience, you think they want to say. Here, I want an audience that just wants to hear the truth.

0:17:54
I wish that's what people wanted to hear, even if they disagreed with it. We don't have that, we just want to hear, people agree with us. That's what I agree. That's just what we gravitate to. So that's that, I also lament being fired. I was talking to someone in this industry that I'm in, and he said the company that he works for has a history of just randomly firing people, for just no rhyme or reason.

0:18:26
It could be the number one host. It could be the number one host on the number one station in the market and they're gone. And for this company, it's just money, dollars, bottom line and no sense behind it, no justice behind any of it. And that stings. But I was talking to him about it and he said, no, it's good in a way because it's made me learn that every day is gravy, every day is a gift.

0:18:52
Every day I wake up expecting to be fired and I expect every show to be my last. And I actually think that's a really healthy way to go through life because you don't know if today is literally your last day on earth. This weekend, I happened to listen to a speech that Tucker Carlson gave at the Heritage Foundation's 50th anniversary dinner. And I guess, this must have been like a Friday night or Saturday night I guess the dinner and I don't know if he knew he was getting fired on Monday when he gave this talk or not that'd be interesting if he kind of knew in the back of his head but didn't say anything I don't know but he would this is the last question he was asked when everyone wakes up tomorrow whether they're staying here or they're able to go home what should be top of mind for them to do in their local community.

0:19:38
Oh well the very first thing you should do every single day is tell all the people you love that you love them for two reasons. Because you do in affirming things out loud makes them real. Words are the most important and most powerful thing that we have. And of course I have an interest in saying that I sold Chrysler's I'd be like cars are the most important thing. But words are. In the beginning was the word. And so articulate it. And that is also simultaneously an acknowledgement of a truth that we don't face, which is we don't know what's going to happen today.

0:20:17
And we could die. That's the one thing that unites every person, is the certainty of death. And reminding yourself of that every single day will bring you, paradoxically, joy. I love you. That's the most important thing. I think that's a really healthy posture. This could be my last. And then when it is taken away, you're like, well, sounds about right.

0:20:38
Can't believe it lasted as long as it did. Now let's get to some historical and biblical perspective here. Let's start with historical. So I'm on a Jonathan Edwards kick. Jonathan Edwards led the Great Awakening in America. This was in the 1730s and the 1740s. So it was led by, or sparked and led by Jonathan Edwards. So I've been, I think we need another Great Awakening in America. So I'm reading about Jonathan Edwards because I'd like to see the parallels and maybe how we can replicate similarities and differences. So Jonathan Edwards was fired from his job. A vote by the entire congregation, his congregation. This was in 1950. Only 10% of his congregation voted to keep him on the job. He kicked him out. You're gone.

0:21:25
One of the most brilliant men in American history. Leader of the Great Awakening. His own congregation fired him. Why? Here's what he wrote. He said, a very great difficulty has arisen between my people relating to qualifications for communion at the Lord's table. My honored grandfather, Stoddard, that's who ran the church before him, my predecessor in the ministry over this church, strenuously maintained the Lord's Supper to be a converting ordinance and urged all to come who were not of scandalous life, though they knew themselves to be unconverted." So he said, anyone who is not a Christian, you can take communion. I formerly conformed to this practice, but I've had difficulties with respect to it, which have been long increasing, till I dared no longer proceed in the former way, which has occasioned great uneasiness among my people and has filled all the country with noise. Everyone's talking about it. Everyone on Twitter is talking about it.

0:22:26
So again, the guy before him said anyone could take communion. And then Jonathan Edwards finally came to the conviction that no, no, only Christians are allowed to take communion here. I'm going to protect the table. So he took a stand. He took a stand on something. He had a conviction. People don't like that. People rarely like it when someone has a conviction. It's odd. Maybe it's because we're growing up, we're living in this soup of, oh, I don't know, everyone each to each his own, beauty's in the eye of the beholder.

0:22:59
So it's like if anyone makes a stand, oh, you think you're better than us? It's like, oh, no, I just think this is really important and I think this is true. Jonathan Edwards strived for truth and holiness and purity. He was trying to preserve something of great importance. People didn't like that. Even the people of his own church. I want to read this quote from J. H. Thornwell.

0:23:27
This was in 1846. He was noticing that churches were becoming more liberal. In 1846. I cannot imagine what these guys would have thought of many churches today. I want to read this quote here, but check out the parallels to cable news. He's talking about the church, but similar theme. He said, our whole system of operations gives an undue influence to money. Where money is the great want, numbers must be sought. And where an ambition for numbers prevails, doctrinal purity must be sacrificed. The root of the evil is in the secular spirit of all of our ecclesiastical institutions.

0:24:04
What we want is a spiritual body, a church whose power lies in the truth and the presence of the Holy Ghost. To un-secularize the church should be the unceasing aim of all who are anxious that the ways of Zion should flourish. That's true about our political system today. Our whole political system, I'm just going to re-read the quote here, but apologies, our whole political system gives an undue influence to money. Where money is the great want, numbers must be sought. And where ambition for numbers prevails, truth must be sacrificed. Having a conviction about anything.

0:24:54
I want to be a people, I want to, me personally, I want to have convictions. And I want to be a part of a group of people that have convictions about things. Who feel strongly about important things. Don't you think that's good? But that's all a bit of an aside. The reason I bring up this is because Jonathan Edwards got fired, and I'm sure he felt betrayed. I'm sure Jonathan Edwards, it's like I gave my life to this church, to you, to you, this congregation, you fired me? I gave so much time and energy to this company.

0:25:25
I feel like this is a common thing when you get fired to this company, and you fire me just like that? I'm the top salesperson here, I'm the top executive here, I've made this company way more money than you've ever paid me, and that's how you repay me now you fire me like that's got that feeling of betrayal must be common if you are laid off. Biblically of course I think of Judas betraying Jesus. One of Jesus's twelve disciples he was in Jesus's inner circle and he went to the Pharisees he said what will you give me if I deliver him over to you?

0:26:04
And they paid him 30 pieces of silver. That was it, 30 pieces. So how much was that? Don't really know, I've heard as high as 120 days wages. So a third of your salary. So what, 20, 30 grand, that's it? We're gonna betray Jesus for 30K? Matthew 26, 48, now the betrayer had given him a sign saying the one I will kiss is the man, seize him. And he came up to Jesus at once and said, greetings rabbi.

0:26:29
And he kissed him. And Jesus said to him, friend, do what you came to do. Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him, betrayed with a kiss. Back then a kiss was a sign of deep respect and honor and brotherly love. There's an intimacy there. Obviously, you need to get close to the person to do it. And this was one of his disciples. This was a student showing his love to his teacher on the outside but on the inside he was betraying him, leading him to the cross.

0:27:00
Luke 22 3, then Satan entered into Judas who was one of the number of the twelve. Satan entered into and Satan thought he won. Satan thought he won. Let me show this verse. David obviously was betrayed many times. He said, if an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it. This goes back a little bit to what Tucker was talking about about I only care what my friends and family think of me. I don't care what media matters thinks about me. If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it. If a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God as we walked about among the worshippers." Ah, to be betrayed by a friend or family.

0:27:46
Job said similar, Job 19, 19, those I love have turned against me. It didn't work out for Judas. Later the Bible says, then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priest and the elders saying I've sinned by betraying innocent blood. So what is that to us? See to it yourself.

0:28:09
And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple he departed and he went and hanged himself. Not a biblical thing but Dante's Inferno, the ninth circle of hell, the deepest circle of hell is for betrayers and this circle of hell is called Judaica, named after Judas, who betrayed Jesus. So Judas is, so betrayal is like the worst sin and the worst betrayer of all. The innermost, lowest, deepest, hottest circle of hell is Judas. Actually, no, I got that wrong. It's not hot down there. Anyway, that's just art. But if you've ever been fired, you have this feeling of betrayal from your employer. Maybe you're even feeling it as a Fox News viewer for them firing a host that you like. All I can say is get ready for a lot more of it.

0:29:16
In our culture, in our media, from brands like Bud Light, in politics and in life. Maybe you experienced some of that during COVID. You're like, oh, wow, like friends and family, what, really? But as you experience it, because part of societal breakdown and civilizational breakdown is going to be more of these sinful things occur. And one of them is, the worst of them is betrayal. So as it happens to you, know that Jesus was betrayed.

0:29:46
He knew it was going to happen. God knew it was going to happen. And it was to bring about the greater plan. Satan thought he won. So as you're being betrayed, or if you were, or when you are, God knows everything that is happening to you. And he knows what's gonna happen next. And maybe it's to bring about a greater plan, which you could never understand right now in the moment. None of us can.

0:30:11
That was Monday's morning motivation, was all about the tapestry, about how we can never understand the moment. We can't turn around the tapestry and see what's being built, see what's being created, see what's really going on. Jesus knew he was gonna be betrayed. He knows everything about what's going on with your life right now, but he also knows what it's like to be betrayed, so go to him.

0:30:30
Tell him about it. He knows. So, Sleater, what's in my control? First, practically don't text or say anything to anyone ever that you would not want posted everywhere always. So just don't do it. You cannot put anything in writing that you would not share, you would not share it everywhere, that you would not want put on the news.

0:30:53
And the truth is, anything you text, God sees it anyway. That's actually more important than it going in public. So first thing, don't put anything in writing. Second thing that's in your control, tell the truth always. Just tell the truth. We have to try to resist those urges of, but what about my audience? Or what about this? What about that?

0:31:19
What about the client? What about this? What about, just tell the truth. Third thing, have courage. Here's another moment from that Heritage Foundation speech that Tucker gave just this last weekend. The truth is contagious. Lying is, but the truth is as well. And the second you decide to tell the truth about something, you are filled with this – I don't want to get supernatural on you – but you are filled with this power from somewhere else.

0:31:46
Try it. Tell the truth about something. You feel it every day. The more you tell the truth, the stronger you become. That's completely real. It's measurable in the way that you feel. And of course, the opposite is also true. The more you lie the weaker and more terrified you become. We all know that feeling. You lie about something and all of a sudden you're a prisoner of that lie. You are diminished by it. You are weak and afraid. Drug and alcohol use is the same way. It makes you weak and afraid. heavy price for telling the truth. And they are cast out of their groups, whatever those groups are, but they do it anyway.

0:32:27
And I look on at those people with the deepest possible admiration. I am paid to do that. I face no penalty. Someone comes up to me, you're so brave, really? I'm a talk show host. It's like I can have any opinion I want. That's my job, that's why they pay me. It's not brave to tell the truth on a cable news show, and if you're not doing that, you're really an idiot.

0:32:52
You're really craving. You're lying on television. Why would you do that? You're literally making a living to say what you think, and you can't even do that? Please. But how about if you're a senior vice president at Citibank? I'm serious. Citibank. And you're making, you know, four million a year. And you've got three kids in Bedford and two are in boarding school and one starting at Wesleyan next year. And like, you need this job, honestly. And your whole sector is kind of collapsing and you know that. There is no incentive whatsoever for you to tell the truth about anything. You just go into little re-education meetings and you're like, yeah, diversity is our strength, that's exactly right.

0:33:39
So if you're the one guy who refuses to say that, you are a hero, in my opinion. And I know some of them. In fact, my job is to interview them. And I sit back and I look at these people and I give them more credit than I do people who display physical courage, which is often impulsive, by the way. And I'm not denigrating physical courage, which I deeply admire. But you interview people who do amazing things, you know, who rush into the proverbial burning building And like every man is kind of trained from birth to fantasize about what he would do when the building catches fire and you hear a baby crying and so you run inside No one is trained to stand up in the middle of a DEI meeting at Citibank and say this is nonsense and the people who do that, oh Oh, they have my deepest admiration.

0:34:26
And so their example really gives me hope. It thrills me. I talk to them all day long, people like that. That's the first thing. We should, in this sad moment of profound and widespread destruction of the institutions that people who share our views built, by the way, earlier generations that would agree substantially with every person in this room, they built those and now they're being destroyed.

0:34:50
And oh, that's so depressing. But we can also see rising in the distance new things, new institutions led by new people who are every bit as brave as the people who came before us. Amen. And finally, the things that are in your control. So again, be careful what you put on paper or text. Tell the truth always. Have courage and go to God. Make Him your strength, not your job or anything else. May God your strength. Habakkuk 3.17, though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no fruit. Sorry, real quick, I'm just thinking of Tucker in Maine today.

0:35:32
I have no idea what Tucker's, I have no insight to Tucker, or whatever, I've never talked to him before. But I just imagine him in Maine just hunting right now. He's just going for a long walk in the woods with his dogs. At least this vision of Tucker I've created, or what I hope I would be, is wouldn't even care at all. Wouldn't, now it's easy to say when you get paid $35 million a year or whatever, hopefully he's stored some of that away, financially he'll be fine, that's different.

0:35:59
But still you hope he'd be like, you'd hope you'd trust in God enough. And as the Bible says, though the fig tree should not blossom and all these bad things, right? The flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, even all these terrible bad things, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

0:36:24
God the Lord is my strength. Not my bank account. He makes my feet like the deers. He makes me tread on my high places. Amazing. All right, so final thought here. Final thought to think about. Final thing to meditate on. First let me tell you about Patriot Gold Group, one of the sponsors of this podcast. One of the themes of this podcast, as we just talked about, is you can't rely on earthly things. 100% true. You also have to be a good steward. You also have to make good, wise decisions for your family. And for me, financially, I bought gold.

0:37:05
And I bought it from Patriot Gold Group. Lots of places to buy gold, I assume. I bought it from Patriot Gold Group. They are the consumer affairs top-rated gold IRA dealer six years in a row. group. They are the consumer affairs top rated gold IRA dealer six years in a row. I've only heard Tucker talk about this. Maybe other people on cable news have, I haven't heard anyone other than Tucker talk about the petrodollar, about how Saudi Arabia and China and other countries are talking about trading oil with something other than U.S. currency.

0:37:38
And that would be the downfall of the reserve currency of the U.S. dollar of the world. And that's a major problem for everyone, literally everyone. I haven't heard anyone talk about that except for Tucker. So listen, what's the dollar going to be worth over time? Zero, right? What's gold going to be worth? It's always been worth something. It's been around for thousands of years. 888-617-6122. Consider it.

0:37:59
See if it makes sense for you and your family. And as you consider it, definitely call Patriot Gold Group. 888-617-6122 for a free investor guide. 888-617-6122 or their website, patriotgoldgroup.com. Final thing to meditate on, I mentioned earlier this idea that you may lose your job at any moment so be grateful for it when you have it. I'm sure there's many people listening right now who have lost a job and thought it was devastating at the time, but then have a great story that ends with, thank goodness I was fired, otherwise I never would have filled the blank.

0:38:41
And that's a wonderful thing. Let me end with this sermon from Jonathan Edwards, who we spoke of earlier. This was his, I don't want to say his first big sermon, but this was a remarkable sermon. It was at a church in Boston, and it was the same weekend as the Harvard commencement. So there are a lot of big wigs in the audience. Jonathan Edwards was not from Boston, so he was an outsider, wasn't a Harvard graduate, he was a Yale grad, an outsider.

0:39:07
He was only 28, he was young, and he gave this wonderful sermon called God Glorified by the greatness of man's dependence upon him. You can get the theme based on the title. God is glorified in the greatness of man's dependence upon him. And this is the final line. Let us endeavor, let us endeavor to obtain and increase in our great dependence on God. To have our eye to him alone, to mortify, to put to death, a self-dependent and self-righteous disposition.

0:39:44
Man is naturally exceedingly prone to exalt himself and depend on his own power or goodness, as though from himself he must expect happiness. He is prone to have respect to enjoyments alien from God and His Spirit, as those in which happiness is to be found. But this doctrine should teach us to exalt God alone as by trust and reliance so by praise. Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. Let us not find our identity or glory in our job and may we always no matter what difficulty or suffering we're going through, or uncertainty. May we always look to God for our full and complete dependence.

community logo
Join the MikeSlater Community
To read more articles like this, sign up and join my community today
1
What else you may like…
Videos
Podcasts
Posts
Articles
Fox & Friends

We were on Fox & Friends talking about all of the train robberies in CA. It's so bad the train company says they may have to ride right THROUGH Los Angeles entirely and never slow down lol. What a joke this state it.

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20220122_110000_FOX_and_Friends_Saturday/start/5640/end/5700

That link is a bit odd, I've attached a short video to get the gist.

In short, The rich get richer, the poor get the handouts and the middle class gets out of town.

This causes these progressive politicians to get even more entrenched.

We haven't hit rock bottom yet.

00:00:32
Boys to men, girls to women

How do you do it? Advice please!

Dean Abbott,
"Why contemporary relations between the sexes are so messed up. The problem starts with men because men lead, the masculine pursues and initiates, and problems always start at the level of leadership.

Most men aren't taught that a relationship with a woman means accepting responsibility. No one tells us that a woman represents not only pleasure, but obligation.
The fact that having a relationship with a woman means responsibility and obligation never enters many men's minds.

When these men enter into a relationship with a woman, they are overwhelmed by her needs, her feminine communication style, and her emotions.
Moreover, he unconsciously resents her for having needs at all since he has been conditioned to see her solely as a source of pleasure.
When her anger and disappointment over his irresponsibility gets intense enough, he splits in search of another woman.
He mistakenly believes the problem wasn't his attitude nor that it is a ...

00:07:55
Surly this will be kicked off twitter eventually
00:06:34
Morning Motivation, April 21, 2023

I found a way to easily transcribe the podcasts, so I will post them here first before they go out to iTunes and the rest.

Good morning. Welcome to The Morning Motivation, brought to you by Public Square and Patriot Gold Group. I'm grateful you're here. I was reading a sermon by the great Puritan preacher John Owen in the mid-1600s. I'm so fascinated by this time period, 1600s, early 1700s. We focus a lot on our founding fathers. I think that the Tea Party movement and just conservatism in general has focused a lot on the founding fathers, and that's amazing, but I'm very fascinated by our founding grandfathers or great-grandfathers, the people who created the culture that our founding fathers were raised in.

0:00:44
Isn't that a fascinating era? We got like 1776, like that's great, I love it, I want to know more, I don't know nearly enough. But what about the 1720s? What was going on there? Or the late 1600s? What was going on in America at that time? And you know, we've all heard of the Puritans, but you ...

Morning Motivation, April 21, 2023
Inflation and ANGER

I am angry and frustrated. With our Rulers. For getting us in this terrible economy. It doesn't have to be this way.

How could they never learn from past mistakes! This is ANCIENT history, stop printing money...yet, after COVID, we never printed more. Amazing.

Please leave a 5-star review on Itunes. We have a ton of momentum, this is about to break through! Thank you!

Also, I haven't done any lives anywhere becauase we're hosting a daily TV show "Road to Misterms" on thefirsttv.com, and it's taken all of my extra time. And my wife is giving birth any day now, so...it's been a lot around here. But after the midterms, time will free up.

Inflation and ANGER
Politics by Faith: Parkland and the Death Penalty

I've gone back and forth on the death penalty many times over the years. I've recently come down on the other side.

Should the Parkland murderer have gotten the death penalty or life in prison?

Please leave a review on iTunes! We need to get to 1k :-)
www.thefirsttv.com/mikeslater

Btw, we're getting the momentum we need, more downloads every day, THANK YOU!

Politics by Faith: Parkland and the Death Penalty

This is spot on Mike! We have become dehumanized! You can not read a persons real needs on a screen nor text! A job or passion offers human interaction and I pray these stay at home on our tax dollars find that truth. We have lost our way… People need hugs and love and someone to listen. If we do not have that face to face interaction we will become nothing more than those who can not deal with lives issues.
Our politicians need to stop thinking about themselves and their agenda and think of the country as a whole. My suggestion today is go out and make someone’s life a little better than it is and not with money! And if it is only leave a space better than you found it -imagine if everyone left every place better than they found it. If you did one thing to make another human beings life better and told them you loved them. If we did this every day- what a great world we would have again! Time to get back to this countries MOTTO… if you do not know the counties motto it is ...

Good morning @MikeSlater and all my fellow Slater Crusaders! I've been following Mike for years and after having MANY one way conversations with the radio or podcast, have finally joined the community here on locals.com. I can't wait for the chance to share thoughts and ideas with you all. Thank you Mike for creating this place. I hope we can help inform each other about our world and support growing our relationship and faith in Jesus.

Hi @Mike Slater! Are you coming back to locals? Haven’t seen any posts in some time.

What Is An American?
Politics By Faith, August 15, 2025

This might be the most important secular question of our time: what is an American? I'm frustrated that I love this country in my bones, but am unable to articulate a proper answer to that question. But we should be prepared to make a defense of anyone who asks.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. I want to bring over a very important question that we asked on the SiriusXM Breitbart show. And I want to bring it here to you because I think you will have the best answer for it. I think if you're listening to this podcast, I think you have the key. I'm going to skip over some of the backstory and cut right to the chase here. The question is, what is an American? Matt Walsh wrote,

this is why what is an American is the new, what is a woman? Or Matt Walsh had that wonderful documentary entitled, What is a Woman? And really gave a platform for the people who are pushing this transgender stuff to just

beclown themselves. And it was great. But now we have a more important question or not more important. It's like next level. We're ready to move on to the next question, which is what is an American? He said these people want to be embraced as Americans and even become political leaders

in America. But to them being an American means absolutely nothing at all. He's referring to this interview with Democratic representative congressperson Delia Ramirez. She's a congresswoman from Guatemala. She represents the people of Illinois, one of the most gerrymandered

districts in the state and the country. Third District of Illinois outside Chicago. We I don't think we played it here, but there was a clip of her about a week or so ago in some foreign country talking about how she's more proud of being Guatemalan than she is an American.

And she's a congressperson. Her mom came across the border illegally while pregnant, plopped her out and she's an anchor baby. And now she's a congresswoman. Here is what she said the other day.

I wanna ask, it seems like a really broad question,

but what does it mean to you to be an American? What is it for me to be an American? For me being an American is the ability to dream, to love, to have dissent.

Okay, so already, so dream and love that's like nothing, it's like pablum, and then immediately into negativity.

To be able to organize and build a kind of solidarity that recognizes the good and the bad of the formation of this country.

Yeah, so I shouldn't say negativity, right into bad mouthing America. It's even worse. Dream, love, America's awful. That's what it means to be an American. Dream, love, and we're the worst.

That is willing to reckon with how we have used colonialism to harm others, especially in the Western Hemisphere, and begin to think about and imagine creatively what reparations look like, what building solidarity looks like, what bringing all of us together means. To be an American, for me, is the ability to love and also

push back, the ability to be able to fight back and also build community. And to me, this precise moment is a time for us to ask ourselves, who are we as Americans? And let's be frank, we haven't always been great. And let's be frank, our history says a lot about what we've done and who we've done. This country has never been great for poor people, for black people, for indigenous people.

And so to be American for me is to be able to live into what we should be, not what we have been.

So we all know that's a terrible answer, but if we can sit at a rock bottom moment, okay, let's use it for good. But I'm thinking, geez, if that woman asks me, what is an American? I don't know if I would give a satisfactory answer. I'd do better than that. But I don't know if I'd give

a very satisfactory answer, actually. So Matt Walsh said, if someone, I could tell here, I know, like I know it in my bones, like I know it deep down, but I'm not able to articulate it. Matt Walsh said, if someone answers what is an American without any mention of tradition, culture, ancestry, language, borders, or even legal documentation, at least, then that is a person who thinks America doesn't exist.

And being an American means precisely nothing. So I grew up in the very beginning of woke very be so where there was an era where, for example, we were taught that Christopher Columbus was amazing and now kids are taught that Christopher Columbus is a murderer and the worst person ever to have lived. I was in the middle where we just didn't learn about Christopher Columbus.

I said, so it's there was an era where it's America's amazing and now we're in the era of America invented slavery and I was in the era of just don't learn anything about this country and because of that because I was never given the tools to think properly about America I can't think clearly enough about it and I can't articulate therefore what is an? Not like I want to be able to. So I want to ask you, what is an American?

How do you define it? What is an American? How do you answer that question? What is an American? Now here's where I want to push back. And this is what we did on the radio.

We did this for two hours a day, and we're going to do it for many more hours because we got to get this right. You can't, if you can't define it, you can't defend it. That's gotta be true. That we're just coming out of 20 plus years of fighting terrorism. We couldn't, we didn't define the enemy.

Terrorism is a tactic. It's not an enemy. It's like you're fighting a war against like people attacking the right flank or something. It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. Because we wouldn't say Islamic extremism. We wouldn't define what the enemy was. And same thing here, if you don't define it,

you can't defend it. If you can't define America, what is an American, then you're gonna lose it, and we are, in the process of losing it. But here's what I wanna push back on, because all these phone calls came in,

and everyone, and we she did in the beginning. She said, oh, it's love and dreaming. What? And we had a lot of people calling that was like a little bit of that, but it was like, oh, it's the freedom to do whatever you want. Is it?

Because then the Somali comes over here and says, I'm a Muslim and I'm going to kill my daughter because she wants to wear a skirt and you can't do anything about it because I'm free to do whatever I want like, oh, that's not what we mean. What then do you what do we mean? What do we mean? It's a real example and they rubbed it in your face.

There's a bunch of Muslims who are building this Muslim community in Texas and they're naming it's like it's a like a housing development, but just for muslims and they're keeping christians out by building this huge mosque and all the hoas go to the mosque. So that's all i keep and all the streets are named after muslim conquerors before the crusades and the guy was on the podcast the muslim guy behind this and he said yeah and if anyone criticizes us we just use their freedom of religion against them. They knew what they were doing.

So it's got to be more than just freedom to do whatever. And I'm not satisfied anymore with any answer, and again I mean this nicely, with any answer that also applies to other countries. Like oh it's the freedom to go where you want to go. Well like in France you could do that. Or it's the freedom to love who you want. It. Well, like in France, you could do that. Or it's the freedom to love who you want.

It's like, okay, you can do that in Spain. I don't like, I need something, I don't know, deeper, more unique, more specific. Maybe that's a better word for it. I just need something more specific than that. Now, okay, so we kept digging.

People were adding these great elements of it. We're like, okay, let's go a little more. Let's go a little more. Okay, well, the freedom to live in the vision of our founders. I got an email on that. Great. Love that. What's their vision?

All right, it's free to live up to our founding values. Okay, awesome. What are they? We need to be able to define those found those founding values. Finally, someone called in and brought up Christianity. It was about an hour and ten minutes before someone did, so it's interesting and I don't know if it was people who are

unable to bring that to the table or they were afraid to so instead they couch it as founding values, but I got any more than that or or they'll couch it as something even Judeo-Christian values. It's like no. Pilgrims didn't come over to spread Judeo-Christian values. That's not what they came here.

They came here to create a new promised land, a new, leaving, and that was a second Exodus from tyranny to a promised land, to spread Christianity or to live their Christian lives. So we need to be as specific as we can. Slater at brightbar.com, I got a ton of emails on this.

So if you can send an email with your answer, Slater at Breitbart.com, I would really appreciate it as we try to figure this out. And I want as precise, and as we keep doing this, I want to get to something that is precise and as specific as possible.

Because I don't know what an American is, but I do know and I'm certain that Christianity is a defining aspect of it. And again, not just do Judeo-Christian values, Christian. The biggest lie that the devil has pushed on the American people in the sense of our history and specifically to our history is that we were not founded as a Christian nation. It is so it is as absurd as saying the earth is flat.

That is how that statement should be treated. The more you read about our founders and our and from our founders and our founding grandfathers all the way back to the pilgrims, these men and women were profoundly devout Christians beyond anything we see today.

Beyond anything we would believe today. And for 250 plus years later, 400 years later for the pilgrims to say that they weren't Christian is so ludicrous. I provided three proofs on today's show that I just want to present to you here. This is kind of a fun one. So we talked about Trump taking over DC, renaming it Washington DJT. He hasn't actually done that, but I don't know why that hasn't taken off more Washington DJT. Come

on. So CNN did a report from Union Station, the train station in DC. It's this beautiful building and we went over the whole history of the building in on today's show. I'm not going to do it here, but in front of the train station is a giant statue called the Columbus fountain. And that statue was dedicated on in 1912 by president William Howard Taft. And he gave this wonderful speech about Christopher Columbus. I highly recommend it. Just search for William Howard Taft,

a Columbus memorial or Columbus fountain dedication, or it'll pop up. Beautiful speech about Christopher Columbus. Again, we used to celebrate Christopher Columbus. Now we rip down his statues, but just I wanna share one quote from it

that's relevant here, the opening. He said, we are gathered here today to dedicate this beautiful memorial to the greatest mariner of history, who for centuries and two decades ago, opened to the possibilities of Christian civilization, nearly one half of the geographical world. Uh-oh. Christian civilization. Muslim civilization? Chinese civilization? Middle Eastern civilization? Judeo-Christian civilization? Nope. Christian

civilization. That's the first point. Second, before the revolution, I know I made this point before, I'm doing it again. Before the revolution, every colony had their own religious tests in order to hold office. And they were as blatant as you could possibly believe. This is Delaware. This was the oath of office you needed to take before you got into an elected or an appointed position.

The oath was, I do profess faith in God the Father and Jesus Christ, his only son. And in the Holy Ghost, one God blessed forevermore. And I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.

There are some churches that barely require an oath like that anymore to join the church. And this was just to be like the state treasurer or anything in the state. That's what you had to talk about. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God, and and you you say that the old and New Testament were divine inspiration just to hold office

Someone called in today It's maybe the first maybe the second person to talk about Christianity on the show And he talked about the freedom to worship. I think he just said the freedom to worship. That's right It's the freedom worship and I said, okay, okay freedom to worship. I think it just said the freedom to worship. That's right, it's the freedom to worship. And I said, okay, okay, freedom to worship what? Right, because now you get all the people that are like,

oh, you're free to worship whatever you want. And it's like, a bail? Right, well, you're free to worship bail? And yeah, I guess in America you are, but that's not what it means. That's not what American culture is. That's not what we should be striving for to get back to bail worship.

So I asked him, I said, what free to worship what? And he said, God, I said, what God? He said the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Bingo.

Last proof. John Adams wrote in his diary, 1756. It's before, before the revolution. He said, suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book. And every member should regulate his conduct

by the precepts there exhibited. Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry. You just got some virtues here. So now we're talking like, we're getting closer to some real things.

Like you are freedom to do whatever you want. No, freedom to be frugal and industrious and temperate. Right, it's like, oh, well, that's not freedom. Freedom should be, right? No, no, that's not our founders perception of freedom was it to do whatever you want.

This is why it's a life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Pursuit back then meant practice of and happiness our founders knew could only be accomplished through virtue. So it's life, liberty, and the practice of virtue. That's what you're free to do.

What virtues? Temperance, frugality, industry, to justice and kindness and charity towards fellow man, and to piety and love and reverence towards almighty God. So it's not as the, go back to the Congresswoman, what does it mean to be American?

To dream in love. Well here's Thomas, excuse me, John Adams talking about love, but it's not just love. It's piety, love, and reverence to Almighty God. In this commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness, or lust. So now we're against vices. No man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards or any other trifling and mean amusement. No man would steal or lie or in any way defraud his neighbor, but would live in peace and goodwill with all men.

No man would blaspheme his maker or profane his worship, but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected piety and devotion would reign in all hearts. What a utopia, what a paradise would this region be?" It's John Adams. Our founders weren't Christian. What an absolute joke. As I was reading that quote, it popped in my head, the fear of the Lord, the fear of the Lord the fear of the Lord our Founding grandfathers, I think of like the pilgrims they had a fear of the Lord. That should be part of the definition I don't want to put anything in your minds. Let me let me write that down

I don't want to put anything in your head yet. I'll write that down for Monday show as we continue on this Okay, I'm gonna do more study on that in the Bible and of our founders saying that, okay. I'm not saying Christianity is the only aspect of what it means to be an American,

but it's gotta be part of it, has to be, right? So I'm gonna throw it to you now. I've said enough. Fundamental question of our time right now. Our ability to define this, our ability to answer this question.

It's like our American version of being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. What is an American? Please send me your answers at slater at breitbart.com. Put these together and we'll get closer to the truth here.

Slater at breitbart.com. My website is my, the website where we put these is mikeslater.locals.com. There's a transcript there and a commercial free on the website. Mike Slater. There's a transcript there and a commercial for you on the website. There's a transcript there and a commercial for you on the website. Mike Slater.locals.com

 

Read full Article
Trump Takeover of Washington, D.J.T.
Politics By Faith, August 14, 2025

At the press conference for the Trump takeover, the President spoke about scrubbing sidewalks clean. I didn't expect playing this clip would take us in this direction, but I'm glad it did, and we ended up in Matthew 25.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. Got an email. Slater at Breitbart.com.

This is from Brent in Texas. He said, today's show reminds me of Matthew 25. Ooh, love that. We have squandered. I always had a little trouble getting my head around this scripture because it seems to reward the rich person and punish the poor.

However, the concept of being given a country of great wealth, resources, and virtue, and letting it get to where we are now helps me understand it better. Really good. I don't exactly know what we said on,

this would have been, say it's Thursday today, so it's gonna be Wednesday show. I don't exactly know what we said on Wednesday's show that inspired Brent's email. It was probably the conversation we had on sidewalks. We spent an hour talking about sidewalks. Can I tell you how much I prepared talking about sidewalks?

Zero, I didn't prepare at all. I had no intention of talking about sidewalks. We did it for over an hour. And it started because I played this clip of Trump at the press conference talking about the need to take over DC and to beautify it.

And I played this as just a flippant little thing, but it turned into much more.

But here they're really bad. And we're gonna either put new or fix it. And it's not expensive, it's not really expensive. And we're gonna fix our roads a little bit. We're going to clean up our sidewalks. You have countries where, every Saturday, the people go out and they wash their sidewalks in front of

their stores and their houses. They scrub. They scrub their sidewalks. So we aren't quite at that level yet. I don't think, Gaddy, we're not quite there yet. But maybe we will. They go out and they scrub. I think it's so beautiful to hear that and to see those stories.

But we're going to make it clean. But just to finish with your question, it's a very, very strong reflection of our country. And when they see a bad city, you know, my father always used to tell me, I had a wonderful father, very smart. And he used to say, son, when you walk into a restaurant and you see a dirty front door, don't go in because if the front door is dirty, the kitchen is dirty also.

Same thing with the Capitol. If our capitals dirty, our whole country is dirty, and they don't respect us. So it's a very good question actually.

So I really played it for that last part. That's what I intended to do. But everyone called in about the scrubbing of sidewalks. Before we get into it, I can't get over Trump taking over DC. This is such an opportunity. I forget if I said this here or not, but I'll do it again. Never in a million years would any city in this country say the

people in the city say, you know what? Let's clean house. Let's just elect a bunch of conservatives on the city council and the mayor for four years. And we'll give them a chance to see what that would never happen ever impossible. But here we now we have one, we have a city now. One of our cities we have total control over. One of our drug infested, crime ridden cities of squalor, it's ours now. And we can fix it.

This is our opportunity to show what can be done and to send a message to all the other people in the rest of the cities across this country that this is what's possible. What an opportunity. We would never get it in any other chance ever

to prove what we are capable of. This is totally nation changing in a profound way. Think of any other city, they're all nine- oh Democrat seats, right? City councils. Maybe one Republican, maybe.

This is just all Trump, all conservatives, all Pam Bondi, all Kash Patel, all, it was a total our team. We get the whole city. We'll get it for three and a half years and we'll see how clean and beautiful

and wonderful it can be. What an opportunity. But back to the sidewalks. Someone called in, they sent me an email and said, Slater, I grew up in Baltimore and there were all these apartments,

like town, like row houses in Baltimore that had these marble steps. And people here in America, we don't have to go to Europe or England or wherever, people in America would scrub these steps. And he sent me a picture of it. I put it on my Twitter Slater Radio on Twitter.

You can see it there. It's like the 50s, 60s. These kids, like 10 year old kids scrubbing their marble steps. It's like four steps, four big hunk of marble steps leading up to it. And the whole block, everyone is cleaning it. Just like Trump's talking about here.

Right on the front porch in Baltimore. So I did a little research on these steps. Baltimore made these steps, whoever built these, they made these steps from the nearby Beaver Dam quarry. And it's such a beautiful story because this means to me that we built these steps to last. It was important, it was beautiful.

The marble from this quarry was used in the Washington Monument and the US Capitol building and give a search of the Baltimore City Hall and the Maryland State Capitol building. Beautiful, stunningly beautiful buildings. A couple other buildings in DC, these beautiful marbles and and then also the same marble steps

of apartments in Baltimore. And they were so beautiful, they were like, oh, we gotta keep these clean. We have to. That's when we made things that we cared about and things that we intended to last. And we quoted this a couple weeks ago,

I don't know if we did it on this podcast here, but this author I like, Eric Sloan, he writes a lot about how things used to be. And he said, great-grandfather did things always with a purpose. He did them conscientiously because he did them himself. That is why he so often put his name

and date on his belongings. The date we see on old things was put there in pride, as if to say, in this year, I was satisfied with this piece of work, which I myself created.'" He said, "'A typical inscription on a 1771 date stone reads,

to thy care of Lord are commanded all in this household going in or out. Psalm 121. But we would put a date on things and we put our name on it because we had pride in it. And as our pride in things has eroded because we just replaced it with cheap crap from China,

I call it the H&Mification of things. It's probably a better reference I can think of, but you know, H&M cheap junky clothes, just throw it away, right? Throw it away and throw away. Our connection to things has eroded.

Also our pride in places around us has eroded. And with that also our care and attention of people. So we don't care about things or places or people. And I don't know if they all degrade at the same time or one leads the others, I don't know, but I see them all degrading around us.

We used to make things with our ancestors in mind, even the steps of our tenement housing. And now whoever thinks about making anything that your grandchildren will use. I was talking to Director Eric. Director Eric grew up in total poverty,

meth addict parents, total squalor. But he told me the story that his grandma was a farmhand in the Imperial Valley of Southern California, 120 degree farm valley. She lived in a tent. A tent, like a real tent.

And she would sweep the tent, the floor in the tent. It was a dirt floor. She would sweep the dirt floor. The dirt was packed down as hard as you could. And then there'd be like a little dirt. There'd be like some dirt particles on top of the dirt

and it would be dirty. And she would sweep the dirt off the dirt floor. And she would tell Eric, her grandson, you do the best you can with what you have. Poverty doesn't cause squalor and poverty doesn't cause crime either.

You can have no money and keep things clean and be neat and be virtuous. We've so lowered our expectations for people in poverty that we expect nothing out of anybody. We're so dedicated to this victim mindset. Oh, nothing's in your control, nothing. The whole world is against you in every way. We expect nothing out of anybody. We're so dedicated to this victim mindset. Oh, nothing's in your control.

Nothing. The whole world is against you in every way. We expect nothing out of you ever. Not even keeping things clean, not even not stealing. We expect nothing out of the whole world's against you no matter what. And this has just debilitated people even more. And Made a spiral meanwhile my friend's grandma is sweeping the dirt floor in her tent Let's turn to the Bible here Because of Brent and his inspiration let's talk about Matthew 25 starting in verse 14 is the parable of the talents Let's go through it. The Bible says for the kingdom of heaven is like

the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like this.

A man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. So he's going out of town. I need you guys to take care of my money. He gave to one of the servants five talents, to another two and to another one, to each according to his own ability.

And immediately he went on a journey. A talent was a lot of money. A talent was a weight. It was a weight of metal. So the value depended on the type of metal it was. But it is believed that one talent

was 20 years worth of wages for this laborer. It's a lot of money. So if you make $50,000, it'd be like someone giving you a million dollars.

Right?

That's what we're talking about here. So imagine you make $50,000, imagine you work at, you know, wherever you work like Best Buy and the manager comes in and says, here's a mill. I need you to take care of this million dollars. And that's just the one talent guy. So I think Brent said something like, the rich and the poor.

It's seeming to me he rewards the rich person and punishes the poor. They're both equally, they're all equally poor. They're all the laborers. But even the poor guy is given essentially a million dollars. 20 years worth of wages.

Let's see here. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them and made another five talents and likewise he would receive two gain two more but he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money. The idea here is that the people who were given a lot money, the two and the five, they did something. They worked immediately.

They went, they did something, they kept working. They were successful at it. They did it without delay. They felt a responsibility. Remember, this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. You should feel this desire to go

and use this money wisely to serve your master. I need to go do better. After a long time, a long time, right? So there's plenty of time for the servants to be like, maybe he's never coming back. Maybe I can use some of this money myself.

Maybe I can steal some, whatever. After a long time, the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with him. So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents. Look, I gained five more talents beside them. His Lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant.

You were faithful over a few things. I will make you the ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. He's talking to you by the way. You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord. He also received two talents, came and said,

Lord, you delivered me two, look, I gained two more. The Lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord. It didn't matter that he gave one, two and one, five.

It's just that things with it. The reward was the same for both servants is my point. Even though one was given two, one was given five, same reward. Also good and faithful servant, isn't that wonderful? Charles Spurgeon wrote this, he says, it is not well done good and brilliant servant,

for perhaps the man never shown at all in the eyes of those who appreciate glare and glitter. It's not well done great and distinguished servant, for it's possible that he was never known beyond his native village. And I'd love this because it helps you analyze and dive in.

Oh yeah.

Good and faithful. Those are the words that God shows. Maybe in today's words, it would be, uh, you know, it's not good and rich servant. It wasn't the amount of money. It was good and faithful servant, which is what we need to be to God. Good and faithful. Back to the Bible. Then he who had

received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. Ooh. And I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours." So interesting point here. If you look at these three servants as a group, they did good. Uh, there's see, there's three, no five, six, seven, eight.

No eight, yeah. Five, two, and one, eight talents. Eight talents given and 15 returned. Pretty good. But it wasn't, you're not, God doesn't judge as a group. He judged each on their own individual faithfulness and effort, their own good and faithfulness.

So it doesn't matter if you're in a group, if you go to a good church, or if you associate with these people, or your parents, or your faithful kids, or your faithful that or this, no, that's not it. It's individual person.

You don't enter into heaven in a group. Also check out this insult from the servant. Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have, you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So he's blaming, blaming his master. Now you're only rich because of luck anyway. So I didn't do

anything special here. I just buried it, but you know, whatever. Here you get to have it back. And he was like, oddly pleased with himself. Like, Oh, here, I didn't, I didn't waste it. But the Lord answered to him, you wicked and lazy servant. Actually, this is to you. This is us. You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather

where I have not scattered seed, so you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers. And at my coming, I would receive back my own with interest, like at least therefore take the talent from him and give it to him who has 10 talents. For to everyone who has more will be given

and he will have abundance. But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away and cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Ooh, wicked and lazy.

This is what the kingdom of heaven is like. We don't talk about laziness a lot in our culture, but laziness is a sin, a sin that you need to repent of. We don't ever talk about it. So much entitlement all over the place. We talked about some welfare queens today on the radio,

played a woman who she insisted that she is entitled to a brownie because food stamps, you can't, in a lot of states you can't buy junk food on food stamps. She's like, who are you to say that I'm not entitled to a brownie?

I am, like, what do you mean? So just so much entitlement, we can go on forever about that. This is FF Bruce, his Bible commentary. Not dishonest. The master had not misjudged as to that. So what he didn't call him a liar because he didn't lie. He said you're lazy, indolent, unenterprising, timid, slothful, a poor creature altogether. He said, you know,

I was afraid, suspicious, timid, heartless, spiritless, and idle. We can't be this for Jesus. That's it. We can't be this for God. This morning, I read Psalm 147. What are the chances? Just perfect. It's like unbelievable. Alright, starting verse 10. Here's verse 10. He, excuse me, his delight is not in the, this is God, his delight is not in the strength of the horse nor his pleasure in the legs of man. But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love." Good and faithful.

That's what God wants us all to be good and faithful. He doesn't delight in the strength of the horse nor the legs of man, but in those who fear him and put their hope in them." That's what we need to do. And if you have that, then you would go and be a good steward of what God has given you, which is what the first two servants did. One more scripture here. This is 2nd Corinthians 13, verse five, examine yourselves

to see whether you are in the faith. So that's what I have to do, we all have to do right now. Which of these servants are we? The first, second or the third, you don't wanna be the third. So examine yourself and see if you are good and faithful. See if you're in the faith.

Ooh, that's what it says in your faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves? That Jesus Christ is in you. If that is true, we're not looking for perfection, impossible, but there should be evidence of it. There was evidence from the first two servants.

Well done, good and faithful servants. So the question is, what have we done with our talents, with your talents? The word originally was a weight, like a weight of weight for money, but over time it took on the more metaphorical meaning of your abilities, your gifts and skills, but that's it came from this verse of the Bible, your talent. So what are you doing with your literal talents,

like the weight of money you own, but also of course, your talents, your time, your abilities. What are you doing? What are you not doing that you should be doing? We need to examine ourselves so that we too can hear at the end of our lives,

well done, good and faithful servant. Brent, thank you for the email. Slater at brightbird.com is my email, or my personal email is slaterradio at gmail.com. If you made it this far into this podcast, then you can get my personal email, slaterradio at gmail.com.

Mikeslater.locals.com is the website where we put this podcast up Mikeslater.locals.com is the website where we put this podcast up with the transcript and no commercials. Mike slater.locals.com.

 

Read full Article
Trump DC Takeover: It's Biblical
Politics By Faith, August 12, 2025

Trump said they're not going to put up with the lawlessness in DC anymore. A lot more people are going to be put in jail. Is this Biblical?

I've been Politified by Faith. Thank you for being here. We have spent hours so far and I love this topic so much. Donald Trump taking over Washington DC. Real quick on the constitutionality of this, the constitution gives Congress the power. So the states got together, wrote the constitution. The states gave Congress the power to designate a 10 square mile area as the nation's capital and to govern it. So they did Washington DC and fast forward to 1973,

that was in 1788. In 1973, the Congress wrote the Home Rule Act that gave DC, the people of DC a mayor and a city council and they could govern their own affairs. But in that was section 740, which said that in an emergency the president can take over control.

And that's what the president did. And the emergency is in Trump's words, the bloodthirsty slaughter of innocent people, the bedlam, the filth, the squalor of our nation's capital. And we're just not gonna have it anymore. Stephen Miller said,

Washington DC is a nightmare of violence. Our president will rescue our nation's capital. And we're just not gonna have it anymore. Stephen Miller said, Washington DC is a nightmare of violence. Our president will rescue our nation's capital from collapse and usher in a bright and brilliant future. Now some people on the left have such TDS that they're now coming to the defense of DC and of the criminals as they have for a long time.

But instead of just saying, yeah, you're right, crime is a big problem. Let's fix it up. They're not, they're saying crime, no crimes, no crime here. Peter Banker, the White House correspondent for the New York Times and MSNBC. He said, citing a non-existent crime crisis,

Trump plans to take over DC police and put troops in the streets of our nation's Capitol. Contrary to his claims, violent crime in DC is at a 30 year low. There's so much to talk about here. I wanna keep it quick. Cause we've, again, we've talked hours for this and I have many more hours to come on the SiriusXM show

but I wanna keep this pretty concise so we can just get right to the Bible part. But Prop 57 in California said that anyone who commits a non-violent crime can get early parole. Non-violent crime included rape of an unconscious person, domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon, and human trafficking of children with the intent for prostitution. All nonviolent crimes. So when we see, so

excuse me if I see data that says violent crime in DC is down. We all know that crime isn't getting reported like it used to. People are not getting charged like they used to and people aren't getting convicted like they used to and they can re-qualify different crimes as non-violent to come up with whatever statistic they want.

Let me play this clip right here. This is the district attorney of DC.

Discussion residents did not hold back, voicing their frustrations.

Am I playing the system?

Many questioning why kids aren't being held accountable.

We as a city and a community need to be much more focused on prevention and surrounding young people and their families with resources. If we want to be safer in the long run, we cannot prosecute and arrest our way out of it.

You 100% can arrest your way out of this. In fact, that's the reason why we have arresting. And I think we need to have a lot more of it. This is the best data we have on this. This is the prior arrests of people in state prisons. This is 34 states, people in state prisons.

This is back in, excuse me, 2014, most recent numbers we have. So prior arrests of people in state prisons in 2014. Data's a little old, but I'm sure the principle's the same. Most people in state prison have committed multiple crimes. 80% of people in state prisons

have committed three or more crimes. If we just arrested people who have committed more than three crimes and keep them in prison, then we would live in a totally different society. What percentage of Americans do you think are in jail?

This is a fun game. If you ask most people, I bet if you ask most people, they'd say 30%. 30% of Americans are in jail. We hear about this overpopulation prison crisis, right? What percentage of American adults are in jail?

0.7%. I think we can up that to 2% and our country would be a lot better off. 1% of the population commits 63% of the crimes. This is some numbers out of Atlanta. One thousand people, just 1,000 people are responsible for 40% of the crimes in Atlanta.

In one week, Atlanta police arrested 20 repeat offenders who had a total of 553 previous arrests and 114 felony convictions. What in the world? The sub headline of this article from the Atlanta local news,

others wonder what happens to break the cycle of arrest, convict, repeat. How do we break the cycle of arrest, convict, repeat? It's very simple. Arrest, convict, and imprison. There's a worse life than jail.

All we are is focused on the criminal. Oh, it's so mean to send him to jail. There's a worse life than jail. Living next to a criminal, a normal person, law abiding person, living in a neighborhood with known repeat criminals over and over, that would be worse. But no one cares about that person.

No one cares about that family. No one cares about those children. We only look at the criminals. We only look at their feelings. Again, so much of this we're gonna put on Sirius XM over the last few days and more to come.

But let's pivot to the Bible here. What does the Bible say about prison and putting people in them? Well, the Bible says you should visit people in prison. I think of it similar to the line, the verse, the line, the verse, when you fast. It doesn't say if you fast, it says when you fast, meaning you should be fasting. Matthew 25 36, Jesus says, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

So that means there'll be people in prison. It doesn't mean free the prisoner. Jesus didn't say don't have jails. They're mean. He certainly didn't say let criminals roam the streets all day and murder people. He didn't say give people, I don't know, 28 strikes and then you...

There are prisons and there should be.

The Bible does say don't murder. It also says don't commit crime. First Peter 4.15 says, but let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. This is in a section about suffering in the name of Jesus. Alright, suffering because you're a Christian. And then he says,

well to be clear, you know, this doesn't count if you're suffering because you committed a crime. Sidebar, the word meddler here is really funny. Like what's a meddler? So it's only, this word is only used, it's a very long Greek word, it's only used once in the New Testament. It literally means one who meddles in things that are alien to his calling. So I think a better translation of this

would be a troublemaker. Don't be a troublemaker. So the Bible obviously says don't commit crimes. First point, prisoners are submitting to authority. I should say prisons are a way to submit to authority as the Bible says you should do. Second point, your physical life has been severely restricted if you're in prison because you used your

freedom to make the lives of other people materially worse. This is just, it's just to the law-abiding person who you victimized. Judge Jeanine Pirro at the press conference of the day, she said, the people who matter are the law-abiding citizens. It is time that we reorient our focus back on the law-abiding people. Now while you the prisoner are in jail, yes your physical self is restricted, your freedom in that sense is restricted, but that doesn't

mean your soul was taken from you. While in prison there is still repentance and transformation even and salvation while in prison. Praise God for all the prison ministries. But even then if you're saved in prison, it doesn't mean you should be let back on the street again. The good news for you though, is we all have a life sentence of death. We're all going to die and life is very short and your life, including the part period of

it that is incarcerated, is very short compared to eternity. So even if you're in prison, you should get your soul right. We had a bunch of people calling on Monday, yeah, Monday show. People who went to jail when they were kids, when they were young, and they said it, set them right,

put them on the right track, they needed it. John Piper was asked by someone, by a woman who was about to be sentenced for a crime that she committed and she didn't know what to do and how to handle it. She said she felt terrible for all the pain she's caused her family and everyone. She said, I'm going to prison, I don't know what to do. And John Piper sent over Psalm 107. This is a Psalm about the affliction caused by our own sin.

Psalm 107 says, Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons. So this is literal and spiritual. Prisoners in affliction and in irons. For they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High. So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor, punishment.

They fell down with none to help.

So what did they do?

They cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of the darkness and the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man, for he shatters the doors of bronze and cuts into the bars of iron. These people who broke God's law, they felt guilty for what they did.

What Piper pulls out of the story is that the prisoners didn't just complain,

they humbled themselves and they cried to God in their trouble. Piper says you can fix it again. This is the woman who's going to prison. You can fixate on this as a problem and become an embittered, self-pitying, angry, mean-spirited, depressed, hopeless person. And that would be a great tragedy, as it would be a double triumph for Satan. He's already had one triumph. He should not get another in your life. Or instead of fixating on Providence as a problem, you can take hold of Providence as your hope.

That's what the people in the psalm did. They know that God is the one who has bowed their hearts down with hard labor. God did it. How natural, how easy it would be for them to turn all their affliction into anger at the providence of God. But instead they took the other path. It's a sweet path and I encourage you to take it. They believe that God's power would not discipline them forever but that his mercy would return again and deliver. This will require enormous humility and faith on your part, but God will give it to you if you ask him

and patiently wait for his timing. This is all to say it's okay to put people in jail. If they're guilty, of course. It's okay to do that. It keeps them from hurting other people. It's a just form of retribution

for the pain that they cause to others. And it's a deterrence for other people who may commit crimes. It's biblical to have people in prisons. And of course, it's biblical to work to save all souls in prison or not.

And you want the real solution to crime?

Salvation.

MikeSlater.Locals.com, transcript, MikeSlater.Locals.com, transcript, course for free on the website, MikeSlater.Locals.com Transcript, course, and free on the website. MikeSlater.Locals.com

Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals