transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:23] There it is, I gotta get used to doing that. How about the fact that I've been doing this professionally for 25 years, and you're the one that has to look at me and say, hey man, turn your mic on.

Speaker 2:
[00:31] Well, I couldn't hear you, so that was a tip.

Speaker 1:
[00:35] We're off to a great start, and greetings. We are live here in Dallas. Todd Erson and I, and you may be wondering where Aaron is. And Aaron had a personal matter that he needed to take care of at home, and unfortunately could not join us for this trip. He is duly missed, of course, and he'll be with us again when we get back on Monday. But Todd Erson is here with me. He was able to accompany me down to Dallas. We are still doing the Buckees trip that we previewed for all of you. We're still going to do the Buckees thing. We're going there after we get done with today's show, and I've got some meetings and some other stuff to do, and then I might go get that brisket sandwich at Buckees I had last year that blew my mind.

Speaker 2:
[01:19] Amen.

Speaker 1:
[01:20] And introduce you to the finer side of Americana, and you'll pass on to glory. It's called Buckees. It's an amazing, amazing place. So we're going to that later today. We spent the day yesterday at the Faith Forward Pastor Summit out in Grapevine. A tremendous crowd. The largest pastor summit that TPUSA has put on yet. As the continued reports of their demise continue to be exaggerated, Mr. Erzin, and they continue to grow.

Speaker 2:
[01:49] Very much so. Exaggerated.

Speaker 1:
[01:51] I mean, the energy and the energy level was high. And I mean, it's rare that I pity an audience when I go out to speak, but when you have Seth Gruber and John Imanchukwu come out and speak right before me. So you do Seth Gruber, John Imanchukwu, and me. They did us all back to back. I went out there yesterday morning and I looked at those. I could see they were spent. They were done. Okay. But I still showed no mercy, nevertheless, as you well know.

Speaker 2:
[02:16] That's what they want. There's that meme of a very old Asian guy and he's getting kicked in the Jimmy over and over again.

Speaker 1:
[02:23] Yes, yes.

Speaker 2:
[02:24] That's what these people come here for. They want it.

Speaker 1:
[02:25] Yes. So faith forward. But first, faith painful. That's how it started, yes. We had a fantastic dinner last night just across the street here at Glenn Beck's American Journey Museum. And that was a ton of fun. Got to tour the vault over there. I've not seen it. I've not been here since that was completed. And so we got to tour the vault, and you saw some of the... You were very excited as a Catholic. You got to handle and touch all kinds of relics. That was really the most exciting part of the trip for you, right?

Speaker 2:
[02:54] It was. I got to take a picture of the Holy Relics sent to my wife of her favorite movie, A Princess Bride.

Speaker 1:
[03:02] Yes. And you see the copy, the first edition copy of the Declaration of Independence. I posted that on X last night, in fact. And you see the handwritten edits there from Thomas Jefferson. And yes, if you're watching on Blaze TV or YouTube later, I am totally pandering by wearing a burnt orange shirt here in the state of Texas. I'm not above pandering whatsoever. I am totally pandering by doing so. But you see the first edition. It's my favorite artifact that they have in the whole thing. It's a first edition of the Declaration of Independence with handwritten notes in the margins by Thomas Jefferson. One of the notes where he originally says, hold these truths to be sacred, and then changes it late, he writes it again, let's make it self-evident. And then all the various markers against King George III for exporting the savagery of slavery to the colonies, and even refers to those that they have taken as slaves. He even refers to them as, quote, men in that draft declaration. I think a lot of people probably don't know that. It was one state because they had made the agreement at the convention that the whole Ben Franklin, we either hang together or hang separately. The whole thing had to be unanimous, right? Every state had to agree to the declaration because this is a declaration of war. That's what the Declaration of Independence was a declaration of war. It was a declaration of succession, really. That's really what it was. And so they all had to agree. And South Carolina would not agree to the slavery language. Interestingly enough, all the other Southern colonies did. But South Carolina would not agree to the slavery language. And that's why that was ultimately taken out. So a fun time. But the highlight of that event is a gal comes over, introduces herself to us at our table. Because one of the guys we were sitting with, he used to work here for the Blaze, good friend of mine, Billy Hallowell, was sitting with us at our table. And she knew him. And she's from South Africa. And she's a big pray for healing kind of person, right? And she just starts telling us stories about doing this like all over the world. And sometimes, God doesn't answer. Sometimes she claims she's seen some amazing things. So I mean, I don't know what to think. She seemed a lovely gal, right? She seemed nice. She had an absolutely adorable dog that just sat on her lap the entire time as she was standing, in fact. Did not move. I mean, that dog was stoic. I had to check a few times to see if that dog was still among us. I mean, that dog did not. A cute little poodle, perfectly groomed, sweet lady, we heard some amazing stories. Right? And then she mentions praying for somebody in Mozambique, is where it was, for their tinnitus in their ear. You know? And I'm like, you know what? I've had tinnitus in my ear here for three years, thanks to Mr. Nefarious. It had happened on the Saturday that we were doing the massive event and screening of Nefarious at Jack Hibbs' church out there at Calvary Chapel in July of 23. It happened that morning. And I remember I looked at my wife when I lost most of my hearing in my right ear and I said, now I know for sure this is going to be a big event today. Okay? Nefarious has to take his pound of flesh out of me before we go screen the movie again. And sure enough, it ended up being a huge event. So I'm like, well, you know what? I mean, I've got tinnitus in my right ear, right? So she comes over, tries praying for me, I think it was three different times.

Speaker 2:
[06:18] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[06:19] Right? I will say I felt a little, I've gotten about 40% of the hearing back in my right ear. But when we're at crowded functions a lot, I bring a hearing aid with me, because ambient noise in the other ear makes it really hard for me to hear at all, because the ambient noise clogs up the good ear, and then I need to boost the other ear. So I brought my hearing aid with me, and I always bring it on trips and then forget to bring it to events. And my wife and Amy yells at me all the time that I forget to, why do we spend money for this thing if you never bring it? And she's right, of course. Right, so I happen to remember to bring it to this event, and my hearing is actually doing great, but she's like, take it out, take it out. Okay, all right, so have her pray for me a few times. The first time I felt maybe a little improvement, but again, with the ambient noise, I didn't know what to think. Nothing really happened the second time, the third time. And that was kind of it. We just went and did the rest of our evening.

Speaker 2:
[07:08] Until.

Speaker 1:
[07:09] Until. So we get back to our hotel room last night, and I realize that I have lost my hearing aid. And there's a joke there, okay? I took my hearing aid out so that I could get my hearing back, and ended up just losing. I did not get my hearing back, and lost my hearing aid as well. And I had friends of mine texting me about this last night. I'm sorry, we shouldn't be laughing, but we are laughing. All right, I was laughing. I mean, I was laughing, all right? You were laughing.

Speaker 2:
[07:41] I'm writing a movie script about the entire incident.

Speaker 1:
[07:45] What was the name of the script? Do you remember that time that woman with the dog that did move tried to pray for your ear?

Speaker 2:
[07:50] The very long title.

Speaker 1:
[07:51] Yes. And then you lost your hearing aid. That's the title of the script.

Speaker 2:
[07:54] It's a banger. It's a total banger.

Speaker 1:
[07:56] So I went and I tried to retrace my steps. Did it fall out of my pocket? On a lark, I texted JP Decker, who runs the museum just across the street from where we are right here today. And he goes, you're not going to believe this, but your hearing aid, somebody found it, and they turned it in.

Speaker 2:
[08:12] You are healed.

Speaker 1:
[08:13] I got a miracle. I got the miracle, nevertheless. The miracle did happen. I did get a miracle return of my hearing. My hearing aid was found, all right? So it's not necessarily the miracle, the hearing miracle that we were hoping for in that moment, but one happened nevertheless.

Speaker 2:
[08:31] God was moving nonetheless.

Speaker 1:
[08:32] That thing's only about this big. How someone found that needle in a haystack with all those people, I have no idea, but it's a miracle. It literally is. My hearing aid was found, right? Coming up on today's show, Molly Hemingway is going to join us from The Federalist about her new book on Justice Samuel Alito and his legacy, the guy that essentially helped with Clarence Thomas to save what's left of the Constitution. But how much longer is that legacy going to last? We'll get into that with Molly and more. And then next hour, we've teased this now for the last couple of weeks. We are going to spend all next hour on Theology Thursday, walking through just war theory and then applying it to the current war in Iran, all right? And so that's what's coming up on today's show. First though, we are brought to you by our friends over at Preborn. Please don't forget to continue to be generous. You folks have been so generous with this partnership. You've helped them to save tens of thousands of babies over the last few years that we've been aligned here at The Blaze with Preborn. And now we need to keep saving tens of thousands more because while it's great and we celebrate all these brick and mortar planned parenthoods across or planned butcherhoods across the country closing, some of it's a win. And then some of it is because now every single mailbox in America is a potential abortuary, right? And so we are literally now doing, it's a game of one-on-one now. We're doing soul to soul combat with the spirit of the age with pregnant women to help inspire them to not commit murder against their own offspring. And then maybe irrevocably distance themselves and harden their hearts toward God. And that's where pre-born comes in. They don't just, by the way, say thank you for choosing life after you've seen this ultrasound that only costs 28 bucks. So you could save a life for as little as 28 bucks today. They don't just walk away after that life is saved, by the way, they're there to help that new family now get started off on the right foot, right? They've got things like diapers and car seats, counseling, all of it free of charge, but none of it's free. And that's where you and I come in, right? So keep it going with the five-star charity, tax-deductible donations today, to preborn.com/steve. Again, that's preborn.com/steve. All right. To begin today's show, there's a couple of topics that I think we, I want to spend a good deal of time addressing. Because in many respects, they're the same topic. And I want to address these topics with this thesis. You cannot beat an opponent that wants to beat you harder than you want to beat them. Allow me to repeat that. You cannot beat an opponent that wants to beat you harder than you want to beat them. Now, we're going to walk through Just War Theory next hour, right?

Speaker 2:
[11:23] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[11:23] So that, of course, implies from the very beginning, if not explicitly says, there are limitations for Christians, for those of us, right, whose kingdom is not of this world, who are in this world, but not of it, right? Those of us who ultimately this world is not our home, might we represent another kingdom, right? There are limitations about how far and how much we should vie for the things of this world or the events of this world and the things that this world holds importance. There are limitations upon us, right?

Speaker 2:
[11:54] Absolutely. Without question.

Speaker 1:
[11:56] So we have to acknowledge that Christianity, on one end, blows all limiting principles away in terms of you conquer the last enemy, death. You can never get too far away from God that he won't take you back. Great Jeremy Camp song from back in the day. By the way, if you've never heard that, you should go look that up. Right? Those are... So in one way, Christianity blows up a lot of the limiting principles of this world and other religious systems. That doesn't mean, though, it doesn't have its own limiting principles. In exchange for that freedom we're given, in exchange for that eternal life we're given, limitations are now asked of us in terms of how we live out this new life we have in Christ. So, we begin from a premise of, to some degree, since our opponents represent the kingdoms of this world, like when Jesus says to Pilate, I could call down an entire legion of angels in a Thanos snap and make you forget you ever lived, basically. That's what he says to him. I mean, this whole thing, you don't understand. You think you're in charge here. Almost like Bain. You think you're in charge. That's kind of what Christ says to Pilate. You're not the one in charge. I mean, with a wink and a nod, I called down a legion of angels, and they're going to turn this place into glass. This is all happening because there's a larger drama playing out than whatever your relationship is to Rome, whatever your concern is about a Passover uprising, whatever your reputation is, whatever your political calculations are. A much larger drama is playing out here than any of those things that you're concerned about. So we have limiting principles. There are things we cannot do. Our opponents, in one respect, therefore, they're always going to want to beat us more than we're going to want to beat them. They're always going to be willing to go to places that we can't go in order to win. I would argue, though, and I have been for the last several years, we are nowhere near that line. Like, we're not even approaching it. Like, it's not in sight. We're nowhere near that line. Which is why now, I do think, you cannot beat an opponent that wants to beat you more than you want to beat them. I do think that that applies. Because we're not doing even the things the word of God allows us to do. We're not even doing them. We're not even approaching the things that we're not really sure if we can do or not. Is that a gray area or not? We don't really know. And sometimes when Christian rulers and Christian peoples have come into those gray areas, some cool things have happened, sometimes some uncool things have happened. We're not even close to that.

Speaker 2:
[14:50] That was a big topic yesterday, by the way, at the Pastor Summit.

Speaker 1:
[14:54] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[14:54] Why is that happening? Or why is it not happening?

Speaker 1:
[14:56] Correct. And so I do think we should go with the theme. You can't beat an opponent who wants to beat you more than you want to beat them because we're so far behind even approaching this moral dilemma. We're nowhere near it. We're at the Book of Job, where God says, gurgle your loins. We're at the final chapter of Nehemiah, where he's pulling beards and smacking people around because they let sand ballot in Tobiah back in to desecrate the temple they didn't want rebuilt. We're at that part of the story right now. And that brings me to what happened just the other day on Tuesday in Virginia with the referendum. And then what happened, I think it was on Friday, maybe it was Monday, FBI Director Cash Patel announcing the indictments against the Southern Poverty Law Center. Which by the way, I say this, I've been a critic of Cash on the show. I think for valid reason, valid reasons, otherwise I wouldn't have been critical. But this is what I voted for. All right. Now, now, now you have my attention. You have my attention now. Especially if this is maybe the first step in a process. You have my, this is not an insignificant piece of the, of the other team's puzzle whatsoever. This is a, this is a key player here. And it gets into how they operate on their side. There was a time, if you're the generation ahead of Todd and I, a boomer, that you can remember that the brand name of the Southern Poverty Law Center meant something. It was a relic of the civil rights era. And it had earned a lot of its relic status because of the work it had done during that period of time. In no way, shape, or form, what it has become in this modern era, does it represent that at all? Like not at all. But this is important to note because you need to understand the psyche of your enemy. And it's not so we can emulate it, it's so that we cannot allow it. Leftism, Marxism, Spirit of the Age-ism. However, the Spirit of the Age manifest, whatever isms it's manifesting within our, in any culture at any given time, is deconstructive in nature. It seeks to corrupt. Like when Todd says, the lie is the point. The corruption is the point. When our friend and colleague, Oran McIntyre, talks about it, hollowing out your religion and wearing it like a skin suit. That's a phenomenal line, by the way. That's what we're talking about, too, here. It is a corrupting agent. It's a contagion. They create social contagions where, out of nowhere now, 25% of kids think that they're trans when no one even knew what that was five years ago, right? Social contagions, like, well, why do you hate your grandmother? Now, we remember all that from a few years ago. Postmodernism was kind of the Navy seals of this. We go in and just spread moral relativism wherever we can to disarm and deconstruct the existing moral system, which is Christianity, in order to then introduce a new one, which is the phase we're entering into now, particularly with the heightened awareness and infiltration of Islam. And so they're not embarrassed in the least that there's at least indictable levels of evidence. Eleven counts from a federal grand jury in Birmingham, Alabama, that they essentially committed money laundering, bank fraud, wire fraud, in order to create in order to commit cultural fraud. In order to essentially just be a false flag operation. On one hand, and then on the other hand, a vehicle of condemnation of your enemies. So you could commit, you know, there's a there's a term from old Marxists, our old Marxist term social murder. That essentially when you when you put down the working, the disadvantaged class so much, they will lash out. And it's justified to do so, like insurance executives are frankly like Charlie Kirk. The SPLC, for those of you that aren't in our world, has been used to take people like us and put us on watch lists, do not call lists, don't book lists, don't publish lists, essentially a form of shunning. And there's at least indictable evidence that the entire thing was a complete and total Marxist sham from the beginning. And they use this organization because it once in a previous era had a brand that people trusted, so that they could then hollow out that brand and then use it again as a skin suit to essentially turn it in from into an entity of social justice, whatever you think of that term, I'm not a fan of it, but that's originally what it was in the 50s and the 60s. Now they've turned it into a stormtrooper, into a Stasi. That's how badly they want to beat you. And apparently they even left some of the receipts, otherwise we wouldn't have the evidence to get an 11 count indictment in the federal court, I would imagine. The kind of thing that we all probably knew was going on the entire time, but they left a paper trail of it. That's how bad they want to win. Stop and think about the fact, I don't want to risk a job. I don't want to risk getting banned on a social media platform. I don't want to risk the replies on my Facebook page. These are the things we're all wrestling with over here. They are taking institutions of the civil rights era and just morphing them into modern day American stasis without any shame at all and any hesitation. Cannot beat an opponent who wants to beat you more than you want to beat them. And that brings us to the vote in Virginia. And I'll talk about that after I remind you about our friends over at Relief Factor, right? 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So the timing of this is providential. I just spent five days in Virginia. The five days leading up to this vote, I was in Virginia. In Alexandria, Virginia, that's where my wife and I stayed. We took a couple days off last week, remember folks? And Amy and I decided to take a delayed anniversary getaway that we didn't get a chance to do in early April because my team was in the final four, and my wife is awesome, and she didn't want me to miss it. So she's like, you know, we're going to DC in a couple weeks anyway. We'll just take a couple days, just you and me. And so that's what we did. And I did a couple of events there, including America Reads the Bible. I hope you guys are still following that. President of the United States read the Bible aloud on Tuesday from the White House. Do you remember the last time that was done? No, I don't know. I'd have to look it up. All right. That's incredible. That event is and what they pulled off by God's grace. So remember now, I'm working out twice a day because I'm on 75 hard right now. So, I mean, I'm listening to podcasts of a sports or theology variety for probably two to three hours every day, right? Between the amount of time I spend getting my steps in, amount of time I spend working out at the gym. And a lot of times the podcast national networks will insert ads that they geofence your location and they'll put stuff in there that's relevant to where you are, right? Every theology and every sports podcast I listen to for five days, two to three hours a day, while working out twice a day in Alexandria, Virginia for five days. Every single break was Barack Obama coming on, urging people to vote for this referendum. Sometimes an answer from the right would come. It would never identify as Republican. I saw nothing at all from the Republican Party in the five days I was there. Nowhere. Nowhere. I saw nothing. Nothing about it anywhere. I saw nothing about it from the White House in the five days I was there. All the messaging came from the left. All of it did. Well, not all. The vast majority of it did. I did just mention. I heard a few breaks, about half of them. A voice from the right. It was no one we knew. It was just a voiceover. Right? And they kind of almost tried to change their messaging to be tricky. Like it was our perspective, but using their language. Save democracy kind of stuff, you know? Okay. And this thing only won by two points. What do you think it would have done if we would have... I mean, how much money do you think has been spent on getting John Cornyn through a Senate primary? Why? What if we took all the money that's been wasted getting John Cornyn through a Senate primary, you think, Todd, and applied it to the Virginia referendum, losing it by two points? What do you think the result might have been?

Speaker 2:
[25:18] We have so many what-if questions on our side that we never answer.

Speaker 1:
[25:21] I mean, this party is way more interested in having John Cornyn win a Senate primary in Texas than it was losing the state of Virginia for literally forever, because that's what we're on the brink of doing. Right now we have to hope for a Hail Mary pass within the Virginia judicial system. Well, Steve, I thought you didn't like activist judges. We're in a civil war. If you rule for me, you're not an activist. You rule against me? You are. That's where we are. And I'm fine with it. The social compact is broken by virtue of what you just tried to put on a referendum. You see what I'm saying?

Speaker 2:
[25:50] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[25:50] You essentially took a state that was a 52-48 state and made it a 90-10 state.

Speaker 2:
[25:56] All right?

Speaker 1:
[25:56] Cool. Social compact is broken, then fine.

Speaker 2:
[25:59] And Spanberger herself, when she was running, they asked her point blank, it's on video. Are you going to redistrict? She said, no, I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 1:
[26:06] So if that's how we're going to roll, okay. Then the social compact is broken. I don't owe you that. Turn the other cheek is not just keep getting run over and over and over and over. There's a justice, retributive, restorative justice aspect to the word of God. I don't owe you that. So then, okay, if that's where we are, then cool. I like judges who make the decisions I like. And if they do, they're righteous. And if they don't, then they're activist and unrighteous. Those are the rules. I'm happy to play by those. I'm not watering down my standard to play by those rules. I'm just not going to elevate it higher than you're willing to match me because we're not in a relationship anymore, so I don't have to. We're unevenly yoked. You don't treat your wife the way you do a female neighbor, do you?

Speaker 2:
[26:47] Any suicide pact is immoral. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:49] So you know why you don't? You're unevenly yoked. You're not in the same level of relationship, right?

Speaker 2:
[26:53] Okay?

Speaker 1:
[26:53] So we're not in these. We're not United States in the spirit of the term anymore, right? Okay, so we're not. So then I don't owe you that extra. I don't owe you that benefit of the doubt. I don't owe that to you. I don't. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Neither is the Declaration of Independence. But you have to keep in mind, these people did this right after they just won this last election last November. This was the next thing they did was get this thing on the ballot. They're going to... Tim Kaine, he was going to be the moderate voice for Hillary Clinton as her VP in 2016. He's going on TV, on Fox News even, and saying, when asked, is the state of Virginia 90-10? Well, no, we just need to make sure we have enough members of Congress to stand up to Trump's tyranny. Not even... there's not even a spin to this. They want you to know what they're doing. They're proud of it. Prideful, you might even say. We're not even sure if John Thune's going to bring the SAVE Act up for a vote in the Senate right now. That's where we are. But we're recoding marijuana for reasons. I don't know what those are. And we're going to restore the FISA program without any restrictions, the thing that they weaponized, not so we can then turn around and weaponize them against them, which I'm all for. I mean, my first thing is just to get rid of the program if we're not. Actually, no, this is what I would do. Weaponize it against our enemies. And after that is successful, then we get rid of it so they can't do it to us. That's how you win wars. You win wars doing stuff like that. Get out of this mindset. You're in some social compact. You're not. At least not with them. We might be with one another, but we're not with them. We're not with them. And you can't want to beat an opponent who wants to beat you more than you want to beat them. Now, there's a line for Christians where we can turn this all into idolatry, and we can't cross that line. We're nowhere close to that line. We're nowhere close to it. A show like this should be going in the other direction. Should be saying, hey, ease up, we're going too far. Should be the conscience of the Republic, not the conviction of it. But since we're nowhere close to that line, we're not doing the conscience now, we're doing the convicting. Get a lot closer to that line. At least we're, it's in sight. Then maybe we might have a chance to actually win this thing.

Speaker 3:
[29:48] The truth, straight, no chaser, Steve Deace. On the Blaze Radio Network.

Speaker 1:
[29:58] All right, back here on the Steve Deace Show, live and on demand on Blaze TV, radio, and podcast. We're brought to you by our friends over at Fast Growing Trees. They've got the largest and most trusted online nursery in the country with thousands of trees and plants, over two million happy customers. They've got everything that your yard and home, indoor and outdoor, everything it needs, including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, house plants, all grown with care, guaranteed to arrive healthy. That's their alive and thrive guarantee that your plants will arrive in those two conditions. You can also make sure, hey, I don't have a green thumb. Neither do we. All right, you've got the trained plant experts there. They can help you in a landscape, choose the right plants for you, learn how to care for them every single step of the way. Now this time of year, they've got all kinds of deals going. But now, just for you guys being a part of our show, if you've never gone to Fast Growing Trees before, get an additional 20% off of your first purchase if you use the code Deace at checkout. That's an additional 20% off their everyday low prices on your first purchase with the code Deace at fastgrowingtrees.com. Use the promo code Deace at fastgrowingtrees.com for that extra 20% off, offer valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Well, I believe this, I don't know how this is possible because I've been following her work and admiring it for years, but I think this might be the first time that we have had. The one and only Molly Hemingway on our show. She's the author of the new book, Alito, The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution. It's a pleasure to have her here on the Steve Deace Show. Molly, it's good to have you finally with us. How are you?

Speaker 4:
[31:34] It's so great to be here with you.

Speaker 1:
[31:36] So if you don't mind, can we start with maybe the end and work our way back to the start of the Justice Alito story? There were a lot of rumors and throughout the course of so far this year that he was maybe going to retire this year. Upon hearing some of those rumors, I started just doing some research on who I, with sources I had of potential replacements, wrote a piece about that over at The Blase here a few weeks ago, because I think it is pertinent that we have to go a one-for-one trade here. That when the time comes to trade Alito with Thomas, and Thomas, that they've got to get, similar A, justices have to be the replacements. It can't be C+, B-, justices. They've got to be an A for an A. Now, they're denying those rumors. I know Fox had a report, I think, a few days ago saying that he's not going to retire this year. So, I mean, you've been writing about him now for this book. So what do you think?

Speaker 4:
[32:26] I share the view that he is not retiring this year. And I also think you're right to focus on who's going to be able to replace him and Justice Thomas and do it at that high level. It's going to be almost impossible to replace either of these two men. They are really great Americans, the kind that we don't really make anymore. But we have to think about who is at least near that caliber, because the work they've done on the court is important and it should continue.

Speaker 1:
[32:57] I'm of the opinion, and it didn't make friends with some of my, even my own friends. But I am of the opinion that for the good of the Republic, I just watched Ruth Bader Ginsburg hang on and hand us the victory over Roe versus Wade. And I got a big laugh out of that.

Speaker 4:
[33:40] And I think that's the second longest serving justice on the court. He's also in his 70s, and that's Chief Justice John Roberts. Because while he's not the worst thing in the world, he's not been as strong as people had hoped he would be, very good on issues like getting rid of racism and government programs, but weak and easily persuaded by his liberal peers in other areas. But because, I just want to say, it'd be really much more comforting to think about either Alito or Thomas stepping down if Donald Trump's three replacements were each a bit more consistent and solid. They're also not bad. Of course, it's just great, but then he does a Boeufstock opinion, which is one of the worst things we've ever seen come from the court. And then Kavanaugh has, I think, exceeded many people's expectations. They expected him to be extremely moderate, and he's shown a lot of courage. With Justice Barrett, I think people were expecting the best justice in Supreme Court history. And again, she's always writing defensible things, and her posture is a bit slower than maybe some of her peers would like, given that, as you note, the court can change composition at any minute. When you have a good court, you want to make sure you're doing what you can to correct previous erroneous decisions and to move the ball down the field in a way that helps preserve America as a republic.

Speaker 1:
[35:09] When I look at Thomas and Alito, and I tend to speak in sports analogies because I'm a sports guy, to me, it's like Babe Ruth and Luke Garragh in a way. Right? You know, Babe Ruth has this controversial trade that brings him to the Yankees. Clarence Thomas has this controversial confirmation hearing that the entire nation watched at the time. Babe Ruth has this colorful background where he came from the orphanages and everything else. And Clarence Thomas' history coming from the sharecroppers, segregated south, things of that nature. And yet, when you look at their overall numbers on a day-to-day basis, when they're in the prime of their careers, it's hard to tell the difference between Luke Garragh, who was just kind of the quieter guy, did his job, showed up every single day, had the longest consecutive games played streak for 80 years, right? Or something like that. And that's kind of been Alito. I think a lot's really not known about his background. You know, he's almost so good, you just take it for granted. Oh yeah, he's Clarence Thomas' wingman, right? And so I would imagine there was a lot of content to mine there because of what I just said.

Speaker 4:
[36:11] Well, Steve, I love that analogy, and I might be stealing it for future conversation. The way I'd put it in a book was what one of the people close to Alito had said, that Thomas is like the deployed aircraft carrier. His chambers are like that, whereas Alito's are like the green berets. They work well together because you need both approaches. But I wanted to tell the story of Alito because he's this giant on the court. Everyone who works with him says he's the most brilliant member of the court. He's far and away the best at oral argument among the conservatives. Elena Kagan is also good at oral argument. He's just moving things nonstop. But because he's so reserved, because he's so quiet, nobody knows about him like they know about Thomas and Alito. But I think he's just as fascinating a character with really interesting stories to tell about the America that he came from, which would be middle 20th century America. What he saw happen as progressives took over cities, how he was a stalwart and didn't change, even as he goes to all the elite institutions like Princeton for college and Yale Law for law school. But he doesn't moderate. He's a career civil servant who doesn't moderate. And he also shows something that I think is really important for your audience, which is you can be both principled and you can be effective. Those things are not in contradiction to each other. And a lot of people in the conservative movement, they think the only thing that matters is principles, or the only thing that matters is winning at all costs. And he shows you can be principled and you can win. And I think that's a lesson, not just for the legal community, but for everybody in their day-to-day lives.

Speaker 1:
[37:51] That's very well said. As you were researching this book and compiling it, don't give away the store because we want people to buy it, obviously, but give us one or two things that maybe surprised you the most that you would not have assumed going into this project.

Speaker 4:
[38:04] Well, being able to interview nearly 100 people, including people on the court, at the court, near the court, far and away the most explosive story I tell is what happened after the Dobbs leak inside the court. The justices had their lives threatened. They were facing death threats and other attacks. They were having to wear bulletproof vests, being moved to secure locations. And the liberal justices, as I, and I tell the whole story in the book, they intentionally slow walked their descent so that that campaign of attacking these justices could have the longest chance of succeeding. And Dobbs was not official, the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, until it was publicly issued from the bench. So they were trying to get one of the justices to peel away through these intimidation tactics, and they delayed their descent unreasonably so, including that they put a footnote in their eventual descent that they filed to a case that really was still being worked on, knowing that that would further delay publication of Dobbs for another three plus weeks. It's a really remarkable story, and it relates to so much of what you're seeing now about collegiality on the court. There are also reports that the liberal justices are once again slow walking that Louisiana case about racial gerrymandering. There's concern that if it comes out, it was from the October term, and it should have been out already, but they are concerned that if it comes out in time for Republican legislatures to do something about it, it would hurt the Democrat Party, and so they are slow walking it. This is pretty explosive stuff about what's happening on the court.

Speaker 1:
[39:43] And of course, I mean, you mentioned collegiality. This is an institution that kind of, well, at least under John Roberts, I've always viewed Roberts as an institutionalist. I think that's his highest worldview standard. Whatever he thinks will, whatever seems to be the provocateur, right or left, tends to be what he is against. I'm not saying he is this, but I think he views himself as the stabilizing presence, that he's kind of holding, he's the guy holding back the Marxist leftist in the Democratic Party and the hardcore nationalist MAGAites in the Trump Party, and he's the voice of sanity in the middle. I think if you look at the strain of his decisions, whatever side seems to be the most willing to challenge the social compact, he tends to rule against. And since they do that more often than us, he does rule against them more often than us. It's also why he rules against us, though, some of the things we most need him on at the same time. So I've always operated under the theory, by the way, that I thought he leaked it. That I think the reason why we didn't find out who it was is because notice that he did not... The other justices, as you recall, went further than him. He was willing to align with the Mississippi law and uphold it, but he did not sign up for overturning Roe. And so I always thought he was the leaker, and that's why they were never able to trace where the leak came from, so to speak.

Speaker 4:
[41:02] So Steve, first of all, very insightful of your analysis of where Chief Justice Roberts is. You're right. He would have upheld the law but not overturned Roe, which is a perfect example of how he operates. He would rather move extremely slowly over time, rather than just do the difficult thing that needs to be done. And there was previous reporting that he and Breyer were running a campaign to get Kavanaugh to pull away. They would all agree to uphold the Mississippi law if Kavanaugh agreed not to overrule Roe. And he stood that campaign, and I think that's really interesting. There are some, I talked to a lot of people about who they think leaked. Most people think it was a clerk, but there are some people who do think, nobody thinks it was an actual justice. Maybe it was, but no, I didn't talk to anyone who actually thought it was the justice themselves, but there have been some comments about a staff member in the Roberts Chamber who people think might have been involved. So it is interesting. I always think, who benefits? I don't think people were actually trying to get their colleagues killed, but they certainly wanted to show them, if you do this, the left will engage in violent assault. And are you sure you want to go through with that? And it was a lot of pressure, and it's impressive that each of the five withstood that pressure, particularly given that their children and their spouses and they themselves were under death threat.

Speaker 1:
[42:31] Well, that is, I just said, give us a tease. That is one heck of a tease. That's just a sample of what's in this book. You want to check it out. Alito, the justice who reshaped the Supreme Court and restored the Constitution, Molly Hemingway, and we will definitely not wait so long to do this a second round, Molly. It's good to have you with us.

Speaker 4:
[42:48] Thanks so much, Steve. Take care.

Speaker 1:
[42:49] I take care. God bless. So Todd, without even intending, I mean, this conversation with Molly, when I just gave her an open-ended question, hey, pick something that gives our audience an understanding of what's in here, she immediately, without even knowing probably what we were just discussing before she came on, she's probably doing, I mean, she's a big-time author, she's done numerous bestsellers, probably doing 40 of these interviews today for launching this book this week. She goes to the evidence of what it looks like when the social compact is broken, when the idea that I will not give you benefits to doubt anymore. All right, this is, we're no longer in alliance together. We are operating as adversaries. And the only limiting principle will be what I think I could particularly get away with in a given time. That's exactly what we were just talking about. Where you cannot beat an opponent who wants to beat you more than you want to beat them. I mean, she, I mean, when she's talking about, well, they just let this simmer out there, they wanted to let the pressure mount, just so they would, you know, their colleagues would get a taste. Notice what wasn't discussed there, legal precedent, natural law, starry decisis, you know, the kind of things you were told anyway that we're going into making supreme. This is how political bodies operate, right? Leaking things, staging things, letting things, trial balloons, letting people get it, feel the heat in a way, in order to get them to pull back. If that is infiltrated at the supreme court level, then at this point, brother, it's just in the water table comprehensively in America at the moment.

Speaker 2:
[44:31] Yeah, and she chose to say that in a book that is specifically about one guy named Samuel Alito, but I'm getting the impression, and God bless her, if this is what this book is about, I can't wait to read it now. This book is serving as a sort of Trojan horse, to say a lot of things that need to be said, but might not be paid as much attention to if they weren't specifically about this. You can talk about a man, like Molly said, they don't make people like this anymore. But who's and what is replacing it? And it is the kind of judges who will look at you within those chambers and say, well, maybe the terrorists have a point. That's what she was telling you. The liberal justices are saying, well, you know, chaos in the streets, that might be on you. How do you like that neck connected to your head to your shoulders?

Speaker 1:
[45:27] That's a Marxist ethos is what that is. That's the term social murder I just used a minute ago. This is the natural consequence of your tyranny, of your imposition on my fake rights, is that people lash out violently so, because you won't let me commit murder. So you just need to get a taste of that to reconsider. That's a nice Supreme Court seat you have there.

Speaker 2:
[45:51] Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[45:52] Be ashamed if anything happened to it. That's a nice brownstone in Georgetown where you live with your family and young children, Brett Kavanaugh. It'd be a shame. I've already been through hell with the whole confirmation process for him as well. That turned out to be a scam. It'd be a shame if something happened to your place there in suburban DC.

Speaker 2:
[46:09] Yeah, I'm just getting the feeling that if I asked Molly, is the subtitle of this book really The Fall of the Republic? Because if you don't have Samuel Alito's anywhere, just as regular citizens, people with that level, he's not looking for the glory. He's not wearing a cape. He's doing his duty. We don't have that anymore. We have people who want to push the terrorists out front and center and are proud to do so.

Speaker 1:
[46:37] I am still concerned, but listen, I've had a great relationship with Ginny Thomas, as you know, for many years. She's been a huge advocate of mine. And she has not spoken to me in about seven months since I said, I think, hey, I think we have to, we need these guys to retire so we can replace them while we can. And Molly brings up a good point though.

Speaker 2:
[46:58] With who?

Speaker 1:
[47:00] With who? Even if we have the votes right now. See, now that's an argument that I guess I should have thought of that I did not, which is it's a gamble either way, right? Kind of like what we're about to just talk about with Iran. It's again, we do nothing. Maybe they don't get a nuclear weapon. Then if we do nothing, maybe they do when they use it. It's a gamble, right? If we let these guys play out for as long as we need them, as long as we can, because we don't have replacements, they might do another 10 years. Who knows, right? Might do another 10 minutes. That's the gamble here.

Speaker 2:
[47:30] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[47:30] Hour two is next. All right, back here with Hour 2, live and on demand on Blaze TV, radio and podcast, Steve Deace here from Blaze HQ. Todd Erson here with me. We'll be here tomorrow as well. And then we are flying home after the show. And since I needed to rent a car, that's gonna add about two hours to our travel time. Because the DFW Airport, which is one of my favorite big city airports in the country, by the way, easy to navigate, easy to get around, whenever I come down here, pretty close to literally everything I gotta do when I come down here, turns out it may have the slowest car rental process in the United States of America. Holy cow. Even you were complaining. And you're normally the one that says, hey, suck it up, this puts hair in your chest. Even you were like, this is taking too long.

Speaker 2:
[48:48] It was rather busted.

Speaker 1:
[48:50] I mean, you literally look for long lines.

Speaker 2:
[48:52] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[48:53] I mean, I'm gonna look for the longest line. I'm here to suffer.

Speaker 2:
[48:55] Growth opportunities, yes.

Speaker 1:
[48:58] This is only slightly satirical. We're only slightly exaggerating. Todd will look for the longest line. All right, just another time for growth and suffering and maybe stigmata. All right? So even you were like, this is taking too long. Even you were like, and everybody's a foreigner.

Speaker 2:
[49:15] Oh, and there was that, too.

Speaker 1:
[49:18] It's taking too long, and I can't understand anything anybody is saying.

Speaker 2:
[49:21] There's not 10-gallon hats and cowboy boots in most of the places I see in Dallas.

Speaker 1:
[49:26] No, wow. I mean, when you saw our friend and colleague, Sarah Gonzalez's post about taking her kids to the park, because she lives down here, taking her kids to the park over the weekend, she was like, I felt like I was in New Delhi. You know, what is going on? That's not much of an exaggeration. I mean, some stuff is changing here for sure.

Speaker 2:
[49:43] Can you imagine the reboot of Dallas now? Maybe that's where we need to go. A little sketch.

Speaker 1:
[49:50] Bless it, IED. Mubarak. Hour two. Don't forget to let us know what you think about what we think via the stevedace.com inbox by emailing us, steve at stevedace.com. That's D-E-A-C-E. Like us on Facebook, me, we, and Gab. You can follow us at Steve Deace Show on X Instagram and TikTok. You can also subscribe to our new YouTube channel at Deace Show on YouTube. That's at Deace Show on YouTube. And then finally, if you wouldn't mind, make sure if you like the podcast to subscribe to that, hit the subscribe button, or if you're on Apple iTunes, hit the follow button to ensure that every time we do a new episode, it will be for sure right there in your podcast feed. And then you can also, as many and many of you have, over tens of thousands of you have done this for us, leave us a five star review. And thanks to you, if you want to do that for us today. And thanks to our friends over at Beam. If you're looking for the best night's sleep you can get, and frankly, you deserve. What if I told you it cost you a buck 25 a night to get that sleep? Because that's what our friends at Beam Dream Powder are offering you right now. With their 40% off their Dream Powder, what is it? Well, think back to when you were a kid, right? Think back to when you were a kid, and no one knew what an intermittent fasting was when we were kids, right? And mostly nobody knew what morbid obesity was either. So Nana just handed you the hot cocoa when you were a kid, knocked you out, right? That's kind of what this is without the carbs and the sugars we have to worry about these days, all right? What it does have, though, is the natural ingredients you're looking for for that sleep, like gelatin, and reishi, magnesium, and more. Several great flavors. I'm a chocolate peanut butter guy. You can check it out today. Get 40% off with my code Steve at ShopBeam, like laser beam, shopbeam.com/steve. Use the promo code Steve for 40% off. Try it today for 40% off with the promo code Steve at shopbeam.com/steve. And with that, this is a topic that, let me just say, I am unhappy with how often we've had to discuss this during the course of my career. I have, I've had my fill of Middle Eastern war. I have. I've just, I've had my fill of it. Remember, we discussed this last summer with Midnight Hammer. I think it's the last time we did this.

Speaker 2:
[52:05] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[52:05] And what did I say leading up to Midnight Hammer? Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I do not want to go to war with Iran. How does that work? I remember saying, I have no idea. And I don't have to figure that out. I'm not the president. That's not my, I don't have to figure that out. That's why, one of the reasons why the Bible says to pray for your leaders. Okay, because they're the ones, they got to, they're the ones, they got to figure out how to make those two things happen at the same time. Well, what we learned last year with Operation Midnight Hammer is that we could still exercise lethal force against an enemy in an instant without getting bogged down in nation building and prolonged engagement, right? And at the time, I kind of, if you recall, I kind of made this as an analogy, as analogous to Reagan and Grenada. And when Reagan took over in the early 80s, there was still a lot of PTSD from Vietnam that we just, we are, we must now just negotiate with our enemies. We cannot project strength at all anymore. And eventually, us being second-fiddle to the Soviet Union, I know for some of you, this sounds silly, but this is the world that you and I grew up in. Yeah, we were little kids. And when we were born in, born into this country, this was the mindset of this country. Walter Cronkite's given a countdown of 444 days, hostages. Jimmy Carter tried to rescue him. It was a colossal embarrassment, okay? And keep in mind, we couldn't rescue the hostages back. The Ayatollahs had been in power for like 10 minutes. They didn't have an revolutionary guard and 150,000 trained zealots and mercenary Islamists from around the world. They didn't have anything. They were just guerrillas. We couldn't even project enough strength to get our own hostages out from a country that until 10 minutes ago was largely a vassal state of the United States, if we're being honest. And then we watched our news networks which show all these May Day parades. The Soviet Union and Brezhnev would sit there. And years later, we found out a lot of these were just paper mache cutups to make it look, but we didn't know. The messages that we were being fed when you and I were little kids was, our days were over. And it was just a matter of time before we were the beta to the Soviet Union's alpha. And challenging them at all, going right at them at all, would just cause them to push the button and nuke us out of existence. That was the zeitgeist that you and I grew up in. And Reagan, he flipped out on its head. And the event that helped him to do that was Grenada. He sent the marines in to, I think it was, was it college students and some professors, I believe? I want to say that's what it was, that he went in to rescue and sent the military. And it was an on-the-ground operation. And it was a smashing success. And people were like, oh, it's not 1968 anymore. We can be America again. And then the favorability of Reagan's defense buildup, his policies and posture towards the Soviet Union became immensely popular. He won a resounding reelection in 1984. Soviet Union was collapsing by the end of the decade, and the rest, as they say, is history, right? In many respects, I think Operation Midnight Hammer last year was Trump's granada. We're tired, man, okay? When it comes to the Middle East, all of us are like, we're tired. All right, we've done our tour of duties over there a couple times, okay? At the same token, though, can you just let a regime that has killed and or kidnapped hundreds of Americans in the last century, just go ahead and let them have a weapon of mass destruction. Can you do that? I think I've told you guys the story before. I came this close to going with the Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign, just because I thought he was the one candidate running that might be crazy enough to drain some swapping around here. And then there was a debate before the Iowa straw poll that year where the question of Iran came up, and Ron Paul said, Well, if I was Iran, I'd want a nuclear weapon, too. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm not, no, I'm not. I'm not doing. We can drain all the swamp we run here and won't really matter if Iran drops a nuclear bomb in El Paso, right? You know, so no, we're not doing a nuclear Iran. But that's the gamble here.

Speaker 2:
[56:31] And this is what you liked about Trump's big speech in in Riyadh in 1.0. Yeah, you're just like we can all be groovy together, and if we can't, then you can get a bomb.

Speaker 1:
[56:40] Yep. And if you or we're cool if you want to leave us alone, too.

Speaker 2:
[56:44] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[56:44] But stepping to us is no longer an option for you. And he proved that by Moabbing Assad in Syria thereafter. And that's the great irony of all of this, is we're having all this consternation about spillover war, and everything Tucker and Douglas McGregor and all that crowd said, none of that has happened. They've all been wrong about that. They're wrong about it last year, they're wrong about it this year. And instead, what Trump has done, I don't even blame them for having these fears. Dude, Charlie and I, you and I were sitting in a hotel room last June after doing Seth Gruber's event in Southern California, watching this go down last night. And Charlie and I were texting each other that night while this was going down, both of us concerned about spillover effect of this. Because we still didn't know the scope of it, we're just watching it in real time, right? And we're texting each other, is this going to be a spillover war, we cannot afford this. We're texting each other our own angst and fears about this at that time. Well, now, so I don't blame people for thinking that last year, but we kind of have a proof of concept. We have a year of data now that shows a lot that we have the most comprehensive list of Arab allies as a nation we've ever had. We've never had this kind of alliance in the Arab world as a country, never. And it blows my mind that people are more resolved in Riyadh and Cairo and Amman, and in Dubai, than they are in Davenport and Dallas. Blows my mind. But some of it is also because of justifiable PTSD. And tomorrow will be the eighth week anniversary when this launched. It will be day 56 tomorrow. That's going to be one of our topics on the Deace group, by the way. And we were originally told four weeks to flatten Iran.

Speaker 2:
[58:36] All right. Right?

Speaker 1:
[58:38] That's four to five weeks to flatten Iran. Well now we're going into week eight. All right? Week eight starts tomorrow. And so now we were good to do this about a month ago, and then I said, let's hold off and see how much longer this goes. I think now, especially, do you know what the end in sight is? I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[59:00] No, there's a different story about the peace treaty and the peace terms and the straight of harm moves every day.

Speaker 1:
[59:08] And you and I talked about doing this as a topic for Theology Thursday about three weeks ago. Since then, the vice president has said, we don't really know who has negotiating power over there. OK? The president has been able to successfully, as of yesterday, this is a tremendous accomplishment. It didn't get mentioned enough. Successfully, it got Iran to agree to not execute eight Iranian females that they had plans to execute very publicly. But now, today, we're saying we're going to just, any Iranian ship that is caught putting any further mines in the Strait of Hormuz, I've ordered our Navy to fire upon them. We're doing a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which no one was talking about when we launched Operation Epic Fury, right? So it seems like from afar, we're almost in this like smoke-em-out siege strategy, where we don't want to put a massive army on the ground in order to get rid of this regime. So we're just kind of, we're blockading the strait. We're trying to crush the can here and hem them in. Siege warfare takes a long time, folks. That kind of smoke-em-out, you got to get those folks down to no resources. That's one of the most ancient strategies of warfare is siege warfare. You know, get the people to come out from behind the city wall like Nebuchadnezzar did. So I think now is the time for us to have this conversation, because there really is no end in sight now. If Trump just said we're pulling out in the next five minutes, would you be shocked? I would not be.

Speaker 2:
[60:41] No.

Speaker 1:
[60:42] If we were still doing this while celebrating the 250th birthday of America on July 4th, would you be shocked?

Speaker 2:
[60:47] And that's more likely at this point.

Speaker 1:
[60:48] Yeah, I have no idea when this is going to end. I'm not sure they know.

Speaker 2:
[60:52] Because I don't think, regarding the Strait of Hormuz, it does not seem like there has been a plan from the beginning. Even if siege warfare is a plan you disagree with, you don't like, it's a real plan. It has a chance of success if you're patient. I don't think that was the plan from the beginning. They've been just trying things.

Speaker 1:
[61:11] I think if it was the plan, they would have done it from the beginning. All right. They would have done this from the start. All right. And so we know we have severely diminished their military capacity. That is without a doubt. Otherwise, they'd be acting out, right? But we, but they still have this one last piece of leverage left, and that's kind of what this is now all about. So since we are at what appears to be at least some form of a standstill with Operation Epic Fury, I think the time has come to get into just war theory and apply it to this war as best as we can. All right. A quick little preamble reminder, what is just war theory for those of you that are new to the show? So just war theories origins in the Christian tradition begin with Augustine, and they don't end there. This has been pontificated upon, written about for centuries, and there's variations of thereof. Okay. And then there have been updated versions throughout the history of the church too. All right. So now Augustine laid out kind of the first basic framework for what is a just war to get in, then how are we permitted to behave when we're actually in one, right? So there's a long train of Christian and great Christian thought and debate about this. Now, why did it begin with Augustine? Well, for two reasons. One, he's probably the greatest thinker in the entire history of the church that didn't write a book in the canon. He's post church fathers around the fourth century, third, fourth century. So his, I mean, his influence, outside of the Bible writers themselves, I'm not sure there is a figure in the history of the church that would have as uniform, both Catholic and Protestant regard as Augustine would. The reformers held Augustine in very high regard. Luther himself was an Augustinian monk, and many of his understandings of single predestination and those kinds of things were very Augustinian in their thought. The other reason is the timing. It also just happened that, you know, now Rome has been essentially fully Christianized now. We're post-Constantine. Rome has been fully Christianized now. And so now, for the first time, Christianity goes from being a remnant, a radical group, an outsider group, to, we're the, you know, we're in charge now. This is our empire now. Well, it goes back to what you and I said last hour. We still have limiting principles, even though Rome is now, it views itself as a Christian kingdom. Not even ancient Rome is the, that kingdom is not, that's not our kingdom. That's not our host kingdom, right? And so Augustine wrote tons about these kinds of topics. Are we allowed to, you know, when in Rome, do as the Romans? Well, no, right? That's what City of God, maybe his most momentous work that he wrote, gets into a lot of this kind of a framework. What then are the limiting principles we still have to live by, even in a Roman Empire now, that is no longer foe, but friend? It's now spreading Christianity, but we also cannot become, you know, tools of the government of Rome at the exact same time, because you're always just one emperor away from a pharaoh who knows not Joseph, right? And we live by eternal principles, not principles that get modified based on who the emperor is. We live by eternal principles. Therefore, you know, how do we make sure that we're doing so consistently, regardless whether the emperor is Nero or Augustine? Okay. Or I'm sorry, or Constantine. And so that's kind of the preamble for just war. When will, if Rome calls us to war, are we okay with, you know, what if Rome went back to the old ways of just conquest for conquest's sake? For the glory of Rome? Should Christians fight for the glory of Rome, like you see depicted in the movie Gladiator, for example? Or are we, do we have a higher calling than that? And so Augustine spent a good deal of time writing about these ethical boundaries, both defending the faith, the orthodoxies of the faith, but then also how do we apply this now in this world where for the first time there is a Christian form of hegemony on this planet? We're no longer the marginalized folks. So that's kind of the history of just war theory, right? And in a moment, we're going to go through now all of the components as it was originally constructed and define those, and then for Theology Thursday here, and then apply them to the current Operation Epic Fury in Iraq. And we'll do that after we talk to you about our friends over at Select Quote, because it's time for some life talk. Life insurance, that is. And you probably have it, but do you know how much you're paying for it? For how much are you being covered? Do you know the answers to those questions? Odds are you're paying too much for too little. 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Save more than 50% on term life insurance at selectquote.com/stevetoday. To get started, that's selectquote.com/steve. All right, Mr. Erson, are you ready to walk through this again?

Speaker 2:
[67:14] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[67:15] Can I make a motion before, a very quick motion before we do? Okay. Motion. We do not have to do a just war theory segment on this show for like another five years. All in favor. There's no reason to have this conversation.

Speaker 2:
[67:34] Oh, there's going to be a reason.

Speaker 1:
[67:35] Yeah. I would like to not do this one for a while. Okay. I'm kind of sick of this segment. Right. But again, if we're going to get, we're going to be there now. Now we have to win. Now we have to win. That we, no one's interests are suited by losing. We have to win, or coming away with some kind of weak, you know, more, you know, dressed up version of the Iran deal. If we're going to do this now, and we're going to take on all the political, you know, absorption for this, then win. All right. Let's start. All right. First component of just war theory is the war has to be fought for a just cause. That war is for, intended to defend attacks, protect the innocent, restore justice. All right. That the war must be for a just cause. It cannot be conquest for conquest sake. It can't be for the glory of Rome.

Speaker 2:
[68:25] All right.

Speaker 1:
[68:26] That has to be for a just cause. So Todd, I'm going to start there with you.

Speaker 2:
[68:31] All right.

Speaker 1:
[68:32] What we have been told is the defining mission here is that this war was launched in order to assure that Iran could never have the form of weapons of mass destruction that would allow it to take the mischief, mayhem, macabre, that it has tried to export on a granular level with its terrorist operations for decades. It cannot do that on an intercontinental level via weapons of mass destruction. Do we accept together that that's the justification for the war?

Speaker 2:
[69:02] Yes, as it's been portrayed.

Speaker 1:
[69:03] As it's been defined?

Speaker 2:
[69:04] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[69:04] Okay. So in your opinion, does that meet the very first criteria of just war theory? Is that a just war?

Speaker 2:
[69:14] It absolutely is. And this is, if we can't answer that, this one, we don't even need to go forward.

Speaker 1:
[69:19] That's why it's first.

Speaker 2:
[69:19] This is in order.

Speaker 1:
[69:20] Yeah, these are, thank you for noting that. Yes, these are put in order. It's a step-by-step process. They're not randomized. If you pass one, you move on to the next one. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[69:28] Because like in Catholic teaching about mortal sin, there's three qualifications. And the first one is grave matter. The second two are your involvement in that grave matter. Did you know it was grave matter? And did you willingly participate? But the first one has nothing to do with it. It's just uniquely evil in and of itself. Islam has been aggressively and explicitly on the attack against Christendom since the very beginning, whether it's in Iran or anyplace else. It's never changed that approach to things. In Iran, ever since 1979, as you've already laid out the details, it's only increasingly made clear who and what it is to its own people who it oppresses. It's behind October 7th. It's behind Ammas. It's behind Hezbollah. So, yes, Islamic Iran is not just today and not even just because it has nuclear weapons. It is, because it claims it is, a threat to all things in the West, explicitly Christendom. And you just are adding another shrimp to the Barbie by making it a nuclear Iran. It is, and this is where I agree with the Pope, my Pope and his imagine theology on this. Yes, Islam is an opponent. It is not something that intends to live in peace with us. Hopefully there's better days than others in that front, and we have now how many years since Islam has been on the scene? We've been doing this for a while, okay? But it is never something that simply we are walking hand in hand with and believing where there's just all kinds of roads to faith. It aggressively, militantly has a different opinion on it, and just like you said in terms of politics, the stakes are even raised higher. We can't beat somebody who wants to beat us worse than we even care about to recognize as true. We just have to recognize the honest truth of this, and the Pope and many people have just been foolhardy about this.

Speaker 1:
[71:38] What do we say to people who are like, listen, Bibi Netanyahu was crying about Iran having a nuclear weapon in the 90s? That's true, right? You and I have heard this talk and discussion has been had a few times. That's why we did the Iran deal, the two Iran deals, I think it was two, under the Obama. I think they did one and then they renewed it, I think, in 2015. Sent them the pallets of cash and everything else, because this, especially if you are a Gen Z-er, and you would be in the generation that would be asked to go fight a war in Iran, right? Okay? You, all you've known is we've been buying off Iran to not get a nuclear weapon your entire life, right? Okay? And they haven't, they haven't, there was a 60 Minutes report that aired just last Sunday that they've got enough enriched uranium for 10 missiles. But then again, how much are we quoting and citing 60 Minutes as an affirmative source nowadays on literally anything on a show like this, right? All right? So, we're not here. If you don't want to trust the intelligence community, I mean, I wouldn't know why you would come to such an assumption. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Hunter Biden laptops fake, okay? Russian collusion is real. I've got no, why in the world would members of this audience not want to trust the intelligence community assessments of things, Todd? Why? I can't think of reasons other than all of them. Other than all of them, I don't think either you and I are here to argue with anybody skepticism of the intelligence community, correct?

Speaker 2:
[72:58] Right.

Speaker 3:
[72:59] All right.

Speaker 1:
[72:59] Here's what we do know for sure. We do know for sure that Iran did test a did in this in the in the theater of war during this conflict did test a level of missile capability that we were previously told they did not have. It was they're trying to get to the ICBM level of where they could reach a United States, for example.

Speaker 3:
[73:20] All right.

Speaker 1:
[73:21] They're not there yet, but they're beyond. They already tested missiles that would reach Europe, for example. They did. Now, those tests were not very successful, but they already demonstrated they were trying to acquire a level of missile technology that would remove them out of being a threat just to their own region, but then also our NATO allies there in the nation, in the continent of Europe. So that, we have seen that. We have seen that. All right. So even if you don't want to go, even if you want to buy that they're close to having a nuclear weapon, would never have a nuclear weapon, this whole thing's been a scam for 30 years, I really can't talk you out of that. I'm not even sure you're wrong, okay? I mean, I came of age doing this, pushing back on the entire Iraq quagmire, and why did we ever go there in the first place? You heard all those shows, you know, back in the day. So I'm not here to question any of that. What we can't question, though, is that Iran has test-tested a military capability beyond what we were told that it had, which would extend its reach beyond its current region. That is true.

Speaker 2:
[74:21] I agree with your analysis there, but it's not a standard to look at our absolute fecklessness for decades and acknowledge that that is true and why we might have pause and be skepticism, but then never to act again. That's even a greater form of cowardice in the face of when it becomes more obvious that the evil is more aggressive, and you won't do anything only because of the mistakes of the past. That's just wrong. October 7th happened. That's not a direct threat to us, but it's a sign of what they plan on doing. And yes, Bibi Netanyahu did have those concerns in the 90s. You know what? Back then, in our utopian fantasies, the UN was putting Iran on all kinds of humanitarian councils, okay? So the world is at a point now with certain leaders having an opportunity to do certain things that other men wouldn't do. Quite frankly, I'm tired of the fecknesses. I'm ready for men who are really ready to vanquish evil because it needs to be vanquished.

Speaker 1:
[75:28] Now, we're spending more time on this one because it's the most important one.

Speaker 2:
[75:31] If you don't have the doc down.

Speaker 1:
[75:32] We'll go through the rest of them quicker in the next segment. So let me ask one more follow up question. Then by your, again, I'm trying to play, it's not devil's advocate. These are principled arguments on the other side. I don't begrudge anybody who has a principled argument on the other side of this. Then, for that to be true, then you have to also make the argument then, don't you? That if Iran didn't have any nuclear capability, this still would have been a just war then.

Speaker 2:
[75:57] It's a just war in terms of the terms that we place on. Is this nation uniquely and aggressively and explicitly have evil intent? Look at what Islam is claiming it's going to do in England. In this state where you and I right now, what it says about it, what its plans are for Texas. It's not ambiguous. It does not plan on doing a peace song with you ever.

Speaker 1:
[76:25] I also would add, for those of you asking that question, you have to remember now, we've had three straight administrations deal with an Iranian nuke, well, four if you count Trump twice, okay? Four straight administrations dealing with the Iranian nuclear question. The Obama and Biden administrations gave Iran masses amount of money to not build or enrich uranium to create nuclear weaponry, right? And then Trump canceled that deal in this first term, isolated them by creating this Arab coalition to kind of put them on an island, because he knew the Arab countries didn't like Iran either, right? And then now, this is how he has chosen to answer this dilemma with Operation Epic Fury. My point being is, the Trump administrations claim here is not new, all right? Four administrations have been dealing with Iran and whether it's trying to get a nuclear weapon or not in both parties. They could all be wrong, but there's more, this is not a recent event.

Speaker 2:
[77:23] It's not evil because they have nuclear weapons. We have nuclear weapons.

Speaker 3:
[77:27] The truth, straight, no chaser, Steve Deace.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 2:
[79:06] All right.

Speaker 1:
[79:07] Let's get back to Just War Theory. And we discussed, we spent a good deal of time talking about the very first component because this is a step-by-step process. So the first one is the most important. If it's not a just cause and there's no reason to articulate the rest of these. All right. Let's go to legitimate authority. And that means that really only a duly understood, established government can instigate, declare, launch a war. Not private individuals, not factions within a government. All right. That it has to be what is recognized as those that are truly in charge of a people at that given time. So do we view a legitimate authority here under President Trump as checking this box, according to just war theory?

Speaker 2:
[79:58] Yes. I mean, I'm sure people will say only Congress can get to declare war. Well, only Congress is supposed to be doing a lot of things. And it's abdicated those for a-

Speaker 1:
[80:08] What's a Congress?

Speaker 2:
[80:09] Exactly. And furthermore, one of the sins that make this a just cause is that Iran is guilty of not being a part of just cause wars. It's constantly funding proxies like it did on October 7th. It has been doing it for decades now.

Speaker 1:
[80:27] Yeah. I'm looking up right now, by the way, because I think what maybe people don't understand is that the United States has actually only declared war.

Speaker 2:
[80:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[80:36] 11 times under the last time was World War II.

Speaker 2:
[80:40] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[80:40] That was the last time that this was done by congressional declaration.

Speaker 2:
[80:46] We've had a couple scrapes since then, so good and bad.

Speaker 1:
[80:49] So by the way, well, what about the founding fathers? Well, the first undeclared war that we ever fought was in 1798. And it was when the French began seizing our merchant ships. And so our Navy went to fight against them. They just instantly were dispatched. I think that would have been President Jefferson, in fact, in 1798 would have done that. All right. So and then it was President Jefferson again with the launch of the Barbary War against the Muslims. That's what the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli is about. And they were seizing our ships as well. Right. So the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence, as president, launched the first two undeclared congressional war actions in American history. So this has not been you can't. You can't be more constitutional than the people who did the. Who did the Constitution, if that to me is almost a little bit like being nicer than God in a civic sense, like you don't have to be nicer than God and you can't be more constitutional.

Speaker 2:
[81:58] I'd like to see us try for once, but we have no intention to.

Speaker 1:
[82:01] I hear this argument sometimes against the Convention of States, and I'm like, the people who wrote the Constitution put the article. They're the ones that wrote Article 5. They put it in the Constitution. You think you care more about the Constitution than the people who gave it to us, who are its architects, who put that provision in the Constitution itself. How can you care more about them than care about it than they do?

Speaker 2:
[82:20] Right? Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[82:22] So President Jefferson was already launching wars without Congressional Declaration as instant actions to defend our interests, right? So this is not a relatively new phenomenon whatsoever. It's been literally going on from the dawn of the Republican fact. You may not like that. I don't blame you if you don't. But that's a fact. All right. So we both agree. Legitimate authority. That's the easiest one probably on the list, right? All right. But also keep in mind at the time of Augustine, that was not the easiest one on this list. All right. That's why I was number two. Okay. I mean, empires rose and fall. Who's in charge of this city state? Who's running this faction? Who's in charge of this tribe? Right? I mean, there was things were a lot more mercurial in the fourth century than they are today.

Speaker 2:
[83:02] Rome, a 700-year republic, had concerns about usurpers.

Speaker 1:
[83:07] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[83:07] Yes, named Caesar. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[83:08] Yes, yes. All right. Right intention is criteria number three. All right. That the goal ultimately is to win the peace. Right? Peace through strength, in other words. That this is done to win the peace. It's not done out of vengeance. It's not done mainly or strictly for territory or for economic gain, but that it has a right intention in order to ultimately achieve some form of peace. Now, I would say throughout the Western tradition, we've probably struggled with this component more than any other, because previous eras viewed the right intention of spreading our way of life. These were civilizations that were essentially savages by the Christian standard. They even were using those terms for several centuries of Christendom. And it was right to bring Christian— the climactic scene of Apocalypto, for example, when they're— I think it's the—is it the Aztecs in that film, if I recall? Right?

Speaker 2:
[84:06] Is it the Aztecs or the Mayans?

Speaker 1:
[84:08] The Aztecs, Mayans, Inc. is one of those. And they're literally at the top of the temple doing the human sacrifices. And the next scene of the film, almost like Mel Gibson's version of a Marvel post-credit scene, is the Spanish conquistadors show up waving the cross. Oh, that's one of the most interesting— And they're like, yeah, this stops now. We're not—we have an urban renewal program here, and we're not doing this kind of thing anymore. And so many of the eras of Christendom following this viewed that as a right intention, okay?

Speaker 2:
[84:34] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[84:34] Even though it's not necessarily listed here, all right? So thoughts, do we have a right intention here in trying to mitigate Iran's ability to spread its mayhem beyond its current borders?

Speaker 2:
[84:48] I think this is where your long analysis of Trump on foreign policy comes into play. Like, if there's one area where he deserves the most benefit of the doubt by displaying what his intentions are, hey, let's all just be groovy together. I don't really want to have to bomb you. You know we have the power to do so. So here's the line. Don't cross it. Now, it's undeniable. We've been talking about it on the show on a regular basis. We just did today. An economic component when you're talking about this oil-rich environment is obviously part of it. But, hey, might I suggest and enter into evidence if this was our primary point of doing business, we're not doing it very well vis-a-vis Iran right now. How cheap's your gas, Steve, and everything else going right now? So I think it's a part of it. I do think Trump's had the right intention, not only in the Middle East, not just with Iran, but pretty much writ large. He genuinely seems to be seeking new kinds of peace that heretofore others haven't even tried, and or if they've tried, they haven't been successful at. He's got a pretty decent record.

Speaker 1:
[85:50] That's a great point. I mean, and to further it, the fact that we do have this Arab alliance now, that view that their interests align with the Israelis more than Iran, that they are more willing to share this region now with the Israelis than they are Iran, I think that is confirmation of everything that you just said.

Speaker 2:
[86:07] Yeah. And did anybody think for a second that it was right intention, the agreement that Obama made with Iran? Absolutely not. It was the opposite of right intention.

Speaker 1:
[86:17] All right. Last resort. All right. Essentially, all peaceful diplomatic alternatives are, they're exhausted. They can no longer be accessed. They've gotten absolutely nowhere. I think that it applies here.

Speaker 2:
[86:31] I do, because there's certain parts of this, and this relates to my argument in the first On Just Cause. There's certain arguments that you would wake with a brand new enemy in a brand new war that you would have to go through and feel through. This has been asked and answered with Islam, and it has been asked and answered with Iran.

Speaker 1:
[86:50] I don't even think I'll add to that. I mean, I just don't.

Speaker 2:
[86:54] I mean, how many benefits of that are we gonna give Iran?

Speaker 1:
[86:56] I don't know how you could possibly disagree with this. I mean, you have to have like a Ben Rhodes level, you know, fantasy view of the world to think that there were really any other diplomatic options other than just sending more pallets of cash. So you wanted to send them billions of dollars on pallets or spend billions of dollars in bullets. Which one, I mean, those are really your only options here, right? And that's assuming they're not taking the cash right off the pallets and sending them right to the uranium enrichment plants, you know, to help further their... Because they're clearly not using it to develop a welfare state for the Iranian people, right? So, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[87:33] And as you've argued, one thing that made you interested in this more than you would have been otherwise is the potential, the upheaval in the streets. So as a last resort, how much time do we have to wait to see if the new man steps into the breach? I think that's reasonable to discuss philosophically, but as we know experientially, it doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon. So what were we waiting for? Maybe they knew all along that wasn't going to happen.

Speaker 1:
[88:00] The next one here, I think, is the-

Speaker 2:
[88:02] These two are the hardest ones coming up.

Speaker 1:
[88:04] For different reasons. I think the one coming up now is the hardest one just on its face to answer, okay? Reasonable hope of success. In other words, unless it's an immediate self-defense situation, right? Enemy starts dropping soldiers in your neighborhood, Red Dawn style. You're not thinking of, well, what's the plan? You're, you know, lock and load, we're saving ourselves. We're acting out of self-defense. Barring that, okay? Then if you're going to create more carnage than has already been done to you, or you're worried may be done to you, then you've got to justify that it'll be successful. It'll win the piece that you want. Otherwise, you just did this for nothing. You made it worse. I, this I think is the hardest one to answer because it goes back to what we said last hour. Is the end in sight here? Do we even know? Do we even know? How do we get to the, see here, because here's the thing. Reasonable hope of success, given the advantages we have over them, in every way, shape or form, should be an easy box to check.

Speaker 2:
[89:16] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[89:17] But here's the problem. And it goes back to what I said before. We all have PTSD about our long adventurisms and meanderings in this part of the world. We have a myriad. It is more likely that... It is more likely that Gandhi would be, would feel at home in today's Dallas than Sam Houston would. We have some problems here of an existential nature, if you get where I'm going with this, okay? Gandhi's gonna see more cousins here than Sam Houston at this point. But we've got some real problems here on our end. And that means the people do not have the stomach it takes to use the absolute, amphibious, all-powerful show of force it would take to remove this regime from the face of the earth. We just don't, we don't have the resolve to do it, the desire to do it. It does not exist. And so that's why we're fighting this sort of asymmetrical, where we're bombing this to get rid of that, and we're doing this, right? And now it's about the Straits of Hormuz, when nobody even knew what those were six weeks ago. The president is a salesman, right? And he understands maybe the best in American history. And so he understands we're not ready to buy the undercoating, okay? So he's trying to sell this thing piecemeal, all right? And a little bit at a time, okay? Because if we had the resolve, we'd wipe these people off the face of the earth in about 30 days, but then we'd be left with, like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, but then we'd be left with the mess of who's running the thing now. We can't do it. We don't want to do it. We don't have any opposition leaders in place to do it, right? And that's where the mess comes in. The mess does not come in with putting the full, we could do this in 30 days, and with minimal casualties on our side, probably, and wipe this entire regime off the face of the globe and have a parade and declare mission accomplished. But then, who runs this place now? What's that look like? Isn't that what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, right? And see, this is actually now where maybe your Arab Alliance starts to work against you. Because the Israelis and the Arabs are both in agreement, thou shall not suffer an Ayatollah to live. They both agree on that, okay? But something tells me the Arab Alliance and the Israelis don't have a lot of, you know, it's not synchronicity on what they want a new Iran to look like, right? A new Iran is not going to on the dead, on the same place in the Dead Sea where Sodom and Gomorrah once lived, okay? Going to have the largest pride festival in human history if the Arab countries have anything to say about it. They don't want that, right? The Israelis would be like, cool, yeah, whatever. I mean, do you, you know? I mean, so that's now where your resolve gets weakened. It's not about, it's not about chloroforming the earth of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. We could have done that 50 times over by now, and then twice on Sunday if you wanted already, right? It's about the fact we don't know what happens next if we do. Nobody really knows. This president is the ultimate brander. If we had any form of opposition leader, don't you think if there was even somebody, like he even had a slight chance of subduing this nation, Trump would be more inclined to like blow him away out of proportion and oversell it, right? No names. There's nobody. There's nothing. We don't know what to do. And so our resolve is like, yeah, cool, let's get rid of him, and then what? Then we're stuck with the tab, right? We don't want that. And so this is why no one really knows what a reasonable hope of success is here, Todd, because we're frankly not as a people willing to do what it would take to guarantee the reasonable hope of success. And so therefore, this is an open question.

Speaker 2:
[93:02] Well, and to be frankly honest, we need to go past just a war in general or the Middle East. We need to talk about upcoming elections and what people, what Trump's base thinks. If going to war, whatever the reasons are, are ultimately a reason why people tap out, we lose Congress, Trump is utterly neutered for two years, and they go back to jabbing us with illegal poison and transing our kids, and it's Virginia writ large. This is, those are the calculations into doing this.

Speaker 1:
[93:36] So that, hey, that's great that the Israelis and the Jordanians are getting along better than ever before. We have a civil war right here on our own landmass.

Speaker 2:
[93:41] Right.

Speaker 1:
[93:41] Yeah, yeah. Finally, I think this one's tough to answer too, because I think it's just tough to answer in this era because of how devastating our technology is, proportionality. I mean, it's almost hard for us to do anything of lethal force without testing the bounds of this nowadays because of just how devastating and how, devastatingly lethal all of our technology and our, and our, and our war craft is nowadays. We're not firing cannonballs anymore. We're not sending legions of soldiers in with swords to fight hand-to-hand combat. At any moment, we can push buttons that just eliminates continents. I think this one just, it gets hard to know the answer to this because of the nature of warfare now.

Speaker 2:
[94:17] This is where I agreed it was going to be hard, but not up until this point.

Speaker 1:
[94:20] By the way, proportionality means the level of destruction is justified by the cause. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[94:25] So far, yes. Once again, I just point you to the enemy October 7th. Iran was happy to be a part of funding that. Yeah, this has absolutely been proportional so far. But again, we're talking about a so far that's gone longer than almost anybody wanted to, Trump supporters or not. And so the question becomes, what do we have to do proportionally from this point on? Again, with Hormuz, et cetera. I don't, any notion of boots on the ground make people to run and hide.

Speaker 1:
[94:55] All right, let's give a final verdict here. So we have four definitive yeses and two we don't knows. So is that just war for you? Yes or no?

Speaker 2:
[95:02] For me, yes.

Speaker 1:
[95:04] For me, yes. But the last two could change my answer in a matter of days or weeks. Go hard, Romans 828.

Speaker 3:
[95:11] This is Steve Deace.