Mike Johnson - The Miracle Speaker with Bunni Pounds

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We'll come right to you and I will have a picture here.

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Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and today on The Strang Report we're going to talk about

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what everybody in America is talking about and that's the new Speaker of the House, Mike

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Johnson, who is a congressman from Shreveport, Louisiana that most of us had never heard

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his name until a day or two ago and suddenly he's number three in line for the presidency.

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And today we're going to talk to Bunny Pounds, who is one of the most interesting people

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I think I've ever met.

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And she actually knows Mike Johnson and when I found out I said let's do a special live

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strang report to kind of get the behind the scenes and you may want to share this with

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others, put it on your social media because this is hot for today, Friday, October 27th.

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And where, you know, this just happened 48 hours ago was the vote and then Mike Johnson

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gave a speech to Congress, which I saw online and it was magnificent.

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So rather than me talking more, let me say welcome to you Bunny, thank you for fitting

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this in on a very busy schedule.

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I think it's important that Christian people, those who follow The Strang Report, those

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who follow us on Christmas news and so forth, know what's going on because often we don't

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know who to trust, we don't know what to believe, even some of the conservatives, even some

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of the conservatives in the Christian space all have access to grind and so forth.

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But I was impressed that you know Mike Johnson personally.

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So let me welcome you and ask you how you got to know him.

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Well, it's great to be with you, Steve.

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And yeah, I've been working in politics for 16 years with members of Congress and I got

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to know Congressman Mike Johnson through a couple of his colleagues, Congressman Michael

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Cloud down in Victoria, Texas and Congressman Chip Roy and others.

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But I've always followed his career.

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He used to work for Alliance Defending Freedom and First Liberty Institute.

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He fought for religious liberty for over 20 years.

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And then he ran for the state house in Louisiana.

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He won in a landslide really.

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There was real not hardly any competition because he had such an incredible resume as

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a constitutional attorney, a strong believer.

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And so he ran for the state house, was a stalwart conservative in Louisiana and then

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ran for Congress.

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That's a fairly conservative part of the country.

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You know, in some parts of the country, somebody with his credentials would have been crushed

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on purpose or even targeted by the left.

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But here it's almost like he was a little bit stealth, you know.

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And so as you got to know him through some of the people he worked with, did you ever

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think that he would emerge as Speaker of the House?

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I didn't, but I saw something with Congressman Johnson.

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He is a unifier.

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He just has a way about him.

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Number one, he understands the Constitution.

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We had long conversations because I lead a nonprofit Christian ministry called Christians

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Engaged and he's very active in getting the church and the body of Christ to understand

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the importance of prayer, voting and engagement.

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He actually teaches congressional classes in churches.

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And so we were having conversations about how we can work together on that.

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And I was so impressed in the couple of hours that I spent with him, again, not a deep relationship,

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but enough to understand his heart for the Lord, his heart for America, his heart for

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the Constitution.

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And yeah, he's the seventh in leadership.

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So he's pursued, you can take a couple of routes in Congress.

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You can be a flamethrower and a Freedom Caucus member and you can try to create chaos to

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help the broken system that truly is broken in Washington, D.C.

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Or you can go kind of try to work with leadership and try to get conservative legislation through

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that route.

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We have believers on both sides of that that are strong and they're amazing people of God.

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So Mike is one of those ones that's kind of tried to work with leadership.

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He wasn't one of the 20 that stood up and ousted McCarthy or didn't vote for him.

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He voted for Speaker McCarthy at the beginning of the year.

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But he has always been hugely pro-life, huge religious liberty, always stood up for Israel,

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always been a social and fiscal conservative.

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He's one of those ones that has always fought against government spending, even in leadership.

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And I think it says a lot about him that he's got like a 92% lifetime voting record with

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the American Conservative Union and 90% from heritage action, even in leadership.

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That's unheard of because a lot of times in leadership, you have to make compromising decisions

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and you have to do what's good for the team.

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Mike has always stood up for his conscience and if you just look at his voting patterns,

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you would be impressed.

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Well, I am impressed with what I've heard and read about him.

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There was an article today in The Epic Times that says 30 things to know about Mike Johnson.

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It was really very interesting if people wanted to check it out online.

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And also, you had an interesting article that first ran in the stream and then in Charisma

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News, which people may want to read as well.

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But so, you know, we don't need to go over the facts as much.

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There's a lot of stuff out there.

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I want to know the kind of inside baseball things, some of the things that you're talking

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to me about to lead up to this interview.

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And one of them, which you kind of touched on because you were talking about the Freedom

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Caucus and other things, you know, it seems to me that the Democrats or those on the left

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seem to stick together 100% voting on some issues and a lot of Republicans don't.

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In fact, there's a term called Republican in name only.

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We call it Rhino, R-I-N-O for short.

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You never hear of a Democrat in name only.

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Never.

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Even though there are obviously differences, you know, on the spectrum and just full disclosure.

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I was a Democrat for many years, but here in the South, the Democratic Party was very,

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very different.

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At least we had conservative Democrats in the state of Florida.

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I finally got to where I couldn't vote for any Democrat and I thought I need to change

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my registration.

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In Florida, you either register or vote Republican or Democrat, which doesn't mean anything,

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except that you can only, you're closed primaries.

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But I tell people that I'm a reluctant Republican because we're disappointed so many times,

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but we have no option.

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I mean, what are we going to do?

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Vote for a socialist?

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I don't think so.

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You know, Rhino is better than a socialist, but there are many and I realize this is a

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little bit off topic, but it also relates to what I want to hear from you because a

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lot of Republicans will run saying one thing and when they get to Washington, there's not

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a bit of difference between them and the Democrats, except on maybe one or two hot button issues.

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But you're saying that Mike Johnson is consistent.

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He's not a Rhino.

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Correct.

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It seems that the Republicans wanted to get rid of Speaker McCarthy because they perceived

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him at least.

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I don't want to accuse him of that, but he was not as conservative, but apparently there

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are four different sort of factions within the Republican Party that I found very interesting

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when you described them to me.

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So why don't you just tell us where they are and where you think that Mike Johnson falls

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in that spectrum?

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Yeah.

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I mean, the thing with the Republican Party, Stephen, is we've got, it's a large big tent

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party where the Democrats mostly get elected from very strong urban areas.

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Republicans get elected all over the country.

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So you've got, yeah, nuances within the Republican House caucus.

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You've got Republicans that are elected from California and New York that are not social

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conservatives for the most part and they're not fiscal conservatives, but they believe

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in a strong national defense and they believe in liberty to a sense.

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And that's why they call themselves Republicans.

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You've got, you know.

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Sometimes there are districts where you can't get elected if you don't have the art by your

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name and they know that and so that's how they run.

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But anyway, go ahead with your description.

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No, that actually is a good point.

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There are people that run as Republicans because they can't get elected anywhere else and they,

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you know, are more democratic leaning.

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Then you've got people that, you know, they're working within the bipartisan problem solvers

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caucus.

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They're the ones that are working across the aisle trying to solve national problems.

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Conservatives can be conservatives and moderates.

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Then you've got the Republican Study Committee, which is the largest conservative caucus in

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the House.

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It used to be kind of like the Freedom Caucus 20 years ago.

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They were the ones, you know, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan and some of those guys were fighting

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against government spending.

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But the more the Republican Study Committee's ranks kept growing, I think there are over

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140 members now.

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The more that got kind of diluted.

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Mike Johnson was the chairman his sophomore year, which is unheard of to get in as a sophomore

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to be the chairman of that committee and that caucus.

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And they're like known for policy.

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And then Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan back in the day when they were trying to fight against

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Obama, they created the Freedom Caucus.

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And they just felt like the Republican Study Committee was not strong enough and they wanted

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to do different tactics.

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And they didn't really disagree with policy, but they disagreed with the way they felt like

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they weren't aggressive enough.

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And so we saw that when Mark Meadows took on Boehner and the Freedom Caucus as a lot

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of power in times like now this year, they've had more power than every time in their history

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because of the small minorities in the strong majorities and small majorities in Congress.

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And in the Trump years, they kind of flowed with everybody else because they were kind

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of doing what the will of the executive branch was.

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But yeah, it's really important for people to understand when they're looking at a member

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of Congress, what's the district they represent?

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What are the things that they're trying to accomplish?

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And look at all of that before just kind of throwing them under the bus.

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Well, I think that's very wise.

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And Christians sometimes, well, let me back up, Christians are usually kind of politically

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naive.

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They just are.

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Sometimes because politics is considered dirty or they feel that if they have to compromise

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it all that they're somehow doing wrong.

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I mean, there's a lot of different reasons, but I so admire the way that you get in there

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and others like you and how you are trying to educate people and you say that Mike Johnson

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is doing the same thing.

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Let me ask you where you think this is going to go right now.

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You know, people are calling him a conciliator.

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Apparently people are glad that he's not Jim Jordan or some of the other names that were

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put up.

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But you know, that's going to change.

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And in just a few days they have to vote on the budget and continuing resolution, all

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this kind of stuff.

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Why don't you kind of walk us through that and what you think is going to happen in the

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next 30 days?

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Well, there you are.

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Look at that picture.

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That's a great picture.

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I bet you never thought that we'd be talking about him being a speaker of the house, but

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there you are.

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Yeah, it was really fun, Steve.

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We took a group of 50 plus Christians to DC and we prayed and ministered to 10 members

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of Congress and two senators back in July.

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And Mike Johnson was the first member that said he wanted to meet with us and he posted

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on his Instagram that Christians engage was one of the greatest national organizations

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to engage Christians.

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And that was just a few months ago and here he is, Speaker of the House.

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I never could have imagined that that would happen.

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And then why do you think it's going to happen in the next few weeks and months in terms

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of the things I was mentioning?

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And then leading up, you know, and just barely over a year, we're going to have a presidential

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election.

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We're also talking about, there's actually talk about Biden being indicted.

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You know, I mean, you know, and that's really a discussion for another day.

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But you know, Trump made a phone call that I don't think there was anything wrong with

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a phone call and they indicted him for it.

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It looks like the Bidens took real cash money in the terms of bribes.

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And I mean, it's just unthinkable to me how there can be such a double standard.

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But the House of Representatives is one who, who indicts and then of course the Senate

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has to find him guilty or not.

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And with the Senate basically being in, in Democratic hands, you know, there's almost

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no chance he would ever be found guilty.

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But talk to me about where you see this going and what the possibilities are.

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Well, I think Speaker Johnson is very close to Jim Jordan.

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Jim Jordan's been leading some of those investigations and Speaker Johnson's been on the Arms and

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Services Committee and he's been on a subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government.

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And I think that's key for you to understand because he's very versed in this and he really

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wants to find justice.

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I think he, to his core, believes in justice.

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So he's going to go after injustices.

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And but we're, the other thing that really attracts people to him in the, in the House

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Conference is he's been a proponent of splitting up these spending bills into single spending

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bills.

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We shouldn't have these omnibus bills where you just put Ukraine funding, Israel funding,

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domestic spending, all of it together and you just vote on billions of trillions of

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dollars, right?

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So he's been a proponent of splitting up the spending bills and that's what Congress wants

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to see, especially on the House Republican side.

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They want to see debates happen on those spending bills.

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So I think we're going to see some movement.

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Now, is he going to be able to get that done in the next, you know, 20-something days before

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they have to fund the government again?

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Or will they just do a funding bill and then say, we're pushing that down the road, but

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the next one, we're going to be splitting it up and we're going to do all that.

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I think we'll, we'll, time will tell, but I think he's going to work with the House

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Con, Conference to start changing the way they do business there.

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I hope so.

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That's what we're praying for.

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You know, I've been very impressed with how outspoken he's been about his faith in his

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kind of acceptance speech or his inaugural speech.

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A speaker, he actually said that God puts people in positions.

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I remember that he broad did out and said all, all of us were put in our positions by

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God, but I mean, just the fact that he would reference God.

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And then on Sean Hannity last night, he made a rather remarkable comment.

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Why don't you tell us about it?

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It was amazing, but it's really what has always been in his heart.

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He was asked the question, you know, people want to know what you believe about the issues.

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And his exact quote was, well, Sean, well, go pick up a Bible on your shelf and read

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it.

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That's my worldview.

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I have a biblical worldview.

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And so, you know, people, well, what, what does that mean?

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Well, that means he actually believes the Bible as it relates to the sanctity of human

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life, biblical marriage, Israel, debt and taxation.

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The Bible has a lot to say about all the issues of our day.

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And I know Speaker Johnson believes in the Bible.

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And you know, that just sets the left's hair on fire.

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You know, I mean, they, they can't believe anybody would actually be like that.

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And of course they want to squash it to where it's just not socially acceptable to even

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talk like that.

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If you're going to talk like that, do it in hushed tones in the privacy of your church.

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And then they don't want you to do anything with it.

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But I personally believe that when people are just full disclosure out front, when they

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push back, you know, in a, in a reasonable, gentle, hopefully godly way, that the other

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people actually back off some because, you know, I believe, like Pascal said, that there's

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a God-shaped vacuum in everyone.

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And I even believe that a lot of these lefties sort of know deep in their heart that what

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they believe is wrong.

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And that's why they're just almost violent in, in how they react.

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And I know that you've probably run into some of that yourself.

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I mean, I've read part of your new book and boy, you had some real stories to tell too.

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So give me your thoughts about this.

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And then I want to move on and talk about your book, which is actually coming out in

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here it is right here.

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February 6th, February 6th, which is more than two months away, but the book is actually

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off press and people can order it ahead of time, which we hope you'll do.

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Go right now to Amazon.com and order it ahead of time and then they'll send it to you on

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February 6th.

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But anyway, I had to, you have to forgive me.

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I'm a, I'm your publisher.

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So I had to get that little plug in there.

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Well, and I'm so honored to be in the Charisma House family.

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Thank you for taking a risk on this book.

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But yeah, I'll talk about this as it relates to Speaker Johnson.

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When he came to Congress, his main thing was good governance and civility in Congress.

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And you can see that even in his speech before the house, even as he addressed his Democratic

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colleagues, I think we have to have more civility in the house.

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I think we have to have more civility in every part of government.

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This just screaming at each other is not accomplishing anything.

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And the American people know that the polls are overwhelmingly in support of more civility

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in our government systems.

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So I think what you're going to see with this godly man of God is that he's going to try

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to have conversations.

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You can not compromise on your principles, but you know, try to address people as people

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that God loves, right?

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People that you want to bring over to your side.

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So many times we yell and fight and we're not having conversations that can actually

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change people's hearts and minds.

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And I think that's what the gospel does.

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And I think that's what good godly leaders do.

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So that's what I'm trying to do in this book, Steven, and thank you for holding it up so

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beautifully, is how do we as Christians engage in politics?

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Of course we know we all should be getting involved in politics and government.

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But I say, you know, Jesus in politics, one woman's walk with God in a mud slinging profession.

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It is a mud slinging profession, but there are godly people walking there and there needs

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to be more godly people.

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I was just with Tim Barton a few weeks ago down in Corpus Christi, and he made a statement

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that if we drain the swamp, truly we don't have the Christians and people of faith to

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fill the swamp.

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And that's absolutely true.

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So part of my motivation with this book is to motivate Christians to get more involved

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in politics and government and know that they can walk in intimacy with Jesus while they

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do it and keep that mud off of them, but also to empower those that are in politics and

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the political movements to go back to the word of God, go back to civility, go back to

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the place of prayer, and ask God to deal with our souls so that we can walk truly as Christ

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followers in these places of influence.

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You know, I believe that most people who believe in Jesus are like you and me.

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They just can't vote for the other side.

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They just can't.

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But most of them are timid.

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They sort of don't want anyone to know that.

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You know, they'll vote in the privacy of the polling booth, and good for them.

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I mean, the statistics of how many people voted for Trump, you know, who are believers,

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we call them evangelicals, but it included a lot of conservative Catholics and others

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too, of course, but they won't get involved.

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And you know, we kind of referred to it a little bit earlier.

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They're intimidated by it, and it's just dirty.

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And you know what?

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It even goes like with the booksellers.

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Some of the Christian booksellers won't even carry a book quote on politics.

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I'm serious.

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We're having trouble getting this into the stores in the way that really it should be.

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So in some ways, we have to go around them, go straight to the people.

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This is the first time that I've talked about it on my podcast.

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Normally, we don't talk about it this far in advance, but because you're on the program,

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I wanted to.

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It's not too early to order it.

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You order it, they don't charge you until the book comes out, until they send it.

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They send it on release day, and then they, you know, then they deem your credit card

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or however you have a range to pay for it.

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And that is a vote of confidence.

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Plus, when the book, it finally comes in the mail, it's like, oh, oh, here's this book

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I heard about.

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Yes.

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It's a Valentine's Day present a little bit early.

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So talk to me in the five minutes we have left about what you hope people get out of

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this and then maybe we can circle around and tie it into Mike Johnson and what's going

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on in Washington right now.

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Well, I picked the two words that most people don't want to talk about.

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They don't want to talk about Jesus and they don't want to talk about politics, right?

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But Jesus colors everything in our life.

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All of us in all parts of culture should be interacting with the King of Kings and Lord

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of Lords.

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And so my hope with the book, first of all, is that every Christian goes back to the simplicity

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of walking with Jesus.

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My story is I've walked with members of Congress.

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There's stories about Vice President Mike Pence, the chairman of financial services,

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former Congressman Jeb Hensreling, Sean Duffy, Lee Zeldin, all my former clients in this

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book.

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But my hope is that you can see yourself discipling people one heart at a time wherever you are.

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If you're a public school educator, if you're a homeschooling mom, if you're a pastor, it

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is time for us to disciple people, love people, but we can only take them where we've been.

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And so I want to call people back to loving Jesus and then to walk out as leaders.

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Steve, we have a leadership crisis in this nation right now.

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And the way that we have a great awakening is for Christians to go back to the simplicity

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of walking with Jesus and burning with fire in every place of influence so that the people

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around us see that burning fire and they're drawn to that fire.

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I hope that that's my story.

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I believe that that's my story and I believe there's more to come as we mobilize Christians

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all over the country through Christians engaged to learn the systems and to walk this out

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in the government and political realms.

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Well, I'm so glad that you wrote this book and I believe that God is up to something.

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He raised up Donald Trump and he told some prophets.

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That's why I wrote God and Donald Trump.

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It looked absolutely impossible.

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It was a story that the media certainly wasn't covered.

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That's why I wrote the book.

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He raised up Mike Johnson.

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Who would have thought?

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I mean, a week ago, who would have thought?

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Yet there are other people like these two men that I mentioned and God, I believe that

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God has not given up on America and America is a bright shining light.

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America is also very evil.

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And was it like Billy Graham said that if God spares America, he's going to have to apologize

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to Sodom and Gomorrah.

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And hopefully that's hyperbole, but it makes you think, doesn't it?

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But we're founded on godly principles.

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God is not surprised by what's happened and sometimes things have to get really bad before

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they get better.

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And I believe that there's revivals happening.

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I mean, just today I heard from Perry Stone, he's at Jensen Franklin's church up in Gainesville,

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Georgia.

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And they were having like one or two nights of meetings and they're now in their second

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or third week and all kinds of people getting saved.

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We hear these all the time and on my podcast, more and more, I'm going to start featuring

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this because the second or even the other Christian media, Christianity today doesn't

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cover this kind of stuff.

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But I think it's important that people know this.

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And so I want to go ahead and give you the last word and have you encouraged people to

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go get Jesus in politics.

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Well, go get Jesus in politics, buy it at Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, wherever

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you get your books, Christianbook.com.

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And I'll end with this, Steve.

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We were in DC again and we were praying for members of Congress and our congressional

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host, Michael Cloud, said he was getting approached by other Congress people in DC that was like,

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where is the group that you're hosting here that's praying for us?

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We need that.

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And it just hit me just the importance of all of us praying for our elected officials

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again.

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Our tag here at Christians Engaged is pray, vote, and engage.

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But so often we send these people to Washington DC or our state houses and we leave them as

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missionaries on a mission field.

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And so I want to encourage everybody, pray for Speaker Johnson.

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This is just, this is a miracle that we have a man of God in this position.

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It absolutely is a miracle.

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But we now have a commission pray in the minute or so that we have love.

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Let's pray.

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A lot of people who are watching live can pray with us, but people can pray as they watch

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it later.

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That's the beauty of some of these technological advances.

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And God hears our prayers whenever we pray and leave your comments.

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By the way, I didn't say that today, but leave your comments below your questions.

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We'll deal with them.

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But why don't you lead us in prayer as we wrap up this podcast?

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And that's the way that I'll end today.

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Amen.

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Well, Laura, we just lift up Speaker Mike Johnson.

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God, we thank you for this miracle of this man of God who wasn't even running until Saturday.

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And you put him in this position.

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Lord, we pray for him and his family, his beautiful wife, Kelly, his kids, Hannah, Abigail, Jack

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and Will.

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Lord, we pray for this precious family and we pray that you surround them with your presence.

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You surround them with protection.

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We pray over his staff.

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They're just in shock, I'm sure, as they're contemplating having to add and triple or quadruple

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their staff for the Speaker's office.

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God guard over him, guard over their chief of staff.

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Lord, put great staff around him.

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And Lord, we pray, Lord, for all of us in the Body Christ that you would make us intercessors

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for Congress, that we wouldn't just be flamethrowers throwing our criticism, but that you would

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raise us up as intercessors to believe for your will here on earth.

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We cover him in Jesus' name.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Thank you for being with me.

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Thank you for watching.

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Share this with others and remember to pray.

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