Skip to content 5/23/2025 Reviewing Current Events Pragmatically and Biblically, and Thankful for Leaders Who Appeal to God May 23 · 54 min ...more
5/23/2025 Reviewing Current Events Pragmatically and Biblically, and Thankful for Leaders Who Appeal to God
May 23, 2025 · 54 min
Jody Hice and guests discuss next steps for a Big Beautiful Bill, a SCOTUS non-decision on charter schools, outcry over the Secretary of Defense calling for prayer, and more from a Biblical worldview.
Series Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Audio
Family Research Council is serving in the kingdom of God by championing faith, family, & freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview.
May 23, 2025 · 54 min · Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Audio
Jody Hice and guests discuss next steps for a Big Beautiful Bill, a SCOTUS non-decision on charter schools, outcry over the Secretary of Defense calling for prayer, and more from a Biblical worldview. ...more Show the full description Show less Jody Hice and guests discuss next steps for a Big Beautiful Bill, a SCOTUS non-decision on charter schools, outcry over the Secretary of Defense calling for prayer, and more from a Biblical worldview.
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In this video 0:00 Introduction and Political Updates16:55 Legislative Insights and Religious Freedom33:41 Military Morale and Biblical Masculinity50:21 Biblical Worldview and Current Events
Introduction and Political Updates 0:01 From the heart of our nation's capital in Washington, DC, bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and sound bites into conversations with our nation's leaders and0:12 newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Sitting in for Tony is today's host, Jody Heise.0:20 Well, good afternoon. Welcome to this Friday edition of Washington Watch and the beginning of a Memorial Day weekend. I am Jody Heise, a senior fellow here at the Family Research Council. So honored to have0:32 you on board with us. We've got a lot to bring your way today. Let me give you some of the highlights. As you probably have heard by now, House Republicans handed President Trump a major win when0:44 they passed the 1 big beautiful bill yesterday. Well, now the ball is all in the senate's court.0:51 Now our team is suiting up for discussions, with the senate side of Capitol Hill. The president again said this morning he hopes to see this bill at his desk as soon as possible, and he'll be engaged in the process to1:02 get it through the senate just like he was to get it through the house of representatives.1:08 Well, that was White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt yesterday. So So what did it take to get to this point? And I get probably more important, what can we expect moving forward? Well, I'll be1:20 joined here in just a moment, by Virginia congressman Morgan Griffith. He happens to be the vice chairman of the House Rules Committee, and we'll discuss all of that. And then yesterday, the US Supreme
1:32 Court was evenly split on a very important decision involving a religious charter school that was seeking to receive public funding. So what does this all mean for the case?
1:44 Well, I'll be speaking about this with Michael Farris, who's the general counsel for the National Religious Broadcasters, who also filed an amicus brief in that case. And then, catch
1:56 this, the left, as we all know, well, they're perfectly fine with drag shows for member of our militaries, but they are now up in arms because of prayer service that was
2:09 offered. That took place at the Pentagon this week.
2:12 Appealing to heaven, to God is a long standing tradition in our military. I'm very proud that we're starting a monthly voluntary service at the Pentagon. George Washington was
2:23 on bended knee with the troops, praying for God's providence and protection in that moment. Chaplains and ministers and Christians and people of faith across generations have
2:35 prayed because of the business that we're in.
2:39 Wow. That was US secretary of defense Pete Hegseth responding yesterday to reporters who asked about the criticism that he's been receiving because of that prayer service. So I'll be discussing this a
2:51 little bit later in the program when I'm joined by retired US Air Force Force officer David Mills. And then to close out the program and to close out the week, I'll be joined by David Clausen for our weekly
3:03 Biblical Worldview segment. We've got a lot to discuss, including the deadly tragic and chilling shooting outside the Capitol Jewish Museum Wednesday night.
3:13 The tragic murder of these 2 Israeli embassy employees outside of the Capitol Jewish Museum last night was both an act of terror and directed violence against the Jewish community.
3:26 Make no mistake. This attack was targeted anti Semitic violence, and it won't be tolerated.
3:34 That was Steve Jensen. He's the assistant director of the FBI's Washington field office speaking yesterday, and we're gonna discuss this and much more with David Clawson
3:46 as we wrap up the program. So as always, we've got a lot coming your way. If you happen to miss any of it, our website tony perkins dot com. Lots of resources there available for you as well as
3:57 archives of many programs as well as this 1. Alright. Let's jump into the big news for today. The big beautiful bill, as you probably have
4:09 heard by now, it passed the House of Representatives yesterday, and now it's on its way to the Senate. But there are some senators, some conservative members of the senate, who have already flagged
4:21 their intention to vote this current bill down, at least in its current state. So, this suggests that this reconciliation bill is going to experience certainly some more tweaking
4:33 in the senate in the coming days. So what does that mean for the bill that the house of representatives sent, and and that they spent literally all day and all
4:45 night to pass. Well, joining me now to discuss this is congressman Morgan Griffith. He serves on several house committees, including the rules committee where he serves as the vice chairman. He also
4:56 serves on the important energy and commerce committee. He represents the ninth congressional district of Virginia. Congressman Griffith, welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to see you, my friend.
5:07 Great to see you as well. And, I appreciate you so much, and thank you for what you do.
5:13 Well, you as well. In fact, I just saw you Monday evening, and you were I think had, had could not imagine the week that was ahead of you at that. Well, I think you probably could imagine it, but it was it had to be an
5:25 exhausting week for you. Tell tell us a little bit about the week. How did this go down?
5:31 Well, it was an exhausting week. As you said, I was on Energy and Commerce. So last week, we did the 26.5 hour hearing. Then this week, rules went in at 1 o'clock, on Tuesday morning,
5:45 I guess excuse me. Wednesday morning, very early in in the, the morning hours. And Democrats kept saying, why are you all coming in at 1 o'clock in the morning? And I told them, just straight up, said,
5:57 because we know that you all wanna talk a lot and and talk about this bill a lot, and we won't have time to do it if we don't start at 1 o'clock in the morning. Well, sure enough, we went for
6:08 21, 22 hours, somewhere between 21 and 22 hours listening to Democrats tell us how bad the bill was and how evil we were. And, and
6:20 we we got through it. All of us stayed committed and firm, and we listened to the testimony. That's part of what the legislative process is about. And then we passed the rules so that we could then move
6:32 forward, in the wee hours of Thursday to actually getting the rule passed and then the bill passed, on the floor by 1 vote. And,
6:44 so it was a it was a hard week, a tough week. There were changes being made, right up until we got through the rule, but it was, it was worth it. But I do think to my senate colleagues, I would say,
6:56 would I prefer the bill be a a touch more conservative? Yes. Would a number of my friends in the Freedom Caucus want it to be a lot more conservative? Yes. But I think we must have hit pretty close to the the sweet
7:08 spot when you end up with a 1 vote margin. There's not a whole lot more that could have been done. So I'm I welcome the senate, changing some things and sending it back to us. But just, keep in touch
7:20 with the house because we've got to have a bill that can pass. And if they send us something over and we lose, 4 or 5 Republicans, we can't pass the bill. And none of the Democrats will vote for
7:32 it. So we we are walking a tight rope, but we're doing the best we can. And I believe this is about the best product that we can actually pass. Could it be a better bill? Sure. But it's about the best we can
7:44 do with the circumstances that we have and the votes that we have.
7:48 That's 1 thing I've always appreciated about you, Morgan, is is your your common sense wisdom that you bring to the table, and that's why you're on so many critical
8:00 committees as well. So was there anything I mean, you guys, 20 hours. Was there any specific subject or provision within the bill that garnered so
8:12 much attention, or was it just kind of the whole thing?
8:16 Well, there were a couple of things that were repeating and and consistent themes. Most of the complaints were, you know, we were gonna devastate and destroy, Medicaid. And the
8:28 biggest thing that we did to Medicaid was in the Medicaid expansion program, and they're technically 2 different programs. But in the Medicaid expansion program, we say if you're able-bodied, if you don't have a
8:40 young child, a disabled person, an elderly person who needs care in your home, we are going to expect you to be involved in your community. That is most likely work and we refer to it sometimes as a work requirement, but
8:51 it can be community service. It can be going back to school to improve your educational abilities so that you can get a better job. It can be a drug treatment program. The idea is you get out there and you do something
9:03 to improve your community's life and your life. And we think that's a reasonable request. And mind you, it's 80 hours a month. It's not even a full schedule. We're not saying 40 hours a week. We're saying 80
9:15 hours a month. And And as you know, there's 4.33 weeks in a month, so it works out to, 18.47 hours a week on average. And you can do day care with you know, help out with the day care,
9:27 particularly if you have a child who needs day care. You may be able to figure something out. What we have found over time, and most people know this, is if you're involved in your community in some positive way, you're
9:37 gonna be, more self aware of what's going on, and you're gonna feel better about yourself. And you're likely to become a big time contributing member of your community. So whether it be, work, whether it
9:49 be community service, whether it be improving your education, we think this is a reasonable requirement for able-bodied people who aren't taking care of somebody else who needs care. We think it's a reasonable request,
10:02 but it brings a lot of people because they get jobs and because they do things. It gets them off of the the public, Medicaid expansion program and saves over 10 years
10:14 hundreds of billions of dollars. I think that's common sense.
10:18 Yeah. It is common sense. It's and and that's why the, vast majority of Americans support you on this. I mean, we're talking about work work capable people, and they don't need to be sitting at home taking,
10:30 funds from, those who are out working. If they're capable of working, they need to be be able to do so. I think it's very much common sense. So real quickly, after all the negotiations, all the markups, all the
10:42 meetings, hour after hour after, what were some of the definitive victories in this bill, that you and your colleagues in the Freedom Caucus and beyond, that you feel good
10:54 about? What what are the victories? Lay them out for us.
10:56 Well, 1 of the things, we came through Energy and Commerce. We were hearing from some of the bureaucrats. I'm not gonna say it was the top people. I don't know who it was, but but they they contacted our chairman, Fred
11:06 Guthrie, and basically indicated that we couldn't start these community engagement or work requirements until, like, 20 29. The conservative wing, particularly the Freedom Caucus said that's ridiculous. We can
11:17 start this sooner. So we're actually gonna start it, December 30 first 20 26. That's a that's a win. That's a win, and it saves even more money. And then there's there's things that don't
11:29 save that much money, but are wins. We don't think that Medicaid and Medicaid expansion should pay, that's the taxpayers, for transgender surgery.
11:41 That seems reasonable. The number is not huge on the savings on that. It is billions, but it's not it's not hundreds of billions. It's it's a few billion. But, you know, if that's a decision that you
11:53 make, there's lots of private organizations that will help you with it, but the taxpayer shouldn't have to pay for the transgender surgery. Now the affirming care, if you've already had the surgery,
12:05 you've gotta have care the rest of your life if you have that kind of surgery. And so we're not saying that we wouldn't pay for helping out somebody who suddenly is on hard times that paid for their own surgery
12:14 previously or had the surgery previously and now needs the hormonal treatment, etcetera, that those folks need. But we're not paying for the surgery to start you down that pathway. And I think that was a win.
12:26 There were other wins. There were some really big wins in energy. We got rid of, most of the green new deal. And what we kept was nuclear, subsidies or nuclear incentives
12:38 to help us move our energy, process forward. There's some real wins also in, making it easier to get through morass in Washington. If you're trying
12:49 to build a new energy project, we created a a an insurance program. We will see how that works as a pilot project so that you can create a new, power plant based on nuclear wind
13:01 excuse me, not wind, but nuclear, coal, natural gas so that that would help you move that energy sector forward. And we were listening to Elon Musk yesterday, unrelated, that he was saying
13:13 that we need to, build a whole lot more energy if we're gonna keep up with the Chinese on AI. He's absolutely right.
13:20 So we
13:20 cut some of the red tape on that.
13:23 Congressman Morgan Griffith of Virginia vice chairman of the House Rules Committee and, many other areas of leadership. Thank you for joining us on Washington Watch, and I appreciate your insight so much. Have
13:35 a great weekend.
13:37 You too. God bless you.
13:39 God bless. Alright, friends. By the way, speaking of this big beautiful bill, we have an explainer of that bill on the Stand Firm app. You can get it by texting app to 6 7
13:50 7 4 2. Alright. A big decision from the Supreme Court yesterday. A big 1. We'll break it down for you right after the break.
14:01 In a time when Washington seems clouded by compromise, a bold group of lawmakers are standing firm in defense of the values which our nation was built upon. At FRC Action's
14:13 100 percent awards, 171 members of Congress were honored for voting 100 percent in line with policies that promote faith, family, and freedom.
14:25 Faith and family made our country it's the foundation that made our country not only great, but good.
14:30 The values that make America, faith, family, hard work, first responsibility. I mean, that to me is the heart of the FRC and, grateful very
14:40 important for us to have organizations such as FRC. First of all, I think it keeps us grounded, in addition to which the issues that you champion are issues that we should all be championing.
14:49 FRC is very, very good at honing in on those things that, really affect Christians' lives. Also, working with members of Congress too to make sure that those values are instilled in the legislation that we create.
15:01 Having the Family Research Council to guide us is critically important to being able to do the right thing consistently.
15:10 These lawmakers have drawn the line, not just in policy, but in principle. This is more than politics. This is conviction in action. Visit f r c action dot org for
15:22 more information on how you too can make a difference.
15:35 Jennifer, it's so exciting to be here with you today talking about our new book, Embracing God's Design. Who is actually gonna benefit from reading this book in your view?
15:44 There are so many different audiences that can benefit. The first 1 are counselors themselves, right, because we have some material in there where we really address the gender dysphoria diagnosis
15:57 and what is wrong with it. We have information for people who are wanting to go back to embracing God's design for their life.
16:05 This is really magical to have the therapist and the individual who suffered come together and write about why this is happening and why we're seeing this.
16:14 And we brought all of that experience to the table. We wanna see people walking in the fullness of who God has called them to be and not a false identity.
16:24 Preorder today at embrace the design dot com.
16:29 Family Research Council is celebrating 1 year of trusted news and community from a biblical perspective, all in 1 place. Over the past year, the Stand Firm app has become a go to source for Christians seeking
16:40 clarity, truth, and ways to make an impact in today's world. With over 46000 downloads and 1200000.0 page views, we thank you for standing firm with us. Download the Stand Firm app
16:52 today. Text app to 6 7 7 4 2. That's app to 6 7 7 4 2.Show more
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