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3/30/2026 Amid Cultural Controversies, FRC’s Pray Vote Stand Chapters are Helping Christians Engage Biblically
March 30, 2026 · 54 min
Today on WW: No Kings protests; Trump to pay TSA; DHS funding controversy; Soros-funded redistricting efforts; Christian persecution in Nigeria; update on Iran; equipping Christians to engage culture.
Series Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Audio March 30, 2026 · 54 min · Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Audio
Today on WW: No Kings protests; Trump to pay TSA; DHS funding controversy; Soros-funded redistricting efforts; Christian persecution in Nigeria; update on Iran; equipping Christians to engage culture. ...more Show the full description Show less Today on WW: No Kings protests; Trump to pay TSA; DHS funding controversy; Soros-funded redistricting efforts; Christian persecution in Nigeria; update on Iran; equipping Christians to engage culture.
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In this video 0:00 No Kings Protests and DHS Shutdown Crisis17:03 Relentless Violence Against Christians in Nigeria27:02 Iran Regime Decapitated: Negotiations and Threats37:03 Launching Pray Vote Stand Chapters Nationwide
No Kings Protests and DHS Shutdown Crisis 0:00 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 Heiss.0:19 Democrats in congress have pushed our air travel system to its breaking point and inflicted massive pain on Americans with their reckless political games. All of this creating an unacceptable heightened security risk.0:30 Because of the Democrats' unwillingness to do their basic job of funding DHS0:38 That was Caroline Levitt earlier today on the Democrats pushing our air travel system to its breaking point. Welcome to this Monday, March thirtieth edition of Washington Watch.0:50 I'm your host, Jody Heiss, filling in today for Tony. By the way, I wanna thank you for your prayers for Tony and his family during the passing of his dad. And,1:02 Tony is scheduled to be back in the saddle tomorrow, but thank you for lifting up him and his his family. So glad to have you joining us for this holy week as we anticipate the1:14 upcoming resurrection Sunday. Glad to have you. We've got a packed show lined up for you today. Virginia congressman Morgan Griffith will be joining us shortly to dive into the latest from the1:25
1:37 also, is the US moving any closer to an agreement to end military operations in Iran? Well, we'll be talking about that later in the program.
1:55 Alright. Protests against president Donald Trump's policies and the war in Iran drew millions of people this weekend. And in some instances, demonstrators became violent and
2:07 actually clashed with law enforcement officers. And joining us now is Washington stand reporter, Casey Harper. Casey, it, looked like a lot of people turned out for the no kings rallies.
2:19 What were they actually protesting?
2:21 Yeah. That's right, Jody. I mean, just looking at footage from big cities all around the country saw millions of people turning out, and including some international participants, to protest president Trump and his
2:32 agenda, and in particular, the ongoing war in Iran. Now you mentioned that violence, which was very real, but generally, it was rare at the many different cities at these no kings protests. They did remain mostly
2:44 peaceful. Now authorities say that that arrest you mentioned in Los Angeles began after a dispersal order was ignored by protesters, and then protesters started throwing rocks, bottles, and chunks of concrete even at the
2:56 officers, injuring at least 2 of them. Police, of course, responded by deploying tear gas, and they actually arrested 74 people, including some, you know, juveniles and 1 individual suspected of carrying
3:08 a weapon. Now officials emphasized that while many demonstrations across the country were peaceful, incidents like this are fueling criticism that some of these protests are becoming more about disruption than dialogue,
3:19 Jody.
3:20 Yeah. Certainly, enormous crowds. No question about that. Thanks for that, Casey. I I if I can, I wanted to turn a little bit to, the DHS shut down? It looked to me as though last
3:32 Friday, we were at least potentially getting close to resolving that. But, frankly, it looks like now we're back to square 1. What what's the latest? What's going on with that?
3:42 Yeah. Unfortunately, I think you're you're right about that, Jody. On Friday morning, the senate passed a measure to fund TSA and FEMA, but not border patrol and ICE. So the house, of course, rejected this, and they
3:53 passed their own stopgap funding bill that would open the entire government. Now this means that DHS will remain partially shut down for at least another 2 weeks, if not more. The house is in recess, and, actually,
4:05 here's a clip of what happened in the senate today.
4:09 Senate will come to order. Clerk will read a communication to
4:15 the senate.
4:15 Washington, DC, March 32026, to the senate. Under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3 of the standing rules of the senate, I hereby appoint the honorable John Hovind, a senator from the state of North Dakota, to
4:27 perform the duties of the chair. Signed Chuck Grassley, president for tempore.
4:32 Under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 7 AM on Thursday, April second 2026.
4:43 So April second, Jody. That is not an April fools joke, unfortunately. So with the senate scheduled to be out until at least Thursday, there's no immediate movement towards reopening DHS. Meanwhile, president Trump
4:54 earlier today, he pushed Congress to return to DC and bring an end to what is actually now a 45 day historic shutdown.
5:04 It is historic. So what is this doing, Casey, in airports? Are we still seeing massive lines everywhere?
5:11 Well, there definitely is still some disruption and things are getting worked out, but president Trump's order does appear to be making a difference. Major US airports that face massive delays for weeks, places like
5:22 Baltimore, Houston, New York, New Orleans, and Dallas are now reporting very short security lines as operations start to return to normal. The delays came after about 50000 TSA officers were
5:33 going unpaid during this partial government shutdowns. And as you know, many airports were seeing hours, maybe 4 hours, 5 hours long, lines as thousands of workers were absent. But president Trump signed an
5:45 emergency directive on Friday to ensure that TSA workers were paid. And some reported receiving their paychecks early Monday, helping to stabilize airport operations. And we have a clip here of White House press
5:57 secretary Caroline Levitt earlier today.
6:00 President Trump determined that these circumstances constituted an emergency compromising American security. That's why last week, he accordingly signed a presidential memorandum to provide TSA
6:11 employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them, but for the Democrat led DHS shutdown.
6:20 Now to handle the spring break travel surge, hundreds of immigrations and homeless security officers were deployed at over a dozen of these airports to help stabilize things. But these are all short term solutions, Jody.
6:31 If Congress doesn't get that full funding passed, we're gonna see more headaches.
6:36 Alright. Short term or not, a little bit of good news, Casey. Thank you as always for giving us these updates. Alright. I wanna turn now to Capitol Hill and get the latest on the DHS
6:48 funding stalemate battle that's going on. Joining us to discuss this is congressman Morgan Griffith. He serves on the House Rules Committee and represents Virginia's ninth congressional district.
7:00 Congressman Griffith, always great to have you on Washington Watch. Welcome back. Good to see you.
7:06 Good to be back, and it's always good to see you.
7:09 Alright. So look before I wanna get to the DHS funding battle, but, but, let me start with the no kings rallies that took place over the weekend, in several cities. What's your impression of these events?
7:22 Well, certainly, American citizens have the right to get out and and protest the government. They, as long as they're peaceful, are absolutely appropriate. This is a part of our our system and a part of what we
7:33 do. When they go into violence, when they don't follow the orders of law enforcement officers, they cross the line.
7:41 Yep. And, fortunately, there weren't a whole lot of that, but a little bit of it. But, yeah, it was it was quite a large number of people. We'll certainly be watching that in the weeks to come. If I can,
7:53 congressman, let me come back to Capitol Hill and the DHS funding battle. Last Friday was quite a hectic day for the house. I think, generally speaking, that would be true. It looks
8:05 like there's no real solution yet. Bring us up to speed on on this battle and, where things go from here is the senate is in rest recess and the house is about to do the
8:17 same.
8:18 Well, you know, in in reality, speaker Johnson had a compromise. The senate chose today not to take that compromise, and that was to do a short term CR on the 2 areas of contention,
8:30 so that we could continue to fund, TSA, etcetera, and border patrol until we could get back into DC and do things. The senate chose not to do a what's called a unanimous consent, which they do all the time. It's
8:42 basically how they passed their bill. Thursday night, Friday morning was that they had, like, 5 senators there, and they just voted everybody else because they said it's up for unanimous consent, and there was nobody on
8:53 the floor to object. They could have done that today. They chose not to. They could do it again on Thursday. It was not the full package forever. It was the full package that which everybody's agreed to,
9:05 plus the 2 areas that are now in contention. Originally, that was agreed to also, but the 2 areas now in contention would go on for about 6 weeks, and then we would have time to, you know, get together and and figure out
9:17 how to resolve our differences. The senate has chosen not to do that. This is a senate shutdown. Unfortunately, they seem to think it's good. Most of us think it's bad for the republic, bad for country, and, bad for the
9:29 senate.
9:30 So what are the obstacles with the senate Democrats in particular? What what is what is the issue that they can't overcome?
9:39 They feel like that, with ICE having, killed a couple of Americans in the process of trying to deport all those millions of people that the Biden administration let cross the border, that
9:51 instead of waiting on the process of law enforcement and judicial oversight to take place, they want to take action now. Therefore, they say we're gonna defund ICE and and
10:03 maybe abolish ICE going forward. I mean, that's their position. It is illogical. It is dangerous for the country, particularly because we have, even more, terrorist types who wanna take advantage
10:15 of of our, weaknesses, right now because of the war in Iran. It's bad policy. It's bad for the country, but, they're about making political points. And with their base, they're scoring political points.
10:28 Wow. Well, maybe with the base, we'll see how those points score with the rest of the country. If I can switch topics with you real quickly, I right there in Virginia where you're from, voters are about
10:40 to decide whether or not to redraw the state's congressional maps. Of course, early voting is already, underway. Election day itself coming up on April 20 first. How crucial
10:53 do you think is this election, particularly for Republican hopes as we come into this fall?
11:01 Well, it's it's extremely crucial. It's it's crucial for Virginia because Virginians voted to get away from partisan gerrymandering in 20 20. 65 plus percent of the people voted to say no more on
11:13 the on the political games and gerrymandering. And here come the democrats, and they say, let's change our constitution. Let's play political games now. We don't want political games most of the time, but we want them
11:24 when we want them. And they wanna change the constitution to allow for the next 3 cycles to be done according to the rules they set up and to change the districts dramatically.
11:36 Their hope is to cost the Republicans 4 of the 5 Virginia Republican seats. And, it's bad government, and it clearly is in violation of the trust that the American American people the
11:47 Virginia people put in our constitution. And yet they've got you know, they're spending tens of millions of dollars. They've got Barack Obama Obama on TV. They're pushing hard. They got Abigail Abigail Spanberger pushing
11:58 it to governor, saying, you know, if you wanna restore fairness, you have to vote yes when in fact fairness is a no vote. But, you know, let's not let the truth get in the in the way.
12:09 Yeah. And, literally, when you just say that, I mean, we've got billionaire George Soros and other groups reportedly spending I mean, I've heard as much as over 30000000 dollars that has been spent in this
12:21 redistricting fight.
12:23 Estimates are now 50 to 60000000 will be spent. Soros has put in at least 5 from what I understand. But 30000000 is already in the coffers, and we've got 3 weeks to go. So it looks like to me they may spend
12:35 that 50 50.
12:37 So what are you hearing? I mean, where is this going to go? Do you think? Is, any prediction?
12:44 Well, I think it's 50 50. It's all about whether or not our people show up. And we do believe that if people just look at the 2 sets of maps, the maps that were drawn by nonpartisan, commissioners and approved by the
12:55 Supreme Court versus the maps drawn by the politicians in the backroom in Richmond, I think they will see which map is fair, and Virginians have to decide what's fair for Virginia. It's not our job
13:07 to decide what's fair in California, New York, or or Texas. But that's what the Democrats want you have to believe that Virginians need to do something because they don't like what happened in texas. And and as you know,
13:18 if you have 2 kids and 1 of them misbehaved, you don't let the other 1 misbehave too. Just because, well, it's only fair he gets to misbehave. So for those democrats who think that texas misbehaved, let Virginia
13:28 misbehaved is not the answer.
13:31 Wow. Thank you so much, Congressman Morgan Griffith. Always an honor to have you joining us on Washington Watch. And thanks for all you do. Appreciate it. Happy Easter to you.
13:42 Happy Easter. Thanks.
13:44 Alright, friends. Coming up after the break, FRC's Ariel Del Turco will be joining me to consider the disturbing disturbing continuing violence against Christians in
13:56 Nigeria. All that right after the break. Stay with us.
14:02 When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for 1 people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
14:10 and to assume among the powers of the earth
14:12 The separate and equal station to which the laws of nature
14:15 And of nature's god entitle them.
14:18 A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
14:23 which impel them to the separation.
14:25 We hold these truths to be self evident.
14:28 That all men are created equal.
14:30 That they're endowed by their creator. With certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.
14:42 Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Happy 200 and fiftieth. Happy 200 and fiftieth.
14:50 Happy 200 and fiftieth.
14:52 Happy 200 and fiftieth birthday, America. May God bless
14:58 America. I think all people really need to have this type of education.
15:02 Well, I can tell you that it's been an amazing course period.
15:05 I think this course is a reminder that a biblical worldview should really impact everything. It impacts our government from the federal to the state to the local. It should impact what we're doing with our families and
15:17 with our work.
15:18 God and government is a video driven bible based training course from Family Research Council that explores the connection between biblical principles and American government. In
15:30 this 6 session video series, FRC president Tony Perkins equips participants with a practical understanding of civil government from a biblical world view.
15:41 I would encourage all people to take it. I almost wish I would have took it earlier that I could have taught my kids this.
15:46 I wish I had known these things when we were homeschooling because I think children and my adults now would just greatly be influenced by that information.
15:54 So I'm an attorney and for me, it gives me some direct practical knowledge of what I can do to try to impact my legal community to make better legislation, to try
16:05 to encourage legislators to make choices that have a biblical worldview, which is what we really want.
16:11 Any pastor would benefit from taking this course because we are dual citizens. Right? We are citizens of the kingdom of God, but we're also seated citizens of this great land and that that comes with responsibility. Even
16:22 as someone who has been involved in these types of issues for a while, you're learning little bits and pieces of new stuff all the time. But it's also approachable enough that newer people, younger people, high school,
16:32 college students, they can really glean something from this. So I would encourage everybody to take this course, whether it's the videos, whether it's doing it in person, bring your bible study group through it, bring
16:43 your homeschool group through it, and equip yourself for these challenging days ahead.
16:47 View the course at f r c dot o r g slash god and government or on the stand firm app.
Relentless Violence Against Christians in Nigeria
17:03 Welcome back to Washington Watch. I'm your host, Jody Heist. So glad to have you joining us today. Thanks for being on board. Alright. We continue to track the horrific violence
17:14 against our Christian brothers and sisters that's been taking place in Nigeria. And last night, there was yet another attack in the country's north central region. It led to the deaths of
17:26 at least 20 people. And, of course, all of this just adds to the relentless spate of violence that's been taking place in the country. And joining us now to discuss this is Ariel Del Turco.
17:38 She, of course, is the director of the Center for Religious Liberty here at the Family Research Council. She also just recently returned from spending some time in Nigeria herself. Ariel,
17:50 always great to have you on Washington Watch. Welcome back.
17:53 Thank you, you, Jody.
17:56 Okay. So we had another attack in Nigeria last night. How does this latest incident fit into the broader violence that we've been seeing against Christians in that country?
18:09 Yeah, Jody. This attack is actually not far from where I visited close to Jos, Nigeria in Plateau State. That's in, the northern part of Nigeria where we're seeing these,
18:21 conflicts between Muslims and Christian villages. And, typically, what these attacks look like are Fulani militants. Fulani is a Muslim majority tribe in Nigeria and other
18:33 parts of Africa. They will storm into a village, typically, in the middle of the night, often on motorcycles, extremely fast and hard to track from the military, and just slaughter villages.
18:45 They'll take, people for ransom as, kidnap them. They'll do commit all sorts of horrific crimes. So this latest incident is was a really bad 1 with a really high number,
18:57 but it's yet just another, of these Fulani attacks that we've seen in Nigeria for years now. And finally, we're seeing come to international awareness.
19:08 Wow. So what what was your experience when you were there recently? What what what did you see? What did you experience? Did you, feel safe? What was it like?
19:21 Yeah. I got to speak with many victims who have survived these attacks, women whose husbands, or sons or brothers have been killed, people who have been raped in these attacks.
19:33 I we met with 1 woman 1 woman and visited her house, and, she described what these attacks were like routinely. Her village was unfortunately targeted routinely by attacks. And
19:45 she said what she did is that she would just, stay in her house and with her doors locked and pray, even though she knows that these door locks can't stop the Fulani militants if they choose to target her
19:57 house. So that's the reality that so many of these people are living in, and they don't really have the means, to move, and their entire families are in these villages. But this is a routine
20:09 story, and I think I was shocked by that by just how matter of factly some of of these people would talk about these attacks. But I think that's because they've been going on for so long. It's a part of their normal life
20:20 now, sadly.
20:23 Wow. So you're you're an expert in all of this. How how should the international community respond to what's taking place in Nigeria?
20:34 Well, last November, president Trump really brought a lot of attention, to this specific issue happening in Nigeria. And I think that really woke up the Nigerian government, to be like, hey. This
20:45 isn't just a domestic issue that's always gonna happen, and we don't really wanna address. It's actually something that the US government wants us to address, which was a very powerful, move. So we really need to
20:57 see more concentration from Western governments who are able to help advise the Nigerian government on security matters, on justice matters. We see routinely that these,
21:09 attackers don't face any sort of punishment by the justice system. So there's a lot that western governments can be helping the Nigerian government on right now. And so I would love to see that
21:21 continue.
21:23 So is there more that the US government can do? You you referenced that, the Trump administration has designated Nigeria as a country of particular concern. Are there additional steps that you would
21:35 like to see from the US government?
21:38 Yeah. When president Trump, enacted this designation at the end of last year, that was really encouraging because this is something that president Biden refused to do for 4 years, even though
21:50 there was ample evidence of the persecution continually happening there. So now Trump the Trump administration is in the mode of developing their game plan for how exactly they're going
22:01 to address this. The state department, this has been brought to the the top of the state department's priority list. That's really good. And, president Trump is reviewing the recommendations that he
22:13 asked representative Riley Moore to compile. So we're seeing a lot of encouraging movement on this issue. Now we really just need to see what actions president Trump is gonna take. And maybe
22:25 some of those will be private with the Nigerian government, but we're really seeing waiting to see how that plan is gonna unfold.
22:34 If I can bring this whole issue of religious liberty and, aggression, hostility towards Christians in particular, a little bit closer to home, of course, FRC continues to track the attacks on churches
22:46 that have been taking place right here in the United States. And in fact, recently, a man pled guilty and is now facing decades behind bars for threatening to blow up a Catholic church in DC.
22:58 What kind of trends are you seeing, and what are you tracking in these instance here in the US?
23:05 Yeah. The rise of attacks on churches in the US that includes, vandalism, but also threats, arson, bomb attacks, things like that. We've tracked that for now 7
23:17 years, and we have seen an increase over those years. And I think a lot of times this tends to be tied to, political events. When we saw the
23:34 vandalism, really ugly messages displayed on, spray painted on churches. And so we tend to see some of that as politics tends to heat up, especially if it's perceived
23:46 by some political activist as, being related to, the Christian church or something the Christian church should have a different opinion on. So that's something we're consistently watching, here in the
23:58 policy department.
24:00 Well, we are so grateful for your work in that area. 30 seconds or so. How would you encourage Christians to be praying in light of what's happening both overseas and here at home?
24:11 Yeah. Praying for the advancement of religious freedom around the world, the freedom to choose and change your religion, that that would be
24:25 practically protected like, the country of Nigeria where there's just lawlessness that causes Christians to suffer.
24:34 Thank you so much, Ariel Del Turco from FRC Center for Religious Liberties. Always great to have you on the program. Thanks for joining us.
24:43 Thanks, Jody.
24:45 Alright, friends. Coming up, we're gonna shift gears and go to Iran and get the latest as to what's happening over there. So stay tuned. Much more Washington Watch straight ahead.
25:01 For over 4000 years, the Jewish people have had legal, historical, and biblical ties to the land of Israel, especially the heartland of Israel, Judea and Samaria, which much of the world still calls the West Bank.
25:13 To Israelis, Judea and Samaria is far more than a name. It's the center of their ancestral homeland where nearly 80 percent of the Bible's events took place. Abraham purchased property in Hebron, Jacob in
25:25 Shechem. Joshua made an altar on Mount Ebal and led the Israelites into a covenant before God. On Mount Gerizim, overlooking Shechem, Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well about worshiping neither
25:37 on Mount Gerizim nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth. Judea and Samaria is nearly a quarter of Israel's current land mass, not a small strip of land on the Jordan River, but a
25:48 vital and strategic part of the nation's identity. The October seventh massacre launched from Gaza shattered the illusion that giving away territory brings peace. Gaza, which was
26:00 once seen as the cornerstone of a 2 state solution, became a launchpad for terror. Today, only 21 percent of Israelis support a Palestinian state. Trust in a 2 state solution
26:12 has all but collapsed. The Middle East is changing. Iran's grip is weakening. New alliances are forming, but western countries and some US officials still chase the mirage of a 2 state solution.
26:24 History speaks clearly. The 2005 Gaza withdrawal backed by the US led not to peace, but to a terrorist regime. Judea and Samaria are 24 times larger than Gaza,
26:36 deeply woven into Israel's geographic and spiritual fabric. To surrender them would not bring peace. It would invite conflict and existential danger. Family Research Council stands with Israel's
26:48 rightful claim to sovereignty. It's time for America to do the same for history, for justice, and for lasting security in the Middle East.Show more
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