Skip to content 4/20/2026 Highlights from the America Reads the Bible Project and Top Domestic and International News Apr 20 · 59 min ...more
4/20/2026 Highlights from the America Reads the Bible Project and Top Domestic and International News
April 20, 2026 · 59 min
Tony Perkins and guests rejoice as “America Reads the Bible” at the Museum of the Bible, discuss month 3 of the DHS Shutdown, the reconciliation 2.0 effort, the Home for Every Child initiative, and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). They also cover the Latest on the Iran Ceasefire, the U.S. Seizure of an Iranian tanker, and details on China’s involvement in the War.
Series Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Video
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.
April 20, 2026 · 59 min · Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Video
Tony Perkins and guests rejoice as “America Reads the Bible” at the Museum of the Bible, discuss month 3 of the DHS Shutdown, the reconciliation 2.0 effort, the Home for Every Child initiative, and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). They also cover the Latest on the Iran Ceasefire, the U.S. Seizure of an Iranian tanker, and details on China’s involvement in the War. ...more Show the full description Show less Tony Perkins and guests rejoice as “America Reads the Bible” at the Museum of the Bible, discuss month 3 of the DHS Shutdown, the reconciliation 2.0 effort, the Home for Every Child initiative, and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). They also cover the Latest on the Iran Ceasefire, the U.S. Seizure of an Iranian tanker, and details on China’s involvement in the War.
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In this video 0:00 Headlines and America Reads the Bible Launch11:30 DHS Shutdown, Budget, and FISA Challenges22:16 China's Iran Ties and Foster Care Crisis38:52 Freedom's Purpose, Iran Update, and Bible Revival
1:33 warnings over a 6 hour period, informing the ship that it was in violation of the blockade, which has cut off Iranian ports to the rest of the world and crippled Iran's economy. Iranian leadership claimed it
1:45 carried out drone attacks on US warships in response. Iran previously said they would fully open the Strait of Hormuz, but now they say it's closed. Talks are scheduled for Wednesday. And it's so
1:57 far unclear if Iranian representatives will even show up. But the stakes are high. President Trump posted a warning to Iran on true social saying that if Iran does not agree to a ceasefire, he will
2:09 quote, knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran. Adding that they'll come down fast, they'll come down easy and if they don't take a deal. It's gonna get ugly.
2:21 Well, notably, president Trump also responded online to a key criticism that is gaining steam, including on the political right. That claim is that Israel is behind the Iran war and forced the US into
2:33 it. President Trump rebuffed that idea today on Truth Social saying, quote, Israel never talked me into the Iran the war with Iran. The results of October seventh added to my lifelong opinion that
2:45 Iran can never have a nuclear weapon did. That's a direct response to the ongoing political allegation that Israel has outsized influence over the president. Ahead of this week's
2:57 talks, president Trump also struck an optimistic tone online saying if Iran's new leaders are smart, Iran can have a great and prosperous future. We'll see if that happens. 1
3:09 other news, a major earthquake has rocked Japan. Japanese prime minister, Sunei Takachi, issued evacuation orders to citizens after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake off the northeastern coast of
3:20 Japan, Monday. She said the government had set up an emergency task force and urged citizens to stay away from coastal areas where tsunami waves nearly 10 feet tall were expected.
3:33 Well, back in the US, the federal government will begin refunding companies their tariff payments. The Supreme Court ruled in February that president Trump's sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic
3:45 Powers Act are unconstitutional. Court filing show that more than 330000 importers paid duties on over 53000000 shipments. That all added up to
3:55 166000000000 US dollars. To be clear though, the Trump administration is still going to continue implementing other tariffs using different legal justifications. Though those could also
4:07 be challenged in court. Now for our last story, US forces killed 3 men who in the military called illicit drug smugglers in the Caribbean. Southern command said that the boat was using no narco trafficking
4:19 routes in the Caribbean. And a top military official said last month that the US military has so far killed more than 150 alleged members or affiliates of drug organizations in nearly
4:31 50 strikes. Well, that's today's news. I'm Casey Harper. You can dive deeper at the Washington stand online. And as for us, we're back tomorrow with more stories that matter.
4:53 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 and
5:05 newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Washington Watch with Tony Perkins starts
5:11 now. On reconciliation, what does this majority choose to spend our time on instead? Any hour now, Republicans are expected to release a budget resolution
5:23 that adds tens of billions of dollars to the national debt, pumps colossal sums into ICE and border patrol without any reforms at
5:35 all, while doing absolutely nothing to lower costs for hardworking Americans.
5:41 That was senate minority leader Chuck Schumer earlier today reading a statement on the senate floor addressing the Democratic led Department of Homeland Security shutdown. Welcome to this Monday, April twentieth edition
5:52 of Washington Watch. I'm your host, Tony Perkins. Thanks so much for joining us. Well, coming up, we're now on day 66 of the partial government shutdown with congress still working to find a way to fund
6:04 Homeland Security. They're now also working to find a way to extend section 7 0 2 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as FISA. Congressman Ron Estes joins us with the latest on where things
6:16 stand and whether a deal is within reach. And congressman John Mullinerich, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, joins us to discuss Beijing's involvement in the war in
6:27 Iran. All of that and more straight ahead. Well, some good news here in Washington DC for a change. A nationwide
6:39 bible reading initiative began yesterday morning here in Washington to mark 250 years of the bible in America. It's called America Reads the Bible. The Family Research Council helped launch that
6:51 effort at the Museum of the Bible as, we had the first wave of readers yesterday morning. President Trump is expected to participate tomorrow. Joining us now to discuss the initiative and more is
7:03 Washington stand reporter Casey Harper. Casey, good to see you. Good to see you, Tony. Yeah. Nice haircut. Let's talk about, let's talk about this event and, what we can expect to hear from the president.
7:15 Yeah. This is an amazing event, Tony. Every day this week, passages of scripture are gonna be led a lot read aloud as close to about 500 Americans, many of the national leaders are gonna read the bible
7:26 publicly. There's also some speeches, and we have some remarks here from house speaker Mike Johnson.
7:32 To me, from the time I was 12 years old, I knew that God's word is flawless and true, that these are real promises and that we can rely upon it. Our nation has since the time of its founding, and we do
7:44 well to preserve that foundation. I'm so grateful that you are all here to be a part of this great celebration. God is not done with America yet.
7:52 Well, I agree with that, and it's refreshing to hear national leaders talk about the word of God being flawless and the foundation of our country. Of course, that's true. And you mentioned president Trump. He is also,
8:01 reading tomorrow. He's gonna read from second Chronicles at 6 PM eastern tomorrow from the Oval Office via a video message, and everything is being live streamed. He's not the only 1, though. Doctor Ben Carson, who's a
8:12 former US secretary of housing and urban development, He's gonna speak after the president reads along with his wife, Candy Carson. But this is really just an initiative that's an opportunity for America to renew their
8:23 faith and renew our commitment to the word of God being the foundation, not just for our private lives, but also for our nation.
8:30 Yeah. The clip you showed, was from Saturday night where it kinda kicked off with a ceremony. We were there. And then, yesterday morning, the speaker was actually a part of the FRC wave as we, we started
8:42 in the book of Genesis. We'll talk more about that, a little bit later. Jody Heiss was also a part of the FRC wave, so we'll, we'll have him joining us later. Let's move on, Casey. The house and senate are back in
8:53 session and funding for the Department of Homeland Security, top priority, along with now the extension of section 7 0 2 of FISA. What can you tell us?
9:04 Yeah. It was a chock full, schedule this week for both chambers of congress. So this week, the senate is expected to get a vote in on the funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The shutdown's been going on for
9:15 months approaching day 70. Meanwhile, senate budget chairman Lindsey Graham is introducing a resolution to get some funding for ICE and border patrol, something Democrats have fought tooth and nail to prevent. His
9:25 measure would give about 70000000000 dollars for both ICE and Border Patrol, which would fund those agencies through the rest of president Trump's term. And you also mentioned FISA, which, what was thought to was gonna
9:36 be already done by now, but they're taking another 10 days, to work that out to negotiate with some lawmakers who have privacy concerns and wanna push for reforms. President Trump signed a 10 day FISA extension over the
9:48 weekend, which is gonna, allow the program to continue as they can work this out. And all this, Tony, does mean this hasn't been reported as much that the Save America Act is probably gonna get kicked further down the
9:58 road.
9:58 Yeah. And we're gonna talk a little bit later with, Jody Hice about Pfizer. There's some some difficult issues they've gotta work through before they can get something approved there. President Trump has warned
10:10 Iran that the US will use overwhelming military force if a deal isn't reached by Wednesday. Now we've we've we've heard this before. What makes this different? Well,
10:22 Well,
10:22 we've seen a lot of conflicting things come from the president. I think what makes this different is that we're getting we're running out of options besides overwhelming force. The president has pulled a lot of tricks
10:32 out of his bag. The naval blockade seem to be successful, seem to be pressuring Iran even more. But now these talks are seemingly falling apart. Vice president JD Vance, there were thoughts he was already going to have
10:41 left. Now we're hearing he might leave tonight. But it's unclear if Iran's even gonna show up in Islamabad and Pakistan for these talks. And so, president Trump himself has even expressed the feelings that, publicly
10:53 that he doesn't think they're gonna amount to much, but he wants to give it a try. And he has really ended with another threat, which is he's gonna bomb every bridge in every power plant in the country, which would be
11:04 long term, devastation that's different from a blockade, which a blockade is economically devastating, but it could end at any moment as negotiations work out. Whereas if you destroy the power plants, that's long term,
11:15 damage that's gonna be really hard for for them to rebuild, Tony.
11:18 Alright. Well, we're gonna be watching very closely this week to see how this, unfolds, and we'll talk more about about it later. Casey, thanks so much for, the update. Alright.
DHS Shutdown, Budget, and FISA Challenges
11:30 I I wanna go back to the the house and senate in for 2 weeks. They've got, as we talked about, some major legislative feats to accomplish before they go on a week long break,
11:43 the first of May. Joining us now to discuss is congressman Ron Estes, who is a member of the House Budget Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee. He represents the fourth congressional district of Kansas.
11:54 Congressman Estes, welcome back to Washington Watch. Always good to see you.
11:57 Well, great. Thank you for having me on.
11:59 So 2 big challenges face congress, ending the partial government shutdown so you can fund homeland security and dealing with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, section 7
12:11 0 2, better known as FISA. So where do you wanna start?
12:15 Yeah. Let's start with, Department of Homeland Security. I mean, we, we're we're now 2 months where we've had a shutdown of our Department of Homeland Security because the the the Democrats actually have,
12:28 refused to fund that department. Their only proposal was to fund part of it and to leave out the funding for customs and border patrol and the funding for ICE or the immigration control and enforcement.
12:40 Basically, that's that's their attempt to reopen the borders after president Trump has shut them down. And and we we, we want to make sure that we fund both the department and the entire department. President Trump's
12:51 really put a lot of effort into he is, he has used the executive order to help make sure that the employees in, Department of Homeland Security are getting paid, which is a it's a sad state that,
13:03 they've been mistreated, twice now this fiscal year. And we we wanna make sure that we we have them up and running. House Republicans have voted 4 times to fully fund the department, an agreement that the Democrats
13:15 had had agreed with. Senate Republicans have also voted, to to fund that, something that appropriations had agreed on both chambers, prior to, prior to this shutdown. And so we wanna make sure that
13:27 we move forward and and make sure that we we address that.
13:31 Earlier this afternoon, I spoke with, the senate budget chair, Lindsey Graham, and and he's supposedly about ready to release text of a budget resolution that would fund DHS,
13:44 immigration enforcement, through reconciliation. How do you see that playing out in the house?
13:52 Yeah. The the the the strategy, I guess, right now and where it is is if the the Democrats aren't gonna vote for it, funding DHS and particularly in the senate where they need 60 votes to
14:04 pass appropriations bills. The plan is to, pass the appropriations bill for all of DHS except for the customs and border patrol and for ICE and then
14:16 use reconciliation, what they're calling a skinny reconciliation to actually have republicans vote to fund for customs and border patrol and for ICE and actually protect our country's
14:27 borders. So that's that's the process it's working on now. Senator Graham's working on it on the senate budget committee. We're having conversations here in the house budget committee as well on how do we move that
14:39 forward. Obviously, when you when you have a bill that you wanna pass, a lot of people look at adding other provisions to it as well. The discussion right now is, whether we we should just move forward with a
14:51 so called skinny reconciliation bill to make sure that, we keep these departments funded, because, the time's running out in what the president can fund with his executive order. So we we wanna make sure that we treat
15:03 the employees right who are doing a job helping protect our country.
15:07 Yeah. But most would admit there's not too many skinny things here in Washington DC. Everything gets kinda bloated up here. So it'll be interesting to see if it can keep it, small. Now 1 of the,
15:18 the the casualties, so to speak, in this is the Save America Act, which was going to protect elections. That appears now to be kind of getting a back seat in the in the senate.
15:31 What do you expect on that?
15:33 It it really is bad when when, provisions like this, things that we have to do, like, funding the government, gets gets blown up in the process. And, actually, what it does is it it slows down
15:45 doing other things. You know, if you look at the Save America Act, which basically says people bring their ID to vote. That's all it is is what it what it's, what it's asking for people to do. But
15:57 it's been, all of the Democrats in the house voted against it, and and the Democrats in the senate are refusing to move forward with that bill. So it's it's a struggle. We we passed it out of the house,
16:09 with with Republican votes. We wanna make sure that, the senate votes on it as well so that president Trump can sign it into law.
16:17 Yeah. It's a common sense bill, as you said. Basically, the main provision in it is you have to have a an ID when you go vote so that we know that the person who is voting is actually the person
16:29 who is registered to vote. I mean, it's pretty pretty basic. I wanna talk about, something else congressman Essett. Last week before, congress left town, there was the work to try
16:40 to, reauthorize section 7 0 7 0 2 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as FISA. Lot of controversy and misconception
16:53 around parts of this. Didn't pass. You guys worked till late into the night. It didn't happen. There's a 2 week or a 10 day extension. What happens next?
17:04 Yeah. Pfizer is really important, you know, for instance, in terms of those provisions, and and there's several different sections in there. Section 7 0 2 is 1 that we're we're really addressing right now. And
17:16 and basically, what 7 0 2 does is it allows the, US government, our our intelligence community to actually monitor contact whether it's phone calls, whether it's emails, or
17:27 text messages that are coming from foreign known or suspected terrorists that are outside the United States into the United States and making sure that they can gather that information,
17:39 when when those, activities happen. And it's important to make sure that we gather that information. We have seen over the years that there's been abuse. In fact, before 20
17:51 24, there was a lot of abuse, in in that, in in that provision. Folks from the FBI were going through looking at, looking up, people's names and addresses
18:03 that they knew or or, you know, former girlfriends, boyfriends, other issues. And and we we put a stop to a lot of that in 20 24. There's some folks that that think we ought to do some more
18:14 in this provision, and so that's that's really where the debate is is how do we make sure that we guarantee for, people in America that we can secure their privacy, but also protect, for us from
18:26 foreign terrorist and the activities they might, wanna cause in in terms of problems here.
18:32 It's an important debate, and it's, it's a difficult balance, but we've gotta do it. We we've got to protect those constitutional freedoms, but at the same time, keep the country safe. It's, it's 1 of those tough ones.
18:44 Congressman Nessa, it's always great to see you. Thanks for joining us.
18:47 Great. Thank you.
18:48 Alright, folks. Stick with us. We'll be back.
18:55 250 years ago, our founding fathers signed a death warrant, pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
19:07 honor to the idea that our rights do not come from men, but from God. Protected by providence, they brought forth
19:19 a new nation, 1 nation under God whose word rings beneath every law and liberty. Family
19:31 Research Council believes in preserving this rich history, the grounds of our freedom, our undeniable foundation of faith.
19:53 I think all people really need to have this type of education.
19:56 Well, I can tell you that it's been an amazing course period.
19:59 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
20:11 with our work.
20:12 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 this
20:24 6 session video series, FRC president Tony Perkins equips participants with a practical understanding of civil government from a biblical worldview.
20:35 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.
20:40 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.
20:48 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
20:59 to encourage legislators to make choices that have a biblical worldview, which is what we really want.
21:05 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
21:16 as someone who has been involved in these types of issues for
21:19 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, college students, they can really glean something from this. So
21:30 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 your homeschool group through it, and equip yourself for these
21:40 challenging days ahead.
21:41 View the course at f r c dot o r g slash god and government or on the Stand Firm app.
21:54 Welcome back to Washington Watch, the website tony perkins dot com. Better yet, get the Stand Firm app. You'll have access to, news and commentary from the Washington stand. You'll also have access to Washington
22:06 Watch no matter where you go, And my daily devotional, Stand on the Word. All of that can be found on the Stand Firm app. Go to the App Store and get the Stand Firm app. Well, as the war in Iran continuesShow more
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