Skip to content 4/22/2026 Amid Concerning News in the Headlines, Tony and Guests Bring Hope to Inspire Christian Engagement Apr 22 · 59 min ...more
4/22/2026 Amid Concerning News in the Headlines, Tony and Guests Bring Hope to Inspire Christian Engagement
April 22, 2026 · 59 min
Today on Washington Watch, we look at the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, gerrymandering in Virginia, America Reads the Bible, a court ruling regarding the Ten Commandments case in Texas, Senate Hearings with HHS Secretary RFK Jr., exposing the harms of abortion drugs for moms and children, the persecution of Nigerian Christians, and how Pray Vote Stand Chapters benefit communities
Series Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Video April 22, 2026 · 59 min · Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Video
Today on Washington Watch, we look at the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, gerrymandering in Virginia, America Reads the Bible, a court ruling regarding the Ten Commandments case in Texas, Senate Hearings with HHS Secretary RFK Jr., exposing the harms of abortion drugs for moms and children, the persecution of Nigerian Christians, and how Pray Vote Stand Chapters benefit communities ...more Show the full description Show less Today on Washington Watch, we look at the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, gerrymandering in Virginia, America Reads the Bible, a court ruling regarding the Ten Commandments case in Texas, Senate Hearings with HHS Secretary RFK Jr., exposing the harms of abortion drugs for moms and children, the persecution of Nigerian Christians, and how Pray Vote Stand Chapters benefit communities
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In this video 0:00 SPLC Indictment: Manufacturing Extremism for Profit22:01 Mifepristone Dangers Exposed in Senate Hearing33:18 Nigeria: World's Deadliest Place for Christians43:18 Empowering Local Change with Pray, Vote, Stand
SPLC Indictment: Manufacturing Extremism for Profit 0:00 Hello. I'm Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and host of Washington Watch. Thanks for tuning in. Every day, we offer a biblical perspective on the news as well as insightful interviews with elected0:12 leaders, newsmakers, and culture experts. We have a great program planned for you today, but first, get up to speed on the top headlines with Washington Stan's news brief.0:27 Welcome to the Washington Stan news brief. I'm Casey Harper bringing you today's big stories. Well, the results are in. Virginia voters narrowly approved a democratic measure to gerrymander the0:39 state's congressional seats. Votes are still being counted, but it appears the referendum won with roughly 51 percent in favor. The new measure in question is a big 1 with national implications.0:50 It changes Virginia from a roughly evenly split 6 democrat leaning districts and 5 republican leaning districts to 10 to 1 in favor of democrats. However, the measure does still1:02 face some legal challenges. Now though, all eyes are on Florida where Republicans will consider their own redistricting measure beginning later this month. Now for a bombshell1:15 development. The liberal group Southern Poverty Law Center has long accused conservative groups of wrongdoing. But now they're facing federal charges of their own after a grand jury indicted them for 6 counts1:27 of wire fraud, 4 counts of bank fraud, and 1 count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Here is acting attorney general Todd Blanch.
1:36 The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial
1:47 hatred. The indictment describes this conduct in detail, but 1 troubling example is that the SPLC was paying a member of the leadership group that planned the
1:59 Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 that resulted in the death of 1 person and injured dozens more.
2:09 Now SPLC has denied wrongdoing, but the indictment says this was not a 1 time incident, but rather a pattern with millions of dollars funneled through bank accounts to incite racial hatred and then
2:21 cover it up.
2:23 Between 20 14 and 20 23, SPLC paid at least 3000000 dollars to 8 individuals at least. These individuals were affiliated with the Ku Klux
2:35 Klan, United Clans of America, National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations Affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, the National Socialist Party of
2:47 America, Nazis, and the American Front.
2:51 The SPLC has long faced criticism for broadly labeling normal conservative groups as hate groups, which is at times led to violence against them. In 20 12, a gunman came to the headquarters of Family
3:02 Research Council planning to, quote, kill as many people as possible. Thankfully, he was stopped by the Lord's protection and the heroic intervention of Leo Johnson, who was shot by the attacker. But that
3:14 gunman told authorities when he was interviewed that he found and targeted FRC because FRC was labeled a hate group on SPLC's website. We'll keep you updated on this story and the
3:26 ongoing case against SPLC right here. Meanwhile, Florida attorney general James Utmeijer announced he is launching a criminal probe into OpenAI and its artificial intelligence
3:37 app, BAP ChatGPT, over a deadly shooting last year that killed 2 people at Florida State University. A gunman killed 2 and wounded 6 others last year in that shooting before he was shot
3:49 by officers and hospitalized. But apparently, he had help from artificial intelligence, which allegedly helped him plan the attack. The Florida AG said that if a human being said what Chatt GPT
4:01 said to the shooter, that person would be behind bars.
4:05 Chatbot advised the shooter on what type of gun to use, on which ammo went with which gun, on whether or not a gun would be useful
4:17 in short range. Chat GPT advised the shooter on what time of day would be appropriate for the shooting to interact with more people and where on
4:29 campus would be the place to encounter a higher population.
4:35 OpenAI has denied wrongdoing. Well, that's today's news. Check-in next time for 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 now.
5:11 According to the charges in the indictment, the SPLC is a nonprofit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred. As the indictment describes,
5:23 the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial
5:35 hatred.
5:36 That was acting US attorney general, Todd Blanche, yesterday evening announcing a federal indictment against the infamous Southern Poverty Law Center for criminal activity. Welcome to this Wednesday, April
5:48 20 second edition of Washington Watch. I'm Tony Perkins, your host. Thanks so much for joining us. Well, coming up, we'll discuss the charges against this anti Christian organization, Southern Poverty Law Center, when
5:59 we're joined by Wyoming congresswoman Harriet Hagemann, a house judiciary committee member and a long time litigator. Also, senator Roger Marshall of Kansas will join us to talk about today's, hearing
6:11 on Capitol Hill with Health and Human Services secretary Robert f Kennedy junior, including his response to the issue of the abortion drug mifepristone. All of that and more straight ahead.
6:27 The justice department has indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center accusing the far left nonprofit of funneling millions of dollars to fund the very organizations that they solicited donations
6:39 to dismantle. The SPLC paid for hate. Joining us now to discuss this is Washington's Sand reporter Casey Harper. Casey, what can you tell us about this?
6:50 This is pretty big.
6:51 Yeah, Tony. Big and kind of ironic as you sort of hinted to, but I'll give you some of the details here for our audience. A federal grand jury in Alabama handed down this indictment. There's 11 counts, which includes
7:02 wire fraud and money laundering against the SPLC. Now what happened here? Well, the indictment says that this far left nonprofit actually made more than 3000000 dollars in payments to
7:13 informants working at a variety of extremist groups. And when we say extremists, we mean extremists. We're talking KKK and the like. Now, of course, the SPLC LC is saying they did nothing wrong. They're saying the Trump
7:25 administration is just picking on them here. I guess we'll see how this all, all plays out. But I don't have to tell you, Tony, that, SPLC is no stranger to FRC. Of course, their hate map,
7:36 was part of what motivated a, attack on FRC about 13 years ago.
7:43 Yeah. And and it wasn't just informants. In many of these cases, it was the leadership, and they were prompt, propping up these organizations. In fact, rebooting some of these,
7:54 white supremacist groups. I mean, in reality, Casey, this would be like the Family Research Council that ask our partners to support us in ending abortion, the holocaust, and the unborn, taking that money and giving it
8:06 to planned parenthood. And and just so that we can have someone that to advocate against. That's what they were doing.
8:13 Right.
8:13 And then when you get investigated, you just blame Trump.
8:16 Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's that's very handy. Yeah. Alright. Voters in Virginia, narrowly approved the new democratic drawn congressional map that could potentially change the landscape. However, just
8:28 as we're going, on the air, a court has stepped in and pushed the pause button. Give us the latest.
8:34 Yeah. That's right. Breaking news here on Washington Watch. Of course, we know about the, Virginia election results, which could result in 4, Republican leading US House seats going over to Democrats, taking this a
8:45 pretty a purple state for to making it a 10 to 1, congressional map in favor of Democrats. But as you mentioned, Ken Cuccinelli, who's involved in this case, just tweeted out sharing
8:57 that, there's actually a court ruling that is not gonna certify the election, what this is gonna immediately be appealed, and I think it's gonna work its way through the courts, very, very quickly. But there's been,
9:08 different reactions to yesterday's turnout. Mike Johnson was saying that there was really encouraging signs that Republicans turned out and lost so very narrowly, actually, considering the narrative about Republicans
9:20 this November. And we actually have a clip here of house majority leader Steve Scalise.
9:24 Virginia is a deep blue state, but, it was a heavily contested election in 51 49. I mean, you know, it's, it's a a blatant abuse of power,
9:36 to disenfranchise millions of Virginia voters. And, hopefully, the Supreme Court of the state
9:42 will not allow that to happen.
9:44 Now all eyes, Tony, are turning to Florida where Republicans are scheduled to hold a special sec session to see if maybe they can, get 2 or 3 more seats by, redrawing their maps. And when you look at the national
9:55 maps, California favoring Democrats, Texas picking up some Republican seats after this Virginia, election, assuming the court doesn't permanently stop it and maybe it will, Democrats are probably up 1 seat in
10:07 this national battle right now.
10:09 Very interesting. We'll have to keep our eye on that. That's gonna be, unfolding this week. Casey, thanks so much for, the update. Thanks, Tony. Alright. I wanna, go back to our top story. A
10:21 federal appeals court, well, actually, there's another case. I just wanna mention this. This was out of Texas. It was the, kind of the parallel case
10:33 to Louisiana's 10 Commandments. This actually happened, after the program yesterday, but the 10 Commandments, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has, given the green light to the Texas,
10:45 public schools to display the 10 Commandments. It was a companion case to the Louisiana 10 Commandments case, which they ruled on earlier. So good news for, the state of Texas, the 10 Commandments
10:57 ruled constitutional and will go up into the, the classrooms. Alright. I wanna go back to, to the indictment announced yesterday evening against the Southern Poverty Law Center. Joining us now to discuss this is
11:09 congresswoman Harriet Hegeman, a member of the House Judiciary Committee. She has 34 years of experience as a litigator. She represents, Wyoming's at large,
11:20 district. And, actually, I think we're trying to connect with her on the, the house floor as the house is in voting. While we're waiting for her, let me bring in,
11:32 Chris Gacek, senior fellow here at the Family Research Council, who has long been tracking the Southern Poverty Law Center. So so so, Chris, I wanna get your initial reaction to this. We were talking
11:44 yesterday about a press release that the Southern Poverty Law Center sent out trying to cushion the blow. This is quite significant, the criminal activity they were involved in.
11:55 I mean, it definitely is is alarming when you when you read the indictment. Not only are there sort of a lot of embarrassing details and and things that are going on that, you know, run against the
12:08 their narrative about who they are, But there are also things like opening false bank accounts and having the chief financial officer of the the organization and another high ranking employee,
12:20 opening these accounts. And then the the accounts are used to to funnel money to these, various, you know, nefarious groups. And if if I'm not correct I mean, if not mistaken, there was 1000000
12:32 dollars that went to some neo Nazi group.
12:35 But it wasn't it wasn't somebody who was an informant. It was the people leading it. I mean, these are people that were leading the organization. So they were propping it up so that they could have a, you know, a
12:43 boogeyman so that they could go to donors about it. Many of these organizations have been dead, and they resurrected them with their funds. Chris, I wanna we've got congresswoman Hegeman on. I wanna go to her. She's
12:55 she's calling in from the, the house floor as the house is, working on votes this hour. Congresswoman Hegeman, thanks so much for joining us here on Washington Watch.
13:05 K. It's wonderful to be with you, especially on such an incredibly important topic.
13:09 It is. I I I wanna get your reaction to this indictment.
13:14 I'm livid. I I there are very few things that make me really mad. This 1 makes me mad. What they have done to this country over the last 40 years, they have done such
13:25 lasting and horrific damage to race relations, to families, to it is stunning to me, the fraud and the criminal activity here, and every 1 of them should be prosecuted and thrown in jail for life. In addition to which,
13:37 what false allegations of racism and hatred
13:49 and danger. And that I've known for a long time that SPLC was a fraud, but I never had the understanding that they were the ones that were creating their own strawman so that they could knock
14:01 them down. And the reason it was so obvious that they were a fraud is that I've never met anybody that ascribes to the kinds of thoughts and theories and philosophy that
14:13 they claim that we all ascribe to. I've never met anybody who hates somebody because of the color of their skin. I've never met somebody or engaged with anyone who engages in that kind of abhorrent behavior.
14:25 Well, it's because they were the ones creating it.
14:28 Right. I'm I'm sure there's somebody out there somewhere, but this what they've done with this, congresswoman, is that they have they they've created it as you pointed out, but for the purpose
14:40 of attaching organizations like like ours and like so many other Christian conservative organizations to those organizations. So my question for you having worked as a
14:52 litigator, in this process as more information becomes available, I think there's more of a criminal conspiracy here than what is in this indictment. Could we see additional charges or activities,
15:04 coming against them?
15:06 I absolutely believe so. I the way that I have looked at this is I think this is kind of the bare bones to get it out there, but there will be additional charges because as you say, this is a broad, broad conspiracy, and
15:17 it was for purposes of racking up literally tens of millions of dollars. With 1 hoax, with just 1 hoax, they raised 65000000 dollars So I'm looking at what can
15:29 we do? What can Congress do to make this so absolutely costly that nobody will ever engage in this kind of behavior again? I mean, even if they have to forfeit all of their ill gotten gains, which I would argue
15:41 that since they've been doing this since the 1980s, all of the money that they have raised is fraudulent. But I think that we ought to look at it that they also owe the taxes because they were a nonprofit.
15:53 What would the taxes have been on all of that money over the years that they have raised that? They should also have to back pay all those taxes. But in addition to which, I think that we ought to start considering
16:04 things like treble taxes, that if you engage in this kind of behavior where you're defrauding the federal government of tax revenue based upon a fraudulent conspiracy, then you not only have to pay back taxes, but you
16:15 have to pay the 3 times the amount of your taxes. I also would like to see changes to the laws surrounding piercing the corporate veil. For those folks engaged in this kind of
16:27 behavior, they should not be able to say, well, it's the corporation that did it. They should be personally, personally responsible and perhaps responsible for attorney's fees.
16:37 What about statute limitations when this information comes out for their for its victims? The victims of this organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, who have you know, we've passed the now that this information's
16:49 out, somewhat like the attack on the Family Research Council has passed the statute of limitations. Should that be something that should be considered?
16:57 I think that we need to look at it. I think we need to look at it. The fact is that the statute of limitations on things doesn't necessarily start until you knew or should have known. So I would argue that I'm not sure
17:08 that it has passed on they were the ones concealing the information. They're the ones with the unclean hands. Why should your cause of action against them be barred when they're the ones that prevented you from
17:20 knowing that they were fabricating their own claims of racism and smearing you in the process.
17:26 You you mentioned raising the money, the hoax of 65000000. I mean, we know from this indictment that they were behind Charlottesville. They helped We know bring that about, and they raised millions
17:38 of dollars off that. A lot of that from corporate America. Many corporations gave into that, effort as well based on this hoax.
17:48 And I and and I would blame some of those corporations as well because I don't think that they were doing the due diligence that they needed to because you could tell that there were problems with SPLC. And I guess to
17:59 assuage whatever guilt they had, they thought that that was the appropriate thing to do. What's interesting, Tony, is that I'm seeing organizations out there still defending this group. And I'm going to tell you right
18:10 now, the fact is that when all of this comes forward, those companies and those individuals who are attempting to excuse this or down play it or shove it under the rug, they are going to rue the day
18:22 that they do that. They should everybody should be running from SBLC right now and absolutely saying we want nothing to do with anybody who would create such create such horrific,
18:34 horrific allegations out of full cloth so that they could destroy, conservative America.
18:40 Well, you need to share that with, Chuck Schumer on the other side of the, the Capitol. Harry, we're out of time. Thanks for joining us, from the House floor. Alright, folks. Stick with us. We're back with more after
18:50 this.
18:53 I think all people really need to have this type of education.
18:56 Well, I can tell you that it's been an amazing course period.
18:59 I think this course is a reminder that a biblical worldview should really impact everything. Everything. It impacts our government from the federal to the state to the local. It should impact what we're doing with our
19:10 families and with our work.
19:12 God and Government is a video driven Bible based training course from Family Research Council that explores the connection between biblical principles and
19:32 government from a biblical worldview.
19:35 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.
19:40 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.
19:47 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
19:59 to encourage legislators to make choices that have a biblical worldview, which is what we really want.
20:05 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
20:13 of this great land, and that that comes with responsibility. Even 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
20:23 approachable enough that newer people, younger people, high school, 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
20:33 doing it in person, bring your bible study group through it, bring your homeschool group through it, and equip yourself for these challenging days ahead.
20:41 View the course at f r c dot o r g slash god and government or on the Stand Firm app.
20:54 When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for 1 people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.
21:01 And to assume among the powers of the earth
21:04 The separate and equal station to which the laws of nature
21:07 And of nature's god entitled them.
21:09 A decent respect to the opinions of mankind
21:12 requires that they should declare the causes
21:14 Which should impel them to the separation.
21:17 We hold these truths to be self evident.
21:20 That all men are created equal.
21:22 That they're endowed by their creator
21:24 with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
21:30 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Happy 200 and fiftieth. Happy 200 and fiftieth.
21:42 Happy 200 and fiftieth.
21:43 Happy 200 and fiftieth birthday, America.
21:46 May god bless America. This is Washington Watch. I'm Tony Perkins. Glad you've joined us on
21:58 this Wednesday. The website, tony perkins dot com. Alright. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert f Kennedy junior was back on Capitol Hill today where he faced questions from lawmakers this time in the senate.Show more
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