Where if you look at the old and the new testament, theres a consistent and clear teaching that we are to exercise that citizenship in a robust and muscular fashion. First of all, to defend our rights within that government, which of course in the United States means our rights under the constitution and the bill of rights. To the freedom of speech, to assembly, to freedom of religion. All of those things that are our birthright, and then secondly, as a witness of our faith. So in the context of the decision by the overwhelming majority of evangelical christians and prolife and pro family and faithful roman catholics to back trump, both in 2016 and today, my argument in the book is that if you look at where he stands on the issues, that they would define as moral issues, issues central to their way, issues like right to life, right to freedom, defense of the state of israel. Moving the court in the direction of respect for the constitution and the bill of rights, and not legislating from the bench, treating the courts as a legislature, which theyre not supposed to be, those are all issues that, in my view, and in the view of tens of millions of these voters, are defining moral issues that are central to their core as people of faith and on those issues, donald trump pledged to share their values and fight for them and advance them, a pledge, by the way, that hes kept and Hillary Clinton and i would argue now joe biden are on the opposite side of every one of those issues. So, not that this he didnt have rest are evaluations about trump, peter, they did and i document that in the book. It was a struggle for many of these voters, but they made the right call, not just politically, but morally and theyve been totally vindicated for making that call because he kept those promises. What are some examples of how hes kept those promises . Well, i actually have a 30page appendix in the book thats titled promises made, promises kept, that details all of these promises and whatever you think of trump, its an extraordinary record of achievement, but just to name a few, on the life issue, hes the first president to ever come in person and address the march for life, the first president to ever send his vicepresident to address the march for life. Thats not just symbolism. The bully pulpit of this office is very important, it sets the tone for the culture. Hes the first president since roe vs wade to begin the process of defunding planned parenthood, the largest Abortion Provider in the world today, they receive about a half a billion dollars a year in taxpayer funding and hes taken steps to remove that. And hes moved the embassy to jerusalem recognizing the capital as jerusalem. Believers in the idea that defending jews and supporting israel is part of our faith. Thats important to us and finally, in his court appointments, you know, its easy to forget this, peter, but he was the First Major Party candidate for president in American History to release a list of 21 names with a vacancy on the Supreme Court on election day, and say if you elect me president , im not going to pick someone like these 21 people, im going to choose one of these 21. Now, when he did that in may of 2016, his critics accused him of being a liar. They said you cant trust him. We dont believe him. You know, there was this sort of snarky commentary, you know, he wasnt, he wasnt true in his marriages so hes not going to be true in this promise. They were all wrong. He not only kept that promise in february of 2017 when he appointed neil gorsuch, he kept it again in july of 2018 when he picked brett kavanaugh. Theyre both on the Supreme Court today. Hes kept it another 200 times. About 50 times with Appellate Court judges and the rest District Court judges and to conservative and biblebelieving christians, those are important promises to keep because we think upholding our right to religious freedom and our First Amendment right ultimately will be determined by the court. Ralph reed youve mentioned the prolife position of the president a couple of times and in your book you write, i have heard a lot of formerly pro choice candidates explain how they came to their prolife views in my career, but few had more genuine stories than trumps. What is the president s story . Yeah, i detail it in the book. I detail the fact, peter, that i got to know the president in 2011. He literally cold called me. Never met him before in my life. Honestly, didnt have a high opinion of him and i told him that when he called me. And he said the next time youre in new york come see me. I did. I told him if he was serious about running for president he should come to one of the events of my organization, faith and Freedom Coalition and get to know some of these evangelical activists and he did that and he did it repeatedly and one of the times that i met with him in trump tower, he, without me eliciting it, he raised it. He said, you know, i used to be pro choice, but let me tell you what happened. He said, i had a good friend of mine who became pregnant and it was an inconvenient or unplanned pregnancy. And by the way, most are. And she didnt really know what to do. Her husband wanted her to have an abortion, and this woman, who was a good friend of his, and he and melania were good friends of this couple, said what do you think i should do and he literally didnt know what to stay to this person. Long story short, she made the decision to keep the child. The child does not know that she was nearly aborted. She certainly doesnt know that trump knows that, but he watched this woman grow up knowing that and in his telling to me, he said, shes an amazing woman and a star. And he said, so i started thinking to myself, she almost didnt make it and thats when i decided that there were probably millions of people like that who arent with us and you know, i cant judge his heart. I dont know whether or not that was that change of heart was genuine or was politically calculated. But itted it sounded genuine to me whatever the facts are, and the fact is, hes the most prolife president weve ever had. He kept his word and i think its real. Now, ralph reed, you mentioned you did not have a high opinion of donald trump in 2011 and write in your book, that christians are not seeking a political savior in donald trump so theres a political calculus here . Well, theres certainly a calculus as citizens, and i walked through it in my book. And i talked a little about it in answer to a previous question you had that were called upon as citizens, i believe, to, first of all, defend our rights and i talk about in the book how when the apostle paul was arrested in jerusalem and this is all detailed in the book, and he was about to be put on trial, it was going to be a Kangaroo Court and he was going to be executed. He exercised the most precious right of a roman citizen, which was to appeal his case to caesar. It was an unbelievable sacred right after roman citizen. And in the roman world, very few people actually were citizens. Certainly, most jews were not. He was. And to caesar he went. Now, he did ultimately die, but i thought it was interesting that while he was willing to die for the gospel, he wasnt willing to surrender his rights as a roman. So first of all, were just were called upon to defend our rights. Trump has offered to defend our rights and by the way, the caesar at that time, the occupant of that office was tiberius, who was a notorious sexual deviant. He was a pedophile. He murdered his opponents, and had their bodies float down the tiber river to intimidate his critics. He was not a good man, but thats who paul appealed to, and so thats the first thing were called to do. The second thing were called to do is to advance the common and the moral good and i quote Ronald Reagan in his famous address to the National Association of evangelicals in 1983 where he said, you know, look, you dont get to check out of citizenship and say, you know, both sides are flawed. Youve got to choose a side and he was talking about communism versus capitalism, but it applies today in our own context and the third thing were called to do is to resist evil. And i believe that abortion on demand is a moral evil and trump is offering to resist that. So, that in a sense is the argument. Thats the christian case, not that hes perfect because none of us are perfect. Not that hes without sin because all of us sin. But on these aspects of a true understanding of citizenship, he is someone that we can work with and whos offered to defend these things and advance the common good. Mr. Reed, as a long time political strategist and activist and insider, do you see this president as suffering more slings and arrows than previous occupants of the office . You know, its it seems to come with the office if you studied and read American History as i have, you know, and you read the things that were said about thomas jefferson, you know that he was an infidel and he was an agent of the french government. It sounds a little reminiscent, doesnt it, the things that were said about Abraham Lincoln and about fdr that he wanted to be a dictator. So, it does kind of come with the territory, but i think in trumps case, at least in the modern political era of post world war ii ive never seen anything like it. I think part of it is because he takes on the media. He gives as good as he gets and then they sort of try to pay him back. Ive never seen coverage this negative, this unfair or this withering and chapter 14 of the book is about that. And secondly, think about this, he was under investigation or at least his campaign was while he was running for president by the fbi and the justice department, an investigation that continued after he was sworn in based on the false predicate that he might be an asset of russia, a hostile foreign power. We now know that that was a complete lie and that the predicate of that investigation was a total fraud and it was based on Opposition Research that was a lie from the Hillary Clinton campaign, but i peter, i dont think like that has ever happened before in American History. Back to your book, quote, impeachment was a fools errand. Mr. Reed, in todays political environment given the fact that were in the world that we are. Yeah. Is impeachment going to be forgotten about . You mean by voters in 2020 or by yes, by voters in 2020. Well, unfortunately, and i was, you know, in the room, so to speak, during the clinton impeachment in 19 you know, 98, 99, i think impeachment, look, its always been a political weapon by definition. I think that was the case in 1867 with andrew johnson. But i think the bar has really been lowered. I think it was lowered when republicans impeached clinton and i argued that at the time. I was in the room. I was part of Newt Gingrichs speaker advisory group. I was then at the Christian Coalition and i certainly didnt agree with what bill clinton in having the affair with an intern and lying about it under oath, but i just questioned whether or not it was advisable, given the fact that that impeachment was dead on arrival in the senate to proce proceed. And i think i was right there. But you know, there were many people that felt that this undermined the rule of law and i certainly didnt disagree with that. I think its been cheapened even more under pelosi. I think it essentially became a partisan tool and was a joke and i think that if you go out and you conduct a poll today and ask people what they thought of impeachment, i think its going to be vowed through a partisan lens, depending upon who the voter is. I think thats unfortunate, but it seems to be part of that partisan back and forth. What did you think of the president s walk to st. Johns episcopal. I strongly supported it. I released a statement at that time to that effect. I supported it for two reasons. Number one, because i think the president was making a strong and powerful statement by walking across Lafayette Park that were not going to allow our cities or our streets to be taken over by criminals, by looters, and by domestic terrorists who burned down businesses, shoot police officers, and in the case of st. Johns, tried to burn down one of the most sacred eclease astical places and. Its its counterproductive to addressing racism, discrimination and Police Brutality and the second message he was sending is that while we need to fight the evil of racism and while we need Public Policy responses to racism and Police Brutality, and i support all of that. My organization Freedom Coalition lobbied for years for criminal Justice Reform so that africanamericans who we believed had been unfairly incarcerated under mass incarceration would get a Second Chance at life. Not just africanamericans, but disproportionately those of color, but ultimately the answer to what ails our country, including the original sin of racism, can be found in the repentant, forgiveness and redemption thats found through the gospel and by going there, trump was saying that. And i strongly supported it. Another topic you cover in your new book for god and country is the mike pence. Yeah. In pence, trump gained what all president s want, but few get, an effective loyal advocate who has no agenda other than to advance and protect the single client, namely the president. Right. Yeah, im biased because mike pence is a friend of mine and i talk about it in the book. I got to know him when he came to congress in the early ough oughts. And we would have him speak as a congressman and i you can at that about the behind the scenes stories how he ended up on the ticket, stories he shared with me and i think that mike pence is one of the finest vicepresident s weve ever had. I know the president is grateful to have him and i know the president loves him, thinks very highly of him and values his counsel tremendously. I couldnt tell all the stories that i know in the book about the role that hes played in the administration, but i do share some of them and i think even though mike pence is obviously a person of great ambition of his own, i personally think a godly ambition, i think his main and only consideration is to serve the president and his country and i think hes done an incredible job doing so, including most recently heading up the white house, Coronavirus Task force. s one of the finest Public Servants ive ever gotten to know in my career and im glad hes there and the president is, too. Whats been your involvement with the Trump Administration as an advisor, et cetera . Well, im a friend of the president and a friend of the vicepresident and obviously a friend of a lot of the people who have served there or serve there now. Thats really my main role. I support them, i do everything i can to work with them, to make their job easier. Its a very tough job. In addition to that, i serve on the White House Faith Initiative and then finally, in my capacity as head of faith and freedom, we work very closely with the white house on a lot of Public Policy matters, including the life issues, the criminal Justice Reform, immigration reform, many other issues we work with them. So ive got a great team at faith and freedom and theyre, you know, in the white house on a on a weekly basis working on those issues to advance that Public Policy. When you look at the hard numbers, what percentage of evangelicals support donald trump over joe biden . Well, in 2016, they supported donald trump at the highest level ever recorded in modern american political history. He got 81 is of the vote and hillary 16. I dont know that ive seen a ballot test yet that had an evangelical sample that i consider to be reliable enough yet, but right now the president s job approval, which is a fairly good indication, depending upon the poll, is somewhere between 65 and 75 . Thats about where he was in the polling in the summer of 2016 and i think once we get past the pandemic and have more reopening and we can have a Real Campaign and biden picks his running mate and we have the convention, i think it will be in the high 70s, to mid 80s and i predict that evangelicals will vote for the president in even larger numbers than they did in 2016. And for a good reason given that all that hes achieved, he is a richly deserved their supports. Are there enough evangelicals to help bring donald trump over the finish line in 2020 . Not by themselves, but theyre a very critical constituency. Theyre 27 of the entire electorate and when you combine the number of main line christians who dont identify as evangelical, but consider the bible to be the word of god, they play daily, they go to church weekly, they wouldnt subscribe to that term born again, but they share the faith and frequently roman catholics, roughly 36 of the electorates. Its bigger than the africanamerican vote, the hispanic vote and the union vote combined and theyre going to turn out in big numbers and theyre going to matter and particularly those prolife catholics, peter. Theyre going to make or break the president ial race in the upper midwest in those critical states of michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania. So, yeah, theyre really important and theyre not the only constituency, but theyre the largest, the most dynamic and the most vibrant constituency in the entire electorate. One of the things you do in for god and country at the end of the book you look at 2020, but do it through the lens of 2016. 6. 5 billion dollars was spent overall in all the 2016 elections, and you say its going to be an increase that the democrats and the left are registering voters at a faster pace than the republicans. Right. What does the landscape look like to you today given everything were going through . Well, obviously, peter, i wrote the book prior to the pandemic. And so, you know, that kind of forced both campaigns to go sort of all virtual and all online for some period of time. The president has announced that hes about to begin his rallies again and i believe the first one is going to be within the next 10 days to two weeks. I understand its going to be in oklahoma so well see what happens. But prior to this, the educated projections were that the two sides would spend 10 billion between them. I dont know whether well hit that number now or not, but were continuing to register voters at faith and freedom. The overwhelming majority of churches are closed, but in those states where we can, were doing it doortodoor and were doing it online. Im sure the left is as well. I think were going to have the biggest turnout in American History in a president ial race, both in raw numbers and in the share of the electorate. You see the biggest share of the registered voters that weve had since 1968. Its going to be big, its going to be close, its going to be hard fought and because theres going to be so much reliance on absentee voting, early voting and mailin ballots because of the pandemic, you know, candidly, you know, i cant predict, but because it takes longer to vote cast those votes and they can be postmarked as late as election day depending upon the state we may not know the winner in some of these states for days. Its going to be Something Like weve never seen before. Ralph reed, maybe some people dont know that you have a ph. D. In history from emory university. What was your field of study . My field of study was the my focus was the south. It was American History since 1865, focused primarily on the south. I studied under some of the finest southern historians in the country at that time, dan t carter and jim roark to run my dissertation committee. They didnt necessarily share my politics, but they were amazing scholars and i learned so much from them. And my doctoral dissertation was a history of evangelical Higher Education in the south between 1865 and roughly world war i. I didnt end up teaching, but, boy, i ended up using all i learned later for what i ended up doing at the Christian Coalition and now faith and freedom. So, its kind of interesting the way my life took a turn that i didnt expect, but i still ended up benefitting so much from that doctoral education. How did you come to your politics . I think the best way i could describe it, i was raised in a republican household so that was kind of always my background, but the way i really kind of got fired up and engaged was a guy from california named Ronald Reagan. I was a student at the university of georgia. He ran for president in 1980. I was the chairman of the college republicans, from the largest State University in jimmy carters home state of georgia and nothing against carter personally, i have great admiration for him as a fellow christian, but i just didnt feel that his policies and leadership were giving my generation the brightest future for the country. And i got really excited about Ronald Reagan and went out and worked my tail off for him and i was a reaganite and that was the beginning and i never really looked back. You have an image, as does Ronald Reagan, as kind of a happy warrior. Would you describe donald trump in that way . Yeah, i would say yes, with a heavy dollop of queens, new york. You know, hes coming from a little bit of a different social and cultural location than i am. And i have Great Respect for that. I think, i think were all unique based on our upbringing, our experiences, our background, our family and hes a very unique individual. I had the privilege of sitting in his office on a lot of occasions and every now and again, you know, people would just walk in and talk to him or hed take a phone call and i couldnt really believe that he would let me just sit there and have a birds eye view to how he operated, but let me tell you, i got quite an education on what it was like to be in the Real Estate Industry in manhattan just listening to him talk and be who he was, but i do think hes a happy warrior. I think he believes in the country. Hes a patriot. He thinks the best is yet to come. He very much believes that things that other people dont think can happen can happen. He dreams big, he thinks big and he acts big. Hes a counterpuncher, Everybody Knows that, but he looks for the best and he believes the best and i have to say, and i talk about this in the book that even though i didnt have a high opinion of him going in and i told him that, i found him impossible not to like. I connected with him from that very first phone call and i really grew to like him and love him and his family and its an extraordinary family, and hes an american original. Amazing what hes done. As a historian, do you see parallels to 1968 . Well, yes and no. I mean, we obviously were in the middle of what was the longest war that america had ever been in at that time, a deeply divisive war with our College Campuses in an uproar, violence in our streets on a level that far exceeds what we have now, and so i think it was more divisive then by far. You know, you had chicago, the Democratic Convention just completely turned upsidedown by mayor richard daley, police billyclubbing the protesters and all of that violence. I dont think we have anything quite like that. Each time is unique, each time is different. What about the president running as a quote, unquote, law and order president . Well, id say yes and no. I think its a very different time. It remains to be seen whether or not the protests related to the george floyd episode ever rises to the occasion that we saw in terms of the riot and the demonstrations that rose out of the tragic assassination of Martin Luther king and then later the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in april and june of 1968. My own hope, its my desire, i dont know whether it will happen, but im hopeful and im praying that it will, that the democrats are going to pass some kind of a Police Reform bill in the house. I think tim scott working, i hope, on a bipartisan basis, tim scott, the africanamerican republican senator from south carolina, will offer what i hope will be a bipartisan bill in the senate. Hopefully we can get to the Conference Committee and resolve those bills and the president can sign Bipartisan Legislation sometime this summer. Ralph reed is the former chair of the Georgia Republican party. Is georgia up for grabs this year . Its certainly competitive. No question about it. It was in 2016. It was in 2018. It will be hard fought. We have two u. S. Senate races that are on the ballot. Two senate races because of the retirement of Johnny Isakson and the appointment of Kelly Leffler as his replacement by governor brian kemp. So that will be an open primary on november 3rd that will be resolved by a runoff and then the other senate seat, David Perdues senate seat. We now know that john is i cant remember where that was resolved with the primary and then the president ial race, i think in 2016, was 3, 4, 5 and probably will be again. So, yeah, its a Battle Ground state. It will be hard fought. Remains to be seen how much money the democrats are willing to put in here. How much can they invest. Hillary came in here, but not with a huge amount of money and donald trump won it and i think that donald trump will win it again. Lets finish with this, in your book for god and country, as a christian i believe that god is in the sovereign nation. Could this with the trump presidency, contrary to whats the answer . If you believe that god is sovereign in affairs of men, women and the nation, then the answer is yes. Contraire toy what we expected, and i document in the book, that twothirds of evangelical voters supported somebody else in the republican primary. He did win the evangelical vote, but in a crowded field. So they united behind him after he became the nominee. They didnt expect this to happen. I think its fair to say most pundits, most pollsters, most socalled experts and certainly the media didnt expect it to happen. But that would be equally true, you know, as a christian for me with george w. Bush or obama or clinton or anybody else. You know, gods ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and he has plans and reasons that we dont completely understand. And when someone is in leadership or authority, they are in that position either providentially or within the larger design of providence. Even when we may disagree with them, even when they may be an evil ruler, thats just my belief in what my faith teaches. So, thats why ultimately, our hope, and i make this clear in the book. Were not looking to donald trump or any other president or any other politician to be our savior or to be our deliverer. Our hope and our ultimate is in jesus christ and for now, we may back and vote for politicians, but we dont give them our ultimately loyalty, that belongs only to god. Did you ever consider seminary . [laughter] yeah, but not seriously. I thought about it, but i think i i dont think i missed my calling. I think i was called to do what im doing now. Well, ralph reed is the author of for god and country, what book is this for you . I believe its number seven. Ralph reed, thanks for joining us on book tv. Thank you, its always an honor and pleasure to be with these fans. On our weekly Author Interview program after words, former Clinton Administration press secretary mccurry discusses the history of the phrase enemy of the people. Every one of those president s complained about press coverage, every one of those president s thought that the press focused on was way too negative. Didnt see the great accomplishments of the administration. Thats standard operating procedure, but you know, i mean trumps attacks go far beyond any of that. I mean, literally, its not just so you have enemy of the people, which is a phrase which i actually, i spent a little bit of time in the book about the origins of that phrase. Its a very ugly phrase thats been used by, you know used by stalin, used by hitler, you know, used during the french revolution to justify the beheadings of people, by guillotine. Talk a little bit more about that. Thats one of the most interesting parts of the book is unpacking that phrase and you do that at some length in a couple of chapters and really, you know, go through what a noxious phrase that is, if you look back at the history of it. But talk about that a little bit. I spent some time looking through the origins of the phrase and it was used quite prominently during the french revolution. Thats really the most significant place. People got beheaded as a result. And the, you know, and basically the justification was the people that were targeted by the law under which they were found guilty and beheaded, the actual law uses that phrase, enemy of the people. And i go through and i document. I document the use of it during the rein of terror when blood was flowing in the streets of paris. And then the other place that the next place i saw it was wi with in germany, it was it gave hitler his powers, you know, i go back and i find this article that it was an Associated Press article landing on the front page of the New York Times and many others around the world, right there in the lead paragraph you see the National Socialist party making the case of anybody who votes against this is an enemy of the people. So you have the nazis using the phrase and then you see it, you know, a bit later used by josef stalin. Now, this is maybe im not saying that donald trump knew that that was the, you know, the history behind this phrase, but it was certainly pointed out by a lot of people that it had this really dark and morbid and deadly history and he kept using it. To watch the rest of this program and to find other episodes of after words visit our website, book tv. Org and click on the after words tab near the top of the page. Thank you for joining us all tonight. With alicia, im for color of change, the Largest Online organization. Were partnering with one world tonight to make a virtual space for critical conversation between editor and chief of one world, Chris Jackson and one of our most powerful organizers and visionary, alicia garza. In 2014 she wrote
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