You look at the old and the new testament there is a consistent and clear teaching the we are to exercise that citizenship in a robust and muscular fashion, 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, freedom of speech, to assembly, freedom of religion, all those things that are our birthright and then secondly as a witness of our faith. In the context of the decision by the overwhelming majority of evangelical christians and prolife and profamily and faithful roman catholics to back trump in 2016 and today my argument in the book is if you look at where he stands on the issues that they would define as moral issues central to their faith, issues like the right to life, the right to religious freedom, defense of the state of israel, moving the court in the direction of respect for the constitution and the bill of rights is not legislating from the bench, treating the courts as a legislature which they are not supposed to be, those are all issues in the view of tens of millions of these voters are defining moral issues central to their core as people of faith. On this issue donald trump pledged to share their values and fight for them and advance them, a pledge that he has kept in Hillary Clinton and i would argue, now joe biden are on the opposite side of every one of those issues. Not that they didnt have reservations about trump, they did. 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 totally vindicated in that call because he kept those promises. Host what are examples how he kept those promises . I have a 30 page appendix in the book titled promises made promises kept, details all of these promises. Whatever you think of trump is an extraordinary record of achievement. Just to name a few, the first president to ever come in person and address the march for life, the first president to send his Vice President to address the march for life, not just symbolism, the bully pulpit at this office is important and sets the tone for the culture, the first president since roe v wade to begin the process of defunding planned parenthood, the largest Abortion Provider in the world today. They receive half 1 billion a year in taxpayer funding, he has taken steps to end that. He moved the us embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem recognizing jerusalem as the capital of israel. As believers in the idea that defending jews and supporting israel is part of our faith, that is important to us and finally in his court appointment. It is easy to forget this 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 a few elect me president im not going to pick someone like these 21 people. Im going to choose one of these 21. When he did that in may of 2016, his critics accused him of being a liar, you cant trust him, we dont believe him. There was a snarky commentary. 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 that he kept it again in july of 2018 when he picked brett kavanaugh, he kept at 200 times, about 50 times with the public court judges. To conservative and bible believing christians, those are important promises to keep because we think of holding our right to religious freedom and First Amendment rights ultimately will be determined by the court. You mentioned the prolife position of the president and in your book forgotten country right i have heard a lot of prochoice candidates explain how they came to their prolife views, few had more genuine stories than trumps. What is the story . I detail in the book, the fact that i got to know the president in 2011. He 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 next time you are in new york come see me, i did. When he was serious about running for president , one of the events of my organization, faith and Freedom Coalition and get to know these evangelical activists, he did that repeatedly and a lot of times i met with him in trump tower, he, without me eliciting it he raised it and said i used to be prochoice but let me tell you what happened, i had a good friend of mine who became pregnant and it was an inconvenient or unplanned pregnancy and by the way mostar 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, he and milania were good friend of this capital said what you think i should do . He didnt know what to say 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 the trump knows that but he watched this woman grow up knowing that and in his telling me, she is an amazing woman and a star. So i started thinking to myself. That is when i decided there were probably millions of people like that who arent with us. I cant judge his heart. I dont know if the change of heart was genuine or politically calculated and it sounded genuine to me and whatever the facts are, only god can judge our hearts, the fact is he was the most prolife president he ever had, kept his word and i think it is real. Host you mentioned you did not have a high opinion of donald trump in 2011 and you write that christians are not seeking the political savior in donald trump so there is a political calculus here . There is a calculus as citizens and i walk through it in my book and talk a little bit about an answer to a previous question that we are called upon as citizens to defend our rights and i talk about when the apostle paul was arrested in jerusalem. And on trial, a Kangaroo Court and he was going to be executed. He exercised the most precious right of a citizen, it was an unbelievable sacred right of a roman citizen. In the roman world, most jews were not. He was and to caesar he went. He did ultimately die but it was interesting, what he was willing to die for the gospel, he wasnt willing to surrender his rights as a roman. We are called upon to defend our right. Trump is offered to defend our rights and the caesar at that time, the occupant of that office was tiberius who was a notorious sexual deviant, 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 that is who paul appealed to so that is the first thing we are called to do. The second thing is to advance moral good. I quote Ronald Reagan in his address to the National Association of evangelicals in 1983, he said you dont get to check out a citizenship and say both sides are flawed. You got to choose a side and he was talking about communism versus capitalism and it applies in our own context in the third thing we are called to do is resist evil and i believe abortion on demand is a moral evil and trump is offering to resist that. That is the argument. That is the christian case. Not that he is perfect, none of us are perfect, not that he is 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, who offered to defend these things and advance the common good. Host as a long time political strategist and activist and insider do you see this president is suffering more slings and arrows than previous occupants of the white house . Guest it seems to come with the office. If you study and read American History as i have and you read the things that were said about Thomas Jefferson that he was an infotel and an agent of the french government, sound. Reminiscence, doesnt it . The things that were said about abraham lincoln, things that were said about fdr, that he wanted to be a dictator, so it does come with the territory but in trumps case at least in the modern political era postworld war ii i have never seen anything like it. Part of it is because he takes on the media, gives as good as he gets and they try to pay him back. Ive never seen coverage the negative, this unfair or this withering. Chapter 14 of the book is about that. 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, 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. That was a complete lie. The predicate of that investigation was a total fraud, in the Hillary Clinton campaign, i dont think anything like that has ever happened before in American History. Back to your book, quote, impeachment was a fools errand but in todays political environment given the fact that we are in the world we are, is impeachment going to be forgotten . By voters in 2020 . Guest by voters in 2020. Guest unfortunately, i was in the room. And and it was always a political weapon. With andrew johnson. The bar has really been lowered. It was lowered when republicans impeached clinton and i argued that at the time. I was in the room. I was at the Christian Coalition and certainly didnt agree with what bill clinton did in having the affair with an intern and lying about it under oath. Given the idea that impeachment was dead on arrival in the senate should proceed. There were many people who felt this undermine the rule of law and i didnt disagree with that. It was cheap and even more. It was a partisan tool, you conduct a poll today and ask people what they thought of impeachment is going to be viewed through a partisan lens, it was unfortunate, seems to be part of that partisan back and forth. Host what did you think of the president s walk to st. Johns episcopal . Guest i strongly supported, released a statement at the time to that effect, supported for two reasons, number one because the president was making a strong and powerful statement by walking across Lafayette Park that we are not going to allow our cities or our streets to be taken over by criminals, by looters and by domestic terror who burned down businesses, shoot Police Officers and in the case of st. Johns tried to burn down one of the most sacred ecclesiastical spaces in our country. That is wrong, it is over the line, it dishonors the memory of george floyd, it is contrary to everything doctor Martin Luther king preached, lived and taught and it ultimately is counterproductive to addressing the very real issue of racism, discrimination and Police Brutality. 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 that my organization faith and Freedom Coalition lobbied for years for criminal Justice Reform so that africanamericans who we believe had been unfairly incarcerated under mass incarceration would get a Second Chance at life, not just africanamericans, disproportionately those of color. The answer to what ails the country including the original sin of racism can be found in the repentance, and the redemption that is sound through the gospel and by going there trump was saying that i strongly supported. Host another topic you cover in your new book for god and country the christian case for trump is mike pence, quote, in pence trump gains what all president s want, and Effective Oil advocate who has no agenda other than to advance and protect a single client, namely the president. Guest mike pence is a friend of mine and i talk in the book, got to know him when i came to congress, we became friends, we would have him speak at faith and freedom events, when he was a congressman and i think very highly of him. The behind the scenes stories how he ended up on the ticket, stories he shared with me, mike pence is one of the finest Vice President s we ever had. I know the president is grateful to have him in the president loves him, thinks very highly of him, i couldnt tell all the stories i know in the book about the role he has played in the administration but i do share some of them and even though mike pence is obviously a person of great ambition of his own i personally think of godly ambition i think his main and only consideration is to serve the president and he has done an incredible job doing so including most recently heading up the White House Coronavirus task force, one of the finest Public Servants i have ever gotten to know in my career and i am glad he is there and the president is too. I serve on the White House Initiative and 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 issue abimmigration reform, many other issues we work with them. I got a great team at faith and freedom and they are in the white house 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 . In 2016 they supported donald trump at the highest level ever recorded in modern american political history. He got 81 percent of the vote, hillary got 16 percent. I dont know that id seen a ballot test yet that had an evangelical sample that i considered to be reliable enough yet but right now the president s job approval, which is a fairly good indication, depending upon the pole, 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 we get closer to the end of the pandemic and we can have a Real Campaign biden picks his running mate we have the conventions, i think it will be in the high 70s to mid 80s and i predict evangelicals will vote for the president and even larger numbers than they did in 2016. And for good reason given all that hes achieved, hes richly deserve their support. Are there enough evangelicals to help bring donald trump of the finish line in 2020 . Not by themselves but there is a very critical constituency. There are 27 percent of the entire electorate. When you combine the number of mainline christians who dont identify as evangelical but consider the bible to be the word of god, they pray daily, they go to church weekly, they wouldnt subscribe to that term born again but they share the faith and frequently mass attending roman catholics and hits roughly 36 percent of the electorate. Its bigger than the africanamerican vote, the hispanic vote, the union vote combined. They are going to turn out in big numbers and they are really going to matter. And particularly those prolife catholics. There can make or break the president ial race in the upper midwest in those critical states of michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania. So they are really important and they are not the only constituency but they are 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 you do it through the lens of 2016. 6. 5 billion was spent overall in all of 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. What is the landscape look like to you today given everything we are going through . Obviously i wrote the book prior to the pandemic. That kind of force both campaigns to go sort of all virtual and all online. For some period of time. The president has announced hes about to begin his rallies again and i believe that the first one is going to be within the next 10 days to two weeks. I understand its going to be in oklahoma. We will see what happens. Prior to this, the educated projections were that the two sides would spend 10 billion between them. I dont know whether we will hit that number now or not but we are continuing to register voters at faith and freedom. The overwhelming majority of churches are closed but in those states where we can, we are doing doortodoor and doing it online. Im sure the left is as well. I think we can have the biggest turnout in American History in the president ial race both in raw numbers and the sheer of the electorate. The biggest share of the registered voters weve had since 1968. Its going to be big, its going to be close. Its going to be hardfought and because theres going to be so much reliance on absentee voting, early voting and mailing ballot, because of the pandemic, candidly i cant predict but because it takes longer to vote cast a vote they can be postmarked as late as election day depending upon the state, we may not even know the winner in some of these states for days. Its going to be Something Like weve never seen before. Ralph Reed Committee some people dont know you have a phd in history from emory university. What was your field of study . My field of study was my focus was the south it was American History since 1865 focus primarily on the south. I studied under some of the finest southern historians in the country at that time, dan t carter and jim rourke who ran my dissertation committee. They didnt necessarily share my politics but they were amazing scholars and i learned so much for abfrom them. My doctoral dissertation was a abetween 1855 and roughly world war i edited end up teaching but ended up using all i learned later for what i ended up doing at the Christian Coalition and now faith and freedom. Its kind of interesting the way my life took a turn that i didnt expect it but i still ended up benefiting so much from that doctoral education. How did you come to your politics . I think the best way i could describe it, was raised in a republican household that was kind of always in the background but the way i really got fired up and engaged was a guy from california named Ronald Reagan, i was student at the university of georgia. He ran for president in 1980. I was the chairman of the College Republicans on largest State University in jimmy carters home state of georgia and nothing against carter personally, i had great admiration for him as a fellow christian but i just didnt feel his policies and leadership were given 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 i never looked back. You have an image as does Ronald Reagan as kind of a happy warrior. Would you describe donald trump in that way . Yes, i would say yes with a heavy dollop of queens new york. He is coming from a little bit of a different social and cultural location than i am. I have Great Respect for that. I think we are all unique based on our upbringing, or experiences, or backgrounds, our family. He is a very unique individual. I had the privilege of sitting in his office on a lot of occasions and every now and again people would just walk in and talk to him or he would 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. 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 it happened, can happen. He dreams big. He thinks big and he acts big. Hes a counterculture. Everybody knows that. But he looks for the best and he believes the best. I have to say, i talk about this in the book, even though i didnt have a high opinion of him going in, and i told him that, i found him to be impossible not to like. I connected with him from the very first phone call. I really grew to like him and love him and his family. He is an american original. Amazing what hes done. As a historian, do you see parallels to 1968 . Yes and no. 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 College Campuses and an upper violence in our streets on a level that far exceeds what we have now i think it was more divisive then by far you had chicago, Democratic Convention just completely turned upside down by mayor Richard Daleys police, billy clubbing, the protesters, all that violence. We have anything quite like that. Each time is unique, each time is different. What about the president running as a law and order president . I would say yes and no. But it is a very different time. It remains to be seen whether or not the protests related to the george floyd episode ever rise to the occasion we saw in terms of the riots and demonstrations that rose out of the tragic assassination of Martin Luther king and then later the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in april and june 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 a Conference Committee and resolve those bills and the president can sign Bipartisan Legislation sometime this summer. Ralph reed the former chair of the Georgia Republican party. His georgia up for grabs this year . It certainly competitive, no question about it. It was in 2016. It was in 2018. It will be hardfought. We have two u. S. Senate races on the ballot, two senate races because of the retirement of Johnny Isaacson and the appointment of Kelly Leffler as his replacement by governor brian kemp. That will be an open primary on november 3 that will then be resolved by runoff and the other senate seat david produced senate seat we now know that john awsat is the likely or certain, i cant remember where that was resolved with the democratic primary. In the president ial race i think in 2016 was 3, 4, five percent and probably will be again. As a battleground state will be hardfought. Remains to be seen how much money the democrats are willing to put in here. How much can they invest. Hilary came in here with not with the huge amount of money. Donald trump won and i think donald trump will win it again. Lets finish with this from your book for god and country, you asked this question, as a christian i believe god was sovereign in the affairs of acould providence had ordered this moment, the trump presidency, contrary to our own ambitions and expectations . Whats the answer to that question . If you believe as i do that god is sovereign in the affairs of men and women and nations, then the answer is yes. Contrary to what we expected, and i documented the book, two thirds of evangelical voters supported somebody else in the republican primaries. He was not their first choice. He did win the evangelical vote but in a crowded field. 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 as a christian for me with george w. Bush or obama or clinton or anybody else. 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. When someone is in leadership or authority, they are in that position either providentially or within the larger designer providence. Even when we may disagree with them, even when they may be an evil ruler. Thats just my belief and what my faith teaches. Thats what ultimately our hope, and i make it clear the book, we are 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. For now we might back and vote for politicians but we dont give them our ultimate loyalty, that belongs only to god. Did you ever consider seminary . [laughter] yes. But not seriously. I thought about it but i dont think i missed my calling, i think it was called to do what im doing now. Ralph reed is the author of this book for god and country the christian case for trump. This is book number what for you . I believe 7. Ralph reed, thanks for joining us on booktv. Thanks peter, its always an honor and pleasure to be with cspan. Here are some of the current bestselling nonfiction books according to newsmax, topping the list is Alex Berensons claims about the effectiveness of lockdowns in his pamphlet unreported truths about covid19 and lockdown thats followed by democracy in one book or less by former speechwriter for president obama david lit suggests that american democracy has been changed in our lifetime. After that former secretary of defense for the bush and obama administrations robert gates takes a critical look at the use of u. S. Power around the world since the end of world war ii in exercise of power. Then in they are not listening Political Consultants Ryan Gutowski and harlan hill argued that the failures of elites created the current populist movements and wrapping up a look at some of the bestselling nonfiction books according to newsmax s bioethicist doctor Ezekiel Emanuels comparison of International Healthcare systems in which country has the best healthcare. Most of these authors have appeared on booktv and you can watch them online at booktv. Org. And our weekly Author Interview program after words, author and columnist Daniel Mclaughlin interviewed former Deputy National security advisor ababout her time in the trump administration. She discusses the changes she sees happening within the political parties. In 2016 in republican primaries it was a real civil war in the republic and party that the Establishment Republicans represented by jet bush and others didnt get the nomination, didnt get the support of the american people, who got it . The revolutionary donald trump. The democrats are going to the same thing right now. They are having a civil war in their party about is going to be the definitional democrats is a going to be some outsider is a going to be a socialist . I think that is indicative of the fact that washington just doesnt work, the stuff has worked for the last 40 years in the United States to govern the people. It really hasnt kept up with the country. I guess at the end of this book that i realized after a long period of thoughtfulness and went into the wilderness tried to figure it out, america goes through these divisive periods, roughly every 40 years, why . Because we are very dynamic country. Demographically, geographically, socially, economically, we are constantly reinventing ourselves. Not just as individuals but as a nation and government by its very nature is a status quo institution this is how weve always done things were to do it the same way again. Its people who then get stuck. Status quo. America is set up to have these revolutions political revolutions, we had one in the very beginning in the American Revolution but ever since then we mostly have them in the revolutions that played out and thats what i think we are in the middle of right now. You can watch previous episodes of after words including katie mcfarlands interview by visiting our website booktv. Org and click on the after words tab at the top of the page. After words errors every saturday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern and sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific. Im Dennis Johnson from melville house. I dont even know what days of the lockdown we are in anymore here in new york city. This is as far as im willing to go for my apartment. I do know my business is still closed and so is a hell of a lot of the independent businesses. Im still calling up frie
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