Good morning everyone and welcome to the 2017 values voters summit. Are you ready to drain the swamp . [cheering and applause] ive got the equipment and i got the motivation and we will get it done. Look, this is our moment. We must seize this moment and save our republic. We must save our republic from the dangers and destructive policies that were unleashed by the barack Obama Administration. Today as we begin the 12 annual values voters summit, we have folks in here from around the country and via the internet and we literally have likeminded swap trainers from around the world. I want to thank you in all seriousness, i want to thank you for having the courage to not be silent but rather to stand up and speak out and contend with those who want to feed our freedoms to the swamp monster we call governments. This is our moment and we must seize it. I hope at the conclusion of our time together that you are better informed, more encouraged and motivated with a fresh resolve to drain the swamp and save our republic and two, not just defend, the time to defend is over, folks. It is time to advance, faith, family and freedom to every corner of america. [cheering and applause] it is now my honor to call the 2017 gathering of the value voters of america to order. Welcome. Lets have a great time. [cheering and applause] i thought i had seen it all. We will get things kicked off with how we are winning the hill. You put together a pretty impressive panel. Let me take a moment to introduce each one and they will come out and you can show your appreciation. Beginning with congresswoman member of the house representative for the Fourth District of my home state of missouri. There she is. Ladies and gentlemen. [applause] before vicki served in the us house of representatives user for five years in the state house of representatives from 19952000. Shes a defender of traditional marriage and prolife movement. She encourages citizens to get engaged in politics for her new book. Give her another round of applause. [applause] welcome, vicki. Now, number 42 playing left field, no, mark walker is a congressman serving as the district of carolina. He is an ordained baptist minister and search on the committee of Homeland Security or the committee on oversight and government reform and is the cochair of the congressional prayer caucus. Lets hear it for mark walker. [applause] rounding out our panel this morning on opening of the hill is like [inaudible], elected in 2016 by the mart largest margin of victory in his region and more than 50 years. He was appointed to the powerful House Judiciary Committee in two of its subcommittees. A committee on immigration and Border Security and the House Committee on crime, terrorism and Homeland Security and investigation. Would you also welcome our third third. [applause] all right. Tony is still in the swamp so we will continue to stall while we wait for tony to get out of the swamp. How about that cup games last night . Wasnt that exciting perspective welcome back, tony. Somebody was using my phone to. We are excited to begin with a panel of some of the swamp trainers that are here in washington. Some of our leaders on the value issues that we care so deeply about. I will start in the center for ladies first but congressman vicki is the cochair and she leaves the values actions team in the house of representatives. She has been here since 2010. She also serves on the important House Armed Service committee and vicki, i want to ask you about the importance of undoing the social engineering that has been put upon our nations military and treating are many women in uniform as if they were lab rats by the previous administration. It has been devastating to watch over the last eight years under the Obama Administration dismantling of our military readiness and the policies that were implemented, not only cutting defense and dollarwise, but inflicting upon the social engineering policies that are detrimental to our nation. One of the ones that i was very concerned to see and we took some action recently with president s reversing was one president obama unilaterally without checking with congress or anyone else said that now we will allow transgender to serve openly in the military and giving them the full right and medical treatment as well including sex change operations. As a member of the Armed Service committee very concerned about that because we are facing more threats now in our nation than any time since world war ii, whether you look at the rise of china, kim jongun and his thoughts, isis, iran or Vladimir Putin in russia. Yet, at the same time we are this policy using tax dollars to allow for sex change operations which will make soldiers not deployable and that just doesnt make sense. I did offer the amendment during the National Defense authorization act to say that no tax dollars can go to pay for sex change operations. [cheering and applause] the reason that that is bad is because by our estimation within the next ten years cost taxpayers 1. 35 billion just for the surgeries alone and that doesnt account for the ongoing hormone treatments but in addition if you have a surgery you have magnitude it takes makes you not deployable for 267 days a year. My question is why would we use precious defense dollars to make soldiers that cannot be deployed. [cheering and applause] absolutely. We were a few both short passing that but very thankful that your next speaker after our panel, the president of the United States, realize that this is a tremendous detriment to our nation and at the misuse of our tax dollars and he has change that policy and its been written out of guidance right now. I am so glad that he is our commanderinchief and is prioritizing our military once again. [cheering and applause] by the way, to put that cost in perspective that the equivalent of one navy destroyer, maybe 35 fighter jets and it is not an insignificant price tag. I want to go to congressman mike walker and he came to congress in 2014. He was wellequipped to work in congress and bring people together after serving as the baptist minister and being in many business meetings he knows how to deal with contentious situations. Survive a wednesday night baptist business meeting, youre in good shape. Let me ask you that congressman walker how you see the role and coming from the Faith Community as a pastor what role does the church and evangelical and social have in determining the future of our country. You are seen it play out in our very pleasant day. Certainly, i want to thank you for all the great work you are doing to impact from your level and certainly the great army that is here even today. We saw this play out last week the amount of influence that the church and the people who follow christ are really pushing back on some of the social engineering and the and culture that vote to last week on the health floor when we were ending abortions after 20 weeks is due to the people fighting this fight. Give yourself a hand for the great work there. [applause] when did it become even a point of contention in our country that we would even consider that we are one of only seven countries out of 798 nations including north korea that even allowed abortions after 20 weeks. It boggles my mind some time that we drifted this far but it doesnt mean that we dont have plenty of work and plenty of fight left in us to fight back on some of the culture. I think we do it obviously to answer your questions there is an evangelical thread that works in all components that we have to understand there is a relationship component rate for 50 or 60 years some of our communities have been impacted should i even say indoctrinated with the left ideal that the government is the end all for everything that you can encounter for physically, financially, spiritually and we have to change that dynamic. We got to go and reach across these communities and to share the message that out of psalm 139 every individual is created uniquely, fearfully and wonderfully made for god and we happy to carry that message here. [applause] our third panelist for my home state of louisiana, congressman mike johnson from shreveport. I have known mike since he was a mere lad in a law school and i want to ask you this, might, because youre a constitutional and you end up up in your professional career defending religious freedom and working with Alliance Defending freedom and others. Did you ever envision back when you were in law school that we would be contending for the very right to exercise our First Amendment freedom of religion . We saw it coming. For about 20 years i was doing that work and defended frc and a number of our allied organizations and worked with ads for all those years and we were going to churches on sunday and dugas pulpit service and we would explain to the church all around the country that this day was coming. Twenty years ago people would say i dont know guys, that seems a bit too much. Now, everything that we saw coming down the pipeline is here right before our eyes. We are in an allout fight for our most fundamental freedoms and everyone in this room recognizes that and thats why you are here and were grateful that you do what you do and you support frc and everyone on the front line. We are in the fight of our lifetime. Mark mentioned the unborn protection act and when we are in battles like that we go to the house for and it gives us an opportunity and gratifying, tony, to be with for years like these will go to the floor and articulate the simple truth. For example example because they understand we are all made in the image of a holy god and creator and hes the one that gives us those rights. [applause] i know you were watching this they were arguing for the convenience that we cant pass this after 20 weeks because some may be born with disabilities and we should have the right to terminate the pregnancy. The founders are recognizing we are given life by our creator and understood and every Single Person has dignity and value. It is given to us by god. [applause] i want to throw this question out for all of you to address. That is as you look at the landscape of america and what is before us and the challenge in d window of opportunity, how can the value voters of this country make the greatest difference what are some of the steps we can take . You can trace every issue or problem we are having to the breakdown and the first to know what the baseline issue is to bring about solutions and resolve. If you look across the board and go back 50 years ago we sold the family ansaw thefamily and all d communities moms, dads, stability, now many places we see that if less than 20 . You know the statistics. Until we are willing to honestly address those here is the positive to put it this way we now have the data of 50 years of policies and what its done to the families and communities. Weve seen with 50 years of the programs do. Specifically to the family. So to be able to turn this back we have to address those areas that have negatively impacted by family culture and we see it coming out of hollywood, lots of things coming out of hollywood these days but we have seen them turn a blind eye specifically i will go this far to target the family that has been structured to have the opportunity to succeed. Three things come to mind, most importantly if my people humble themselves and label here. I would encourage you to think about and pray about running for office through south then they could serve on the city council or commission. We need to be strategic and proactive and encourage people to be there to share our views and values. [applause] they start viewing the world the way jesus wants us to view the world and a few others they would be fighting upstream cost thats the most important thing. [applause] telling why the book is a necessary the lessons we learned on thwevelearned on the front e last couple decades and what i try to articulate is the approach we know that america is even more divided now more than its ever been in the modern era and the way that we approach the policy right now is for import and i think an then it has ever been. So we have to remember that its against principles to the island since we grew up in the sunday school we have to apply now in the public square. It goes into every arena. Ive done a teen town halls. I am challenging why are you not going out to the people because you know the mainstream people wont deliver the message. Then they stopped coming to the town halls. [applause] that is the approach we have to take as they can conservatives and the church to articulate our principles without apology and a general way and hopefully we can win others over to our cause. [applause] i want to ask a question based on something vicki said about the third recommendation if that is the primary role of the. In the realm of education that is at risk today. He is an artistic genius creates masterpieces. He created specifically for that event and was asked a couple of years ago to create a case. They took it to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in order to them to go three reeducation programs. He and his staff and he has to file quarterly compliance reports now to verify that he is not letting his religious beliefs get in the way of his business and thankfully he is all the way now to the Supreme Court. This is a tremendously important case and there are people trying tto look up their faith accordig to the Constitutional Rights of the First Amendment and being told by their government that they have to behave a certain way. If our government can force people to do things against this religious belief where are we as a country we pay for this decision and continue to stand up for our beliefs. Gettable setback for generations and if it goes the right way we will be advancing what the founders deals were. It is part of the healthcare law and we rolled back now this massive overreaction because we are seeing a trend around the country i and the state law and lawsuits trying to force. We have to protect the right to religious freedom. [applause] these attacks the longer had to be behind closed doors. They were in your face no intimidation, do whatever tactics they could override anything you could push back. Being competent enough to know when those attacks come after us. Weve got to be informed and be willing to engage which is exactly why you are here in washington, d. C. This is real its in our face right now and unless we are willing to fight on behalf of christians i think that putting on the whole armor of god, now we do put on the gospel of pea peace. I dont think theres a greater time in our life tha life into d call right now. [applause] is there still a chance that we will see i know the president is going to talk about some of the executive orders that he did on the margins but is there a chance that we will see Congress Repeal and replace the policy that is causing the system to implode. To see the healthcare bill over to the senate and we were as heartbroken as every other when it failed. Obamacare is in the process of imploding and im sure everybody understands the reality. Since 2013 by far you your mid e on that some of them have gone up almost 300 and they are going to continue. People are losing coverage. The whole system is about to collapse on it so. There will be large swaths of the country that have only one insurance provider as many already do or not apple verse 49 counties at last count that have no insurance providers at all on the exchange, so it is simply not a sustainable situation that we are going to have to go back and address it again and as you know the house is committed to it and certainly the republicans in the conference and we are praying and i think everyone in this room should help us encourage our friends in the senate to take up and take military action. [applause] we cannot rest in thre rest e we need to continue to fight on this issue. The largest conservative caucus we have 157 members and we went on record last week for the next three months. If we have to do it piece by piece we will not rest until this burden is off of their backs. [applause] what good is obamacare if you dont have a provider that would recognize the insurgents and to not give people an opportunity to go out and Purchase Health carhealthcare insurance is customized for their family as an atrocity we are putting together a wonderful bill we are trying to get to the floor and continued to engage the chamber to make sure they understand the urgency of why this is important and we only have a small window of time to get things done. Only three times in the last 100 years has the congress been able to keep up the majority and you have a republican in the white house that is why this time it may not last forever and i would dare to think what they would continue to do to the healthcare system. With the nuts and bolts of the frustration and how the senate rules work, you may have thought he had the majority in the senate and they have a couple of rules of the 60 votes to do things does the motion to proceed so we have good bills in the house this far and so far the Record Number before the time of the Obama Administration and those in the Bush Administration did before they can take it up they have to have a motion to proceed and that takes 60 votes. Several of us are advocating to change the rules. [applause] nowhere in the constitution doesnt sadoesit say that it tas most people think it should be like the constitution says and the majority should rule. They would have tthey would have underwriting spoliation which takes 50 of the vote and we can only undo part of obamacare enough mechanism so that is part of what complicates things and the senate needs to change the rules. [applause] on the next big ticket item is tax reform. Will we get a tax structure coming out of this congress . I am convinced that we will. We had another member calling for some trimming around the edges but this is a onceinalifetime opportunity. This is why you has to happen now. This is a key component those in the middle and lower income we need to include that to make sure they have the opportunity to deduct the gift. America is the most philanthropic country in the weldi