The World and Everything in It: April 24, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. My name is Tom Arneberg, and I live in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. But I'm currently biking from Texas to Florida on the southern tier bicycle route. And I still have not missed a single episode of this podcast. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! A foreign aid package made it through Congress, but no such package for our own border security. Also, how to regulate AI-generated media in an election year.

COLMAN: The more incendiary the content, the faster it spreads.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday. Also WORLD Tour. And, mold growing in your home can be a big problem. We talk to a man who fixes it.

LAW: This is more widespread than people are aware of. So many people are living inside moldy buildings.

And comedian Bill Maher says the obvious truth about abortion out loud.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, April 24th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MAST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Senate debate/vote on foreign aid » A long-awaited foreign aid bill is on its way to President Biden’s desk after the Senate passed the $95 billion dollar package last night.

AUDIO: On this vote, the yeas are 79. The nays are 18. The motion is agreed to.

The Senate moved quickly after the House approved the aid package over the weekend. And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the chamber made the right choice.

SCHUMER:  Tonight, after more than six months of hard work and many twists and turns in the road, America sends a message to the entire world.

Some Republicans in Congress opposed approving the aid before the U.S. southern border is secure. A small number opposed the aid, particularly to Ukraine, altogether.

But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said last night:

MCCONNELL: We can wish for a world where the responsibilities of leadership don’t fall on us, or we can act like we understand that they do.

The bill provides $26 billion dollars in wartime assistance to Israel. Another $8 billion will go to counter Chinese threats in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.

Pentagon readies aid for Ukraine » But of course, the lion’s share of that aid, some $60 billion dollars will go to Ukraine in an effort to thwart Vladimir Putin’s ambitions.

And the Pentagon says it’s standing by to get new shipments of arms into Ukraine as quickly as possible.

Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder:

RYDER: Needless to say, we understand the importance and the urgency and are doing everything we can to be poised to respond quickly.

He said some of the aid could arrive within a few days.

The package includes an array of ammunition, including air defense munitions and large amounts of badly needed artillery rounds.

Blinken presser RE: China/Russia » Secretary of State Tony Blinken is starting three days of talks in Beijing this week.

And he told reporters Tuesday that he plans to press Chinese leaders to dial back support to the Russian government.

BLINKEN: When it comes to Russia's defense industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China. We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base.

And he says that, to some degree, has canceled out the impact of sanctions against Moscow.

For its part, China says it has every right to trade with Russia and accuses Washington of fanning the flames by arming and funding Ukraine.

Trump trial latest » Today is day-3 of Donald Trump’s historic New York hush money trial in Manhattan.

Prosecutors in the case say Trump violated a gag order that barred him from speaking publicly about witnesses in the case … with recent criticism of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. They want the judge in the case to charge him contempt of court.

TRUMP:  I think it's a disgrace. It's totally unconstitutional. I'm not allowed to defend myself and yet other people are allowed to say whatever they want about me.

Jurors on Tuesday heard from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. Pecker testified that he had a pact with Trump and used the tabloid to publish positive stories about the Trump campaign…and negative stories about his opponents.

Trump maintains he has done nothing wrong and that the trial is politically motivated.

Trump-Japanese leader meeting » After leaving the courthouse, Trump met with another prominent foreign leader.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso met with the former president at Trump Tower.

TRUMP: Well, he’s a highly respected man in Japan and beyond, and somebody that I’ve liked and I’ve known.

While no longer in office Aso remains an influential figure in Japan.

There’s growing concern in Japan over Trump’s talk of new tariffs to combat what he sees as currency manipulation boosting Japanese exports.

Multiple world leaders have met with Trump recently, acknowledging the very real possibility that he could once again occupy the White House come January. That list includes British Foreign Minister David Cameron.

UMC denominational meeting » Methodists from around the world are meeting in North Carolina for discussions that could shape the future of the United Methodist Church. WORLD’s Mark Mellinger has more.

MARK MELLINGER: The General Convention kicked off on Tuesday in the first general meeting since more than 7,000 congregations left the denomination over controversial doctrinal changes.

And many socially liberal delegates to the meeting are hoping to upend the church’s adherence to certain biblical principles.

Pennsylvania Delegate Tracy Merrick says, “the discussion regarding LGBTQIA matters has evolved over time.” 

MERRICK: But the church's position regarding ordination, uh, same gender marriage has not changed. It's been pretty rigid.

Those on the other side of the issue note that the Bible has not changed.

Delegates will debate that and other issues over the next 9 days in Charlotte.

For WORLD, I’m Mark Melllinger.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Foreign aid and AI regulations on Washington Wednesday. Plus, calling the mold man.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 24th of April, 2024. You’re listening to WORLD Radio, and we thank you for listening. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. First up on The World and Everything in It: Washington Wednesday.

Today we’ll hear what options Congress has to combat disinformation from AI.

But before we get to that, we have more analysis of how Congressional Republicans are handling foreign aid. Here’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno.

LEO BRICENO: For over a year, Republicans in the House of Representatives have blocked funding new military aid to Ukraine. Late last week, a foreign aid package finally cleared the chamber, but with more Democrats than Republicans voting in favor.

While its passage has aggravated the most conservative factions of the House, U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson says he sees the package as the best way to prevent a darker alternative.

MIKE JOHNSON: The House has worked its will. I’ve said it very simply. It’s an old military adage, but we would rather send bullets to the conflicts overseas than our own boys, our troops.

The $95 billion bundle also includes help for Israel, some aid for Taiwan, and several other security-related provisions. It closely resembles a bill passed by the Senate in February with a few key differences: First, it’s roughly 20 percent smaller in terms of total cost; Second, the bill would allow the U.S. to seize Russian assets to pay for some of the aid; Third, a portion of the assistance is provided conditionally as a loan. And then separately, the package also contains language that would force the divestiture of TikTok.

But a handful of the most conservative Republicans in the House are angered by what’s not in the bill.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene warned Johnson against passing any bill with Ukraine aid that didn’t also increase security at the U.S. southern border.

MARJORIE GREENE: He’s serving Ukraine first and America last. And that would be the worst thing to do for a United States House of Representatives Speaker—third in line to the president of the United States—to do nothing for American citizens.

Greene is one of three Republicans who have called for removing Johnson as Speaker.

Despite fierce opposition from these conservatives, other Republicans see the package as a fulfillment of American leadership internationally. Rep. Marcus Molinaro told me he represents a very strong Ukrainian-American, and Jewish-American district in New York.

MARCUS MOLINARO: I’m confident that my vote not only reflects what’s best for the people I serve, but also for this country. And it's critically important as we are in a moment of significant crisis around the world that America shows stability and leadership to our allies and makes clear to our enemies that we mean business.

Tuesday’s vote marks the first time both chambers of Congress have passed military aid to allies abroad since 2022.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno.

REICHARD: While foreign aid was able to clear Congress, Artificial Intelligence regulations haven’t. And with the general election coming up in November, Congress is weighing options to keep high-tech lies from influencing voters.

You may remember that back in February, a fake voice sounding just like Joe Biden called phones of registered Democrats in New Hampshire.

BIDEN AI DEEPFAKE: It’s important that you save your vote for the November election.

MAST: It’s unclear how much influence recordings like that have on primary voters. But lawmakers hope to prevent more sophisticated deepfakes in the months ahead.

Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta sat in on a recent Senate hearing about AI and election security. She brings us this report.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: As AI development surges, detecting deepfakes is getting harder. And time is running out to pass laws regulating AI before the general election in November.

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: We need action to make sure that the public has notified when AI is used to distort images or voice.

That’s Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut. He chaired a subcommittee hearing last week with industry leaders to discuss solutions. At the hearing, the witnesses played audio samples to see if the senators could identify the deepfake recording.

AUDIO: Hi my name is Richard Blumenthal, United States senator from Connecticut and I am a diehard Red Sox fan.

BEN COLMAN: And the second one please?

AUDIO: Hi, my name is Richard Blumenthal, United States senator from Connecticut, and I am a diehard Royals fan.

COLMAN: And the third and final one.

AUDIO: Hi, my name is Richard Blumenthal United States senator from Connecticut, and I am a diehard Yankees fan.

Turns out, all of those examples were AI-generated fakes. But one was obvious, Blumenthal said.

BLUMENTHAL: Anybody oughta know I’m not a Royals fan.

COLMAN: No comment.

Producing them is easy for anyone with less than one minute of real footage of their subject. And it costs an average of just 10 cents per minute. Here’s Ben Colman, CEO of Reality Defender, a deepfake detection company.

COLMAN: Anybody with internet access can create AI generated audio, video images or text to convince and persuade millions of people. This fake media can be distributed and shared instantly over social media platforms. The more incendiary the content, the faster it spreads.

So what can be done to keep deepfakes from taking over the internet?

One option is watermarking, where programs embed data into a video, image, or even audio to protect it from being regenerated. ResembleAI CEO and founder Zohaib Ahmed told the committee that his company requires verbal consent from the person whose voice is being cloned. Then they use an algorithm that encodes that watermark on the content. But this isn’t standard practice.

ZOHAIB AHMED: I think we need to hold a lot of generative companies accountable. You know, it shouldn't be the case where someone can go in and, as unsophisticated as these attacks are at the moment, they're largely there because they're not even writing code. They're actually going to online websites, sometimes even to Apple's App Store, downloading an app.

Another solution could require disclaimers on all AI-generated content, especially when used for a political purpose, like a campaign advertisement. I asked Senator Blumenthal about this after the hearing:

BLUMENTHAL: As a candidate, I'm required to identify the ad that I put out there as to who pays for it, and out to be required also to say whether AI has been used and whether somebody's image has been presented with their consent. So there's no First Amendment issue here.

But scofflaws aren’t likely to respect disclaimer rules. Another solution is to quickly track and identify calls or media created using AI. A robocall of President Biden to New Hampshire voters was quickly identified only because it used a real Democratic official’s phone number on the caller ID. Here’s an exchange between Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and CEO Colman.

AMY KLOBUCHAR: Could you tell me, Mr Colman, how AI has this potential to turbocharge election-related disinformation and why we can’t just rely on the disclaimers and watermarks? I think you can do that for a set of it. I don’t think you should do it for all uses of AI. Tell us why it’s not enough to run a whole thing and then have a little label underneath when they think it’s the actual candidate but it’s not.

COLMAN: Yeah, we agree on that. To paint the larger picture, what we saw during the primaries was a single static deepfake, pre-recorded. Imagine a world where that was a one-to-one attack where instead of it being pre-recorded, it was actually live. Instead of being from one to many, it was one-to-one where it’s coming from your husband, your wife, your boss saying, “Hey Ben, we need you in the office at 6am. I know it’s a voting day.” Or to an election official,“Hey we’re moving your precinct. We need you across town three hours away.” And that’s where this is gonna go. 

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan also testified at the subcommittee hearing…and he told me his state is launching voter education initiatives to teach them about AI threats like the Biden robocall. But they still need congressional help.

DAVID SCANLAN: I think that we need the technological assistance to help recognize it, stop it, and then take appropriate actions with whoever generated it.

Senator Blumenthal joined forces with Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, last September to propose a framework that would create a new oversight body. AI developers would have to register with the group and license their work, as well as submit to audits.

But proposed legislation has failed to gain traction in Congress so far this year. Most of the subcommittee members did not even attend the hearing last week. Another bipartisan bill from Hawley and Klobuchar has been stalled in committee for seven months. Here’s Hawley:

JOSH HAWLEY: There are multiple bipartisan bills that are common sense bills that are ready to go… I mean, we can talk and talk and nobody has done a better job of surfacing this issue and bringing facts into the public domain than the chairman has, but now it's really time to vote, and I just call on the leadership of both parties in the Senate—both parties—the leadership needs to support an effort to get a vote. And I say an effort to get, but really they just need to schedule a vote. Let’s put these bills on the floor, and let’s vote. Let’s not allow these same companies that control the social media technology in this country, that control the news in this country, to also now use AI to further their hammer-hold on the United States of America and on our political process.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Nigeria, Onize Ohikere.

AUDIO: [Protest]

Colombia protests — Today’s global roundup starts in the Colombian capital of Bogota, with protesters chanting against the left-wing government of President Gustavo Petro.

Demonstrators also turned out in Cali and at least two other cities.

Petro’s ratings are at an all-time low after less than two years in office. Protesters rallied against his proposed reforms in healthcare and pensions.

Ivan Escobar was one of the protesters.

ESCOBAR: [Speaking Spanish]

He says here that Colombia’s economy is on the rocks and armed guerillas control some territories.

Petro assumed office in 2022, but his party lost its parliamentary majority in a vote months after his inauguration.

AUDIO: [Chanting protesters]

Canary Islands — In Spain’s Canary Islands, marching protesters also turned out on the streets, but this time to speak against mass tourism.

Social and environmental groups organized the demonstration. They are calling on local authorities to limit the number of visitors to the island, restrict the sale of properties to nonresidents and introduce an eco-tax to protect the environment.

Antonio Samuel Diaz Garcia is a 22-year-old student who attended the protest.

GARCIA: [Speaking Spanish]

He says vacation homes have filled up their villages and pushed up the cost of rent for locals.

Spain’s islands attract tourists drawn to the volcanic landscapes and year-round sunshine. Demonstrators also held supporting protests in Madrid and Barcelona.

AUDIO: [Music]

Sri Lanka memorial — Meanwhile, mourners in Sri Lanka on Sunday marched with flowers and lit candles to remember the nearly 280 people killed on Easter Sunday five years ago.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the 2019 bombings that targeted three churches and three hotels.

Survivors and families of the victims are still calling for a proper investigation into the attacks.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that senior officials failed to prevent the violence.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Colombo:

RANJITH: [Speaking Sinhala]

He says here that authorities have tried to hush up the attack for the past five years.

Thousands of Catholics held photos of the dead as they marched silently to St. Sebastian’s Church in the town of Negombo where more than 100 of the victims died.

Saman Sirimanna lost his two children in the attack on another church in Colombo. They had gone to church to pray for success in their upcoming exams.

SIRIMANNA: [Speaking Sinhala]

He says here he was the first person to file a legal complaint after authorities failed to respond.

The United Nations has called on Sri Lanka to conduct a thorough investigation and publicize its findings.

AUDIO: [Singing and cheering]

Nigerian chess player — We wrap up with a Nigerian chess player and education advocate breaking a record at New York City’s Times Square.

AUDIO: [Cheering]

Supporters broke out in cheers as the 29-year-old Tunde Onakoya hit the 58-hour mark of playing chess. He continued playing against U.S. chess champion Shawn Martinez for two more hours, further surpassing the reigning Guinness World Record for the longest chess marathon of 56 hours and 9 minutes.

Besides breaking the record, Onakoya is hoping to raise $1 million for children’s education across Africa.

He founded Chess in Slums Africa, teaching chess and drawing attention to the plight of children on the streets.

AUDIO: [Cheering]

Supporters surrounded him during the challenge. They played music, passed out plates of Nigeria’s popular jollof rice, and egged him on.

Onakoya said the support kept him going.

ONAKOYA: Nigerians traveled from all over the world. And they were with me overnight. Nobody went home. People came from London, from Tennessee. And we were singing together and they were dancing together and I couldn't just give up on them.

AUDIO: [Singing and cheering]

That’s it for today’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

ANNOUNCER: And 3-2-1! [Cheers] 

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Countdown this week in New York for a ballroom full of fit and fancy ballerinas all on their tippy toes, arms in a graceful arc listening to the music of Tchaikovsky.

Tina Shi with Guinness World Records made this announcement for the category of “Most Ballerina Dancers on Pointe Simultaneously”:

ANNOUNCER: 353, that is a new Guinness world record title! Congratulations!

...beating the old record by dozens of dancers. What a sight that was! Dancers kept it up for an entire minute, on pointe, switching their weight quickly from foot to foot!

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Talk about being on your toes!

REICHARD: In my dreams.

MAST: Mine too!

REICHARD: It’s The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, April 24th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Mold and where it grows.

Now, if your home is anything like the majority of homes, you probably have mold growing somewhere, and not just in your fridge.

MAST: Mold eats the materials from which our homes are built. That’s a problem for our houses, and also for our health. Mold experts focus on getting rid of mold already in place, making sure it doesn’t get a foothold. 

WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis met a mold expert in Australia.

AMY LEWIS: Tim Law passes rolls of carpet on the front lawn and meets Peter and Faye Ridley outside their ranch house in the hills outside Melbourne.

TIM LAW: My job here is to do an assessment of the damage and if there's any mold. Yeah, yeah. [FAYE] (Carpets have gone up) That's a good thing. Yeah, I do not need to see wet carpets. Get them out.

Inside he’s welcomed by the continuous drone of five dehumidifiers. There used to be ten.

The Ridleys built their house soon after they were married 57 years ago. How a house is built can affect how it withstands moisture. In the Ridleys’ case, a lot of moisture.

A month ago, a heavy rainstorm lodged debris between a shed and a trailer parked uphill from the Ridleys’ house. The makeshift dam broke in the middle of the night. All the water flowed into the Ridley’s house and flooded most of it.

FAYE RIDLEY: I woke up on a Monday morning and I could hear the mop and bucket and I wondered why’s he washing the floor at this hour in the morning?

Tim Law is an architectural scientist. He studies why buildings harbor mold. He also evaluates “events”—burst hoses or one-time floodings. In Australia, the insurance company settles the claim by hiring people to fix the specific event’s effects. Law needs to figure out what those are.

Peter Ridley was the first witness on the scene.

PETER RIDLEY: It drains probably the top of the hillside. It's probably 100 acres up there, that all come down, blocked, and came over, came down through my bush (Right) and just came straight through here.

Once he knows the extent of the flooding, Law knows what gear he’ll need.

AUDIO: [Rustling in bag]

He comes back with his version of a doctor’s bag ready for a house call. It’s a large duffle bag packed with high tech tools zipped into insulated black pouches.

But the tools he uses most frequently?

LAW: This is my favorite. It’s just a torchlight!

….and a measuring tape.

After he gets a layout of the house, he pulls out tools calibrated to detect moisture in different types of materials. Like tile and carpet…

LAW: What I’m doing now is taking a dry reference. I’m looking at an area that’s not affected.

He tests wood and drywall.

LAW: Here’s another one of my tools I really like. It’s calibrated just for timber.

He says his job is part technical and part people skills. Throughout each visit Law takes time to tell the homeowners what he’s doing and why.

LAW: It's a bit of an x-ray at the same time because the timber has a different temperature from the air. Timber has more mass so it moves in temperature more slowly than air. So as the air warms up, the timber stays cool….

Law is really good at finding mold because he knows where it likes to hide.

LAW: We’ll pull out the lower part of the wall, so that we can actually dry it out properly. Because we can run the dryers for a month and the inside of the cavity can still be wet.

But he’d rather not find it anywhere. Renters suffer in the current housing crisis. But even new homeowners are at risk. Their house may be built completely to code—but with wood left out in the rain or with the kitchen and bath vented into a closed attic space, the new homeowner has no recourse.

LAW: There is a sense of social injustice when these things fall between the cracks and nothing can be done about it.

So Law studies why Australia’s houses keep growing the fungi—and how it affects the people who have to live with it.

LAW: Part of it is that I am very intrigued by complex issues. And I think mold is one of those complex issues that overlap three large categories that don't typically overlap. That's the architectural part of it, there is the microbiology. And there's also human health.

Law advocates for victims and for changes to the building codes. In October he spoke to builders at a construction and waterproofing conference in Melbourne.

LAW: When we fail, homeowners get hurt. When we allow ourselves to get carried away with cost-cutting, homeowners pay the price.

The Ridleys endured an event and not a building defect. But both can produce mold within two days.

Law says God mercifully showed the Israelites in the book of Leviticus how to deal with mold. He commanded the Israelites to burn moldy things.

LAW: So that's 4000 years ago, these people already knew that you shouldn't be living in a moldy building. So, some of these things were clear, but in Australia, people see mold and say ‘She'll be right.’

But it won’t be all right without changes. And that’s why Tim Law keeps working on both ends of the problem.

LAW: This is more widespread than people are aware of. So many people are living inside moldy buildings, but not realizing that it has a profound impact on their health.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Monbulk, Australia.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday April 24th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: owning the truth about abortion. WORLD Opinions commentator Bethel McGrew says a recent exchange on a talk show might help some people see the true evil of abortion.

BETHEL MCGREW: Abortion is murder, and Bill Maher is OK with that. The comedian told us in so many words during a recent episode of Real Time. As he discusses the current debate over Arizona’s abortion law with two British journalists, one of them says she finds it “strange” that abortion has become a major election issue, when there are so many more pressing things for Americans to focus on. “Not if you believe it’s murder,” Maher says.

Maher is unimpressed with Donald Trump’s latest political tap-dance around the controversy, trying to take credit for the reversal of Roe vs. Wade while simultaneously making centrish noises. Trump wants to be seen as pro-life, but not too pro-life. TIME magazine has called the move “as insincere as it is smart.” Granted, there’s room for disagreement even among true pro-lifers around federal bans—Maher goes after a straw man when he jokes that leaving abortion to the states means “saying abortion is okay in some states.” (Murder in general is handled state by state, after all.) But he correctly notes the illogic of drawing a line at some arbitrarily chosen stage of gestation, like 15 weeks.

When it comes down to it, it’s the “absolutist” position—meaning, the truly committed pro-life position—that gets Maher’s “respect.” Maher believes that he and the absolutist understand each other, because both of them understand exactly what abortion is. “They think it’s murder,” Maher says, “And … it kind of is.” The difference between them, as he succinctly follows up, is that “I’m just OK with that. I am. I mean, there’s 8 billion people in the world. I’m sorry, we won’t miss you.”

The studio reacts with brief, stunned silence, followed by some nervous laughter. Piers Morgan asks if this declaration isn’t “quite harsh.” Well, Maher asks, isn’t Morgan pro-choice? Morgan says yes. “Then that’s your position too.”

Maher represents a category of people who can sometimes be forgotten in earnest discussions around cultural engagement strategy for Christians. People tend to focus on framing the Christian message so as to “make good men wish it were true,” to quote Pascal. As fruitful as that exercise can be, it’s worth remembering another, equally important goal for our rhetoric: to make bad men see clearly who the truth-tellers are.

Of course, Bill Maher needs the gospel as much as anyone, but there’s no need for a complicated strategy session on how to reach him. Nobody needs to waste any time assuring him that they’re Not Like Those Christians, not like the silly fundamentalists he’s spent his career mocking. If you tried, he would just mock you too. In fact, he might mock you even more savagely.

Maher isn’t the only comedian to say the quiet part out loud about abortion. You can find similarly callous bits from entertainers like Dave Chapelle and Louis CK. In a grim way, you could say they’re doing what comedians are supposed to do: Say the things everyone else is too uncomfortable to say. One can hope they might unintentionally do a service for people who linger in the mushy middle, unwilling to fully confront unspeakable horrors. We’d like to think everyone would clearly grasp the stakes of abortion, but the sad reality is that many of our fellow Americans remain profoundly ambivalent. 

Some issues are complicated. Others are not. Sometimes, it takes a bad man to say it out loud.

I’m Bethel McGrew.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: Whistleblowers accuse The Boeing Company of prioritizing profits over safety. Should consumers be wary? And, the big job of building ships in Mississippi. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.