The World and Everything in It: December 12, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Today, the flip side of the free-speech coin is before the U.S. Supreme Court: the right not to be forced to speak government approved messages.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat with economist David Bahnsen, who answers your questions.

Plus, the WORLD History Book. Today, a notable speech by President Ronald Reagan from December 1981.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, December 12th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kristen Flavin with today’s news.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Concerns about growing link between Russia & Iran » British defense officials are warning that Russia is looking to buy hundreds of ballistic missiles from Iran.

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the growing link between Iran and Russia is “bad news.”

NETANYAHU: And I don’t think it’s a defense partnership. It’s an offense partnership because you see where these killer drones are being used and how they’re being used.

Netanyahu also once again warned against reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

NETANYAHU: It only will pave Iran’s path with gold, with hundreds of billions of dollars of sanctions relief so that they can both export their terrorism worldwide, but also build their nuclear arsenal.

Iran’s arms sales to Russia could be providing a much needed infusion of cash. Iran’s currency fell to a record low against the dollar on Sunday, with nationwide anti-government protests now in their third month.

Debate over prisoner swap » On Capitol Hill, debate continues over the recent prisoner swap that brought WNBA basketball star Brittany Griner home from Russia.

Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger said Sunday that sending notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout back to Russia could put other Americans abroad in danger.

KINZINGER: Again, we’re glad she’s home, but we have to recognize wide-eyed right now that as Americans, we are willing to do anything to bring a single American home, and there are people that are watching that.

Democrat Adam Schiff chairs the House Intelligence Committee. He didn’t criticize the trade, but he shares those concerns.

SCHIFF: Whenever you trade an innocent American for a guilty Russian, it’s an incentive for other despots to essentially grab an American and use them as a bargaining chip.

Multiple Americans remain jailed in Russia.

Libyan bombmaker arrest » The man accused of making the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 has been taken into U.S. custody.

Abu Agela Masud Kheir Al-Marimi faces federal charges in Washington more than three decades after the terrorist attack that killed more than 250 people.

Stephanie Bernstein’s husband, Michael Bernstein, was among 190 Americans aboard the plane.

BERNSTEIN: There have been a lot of ups and downs, a lot of times when we were told, you know, it looks promising, only to find out that it wasn’t. So I was really skeptical that we would ever see this day come.

Though he is the third Libyan intel official charged in the U.S. in connection with the attack, he would be the first to face justice in the United States.

NASA Orion capsule » NASA’s Orion capsule made a blisteringly fast return from the moon Sunday, parachuting into the Pacific near Mexico. NASA TV captured the moment just before splashdown.

AUDIO: And there it is, high over the Pacific, America’s new ticket to ride to the moon and beyond now in view … Orion under its chutes descending toward splashdown.

A Navy ship quickly moved in to recover the spacecraft and its occupants — three test dummies rigged with vibration sensors and radiation monitors.

Orion beamed back stunning photos of not only the gray, pitted moon, but also the home planet.

Four astronauts are slated to fly around the moon in 2024. And NASA plans a two-person lunar landing as early as 2025.

Sinema goes independent » Democrats reacted Sunday to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s announcement that she’s leaving their party.

Democratic Montana Sen. Jon Tester

TESTER: Functionally, I don’t think it changes a thing. And that’s a good thing. So I look forward to working with her as I have in the past.

Indeed, it will do nothing to cut into the Democrats slim majority in the Senate as she will continue to caucus with the Democrats.

But the shift does mean that Sinema can skip a tough Democratic primary fight in the next election. She angered much of the party's base by blocking or watering down some liberal legislation. Her current term ends in 2024.

Box office » At the weekend box office, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is still the top dog.

TRAILER: They came from the water. They have superhuman strength. He’s coming for the surface world.

The latest Marvel blockbuster hauled in another $11 million for a domestic total of $410 million.

But another Disney-owned offering, Strange World, is a box office disaster. It’s on track to lose as much as $150 million.

The Disney animated movie features an openly LGBT lead character with a gay teen romance.

I’m Kristen Flavin. Straight ahead: a free speech battle centered on the ability not to speak.

Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday morning, December 12th, and we’re here for another week of The World and Everything in It. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Last week, the biggest free speech case of the term brought rallies and protests outside the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case: 303 Creative, LLC v Elenis.

The question for the justices is whether Colorado’s anti-discrimination law violates the free-speech rights of creative artists. In this case, graphic designer Lorie Smith. Here she is outside the Supreme Court last week.

SMITH: After starting my own design studio, I was excited to expand my portfolio to design custom unique wedding websites that celebrate the beauty of marriage between husband and wife. But my home state of Colorado made it clear that I’m not welcome in that space. And Colorado is trying to force me to create custom, unique artwork to promote ideas inconsistent with my faith and the core of who I am.

Not so long ago, a case called Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission presented the same scenario. Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips was at the rally for Smith last week:

PHILLIPS: Colorado is still using the same law that it used to punish me to try and punish Lori. And Lori should be able to decide. She serves everybody like we do at Masterpiece Cake Shop, but decide which messages she creates and which messages she declines to create.

In a way, this case is the sequel to that one. Phillips won, but on such narrow grounds that targeted harassment of Christian business owners, including himself, didn’t stop.

But from Colorado’s point of view: should Lori Smith prevail, the Supreme Court could unravel other anti-discrimination protections. Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser:

WISER: You can't define your service so you exclude an entire category of people. That's what's at issue here. And if there were to be a loophole of the kind discussed, people with disabilities, African Americans, Jews, Muslims, others could find themselves without access to the marketplace.

Both Phillips and Smith hold to a core tenet of all the Abrahamic religions: that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Not controversial until the Supreme Court made it controversial a few years ago. And then failed to resolve the problems several justices predicted the court was creating.

Christian bakers, florists, photographers, graphic artists—any of a number of creative professionals— are making this argument: that the state has no business commandeering their artistic talents to speak messages in conflict with their religious beliefs that are protected under the Constitution.

REICHARD: Inside the courtroom, Smith’s lawyer Kristen Waggoner was first at the lectern.

WAGGONER: Lorie Smith blends art with technology to create custom messages using words and graphics. She serves all people, deciding what to create based on the message, not who requests it. But Colorado declares her speech a public accommodation and insists that she create and speak messages that violate her conscience.

Waggoner referenced the court’s past decisions rejecting government-compelled speech:

WAGGONER: If the government may not force motorists to display a motto, school children to say a pledge, or parades to include banners, Colorado may not force Ms. Smith to create and speak messages on pain of investigation, fine, and re-education.

Our eyes in the courtroom detected expressions of irritation by some justices as the liberal justices frequently interrupted Waggoner.

First, Justice Elena Kagan, who thought website design is more a matter of typefaces and travel information for wedding guests:

KAGAN: There’s no scripture, there’s no ideology, there’s no nothing.

WAGGONER: There is ideology. And this court has already recognized that there is ideology and different views on marriage...

KAGAN: Okay. So I think that if I understand you, you're saying, yes, she can refuse because there's ideology just in the fact that it's Mike and Harry and there's a picture of these two guys together.

WAGGONER: That is speech. You are announcing a wedding. And if you believe the wedding to be false, then the -- the government would be compelling you to say something that you otherwise wouldn't say, which makes it content-based.

As we mentioned, this wasn’t a problem before the Supreme Court in 2015 got involved with its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.

That 5-to-4 decision decreed that all 50 states must treat unions of same-sex couples legally the same as they do married couples.

Now-retired Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that opinion. He announced it in part with this:

KENNEDY: Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here.

Laudable to say, but what Justice Samuel Alito wrote then in dissent predicted what’s actually happened since.

The Obergefell decision, quoting now, “will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy.

“In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women.

“The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.”

… a statement that came to the fore in our case today in 303 Creative.

First, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:

JACKSON: I just wanted to say how perplexed I was about the questions that seemed to distinguish this kind of sexual orientation refusal to provide services from the race discrimination. And there were some questions raised about, you know, religion being the basis, but I guess -- and -- and you might be able to help me with this and you might not, but I -- I was fairly certain that, historically, opposition to interracial marriages and to integration in many instances was on religious grounds.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor conflated the issues:

SOTOMAYOR: You're saying, I don't want to serve a particular person, a disabled person, a black and white couple, a disabled couple, a --a gay couple. You're basing it not on the nature of the message, you're basing it on who you're serving.

WAGGONER: I don't think that's a fair characterization. The stipulated facts in this case are that Ms. Smith has LGBT clients. She serves them regularly. She has all kinds of clients.

SOTOMAYOR: Tell me how that's different, by the way. What you're basically saying is, in our Ollie Barbecue case, the company there said, “I'll serve blacks but only on a takeout window, not inside my restaurant because that sends a message that I endorse integration.”

WAGGONER: Ms. Smith isn't looking to send a message through her conduct. She's look --

SOTOMAYOR: No, she -- what you're saying is, I want to give gay couples a limited menu, not a full menu, just the way that luncheonette said.

Waggoner answered, not the same. Her client’s menu of services includes website creation for LGBT people. Say for example that a lesbian asks for a design for an animal shelter. No problem.

But that same person asking for a design of something that demeans the Bible? No, that is a problem.

For the other side arguing for Colorado, state Solicitor General Eric Olson. He argued that the website designer may place whatever she wants on her website. What she must not do is refuse to sell to someone based on a protected characteristic as defined under the state’s public accommodation law.

[Now, interestingly, Solicitor General Olson didn’t use much of the 10th Circuit’s reasoning. To the astonishment of many, Judge Mary Beck Briscoe wrote in that decision that Smith’s work is like a monopoly because she’s the only source of her own designs! And the state’s compelling interest to prevent discrimination trumps the rest. No limiting principle can be found in that.]

Hypotheticals came raining down. Here’s one from Justice Samuel Alito [with Justice Kagan adding levity] before Olson answers:

ALITO: An unmarried Jewish person asks a Jewish photographer to take a photograph for his Jdate dating profile. It's a dating service, I gather, for Jewish people.

KAGAN: It is. (Laughter.) 

ALITO: All right. Maybe Justice Kagan will also be familiar with the next website I'm going to mention. So, next, a Jewish person asks a Jewish photographer to take a photograph for his AshleyMadison.com dating profile. (Laughter) I'm not suggesting that. I mean, she knows a lot of things. I'm not suggesting -- okay. Does he have to do it? 

OLSON: Well, again, it would -- it would -- what Colorado look -- it depends.

Olson gave the typical lawyer’s answer, “it depends.” If the photographer makes something available to the public, then probably yes, she has to do it. Depends on the facts.

And then an exchange between Olson and Justice Neil Gorsuch in which the justice reminded everyone of another protected characteristic:

GORSUCH: That’s their religious belief. You can't change their religious belief, right? 

OLSON: No, but -- but -- well, two -- 

GORSUCH: And you protect religious beliefs under the statute, right? That is one of the protected characteristics in theory. 

OLSON: Yes, and in practice. If it wasn't in practice, we'd have heard about it over -- over the past several years, and -- and my friend has pointed to no example where this has been applied in a -- 

GORSUCH: Mr. Phillips did go through a re-education training program pursuant to Colorado law, did he not, Mr. Olson? 

OLSON: He -- he went through a -- a process that ensured he was familiar with -- 

GORSUCH: It was a re-education program, right? 

OLSON: It was not a re-education program. 

GORSUCH: What do you call it? 

OLSON: It was a process to make sure he was familiar with Colorado law. 

GORSUCH: Someone might be excused for calling that a re-education program.

Whatever you call it, that “training” entailed quarterly compliance reports with details such as how many customers you declined and why, teaching your staff what the state wants them to know, and to sell the customized product whether you like it or you don’t.

The argument lasted more than two hours; it’s worth the listen.

But I’ll end with this exchange between Justice Gorsuch and lawyer Waggoner:

GORSUCH: The objections to compelled speech on religious grounds could include, in fact, do include, some objections with respect to certain heterosexual marriages, that there are certain heterosexual unions that your client would not speak toward either, is that correct? 

WAGGONER: Certainly, and that's in the stipulated facts in terms of she declines messages based on the message, and she has declined other projects based on the message that have nothing to do with same-sex marriage. 

GORSUCH: So the question isn't who, it's what?

WAGGONER: Always.

That’s her key argument and distinction: that it’s always the message, not the person. But Olson argued for Colorado that it’s only a light burden on Smith to create something that violates her conscience.

But from the tenor of the questions from the majority justices, I don’t think they’ll see it that way.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

EICHER: Mary, how much time do you estimate you spent reading legal briefs, reviewing transcripts, searching for the right audio that captured all the relevant moments here?

REICHARD: Oh, I’d say around 15 hours, maybe a day and a half. And by the way, I was able to listen to the arguments alongside my legal-beagle colleague Steve West as we chatted back and forth online about what we were hearing. Steve’s background as a prosecutor brings out different observations in him than it does me. And that’s useful for all of us.

But, listen, it was time well-spent. We’ll definitely want to feature this case in our Legal Docket podcast Season 4. So what the listener is hearing here is just the beginning  and there’s work I didn’t necessarily use, but probably will as we follow this one to the final legal conclusion.

EICHER: Right and there are other interviews you’ll do, facts you’ll need to gather, because there’s a much bigger story to tell.

REICHARD: Oh, always a much bigger story to tell. The why the Supreme Court selects cases as it does to help create clarity in the law, and vindicate the rights of others in similar situations.

And helping WORLD listeners and readers to better understand all of that is why we do what we do.

EICHER: So you see where I’m headed with this: We’ve had really strong, intelligent opinion pieces, we had Steve West’s expert legal analysis day-of, we produced news reports posted online and in email newsletters, and broadcast reports we prepared and distributed to more than 100 radio outlets day-of the oral argument, and I’ll just say I got a kick out of looking at the video outside the Supreme Court, the way the camera was set up, I was able to see our brand-new Washington office window, right there next to the Supreme Court.

But all that and now your work here.

And I just want to emphasize: we can’t accomplish any of this without your help. Listeners. Viewers. Readers. And that’s the importance of our December Grassroots Giving Drive.

REICHARD: Exactly, I do not take it for granted that we have generous givers from all walks of life and we need that. So I’d just ask you to add your support to thousands, tens of thousands of WORLD Movers  and keep WORLD supplied and in the battle.

What does it mean to have quality reporting, analysis, and commentary available to you? Think about how you value that and please visit WNG.org/donate today and make your gift of support.

EICHER: And thanks so much!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It's time now for our weekly conversation on business markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. David is head of the wealth management firm, the Bahnsen group, and he is here now, David. Good morning.

DAVID BAHNSEN, GUEST: Well, good morning, Nick! Good to be with you.

EICHER: David, I'd like to reserve as much time as possible for listener questions. So I will just ask up top here for your top story of the week.

BAHNSEN: Sure! I think just briefly, there was a producer price index number that came out on Friday (that’s the wholesale prices) it was a little higher than expected on the week. It was a down week for the market after, having been in quite a long roll of up-weeks for the equity market, the stock market, and bonds continuing to do quite well, meaning the yields were dropping. So you have interest rates going lower, and bond prices going up. All of it kind of coming together to still predict the idea that the Fed is not about to start cutting rates anytime soon, but they’re about to start easing up a little and how much they’ve been tightening.

And there’s greater optimism for some form of a soft landing. I don’t think anybody can predict that. But it does seem that markets are at least open to the possibility that if we have a recession, it may end up being a real mild one. So that’s going to kind of stay the economic story here for a bit.

The Fed will be announcing their next rate move this week, and everyone basically already knows they’ll be raising rates half a point, which is less than the three quarters of a point they’ve been doing. But the question will be what the Fed does this week in terms of their comments about the future. So I expect a little bit of volatility around that. And we’ll go from there.

EICHER: All right, David. First question comes from Abigail Chisholm, she noticed a piece in The Wall Street Journal on the effects of national debt and high inflation on developing nations. And she'd like to know what you think the long and short term ramifications are?

BAHNSEN: I think that as a general rule, the effects of excessive indebtedness on any nation are the same. Universally excessive debt in the present is a drain on future growth. And that applies to a big country like the United States the same as small countries, whether they be in South America or Africa or Southeast Asia. However, there is definitely a big difference when a nation like the United States has excessive amounts of debt as the world’s reserve currency. So they have the ability to manipulate it a lot more, and they have a lot of leverage.

Oftentimes their creditors are foreign countries that are having to be paid back in US dollars. And so we have the ability to do things that developing nations do not. Developing nations can end up really hurting their own currency if they get out of control with their debt. And I would point out that a lot of times, these nations have debt that is denominated in US dollars. So they become somewhat dependent upon what’s going on in our currency.

So in all cases, universally, I think excessive indebtedness is dangerous. And in all cases, the biggest impact is how it weighs on future growth.

EICHER: David, our next question is from listener Garrett Brandt.

BRANDT: Good morning, David and Nick, as a real estate attorney working as in house counsel at a real estate brokerage, I have been following with interest and concern these large institutional investors that have been buying up residential properties to turn them into rental units. They are buying up literally hundreds of thousands of units across America, sometimes including entire brand new construction communities. This exacerbates our inventory shortages, drives up prices for individuals and increases rents. So I have a policy question for you. I know that in the summer, Congress started holding hearings on this. So what policy would be advisable or at least practical, that might limit this behavior, while at the same time not harming a small investor who wants to build wealth through real estate investing? Thank you for your wisdom on these matters.

BAHNSEN: Well, thank you for the kind words, and I hope that my answer will be useful and also non-offensive because I truly feel strongly about this. And yet, it’s very possible that my answer may not be popular with everybody.

I believe strongly in freedom. I believe strongly in liberty in market transactions. I believe strongly in the rule of law. And I believe that if there is a problem of big institutional investors buying properties, those problems get solved in market forces rather than at the benevolent hand of the state; telling people they can or can’t buy properties, telling people that there’s going to be a regulatory punishment or disincentive for them to do something in what would otherwise be a free society will not solve the issue.

The fact of the matter is no institutional investor is buying a property except to have regular person occupy the property. So it is not a situation of helping keep a big guy from hurting a little guy: It’s helping a big guy, and then picking which little guy is going to be helped. Because providing more rental inventory is just as much a market need as providing more purchase inventory.

And yet what has already slowed this process—the thing you were concerned about that Congress was doing little fox hearings on last summer—has already dramatically slowed down outside of certain key markets, like the Sunbelt areas where there’s still people wanting to buy homes. There’s higher demand in certain Sunbelt markets. But what has dramatically tamed it is market forces. Interest rates are higher, prices have gone down, and there’s less security about where home prices are going. And I just believe that no matter how strongly we feel that this is bidding prices up, this is an example of a price going up due to market forces. And I would not want to do anything to distort that what I dramatically want to fight if we’re worried about being able to help the little guy go buy a home. It’s not by telling other people they can’t buy homes. It’s by getting the Fed out of zero interest rate policies by allowing state and local governments to stop all the silly regulations that keep more product from being built and mismanaging inventory.

I just strongly feel that the boogeyman of institutional investors buying rental property to meet a market need is not our problem here as much as manipulation of interest rates and a high regulatory environment that disincentivizes more building. But market forces will play this out far better than the benevolent hand of a disinterested third party like the state.

EICHER: David, we've got room here for a third and final question. And this one is listener Michael Cox of Cincinnati, Ohio.

COX: David, I really appreciate your weekly market insights and your economics course. I was hoping you could clarify some of your thoughts regarding Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition. On April 18th you mentioned this initial offer is way too low to really think that the board would either meet it or would be pressured to meet it legally. On October 10, you mentioned why did he want to get out of the deal? Because he's dramatically overpaying. I'm curious to know what changed in your thinking during that time? And why? Thank you.

BAHNSEN: Well that’s a great question. Because obviously, what changed was the market itself.

You had a massive decompression of yields in that time period, you have multiples of price earnings ratios and ongoing quarterly results showing—especially in Twitter itself, but even in Facebook and Snapchat and other social media companies that are publicly held—a substantial decrease in valuation and company fundamentals. I don’t recall if at the time, the offer that I was saying was too low was the final one they ended up settling on or not. But regardless, it is no question that the facts changed and that they change for you on Musk obviously, because he went in and wanted to do the deal.

Then he spent months trying to get out of the deal until his lawyer said, “you’re not getting out of this deal”. And now the one thing he can do to salvage the value is somehow negotiate a deal with his lenders to buy that debt back at a huge discount. The companies that issued the debt issued about $13 billion that I think would be down 50% if they were to trade it or syndicate it into the marketplace. They haven’t syndicated $1 of it. So they’re not willing to take that write down right now. And so I think Musk has an opportunity.

He’s going to be paying a billion dollars a year of cash flow in interest on the debt he took. And the company doesn’t make a billion dollars a year. My guess is that he will try to negotiate a deal to buy that debt back at 75 cents on the dollar. It would trade right now in the market at about 50 cents on the dollar. But yes, the price that he paid is sort of irrelevant, like if they had come to me with the deal, I would not have participated. I would not encourage you to participate. I would not have put client money in the deal. The people who did participate don’t necessarily think it was a good deal either. They just simply were not economic buyers. Elon was buying as part of a project, a hobby, an endeavor. And you could argue it was for a certain social good free speech. It could also just be that sometimes people with $300 billion do funny things that they can afford to do.

But no, I stand by what I said that, at the time that the discussions first began, it wasn’t going to be enough to get Twitter on board when they came into the 50s. That got the deal done. And there’s no question that almost immediately in this time period, starting in March, going into April, which is what you bring up, and then by May, the market had dramatically changed. And we know in June and again in August, September, that we were dealing with new lows down in the market and the Nasdaq in social media and tech companies. So a lot of things are moving very quickly throughout this year as people who’ve been watching markets well now.

EICHER: Okay, many thanks to Abigail Chisholm, Garrett Brandt and Michael Cox for supplying questions. And you have a question too. So if you do, send it in—email is feedback@worldandeverything.com. You can type your question out, I'll read it for you. Or you can read it yourself in your own Voice Memo app, and then send that file along again, the email address feedback@worldandeverything.com. 

David Bahnsen is founder managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bahnsen group. His personal website is Bahnsen.com. David, thank you so much. We'll see you next week.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Monday, December 12, 2022. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Forty one years ago this week, the Polish prime minister and Communist Party leader imposed martial law.

AUDIO: GEN. WOJCIECH JARUZELSKI

Generał Wojciech Jaruzelski trying to make the point that the crackdown was to save Poland from catastrophe and civil war.

REICHARD: The iron fist was meant to shut down the Solidarity labor movement—which for four months had challenged the Communist government through labor strikes.

Ten days after martial law began, U.S. President Ronald Reagan used his Christmas speech to declare U.S. support of the Polish people. It would take eight years, but democracy did eventually come to Poland.

EICHER: Here is an excerpt of that 1981 Christmas address by President Reagan.

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: A few months before he took up residence in this house, one of my predecessors, John Kennedy, tried to sum up the temper of the times with a quote from an author closely tied to Christmas, Charles Dickens. We were living, he said, in the best of times and the worst of times. Well, in some ways that's even more true today. The world is full of peril, as well as promise. Too many of its people, even now, live in the shadow of want and tyranny.

As I speak to you tonight, the fate of a proud and ancient nation hangs in the balance. For a thousand years, Christmas has been celebrated in Poland, a land of deep religious faith, but this Christmas brings little joy to the courageous Polish people. They have been betrayed by their own government.

The men who rule them, and their totalitarian allies, fear the very freedom that the Polish people cherish. They have answered the stirrings of liberty with brute force, killings, mass arrests, and the setting up of concentration camps. Lech Walesa and other Solidarity leaders are imprisoned, their fate unknown. Factories, mines, universities, and homes have been assaulted.

The Polish government has trampled underfoot solemn commitments to the UN Charter and the Helsinki accords…

The tragic events now occurring in Poland, almost two years to the day after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, have been precipitated by public and secret pressure from the Soviet Union…

The target of this depression [repression] is the Solidarity Movement, but in attacking Solidarity, its enemies attack an entire people. Ten million of Poland's 36 million citizens are members of Solidarity. Taken together with their families, they account for the overwhelming majority of the Polish nation. By persecuting Solidarity, the Polish government wages war against its own people.

I urge the Polish government and its allies to consider the consequences of their actions. How can they possibly justify using naked force to crush a people who ask for nothing more than the right to lead their own lives in freedom and dignity? Brute force may intimidate, but it cannot form the basis of an enduring society, and the ailing Polish economy cannot be rebuilt with terror tactics…

I want emphatically to state tonight that if the outrages in Poland do not cease, we cannot and will not conduct "business as usual" with the perpetrators and those who aid and abet them. Make no mistake, their crime will cost them dearly in their future dealings with America and free peoples everywhere. I do not make this statement lightly or without serious reflection…

In order to aid the suffering Polish people during this critical period, we will continue the shipment of food through private humanitarian channels, but only so long as we know that the Polish people themselves receive the food…

But to underscore our fundamental opposition to the repressive actions taken by the Polish government against its own people, the administration has suspended all government-sponsored shipments of agricultural and dairy products to the Polish government…

The United States is taking immediate action to suspend major elements of our economic relationships with the Polish government. We have halted the renewal of the Export-Import Bank's line of export credit insurance to the Polish government. We will suspend Polish civil aviation privileges in the United States. We are suspending the right of Poland's fishing fleet to operate in American waters. And we're proposing to our allies the further restriction of high technology exports to Poland.

These actions are not directed against the Polish people. They are a warning to the government of Poland that free men cannot and will not stand idly by in the face of brutal repression…

When 19th century Polish patriots rose against foreign oppressors, their rallying cry was, “For our freedom and yours.” Well, that motto still rings true in our time. There is a spirit of solidarity abroad in the world tonight that no physical force can crush. It crosses national boundaries and enters into the hearts of men and women everywhere. In factories, farms, and schools, in cities and towns around the globe, we the people of the Free World stand as one with our Polish brothers and sisters. Their cause is ours, and our prayers and hopes go out to them this Christmas.

Yesterday, I met in this very room with Romuald Spasowski, the distinguished former Polish Ambassador who has sought asylum in our country in protest of the suppression of his native land. He told me that one of the ways the Polish people have demonstrated their solidarity in the face of martial law is by placing lighted candles in their windows to show that the light of liberty still glows in their hearts.

Ambassador Spasowski requested that on Christmas Eve a lighted candle will burn in the White House window as a small but certain beacon of our solidarity with the Polish people. I urge all of you to do the same tomorrow night, on Christmas Eve, as a personal statement of your commitment to the steps we're taking to support the brave people of Poland in their time of troubles…

We are blessed with a freedom and abundance denied to so many. Let those candles remind us that these blessings bring with them a solemn obligation, an obligation to the God who guides us, an obligation to the heritage of liberty and dignity handed down to us by our forefathers…

So, in a spirit of gratitude for what we've been able to achieve together over the past year and looking forward to all that we hope to achieve together in the years ahead, Nancy and I want to wish you all the best of holiday seasons. As Charles Dickens, whom I quoted a few moments ago, said so well in “A Christmas Carol,” “God bless us, every one.”

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: A bill recently cleared the U.S. House—scrapping the COVID vaccination mandate for the military. We’ll learn more.

Plus, family friendly streaming.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

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

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