The World and Everything in It: February 26, 2025

LINDSAY MAST,  HOST: Good morning!

Today on Washington Wednesday, contemplating how President Trump’s vision for America First should play out.

O'NEAL:Before we can help any others, we have to be healthy again. We’re not healthy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also news from around the world on WORLD Tour.

Later, the issue of illegal immigration, it became tragically personal for one mom.

MORIN: I couldn't be there to protect my daughter. But by speaking out, I'm hoping to show people that we need to make change to protect American families.

And WORLD Opinions commentary on harnessing technology for the good of the church.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, February 26th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

MAST: It’s time for news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: House budget » House Republicans last night narrowly passed a budget blueprint … a crucial step toward delivering on President Trump’s agenda.

AUDIO (House budget vote): The ayes are 2017. The nays are 215. The majority voting in the affirmative, the current resolution is adopted.

It’s a big win for House Speaker Mike Johnson, but he explains that this is not the final step.

JOHNSON:  This resolution itself contains no policies. It is a framework only, and it's the product of months and months of work.

But there’s more work left to do to pass what President Trump has called his one “big, beautiful bill.” It would address his national and border security priorities … and extend trillions in tax cuts … while also cutting spending.

Last night’s vote kicks off what figures to be a weeks-long process … to hammer out the details … and then merge it with the Senate's package.

Ukraine mineral rights deal » The United States and Ukraine have agreed to the framework of a large economic deal to include U.S. access to rare earth minerals in Ukraine.

TRUMP: So what we're doing is now we're saying, look, we want to be secured. We want to get that money back.

It’s an agreement that could go a long way to help repair a rift between President Trump and Ukraine’s president.

And President Volodymyr Zelensky could meet with Trump in Washington this week to sign the deal.

TRUMP:  I hear that he's coming on Friday, certainly it's okay with me if he'd like to and he would like to sign it together with me.

Zelenskyy had pushed for security guarantees as part of a deal for mineral rights and other resources but it’s unclear if any such assurances will be in the agreement.

Starmer: UK to increase defense spending  » British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is announcing an increase in defense spending ahead of a meeting tomorrow at the White House with President Trump. Starmer suggested that he sees a changing security landscape in light of U.S. talks with Russia to end the Ukraine war.

STARMER:  As the nature of that conflict changes, as it has in recent weeks, it brings our response into sharper focus. A new era that we must meet, as we have so often in the past, together and with strength.

The United Kingdom currently spends 2.3% of gross domestic product on defense.

President Trump has complained that the U.S. provides security to European countries that don’t pull their weight. And he’s been pressing European leaders to step up their defense spending.

White House shakes up press access » A big shakeup in the White House press briefing room. Press Secretary Karline Leavitt:

LEAVITT: I am proud to announce that we are going to give the power back to the people who read your papers, who watch your television shows, and who listen to your radio stations.

For decades, the White House Correspondents' Association — or WHCA — has largely decided which members of the media are invited to cover White House events or travel aboard Air Force One. But Leavitt says …

LEAVITT: Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team.

The WHCA has long been an exclusive group of mostly legacy media power players. The group’s current president is MSNBC senior political analyst Eugene Daniels.

Leavitt says legacy news outlets will still be invited, but the administration will open more access to less traditional, new media outlets and reporters.

Israel latest » Former Hamas hostage Noa Argamani spoke out Tuesday about her experience.

She told world leaders at United Nations headquarters that she was held in unimaginable conditions

ARGAMANI: I was injured and needed medical help. But of course, I got nothing - no doctors, no Red Cross, nothing.

The Israeli military rescued her last summer.

She went on to beg leaders to do everything possible to see that the current ceasefire is extended.

ARGAMANI: The deal must go on in full and completely in all the stages. My partner, Avinatan Or, and many other hostages are only supposed to be released in the second stage of the deal.

Phase One of the ceasefire is set to expire this weekend.

SCOTUS declines buffer-zone cases » The U.S. Supreme Court is refusing to hear cases challenging so-called buffer zones around abortion facilities. WORLD’s TK has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The court declined two lawsuits from pro-life plaintiffs claiming local regulations in Illinois and New Jersey violate their First Amendment rights. Those regulations set perimeters around abortion facilities, restricting protests, prayers, or counseling.

The high court’s decision lets those perimeters stand.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, with Thomas arguing a 25-year-old precedent allowing the so-called buffer zones should be overturned. For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: U.S. conservatives wrestle with “America First” priorities while also standing up to totalitarianism around the world. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 26th of February.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Time now for Washington Wednesday.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump presented himself as the candidate ready to recalibrate America’s priorities—from energy to immigration.

A month into the new administration, activists from across the country gathered to celebrate at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference.

President Trump was there with them.

TRUMP: Over the past month we've confirmed an all star team of warriors, patriots, visionaries and put the America First agenda into action.

MAST: Already, conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and beyond are testing the America First strategy on the global stage. That’s a welcome change to conservatives, even if they don’t all agree on America’s role.

Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno has more.

ROBERT VARESCHI: I’m with Trump. Gotta stop the killing.

LEO BRICENO: Robert Vareschi, a veteran, came to CPAC with a hat full of military pins, and concerns about U.S. involvement in foreign wars.

VARESCHI: Zelenskyy out there, we sent him $350 billion bucks, nobody knows where it is. … I’m with Trump on that. Negotiated settlement there. Sanctions against Russia. Tighten the sanctions on Iran, and we gotta trade with China. Reciprocal tariffs.

Many Americans share Vareschi’s concern that the United States is overextending itself in foreign conflicts. Trump ran for reelection on a commitment to get the U.S. out of the business of global policeman.

ED YOUNG: I think our country is a mess right now. A mess of corruption so deep we couldn’t have imagined it.

Ed Young is a TikTok influencer and Trump advocate who attended CPAC. He says America’s cultural and governance problems should be addressed before intervening in international conflicts, like the war in Ukraine.

YOUNG: We’ve done an awful lot for them but it’s time we took care of our own nightmare that we’ve got here.

Young’s friend Michael O’Neal agrees.

MICHAEL O’NEAL: Before we can help any others, we have to be healthy again. We’re not healthy.

Former President Joe Biden used to describe the United States’ enormous resource commitments to Ukraine as a moral imperative. Here he is speaking at the NATO summit in September.

BIDEN: When Russia invaded Ukraine, we could have stood by and merely protested. But Vice President Harris and I understand that that was an assault on everything this institution is supposed to stand for. And so, at my direction, America stepped into the breach to provide massive security, economic, and humanitarian assistance.

Three years after Russia invaded Ukraine, many conservatives want to see more results for the aid we sent. And at CPAC, they applauded speakers who framed conflicts overseas with a mind towards how U.S. interests are served—or not served. Here’s Vice President J.D. Vance answering questions about developments in talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

VANCE: The president believes this and he’s absolutely right; peace is in the interest of Russia, it’s in the interest of Ukraine, it’s in the interest of Europe, but most importantly peace is in the interest of the American people.

Jeff Culp came to CPAC from New Jersey with his fiancee, both of them sporting MAGA hats. He says the U.S. should not have to play global policeman for countries facing challenges.

JEFF CULP: It should be their own governments. But they’re mostly corrupt. So that’s the problem we have. It’s all over the world.”

Others view America First through a more mainstream Republican lens. Former White House official KT McFarland spoke during a breakout session on Israel.

MCFARLAND: I was President Trump's Deputy National Security Advisor. But before that I was in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan administrations working for Henry Kissinger…

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan put America’s rivalry with the Soviet Union in moral terms.

REAGAN: I urge you to beware the temptation of pride the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

I asked McFarland about how the U.S. can confront authoritarian nations like Russia and China while also putting itself first.

MCFARLAND: Trump’s a businessman, he understands the power of markets. The United States is the largest market in the world. So other countries—including China—need to sell stuff to us a whole lot more than we need to buy stuff from them. That gives us enormous leverage.

Trump is also using economic leverage in negotiations with Ukraine. On Saturday, he spoke at CPAC, and said the U.S. should see some sort of return on the billions of dollars in foreign aid invested in the frontlines of Ukraine.

TRUMP:Europe gave it in the form of a loan. They get their money back. We gave it in the form of nothing. So I want them to give us something for all of the money we put up and I’m going to try to get the war settled and I'm going to try to get all that death ended. So we’re asking for rare earth—and oil—anything we can get.

Economic self-interest also appears to be a key component in conversations about what’s next for Gaza.

Trump has called for the United States to take over the contentious region, suggesting it could be turned into something new with American control.

But is that an America-first idea? Here’s former White House official McFarland.

MCFARLAND: Now, this is interesting because—so every time there have been these middle east wars, right, there’s rubble then it gets rebuilt, aid comes in, then the bad guys move right back in to distribute the aid so they just perpetuate, perpetuate, perpetuate. So, President Trump is saying ‘break the cycle.

For McFarland and others, replacing that cycle with economic leverage and peace negotiations serves not only American interests, but other nations as well.

MCFARLAND: America first is when the countries of the world aren’t fighting each other and when President Trump is standing with Israel. That is America first.

That’s it for Washington Wednesday.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno in National Harbor, Maryland.

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

AUDIO: [Sound from meeting]

ONIZE ODUAH: Sudan parallel government — We start today in Sudan—Egypt’s southern neighbor—where members of a paramilitary force have signed a government charter with other armed groups and political allies.

The Rapid Support Forces—or RSF—have been fighting against the Sudanese military since April 2023 for control of the country. The conflict has displaced more than 12 million people.

The RSF now controls most of the western Darfur region and parts of the Kordofan region.

Suleiman Sandal is one of the RSF supporters who attended the signing ceremony.

SANDAL: [ARABIC] This charter is a binding covenant that embodies the Sudanese wishes to build a new Sudan that is based on secularism, justice and equality among all citizens, and the implementation of the rule of law.

He says the charter embodies the people’s wish to build a new country founded on justice, equality, and secularism.

The agreement also called for a democratic state with a single national army, but still carved room for armed groups to exist.

The Sudanese army has condemned any formation of a parallel government.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty also rejected the agreement.

ABDELATTY: [ARABIC] The territorial safety of Sudan is a red line for the Egyptian side and we cannot take this lightly.

He says that Egypt does not take the territorial safety of Sudan lightly.

AUDIO: [Sound of protest]

Indonesia student protests — Next, to Indonesia. Thousands of students crowded the streets last week in several cities to protest against the government’s budget cuts.

President Prabowo Subianto’s administration has slashed travel and amenities for government workers. Authorities have also reallocated funds from the education and health sectors to fund other projects, including a free lunch program for school children.

University student Rahman Hakim joined the protest in the capital city of Jakarta.

HAKIM: [BAHASA] Food prices are rising, fuel prices are rising, social discrepancies are increasing, and education is becoming even more inaccessible. This is a serious note to us all.

He says food and fuel prices are rising while education has become more inaccessible.

France fugitive — Next we head to Ukraine’s southern neighbor on the Black Sea.

AUDIO: [Sound of police van doors closing]

In Romania, authorities have detained a fugitive French prisoner who staged a deadly escape nine months ago and sparked an international manhunt.

Romanian police detained Mohamed Amra during an operation near a shopping center in the capital city of Bucharest. He was extradited to France on Tuesday.

The 30-year-old was serving a burglary sentence when armed assailants helped him escape from a prison convoy in Normandy last May. Two guards died during his escape.

Amra was also facing investigation for other offenses, including attempted organized homicide and a kidnapping that resulted in death.

Prosecutors said he also has connections to organized crime syndicates in Marseille and possibly heads a drug trafficking network.

French President Emmanuel Macron hailed his arrest as a tremendous success.

MACRON: [FRENCH] First of all, I'd like to thank all my European colleagues and congratulate the French investigating services, who have been tracking down Mohamed Amra for months and months.

He also thanked his European colleagues and French forces for persevering on the case.

AUDIO: [Music from orchestra]

Venezuela orchestra — We wrap up today in Venezuela where over 4,000 young musicians staged a nearly two-hour free concert to mark a key anniversary.

This year marks 50 years since the founding of a network of youth orchestras known as El Sistema or The System.

José Antonio Abreu began the program in 1975 to offer free classical musical education to children. It’s grown since then and produced some world-renowned musicians like the Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel.

Nineteen-year-old Anairoger Andrade was among the performers.

ANDRADE: [SPANISH] A privilege to be in the front rows, eh, and a nervousness as always. But super happy, super happy for this opportunity that the system gave us and that our nucleus and our nucleus director too.

She says despite her nerves, it was a privilege to be in the front row and to have such an opportunity to perform.

The government-funded program has faced accusations of serving as a propaganda scheme for Venezuelan authorities. It has also faced allegations of sexual harassment from some former participants, though other former students defend the group.

El Sistema currently serves more than 1 million children in Venezuela.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 26th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a personal tragedy and political controversy.

The Trump administration has been working to step up deportations to keep a campaign promise. Trump officials say their initial focus is on deporting illegal migrants who threaten public safety and national security.

MAST: For one Maryland woman, this issue is brutally personal. Her name is Patty Morin. Her 37-year-old daughter Rachel Morin was murdered, and the suspect facing trial is an illegal migrant from El Salvador.

WORLD Senior Writer Emma Freire met with Patty Morin to find out how she’s managed the unspeakable grief.

EMMA FREIRE: Patty Morin is a soft-spoken grandmother and former homeschooling mom of 6. But in August of 2023, she suffered a horrific tragedy that thrust her into the national spotlight.

SEAN HANNITY: Our deepest sympathies, our prayers go out to Rachel’s entire family. Anyway, we are joined now by her mother. Patty Morin is with us…

Her daughter Rachel, who had 5 children of her own, was murdered while walking on a local trail.

Patty brought a framed photo of Rachel along to our interview. She’d wrapped it in plastic to protect it from the rain outside.

AUDIO: [Plastic rustling] This is my daughter.

It’s one of Patty’s favorites. Rachel’s younger brother took the picture,e and those two were particularly close. Rachel’s smile is radiant.

MORIN: She was a petite little girl, and but she when she walked into the room, it's like she filled the whole room.

Days before Rachel’s disappearance, Patty left for the funeral of a grandchild. On a Sunday morning while she was still out of town, Patty learned that Rachel was missing. A few hours later, she got a phone call.

MORIN: My son, who had driven back the day before called me, and he said, ‘Mom, there's a detective here that I'd like to speak to you.’ 

I've lost a husband, I've lost a mother, I've lost a sibling, you know, I've lost other family members. But nothing compares to the pain that you feel when you lose a child.

The police quickly identified a suspect. But it took ten agonizing months of waiting before they finally arrested Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez … an illegal migrant.

MORIN: The suspect that's been arrested attempted to cross into the United States in Texas in January of 2023 and border patrol turned them away at the border. And then the fourth time, he came in at a different part, and he made his way into the United States and up to Los Angeles, where he's alleged to have attacked a nine-year-old child and the child's mother.

Police also discovered an Interpol warrant for the man’s arrest in connection with the murder of a woman in El Salvador.

Martinez-Hernendez is one of just an estimated 8 to 9 million immigrants who crossed the border illegally during the Biden administration.

KRIKORIAN: They took into custody over 6 million inadmissible aliens.

Mark Krikorian works for the Center for Immigration Studies.

KRIKORIAN: Then there were an additional 2 million got-aways

He says the term “got aways” is a term of art.

KRIKORIAN: What it means is people that they know entered because of remote cameras or ground sensors or in some other way, their illegal entry was captured, but they themselves were not captured.

Krikorian says there’s also an unknown number of people who got in but officials have no evidence to prove it. So, he believes consistent enforcement of immigration law is essential.

KRIKORIAN: Enforcing the border, enforcing immigration laws inside the country. Including at work sites, including against people who are just regular, ordinary folks and not violent criminals, is the only way you can minimize the likelihood of criminal aliens preying on Americans.

After Rachel’s murder, Patty began speaking out about the risks of illegal migration.

MORIN: Thank you, Chairman, ranking members, and congressmen…

She’s testified before Congress three times:

MORIN: She went on a trail in our town that’s very public, very small, and we’ve walked it for over 25 years. She grew up walking this trail…

She’s also met President Trump several times and at one point he even offered to pay for her to get much-needed cataract surgery.

TRUMP: I said, “Patty, get your eyes taken care of. I’ll take care of it, just get it done. I hope you got it done. Have you had it done yet?”

Patty plans to get the surgery after the trial of Martinez-Hernandez. That’s scheduled to start on April 1st. She’s slated to testify and doesn’t want anything to get in her way.

MORIN: I couldn't be there to protect my daughter. But in a way, by speaking out, I'm hoping to protect other children from this happening, and then also to show people that this pain is real, and that the circumstances that have caused it are real, and that we need to make change to protect American families.

Patty is fighting for the safety of Americans, but Rachel’s death has also helped her understand God’s sovereignty in a new way.

MORIN: Even though I have walked 50 years as a Christian, for the first time I saw God the way Isaiah did in Isaiah 6 in the year that King Uzziah died. He looked up and saw Him sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. And in that moment, I realized that God, God was God, that he was sovereign over all things, and I just wanted to fall on my face and worship God. Not because He took my daughter or he allowed it to happen, but because, for the first time, I saw God as God. That He's sovereign over all things. And because He's sovereign, he has a right to say when our life starts and when our life ends, no matter how tragic it may be.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Freire in Towson, Maryland.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 26th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Technology has lots of upsides for the church and its mission in the world. But as WORLD Opinions contributor Emma Waters says it’s wise to be wary.

EMMA WATERS: Visibly and invisibly, artificial intelligence—or A-I—is rapidly reshaping every corner of modern life…including the Church. Will it serve as a tool that strengthens faith, or will it become a counterfeit deity?

From the moment humanity began developing tools, there has been a pull between uses that supplement or substitute human flourishing. As Joshua Mitchell argues, supplements aid the human person to his or her natural functions whereas substitutes weaken us by creating a dependence on something that lies beyond, or at odds with, ourselves. The use of AI in all areas of life—from facial recognition to ChatGPT—beckons Christians to consider how tools that begin as supplements often risk becoming substitutes.

For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, online church services and an active presence on social media enabled people to “join” together for worship and stay connected to the life of the Church. Those same tools that served to supplement the Church during the pandemic, however, may serve as a substitute for true worship and fellowship today. Similarly, Google’s AI assistant may provide quick answers about what the Bible teaches on a given topic, but it cannot replace the authority and wisdom of a church community.

Indeed, there are many ways AI is a supplement to the mission of the Church. imagine how AI may increase efforts to translate the Bible or aid missionaries as they lead Bible studies with those who speak different languages.

Nonetheless, as churches experiment with AI technology, a few notable examples warn that the supplement can become a substitute. In one example, a Catholic church in Switzerland developed “Deus in Machina”...an AI Jesus to answer theological questions. While the AI did not hear confessions, its live depiction of “Jesus” in a modified confessional blurs the line between a helpful chatbot and an encounter with the living God. Similarly, Protestant churches in Germany and Texas experimented with services written entirely by AI including the prayers, sermon, and worship music. Seriously?

While these examples may seem amusing, Bryan Johnson, a proponent of human longevity, believes this is just the beginning.

Johnson argues that AI will soon surpass human cognition where AI algorithms “will be better at being you than you are.” He believes that AI is the ultimate fulfillment of humanity’s quest for God. Johnson was recently interviewed by podcaster Bari Weiss:

“The irony is that we told stories of God creating us, and I think the reality is that we are creating God. We are creating God in the form of superintelligence. … I think the irony is that the human storytelling got it exactly in the reverse, that we are the creators of God, and that we will create God in our own image.”

For those familiar with what the Bible says about idols, Johnson’s description of AI’s potential “to create God in our own image” likely calls to mind Psalm 115:4-8:

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

As Peter Biles argues, “what religion did for the ancients, technology will do for us moderns.” Johnson envisions AI as the ultimate source of knowledge. All-knowing algorithms—rather than divine revelation—will guide humanity into a post-religious and post-human future. Such efforts, however, merely mirror pagan idol worship.

AI in its various forms is a powerful tool, but it must remain that—just a tool. Christians should not be afraid to deploy such technology to spread the gospel and equip believers with the resources they need to study scripture, all while ensuring that AI does not become a new form of idolatry.

I’m Emma Waters.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: the NCAA policy change takes effect, aimed at barring males from competing in women’s sports. But does it really? And, a young, small town police chief grapples with tragedy in his department. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

“And [Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.’” —Luke 17:1-2

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.