The World and Everything in It: January 11, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. Hi, I'm Keith Warburg. And I’m Emmy Lou Warburg. We listen to WORLD every morning on our way to school at Highlands Christian Academy in Valdosta, Georgia. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! The Republican front-runners made their case to voters last night ahead of the Iowa caucus, but can the challengers overtake Donald Trump?

AUDIO: Don't ask me what President Trump thinks. You need to have him on this debate stage and ask him for yourself.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also, new challenges for American foreign policy in the Middle East. And thousands of child migrants are in this country. What’s being done to track them? And a new model of dog rescue that’s saving dogs from being euthanized.

AUDIO: And I just felt blessed that there’s people that are willing to drive the animal to you.

And WORLD Commentator Cal Thomas points to polls that say President Biden is out of touch with black voters.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, January 11th, 2024. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Debate » Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former ambassador Nikki Haley debated head to head last night in Iowa, and the knives were out early.

SOUND: [Debate]

The party’s top two challengers to Donald Trump spent much of the debate attacking one another with little attention to Trump or President Biden.

Last night’s debate in Des Moines came just five days before the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. And for the first time, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy did not make the cut.

Christie drops out » Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also failed to meet the polling requirements for the debate. And just hours earlier, he told supporters in New Hampshire:

CHRISTIE: It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination, which is why I’m suspending my campaign tonight for president of the United States.

Christie, who is one of Donald Trump’s most vocal Republican critics criticized other GOP candidates for, in his view, going light on the frontrunner.

Christie said Trump cannot be allowed to return to the White House. And he said by dropping out, he hopes to declutter the field of GOP alternatives to Trump.

Trump town hall » As DeSantis and Haley debated, the former president held a town hall event just miles away in Des Moines.

He took aim at President Biden on a range of issues, including the southern border.

TRUMP: A guy like Biden, there’s nothing he can run out. Everything’s turned out badly. The border’s a disaster, the worst border in history …

… I think the worst border in the history of the world. We had the best border in the history of our country. We never had a border like that.

He also blasted Biden for what he said are woke policies imposed on the military.

In a head to head matchup, an average of recent polls show Trump and Biden virtually tied.

But the primary race is a different story with Trump leading all GOP challengers by more than 50 points.

Mayorkas impeachment hearing » On Capitol Hill many Republicans are pushing to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

GOP members of the House Homeland Security Committee opened an impeachment hearing on Wednesday over what they say are his failures in securing the southern border.

Committee Chairman Mark Green:

GREEN: Upon entering office, Secretary Mayorkas began dismantling effective policies that had secured the Southwest border, despite being warned by experienced border security personnel.

Migrant encounters have shattered records in recent years, including 300,000 in December alone, the most ever in a single month.

But Democratic members called the impeachment hearing a political face.

Ranking Member Bennie Thompson.

THOMPSON: Extreme MAGA Republicans have created this impeachment circus sideshow in part to distract from their own failures.

Even if Mayorkas is impeached in the House, it’s unlikely that the Democrat-led Senate would vote to remove him from office.

Hunter Biden » Also at the Capitol on Wednesday,

COMER: I call up a report containing a resolution recommending that the House of Representatives find Robert Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for refusal to comply with a subpoena … duly issued by this committee.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer heard there. The Republican-led panel approved that resolution.

That was hours after Hunter Biden made a surprise appearance at the hearing. Reporters pelted him with questions on the way out.

The president’s son refused to appear for private questioning last month for an investigation into Biden family business dealings demanding that the hearing be public.

Ohio trans bill » Ohio state lawmakers have voted to override Governor Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that would protect minors from medical attempts to change their sex traits.

WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: House Bill 68 would ban the prescription of cross-gender hormones, puberty blockers, and gender transition surgery to minors.

It would also bar males from competing in girls’ and women’s sports.

The Republican governor vetoed the bill saying he believes that parents, not the government, should make those decisions.

However, he did issue an executive order banning gender transition surgeries for minors.

A vote in the heavily Republican state Senate later this month will decide the fate of the law.

For WORLD I’m Josh Schumacher.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Republicans fight fire with fire in the last debate before the Iowa caucuses. Plus, canine economics.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 11th of January, 2024. Thanks for listening to The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

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

Up first, the Republican primary race in Iowa. Last night’s debate and town hall is our main focus today, where Republican front runners made their final big pitch to voters ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

Now, we touched on how caucuses work earlier this week. But we spoke in more general terms in a way that may have raised even more questions. We want to be clear on the specifics at the Iowa Republican Caucus coming up on Monday. After all, what happens in Iowa in many ways sets the tone for what comes in later caucuses.

BROWN: Keep in mind that the two major parties do their respective caucuses quite differently.

So here to talk about the nuts and bolts of the Republican caucus in Iowa on Monday is Donald Roth. He’s a professor at Dordt University, earned his law degree from Georgetown and now teaches criminal justice and business administration. Roth has active interests in public policy and will be chairing one of the caucus sites next week.

REICHARD: Donald, good morning!

DONALD ROTH: Good morning.

REICHARD: The caucus system isn’t something everyone is familiar with. My own state of Missouri has just switched from the primary system of choosing a candidate to the caucus system. So would you walk us through how the Republican party caucus in Iowa works?

ROTH: Yeah, probably the easiest way for people to conceptualize it, I think if you’re coming from a state with more of like a primary system, would be if you had a closed door primary, that you would come to a meeting and at that meeting, you would cast a ballot. Those ballots would be counted at that point, and the winner of the ballots cast at that meeting then would be the one that would get the representatives from your district.

REICHARD: I understand caucus-goers arrive at their designated place to make sure registration is proper and so forth. The 1,670 precincts require a valid ID and proof of residency. And it’s only registered Republicans who can participate. Then what happens? Walk us through the evening.

ROTH: Yeah, people show up, usually it starts promptly at seven o'clock. So people typically show up at about 6:30 if they're trying to make sure they get through that whole process so we can start on a timely basis. Once the chair is selected, there will be an opportunity to have speakers for each of the different candidates make a pitch at that point to try to get people to decide at that sort of last moment that this is where they're going to cast their ballot for. And once that speech series is done, then everyone would take a ballot, they are typically blank sheets of paper where you would then would read the name of whoever you were voting for on there, put them into a box, we would have a chance to count them off there. And after those are counted, then the results are announced.

REICHARD: Nobody has to publicly say who he or she voted for, correct? I remember that at the Democrats’ 2020 caucus in Iowa…people had to physically stand in a corner to be counted for his or her candidate. The Democrat party abandoned that and has gone entirely to mail-in ballots to choose a candidate. But just to be crystal clear: At Monday night’s caucus for choosing the Republican presidential candidate, nobody has to stand in the corner or publicly announce one’s choice? I imagine many people would object to such a public declaration.

ROTH: I think that's a really important question. It's a really important distinction to make, because it is yes, a secret ballot that way. So if you happen to be someone who doesn't want to wear your candidate choice necessarily on your sleeve, or if you are a public official of some type, like a minister or something like that, who may not want to broadcast that kind of information, you would be able to come to a caucus. People will obviously know at that point, you're registered for a particular party, but they would not know which candidate you have put your support behind.

REICHARD: Useful information. Donald Roth is a professor at Dordt University…I hope your Monday night as a caucus chair goes smoothly!

ROTH: Thank you.

BROWN: Turning now to the candidates themselves. Last night was the final GOP debate to be held before votes are cast. The next time Republicans will meet on stage will be in New Hampshire on January 21st, and by that time the candidates will have hard numbers to tout or talk around.

REICHARD: So what did DeSantis, Haley, and Trump focus on in their last big pitch to voters before Monday’s caucuses?

Washington Bureau Reporter Carolina Lumetta brings us a report.

DANA BASH: Candidates, please take your positions behind the podiums. While we remind you and our audience of the ground rules…

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Last night’s debate at Drake University in Des Moines was expected to be a race for second place. CNN gave Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley a last-minute chance to appeal to Iowans before the caucuses on Monday. And both of them showed up with something to prove.

They’re tied in statewide and national polls. Going into the debate, many were curious to see if DeSantis and Haley would go after the front-runner, former President Donald Trump or sling mud at each other.

The answer was pretty clear right from the start.

RON DESANTIS: Nikki Haley is running. We don't need another mealy mouthed politician who just tells you what she thinks you want to hear, just to try to get your vote, then to get into office and to do her donors bidding…

NIKKI HALEY: …what we're gonna do is, rather than have him go and tell you all these lies, you can go to DeSantisLies.com. And look at all of those, there's at least two dozen lies that he's told about me, and you can see where fact checkers say exactly what's going to happen, and exactly why it's wrong…

The two governors debated issues ranging from immigration to social security while repeatedly accusing each other of lies and broken promises. That muddied the waters in policy conversation throughout the debate…including during this part on the economy.

DESANTIS: We're going to open up all energy for production because that will be deflationary. Nikki Haley when she was governor, she promised she would never do the gas tax. Then she tried to raise the gas tax on hardworking South Carolinians…

HALEY: Bless his heart to desantislies.com. We have never raised a tax, never raised the taxes.

DESANTIS: You tried to, you’re on video…

MODERATOR: Governor DeSantis, she has the floor.

The crisis at the southern border came up early in the debate. While both candidates have taken hardline positions on illegal immigration, each said voters can’t trust the other one to get the job done.

DESANTIS: Nikki Haley also oppose the border wall in 2016. She said that she she ridiculed that when Donald Trump was for it, and I'm telling you, you need a wall.

HALEY: Go to DeSantis lies.com. I said, you can't just build a wall, you have to do more than build a wall. We have to realize my parents came here legally. They came the right way. 50 years ago, they put in the time they put in the price, they are offended by what's happening on the border. 

On the domestic front, moderators asked the candidates whether they think Trump is pro-life.

HALEY: I mean, look, I think that he did some pro life, things when he was president, you'd have to ask him, that's why he should be on this debate stage. Don't ask me what President Trump thinks. You need to have him on this debate stage and ask him for yourself.

DeSantis contrasted Trump with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who signed a law in July protecting babies from abortion after they have a detectable heartbeat.

DESANTIS: He said that that's a quote, terrible, terrible thing. I don't know how you square that he was at the march for life when he was president his last year. And he said that life's a gift from God that the unborn are made in the image of God, and that you needed to have protections for those for that human life and now saying, it's a terrible, terrible thing. He's given a gift to the left to weaponize that against pro lifers, and that's wrong… But at the end of the day, I do agree with her on this: Donald Trump should be on this stage. He owes it to you here in Iowa to explain this change he's had in his positioning…he needs to explain why he didn’t build the wall, and why he added 7.8 trillion dollars to the debt.

While not on stage at Drake University, Trump was in Iowa, actually less than two miles away holding his own town hall on Fox News in primetime.

He claimed credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade but wavered on whether he would support federal pro-life laws. Here’s a direct question from a mom at the town hall:

REBECCA: I'd like for you to reassure me that you can protect all life, every person's right to life without compromise.

And Trump’s response:

DONALD TRUMP: I want to get something where people are happy, you know, this has been tearing our country apart for 50 years, nobody's been able to do anything. But we're living in a time when there has to be a little bit of a concession one way or the other. And I think, you know, I want to get it right. I have to get it right.

Trump largely ignored his GOP rivals and instead looked beyond the caucuses to the general election, where he argues he is best suited to beat President Joe Biden.

But none of the candidates can control next week’s wild card: The weather. Monday the 15th could be the coldest Caucus Day on record, with temperatures expected to hover around minus 30 degrees with wind chill. This could keep many voters away from their precincts that night.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: New Year, new foreign policy challenges for the United States.

Last Thursday, a U.S. airstrike killed a senior leader of an Iran-backed militant group in Iraq. Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder explained that the militant widely known as Abu Taqwa was planning attacks on American personnel.

RYDER: It is important to note that the strike was taken in self-defense, that no civilians were harmed and that no infrastructure or facilities were struck.

The move comes after months of Iran-backed attacks on American military bases in Iraq and Syria.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Joining us now to talk about this and other stories is Will Inboden. He’s a professor at the University of Florida and a regular contributor to World Opinions. Will, thanks for joining us!

WILL INBODEN: Thank you, Mary, it's great to be with you.

REICHARD: Will, how does this strike factor into the Biden Administration’s policy in the Middle East?

INBODEN: I think the strike was long overdue. Iran and its proxy militias in Iraq and Syria, even its proxies, the Houthis in Yemen, have been attacking American personnel, American interests or allied shipping for months now as part of this escalating pressure campaign to try to erode our support for Israel, and to get us out of the region. And the Biden administration I think has been too slow and too weak in responding overall. And that weakness has been somewhat provocative to the Iranians, they thought they could keep getting away with it. And so this strike was long overdue. I'm glad to see that we took out Abu Taqwa, but more needs to be done. We have learned over time, over the last several decades, that Iran does respond to credible force and deterrence. And if they think we need a more disproportionate response, they're making clear to the Iranians that there is a severe price to be paid for putting our troops at risk, as well as for their ongoing support for Gaza, and other radical Islamist terrorist groups in the region.

REICHARD: Closer to home, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. He’s been missing in action. Austin didn’t inform the White House for three days that he wasn’t able to work. He checked into the hospital on January 1st, and this week news broke that he’s got prostate cancer and undergoing treatment. All of it concerning, but what makes this a big story is the lack of communication on his whereabouts and health and who was in charge

Now there are calls for Austin to resign. Will, what do you make of this story?

INBODEN: Yeah, it's really stunning. And I, you know, first just on a human level, all of us can understand the desire we have for a certain amount of privacy with our health concerns with familial ones. Prostate cancer, I speak as a man who's not getting any younger, can be a pretty serious disease, right? So I want to start with on a human level of empathy, that we should be praying for Secretary Austin and his family because this is a difficult ordeal. But there's a very important point here. When one takes a position of leadership and public service, of necessity, we give up a lot of our privacy. It is no longer just our personal concerns, we now have the stewardship of leading the country, in this case of leading our armed forces, especially when we are in a situation of active hostilities. And the country needs to know, is the Supreme Commander of the Military Forces, is he healthy? Is he capable of functioning? Certainly his president, the commander in chief, needs to know. And so it was a really stunning omission by Secretary Austin and his team, not only not to notify the American people, but not to notify the White House as well. And so I, I can't pretend to know how or why this happens. I don't want to ascribe any Ill motives here. But it was a very significant mistake. And I'm sure there are some candid and frank discussions happening between President Biden and Secretary Austin right now, even as I return to, we should still be concerned for his health, but also need to make sure that these sort of evasions and hiding important medical truths do not happen again, when there is so much at stake for our country's national security.

REICHARD: One more story. On New Year’s Eve, Chinese President Xi Jingping gave a speech referencing Taiwan. I’ll read here from an English translation: “China will surely be reunified, and all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Will, what does that statement say to you about President Xi’s new year’s resolutions?

INBODEN: There's not much new in the way he phrased it. The Chinese Communist Party's position has long been that Taiwan is a renegade province, it has no independence, it should be a part of China, and it will inevitably be reunified with China. So they you know, Chinese dictators going back to Mao have been saying that. The significance here, however, is the timing. This is just two weeks before Taiwan's upcoming presidential elections. There are two main parties in Taiwan, the DPP, which is a little more independence-minded, and the KMT, which is a little more favorable to closer ties with Beijing. Xi Jinping, I think is clearly trying to interfere in Taiwan's elections and threaten the DPP voters saying, Hey, if you vote for your candidate, candidate Lai, that will, you know, jeopardize Taiwan and might might provoke the use of force by Beijing. Usually, those sort of threats have backfired. The Taiwanese people value their autonomy. They do not want to come under the control be recolonized by Beijing. They certainly saw what happened to the people of Hong Kong. So in that sense, I think this will probably backfire. But it's also a reminder to us about what a dangerous world we live in, right? I mean, just as we're dealing with Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine, Hamas's aggression against Israel, Iran's aggression throughout the Middle East. Those are all serious strategic concerns, but the biggest one remains China. And the biggest concern there is a potential Chinese use of force or blockade or other coercive measures against Taiwan. And I think Xi Jinping is perhaps hoping that as the world is distracted or as American resolve, and maybe you wouldn't lean a little bit in some of these other theaters that there might be an opening for him to move more aggressively against Taiwan. He's made clear that one of his most important goals and legacies during his time as dictator of China is to recapture Taiwan. And so this is another signal to that effect and so it should certainly worry us, but I'll venture a prediction here that it will not intimidate the people of Taiwan into giving up their own freedoms.

REICHARD: William Inboden is a professor at the University of Florida and a regular contributor to World Opinions. Will, thanks for joining us!

INBODEN: Thanks, Mary. Great to be with you.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Well, Mary, I think we’re both seasoned enough to remember this classic:

AUDIO: Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop? A good question. Let’s find out.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: A one…A two-hoo…A three.

BROWN: That may have worked for Mr. Owl. Not so much for Mr. Moose.

It seems moose in Canada like to lick the road salt off of cars. They don’t get a lot of salt from their food and they love the taste. So they’re puckering up to cars driving through a national park.

All seems fun and games, but park officials say it’s bad for the moose because they lose their fear of roads and vehicles. And that leads to accidents!

So, in addition to “don’t feed the animals,” a new rule: don’t let them lick your car!

REICHARD: Just the Tootsie Pops.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, January 11th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A new approach to an old problem!

Four out of ten households in this country have a dog. Myrna, you and I are dog lovers, too! In fact, I have three pups!

BROWN: Mary, were any of them shelter dogs?

REICHARD: Oh, yes!

BROWN: Well, that’s good. Because on average, 390,000 dogs are euthanized in shelters every year. But a rescue group I recently visited is trying to change that, one pup at a time.

REICHARD: Can’t wait to hear about this!

SOUND: [HEAVY PANTING]

MYRNA BROWN, REPORTER: Three year old buddy is a black lab with tons of energy.

SOUND: [PITTER PATTER OF PAWS]

Half his size and running across astroturf, about a dozen Dachshunds,  curious…

SOUND: [SNIFFING MICROPHONE]

and cautious…

SOUND: [BARKING]

And just delivered in crates…

SOUND: [WHIMPERING]

…with tiny eyes still sealed shut, puppies resting one on top of the other.

AUDIO: It’s ok…. [WHIMPERING]

This is Big Dog Ranch Rescue of Alabama. A last chance, quarantine hub for dogs. The ranch is a transfer or stop over point before unwanted dogs reach their final destination, a forever home.

LORI ALLEN: We take in dogs from high-kill shelters that are on their last days, typically on a euthanization list.

That’s Lori Allen, blonde, petite and wearing a hoodie and a walkie-talkie on her hip. She’s the operations manager.

LORI ALLEN: So this over here is our medical building…here we have our pharmacy in there…so this is our triage area…so this is where we put our sick dogs…and these are individual quarantine rooms. Each room has its own AC unit, so no two rooms are sharing the same air. They all have their own play yards and they all have their small rooms that they live in.

Sixteen, wooden, ranch-style buildings in all. Since Big Dog Ranch Rescue opened a little over a year ago, Allen has probably seen every dog that spends on average about two months at this 100-acre site.

LORI ALLEN: We can take in 20 or 30 puppies, 20 or 30 adult dogs at one time that are just found roaming the streets.

Specifically streets from states across the Southeast.

ALLEN: This building is sponsored by a group out of South Carolina. These two buildings are more for our Alabama dogs. She came in from a shelter in Georgia….so these guys came in from Texas.

To understand why there are too many shelter dogs in the South and too few in the North, I called up Allen’s boss, the woman who founded Big Dog Ranch Rescue of Florida in 2006.

LAUREE SIMMONS: Went to pick up my first dog at a Miami-Dade kill shelter and at that point I had no idea how many innocent and adoptable dogs were being euthanized in shelters just because shelters had no space, they were overcrowded and I vowed that day to do something about it.

Lauree Simmons works in construction and interior design. But her passion is saving shelter dogs from being euthanized. She can’t prove it, but she believes climate is the biggest reason the South has an overabundance of shelter dogs.

SIMMONS: With the weather and the freezing in the Northeast and the Northwest and parts of the West, it’s not conducive to dogs that are abandoned and live outside, and get pregnant and have puppies, they’re not going to survive the winters in that climate.

Warmer temperatures equal a longer mating season and many communities in the south don’t have low-cost spay and neuter clinics. That’s why both Big Dog Ranch Rescue locations provide spaying, neutering, vaccines, microchipping and socialization training. And every two to three weeks the rehabilitated dogs are safely transported from the dog hubs in Florida and Alabama to forever homes in the North.

RHONDA ANDERSON: It’s like a tour bus.

That’s 51-year-old Rhonda Anderson on the other line.

RHONDA ANDERSON: I live in Northampton, Pennsylvania

SOUND: [SIR EARL THE SCHNAUZER]

And she’s a Schnauzer lover. Meet Sir Earl, her miniature Schnauzer.

ANDERSON: My favorite thing about Schnauzers is they’re known to have bushy brows and beards. Cause I can walk down the street and men will say, wow, his beard is nicer than mine.

Anderson says she tried for months to adopt a dog from her local humane society, but no one ever returned her calls or emails. After an immediate response from Big Dog Ranch Rescue, she drove two hours to New York to meet the rescue group’s big bus. On board, Sir Earl and dozens of other shelter dogs from the South.

ANDERSON: And I just felt blessed that there’s people that are willing to drive the animal to you.

But how does Big Dog Ranch Rescue handle dogs that are unadoptable, challenging and too aggressive for average family’s like Anderson’s? Lauree Simmons:

SIMMONS: Sometimes dogs can be rehabilitated and that can go away but we have to make the sad choice of not bringing those dogs into our facilities because that dog may be there a year. In that same amount of time we could have saved 12 dogs in that same space.

There's also the cost of saving dogs. Big Dog Ranch Rescue is funded solely through donations. Last year Simmons says the Alabama location took in more than 2000 dogs and puppies.

SIMMONS: On average, each dog we save costs us over a thousand dollars.

ALLEN: Von we need some bedding. Can you bring me some bedding somebody?

Back at the site in Alabama, two more mamas are delivered with their two litters of puppies, a Black Lab mix and a Schnauzer.

SIMMONS: I pray every day for our Lord Jesus to help me find an answer to this problem.

AUDIO: How many are there Von? I think three.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Shorter, Alabama.

SOUND: [DOGS BARKING] 

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, January 11th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: WORLD Commentator Cal Thomas on President Biden and black voters.

CAL THOMAS: A new USA Today/Suffolk University Poll reveals one in five black voters say they will support a third-party candidate instead of the president. That’s down substantially from the 92% of blacks who voted for Biden in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.

What is the president’s strategy for shoring up his and Democrats’ most loyal supporters? Telling them their biggest threat is “white supremacy.” He made it a central theme in his speech on Monday at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where in 2015 a white gunman shot and killed nine members of a Bible study.

In the speech, Biden said nothing about the failing schools so many poor and minority children are trapped in; or violence in big cities that kill many young black men; or the disproportionate abortion rate among black women; or the necessity of putting more black fathers in homes to provide loving discipline to their children.

Biden has a long history of using race as a political weapon while doing little to improve the lives of black Americans. He has also claimed to have been arrested during civil rights demonstrations and while on the way to see Nelson Mandela in prison. Neither is true.

There was also his 2006 remark: “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” In 2020, he implied if blacks didn’t vote for him “you ain’t Black.” In 2010, he warmly eulogized Sen. Robert Byrd, a former Exalted Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan, saying he was “one of my mentors” and that “the Senate is a lesser place for his going.” As early as 1977, Biden said that forced busing to desegregate schools would cause his children to “grow up in a racial jungle.” In 2007, he referred to Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.”

So many more examples, but not enough space.

Democrats have played the race card for decades. Recently, some even blamed Harvard President Claudine Gay’s downfall on bigotry, not plagiarism and a failure to denounce antisemitic genocide. Their talk has been cheap and the results negligible. One wonders why so many still vote for Democrats given their record.

White supremacy is a minority view. Most Christians call it a sin. There are no pure-bred people. We are all mixed up in the great gene pool of life, as Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has brilliantly demonstrated in several PBS programs on African American lives. To hate another person because of their race is to hate a part of one’s self.

Given the declining poll numbers for Biden, among especially young black voters, it would appear some are starting to figure out how Democrats have duped them for decades. Biden’s out-of-touch speech in Charleston is likely to do little to improve his favorability among their party’s once solid voting bloc.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet joins us for Culture Friday.

And, a new film releases tomorrow, The Book of Clarence, a satirical film about Jesus that raises questions about the redemptive power of belief. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. 

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.

Jesus told this parable to His disciples: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” —Matthew 13:31-32

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.