The World and Everything in It: July 23, 2026

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MYRNA  BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Heated debate on Capitol Hill over how the Smithsonian frames American history.

BURCHETT: In the museum's current telling, history is just an ongoing power struggle between oppressors and the oppressed.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today new regulations aimed at curbing student debt could put ministry-related degree programs at risk.

And how negative equity can bring car buying to a halt.

Later, inside the creative life of poet Malcolm Guite.

GUITE: I usually get the first lines of a poem when I'm out for a walk.

And WORLD Commentator Daniel Suhr says it’s harder than ever to deny America’s elections are fraud free.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, July 23rd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

BROWN: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: House passes key bills » The House of Representatives passed the annual defense bill on Wednesday, authorizing a record $1.15 trillion in defense spending. It was a near party-line vote, 216 to 212.

Speaker Mike Johnson:

JOHNSON: House Republicans passed the NDAA to provide a much needed pay raise for our troops and to rebuild the arsenal of freedom.

The bill would give troops a raise of 5 to 7 percent and officially rename the Defense Department to the Department of War.

A short time later, they also pushed through a $95 billion budget plan to fund the Iran war, among other things.

JOHNSON: The budget resolution that unlocks our third reconciliation bill, which of course is Republicans' best shot to get as much of the Save America Act into law as possible, in addition to funding our national defense and our farmers.

That squeaked through on a vote of 216 to 214. A handful of Republicans balked, uneasy that none of it is paid for.

It's not the money yet, but a blueprint that lets them move the funding past a Senate filibuster on party-line votes.

The plan steers more than $70 billion to the Pentagon and the Iran war. GOP Congressman Marlin Stutzman:

STUTZMAN: U.S. service members are working day and night to be sure Americans are safe from a nuclear bomb in Iran and to advance peace in the Middle East.

But Democrats say it's the wrong fight. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries:

JEFFRIES: Donald Trump's reckless and costly war of choice in Iran has skyrocketed gas prices on everyday Americans who are already suffering.

The plan now heads to the Senate where its fate is uncertain.

Dignified transfer ceremony » President Trump stood and saluted at Dover Air Force Base Wednesday as servicemembers carried four flag-draped caskets off a military plane, the remains of soldiers killed in Iranian airstrikes.

They ranged in age from 19 to 30. Two were killed in an Iranian missile and drone attack on a base in Jordan. A third went missing in that attack and is now presumed dead. The fourth died in Iraq.

The president described his message to the grieving families.

TRUMP: We love you. We love your child … and that's what they are to them. They're their children. There's no games, no nothing … that's their child. And all you can do is throw out your heart.

It was the third such ceremony Trump has attended since the war began in February. Eighteen American service members have now been killed.

Maduro in court » Former Venezuelan dictator, Nicolás Maduro, appeared in a New York courtroom Wednesday. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher reports:

BENJAMIN EICHER: The ousted ruler sat quietly as a federal judge set a date for his drug-trafficking trial.

He and his wife, Cilia Flores, will stand trial June first of next year. They're accused of working with cartels to flood the United States with cocaine, in what prosecutors call a narco-terrorism conspiracy. Both have pleaded not guilty, and both could face life in prison.

U.S. forces captured the couple in a middle-of-the-night raid in Caracas back in January and flew them to New York. They've been behind bars in a Brooklyn jail ever since.

Maduro's lawyers plan to argue he can't be tried at all, because as a foreign head of state, he has immunity. A judge will hear that argument in November.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

Ukraine latest » In Russia:

SOUND: [Warehouse attack]

Flames billowed from a warehouse Wednesday in the southwestern city of Nevinnomyssk. That warehouse owned by Wildberries, Russia's largest online retailer. Ukraine's military has been targeting multiple sites owned by the retailer, accusing the company of providing logistics for Russia's military.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in Manila, where he plans to have a sit-down meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later today.

LAVROV: [Speaking Russian]

Speaking here on Wednesday, Lavrov said he planned to ask Secretary Rubio about recent comments by President Trump that there would soon be a settlement to Russia's war with Ukraine. He also says ANY one-on-one meeting would be useful.

For his part, Secretary Rubio told reporters Wednesday:

RUBIO: The war in Ukraine, I think, has in many ways impeded the ability of Russia and the United States to find areas of agreement on other topics. That doesn't mean we won't seek to find other areas of potential cooperation. But by the same token, you know, we'd like to see that war come to an end. We think it would be good for Russia if that war came to an end. So we'll raise it.

He also said that as leaders of the two largest nuclear-armed countries in the world, it would be reckless and irresponsible for them not to keep lines of communication open.

Severe weather » Tropical Storm Bertha made landfall in southern Louisiana Wednesday, just east of New Orleans. The winds were weak, around 45 miles an hour, and with the heaviest rain offshore, the damage was limited.

Today, lingering rain trails the storm along the coast, and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry cautioned:

LANDRY: I want to remind everyone of something important, that forecasts can change and even a weaker storm can produce dangerous rainfall, localized flooding, and hazardous travel conditions.

Meanwhile, West Virginia is reeling from catastrophic flash flooding. Torrential rain swamped homes and businesses, washed out bridges, and swept away cars.

Crews have pulled dozens to safety, and the governor has called in hundreds of National Guard troops. Some residents are still unaccounted for.

Governor Patrick Morrisey:

MORRISEY: Right now we're in the phase of search and rescue. We remain in a position where we're looking to identify any individual who we might be able to save.

Crews are still searching this morning.

France deaths during heatwave » France's June heat wave was far deadlier than first feared. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The country's health agency now estimates nearly 5,800 more people died than usual over about two weeks. It was France's deadliest heat wave since 2003. The Paris region was hit hardest. Some morgues filled up and had to turn bodies away.

But the crisis stretches well beyond France. Across Europe, record summer heat has killed well over 10,000 more people than expected, with Germany, Belgium and Britain also counting thousands of dead. In one late-June week alone, monitors counted more than 14,000 excess deaths.

And the numbers keep climbing as more data comes in. Officials say many heat deaths are never recorded as heat-related, so the true toll is almost certainly higher.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I'm Kent Covington.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Thursday the 23rd of July.

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

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

First up on The World and Everything in It…curating America’s story.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill grilled leaders of the National Museum of American History this week…following a recent report on political activism in the museum.

WORLD’s Harrison Watters has the story from Washington.

HARRISON WATTERS: Debating history is nothing new for Congress. Debating how the nation’s premiere taxpayer-funded museum frames U.S. history is less common.

BURCHETT: The Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiencies will come to order…

On Tuesday, the House Oversight DOGE subcommittee met to dig into a July 4th report from the White House Domestic Policy Council called Saving America’s Story. Republican Chairman Tim Burchett.

BURCHETT: The American story is the birth and growth of a great nation, founded on powerful ideals in which we aim to fully achieve. But in the museum's current telling, history is just an ongoing power struggle between oppressors and the oppressed.

The report looks at exhibits and messaging from museum leaders that, the Council says, seem to put activism ahead of recognizing what’s good about America.

Museum Director Anthea Hartig testified that the museum is committed to telling the American story…especially the complicated parts.

HARTIG: We use historical evidence, competing perspectives, and acknowledge enduring debates so that visitors can understand how we've wrestled with democracy and citizenship and liberty, and national identity.

Hartig became the museum’s first female director in 2019. Early on, she commissioned a new mission statement. The previous one stated a commitment to “explore the infinite richness and complexity of American history.” Matthew Spalding from Hillsdale College testified the new statement is overtly ideological.

SPALDING: Its new mission is “to empower people to create a more just and compassionate future by exploring the complexity of our past.” As was noted, “American” and “history” are both gone, replaced by “our past,” and “understanding” is replaced by “empowerment.”

Republicans on the DOGE subcommittee asked Director Hartig how that mission has shown up in displays about immigration, LGBTQ identity, and abortion.

A 2020 exhibit called Girlhood (it’s complicated) aimed to show how girls have been on the front lines of social change throughout American history. South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace asked Hartig about elements of the exhibit.

MACE:: Is sexual imagery, provocative sexual imagery appropriate for kids, yes or no?

HARTIG: Ma’am, we strive to represent all Americans—

MACE: You strive to represent queer, pedophiles, indoctrination, grooming of kids at an American History museum?

In 2023 that exhibit traveled to museums around the country, ending last year.

Here’s Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert…asking about Hartig’s plans to commemorate America’s semiquincentennial.

BOEBERT: And okay, so the 250th anniversary of the Declaration, um, you said that, uh, that should be problematized...

HARTIG: Yes, I did. And when historians use that, it means to add new stories.

BOEBERT: What about when you use it different ways? Pardon me, ma'am. What about when you use it, Director?

HARTIG: When I use it, I mean to add new stories and think of new objects. to tell the American story in all its richness. in 17—

BOEBERT: But you're not going to include the babies that were killed. We can't think of those stories, those new stories, to, to share with the American people?

HARTIG: Ma'am, we are going to use the 2 million objects in our collection to tell the American story as fully as we can…

Texas Congressman Brandon Gill challenged a Smithsonian training guide called the MASS Action Toolkit…which points to politeness and objectivity as elements of white supremacy.

GILL: Are you promoting a white supremacy culture at the Smithsonian?

HARTIG: Am I promoting a what?

GILL: Ma’am is this a difficult question?

HARTIG: No, sir. i'm just thinking about the MASS Action Toolkit. We didn't develop it. But, um, back to your question. No, we're not promoting any ideology.

Hartig later admitted the Toolkit has been used for reference.

Democrats pushed back on the report and the Trump administration’s efforts to remove what it calls woke ideology from federal institutions. They brought up objections to personnel changes and the removal of pages from government websites in a sweep of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion content.

In a second hearing on Wednesday, Yale University Historian David Blight framed the White House’s actions as aligned with dangerous historical precedents.

BLIGHT: Where governments and states have tried to control history, what they are really doing is trying to control thought, free speech.

SEWELL: That sounds reminiscent of fascism.

BLIGHT: Well, you use that word. That's fine.

Hillsdale’s Matthew Spalding says asking the Smithsonian for a course correction to return to its founding principles is common sense.

SPALDING: A museum focused on claims of systemic oppression teaches national self loathing. Why should taxpayers subsidize a museum that teaches contempt for their country and reframes its past to serve ideological purposes?

The top Democrat on Tuesday’s panel, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, said she'll introduce a bill to shield the Smithsonian from what she calls executive interference. The White House has not yet recommended specific actions for future displays. But the July 4th report notes the museum receives more than one billion dollars in taxpayer funding annually. And Republicans say money like that comes with a duty to oversee how it's spent.

BURCHETT: The subcommittee stands adjourned.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Harrison Watters.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

Christian schools are sounding the alarm on a new provision from the U.S. Department of Education, which went into effect earlier this month.

The new provision will evaluate degree programs based on the income students earn in the years after graduation. If college graduates’ income isn’t higher than high school grads, the programs could lose federal financial aid.

NICK EICHER, HOST: The Education Department said the rule prevents graduates from being financially “worse off than if they had never gone to college.” The Department cited the federal student loan portfolio–which stands at $1.7 trillion. These are debts with rising rates of default and delinquency. But many schools have doubts.

Philip Dearborn is the president of the Association for Biblical Higher Education. And he says the regulations could hit programs like pastoral studies, missions work, and children’s ministry hard.

PHILIP DEARBORN: If the provision is to protect students from getting jobs that don’t pay well, I mean, think about ministry, right? Our students aren’t coming to these institutions to get a good salary in life, right? They’re doing it to answer God’s call.

BROWN: An earnings test will be used to evaluate both undergraduate and graduate programs and determine if they can receive Title IV federal Direct Loans.

Grads from undergraduate programs must demonstrate that four years after graduation they earn more than the typical high school diploma holder. Those who hold graduate degrees must show they earn more than the typical bachelor’s degree holder.

EICHER: If a program’s graduates fall below the earnings benchmark for 2 out of 3 years in a row, it loses access to federal loans. Also, the program is marked as “failing.”

Dearborn said the test oversimplifies what makes a degree program successful.

DEARBORN:If you measured my salary four years after graduation from a Bible college, it was low. It was low. But look where I am in life now. God used all kinds of circumstances, and I was never in need.

BROWN: Compounding the problem, the Department of Education initially estimated that 53% of bachelor’s degrees for religion and religious studies would be considered “failing” under the test. That number jumped to 89% for master’s degrees.

But the Department’s latest data showed a dramatic drop and estimated less than 10% of higher education religious programs are “failing”.

DEARBORN: It’s hard to get our hands around which set of statistics are right.

Dearborn says his organization, which represents 165 institutions of biblical higher education, is trying to convince Congress to reverse course.

DEARBORN: Congress created this bill. Congress can undo this bill.

EICHER: Ken Kemper is the president of Grace Christian University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And he says religious degrees are both an investment in a future salary and in vocation.

KIM KEMPER: We have 155 students pursuing religious degrees in the fall of this past year. 
Those students took out, along with their parents, $625,000 worth of student loans. I would hope that every one of those would say, ‘It is a good investment,’ as my students pursuing religious studies at Grace Christian University are being prepared for a life calling.

The Department of Education issued a final rule to acknowledge some of Christian schools’ concerns.

It adjusted the regulation’s effect on programs that haven’t participated in the Direct Loan program for the last five years. These programs no longer risk losing access to Pell grants and work study programs for failing the test.

BROWN: But Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Greg Baylor told WORLD via email that this is not a big victory. Many religious studies programs will still be affected.

Baylor added that the test still burdens the religious rights of the institutions and their students.

For campus pastor Danny Garcia, the new rule threatens the students he serves and the degree program he graduated from.

DANNY GARCIA: The government is using sort of a corporate yardstick to measure what is ultimately a spiritual calling on somebody’s life.

Garcia now works for his alma mater, Grace Christian University. He said his brother helped lead him to Christ and later encouraged him to pursue a career in ministry.

GARCIA: When it comes down to somebody’s calling in their lives, something that is deep and meaningful, I would not want something as fickle as money to prevent them from following the calling on their lives.

EICHER: The Department of Education will collect and publish data for two years until loan-loss sanctions take effect. Institutions will learn if their programs are failing as soon as 2027.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Drowning in Debt.

One in three U.S. drivers trading in for a new car is underwater on a car loan.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Underwater: meaning, the car owner owes the bank more than the vehicle is worth. But some people don’t realize that until it’s time to buy a new car and face the possibility of sinking even deeper into debt.

WORLD’s Lauren Smyth has the story.

LAUREN SMYTH: Noah Webster sells cars all day. But when he tried to sell his own car, he almost couldn’t close the deal.

WEBSTER: I go to sell the car… and had them do the appraisal, and [they’re] like, “Hey, you know, we can’t buy this car. It’s been in a major accident.” I was like, what?

Carfax had incorrectly listed a fender bender two years earlier as a major crash. That meant Webster’s car was worth a lot less than he thought—less than the loan he still had to pay off.

WEBSTER: And I kind of panicked, because it had been so long that I’d been trying to get rid of the car, and I kind of committed to it so much, but I couldn’t. And I felt like I was trapped.

Negative equity can happen in two ways: when a car depreciates, or when it’s totaled and insurance doesn’t cover the full value. The result either way is that the car’s value sinks below the loan repayment.

Speaking now as a car dealer, Webster says it’s common among young families, when parents want more seats or better safety features.

WEBSTER: When you’re growing a new family, you’re trying to be frugal. So that leads me to the reason why so many people will get negative equity, and that’s not putting money down.

Buyers who finance the full value of the car won’t have to pay cash on purchase day, but they’ll eventually have to pay off the loan and its interest. And that new car loses value the moment it’s driven off the lot. No money down means buyers will be underwater before they even get home.

On average, U.S. drivers now carry over $7,000 in negative equity, a record high. Webster sees it all the time with his customers:

WEBSTER: I’d say about 40 to 50% have a vehicle with negative equity—well, maybe a little less, maybe more like 30% have a vehicle with negative equity.

If the buyer doesn’t pay off the car before they trade it in, they’ll have to roll the negative equity into a new loan.

Is that a big deal? Well, it depends—on the buyer’s credit score, how much money they put down, how far they drive the new car, even what color it is. Webster says some of his customers find it overwhelming.

WEBSTER: People that don’t know they have negative equity—their only care is payment. As long as they can get approved and they can get the payment that fits them, they’re going to buy the car.

That choice may allow debt to compound until it reaches a breaking point.

WEBSTER: The vehicles that are going to depreciate the most in negative equity are going to be higher-end luxury vehicles and electric vehicles, and in this case it was both…. Unfortunately the owner of the car was flipped around $30,000 in negative equity. That is a monumental amount of negative equity.

That meant no loan and no car.

WEBSTER: We try to treat our clients as if they’re patients, right?—the same way a doctor would. So when a customer comes through the door, we're greeting them, we're sitting them down, we're going to figure out what their pain points are …

Some drivers find themselves with difficult decisions to make, needing a new car, but unable to finish paying off their old loan or to buy a used car with cash.

WEBSTER: The customer doesn't want their time wasted and or their hopes getting up going out looking at two different cars, test driving, finding the one you want, just to find out, oh, yeah, you can't actually even buy it.

If those customers have decent credit, they may still choose to buy a used car on a long-term contract. About 40% of car loans involving negative equity are now financed with seven-year loans, which cost the buyer more in interest but can be paid off in smaller increments.

And Webster’s own experience with negative equity? He finally managed to prove his car hadn’t been seriously wrecked. When it was re-appraised, the negative equity problem disappeared.

All told, he was underwater—or thought he was—for almost a year.

WEBSTER: I definitely have an advantage when it comes to understanding how this market works and navigating it, having worked in the industry for so long. But it can be very difficult, even with the knowledge and the know-how, because it’s always the same issue—that you don’t have enough money.

The average new car costs nearly $50,000, or nine months’ salary for the typical worker. For buyers who take out loans, that means the potential for more debt—and more risk that the debt will one day pull them under.

For WORLD, I’m Lauren Smyth.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Some kids in Michigan found there’s more than one way to squeeze a lemon.

Three brothers had been running a small lemonade stand for years.

But when they looked into expanding their business, they found what many entrepreneurs find: red tape and regulatory hurdles. They’d need hundreds of dollars in permits and fees they didn't have.

But they did have gumption, and took their case to the state legislature.

MIELKE: We hope this bill can come to a vote and pass so that other kids like us do not have to pay fees.

The Michigan House agreed.

Lawmakers unanimously approved a bill exempting children’s lemonade stands from many state regs, up to a point. Above five thousand dollars a year and the state’ll be looking for its cut.

Any event, the measure now heads to the state Senate.

Good on the kids. They didn’t just make lemonade.

They made legislation.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, July 23rd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the process of a poet.

Malcolm Guite has long white hair, a well-kept beard, and spends a lot of time walking.

MALCOLM GUITE: I usually get the first lines of a poem when I'm out for a walk. Walking is a really key part of my day. I'm lucky to have a bit of woodland not far from me, and I generally do about two or three walks a day.

He lives in Norfolk, England, with his wife… and is working on his second ballad set among the knights of the Round Table. His first book is Galahad and the Grail, a long-form poem about the knight known for his purity in the quest for the Holy Grail. The book topped publishers’ lists and nearly sold out before its release last spring.

GUITE: I had to tell them that you know the “unique selling point,” which is that “USP”—they always want that you know, the USP—which is that nobody's done this for 150 years

BROWN: He says that might also be his “unique sinking point” and there’s a reason no one has done it for 150 years.

His poems often start iambic, following the beat of his steps.

GUITE: An iam is like a heartbeat. But um, but um, but um, you know, shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. You can hear it.

When he gets those first few lines started, he retreats to what he calls his “Temple of Peace.” It’s a small structure near his house with no electricity or wi-fi. Inside, there’s a table and chair at one end and a big comfortable chair at the other. He sits and gets out a fountain pen and a journal.

GUITE: When I'm composing a poem, I'm composing, as it were, first off on the left-hand page as the two pages look at me, and I'm keeping the right-hand page for sort of revisions and other lines, and ‘oh, I should have had a line there, and there's other thing on,’ and a sort of arrow through, you know, go in there.

EICHER: He tries to keep his inner critic silent at this stage. He says if there’s no room to experiment, he won’t come up with anything creative. He tries to love it before it’s perfect.

GUITE: You have to love it into being in the hope that it might become perfect, which is the way we are with our children. You know, we don't. You know, we don't ask our children to give us 10 good reasons why they should belong to us and be loved. We love them and belong to us, and then because we love them and they belong to us, they give us all kinds of reasons to be loved.

Eventually, he will edit and transfer it to his laptop and then edit again. He says he can write small poems anywhere, but his Arthuric poetry takes time, patience, and the right environment. He has to reread what he’s written to get back into the rhythm. Sometimes that can take a whole day.

GUITE: I have to block out—this is actually quite difficult to do, you know—two or three days, where I can really go for it, but once I'm in the zone, it's a huge pleasure to do it.

BROWN: Guite dedicated Galahad and the Grail to his mother. When he was young, she would recite poetry to him. Especially the stories about the knights of the Round Table. From a young age, he identified with Galahad. Someone with his own special quest—someone who wouldn’t be captain of the football team, like Lancelot.

When he was about eight, his mother decided he was ready for the story of Sir Balin. He begins in court with the other knights, but…

GUITE: He ends up killing somebody, and he's banished from the court.

EICHER: Balin is desperate to get back into the court, so he goes looking for an act of heroism. Instead, he wounds King Pallam, bringing destruction to the king’s people and land.

Eight-year-old Guite asked his mother:

GUITE: But mum, how could there even be a world where one man so rashly could do such havoc? What about all those innocent people who are suffering because how can that even be?” She looks me in the eye and says, “I'm telling you this story because you need to know that you and I live in just such a world.

Then she told him that before Balin becomes fully aware of what he’s done, Merlin says to him:

GUITE: But the day will come when the good knight comes, and the good knight will make it through the wasteland, and he will achieve the grail, and he will reverence where you didn't reverence.

BROWN: Guite says his mother told the real version of these stories without edits or embellishments—and that taught him about love, consequences, and the proper order of the world.

Now he is never scared of a blank page because it’s filled with the poems of the past. He says all he has to do is have a conversation with them.

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

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

Election integrity remains one of America's most contested political questions.

But what happens when government officials themselves confirm the kinds of problems some commentators insist don’t exist? Here's WORLD commentator Daniel Suhr.

DANIEL SUHR: When President Trump took his case on election integrity directly to the American people last week, he argued in a primetime television address that America’s elections remain vulnerable.

Many news channels either declined to air the speech altogether or surrounded it with heavy “context”—meaning, commentary from anchors rebutting, or even pre-butting, the president’s claims.

Before Trump had even begun speaking, CNN’s John King told viewers:

KING: We’re gonna be watching and listening to what he says tonight and we will bring you any breaking news ASAP. But we are not going to take the president’s speech live. That’s because of this president’s history of misleading, in some cases false, statements on the subject of elections and election integrity.

False statements?

One of Trump’s central claims was actually pretty simple:

TRUMP: Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls. And yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.

Then, as if on cue, New Jersey’s Democratic governor acknowledged something remarkable.

She said that because of a computer glitch, the state’s voter rolls contained nearly seven-thousand non-citizens registered to vote. Nearly 400 of them actually cast ballots.

Even so, Governor Mikie Sherrill took the offensive.

SHERRILL: As the Trump administration tries to weaponize elections for political gain, I am ensuring that we protect our elections. Let me be clear: Donald Trump has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity. For the past 10 years, he’s cried wolf and peddled bizarre conspiracy theories about fraud with no evidence.

That’s a remarkable claim to make while announcing that non-citizens had, in fact, been registered to vote—and that hundreds had actually voted.

That’s not an evidence-free conspiracy theory.

New Jersey had just supplied the evidence.

Nor is New Jersey alone.

Or how about the story a few months ago from Kansas, where a non-citizen was not only voting but was serving as the elected mayor of a city? He now faces five years in prison for felonies related to voting as a non-citizen.

Then there’s another government database.

This week, the U.S. Treasury disclosed that it had made payments totaling almost $100 million to dead people.

That’s outrageous in itself. But it also raises an obvious question.

If the federal government struggles to remove the dead from one set of records, why would we assume voter rolls are immune from the same problem?

As America celebrates its 250th birthday, it’s right to celebrate our constitutional republic.

But let’s not forget Benjamin Franklin’s warning still applies: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Keeping it begins with confidence in our elections.

And that starts with clean voter rolls.

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Suhr.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday. And, the critically acclaimed TV series The Bear enters its last season. We’ll have a review. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Myrna Brown.

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

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

The Bible says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” —2 Corinthians 10:3-6

Go now in grace and peace.

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