The World and Everything in It: July 5, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. Hi! I'm Meg Cusak, and I'm currently riding my bike on the island of Hvar in the country of Croatia. I was listening to the podcast catching up, and I heard Nick say today they need some more prerolls. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! House Republicans don’t intend to let Hunter Biden off the hook following his federal plea deal. And what else is there to find out about the family business?

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday. Also today, news from around the world on WORLD Tour. Plus, a camp for kids living with disabilities offers the chance for them to have fun doing hard things together.

MASON CLEMENT: You know, I fully understand—I was in their shoes once. Not sure if anyone accepted me. But I can promise you, you’ll get over that pretty soon.

And an encouraging cultural trend on gender. WORLD Opinions writer Daniel Darling will tell us all about it.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, July 5th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: Now news. Here’s Kent Covington

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Shootings » Families are mourning in Pennsylvania today after a 40-year-old man fatally shot five men in a Philadelphia neighborhood, apparently at random.

One eyewitness said he was at home when he heard the gunshots and looked outside.

EYEWITNESS: I couldn’t see the whole corner or anything, so I wasn’t sure what he was shooting at. But within seconds, there were like 50 cops on this corner trying to figure out what was going on.

The gunman fired at police as they chased him for blocks. But when they caught up, he surrendered.

Hong Kong » Chinese officials say they’ll pursue pro-democracy activists who fled Hong Kong for the rest of their lives.

LEE: [Cantonese]

John Lee is the leader of Hong Kong, which is now fully under the thumb of the Chinese Communist government. Lee called on activists who escaped to the West to surrender or spend their “days in fear.”

He announced a bounty equal to well over $100,000 U.S. dollars for information leading to the arrests of eight pro-democracy activists. Those eight people continued their protest in 2020 even after China enacted a so-called “national security” law, stripping the territory of its semi-independent status.

Russia/Shanghai Cooperation Organization » Vladimir Putin urged fellow world leaders to commit to what he calls a multipolar world.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Putin met with allies during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It is his first summit appearance since a brief uprising by the Russian mercenary Wagner Group.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization serves as a counterpoint to Western-led alliances and features member countries such as China, India, and now Iran.

He claims Russia remained strong despite heavy sanctions for the West.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Stoltenberg » NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will remain on the job for another year.

He was slated to step down this September, but with no clear successor lined up, Stoltenberg has agreed to stay on through October of next year.

The secretary-general has helmed NATO at a critical time with Russian forces invading Ukraine right on NATO’s doorstep.

STOLTENBERG: We all want this war to end, but a just peace cannot mean freezing the conflict and accepting a deal dictated by Russia.

The former prime minister of Norway has led the military alliance since 2014.

Israel » A Hamas militant rammed his car into a crowded Tel Aviv bus stop Tuesday and began stabbing people, wounding eight. A bystander shot and killed the attacker.

Palestinian militants celebrated the attack, calling it revenge for an Israeli military raid in the West Bank.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that such an attack won’t deter his country from continuing its fight against terrorism.

This week’s counterterrorism raid in the West Bank city of Jenin was one of the most intense in the territory in nearly two decades.

Prez campaigns » GOP presidential candidates hit the campaign trail on Independence Day.

SOUND: [Parade]

In New Hampshire, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drew cheers from supporters as they marched through the rain in a July 4th parade just south of Manchester.

And in a radio interview with WGTK in Greenville, South Carolina, Gov. DeSantis said he would take his fight against woke ideologies in Florida to Washington.

DESANTIS: Kids are off limits. Do not bring your agenda to our kids. When they go to school, they have a right to have a traditional, normal education without having a teacher telling a first-grader they may have been born in the wrong body. It’s totally unacceptable.

He said Donald Trump and some other GOP candidates appear to be avoiding the topic of the LGBT agenda.

For his part, former President Trump spent the Fourth of July with family. But earlier this week, he campaigned in South Carolina.

TRUMP: And we will make America great again! 

Several other candidates campaigned in Iowa yesterday, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who marched in a parade there.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: The Hunter Biden saga continues on Washington Wednesday. Plus, Becoming a counselor at a summer camp for kids living with disabilities.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 5th of July, 2023. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday.

Today, the Democrats’ Hunter Biden problem.

The U.S. Justice Department recently cut a deal with President Biden’s son that will likely allow him to avoid prison in exchange for a guilty plea on tax and weapons charges.

REICHARD: Republicans have called it a “sweetheart deal,” and further evidence of a two-tiered justice system: one standard for those who have connections, and another for those who don’t.

Meantime, House Republicans are digging into what they say is a potential Biden family scandal involving millions of dollars in payouts from foreign nationals.

EICHER: GOP lawmakers say testimony from whistleblowers and other evidence suggest the Biden family peddled political influence when Joe Biden was vice president.

All the while, embarrassing and damaging evidence continue leaking out. They appear to show Hunter Biden flouting the law for years, living a high-rolling, drug-abusing lifestyle.

Joining us now to talk about it and what it means for the Biden campaign is political strategist Matt Klink.

REICHARD: Matt, good morning!

MATT KLINK: Hey, Mary. Good morning. How are you?

REICHARD: Doing well and glad you’re here. Well, as we mentioned, House Republicans are really digging into all of this. What can Republican-led panels accomplish independent of the Justice Department?

KLINK: The Justice Department is going to slow walk anything related to Hunter Biden beyond what they've already done, primarily because the judicial process just moves slowly. It doesn't run on a political calendar, hearings take a long time to schedule, discovery is never a linear process. So I think that the Republicans in Congress will be able to make more hay and garner more publicity than will the work of the special counsel in the Hunter Biden case.

REICHARD: Some IRS agents came forward as whistleblowers. What did they tell the committee?

KLINK: There were two credible whistleblowers: one who came out by name and one who requested to remain anonymous. They requested whistleblower status. And the big irony here is that when whistleblowers were targeting Republican members of the Trump administration, the Democrats were all hot to say that whistleblowers should be believed and they deserve protection. Yet, because now Joe Biden's in the White House, the Democrats have gone out of their way to attack the credibility of these two IRS agents. The one that became public has said very forcefully that the IRS investigators were stymied at every turn by the FBI and by the Department of the Department of Justice in their efforts to pull information about Hunter Biden, as well as anything even indirectly related to Joe Biden or has been said in the Hunter Biden laptop, “the big guy.” And that's very concerning. They specifically said that the special counsel was denied the request to prosecute Hunter for much more serious felony related crimes of tax evasion in both California and Washington, DC, and was denied. And that the Special Counsel did not, contrary to what Attorney General Merrick Garland said, did not have the authority to do whatever he wanted. So again, it's very problematic that this is happening. And it just shows that the Justice Department is really doing the President's bidding and trying to stick up and protect Hunter Biden, who is clearly weighing down on President Biden.

REICHARD: This isn’t the first time we’ve reported on spats between the FBI and congressional members, but Director Christopher Wray came dangerously close to a contempt of Congress charge for initially withholding an FBI document outlining whistleblower complaints connected to the Bidens . How has this particular investigation affected the ongoing crisis of public trust in the FBI?

KLINK: Well, it's always a clash, right? Because you have the Congress, which is charged with oversight means that they have to get information to analyze it and critique it. And then you have the Justice Department of which the FBI is one of the entities under that umbrella. They always want to keep their information siloed and /or private, because it usually involves court cases. And most attorneys don't want too much to be made public because it hurts them in court. The problem is, is that it seems to a broad swath of Americans, that all of the antics by the Justice Department and the FBI, really since 2016, have skewed to the benefit of Democrats and to the detriment of Republicans. So, the Republicans have said very forcefully that there are two systems of justice. If you have a D behind your name, you're given the benefit of the doubt, aka Hillary Clinton, and in your handling or your dealings with law enforcement. However, if you're a Republican, you're not. They'll they'll come and raid your house, not just with a knock on the door. They'll knock your door down at three o'clock in the morning and hold you at gunpoint in front of your family. So two systems of justice, the systems aren't fair. Lady Justice with the you know, the blindfolded woman with the scales? They're not balanced. They're heavily tilted in the favor of Democrats.

REICHARD: Explain to us what the financial disclosure document the House Oversight committee viewed in June might reveal. What does it mean when the FBI “hasn’t disproven the allegations?”

KLINK: So that's word word gymnastics. There are lots of ways when you do media training, and when you do prison training, presentation training, to respond, to answer. So instead of saying simply, yes, you can say, you know, your statement would not be inaccurate. So it's just a way of, of responding to a question without coming out and giving a direct yes or no answer. And believe me, Christopher Ray is the head of the FBI. He's been trained up for quite a long time. And they all want to avoid being pigeon- holed, and nothing is ever a yes or no answer, even when the question is a yes or no question.

REICHARD: Well, there are outstanding questions about the potential bribery scandal. But there is plenty already known about Hunter Biden’s behavior. The White House is trying to spin this as a story about a father’s love for a son with a drug addiction. How do you think that will play with voters over the course of this campaign?

KLINK: Well, it's important for a couple reasons. One, I think that, you know, the Biden White House is doing the right thing is that, you know, Hunter Biden is Joe Biden's only living son, deeply troubled as he is, it's all he's got. So the fact that the father and son relationship is close, I think that any anyone who's a parent can relate to that. The problem, though, is when you have Hunter Biden, who has made arguably 10s or hundreds of millions of dollars, lobbying for foreign governments exerting influence using the Biden name, with this complex scheme of apparently transfers to multiple members of you know, that Republicans will say the Biden crime enterprise, let's just say to multiple members of Joe Biden's family, that is an abuse of power. That is, you know, trading on the president's name to make money. And it frankly, it's just wrong, and it's disgusting. So the the Biden campaign wants to put Hunter Biden in the rearview mirror as quickly as possible. That's why they talk about Joe being the family man and loving his grandchildren, et cetera, et cetera. But the Republicans will keep Hunter Biden in the news for as long as they can. Hunter Biden will not win the elections for the Republicans. But it just shows that Joe Biden is part of the DC swamp culture that has made politicians multiple millions, even though their salary every year doesn't justify them having that much money.

REICHARD: And I will add that President Biden does not acknowledge one of his grandchildren, through Hunter. So there's that.

KLINK: Which is tragic. It's sad. There was a really long article this weekend in the New York Times about that. That you know, he he has said very pointedly he has six grandchildren. Meanwhile, Hunter is the father of a young woman or a young girl in Arkansas, who has been completely ignored by the Biden family. Just tragic.

REICHARD: Do you think the bribery allegations and Hunter Biden’s legal woes serve to take some of the heat off of Donald Trump?

KLINK: I think that it what it does for a lot of people is it reinforces that Washington DC is the problem. It's the swamp culture, that Joe Biden's problems, ie between Hunter and his brother, equate to some of the problems that Donald Trump has, although I will tell you the other problems that Donald Trump has are much more related to actions that he has done. They deal more with elections and with the handling of classified documents, so no, it will not replace. It will not.... one scandal will not replace the other. I just think that it hurts Joe Biden, because he's not talking about what he wants to talk about in his reelection.

REICHARD: All right, Matt Klink with Klink Campaigns has been our guest, Matt, thanks so much.

KLINK: Thank you, Mary.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Sudan healthcare — We begin today again in Sudan where the ongoing war is taking a toll on healthcare.

AUDIO: [Bombing]

Fighting that began in April between the military and a paramilitary force has destroyed critical infrastructure.

The Sudan Medical Council says 59 out of the 89 hospitals in the capital city of Khartoum and its surrounding areas have completely suspended services. The remaining 30 health centers are fully or partially operating.

AUDIO: [Speaking Arabic]

Mohamed Awad, a kidney dialysis patient, says he’s been out of dialysis for 10 days. He added that the hospitals no longer have painkillers.

On Sunday, Doctors without Borders said at least 13 children have died from a measles outbreak in recent weeks at refugee camps in Sudan’s White Nile state.

The group warned the coming rainy season could bring more waterborne diseases if medical support doesn’t increase.

Haiti Support — Next, to Haiti.

AUDIO: [Kids chatting]

Unprecedented hunger and malnutrition have left nearly half of Haitians in urgent need. That’s according to the United Nations’ children’s agency.

UNICEF says almost three million children need aid in Haiti.

UNICEF head Catherine Russell says residents are also grappling with a failed economy, resurgence of cholera, and violence against children.

RUSSELL: So my reaction is: it's a terrible situation and that the people here deserve better and they need some more help.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Haiti over the weekend. He called for more support to help Haiti fight crippling gang violence.

GUTERRES: [Speaking French]

Guterres called on the international community to support Haiti out of solidarity and moral justice.

Guatemala elections — Next, to Guatemala, where protesters are disputing an election outcome.

AUDIO: [Protesters]

Protesters waved flags outside the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in Guatemala City on Sunday opposing alleged electoral fraud.

They are demanding new elections after the country’s top court suspended the official announcement of last week’s vote to allow for a review. The nation’s Constitutional Court ordered the review after 10 political parties jointly appealed. The court said the review will search for any suspected irregularities in the result.

The top two presidential contenders, former First Lady Sandra Torres and center-left Bernardo Arévalo, both failed to clinch enough votes for an outright win. Before the court’s injunction, they planned to face off in an August runoff vote.

AREVALO: [Speaking Spanish]

Arevalo says the constitutional court lacks the jurisdiction to hear the case. The court said it will complete the review within five days.

Iraq Quran burning — We end today in Iraq.

AUDIO: [Chanting]

Hundreds of Iraqi Muslims chanted and burned Swedish flags on Friday.

Last week, an Iraqi living in Sweden stomped on a Quran and burned some of its pages outside of a mosque in central Stockholm.

Swedish authorities had granted him a permit to stage the protest.

AUDIO: [Protest]

It triggered similar marches in Iran and Pakistan. Kuwait, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates recalled their ambassadors in protest. Iraq’s foreign ministry has asked Sweden to extradite the man who burned the Quran to face trial.

On Sunday, the Saudi-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation called for collective measures among its 57-member body to prevent future Quran burnings.

TAHA: [Speaking French]

Hissein Brahim Taha, the organization’s secretary general, says the act is more than an Islamophobic incident, but also insults Muslims’ religious beliefs.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry said the country upholds a right to freedom of expression, but also condemned the incident as a clear provocation.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: We had a swimming hyena yesterday, so today why not have the walking seal.

Down in New Zealand where it’s wintertime seals are pretty active. But not always this active.

In South Auckland, a seal walked up to a KFC take-out window. Audio here from Newshub.com:

KFC WORKER: Yeah, it just sat there. It was just chilling and, we were just like, ‘oh my gosh, it’s crossing the road!’

Well, of course it’s crossing the road. Why do you suppose?

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Uh, because the chicken had the day off?

EICHER: Close. I did say it was a KFC, and everybody knows seals prefer fish as marine biologist Laura Bore also knows.

LAURA BORE: They'll just come up where there's food, where there is a place to rest.

All’s well that ends well. The conservation department captured him and drove him back to the ocean.

REICHARD: And he didn’t even have to call an Uber.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is July 5th, 2023. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a summer camp for kids with special needs.

Life changed for the better for a family in Minnesota who found the key ingredient in one of those camps: acceptance.

Here’s WORLD magazine senior writer Sharon Dierberger.

AUDIO: [Camp sounds]

SHARON DIERBERGER, REPORTER: Mason Clement is carefully buckling the zip-line safety harness for an excited young woman in a wheelchair. His dark hair falls forward as he double-checks connections. He’s making sure she’s comfortable and secure before the attached lines hoist her up—then send her whooshing through the air, across the Root River.

AUDIO: [Camp sounds]

This is Mason’s first year as a staff assistant at Ironwood Springs Christian Ranch. Working at camp is a rite of passage for many teens. But for Mason, it’s something of a miracle.

AUDIO: [Camp sounds]

In 2006, Mason’s mom Pixie Clement thought she was done raising children. She was 44 years old, divorced, with four grown children.

And then she heard about Mason—a special needs infant she couldn’t resist.

PIXIE: He was definitely my gift from God. We became a family when he was 22 months old. He was born to my cousin—didn’t know who his biological father was and nobody wanted him.

Pixie immediately fell in love with her new son. But it took a while to figure out how to help him and what was actually wrong with him.

PIXIE: He didn’t speak until he was 3. I taught him sign language. He’s struggled over the years. A lot of violent outbursts. But I had worked with troubled children, children with challenges, so I just worked with him.

Mason was diagnosed with autism when he was almost 10.

PIXIE: And, wow, we went through a lot of stuff because children with autism—what works today might not work tomorrow. God’ll teach you patience!

Although they had a diagnosis, they didn’t let it define Mason.

PIXIE: We never ever let autism be a crutch. We never let autism be an excuse for bad behavior for bad choices.

By then, Pixie had remarried—a man named Jamie who also loved Mason. She and Jamie tried all kinds of things to help Mason. But Mason still struggled. Especially if he got separated from Pixie.

PIXIE: He couldn’t leave me. If I was out of his sight if we were in public, he would bolt, screaming my name. And a couple instances were pretty scary. So I constantly had to be holding him and reassuring him. We’d go into public, into a restaurant, and he’d become very afraid.

The turning point came when Ironwood Springs Christian Ranch invited Pixie and Mason to come to camp on a scholarship.

AUDIO: [Camp sounds]

Bob Bardwell launched Ironwood Springs back in 1976— several years after a terrible accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. He sensed God urging him to create a camp for the physically and cognitively disabled.

His goal? To honor God and love people—by helping others embrace their disability and try new things—things outside their comfort zone. And he hoped they’d bring a positive, can-do attitude back home.

BARDWELL: And that’s what we emphasize all week. You know, we’re not in charge of anybody’s life, but we try to provide an atmosphere here—in our words, our music, our conversation, that’s encouraging and uplifting. That’ll help them realize they’re loved by God. They’re a special person. And maybe for the first time they realize there’s a purpose for me—with my disability.

Mason fell in love with the camp. He tried every activity—and couldn’t get enough of zip-lining. And the biggest surprise? When camp counselors asked parents to come to a meeting in another room—without their kids, Mason happily agreed.

PIXIE: He said to me, ‘I’m ok with that. Because being here is like being home. I can just be myself.’ I stood right there, and I just praised God and I hugged my son. And after we were all done and we came back together he was just so happy. There was not a fear, and I was just like—wow.

That moment was life-changing for Mason.

PIXIE: For him to understand that it’s okay to be different. And not everybody makes fun of you because you’re different.

Pixie says Mason really started to understand that God made him the way He made him for a reason, and that God will use him for His purposes.

And the boy who didn’t like to talk much with others—even his grandparents— wouldn’t stop talking about Ironwood—with everyone. He talked about riding the camel, sailing on the zip-line, meeting Bob in the wheelchair. Mason was exuberant. And he wanted to go back.

AUDIO: [Camp sounds]

So they did. Ironwood became like a second home. In the fall they returned to carve pumpkins and ride horses. In the winter they went snow tubing.

Today, Mason is 17. He’s thrilled to be working at Ironwood Springs—helping give other kids the same opportunity that changed his life.

MASON: You know, I fully understand—I was in their shoes once —very skeptical. Unsure. Not sure if anyone accepted me. But I can promise you, everyone here is very welcoming. And you’ll get over that pretty soon.

AUDIO: [Camp sounds]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sharon Dierberger, in Stewartville, Minnesota.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, July 5th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: unBiblical ideas about gender still divide many Americans. But the gap between left and right may be shrinking. Here’s WORLD Opinions commentator Daniel Darling.

DANIEL DARLING, COMMENTATOR: A recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute shows that a significant majority of Americans believe in the reality of two genders. Sixty-five percent of Americans—up from 59 percent two years ago—believe that there are only two genders, male and female. Unsurprisingly, this belief is held by 90 percent of Republicans. What is surprising is that 66 percent of independents and 44 percent of Democrats also hold to the traditional view.

Among major religious groups, this belief holds steady as well. Every religious cohort including white and black Roman Catholics and non-Christian religious groups affirm the same understanding.

But what about younger generations? Generation Z has grown up in a world with nonstop messaging about gender fluidity. Yet fifty-seven percent now believe men are men and women are women—that’s up a whopping fourteen points from two years ago. And when it comes to schools, a majority of Americans in every racial, religious, and generational group now believe that topics of sexuality and gender should not be taught to children in K-fifth grade.

What should Christians make of these numbers? We can rejoice that Americans are resisting the attempt to distort reality about the meaning of male and female. Corporate boardrooms, academic faculty lounges, and media green rooms are attempting to convince us that gender is fluid. But people are recoiling.

Witness the backlash to school boards across the country or the financial losses incurred by Budweiser and Target in recent months. Even some European nations have begun to pull back from gender transition surgery for minors. These developments testify to the reality that natural law is God’s fixed order in the universe designed for human flourishing. And that order can be seen even by those not regenerated by the Holy Spirit. This gives conservatives a window to appeal to common sense and press beautiful creational truths into a confused world.

Christians should also take heart that history does not travel in a fixed line, despite the left’s dream of the unstoppable march of progress. Throughout history, conflicts churn, false ideologies rise and fall, and there is always possibility for renewal.

That said, we should not base our belief system on the fickle winds of popular opinion. The true and beautiful vision for humanity in Genesis is good for human flourishing, regardless of whether it polls well. We speak this truth, not merely to be contrarians, but to obey our calling as the people of God.

As Paul wrote in second Corinthians, we speak up against “every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God.”And we do so not out of spite, but out of love for our neighbors who may fall prey to destructive ideologies. We can “have an answer for every person for the hope that lies within us” and we can do this with “gentleness and kindness” (See 1 Peter 3).

Male and female genders reflect the glory of God in the creation of His image bearers. Because we love our neighbors, we can point out that this reality they see is a reality they shouldn’t deny.

I’m Daniel Darling.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: That Supreme Court ruling on religious liberty last week, our legal analyst Steve West read up on it. He’ll tell us all about the case of a postal worker seeking to honor the sabbath.

And, times change, but friendships don’t have to. We’ll tell you about a friendship that’s spanned three quarters of a century. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

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

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

The Bible says: No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Matthew 6, verse 24.

Go now in grace and peace.

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