The World and Everything in It — May 28, 2020

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Good morning!

Economic lockdown has created significant financial challenges for museums and art galleries. For some, recovery will take years.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Zoos are feeling the pinch, too. It takes a lot of money to feed a herd of hungry elephants and that expense that doesn’t go away when authorities keep crowds from showing up!

Also today, WORLD correspondent Kim Henderson with the last installment of her story of community grief and recovery.

And Cal Thomas examines the Joe Biden record.

BASHAM: It’s Thursday, May 28th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Megan Basham.

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

BASHAM: Up next, Kent Covington has today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Pompeo says Hong Kong no longer autonomous from China » Secretary of State of Mike Pompeo notified Congress on Wednesday that in the eyes of the Trump administration, Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from mainland China.

That after the Chinese government announced plans to bypass Hong Kong lawmakers and impose a so-called national security law in the territory. The law will allow Beijing to further crack down on liberties in Hong Kong. 

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said President Trump was disturbed by China’s power grab. 

MCENANY: He said to me that he’s displeased with China’s efforts and that it’s hard to see how Hong Kong can remain a financial hub if China takes over. 

Wednesday’s notice sets the stage for the United States to withdraw preferential trade and financial status that the former British colony has enjoyed since reverting to Chinese rule in 1997.

Meantime, in Hong Kong, armed police massed outside the legislature Wednesday clashed with protesters. 

AUDIO: [Sound of protest]

Demonstrators were rallying against a bill that would criminalize the abuse of the Chinese national anthem. 

AUDIO: [Sound of protest]

Police arrested at least 16 people on charges of possessing items fit for unlawful purposes, like gasoline bombs and screwdrivers.

Trump administration ends Iran sanctions waivers » Also on Wednesday, the Trump administration announced that it’s ending nearly all of the remaining sanctions relief provided under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Pompeo said the United States would revoke all but one of the sanctions waivers covering civil nuclear cooperation. They allow foreign companies to do work at some of Iran’s declared nuclear sites without becoming subject to U.S. sanctions.

Secretary Pompeo noted that Iran has admitted to activities that are in violation of the deal.

The revocations will give foreign companies 60 days to wind down their operations.

Supporters of the waivers say they give international experts a valuable window into Iran’s atomic program. But critics say all they do is give Iran access to technology that could be used for weapons. 

Trump takes aim at Twitter after platform adds selective fact check warnings to tweets » President Trump took aim at Twitter and other social media platforms on Wednesday after Twitter added a fact check warning link to the bottom of his tweets. 

Trump wrote—quote—“Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!” WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: On Tuesday, the president tweeted that mail-in voting would produce forgery and fraud and would lead to a “rigged” election in November.

Underneath two Trump tweets on the subject, Twitter placed a blue exclamation point next to a link that said “Get the facts about mail-in ballots.”

That link leads to a page that calls Trump’s claims “unsubstantiated” and adds that “experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud.” The page names CNN and the Washington Post as sources and includes a series of tweets condemning the president’s claims.

Trump shot back on Wednesday. He said social media platforms are trying to influence the 2020 election and silence conservative voices. And he added that Republicans could “strongly regulate” or “close down” social media platforms that restrict conservative speech.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin. 

Violent protests break out over Minneapolis man’s death » Violent protests over the death of a black man in police custody broke out in Minneapolis for a second straight night Wednesday. 

While many demonstrated peacefully, some destroyed police cars, smashed store windows, set fires, and looted local businesses. 

AUDIO: [Sound of protests]

Hundreds of people grabbed whatever they could carry from a local Target department store. 

As darkness fell, fire erupted in an auto parts store.

Officers could be seen surrounding the nearby precinct, not attempting to intervene in the looting. Earlier, some protesters clashed with officers, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas.

The violence followed the death Monday night of 46-year-old George Floyd. A cell phone video showed an officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for almost eight minutes as he eventually became unresponsive.

Weather forces scrub of Space X launch » T-minus two days and counting. NASA and Space X now hope to launch two American astronauts into orbit on Saturday. 

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were supposed to blast off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center just after 4:30 p.m. yesterday, but the weather didn’t cooperate. 

AUDIO: Hey Dragon Space X, unfortunately, we are not going to o launch today. You are go for 5.100 launch scrub. 5.100, it was a good effort by the teams, and we understand and we’ll meet you there. Copy out. 

Officials made the call about 15 minutes before the scheduled launch. 

Everything else appeared to go smoothly. There were no technical problems with the Falcon 9 rocket or the crew’s Dragon capsule. They’ll hope for better weather a little after 3:20 p.m. on Saturday. 

Boeing slashes workforce as coronavirus curbs air travel » Boeing is cutting more than 12,000 jobs as coronavirus shutdowns seize the travel industry. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has that story. 

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: Boeing said Wednesday that it will lay off nearly 7,000 U.S. employees this week. Another 5,500 workers are taking buyout offers. 

The aircraft manufacturer said it would cut 10 percent of a workforce that numbered about 160,000. That means it will cut several thousand more jobs over the next few months.

Most of the layoffs are expected to be concentrated in the Seattle area, home to Boeing’s commercial-airplane business. 

U.S. air travel tumbled 96 percent by mid-April and has recovered only slightly. 

The company is now leaning heavily on its defense and space division, which has remained relatively stable. 

CEO David Calhoun warned that Boeing will have to adjust business plans constantly because it’s hard to predict the future impact of the pandemic. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: museums prepare to reopen after months-long closures.

Plus, Cal Thomas evaluates Joe Biden’s record.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: It’s Thursday the 28th of May, 2020. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MEGAN BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham. First up: another casualty from the economic lockdown, museums.

For months, art, history, and science lovers have had to stay away from their favorite galleries and exhibits. And that’s left many museums with a budget crisis.

EICHER: The International Council of Museums estimates as many as 13 percent of the world’s museums may never reopen. Those that do will likely have to make some adjustments.

WORLD reporter Anna Johansen talked to leaders at several U.S. museums and has our story.

KEN HAM: For us as an organization, it was a catastrophic loss of income. 

ANNA JOHANSEN, REPORTER: Ken Ham is the founder of the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter in northern Kentucky. He estimates they’ve lost somewhere between $15 and $20 million over the past couple of months.

Summertime is usually their busiest season.

HAM: And the income in May, June, and July, we have to set aside a considerable amount of that so that we get through the winter months when there’s not that many people that come. Well, now we don’t have that income to be able to set that aside.

Ham says they had money in reserve for expansion projects and new exhibits. But they had to use those funds just to survive. They also had to lay off 80 percent of their staff. Most of the rest took pay cuts and worked longer hours. 

HAM: And so it’s really been a struggle, our zoo staff because we have a lot of animals in the zoo, the zoo staff working on a skeleton crew and some of them had to be there 24 hours a day to make sure the animals were looked after.

That experience isn’t unique. The American Alliance of Museums says U.S. galleries and exhibits are losing $33 million a day. To survive, they’re relying on a combination of federal funds, private donors and virtual fundraising.

AUDIO: Good evening everyone! Welcome to JANM’s very first virtual gala. Thank you for joining us and for taking the leap with us into the virtual world.

The Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles held its annual gala online. The virtual event included historical readings, a ukulele band, and a raffle for a luxury car.

Other museums are putting tours and educational material online, and looking for ways to monetize that content. 

But virtual options just won’t work for some exhibits.

Brian Statz is vice president of operations at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. 

BRIAN STATZ: As a children’s museum, we encourage very much hands on learning together, playing together both as a family and with other visitors.

That’s pretty hard to do in a virtual setting. And it obviously isn’t going to fly in a pandemic. So Statz and other staff members are making some pretty fundamental changes to the museum. Analysts are going room to room, figuring out how to restructure exhibits—or eliminate them entirely. Like the preschool gallery.

STATZ: The nature of the gallery plus the typical visitor in that gallery, which are children, 5 and under kind of just the natural thing to do is grab something, put it in your mouth, throw it, somebody else, just that kind of thing, just the way preschoolers are.

Statz says they won’t be reopening that section any time soon. 

The Creation Museum and Ark Encounter are set to open on June 8th. But Ken Ham says reopening presents its own set of challenges. Of course, the museums will have extra sanitization, limited capacity, and as much social distancing as possible. But there’s a more basic hurdle: Who’s going to run the museums with so many employees still furloughed?

HAM: We don’t have the income to bring on the staff, we need the staff to bring in the income to be able to pay them and pay for the facilities.

Another problem is anticipating the number of visitors.

HAM: Okay, we can set a date for opening. But how do we budget for that? Because how do we determine how many people are going to come? When are people gonna believe it’s safe to come?

The museums typically draw hundreds of bus tours every year. But no one is doing group tours anymore.

The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., faces a similar problem. Harry Hargrave is its CEO.

HARGRAVE: It’s difficult right now, because our group sales people have nobody to contact.

Earlier this year, the museum was doing a lot of national marketing, trying to draw people from different parts of the country. Now, the team is just focusing on local visitors. 

Hargrave is hoping to reopen sometime between June 1st and the 15th. But the real question is: Will anybody come?

HARGRAVE: It’s not like turning on a spigot where there’s a huge amount of pent-up demand. It’s going to be a time of people anticipating and looking and thinking and testing the marketplace out before they come. 

Ken Ham believes it could take two or three years before the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter really get back on their feet. But he believes they have one main advantage.

HAM: We attract people who are really interested in our message, and they’re very passionate about this. So I believe we will see a fairly good response as we reopen.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen.

MEGAN BASHAM: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: effects from the economic lockdown extend to zoos.

NICK EICHER: Just like museums, zoos are also facing financial trouble. 

For the most extreme example, a zookeeper in northern Germany last month issued a dire warning. She said her zoo might run out of money to buy food. If that happens, she suggested nature just may have to take its course. And going against our journalistic sensibility, I think less detail is more.

BASHAM: Right! Thankfully it hasn’t reached that point yet. 

And there is a glimmer of hope, because many zoos are preparing to reopen. 

But they’ll likely continue to feel the financial strain for months to come.

WORLD reporter Katie Gaultney has the story.

MUSIC: [Welcome to the Dallas Zoo] 

KATIE GAULTNEY, REPORTER: That’s the song that greets visitors as they enter the Dallas Zoo. By the looks of the parking lot these days, the people are in hibernation. The zoo shut its doors mid-March when shelter-in-place orders went into effect. But animals still require a lot of care, whether guests come to the park or not. There’s breeding programs, enclosure maintenance, and of course, food. In some cases, a lot of food. 

JAMES: An elephant on average eats 3 percent of their body weight. So if you’re looking at a 10,000 pound elephant, which is not a huge elephant, they’re eating 300 pounds of food every single day. So when you multiply that across the eight elephants that we have, and it gets to be an amazing amount of food…

This fun fact courtesy of Matt James. He’s senior director of animal care at the Dallas Zoo. I asked him about the real elephant in the room: money. He told me his zoo costs more than $600,000 a week to operate. 

JAMES: The numbers when you break them down weekly are mind boggling and a little terrifying because we’re not normally thinking of being closed for any number of days, let alone… more than two months now…

That money goes toward animal care, facilities upkeep, and of course, the biggest line item: payroll. The zoo employs a staff of 135 animal care specialists. And they’re not just missing the dollars and cents. 

JAMES: You know, there’s an energy and a buzz when the park is full and people are running around having a good time and kids are having a good time, and the animals can even sense that I think.

The Dallas Zoo is a nonprofit and relies extensively on memberships, donations, and community support to maintain its operating fund. Dallas has been able to avoid furloughs and layoffs, but not all zoos have. 

Dennis Pate is CEO of Omaha’s nonprofit Henry Doorly Zoo. He told me his operation has a lot of feathers in its cap: 

PATE: We have the largest aquarium in a zoo in the United States. We have the largest indoor jungle in the United States. We have the largest desert dome in the United States. So outside of San Diego, we probably have more animals than any other place in the country.

But one thing it doesn’t have a lot of, right now, is employees in the park. Omaha has done two rounds of furloughs to try to cut expenses. All of those indoor facilities—seven acres’ worth—are great when Omaha’s weather is chilly. But maintenance costs add up. Pate says the zoo has cut travel, turned off some utilities, implemented hiring freezes—anything to ensure it maintains the highest standard of animal care. His zoo costs $48 million a year to run, and the spring and summer months are the most expensive.

PATE: We’ve depleted a lot of our other funds beside the operating fund in order to operate the zoo. 

As it is, Pate says if a water pipe breaks or an air conditioning unit goes out, they’ll have to consider taking out loans to cover costs. While most zoos get 20 to 40 percent of their operating budgets from public funds, 91 percent of the Henry Doorly Zoo’s operating budget comes from memberships and money generated on the zoo grounds. That’s unique, and it’s made this extended closure extra tough. Ticket sales, restaurant and gift shop purchases, facilities rentals for weddings or corporate events—all swept away by the pandemic. 

PATE: I mean, I hope we only have a 50 percent loss of revenue, but it could be stronger than that. We just don’t know. 

James thinks zoos accredited by the AZA—that’s the Association of Zoos and Aquariums—will weather the pandemic. A little bruised and bandaged, maybe, but they’ll make it. That’s partly because AZA-accreditation requires solid contingency plans. Dallas and Omaha are accredited, so they’ve got strong back-up plans to ensure their longevity—and the animals’ well being. 

But James says that’s not the case for all zoos.

JAMES: There are probably non-accredited zoos or smaller operations that are really struggling to take care of their animals right now. 

Rescue organizations, wildlife officials, and other government regulators would step in to find homes for animals in zoos that have to close. 

In some parts of the country, easing restrictions means visitors will be able to return to their local zoos soon. The Dallas Zoo opens its gates to the public with limited capacity tomorrow, and the Henry Doorly Omaha Zoo is planning on a June 1 reopening. But they’ve got a lot of ground to make up for all that down time. 

PATE: Nobody envisioned, you know, what are we, 10 weeks, 10 weeks closed now? So that’s why we’re in pretty dire straits. But I think there’s also a pretty good understanding of just we need people to come through the gate to, for us to continue to take great care of the animals.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Katie Gaultney in Dallas, Texas.

NICK EICHER: Times of crisis do tend to reveal character. 

A doorbell camera recently captured good character on display.

Derek and Raquel Pearson of Nampa, Idaho are parents to an 8-month-old boy, Lucas, who was born with a heart condition. 

The baby boy needs special supplies to eat and the parents rely on doorstep delivery of those supplies.

So the mom left a note on the front door thanking delivery drivers for their willingness to work during the lockdown.

Here’s where the doorbell camera comes in. It captured the moment when Amazon driver Monica Salinas made a delivery.

After she placed a package on the doorstep, Salinas read the note. 

She paused, bowed her head, and prayed for young Lucas before sprinting back to her truck and driving away.  

Raquel Pearson told television station KTVB how she reacted when she saw the video.

PEARSON: So I kind of choked up a bit. It’s been really hard to get through this, so I’m really touched that a stranger would take time out of her day to wish our son well like that. 

Of course, the video went viral, and inspired many others to go and do likewise.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: Today is Thursday, May 28th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MEGAN BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham. Today, the last installment in a four-part serial about a small Mississippi town victimized following the biggest mass shooting in the history of the state.

The trial of killer Cory Godbolt lasted two weeks.

The defense team’s top priority—to spare Godbolt the death penalty.

WORLD correspondent Kim Henderson picks up the story.

LAWYER: If you’ll look on the screen there. Tell me what that’s a picture of?
SISTER: My mother, myself, Chris, Cory, and Kenyata… 

KIM HENDERSON, REPORTER: During the sentencing phase of the trial, the defense highlighted Godbolt’s troubled youth. Jurors heard from Godbolt’s siblings. About how their policeman father died in a shooting at their stepmother’s hands.

Jurors also listened to Godbolt’s aunt, someone who testified on his behalf but also sang at a victim’s funeral—showing just how much this crime entangled a family tree.    

Then the courtroom encountered a different kind of witness, one who had evangelism on her mind. It was Godbolt’s first grade teacher, sprightly Diane Davis Harris. And she didn’t hold back. 

She stood up, pointed directly at Godbolt and started talking.  

TEACHER: It does not matter, Cory, whether you live or whether you die. The most important thing you should know today is where you’re going to spend eternity.
LAWYER: Your honor, I object…

Then, of course, the prosecution objected and she had to sit down. But as she did, she was thanking God that she got that out. 

AUDIO: [CAR SPEEDING AWAY]

Once proceedings ended each day, officers took Godbolt away in a transport vehicle. But on the last night, February 27th, he headed somewhere different: death row at Parchman Penitentiary.  

NEWSCAST: Now to breaking news tonight, four death sentences handed down by a Pike County jury:
SOUND OF CLERK: “WE, THE JURY…” 

As the clerk announced the death penalty four times, people in the courtroom wept, wailed, and rejoiced.  

WOMAN: All I can say is I’m just glad that it’s over with.

A wall of media crowded around the family members. Reporter Therese Apel was behind one of the TV cameras.

APEL: Truth is, at the trial, when I asked them, when they were all standing up there at the end, and I said, “Guys, so where do you go from here?” And Shayla stepped forward and said, “We live.” I still want to cry, thinking about that because I thought, “I don’t have that.” I mean, my faith is very important to me…but I have learned so much from their family.

Many of those affected by the shootings looked for the trial to bring closure. Tiffany Blackwell says she’s glad it’s over, but there aren’t any winners.

BLACKWELL: We all have to deal with this when we think about what could we have done different, what could we have said? 

Apel has questions, too. Especially since evidence in court showed Godbolt made meticulous plans with particular targets in mind.  

APEL: (SIGH) A reporter’s job is to report what they can verify and some of the things that people are digging around about, and myself as well, are hard to verify… 

BROWN: You ought to see all the fruit trees we have. Sheila stayed and she stayed and she never did this before and the next day she came back to my house. 

Carl Brown is related to some of the victims. He lives in the neighborhood where the first four murders happened, and he remembers his sister’s call at 4 that morning. 

BROWN: She said, “Open the door. Go outside.” Police cars were probably lined to Highway 51 to where the incident happened. That’s probably a quarter of a mile away…

As a retired state trooper, Brown has seen violent crimes, but these shootings  shocked him. Last year he rallied community support for a $60,000 memorial. 

BROWN: On the left side, facing this is a time capsule in here…

Engraved at the top of the stone monument is a simple declaration: You will never be forgotten. Below that, there’s a list of those who died.

Brown says he hopes the memorial brings healing, especially among family members with ties to both Godbolt and his victims. 

BROWN: Right now there is a lot of bitterness, and I pray that soon passes.  

Shayla Edwards is praying, too. 

EDWARDS: My prayer is for his family, his children. We want to make sure that they are okay, too. I pray for him, too.

The American justice system attempts to set things right with penalties, and that’s fitting and proper. But Christian hearts long for the “something more” of Biblical justice: the “making victims whole again” dimension. 

Myrtis May gets that. She lost her daughter and son-in-law in Godbolt’s rampage three years ago, but trusting in God keeps her hopeful. She believes He is at work.

MAY: The community as a whole may not see it, but I see a bigger picture…

And Apel, still pumping out daily news reports, admits this story and its people changed her life.  

APEL: Through my career I built up this thing where I was bulletproof but this was the first thing that I couldn’t just put in a box…

Cory Godbolt is scheduled for execution July 15, but records at the Lincoln County Circuit Clerk’s office indicate an appeal is underway. 

That likely means another layer of grief for the community to process. One that hovers out there in the future, waiting. 

But one thing is for certain. This mass shooting taught a hard lesson. It showed that domestic abuse isn’t just a matter of private concern. Left unstopped, it can turn into a public nightmare.  

APEL: I don’t want them to ever be forgotten. Because, I mean, even I refer to it as the Cory Godbolt case, but it’s not. It’s William Durr. It’s Barbara Mitchell, Brenda May, Tocarra May, Austin Edwards, Jordan Blackwell, Sheila and Ferral Burage…

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson.

BASHAM: In a surprise move, the jury foreman contacted Lincoln County community leaders last weekend with a special request. They wanted to travel three hours to meet with victims’ families on the evening of the anniversary of the murders.

Although our four-part serial is done, you’ll have an opportunity to hear what happened at that memorial.

EICHER: That’s right. We’re combining all four pieces into a stand alone episode available next weekend, Saturday, June 6th.

In that presentation, we’re including nearly 10 minutes of additional interviews plus a report from the memorial service where jurors released lanterns into the night sky in honor of the victims.

You won’t want to miss it, and please, share it with a friend.

NICK EICHER: Next up on The World and Everything in It: caring for orphans.

MEGAN BASHAM: On this week’s Listening In, host Warren Smith talks to Elli Oswald. She believes the church needs a new approach to orphan care. Many of the children in orphanages around the world do have parents. 

But they end up in institutions because their parents can’t care for them, often for financial reasons.

EICHER: So instead of building more orphanages, Oswald says the church should focus on supporting families. She says parents should never face the prospect of choosing their children or their economic survival.

ELLIE OSWALD: If you look at the statistics, UNICEF has said there are about 140 million orphans and vulnerable children around the world. So that’s a large number. And you can see that on websites all over the world. It’s a huge number of orphans. But what we also know, through information all over the world, different regions, continents, 98 percent of those children are actually being cared for by family members. So it changes your idea of what you think of as an orphan. So if 98 percent of orphans are actually currently living with family members, who are in orphanages? Or who are on the streets? And that information, we know from data from countries all over the world, is about on average, 80 percent of children who are in orphanages have a living parent. So that’s a bit of a shocker for some of us. But it leads to some really important questions regarding why children are in orphanages in the first place.

EICHER: That’s Elli Oswald talking to Warren Smith. If you’d like to hear their complete conversation, you can find Listening In wherever you get your podcasts.

NICK EICHER: Today is Thursday, May 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MEGAN BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham. Up next, Cal Thomas on Joe Biden’s comments about African-American support for Democrats.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden told an African American talk show host last week: “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” 

After strong condemnation, including from some fellow Democrats, Biden attempted to walk back his statement, suggesting he was trying to be funny. But Biden has made other demeaning comments about minorities for many years. They are part of a pattern.

In his self-defense, Biden frequently says, “Look at my record.” OK, let’s look.

Biden claims the NAACP has supported him every time he has run for office. Not so, says current NAACP president, Derrick Johnson—quote—”We want to clarify that the NAACP is a nonpartisan organization and does not endorse candidates for political office at any level.” End quote. 

Here are just a few examples of Biden’s record of putting down minorities. 

In 2007, speaking of Barack Obama, Biden told The New York Observer—quote—“I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” End quote. 

In 2006 while contemplating a run for president, Biden said—quoting again—”You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

Just last August, while speaking to the Asian and Latino Coalition in Des Moines, Iowa, Biden associated black people with poverty: “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,” he said. 

Also last year, Biden bragged about working with Sen. James Eastland. He said, quote—”Even in the days when I got there, the Democratic Party still had seven or eight old-fashioned Democratic segregationists. You’d get up and you’d argue like the devil with them. Then you’d go down and have lunch or dinner together.” End quote. 

There’s too much in Biden’s long public record to recount here. Critics of President Trump love to cite careless and crude things he has said, but this isn’t just about words. It’s about policies, too. 

While Biden likes to talk about his civil rights record, the harsh reality is that he worked with those Senate segregationists to pass crime legislation that led to today’s mass incarceration problem. The New York Times podcast The Daily laid this out in vivid detail last year. 

Meanwhile, it was President Trump who pushed for and signed into law sentencing reforms that won praise from African American leaders. He also took up the cause of Opportunity Zones, an element of the 2017 tax law aimed at under-developed urban centers. And before the pandemic, black unemployment was at an all-time low. 

That’s the record. Let’s see Biden run on it.  

I’m Cal Thomas.

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow: Culture Friday, featuring questions from students in this year’s virtual World Journalism Institute.

And, as we promised last week, we’ll have a review of the pro-abortion documentary, AKA Jane Roe.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MEGAN BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham.

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 proverbs remind us to acknowledge the rule of God: “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

I hope you’ll have a great rest of the day. We’ll talk to you tomorrow!

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