The World and Everything in It: October 11, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is brought to you by listeners like me. I'm Lynda Esper and I live in Zealand, Michigan, along with a group of friends I make and sell beautiful tote bags. And we donate 100% of the proceeds to Samaritan's purse because they help the world in Jesus name. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! The House is on hold as Republicans try to settle on a new speaker. We’ll talk about the obstacles in the way of the candidates seeking the toughest job in D.C.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday. Also today, news from around the world on World Tour, and hanging tough for a difficult mission in Haiti.

And WORLD Opinions commentator Daniel Darling with a reflection on the political legacy of Mitt Romney.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, October 11th. 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: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

BIDEN: Good afternoon.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel » Speaking from the White House, President Biden addressed the nation Tuesday about the war between Israel and Hamas.

BIDEN: You know there are moments in this life when pure unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. 

Hamas terrorists killed more than a thousand people in a series of attacks against Israel, including Americans.

And the president confirmed that militants are holding at least 14 U.S. citizens hostage … among the many people they kidnapped from Israel.

Biden expressed his horror about what he called “sickening” reports of Hamas torturing innocent civilians. And he declared once more …

BIDEN: We stand with Israel.

He said he has directed his team to share intelligence assets and military expertise with the Israelis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday shared part of a phone call with the president.

NETANYAHU: President Joe, I want to thank you for your continued and unequivocal support and the work of your entire administration to support us.  

Israel/Iran » But Hamas isn’t finished. Militants have continued to fire rockets from Gaza into Israeli cities as Israel responds, raining bombs on terrorist targets.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Iran is at a minimum complicit in the attacks against Israel.

SULLIVAN: They have provided the lion’s share of the funding for the military wing of Hamas. They have provided training. They have provided capabilities. They have provided support. And they have had engagement and contact with Hamas for years and years.

Right now, it’s unclear if Iran had any direct involvement in the latest attacks by Hamas.

Republicans have been highly critical of a recent prisoner swap in which the Biden administration agreed to give Iran access to $6 billion dollars of cash that had been frozen under sanctions.

Border traffic, FBI wanted » Meantime, newly leaked data from the U.S. southern border reveals an alarming record-high number of people with potential ties to terrorism trying to cross the border since 2021.

Border patrol officers have arrested more than 150 people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list over the past couple of years.

By contrast, under the Trump administration, border agents averaged six terror list arrests per year.

San Diego migrants » In Southern California, San Diego County officials say they are facing “an unprecedented humanitarian crisis” with migrants overwhelming shelters. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports:

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Over the past month alone, border agents have released 13,000 migrants at transit stations in San Diego with notices to appear later in an immigration court.

95% of migrants who arrive in San Diego quickly move on to other parts of the country. Still, the crush of migrants arriving each day is exhausting local government resources and shelters operated by charities.

A growing chorus of Democratic mayors and governors are calling on President Biden to tighten the border.

The administration last week announced plans to build 20 more miles of border wall in south Texas.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

House speaker » On Capitol Hill, GOP lawmakers still can’t agree on a new House speaker.

One of the top candidates for the job, Majority Leader Steve Scalise said he expects a vote today to elect the next speaker. And he believes he has enough support to win.

SCALISE: There are things happening in the world that need to be addressed right now. We need to get back to work. The Senate needs to work too. But we’re putting a strong coalition together. We’re going to go get this done tomorrow.

But some inside the Capitol say House Republicans are pretty evenly split between Scalise and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan.

Congressional campaigns » Former big league all-star Steve Garvey is running for U.S. Senate seat of the late Dianne Feinstein.

Garvey’s running as a Republican and is trying to become California’s first GOP senator in more than 30 years.

And in Arizona, Republican Kari Lake has also announced a Senate bid. The Trump-endorsed candidate lost a race for governor in Arizona last year, though she continues to dispute the results.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Raising the stakes for the Speaker race on Washington Wednesday. Plus, prison ministry in Haiti.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 11th of October, 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. It’s Washington Wednesday.

First up: The House of Representatives is stuck. Last week, after stripping Kevin McCarthy of the speakership, lawmakers also prevented the House from taking action on a range of policy priorities.

REICHARD: When it comes to funding the government, decisively responding to the war in Israel, or taking action on the southern border, the chamber will be on the sidelines until the GOP gets new leadership in order.

EICHER: WORLD Washington Bureau Reporter Leo Briceno was in the House when McCarthy was removed, and he brings us a report on what now.

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: After Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker last week, I spent the evening chasing down Republican leadership, trying to get a sense of what was going on.

REPORTERS to PATRICK MCHENRY: Is there a vote Wednesday? Do you mind stopping for the camera? Did you know? Did you know McCarthy wasn’t going to run again? When did you find out? You used to talk to us so much!

In the heat of the moment, even the leadership didn’t have concrete answers they were willing to talk about. For example, Republican House Whip Tom Emmer:

TOM EMMER: I’ve known Scalise for a long time. 

REPORTERS: Is he running? 

EMMER: I’ve known Scalise for a long time. 

REPORTERS: Are you interested in running? Would you mind stopping and talking to the camera, sir?

While a few Republicans are pleased with the outcome of the vote, a far greater number are frustrated with Congress’ sudden stop. Here’s Florida Congresswoman, Maria Elvira Salazar.

SALAZAR: What’s happening right now is just not good for anybody—including the Dems. It’s not good for the country. So let's move forward QUICKLY.

But getting things done quickly in Washington is difficult… especially when Republicans control the House but Democrats control the Senate. Any new piece of legislation has to go through them too—and cross President Joe Biden’s desk. Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw says framing the issue of spending outside of that context is dishonest.

CRENSHAW: There are a lot of lies being told to our voters. They didn’t deliver on this or that or this, and it’s like, well it’s because we don’t have the votes. There’s a process, there’s a committee process which you demanded that we follow! You didn’t secure the border. We have a slim majority in the House—like, what’d you think would happen?

The question now is who can bring the partisan wings together under a new Speaker, especially when funding to help Israel counter attacks by Hamas is on the line.

As the Republican conference gets closer to electing a new speaker, there are two main candidates. Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise and Ohio Representative Jim Jordan. Both have been making the rounds, pitching their vision for why they would be able to lead the Republicans in the House.

Jordan is something of a GOP outsider. Although he’s the chairman of the judiciary committee, he hasn't been a part of McCarthy or Paul Ryan’s Republican leadership. He wants to use the moment to leverage meaningful spending cuts.

JORDAN: That’s the only way this town can operate is when there’s that kind of leverage and there’s that kind of deadline hanging there where real cuts are going to happen that we can get people to focus and get our work done. So that’s what I think we have to do.

Scalise, by contrast, has been working with Republican leadership for a while now. He worked closely with Speaker Paul Ryan, currently serves as the Majority Leader, and has closer ties to the Trump-led portion of the GOP by virtue of his involvement with party leadership. His goal is to bring the Senate and the White House to the negotiating table, as opposed to maybe strong-arming them with a shutdown.

SCALISE: As much as everyone wants to talk about the House, it’s time we talk about what the Senate and the president are not doing. Those problems need to be addressed by all of us. The president has to be in this fight too, so does the Senate. That’s where we need to go to start battling.

As of this morning, it’s clear that neither candidate has the 218 votes needed to become Speaker of the House. And there’s another complication. McCarthy himself may not be completely out of the running just yet. He says Republicans could still nominate him. And some representatives have said they won’t vote for anyone besides McCarthy, despite the fact that the former Speaker hasn’t entered the race.

As Salazar puts it, there’s a lot to work to do for whomever comes out on top.

SALAZAR: You know, democracy is messy. Whoever comes out, if they have the support of the majority, welcome. Let’s move forward. Hey, McCarthy will be welcomed but he needs to have the votes needed.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno in Washington D.C.

EICHER: Well, joining us now to go deeper is Mark Caleb Smith. He’s a political science professor at Cedarville University.

REICHARD: Good morning, professor, welcome back.

MARK CALEB SMITH, GUEST: It's always a pleasure to be with you.

REICHARD: As Leo mentioned, the two “formal” candidates to get Congress moving again are representatives Scalise and Jordan. Who do you think has an edge?

SMITH: In some ways, this is basically asking who has an edge in the current Republican Party, because to a great extent, Scalise and Jordan represent the different wings of the party. Not fully, perhaps, but I think they are representative on the whole. Scalise is much more of a product of the leadership culture and Washington and so he's been part of the leadership team for a while. Of course, he was also wounded in that deranged gunman attack in 2017. He has a lot of sympathy in the caucus, and has done a really nice job building relationships. That's probably the most important quality when it comes to leadership in a place like the House of Representatives. He's got good relationships, good connections. Broad support. 

Jordan, however, does have President Trump's endorsement. You can't brush that aside. Donald Trump is, I think, still the leader of the party until something else happens. And Jordan has also been extremely effective at gaining attention for himself. He's been a pretty constant presence on places like Fox News and Newsmax over the last several years, and has done a nice job elevating his media profile. His conservative approach to things I think, will certainly resonate with parts of the caucus, but we'll also bristle parts of the caucus. And so to some extent, you know, this choice before the House is really a choice about the future, and really the struggle that's still within the Republican Party.

EICHER: Hours before endorsing Jordan, Trump said he was fielding calls asking him to become speaker… and said he would consider it. Is even possible under the current rules of Congress? And is Trump to your knowledge really pursuing it?

SMITH: You know, I think for President Trump, it's probably good enough for him to be part of the news story as it relates to this. I think he appreciates being asked about it and being lobbied to take it possibly. And certainly there are members of the House who would like him to do it, or at least like to talk about him doing it. But over the weekend, we heard a good number of more, let's say moderate or traditional Republicans, who threw some cold water on that notion that Donald Trump might be Speaker of the House, saying things plainly, like Ken Buck, saying that this is just not going to happen. 

There is a rule in place right now, rule 26 for the House Republicans, that prevents someone indicted for a felony that leads to two or more years of a prison sentence, it prevents them from being in a leadership position. And so in order for the Republicans to seriously go down this path, they would have to change the rules. Of course, in order to change the rules, they would unanimously need to go and merge on the floor of the House and make that choice. That's why I think when someone like representative Buck says it's not going to happen, and that's why it's not going to happen. You're not going to see a majority of Republicans, I think, go out there and change your rule in order to make it possible for Donald Trump to be Speaker. Putting all that aside, constitutionally, he's eligible. The Constitution Article One, Section two, says the House shall choose their speaker. It does not give any conditions for serving. It doesn't say you have to be a member of the House. It doesn't give any age requirements or anything else. And so he could, in theory, be Speaker of the House. Practically speaking, I just don't see it happening.

REICHARD: Until a Speaker is appointed, a lot of business is on hold. That includes the Republicans’ impeachment inquiry…the investigation into the Biden family business and how it may or may not have illegally overlapped with political business. How much did the investigators get done before things were put on hold?

SMITH: I mean, they held a little bit of a public hearing. Not much has really happened in that regard. The leadership struggle really has overtaken the impeachment process. And you could even argue the leadership struggle is due to the impeachment process to some extent. Kevin McCarthy did start the impeachment proceedings. However, in doing so, he rankled the Democratic Party pretty dramatically. And that made them far less likely to save him when possibly they could have intervened to save McCarthy's speakership. So I think impeachment is also roiling the Republican caucus because there are a number of members. 14 I believe, if I recall, correctly, who serve in legislative districts that Joe Biden actually won in 2020. So these are Republican members of the House who serve in districts that are sympathetic to Democratic presidential candidates. This impeachment is pretty much a nightmare for them. It's putting them in a very difficult position to appeal to their districts. And so there's going to be a lot of pressure, I think, on the leadership to consider the impeachment proceeding, maybe to curtail it or limit it, because it's going to create complexities for a good number of Republicans.

EICHER: Mark Caleb Smith is a political science professor at Cedarville University. Thank you, Mark.

SMITH: Always a pleasure. Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour. Now, ordinarily I would introduce our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere. Not to worry, Onize is still on the job, but this week she is in Asheville, North Carolina with the rest of our editorial staff for a company retreat.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: We are a distributed workforce spread all over the world, so we don’t often see each other in person. And here’s the thing: it’s your support that makes possible our work, as well as this time of coming together. Appreciate that! So, thank you!

EICHER: All right. Here now literally is Onize Ohikere.

AUDIO: [Border guards]

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Israel-Palestine conflict — We start today with heightened tensions at Israel’s shared border with Lebanon as the weekend attacks from the Hamas terror group sparked global reactions.

Israel and Lebanon beefed up security along the border after Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group struck Israeli positions along a disputed part of the border.

AUDIO: [Airstrike aftermath]

Israel formally declared war against Hamas on Sunday after the militants fired some 3,500 rockets into Israeli cities. The attacks have killed more than 1,000 people and injured thousands of others on both sides.

AUDIO: [Protesters chanting]

In the Australian city of Sydney, protesters chanted and marched in support of Palestinians. And in South Africa’s port city of Cape Town, several hundred members of the Muslim community gathered in support of Palestine.

Over in Ukraine, Israeli flags hung on several buildings in a show of support.

AUDIO: [Protesters singing]

Several hundred people also rallied outside the town hall of the French town of Nice waving Israeli flags.

DARMANIN: [Speaking French]

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin says authorities have recorded more than 20 antisemitic incidents since Saturday.

UK court appeal — Next, today is the final day of hearings at Britain’s Supreme court over a controversial migration plan.

The British government filed an appeal against an earlier court ruling in June that blocked its plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

The Court of Appeal concluded at the time that Rwanda does not count as a safe third country. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to quote- “stop the boats” - as a government priority.

James Eadie is the British government’s lawyer.

EADIE: There is a serious and pressing need to take effective steps that will act as a deterrent to those undertaking the perilous and sometimes life-threatening journey, typically across the channel from a safe country, normally France, very often facilitated by people smugglers and criminal gangs for money.

AUDIO: [Migrant rescue]

More than 25,000 people have entered the UK by boat this year.

The court is not expected to announce its ruling immediately after the three-day hearing.

AUDIO: [Rescued tourists]

India flooding — In India, rescue teams are still working this week to help civilians after deadly flooding hit the northeastern state of Sikkim.

Air Force helicopters on Monday rescued some of the thousands of tourists stranded in the worst-hit Mangan district.

Flooding there began last week after waters from a glacial lake overflowed, bursting the largest hydroelectric dam in the state.

Authorities said more than 70 people have died and at least 100 others remain missing.

Muhammad Karim—a local resident—said the floodwaters swept many homes away.

RESIDENT: [Speaking Hindu]

He says here his father, younger brother, and sister-in-law are still missing.

The flooding also struck pipelines and destroyed multiple bridges, complicating rescue efforts.

AUDIO: [Protest chants]

Kenya LGBT ruling — Over in Kenya, hundreds of Muslims and Christians marched and chanted against an LGBTQ ruling on Friday.

The protest outside the Supreme Court in Nairobi followed the court’s decision last month to uphold an earlier ruling. The ruling affirmed the right of LGBTQ organizations to register with the country’s board of non-governmental organizations.

Mohamed Suleiman joined other protesters in Nairobi.

SULEIMAN: We as a country, we do not want any donations from any other countries to force us with the LGBTQ laws.

The World Bank cut off funding to Kenya’s neighbor, Uganda, after it approved a law that prescribes a maximum death penalty for some homosexual acts.

That’s it for today’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Asheville, North Carolina.

NICK EICHER, HOST: What can you do with 143,000 playing cards? Hmm?

A teenager from India built replicas of iconic Indian buildings. It took 41 days to do it, no cheating, either. He used no tape and no glue!

15-year-old Arnav Daga built a cityscape 40 feet long, 11 feet high, and 17 feet wide.

For accuracy, he inspected the buildings to work out their dimensions and bring everything to scale.

Now, he did suffer setbacks. For instance, entire structures collapsed and he had to rebuild.

But that’s kind of the nature of building a house of cards, right? Imagine buildings of cards, four buildings.

Good news is, now that he’s done it he set a new world record and I think that’s pretty sturdy. 

MARY REICHARD, HOST: For now.

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

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 11th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. This week on Concurrently: The News Coach Podcast, cohosts Kelsey Reed and Jonathan Boes tackle a question from a listener on the thorny topic of affirmative action. 

BOES: But we shouldn't be surprised that broken sinful people would create broken sinful institutions, I think it'd be very, it'd be much more surprising the other way around. I think, when I look at what scripture says of mankind, it makes perfect sense of the systems we create without problems and would require healing. And then I think the question then is, how do we go about that healing, and that's where things get a lot stickier.

REED: That's good analysis. And it is interesting, as you talk about that, how many philosophers come to mind that will argue that man is inherently broken, and therefore society is the thing that's going to fix him? And I always, there’s this weird bug in my brain of going how if society is made up of broken men, is society going to be the solution? So we've discussed some of the nature of the problem and verified that it is a problem. And that it’s a problem in institutions and that they need repair. But what about this idea, this policy of affirmative action itself? What if we seek to just analyze it?

REICHARD: Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Missionaries staying put in Haiti. The UN estimates that hundreds of thousands of Haitians have tried to leave their homeland since the country’s president was assassinated in 2021.

But even as gangs take over more of the country and violence continues to spread, one Haitian missionary says he and his family are there to stay.

WORLD Reporter Mary Muncy has the story.

SOUND: [HAITI]

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Last spring, Steve Derard and his wife got their kids up and ready for school just like any other day. They live in a small neighborhood in Haiti and had gotten used to the gangs controlling the area.

But that morning, as Steve and his six-year-old daughter were leaving, they saw something new: a dead body very close to the house.

STEVE DERARD: She asked me why. You know, I don't want to lie to her. What? I don't know really what to tell her.

So they just kept going on to school.

DERARD: This is the kind of life we are having.

Derard is co-founder and ground director for the ministry Haiti Awake. The ministry started in 2014 to serve the community, and then expanded to the local juvenile prison in 2016. Haiti Awake provides classes in things like English and music, and supplies the prison with some resources. Derard is also the pastor of a small church in a town just outside the capital.

The work was hard before the gangs took over, but now it’s a whole new challenge.

NEWS: The Caribbean nation is in freefall.

NEWS: U.S. authorities warning all Americans still in that country to get out now.

NEWS: This passport office in Port-au-Prince overrun with Haitians desperate to make it to the United States.

Derard has been watching people leave in droves.

DERARD: It's a good thing for each individual, it's a good thing for different families, it's a good thing for people who never got a job before. But at the same time, it's very bad for the country as a whole.

So, despite having a U.S. Visa, Derard has decided to stay. This is his country and these are his people, he will do what he can to help them.

A lot of Derard’s ministry is centered on the juvenile prison near the ministry center. Since the unrest started, the number of boys in the prison has skyrocketed —from 60 in 2016 to over 100 now.

DERARD: There is this little boy at Cermicol, the juvenile facility, he is eight years old.

That eight-year-old boy is there because he was directly involved in gang activity.

DERARD: This little boy is supposed to be in school or with their family. Now he's in prison. So anytime I go there see him want to hold my hand and I said it's worth it to be there.

It’s worth it, even when his family has to face the consequences.

Last spring, two rival gangs began fighting over Derard’s neighborhood and trapped him at the mission base and his family at their home.

DERARD: I wanted to get back. I wanted to be with them. But there was no way I could go. Because they, the gangs, can control the area. They control the situation. They are shooting.

His daughter developed such bad anxiety that she started throwing up. And Derard was trapped at the base away from her for three or four days.

Finally, things calmed down enough that he was able to pick his way through the neighborhood and get back home.

Since then, they have been living in a tenuous peace.

DERARD: I don't know how long that's gonna last, just watching them go into school in the morning and be able to come back that's when there's so much joy.

Even with so much uncertainty, Derard says the mission is thriving.

He sees the fruit of his work in the lives of people like Kelly Volcy.

Volcy left home when he was 12 because his parents couldn’t support him and started working for a tap tap driver. Tap taps are like group taxi services in Haiti.

But one day when he was 19, Volcy asked for his pay for the day, and the driver refused to give it to him.

The two fought and the police came. Volcy was arrested and taken to jail… he couldn’t stop crying.

SOUND: [PRISON]

He first met Derard in prison.

Haiti Awake provided food and other supplies and Volcy attended the church and classes they taught. He says it made him feel connected to something again.

When he was released after two years, Volcy stayed involved with Haiti Awake.

Now, he’s 21 and trying to finish high school. He plans to start a business selling water bottles…and he makes the dangerous trek through Haiti from his home to the mission base every Sunday for church and Thursday for Bible study.

Derard says stories like that encourage him. He keeps holding onto what God is doing through him and the mission.

DERARD: That's my call. It's not everyone's call. You know, it's unfortunate. My family has to suffer with me in that.

Derard says Haiti is both his greatest joy and his greatest sorrow.

He doesn’t blame people who leave—he knows they still love their country, but for now, he and his family will stay.

DERARD: By God's grace we’re still there. We still are doing what we are doing what we can do day by day. And you know, not happy with the way things are, but we are happy to see the way God is moving in the middle of everything.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 11th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Up next: WORLD Opinions Commentator Daniel Darling on a politician who wisely decided not to run for office again.

DANIEL DARLING, COMMENTATOR: Recently, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah announced his intention not to seek a second term. It had been speculated that the longtime politician would be vulnerable to a primary defeat due to his opposition to former President Trump, including voting twice for impeachment. Recent polls, however, suggest his approval ratings in the Beehive State are still fairly strong.

What does Mitt Romney’s retirement mean for American politics? The son of a Michigan governor and one-time presidential candidate championed civil rights and was an early critic of the Vietnam War. As America’s most prominent Mormon politician, Romney began his public service with an unsuccessful run for the Senate from Massachusetts against Senator Ted Kennedy.

Then, in the late ’90s, Romney helped save the scandal-plagued Olympic games before becoming Massachusetts governor in 2003. Over the next four years, he enacted many conservative reforms. He also pioneered state-funded healthcare which became, much to conservatives’ chagrin, a template for Obamacare. In 2012, Romney won the GOP nomination for president, but he fell short against the incumbent President Barack Obama.

In one sense, the departure of Mitt Romney from elected office is a loss for decency. He is undoubtedly an admirable family man, a devoted husband, and a beloved father.

At the same time, we must acknowledge that, like most successful politicians, Senator Romney’s career has taken some ideological twists and turns. Early on, Romney ran as unapologetically pro-choice. Midway through his gubernatorial term, he had a change of heart and became pro-life. In 2012, he was the establishment candidate, routinely attacked by primary rivals such as former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In a clumsy attempt to shore up his bona fides with the primary electorate, he declared himself “severely conservative.” And also as a mark against him, Romney would later come to support the “Respect for Marriage Act,” the law which redefined marriage for federal purposes.

In the campaign against President Obama, Romney ran along with former Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. The Obama campaign, along with a compliant media, conducted a shameful campaign, painting the family man as a greedy monster, ready to fire people, hurt women, and empower Wall Street. It worked, and Romney was gracious in defeat. Yet many of the themes Romney raised in 2012, such as the danger of pulling troops from Iraq too soon, the rise of Russia, and entitlement reform turned out to be prescient.

As governor, presidential candidate, and senator, Mitt Romney had a distinguished career and lived a distinguished life. Some of his more recent critique of Senate colleagues has certainly irritated conservatives. And yet, we can commend the 76-year-old statesman for hanging up his jersey and stepping aside for a new generation of leaders. If only the leading candidates for president in both parties would follow suit.

I’m Daniel Darling.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Drug treatment programs. The end goals differ on whether its abstinence or managing addiction. We’ll hear their arguments. And, equipping Christians to do campus ministry in difficult mission fields. 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 records that “a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. —Acts chapter 18, verses 24 through 26.

Go now in grace and peace.

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