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How Trump's Policies Are Transforming America's Global Influence
The political and cultural landscape in Washington D.C. has undergone remarkable transformation according to David and Tim Barton, who share their firsthand observations from a recent pastor's briefing in the nation's capital. Their conversations with congressional representatives reveal a refreshing shift in attitude and purpose among newly elected officials who arrive with clear intentions rather than simply occupying office space.
A significant revelation emerged from multiple congressional sources: America has dramatically altered its approach to international relations. Previous administrations had effectively coerced foreign nations into adopting controversial positions on gender, sexuality, and abortion by threatening to withhold financial aid—essentially exporting values that many Americans themselves find troubling. The current administration has halted this practice, no longer using American power to force ideological compliance from countries that often maintain stronger moral positions than our own.
The administration's targeted immigration enforcement strategy showcases another area of meaningful change. Recent deportation efforts have focused specifically on removing violent criminals and gang members from American communities. In just 50 days, immigration authorities have made arrests equivalent to the previous administration's entire final year, with over 14,000 convicted criminals and more than 1,100 gang members among those detained. This strategic prioritization has received judicial support from the Supreme Court, which recently rejected attempts by lower courts to halt deportations.
Equally noteworthy is the administration's approach to international trade. Facing a monthly trade deficit of approximately $130 billion, the president has implemented a straightforward strategy of matching tariffs imposed by other nations. Despite criticism, this approach has already prompted over 50 countries to initiate negotiations, with several immediately dropping all tariffs on American goods—potentially opening markets for U.S. products and creating domestic jobs.
Ready to dive deeper into these issues? Join us for more insights on faith, culture, and the policies shaping America's future. Visit wallbuilders.com to learn how you can participate in upcoming events.
Rick Green [00:00:07] This is the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilders Show. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And the guys are still in DC doing that pastor's briefing. What a great opportunity for folks to send their pastor to a pastor's briefing. You got another chance to do that later in the year. Check out wallbuilders.com for more information on that one. And David and Tim, how's it feel being in DC compared to, oh, I don't know. Year ago, two years ago, especially four years ago. A much better trip this time around. I'm thinking.
David Barton [00:00:36] Well, it's a lot better in a whole lot of ways, not the least of which is just talking to the congressmen and seeing the change that's going in them. Some of these guys we've known for a number of years, but they've really talked about the fact, even as I was talking with some just before the program, that in the last two classes of congressmen that have come in, they're so much more focused, so much pointed on changing the country and getting it back right, not just being a congressman and being up here. but they came up here with a purpose and they've come with an intent. And they were talking about how that in the conference and the conference is when all the Republicans get together. So Mike Johnson leads that and they're talking about what they're gonna do with budget items over with the Senate. And in the Conference, it is such a different ball game now because they are really trying to do some principled things and trying to get this ship turned the right direction. So I think that's really, really good. And I've heard that now from a number of congressmen over the last day or two.
Tim Barton [00:01:37] Well, then one of the things too that really struck me is a couple of our friends, that congressman that we were talking to, two of them pointed out one of the significant things for them that they're so grateful for. One of the biggest changes they've seen in DC because that was one of the questions we've been asking. Is that they have seen now a policy change from the top coming down that the US is, is actually not forcing and exporting some of what we would consider to be very unbiblical, ungodly at times, even evil policies where they've talked to national leaders, these congressmen specifically talking to national leaders that were so frustrated and disappointed that over the years America has made them embrace certain policies when it comes to gender and human sexuality and et cetera, et cetera. And we tied it with funding. We said, if, if you don't embrace and promote certain policies, then we will penalize you, we will punish you. And we've been forcing what was identified to us, right? Our, our morals in a very bad sense on other people. And president Trump, his administration has put a stop to that. And this is one of the things that, again, the two congressmen I'm thinking of both of them were so grateful that we actually are now at a place that we have a president that is no longer forcing the unbiblical, ungodly positions on other nations, but some of these nations have actually, very sadly, far better morals with some of their political positions than we have had in many situations now for decades, but certainly under the Biden administration, what they were promoting, what they we're doing, in fact, even going back to Obama, what they were doing and maybe even some of this happened under Trump. You know, possibly he was ignorant to some of it, but he's not ignorant to it now. And he has taken a very strong position that we're not forcing some of these beliefs on other nations and tying money or aid or support or whatever else to it. So it's been really interesting to hear, even from the congressmen, that we've been around these last couple of days, some of what they've noticed, the big changes, the camaraderie, the commitment, but also even the stopping the exporting of some really bad philosophies to other nations. So just so much good stuff happening and really has been fun to be in some of these conversations and hear some behind the scenes of the nitty gritty, but overall just great news.
Rick Green [00:04:07] I hate to be the old man in in Spider-Man and, Peter Parker's uncle. But you know, with great power does come great responsibility in America used to be, you know so often such a force for good exporting good things around the world and getting people to get rid of bad things and do good things. So it's been sad to watch that reverse and us being exporter of bad things and so good right now to finally flip that back and clean up some of those, you know some of those things that really was a poison that we were spreading around the world.
David Barton [00:04:35] Yeah, I was thinking even in the scriptures where it talks about Jezebel and Babylon over in Revelation stuff and talks about how Jezebele and Babylon, she exports wickedness to the other nations. And literally, that's what we were hearing from some of these congressmen that there's pro-life nations and we wouldn't help them unless they become pro-abortion and we wouldn't them unless we start transitioning their kids. And these are nations that don't believe that. They have a different value system and you know pick up what Tim was saying. He said exporting our morals, but I think we could easily say exporting our immorals is what this was. And Trump has stopped that exporting to the immorales and gone back to just, Hey, American values. And, and there was a time when we could say biblical values were fairly close to American values, but we haven't been able to say that for a few years. But hopefully those two are going to start coalescing and aligning again.
Rick Green [00:05:30] Yeah, very good news. Well, and like we've said before, it seems like more than Fridays that we're talking about good news, good news stories and victories out there. And we do seem to talk about the Trump administration an awful lot, uh, but there seems to be more, more good news that we've just been hearing about yesterday and the day before.
David Barton [00:05:47] And with that, guys, I came across a news story that just kind of floored me. And it's, you know, Rick, you said it's almost like we have good news stuff here. And it is, but I want to jump into this because I don't think I understood the depth of these numbers. And I understand that, that, you know, Trump has been doing so many deportations and ICE has been going after these guys. But here in Texas, there was an article I saw that just blew me away. It said that they just deported from Texas 174 criminal aliens and so I was looking at this and of the hundred and seventy and 174 doesn't sound like a whole lot to me, you know when you've got however many million 20 million or whatever 174 it's gonna take you years to get that but 174 criminal aliens and just in these hundred and 174 I was astounded by what was there there were 24 that were confirmed gang members, but grab this Of the 174 they sent out, these 174 have been accountable and responsible for 610 criminal convictions and they've previously been removed 415 times and nobody stops them when they come back in. One of the guys has been removed from the country 39 times and comes right back in and they don't keep him from coming in and he's got DWI, drug charges, fraud. I mean, just the number of crimes, I say... man that's got to make this kind of stuff and these appear to be the guys that they're targeting and going after with these deportations and then if you're doing that what's it going to do for the crime rate you know we're going to see the crime rates start dropping which is going to be an economic boom as well because then you'll have less property crimes and less crimes that are money which is less insurance to be paid which is less police officers you need on the street I just I was thinking the downstream effects of all this. And then I saw that they had recently removed also a 133 from, from New York city and the ones in New York City, that, really kind of got me to just seeing the numbers there because they also were targeting criminal illegals and just in that group, they said that to date what they have so far to date is they've been taken out about 230 a day. And so that 230 a day that they're taking out, now they're taking about 750 illegals a day of which about 230 a day are criminals and have convictions and they're known to be criminals and we're not stopping them coming back in. And so they said that of this group, there were 9980 charges pending against them. And so so far they've had 1155 criminal gang members taken out. And it's just, it's crazy, and that's been in 50 days. Just in the first 50 days of Trump, they have had all of these nearly 750 a day going out, but I didn't realize that they were just basically targeting criminals and what that's gonna mean, I think, in a really quick time to where we are here in the country as far as crime rates.
Tim Barton [00:08:55] Yeah, and it's worth noting just, you know, not to be nitpicky on this, but everyone who's come here illegally is in fact a criminal. And so, right, everyone that's being removed is already a criminal, but some of them have done some significant crime activity, that their crime-ery level is pretty high for some of these guys, and certainly when you get into violent offenders, when you get into people that have really done things that have had an incredibly negative impact and some of them. whether it be murder, rape, whatever it is, and this is why it was significant when, you know, you had that lower court judge who was telling Trump, no, you can't deport these people. And it's utterly ridiculous because the number one thing that Trump has targeted are the worst of the criminal offenders of these illegal immigrants. And so when you're saying let's remove the really, really bad ones, that's our top priority. Let's get the really really bad one's gone. And that, as you mentioned, that that's going to have so many positive effects when I think it was usually nearly 10,000 charges against these ones that are being removed, 9,980 or something. I think is the number I'm trying to remember what you said, but if something like that, nearly 10 thousand criminal charges against these guys, these, these aren't really good-hearted loving wonderful sweet people that were trying to come and do good things so these are these are bad people doing bad things and that's who Trump is targeted Which of course when the Supreme Court just this week came out with the ruling identifying that you know, no lower court judge. You're wrong. Sit down. Be quiet I'm like that that's not how this works and we probably could spend an entire program going into some of those details and what that looks like nonetheless this is why it's a little crazy the level of opposition coming from some on the other side that are suggesting that what Trump's doing is so immoral. No, he's removing the immoral people. He's removing ones who have been the worst criminal offenders. That's the number one target right now, and it is really good news overall that these individuals are being targeted and being removed because that makes America a safer place.
David Barton [00:11:04] And Tim went back and found the paragraph and it says, according to the department of Homeland security, ice has made 32,809 arrests in the first 50 days of the Trump administration. So that equals out to about 750 a day, which what they have made in the 50 days is equal to all of the total arrests made in last year of Biden's administration. So they've done in 50 days, what took Biden a year to do. And of the 32,809 they've arrested, it includes 14,111 convicted criminals. And that, as Tim, as you pointed out, they've all broken the law, but these are convicted. They've been through the court system, they've been convicted. They have 9,980 carrying pending charges against them. 1,155 were criminal gang members. So that's in the group that they've done in the first 50 days. Do you take out that many gang members and that many convicted criminals and all the charges pending against them? That's, that's just pretty unbelievable in 50 days, what they've been able to do. And I don't think I'd realize that they were targeting that, group to that extent, that instead of just going after illegals, they're going after the ones that are really creating the damage and making the havoc. And man, that really, Rick, you said this could be a good news Friday kind of thing. And it is, and you know, even going back to what Tim mentioned, The US Supreme Court has weighed in and said, no, these lower court judges, they can't stop this kind of deportation. And so the Supreme Court is allowing it to go on. And I thought it was really cool in the Supreme court decision when they did it. They really kind of targeted this whole concept of forum shopping because they were trying to stop. I just talked about the deportations from Texas. they were trying to stop the deportations that were happening in Texas. And so where did they go to stop? They didn't go to a Texas judge. They went to a judge in Washington, DC. So they went to judge they thought would give them the verdict they wanted instead of going to where the actual activity was happening. And so the Supreme court really called down the other judges and called down the attorneys for doing that. That no, if it's happening in Texas, you take it to a, Texas court, let it work through the system. You don't go find a judge somewhere that will give you the decision you want. You let it work through the system where it's supposed to. And so that's even another piece of good news that's related to all this other good news. It's, I don't know, Rick, I go back to what you keep saying. I'm not sure I'm going to get tired of winning, but it's kind of fun to have so many winning stories all tied together at the same time and not having to shop and look for them. They're, they're just kind of flowing through and flowing really fast right now.
Rick Green [00:13:53] Well, and this one is good on, on so many levels, guys. I mean, just, just the, obviously the safety of the country, getting these kind of, you know, horrific criminals out of the county and making our streets safer, but also it's just smart on the Trump administration to start here, right? I mean when you run on this is essentially your main issue. The fact that they are targeting this in such a smart way and yet moving so quickly, as you said, David, to, to doing 50 days, what the last administration did an entire year. And then also to reassure communities that they are targeting these, these, you know, worst of the worst criminals. I was watching on X, the, the gal that does libs of TikTok, who just did an amazing job over the last few years of, of, you know, revealing so many things. Anyway, she said, I'll just quote it directly from her. I joined a ride along with DHS and ICE today in Phoenix, Arizona, to report on a sting operation targeting three dangerous illegal aliens. They were criminals, gang members, long wrap sheets. It was a targeted operation to remove criminals from our country who are here illegally. Democrats will try to spin it as law enforcement arresting random dads, that is not the case. These people are here legally and committed crimes. These operations are making our country safer. After watching it firsthand, I have a new appreciation for the hard work our law enforcement does every single day and putting their lives on the line to keep our country safe. So I just, I was thinking about that as you were talking, David, and... You know, I remember doing a ride along with a police officer friend of mine when I was about 21, 22 years old. It totally changed my perspective on how tough their job is and how much respect we should have for them. So I'm glad she shared that. And I'm that the Trump administration has been smart enough to attack this issue in the way that it has with, going after these, these worst of the worst. So very, very good news. And as you said, David, good news that the court has, sided with president Trump on this as well. And I think that's part of it is right because you pick these cases. so that you do have the support of not only the courts, but the majority of the American people. They're going, wait a minute, what are you kidding? You're gonna stop him from getting rid of rapists and murders and gang members? That's insane. So win this battle right now, show how important it is to do this, and then you can go after, you know, maybe, oh, just the ones that are stealing just less than $900 at Target. And even those Democrat politicians in California have had enough pain, I think, where they're reversing some of these horrible decisions. All right, guys, quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilder Show.
Rick Green [00:17:20] Welcome back to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for staying with us here on the WallBuilders show. More good news out there. I don't know, guys, do you just hear more of this when you're in D.C. for the week like you are this week, or is a lot of this stuff happening that we don't even know? I feel like I can't keep up with it. There's so many topics, international and domestically, it's hard to keep up all the good news.
David Barton [00:17:40] Oh yeah, well I'll go back Rick to the fact that we haven't been in DC for a whole lot this year and we've had every Friday filled with more than we could stack, more than we could get to in the stack.
Rick Green [00:17:51] Good point you had plenty when you were you're right even when you weren't in DC you had play that's right that's
David Barton [00:17:56] That's right. And we've even had some weeks where we did a couple of good news Fridays in the middle of the week, even like a Wednesday and a Friday kind of thing. So that's right, we we've had plenty to work with. And another one that's really been intriguing to me. And I don't think I, it's kind of like the deportations. I don't think I really understood who they were targeting. You know, I kind of knew, but I didn't. And I think I I'm seeing something different now being here on what's happening with all the tariff stuff. And so the tariff stuff, I haven't really paid attention to. That's just hadn't been real interesting to me. And now that I've started kind of digging into it, I'm finding this to be a whole lot more significant than I thought that it was in many, many ways. And so, all right, we start with 195, 193 nations in the world, whatever it is right now, just under 200 nations and not all of them produce things they want to sell in the United States. You know, there's a lot of nations that don't have any production to speak of, but what happens is, when they do have things to sell in the United States, we don't want them selling things so cheaply because you know, they pay labor wages of 50 cents an hour. So they can sell things cheaply and it undercuts American production so much that people don't buy anything America, which means all of our companies go out of business because we're buying stuff through slave labor, like China so much we know so much that comes from China is slave labor. And so people buy cheap, they buy all of these tennis shoes made in China, Christmas decorations made in China and Don't think about the impact that it has on Americans. Well, Trump has come in now, and I guess here's the other thing that struck me just looking at stats even today. I didn't realize that we had a major trade deficit to the extent that we're averaging about $130 billion in the red every month on our trade. So in other words, we have all these goods in the US that we would like to sell in other nations so that would help our economy over here but we're bringing their stuff in and our stuff is not going out. So we're looking at $130 billion a month in trade deficit. And that's where Trump said, no, we're not gonna do this. We're gonna raise the tariff on the stuff you're trying to sell here and make you have to compete in the American market with American products. And we're gonna give you that break. And by the way, you're raising, the American imports your country, you're putting taxes on them, which makes your people not wanna buy our stuff. And so we're just gonna match it. If you've got a 25% tariff on us, we're gonna put a 25 percent tariff you. And so he's gotten into this thing of a tariff war and all the Democrats and progressives say, oh no, that's gonna just ruin the economy. And so, he put out the notice that we're going to match you on your tariffs. However you treat us, we're go to treat you. If you're gonna take our products that we send and start sticking all these taxes on it so your people don't want to buy it, we're to do the same to your stuff. And so just since he announced that, just, I don't know, a week, ten days ago. He's had more than 50 nations contact him and say, hey, hey, don't do that, let's talk about it. And so Israel's already said, no, no no, we're gonna have zero tariffs on American goods coming to Israel. Zimbabwe just said, nope, us too, we're dropping all tariffs. Taiwan just said nope, we're droppin' all tariffs, so we're suddenly finding that he's opening markets for American goods elsewhere, which means if other nations buy American goods, we're going to have to produce more here, which creates more jobs, it creates more economy. I don't think I'd ever thought about the trade deficit as really harming our jobs until I started seeing how much of a difference there was between them and us.
Tim Barton [00:21:29] Well, dad, one of the things that I think is interesting too, is, you know, we can say Democrats are the ones really opposing this and they are overall, but there are some Republicans, there are some conservatives that are very anti-terrif. There's a video that's gotten some traction online. Thomas Sowell, who's now in his mid nineties and just, I mean, he, so many good things we can about Thomas Sowll. He's been such an incredible leader, thought leader, economist, brilliant mind for a lot of years, but he acknowledged that if President Trump makes this part of his official policy, this could be disastrous. He goes back to some what happens in the early 1900s with the tariffs and trades and et cetera, but what he says. That I think is being overlooked a little bit in this interview he did was that if president Trump is using this as leverage, it's brilliant. If he's using this long-term to tear up these nation, that's a bad strategy. And I think what you're acknowledging is one of the things we've talked about some on the show before, one of reasons I'm not really overly concerned by the long term implications of what might be terrifs long termbecause what president trump has shown overall is he's negotiator it and this is part of I think what he's doing to negotiate. What part of being able to be a good negotiate if you want to back up what you say you're gonna do it and so when America said hey, China you were gonna match your terrifs in China goes we're gonna raise ours which is ok let's raise ours and now it's a hundred four percent you know whatever it is. This is where I think Trump is so good because he's not a guy that flinches. And in the midst of some conservatives that can be concerned about tariffs and there's, there's a lot of irony that you know the it seems the people that often are most concerned about the tariffs some of the memes I see online that are put to see on social media right the people that ran up debt in college and you have 14 credit cards of debt right now are going to give us advice on you know, the best economic plan for America and it should be to remove I think there's some level of truth and some of the irony of these posts and these memes that a lot of times the advice we're getting or the criticisms that are coming are not from the most intelligent people. But then when you have someone like Thomas Sowell, who acknowledges this might not be the best long-term strategy, but if it's for the purpose of negotiation, it could be brilliant. That's where I think Trump is so good at this. Because as you mentioned, there's already 50 nations that have come to the table saying, we'd like to renegotiate our deal. We'd like to readjust this trade imbalance that it shows that at least from the outside, but what some of us think he might be doing it looks like it's actually working and it could be a really good deal
Rick Green [00:24:03] Yeah, I'm exactly where you guys are. I mean, I mean I'm free market guy for sure. And, when a Rand Paul and some of these others stand up and say, they're, they're very much against this. I pause and I say, I need to pay attention and to learn, but David, you're right. I had not, I had always thought of the tariffs on their own, didn't really think about the trade imbalance having such a negative effect and what it was doing downstream to businesses and the entire economy. And then to Tim, to your point. I finally came to the conclusion. He's definitely playing the game here, man. And if there's anybody I want to trust in the room to negotiate and to know when to back off and when to press harder and all that it's definitely Trump. And, we've already seen, as you said, David, some of these countries that have said, Hey, forget it, man, we're getting rid of these tariffs. We want to have actual free trade with you. So it's, it's definitely working where it goes from here we'll we'll see. But you know, I definitely would, when Thomas Sowell says something I pay attention. But like you said he also sees it as a weapon that the president choosing. And we'll see if it's wisely. I think it is, but that's why we elected the guy to be the one in the room to make these decisions.
David Barton [00:25:04] Hey, listen, since we're just talking about current events and it has turned into a good news Friday in the middle of the week, I've just got to finish with one more current event that's another piece of good news. And it goes, you know, I always hear the Democrats talk about guns, a zero tolerance policy. And I don't really know what that means, except they just don't put up with guns and they don't like them and they're going to do anything they can to shut them down. Well, I didn't realize that when Biden came in, he issued for for his administration for his four years, a zero tolerance policy based on a 1968 gun law that was passed way back in the day. And that gun law dealt with the gun shops. And under a zero tolerance policy, what Biden was doing was, if a gun shop got the paperwork wrong, if they had a clerical error, a typo error, anything, not about guns, just any kind of error, they were revoking the license of the gun shop and said they were going through and wiping out gunshops. And I don't think I've heard any news on that at all, but now Trump has reversed that policy and he's not enforcing that. He's reversed that based on that 1968 law. And that's great news for the second amendment as well. So man, this is all sorts of stuff going on right now with Trump administration policies almost faster than we can cope.
Rick Green [00:26:22] Well, a lot of that too is just good staff, right? Getting good people in good positions, digging deep, finding a lot of these things, so there's a lot of victories where we're not going to be able to cover it all folks. I mean, there's gonna be a lot of good stuff, good things happening that we won't even be able to cover on the program, but we'll get to as much of it as we possibly can. Don't miss tomorrow. Foundations of freedom, Thursday. And then of course, this Friday will be good news. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilders Show
