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Christmas Courage From The Governor’s Office
A governor’s Christmas proclamation that actually says what Christmas is about. A president joking with kids about cookies while thanking service members. Federal agencies quietly restoring room for faith at work and school. The start of 2026 comes packed with moments that reveal where conviction and culture meet—and why it matters.
We open with Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ proclamation naming Jesus and closing state offices so families can celebrate together, followed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s objection and a forceful reply that re-centers Christmas on Christ. From there, we jump to the NORAD Santa Tracker’s quirky origin and a holiday call-in where the president mixes humor, nostalgia, and a clear salute to the military, including an end-of-year bonus that put help into real households.
The conversation deepens as we explore the USDA’s move to protect religious expression—touching school lunch policies and even meatpacking plant break rooms—reminding listeners that rights don’t stop at the factory floor. We widen the lens to Nigeria, where U.S. strikes targeted ISIS-linked terrorists amid persistent attacks on Christians and dissenting Muslims. The question is sobering: when should power be used to restrain evil, and what does moral clarity look like on the world stage?
We also unpack a rare bipartisan push: 42 attorneys general pressing AI companies to curb misleading, “tell-me-what-I-want-to-hear” outputs for kids, signaling a cultural return to verifiable truth over algorithmic flattery. Finally, we turn to the Smithsonian, where the White House is demanding documentation and accountability for historical narratives as America approaches its 250th anniversary. Artifacts deserve honest framing, and audiences deserve transparent standards.
If you care about faith in public life, religious liberty, truthful storytelling, national security, and the health of our information ecosystem, this conversation connects the dots. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves history and policy, and leave a review telling us which moment gave you the most hope.
Links to good news stories:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/us-strikes-isis-in-nigeria-trump-5962963
Rick Green [00:00:07] This is the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders Show on a Friday. In fact, the first Friday of 2026. I don't know about you; I'm on the edge of my seat. I wanna know what the first piece of good news is gonna be for 2026, and so we're about to find out. Anyway, Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton looking forward to a whole year of good new. Guys, I don't know, can we break the record for all the good news from 2020? How much is still in your stack from 2025? That we never even got to. Are y'all gonna start with something that happened at the end of the year? Are we still catching up on March?
David Barton [00:00:40] No, we're past March. My first one's gonna come out of December. And first piece of good news right out of the bat is it's only 357 days till Christmas. So that's what we start with. Right, I forgot again. Merry Christmas, guys. Yeah, Merry Christmas. It's exactly it. And that actually is my story. It's such a fun story. Okay, so back up, Christmas, back up a week. Christmas was on Thursday. And a lot of people got Friday off because of Christmas being on Thursday. It's a holiday and coming back in on Friday and then get the Saturday off. So, a lot of employers said, you know, take off Friday, whatever. Well, one of the employers who said that was Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas. And she said, you know, state employees, hey, just go ahead and take Friday off, too. And so, she issued a notice for state employees in celebration of Christmas to take Friday off, and she came out with a really a really good Christmas proclamation. It's not like the Biden proclamation for a day of prayer where he didn't even mention God. This one actually remembers what Christmas is all about. It's short enough, I just want to read it. It's a great recap of Christmas and it is just so fun coming from the governor's office but she says, "Whereas more than two millennia ago in the little town of Bethlehem, far from the centers of power in first century Rome, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born in a humble manger. Whereas Jesus was the Messiah and became a teacher and leader, and he would be crucified, suffer for the sins of all mankind, to die and be buried, and rise again on the third day to sit at the right hand of the Father. Whereas, but on that first Christmas, Christ's arrival was unassuming, witnessed only by Mary and Joseph, humble shepherds guided by angels, and three wise men from the East. It presaged His ministry, which was not focused on the wealthy or powerful but rather on the poor, powerless, and meek; and whereas we give thanks for the arrival of Christ the Savior, who will come again in glory and whose kingdom will have no end by celebrating his birth each year on Christmas Day, now therefore I, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Governor of the State of Arkansas, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the laws of the state of Arkansas. Do hereby proclaim December 25th, 2025 is Christmas Day in the state of Arkansas. And in order that state employees may spend this holiday with their families, giving thanks for Christ's birth, I further declare the state capital and all state offices will be closed on Friday, December the 26th, 2025 as well." And so, she signs it. Well, that didn't make the atheist happy. And so, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, they were so triggered, they sent her and said, how dare you do that? You can only have a personal opinion. You can't have an official opinion. And, you know, actually they don't care when governors have atheist opinions like their viewpoint. You just can't a different for them. So, I love her response back. She just, she did not back up. She doubled down. She's, this is part of her response. She said, you say that my communications as governor must be neutral on matters of religion. I say that even if I wanted to do that, it would be impossible to do that. Christmas is not simply an end of the year holiday with broadly observed cultural aspects, as your letter states. It's not gifts, trees, and stockings that make this holiday special. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. And if we're to honor Him properly, we should tell His miraculous, world-changing story properly, too. Though you may enter this season with bitterness, know that Christ is with you, that He loves you, that He died for your sins just as He did for mine and everyone else's. Merry Christmas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders." She said, oh, let me just preach the gospel to you while I'm at it. It is so good to see that for Christmas. So that that's my first story of the year. And it's, it's a, it' a fun story.
Rick Green [00:04:51] Yeah, it's been, it was actually an incredible year for that all the way back to the beginning of the year. I mean, everything from Easter proclamation from the White House to these proclamations from governors like, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Just, just incredible to see the expression of faith from those highest offices in the land. Very, very good stuff. All right, Tim, Merry Christmas on the second day of the year and, what's your first piece of good news for the year?
Tim Barton [00:05:15] Well, speaking of Christmas. I mean, we've already, you know, kind of been diving in. This one goes back to Christmas Eve. Actually, more specifically, we go back to like 1955 when Sears took out an ad and in the department store ad in Colorado Springs, they misprinted a number for kids to call into Santa. You guys probably remember the story. And the number actually went to the Continental Air Defense Command, which was CONAD before it became NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. And when they called in, they, I mean, really, like, well done. Air Force Colonel Harry Shoop received the first call from a child and played along having staff provide updates on Santa's location, right? So that really fun, good job, military, helping kids when they called in. But the reason I mentioned this is become a tradition for Presidents to be part of the Santa Claus updates over the last, I don't know how many presidencies or years, but it's been, it's been a thing for a little while that presidents will update kids on the flight patterns that we're tracking Santa. Santa's on the move and President Trump took some phone calls on Christmas Eve, and some really fun phone calls. There was one when a girl, she asked, when he asked the girl what she wanted Kris Kringle to bring for Christmas, she replied, will not coal. And Trump quipped "Well, coal is clean and beautiful. Please remember that at all costs". Which I just, I, I love that, right. He's making this plug. Hey, don't hate coal. You don't want it in your stocking. That's fine. But he was asked if, Santa would get upset if they didn't leave out milk and cookies. He said, well, he won't get mad, but I think he'll be very disappointed. You know, Santa tends to be a little bit on the cherubic side. And this is talking to this eight-year-old girl of North Carolina. He says, do you know what cherubic means? It's a little on the heavy side. I think Santa would like some cookies. So, it was just so fun to see some of his personality coming out. Well, he also, in the midst of this, did a little bit of a shout out acknowledgement to the military. And the thing I appreciated about this, he said, we are praying for all of you. You have no idea how respected you are, how loved you are. And then he reminded them of the warrior dividend. The warrior bonus 1776, $1,776, which over Christmas, we had family in town and I have some siblings in the military. And I was asking, hey, did you get your warrior bonus? And he said, oh yeah, dude, I got it. I was paying off bills. It was awesome. It was just really great to see the lighter side of President Trump when we obviously live in an era of polarization. And so often because the media, and by media really, we mean mainstream media because they're trying to gin up whatever kind of emotions that will they think get the most clicks they don't often show the human side or the real side of President Donald Trump. And this was just a really neat example of President Trump being genuine. And then as he even mentioned that they were praying for the military That was just really fun for me to see and it felt like good news that we have a President that is is once again acknowledging valuing even praying for the military, giving the military an extra little Christmas bonus and then just being kind of fun and talking to kids on the phone on Christmas Eve. So, to me that was a fun piece of good news
Rick Green [00:08:48] Yeah, I feel like he's the ultimate troll. I mean, he even like trolled the elves in the North pole. I mean how, how much better can you get? I mean that's just the ultimate. All right, David. Next piece of good news from you, man.
David Barton [00:08:58] This one goes to some religious liberty type of stuff, and this goes to the fact that the Trump administration has mandated that there be religious liberty, religious expressions through every branch of the federal government. And so, what I find kind of interesting here is the U.S. Department of Agriculture issues guidelines to protect religious expression. Now what religious expression would you associate with the Department of Agriculture? You know, I can see, okay, military, yeah, I've seen them crack down there, I've seen them in education, but how do you crack down on religious liberty in the Department of Agriculture? And as it turns out, there were several ways that the previous administration did that that I hadn't even thought about. And so I was really, really intrigued with how even the USDA has said no we're going to have religious expression. And part of it went into the school lunch programs. And so when you get the school lunch program under the Biden administration, they based that on gender identity. And so if you had a religious objection to somebody's wrong gender, in other words, you're willing to, quote, misgender them because you can actually tell they're a male or a female, then you didn't get your school lunch. Really? You don't get a school lunch if you "mis-gender", if you can't. And that was even with religious objections, you know, I object, my faith says that God made them male and female and that's what I believe. And so that's something that Brook Rollins has cleaned up. There was also, and meat inspection plants of all things and meat and inspection plants, they put out, if meat inspection plants had religious material out in the break rooms or in the employee rooms, then the USDA would sanction them. For having religious material out and these meat packing plants. It's like, really? You're gonna go in and tell employers what they can and can't put out in meat... so I was really surprised to see that even with the USDA that there had been hostility toward religious expressions even in the realm of agriculture. I mean, these guys, these anti-religious guys find a way to make a grinch out of everything. And I guess, since we're only a week from Christmas, I can keep talking Christmas language for a bit here. But the other thing that was neat was the USDA, Brooke Rollins, they hosted a faith and fellowship night at the Great American Farmers Market on the National Mall. This was a big deal they did to promote agriculture. And as part of it, they actually welcomed faith and fellowship as part agriculture. And anybody who's grown up in the country and around the farms knows that the farm people tend to be pretty faith oriented. You know, we know from the Bible that it says even nature itself teaches you that there's a God, so out of the book of Job. And that's pretty clear in agriculture, but I was amused at the first to see what in the world can there be with religious expression in agriculture. But there actually were several things where the Biden administration had found ways to twist it around and prevent religious expression. So good news is, even back in agriculture, religious expression is back in that area as well.
Rick Green [00:12:14] Good stuff, guys! A quick break. We'll be right back. It's our first Good News Friday of the year, so stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show.
Rick Green [00:13:26] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday, first of the year. Tim, back over to you, bro.
Tim Barton [00:13:32] All right, well, this is something related to a conversation we had earlier this week with our friend Rudy Atallah. The article is U.S. Strikes ISIS in Nigeria. And there's just a few things I want to point out. Obviously, again, we talked about this earlier in the week with our friend, Rudy, but I forgot some of the details already. And maybe that's because Christmas was crazy and there's a lot going on. But I forgot this was announced on Christmas Day when this happened. Trump put it out on Truth Social and I'm gonna read just a portion of this and I want to add a little context to it as Well, but Trump said on his Truth Social post I had previously warned these terrorists if they did not stop the slaughtering Christians there would be hell to pay and tonight there was the Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes as only the United States is capable of doing under my leadership our country will not allow radical Islamic terrorism to prosper. May God bless our military and Merry Christmas to all including the dead terrorists of which there will be many more if the slaughter of Christians continues. Now I did not remember that last part at all. And then, I know I had seen Truth Social posts shared on some social media platforms. And I don't know if I just didn't read it all or I didn't remember it. But man, when, when he is not only is he wishing Merry Christmas, which is great. And by the way, Merry Christmas was in all caps. And so it's not just happy holidays to me it's great news that we can say Merry Christmas again very boldly, Dad is- In the first segment, you pointed out with Governor Sanders up in Arkansas, the boldness that we are seeing from some leaders right now in the right direction is very encouraging, but the fact that he says, Hey, there's dead terrorists and there's going to be a lot more if you don't stop killing Christians. The article points out the Nigerian officials. They've rejected the claims that there is widespread Christian persecution, arguing that Boko Haram and Isis target people of all faiths now that's interesting because even though they're Muslim, well, they attacked other Muslim groups as well. Well, yes, that anybody that doesn't support their extremism they attack. However, the majority of the attacks have been on Christians. Anyway, it was interesting. They said that the attacks aren't widespread against Christianity, and it just makes me wonder, well, what does widespread mean? But what's also interesting is the article points out, we talked about with Rudy, is that the Nigerian government actually was very supportive of the strikes, knowing that it was a beneficial thing for them. But the last thing that the article highlights that I did not know, this was news to me, Nigeria is the most populous African country. Now, maybe you guys knew that, I didn't know that. So, you have the most populous African country where there is the targeting of Christians above anybody else and the slaughter of Christians by these Muslim extremists and Nigeria is one of seven countries with very high levels of social hostilities involving religions led by terror groups such as Boko Haram and ISIS. Now, again, this is interesting because I had no idea, they were the most populace nation or country other in Africa. And then that, in the midst of this, in 2020 Pew Research pointed out or estimated there's 56.1% of the population that's Muslim and 43.4% that's Christian and a huge percentage of the Muslims are on the side that we would consider extremists supporting a lot of this activity. So, gaining context to a lot of this makes even more sense why the Nigerian government, if they're not part of ISIS or Boko Haram, why they might be opposed to this, but also why President Trump took note of this. And guys, I love the boldness that we have a president who's just letting the terrorists know, hey, if you keep this nonsense up, you're going to die. And there's not many presidents who would say something that audacious and maybe that crazy. And, and there's maybe even fewer who would actually back it up. And this is not to say, and, and guys, it's Good News Friday and this might be a longer conversation for a different program. But this is not to say that, that president Trump, that we agree with everything that he posts on true social, right? When there was the murder of, Rob Reiner and his wife and president Trump kind of took the moment to kind of dunk on them and say that you know, he was consumed with a lot of the Trump derangement syndrome and it was so sad to watch. Well, this would be the moment where you're not pointing out how crazy the guy was. Like you missed an opportunity there to take the high road and Trump likes to be the high man. Doesn't always take the High Road, but I appreciate and also the midst of his, at times his bluntness, where he's gonna say, look, nobody's gonna do like I'm gonna do. I'm going to be best leader there is. And if you're a bad guy, we're just gonna kill you. That is a crazy position to take and yet, having a leader who's willing to use the Romans 13 Sword of Government in what arguably is very appropriate ways to execute justice, to punish evildoers, it does make America safer and actually in this occasion even helps the world be safer. So, to me, a piece of good news just highlighting one of the programs we had earlier in the week.
Rick Green [00:18:58] So what you're telling me, Tim, is that President Trump, in a matter of days, managed to troll Santa Claus, the North Pole, and the elves, and terrorists in Nigeria. That's pretty impressive. All right, David, next piece of good news, man.
David Barton [00:19:14] Well, this one is kind of surprising to me is that you got 42 of the 50 state attorney generals to join together on an issue. And that's pretty hard to do with most items right now. I'm not sure that you could get 42 out of the fifty to join together against terrorism, quite frankly. I mean, they just they they're not there's not many things they can get together on, but this was one. And I'm gonna read part of it here. The title says Tech Companies are to Curb Their Sycophantic and Delusional AI Outputs. And so 42 attorney generals have gone after a bunch of these groups, I'll just read it here, it says attorney generals from 42 states and territories wrote to tech giants December 9th, warning them to do more to protect people, especially children, from what they call psychopathic and delusion outputs from their chat bots powered by Generative AI. In the letter, made public on December the 10th, the group of bipartisan attorney generals wrote to legal representatives of 13 companies and that includes like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Character Technologies, all these AI companies to communicate their concerns and it says, quote, we insist you mitigate the harm caused by sycophantic and delusional outputs from your agent AI and adopt additional safeguards to protect children. And then they talked about Sycophantic outputs of those that align with the human user's beliefs rather than what's truthful and accurate. So, it's not what you believe, it's what's truthful and accurate, and there's an objective standard in truth and accuracy and it's individually determined. And so, the attorney general has described the delusional outputs as those that are either false or likely to mislead the user based on what the user wants to hear. I think that is wonderful that you've now got 42 AGs that say, Hey. There are things that are actually true and false, and it doesn't really matter what you believe. It doesn't matter what your personal beliefs are. These, what they call psycho panic and delusional. Now, if they could move that into the public school system, and say, you know, there is absolute truth, and if they can move that into the gender arena where there's only two genders, but to get 42 AGs to agree that at least for kids, There are standards of truth, and those standards of true in reality need to be upheld, and they can't be determined by the individual user. That is such a huge step for any progressive to take to actually admit that there are standards of absolute truth, and we're seeing it really hurt our kids to not have those standards. So maybe it'll grow into something else, maybe it will become a bigger movement out of this, but just seeing that from 42 AGs, I think that is an absolutely fantastic start. And again, if they could, those AGs would do it in their own states with their own school systems, et cetera, that'd be great too. But starting at least with the most vulnerable, these are young children is really good.
Rick Green [00:22:13] And that, and being 42, I mean, obviously there's blue and red in there, right?
[00:22:16] I gotta be, absolutely. What is it? 20, is it 27 states that are red and 23 that are blue? I think that's kind of the way it breaks down, or at least they trend that way. You know, some are kind of purple.
Rick Green [00:22:29] Yeah, somewhere around 30. Yeah, some something like 30 and 20. Yeah close to that.
David Barton [00:22:33] Yep, pretty much.
Rick Green [00:22:34] All right, Tim Well, yeah wrap us up, bro. What's our final piece of good news today?
Tim Barton [00:22:38] Well, this is one that is dear to our hearts, and it is the White House warns it might withhold Smithsonian funds pending content review. This was announced back right before Christmas, and the White house, and the article says last week, now this would be a couple of weeks ago at this point, but the White House warned the Smithsonian that if the museum did not submit more documentation to the administration to enable a review of its content, funds may be withheld from the institution. There was a letter sent on December 18th to the Smithsonian secretary, pointing out that there's notably incomplete records. And when I start reading the article and looking actually at some of the exchanges, part of what is identified is that the initial documentation production that was presented, was it what was requested? And the, the White House says the overwhelming majority of requests items remains outstanding. And this was a letter that they published was sent to the Smithsonian secretary, Lonnie G Bunch III, and they point out executive order 14253 was restoring truth and sanity to American history. It was, the fulfillment to seek to stop what is, and this is the quote "widespread effort to rewrite our nation's history. " So, they recognize, Smithsonian's, they're rewriting so much history. And here's what's crazy about the request, is they wanna know from the current wall text, didactics exhibition proposals and budgets, object checklist for upcoming programming, internal governance manuals, chain of command records, for content approval are not obscure archival requests. What they said is we wanna know chain of Command, who approved all this? You guys are doing so what we want to know who approved it and what they're asking is who is accountable, right? Who who's gonna be responsible who gets held accountable for all of the nonsense? They point out. This is not a crazy request. Museums are supposed to keep record of who approved what areas what displays what wall mounts and they sent this to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian failed to tell them who put up some of the crazy stuff that is there. And Dad, you and I have gone through and reviewed several of Smithsonians and there's some crazy stuff there.
David Barton [00:24:55] Yeah, I was going to point out that earlier in the year, White House asked us to look at some of that. And at that point, you were leading a tour of legislators in Washington, D.C., legislators from all over the country. And you said, hey, guys, as you go through the Smithsonian. And by the way, we love the American History Museum, Smithsonian, because of the artifacts, but not because of the way they present them, the way they present them is terrible. And so, as the legislators went through, Tim, they came back to you and said, oh, man, this is terrible and this is bad. And so, you turn that over to the White House on how bad this stuff was, how misleading it was. Again, they've got great artifacts, great stuff to see, just don't read about them the way they put it out. So, I mean, you were right in the middle of that story.
Tim Barton [00:25:38] Well, the fact that we have a President who puts out an executive order restoring truth and sanity to American history, working to stop at the widespread effort to rewrite our nation's history. Guys, this is so encouraging that we actually have an administration saying, let's tell the truth. Let's stop this woke propaganda nonsense. Let's tell all the truth. And they're actually just asking the Smithsonians to show some basic records. And the fact that there's hesitance or resistance is very telling. And again, the fact, that we have a President who's willing to hold funding, if you're going to be ridiculous, this is such good news. And I'm so excited for what this could mean for the 250th celebration. Cause this is part of what they're gearing it for. They want to make sure we're telling good stories for the 250th.
Rick Green [00:26:18] Well, Tim, you mentioned yesterday on our Foundation Freedom Thursday, kind of how you have to go into a lot of these national park service areas with your antenna up, you know, paying attention because you might get good history, you might give bad history. And so, this is just a perfect example of where we can turn this thing around when the pressure is put on, when we find these things and we have a President that is willing to help turn it around. So, looking forward to that in the two 50th for sure. Out of time for good news today. Everybody have a great weekend. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.
