5.28.2025 -- NLS -- Little, Labrador, and Life Choices in Idaho

On this episode with Neal and Julie, they dive into the political landscape of Idaho as the Gem State Chronicle lists the candidates who have declared for upcoming elections. Neal shares his thoughts on Governor Little's likely hold on the gubernatorial race despite past controversies, and they discuss how AG Labrador may wait for his own shot at the governor’s seat. Julie and Neal consider the need for candidates to avoid splitting the vote in certain key races, highlighting the rematches and vulnerabilities for incumbents.

They also explore audio from Pete Buttigieg discussing why Democrats struggled in 2020 and expand on how some felt men were treated during that campaign. Later, they’re joined by Janelle Falconer from the Nest Pregnancy Center to talk about the emotional and practical support available for women facing unplanned pregnancies in East Idaho. Janelle explains the center’s mission to provide information, emotional safety, and options counseling without government funding, and she shares how the center has grown and built trust in the community.

Let them know what you think about the Idaho races and these pressing issues!

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Transcript

Your. Well, not sure what that was. Lost my music. Neil Larson. Good morning, East Idaho, it's Julie Mason.

That was kind of weird. Not sure what happened there. I didn't even turn it down or anything. So it's just another fun hiccup that we have with our new system. But good morning, Neil Larson. Good morning. I can finish out the bumper, you know, very late at any and I don't know how that goes. So. Sure, go right ahead and do that.

All right. We're dying to know. How was the wedding yesterday. It was good is great ceremony. And it was just a lot of a lot of good people for those in the audience. Well, I think we've told this story before. My best friend from childhood, growing up, we made a deal. We were sleeping out, on a trampoline one night, and we were probably 12 or 13 years old.

And I said to my, my best friend Jason, I said, if you'll name your first boy after me, I'll name my first boy after you, not even thinking that we would have wives that would want to have a say in what their children are named at that point. But we we we grew up. We both held true to it.

My oldest son is Jason. His oldest son is Neil. And Neil was, married yesterday. In in Provo, which is where I'm at this morning. So, it was it was great. And, they'll have more events today. They're going to have an actually a ring ceremony this evening, and then they'll do just a reception and dinner, and then I'll do a late night drive home and get home about midnight tonight and be back on the air tomorrow morning with you.

And we're so glad you took a minute out of your morning to to join us today. And thank you, because I, I mean, I know you are and you have the day off and we've still been texting all morning, so I appreciate you giving that time. Oh, not a problem at all. I, I got up this morning and and it's weird when I'm on vacation because I, I try to find things to do because I'm an early riser.

So I went out, went for a walk for 20 minutes, and then had breakfast in the lobby here at the hotel, which, by the way, is a Best Western. Plus, I don't know what a Best Western Plus is, but they have a good breakfast. So you know, the Premier Best Western. Yeah, right. I mean, it's like it's about as good a hotel as you would imagine for 110 bucks a night.

So, you know, it's great. It's fine. Oh well done. I again, thank you for joining us. So I sent you an email earlier with a Gem State Chronicle article. It is what some people might call premature. Right. We're still it is we're in May of 2025, but from a from about here forward in about a year we're going to have primaries in the state for the 2026 elections.

So the Gem State Chronicle listed all of the people who have currently declared that they're going to be running, and a handful of candidates have already filed that are incumbent incumbents. But for the fight or excuse me, the seven state constitutional officers, that's Governor Brad Little, Lieutenant Governor Scott Bedke, Attorney General Raul Labrador, Secretary of State Phil McGrane, secretary, our state treasurer Julie Ellsworth, and state Comptroller Brandon Wolf.

And then, of course, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Instruction Debbie Critchfield. They have all filed. So we can we can put to bed, at least for now, whether or not Governor Brad Little is running again, it's sort yeah, I and I and I find it interesting. I know that I've been anticipating some intrigue going into the gubernatorial race, but I think Governor Little, it's probably his to lose at this point, even though last year we had the water fiasco and we thought, does this make him politically vulnerable?

I still think the power of the incumbency is is very it's formidable and it's very difficult to overcome. I also believe that Governor Little has worked very hard to do some political damage repair, that they came out with a water deal that he, you know, he signed off on. And I there's still some heartburn over that, but I think it's reduced by quite a bit at this point.

So I think if he's running that it's probably his to lose. And I think the candidate that I've talked about that I think would pose the biggest threat would probably be Raul Labrador at this point. But it sounds like ag Labrador is is going to run again for AG. So it might be kind of a status quo kind of election, at least for those statewide offices.

You know, maybe it's more a reflection of time and place like a Raul Labrador is not going to push the issue, enjoying what he's doing. And if he does want to be governor, he's going to wait until Governor Little has decided it's time to retire. So maybe it's just a timing issue. Yeah, yeah, it may be. And I do think that if you have some, you know, if you're a household name and you don't have significant, major scandal attached to your name and something doesn't happen seismically in your political trajectory, then you're it really is yours to lose.

So I would imagine and I know this was very sort of a a stark moment for me when last fall, in October, I produced that documentary about prop one and one of the claims that the proponents of prop one were making was that, well, it it elevates the extreme right wing. And and the truth is, I'm like, is that even true?

Like, let's look at the premise here. And when you look at it, you can go through each one of the races. And some of the races don't really have a Partizan component like the the. With all due respect to Brandon Wolf, the controller isn't really a Partizan ideological race, so I kind of excluded those. But when you look at Lieutenant Governor, when you look at the governor's race, and even when you look at the, you know, some of the other races statewide, a lot of times the moderate won not always, but in many cases the moderate one.

But the thing that came out for me was it's been a very, very long time since any Democrat has held any statewide office in Idaho. And I mean it it's remarkable the the lock that the Republican Party has on these statewide races. So with that as a springboard into the rest of the conversation with representatives and senators from around the state, it doesn't seem like we're going to see a lot of difference in the races in 2026 for those positions.

This Gem State Chronicle article lists a whole bunch of the other districts that aren't relevant to East Idaho, but a lot of it is rematches between people. And then when we scroll down and get to the races that are relevant to East Idaho, we've got James Lamborn. He's filed to run against Representative Rick Cheatham. That's a rematch of last year's Dick's District or District 28 primary.

Of course, Rick Cheatham won that. And then in district 29, you've got, Republican District Chairman John Crowder. He's filed to run against Senator James Rex Rusty. Rusty is the last Democrat outside of Boise, and he ran unopposed in 2024. So he's kind of like that. That Democrat stronghold in East Idaho. So I'll go ahead. Is there no Democrat out of, Sun Valley?

I that this surprised me the way that they are saying that. I'm wondering if they're including those districts into that side of the state. I will maybe I would call them central, but I'm wondering if in the Gem State Chronicle, they're lumping all of those people into Boise, Democrats could be. Yeah, could be. And then, an interesting rematch.

Julian Young has filed, to rematch against Representative Ben Furman. That's in district 30, Bingham County. She lost by only two votes in the 2024 primary. Yeah. You know, that is an interesting race. I think that's going to be one that will be highly watched. And and I'll tell you why. I, I think when you look at it, obviously she's been a controversial lawmaker and, you know, she was an incumbent and she did get beat even narrowly.

But I also think people are learning that. Ben Furman I would say his views don't really represent his district all that well. I know that he wrote an editorial strongly in favor of the Shelley Bond, for the for the high school. Well, his district, at least that part of it rejected that wholeheartedly. I mean, what what was the final outcome?

Only 37%. But it didn't just fell. It failed epically. Yeah. And I know when it came to prop one, he was very, very non-committal on that. I don't even know for sure exactly how he voted. I could, I could assume some things here, but he he did not make any kind of a stand on how he was going to vote on that publicly.

And yet his district, I think it was 80% opposed to it. I mean, this was a no brainer. So I think that district is kind of learning. Maybe you know, nice guy, but maybe he his views are not really that much in alignment with the rest of his district. I think that's definitely going to be a race to watch for sure.

We've got a rerun in district 32. Kelly Golden and Sean Crystal have both filed to run against Representative Stephanie Mikkelson. That happened last year. Well, you and I weren't a fan of the three way race. I would love to know what you think of that one. Yeah. You know, I look at this, I don't know if the dynamics are that much different now than they were two years ago.

That will will change things. Although I will say sometimes you have candidates that are working very hard behind the scenes. They're they're creating a identifying their voters and, and you can do that now with data collection, you can identify exactly who's likely to vote for you. And so kind of it's almost a quiet campaign, but it can be incredibly effective in getting your people out.

So I don't think the issues are dramatically different. I don't think the the visual dynamics really are that different. But if you have candidates that are smart and savvy and are working that kind of that data collection digital angle to get the vote out, you can see a difference. However, you did mention it's a three way race. If it remains that you may as well just hand it to Stephanie Mickelson again, I there's no way it's very unlikely Mickelson at this point would lose in a two way race.

But if it's a three way race, there is no way that that she will get defeated. Nope. I can't see any scenario where that would happen. I absolutely agree with you on that one. That's just making it more difficult to unseat Representative Mickelson and, who some, you know, and we've been critical of her, her voting more often with Democrats than with Republicans.

So but you're right, these two candidates, Sean Krystal and Kelly Golden, both have a year, a year to build that campaign, a year to figure out who their voters voters are and to really speak to them over the next few months. Well, and I, you know, I don't think it would be appropriate, especially at this stage of the game, to talk about which candidate should run against Stephanie.

Stephanie Mickelson but I will say the two challengers probably ought to go have lunch together and and recognize look, if the both of us run, it's going to be a wasted effort in terms of trying to win that seat and come up with some way where and maybe you just rock, paper, scissors it and you agree to take, take up some issues that the other one cares about or, you know, do something, work something out so that you have a, a binary race.

And and if you can boil it down to two people, that does give your challenger maybe, a fighting chance. All right, let's go through these next two pretty quickly. And district 33, Jolene burger has filed to, run against representative Marco Ericson again. That's a rematch. Like I said, when I started all of this, so much of it is a rematch.

And Larry Golden has filed to run against Representative Brett Ray. That's in district 34 again, a rematch. Now it's the last one listed in the Gem State Chronicle that's thrown me for a little bit of a loop. Former Representative Chad Christiansen. Okay. He has filed to run against representative Josh Wheeler in District 35. However, we have we have seen indications on Chad Christensen's Facebook that that is not his intention for 2026, correct?

Well, it was my understanding and like you, I'm just sort of casually following what's happening on social media. I believe that he shifted to run against Mark Harris for the Senate seat and for whatever reason, maybe that's just not reflected in the sunshine reports that Brian Holman was looking at. But last we heard, or at least from, you know, being on social media, we thought Chad had decided not to run against Wheeler and instead was going to run for that Senate race.

But who knows? Things are dynamic. Maybe it's changed back again. Yeah, I think that's a stay tuned race because I don't know if that's going to it's going to look like that in the next few months. And then Representative Kevin Andrus was appointed by President Trump to serve as the executive director of the USDA's Idaho Farm Service Agency.

That probably is going to mean a vacancy in Kevin Anderson's district, and that should be filled by Governor Little before 2026. So that race will shape up after Governor Little fills that spot. Yeah. And I, that will be interesting. Who I wonder, who would I know the governor will appoint, but but when that happens, you don't have an elected person in there, so you have to have that election.

And I'm wondering who in that district would, would run and and maybe fill that for the long term. And it might be whoever the governor appoints. But but that's it. That's an interesting question about the long term fate of that particular legislative district. Yeah, we'll keep our finger on the pulse of that one, because it's obviously fluid as well and should be changing pretty quickly, I would think.

I don't think we're going to have to wait months to have an answer to that question. Yeah. All right. So no surprises, right. You didn't see any surprises in any of that? I, I really didn't I, I the only one if we go back to the statewide races, I thought for a while there was some justifiable speculation that the governor was going to try and hand the baton to Scott Bedke.

And it appeared that that was kind of the direction they were going. But I think there's probably internally a fear that if the governor's out, Labrador would run and maybe Bedke would not be able to beat Labrador. And so I'm wondering if the governor's saying, well, we we don't want to turn this over to ag Labrador. So I'm going to stay in for another term.

And we got another four years to figure out what the future is. So if there is any surprise at all, and it's not even really a surprise, but that that was the uncertainty for me over the last few months about whether or not the governor was going to run. But we've seen him much more active in messaging and social media and signing declarations and in doing much more positive public things.

And I thought, he's definitely running. So yeah, I couldn't agree more. All right. Let us know what you think about these races. You can shoot us a text and the stones Automotive automotive group call and text line. That is (208) 542-1079. All right. Thanks for joining me now. You bet. I'll be back in studio tomorrow. All right. Coming up next.

We have Wall Street now and Bill O'Reilly on Newstalk 179.

And welcome back to The Neil Larson Show. I'm Julie Mason here on this Wednesday morning with you. Neil is on vacation for one day. He will return tomorrow. And then he is going to take his big vacation to Canada starting Friday. So, let's kick this off early. I wanted to share with you guys, some audio I found of Pete Buttigieg as he was doing a podcast with Tim Miller, and he listed the three reasons that he felt like Democrats failed.

Now, I think he's not near enough, but I needed to hear what Pete Buttigieg had to say about this. I'm giving you a Delorean and, we are going to go back to, like, right after Biden gets the nomination in 2020. So, you know, you just endorsed him. He hasn't picked Vice President Harris yet. Where they'll hold the world is your oyster.

We're in the middle of Covid, and, you're Pete from today, and you get to talk to Pete from back then. Or maybe Biden from back then, and you get to give them some advice. Give them some advice. That would maybe prevent us from having this current president. What do you think you all should have done differently?

One for the love of God, figure out a way to get the schools open sooner. We've we got very kneejerk about this. And the costs were not just politically, but but, in a profound way, I think for the a generation, the cost of profound. And I think anybody who was involved who was, by the way, obviously doing their best to deal with the crisis that killed a million Americans.

Sure. But I think most people involved would like to be able to found a way to safely get more schools, more open, more quickly. Obviously, that was a great effort. I'm going to stop right there for just a second because I feel like that's that's lame. I don't have another word for it. What? We did have the options to get schools open.

There were districts all over the nation who got their kids back to school immediately. Unfortunately, it was blue states, blue districts that did not get their kids back to school. And Pete's just saying, well, we we we probably should have found a way. There was a way, Pete. There was a way. Other school districts were doing it. People on the left chose not to do it.

Okay. We'll keep going with the clip. Answer I had no idea. I mean, there's so many ways you could have gone with that, but that is that is a good that's a good question from where I've said, Obviously pay more attention to the border. That's real. And that's going to be, something that you can't just like take your time to, to, to deal with.

These are all things, by the way, that is super, you know, policy wise and politically, we have the benefit of hindsight does reflect a lot of this, right. Okay. I can't stop it again. The benefit of hindsight on immigration 100%. The Biden administration knew exactly what they were doing. The the rules and regulations were ignored. They were rolled back and we had the influx that we had, but and that's not even counting.

That's not even close. Coming close to counting the amount of kids that are still missing from the influx of illegal immigrants, just Willy nilly coming across the border underneath the Biden administration. I, I mean, Pete's just lack of well, you know, it it's just something that takes time. And these things are hard to solve. No, there was a solution.

And that solution was implemented immediately on January 20th. And we're down to somewhere between 100 and 300 people coming across the border a day. It was possible you just chose not to do it in the Democrat Party. Three even though you spent your entire political lifetime believing that the economy and jobs are the same thing, and if you have lots of jobs, it's a good economy.

And if you have a problem with jobs, bad economy, remember the prices is just as big. A part of the economy just hasn't come up much in the last 40 years. Right? Those are some things that would be whispering. So what would you have done? What would you do differently on prices than what could you have done differently?

Look, no country was able to save their economy from Covid without getting into some inflation, some serious and painful inflation. Okay, I'm going to stop it there because the rest is just words. Solid by Pete Buttigieg. But I love that he says the quiet part out loud in that last point that he was making, which is we were in some serious inflation terms, even if Janet Yellen wouldn't call it inflation, we absolutely were entrenched into some inflation and Trump is doing his best to get out of it.

Now is it controversial. Do people believe in tariffs 100% or do they love the way he's done it? That's a whole different question or a whole different concept to talk about. The difference here is, is that, Trump is trying to reverse course, trying to get us out of inflation. And the Biden administration loved just rolling around along like they were doing without even monitoring and saying, oh, nothing to see here.

We aren't really in inflation. No, we're not going to call it that. Even though all of the earmarks were there for inflation. Now, I want to point out one major thing that Pete Buttigieg smashed here and Charlie Kirk pointed this out to we don't have enough time to play the audio, but he said that the condescending tone to men during the 2024 campaign could easily be added to this list that Pete Buttigieg is talking about.

I'm sure we could add much more, but men were treated horribly, specifically white men, by the Democrat Party, and I was like, of course, we've talked about this before, but I wanted to look up some examples of this. I found Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, remember, a Democrat who literally lost his mind, took a leave of absence for his mental health, and came back and seems to be one of the sanest Democrats that we currently have on the federal level.

Well, he said, the messaging of superiority, superiority that I know better than you do concept that he described as insulting and condescending were one of the reasons that the Democrats lost in 2024. When will the rest of the party wake up to that? Because remember, they had these this Tim Walls trying to do his thing. We had all of this stuff going on that was really just making white men fill even less confident about themselves.

We had big fundraisers that were for the elite, not for the working class. Again, you're missing a whole group of white men there that you talk down to on a regular basis. I look, I'm all right. Welcome back to our two of the Neil Larson Show. Like the opening said, I am Julie Mason, but Neil Larson is on vacation today.

He will be back tomorrow, and then he will take his extended vacation to Alaska that he's been talking about, that he's so excited to do. So I asked a special guest to join me this hour. I know this is going to be a topic that's near and dear to the listeners hearts and obviously near and dear to my heart.

I've said repeatedly on the show that there are some things that I just won't bend on. I won't bend on a boy, a boy and a girl as a girl. And I won't bend on the concept that there are other options besides abortion to save the life of an unborn child. And, you know how passionate I get about the terms that the left uses to describe what that child is inside of the mother?

And I consistently demand that we call it a child and not fetal tissue or anything like that. So I have asked Janell Falconer, she's the executive director of the pregnancy center, The Nest, here in East Idaho. It's located in downtown, Idaho Falls. I've asked her to join me to give us an idea of some of these options that young women have here in East Idaho.

Good morning Janelle. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for being here. I had the luxury of visiting the nest. I you gave me a tour. It lasted a little bit under an hour. I would absolutely say I was overwhelmed with the professionalism and the comfort and the beauty of the organization that you're leading.

So first off, well done. I think it's great. How long has the nest been in operation here in East Idaho? Yeah, so we opened our doors, in 2024, March 15th, 2024. So we're a little over a year being open to the public. Great. And, where did the genesis for The Nest come from? Why? Like, obviously there was a need, but there had to be some sort of a spur to get this going.

Yes. So a group of ladies went to, a documentary on abortion. And when they walked out, they felt like, how do we help these women who feel like they have no other option? And then if they are considering abortion, are they getting medically accurate information? They're having space to process through those feelings and emotions, and then whatever option they choose, there is support in this pregnancy center.

So they did some research. They looked into pregnancy centers across the country, and they really felt led to go into partnership with cabinet. And cabinet has been doing this since the 70s. When Roe v Wade was first originally voted on and brought into, you know, the court brought that into legislation. So what happened is, cabinet started creating pregnancy centers where people could come in, talk about what they're feeling and thinking with an unplanned pregnancy, go through all their options abortion, adoption, parenting, and then talk through what the pros and cons for for each of those.

And then whatever they decided provided a support for them. Now they don't, refer or provide for abortions, but they do just provide good medically accurate information. So that's kind of an overview of where that started. And so I was hired in 2020 3rd October to get this up and running. Yes. So it's a private company. This is not government funded.

Correct. It is a nonprofit. And it is all private donors who have given to us. How has that, donation chain rolled forward for you? Lots of support in East Idaho. So it was a slow going, of course, because any new nonprofit, new organization, you know, you got to get the word out there, make connections with people who are like minded.

So it was really slow at first, but we are getting more and more, more momentum as the community learns about what we're doing and who we are. So yes, the, support has grown as we've been out there longer. Wonderful. So, if I am a young woman who is facing an unplanned pregnancy and I'm connected to the nest, how does my experience roll forward?

I show up, make an appointment, whatever, and tell me what happens when I come to the nest. Yes. So let's say you do have an unplanned pregnancy and you are considering abortion. And we've had multiple clients who've come in and asked for the abortion pill. And again, we automatically say we do not refer or provide for abortions, but we do present medically accurate information and help you make a decision that you can live with long term.

So everything is confidential. We tell them that they, go through, we talk about privacy statements. They, give consent for our services. So we first do a pregnancy test to make sure they are pregnant. And it's about 98% accurate. And then we go back and we sit and we talk and we're like, how are you feeling?

Tell me what you're here for. And if it's an unplanned pregnancy. They talk about how they're feeling. And a lot of these women are in crisis. And there's actually a statistic out there that says a woman who has an unplanned pregnancy feels the same way, that someone who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. So their life is over.

They can't think, they can't process their strong emotions. They're in crisis. So we create a safe place for them to talk through what they're thinking, what they're feeling. And then if they talk about abortion and they're like, well, I'm considering abortion. And we say, okay, let's talk about that. How would that impact your life? And of course, everything is permission based.

If they don't want to talk about it. We don't talk about it. We don't shove it down their throat. But what we say is we look at pregnancy holistically, spiritually, mentally, physically and with your relationships. Do we have permission to talk about your unplanned pregnancy and how it impacts each one of those pieces? And they always agree. And so we go through each one.

How would this decision of abortion impact you spiritually? How would it impact you physically? How would it impact you with your relationships? And so they start talking and they start processing through those emotions. And you get them out of the trauma crisis, part of their brain, and they start to think a little more logically. And then you say, if you made this decision of abortion, what would that look like for you two weeks from now?

What would it look like? Five years from now? And there are a lot of people who come to us have a religious background. So we asked them, how would that affect your view of how you see God. And so they're coming up with the information. And 80% of the time these women choose life, they choose to parent because they are able to process, think and think, oh my goodness, I can do this.

So that's kind of an overview. They feel powerless. Correct. You feel powerless? Absolutely. And then if they are considering abortion, we tell them you need to be safe. Because first of all, you don't know how far along you are. And there is a misnomer in Idaho that abortion is not happening. Well, that is the furthest thing from the truth because the abortion pill is available all over the internet.

So these women are getting it on the internet. So we talk about, first of all, you need to know how far along you are. What's the gestational age of the baby? Number two, is it a viable pregnancy because 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. And then also to make sure it's, in the uterus and it's not ectopic?

And, our medical director, she said that ectopic pregnancies are have skyrocketed, miscarriages have skyrocketed. And if you take the abortion pill, it does not end the pregnancy, if it is an ectopic pregnancy. And then also if you're having a miscarriage, 1 in 4 have a miscarriage. It's causing complications and it's putting your body through excess stress that it doesn't need to go through.

So then if they agree, we provide a free, limited obstetrical ultrasound. So the nurse has been trained to do those. And with permission we pull that screen up there, up in front of them. It's a huge TV screen right in front of the, table that they're on, and they can see what's going on in their body.

Now, if a woman's like, I don't want to see it, we don't show it, but we do listen for the heartbeat to confirm it's a viable pregnancy. So again, knowledge is power and we empower these women. And then a lot of times they see that baby on the screen and they choose life. Isn't it so interesting that there might be a choice of abortion before you even confirmed that the baby can live?

Absolutely. That happens quite a bit, actually. Yeah. Cart before the horse. Correct? Yeah. Okay. So once the the mother chooses to, not end the pregnancy, what other, things do you make available to them? Because they're still in a moment of crisis. The fact that they chose not to end the life of the baby doesn't mean the crisis is over.

It means the hard work is about to begin. Right. And this is our bread and butter. This is what we do. That is probably to me, it's like the most, most, rewarding of everything that we do is we have, classes, we have mentoring. And what we do is we tell them you've chosen life, you've chosen to parent.

How do you feel about parenting? And these women, the majority of them are like, I have no idea what I'm doing. So we have over 300 classes that we can offer them. So the classes are their videos and they're, you know, they're made for that generation. They're interactive. And so they can watch them. They have a coach sit in there with them.

You know, watch the video with them, that dialog and talk through what they've learned. And they have quizzes. They have homework. But it's fun and it's interacting. And what it is, is building really kinship building relationships. So these clients can sign up for these classes for free and then they can earn points. And we have a beautiful basement boutique for our babies.

And it is well stocked. And I have amazing donors who, if I put it out there, I need this kind of stroller. Within a few days, someone drops it off of our center because people want to support women who've chosen life, men and women. So these classes are offered. We build relationships, we build connections, we help them look for jobs.

We help write resumes. We have trauma healing. We go through a study that talks about what they've experienced, how recognizing what happened to them and not becoming a victim, but recognizing that was not a healthy view of being raised. So that way they can go on a different trajectory and choose a different way to go instead of making the same generational things that have happened to them and their family.

So that's kind of the piece that if they do choose parenting, we do that. Now. Some have discovered explored adoption. And what's an interesting statistic is only 4% of unplanned pregnancies choose adoption. And part of that is because people are not educated on what is currently going on with adoption. So we go over adoption with them, and then we can put them in touch with a couple different adoption agencies.

We give them choices, and the adoption agency can come in and sit with them and talk through everything. So we create a neutral space for them to explore that option. And then let's say they chose abortion. Let's say that's what happened. We tell them, if this is what you decide to do, come back and see us. We have an abortion healing program.

I have a therapist who will meet with them one on one for free to work through the healing that they need or the trauma that they're experiencing. And then we have support groups as well that meet from women who have chosen abortion. So you've done this for a year. How vital is that time frame of letting the mother see the baby on an ultrasound?

There are many laws, various states have enacted laws where an abortion cannot happen until an ultrasound is done. And then there's a 24 or a 48 hour waiting period. Attest to how important that timeframe is. Well, I'll just give you an example. We had a mom who came in to us, and we had her for parenting classes with her partner, and she came in and she had a little nine month old.

And then she's like, I think I'm pregnant, right? Okay, we did the pregnancy test. She, that was pregnant. And so she's like, I'm going to have an abortion. I mean, she just found out, you know, the day before or two days before that, that she was like, oh my goodness, I've missed my cycle. I think I might be pregnant.

So we're like, you know, we were talking to her about what she was thinking and feeling about abortion. Her partner was like, I believe it's a life. You know, I want you to parent, but it's your choice. So we said, how about an ultrasound? How about an ultrasound to see what's going on in there to confirm how far along you are?

And she's like, fine. So we took her in there and she did an ultrasound. And right there up on the screen was this baby. And it had little arms and legs moving around. And she started sobbing and she's like, that's a baby. So we got her right away to show her what was happening inside of her, to see that that was a life.

Now I'm not swaying her. I'm not convincing her. So I know there's people out there. Well, you're pulling on their heartstrings. We don't do that. We're very, very careful in that room. I would say clinical. We are very clinical. Yes, absolutely. So we don't come at it from an emotional perspective. It does. It speaks for itself. The screen speaks for itself.

So it is vital that they get in front of that screen and have an ultrasound as soon as they can. Six weeks, six weeks is when we need to see them, so they can see what's going on inside of them and see that life. Yes, I completely agree with that. Okay, I have far more questions. I want to talk about how people are obtaining the abortion pill.

It's actually two pills in Idaho because I think many of our listeners are going, wait, what? They're still being able to conduct their own abortions at home? Yes they are. Absolutely. So we want to go for that. But let's take a quick break right now will be a good a good time to break. I want to remind everyone if you have questions for Janelle, she's the executive director of the Nest Pregnancy Center here in East.

I'll make sure you text them in, to (208) 542-1079. I also want to talk about, like, some personal experiences that you've had doing this kind of work, what it has meant to your heart. Oh, yeah. We'll be back after the break. And it made me cry.

All right. Welcome back to the Neil Larson Show. I'm Julie Mason, and we're going to continue our interview with executive director of the Nest Pregnancy Center, Janelle Falconer. Again, thank you for being here. Janelle. This is such an important subject. During the commercial break, we were talking about, how many people you have been seeing in 2025. We mentioned that the Nest Pregnancy Center has been open for a little bit more than a year.

What has this year looked like for you? Yeah. So last year we had a total of 70 appointments, and that ranges from pregnancy tests to one on one support with classes. And just so far in May, we're up to 65 appointments in May and that is ultrasounds, pregnancy tests and parenting classes. And we're getting calls, people texting in, our website.

So we have absolutely exploded. That is just amazing. What is the kind of clientele that you're getting? Is it such a broad range like kind of give people an idea of who shows up at the Nest Pregnancy Center? Yeah. So the majority of our clients are, people who, make about $14,000 a year. And so that's the majority of who we see.

And then we have a small percentage of, you know, couples who are newly pregnant. They're kind of nervous about parenting. And so they come in and they take parenting classes from us. So we do help people who have planned pregnancies, but they don't feel equipped for that. So it kind of ranges from that religious, non-religious, atheist. I mean, we're seeing everything, but I would say the majority are people who financially struggle.

I think people also assume unplanned pregnancy means this young woman or woman is going to show up alone. That doesn't happen. No, that is not the case. We have a number of people, women who bring their partners or their spouses who come with them. So, that's a whole thing that we're starting to help the couples and men and speaking into men with fatherhood.

So, yeah, we're seeing a lot of that as well. Oh, and what a what a glorious thing to add to this. I mean, there is it takes two people to make a baby. Correct. Father is very important in a child's life. So I love that. Okay. I promised the listeners we would talk about how is it possible that abortion is happening in Idaho with our strict abortion laws?

You mentioned that people can get the, abortion pill, which is actually two pills on the internet, and it can be delivered to their home or to someone's home, and then they can go pick it up. So would you explain how that happens? Yes. So there's a lady that I know, and, she is a director of a pregnancy center.

She went to her board and she said, I'm going to order the abortion pill because I want to see what's going on. So she ordered it from three different sites, and she stated that she was in Idaho. So one told her to go to DuckDuckGo, go to this, site and order this pregnancy belt, a pregnancy belt, and then you'll get the abortion pill.

So she did it. That was one way or another. So it's an obscure item. It's called a pregnancy belt. And it's DuckDuckGo because they hide AP or your address. Correct. Your IP address. Yes. So that's why they're telling them to go to DuckDuckGo. And they actually lie about the product that you're supposed to choose. Yes. So they order it and then they'll say you will get what you're asking for within a few weeks.

And so she did three different sites just to see how things were handled. One site said, they said, what state are you from? And then how far along do you think you are? No verification of pregnancy, none of that. So within two weeks she got three separate packages with the abortion pill in it. One package had one. And you know, again, these two words, I'm learning the medical piece, misoprostol and my soapbox or something like that.

Is that how you say those two? There was one of the first one which stops progesterone, which, stops the baby's heartbeat, so it kills the baby and then the next to flush the baby out and cause, a miscarriage or an abortion. Miscarriage and flush it out. So that's what it is. But then one package she got, there were 14 of the second dose.

And the reason they do that and you're supposed to take four every four hours, so you're flushing it out. But what's happening. There's a new study out. It just came out. It is not a right leaning left leaning. It's just a study that was done by medical professionals based on insurance claims. 1 in 10 women are harmed with the abortion pill, whether it is failed abortions, and they have to go in with the DNC and there's infection, they are bleeding to death.

And then at the like, this package that came to this person at the very bottom gave general instructions on the one with the 14 pills. It said, if you are having bleeding for more than two hours and you're soaking through a pad this many times, go to the emergency room. But do not tell them you've taken the abortion pill.

So we're setting these women up for poor medical care, and these poor doctors are having patients come in and they don't know what the full picture is. And they're like, just tell them you're having a miscarriage, but they don't know what's really happening. They don't know what. And hormones have been infused into their body to cause this. Well, and this whole thing is based on lies.

They lie about going to the website. They lie about what you're supposed to say to a doctor, and they don't give you enough information about the warning signs that you should be looking for. Absolutely. And that's one thing that we talk about is we're not doing scare tactics, but, you know, it's commercials you see on TV and they're like, just so you know, these are the side effects.

So we go over the side effects about what could happen with the abortion pill, because 60, at least 60% of abortions in the country are now with the abortion pill. That's it's taking over abortion clinics. So that's the chemical abortion. Then you have the surgical abortion, which is done after ten weeks, but people are taking the, abortion pill far past what they're supposed to be taking it.

So you have people at 14 weeks still going, hey, this is still going to work. I can't imagine how painful that is at home. Yes. In fact, that director, she went back on said, I think I had a failed or I didn't abort. So they said, we'll go ahead and send you some more pills. And she's like, but I'm like 15 weeks.

Is that a problem? They're like, no, just take it. So yeah, it's it's harming women. It's causing problems. Now again, we aren't there to sway them and dump them with scare tactics. This is me and you having an honest conversation of me, of looking at women and saying, oh my goodness, these women need to be educated and to know what's really going on with their body and what can happen.

It's by taking and and the education goes both ways. You educate on what happens if you keep this baby. This is going to be the the hardships that are going to come, but we're going to help you with them. You also educate them on the hardships that come from abortion, because both choices are going to have difficult paths.

That's exactly right. And so when they do choose parenting, we provide as many referrals and resources that we can with which with, all, you know, Medicaid, the family clinic that can put them on a payment plan based on their income. We provide as many resources that we can to equip them when they parent. So that's the thing.

We want to grow these resources. So the more people that know about us, they can share. Hey, this is over here. You should offer this in this situation and building this referral network to equip people to parent and to parent. Well, because, you know, one of the commandments, love your neighbor as yourself. That's what we're doing, is we are loving our neighbor.

We are loving our community, and we are building our community with the family at the foundation. When I toured the Nest Pregnancy Center with you, I mentioned this and I. I will always say this is one of the most important ways to approach pregnancy. There is no reason to approach it in anger because the baby's already there. So there's lots of emotions to be had.

Lots anger will never be a worthwhile one because you can't take back what's happening. You are absolutely correct. So if we can approach it in love, if we can approach it in and that there is an unborn baby that needs cared for, man will get so much further. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So, you talked about this network you're building.

Talk about, the why you haven't chosen to take any government funds for the Nest Pregnancy Center. So we look at funding as, with private donors. They know who we are, they know what we're doing, and they are partnering with us. If we start taking government funding, at what point do they start putting restrictions on us saying, you can't do this and you can't do that?

So we do not take government funding because we want to stick to what we stand for, our core values. We are faith based, and we don't want someone coming in and saying, you can or you can't. We want to stick to what we've said we're going to stick to and not stray away from that. If people wanted to donate or become involved.

We talked off air about some of the options that people have to volunteer, or they can donate money, or they can give to the beautiful boutique, which is exactly the right word for it. That's in the basement of the pregnancy center that has like, car seats and blankets and donkeys and clothing and everything. If they want to donate, how does that how does that happen for them?

Yeah. So of course we have multiple platforms for donating. We have friends of the nest.org. So that's kind of our donor site. So you can go on there and learn what our, mission statement is, who we are. And then you can donate there. Or we have Nest Pregnancy care.org. And at the very bottom of that first page, it says for donors, because people ask us all the time they can find that site really well because we pay for search engine optimization, but we don't want to broadcast to these people who are finding us that we need money.

So it's very subtle. It's at the bottom of the first page. We have Venmo, Nest Pregnancy Care or yep, Nest Pregnancy Care. And that is also an option for giving is Venmo. And so PayPal, we have a PayPal account. So we have a variety of platforms people can give. I happen to have the website pulled up before Janelle came in here.

It's Nest Pregnancy care.org. I'm on the homepage. I just scroll to the bottom. It's right there. It says contact us. And then for donors, if you just click for donate for four donors, it gets everything there. I also want to say then the very next button is make an appointment. It's an open door. It is not hard to get in touch with the Nest Pregnancy Center.

Okay, what if they want to donate? If they don't want to donate monetarily, but they want to donate like, new clothes or blankets that they've crocheted or whatever, do they go to this same place or do they contact you and then drop it all off? They can call us. So our phone number is on there. You can text us.

There's a little widget on the right side of the website that says text with us. Now you can get Ahold of me. That way you can call the phone numbers at the top and the text numbers at the top. So call me. And then I'd love to also come in and have you come in and tour the center, because when you've been there and you've seen the whole center, it's a completely different experience than hearing about this and not seen it.

And touching it. So you can stop in and donate. I'm there almost all day on Thursdays. We don't see clients on Thursdays, and if you're just in and out, you can drop something off. So those are ways you can donate. I've been to doctor's offices that are less warm and welcoming than this center is. You have done such a great job with it, yet you should be really proud.

I also wanted to talk about you're going to be speaking at a special event. Let me pull up the flier here, because I want to make sure I have everything exactly correct on it. This is a fundraiser for life. It's happening on Flag Day. That's June 14th. It's part of the Republican women organization here in East Idaho.

And I'm going to be part of this event, too. You're not going to hear me speak or anything. I'm just going to make sure everybody knows when to eat, when to when to put money towards the dirt dash or the dessert dash, and when we're going to, play some games, but you are going to be giving remarks there.

Tell us a little bit about that event and why you partnered with the bottom of the county Republican women. So, one of my volunteers is a part of that organization, and she's like, I love what you're doing here. Let me share this with this group that I'm with. And so she shared, I went and spoke and the women were like, we want to partner with you because you're approaching this.

Instead of putting fingers out and condemning people and being really in people's face, you're coming at it from a different perspective of loving women, supporting women and walking alongside them. And they loved that they it really resonated with them. And of course, pro-life and babies, you know, we want to save as many lives we can. So they love that.

And so they just asked, they said, how can we partner with you? I'm like, well, we're new and we have a very limited budget, a very small budget. And so anything that you can do, like a fundraiser would be amazing. So they came up with this, to bring some funds and awareness to the community about who we are and what we're doing to build that support and that referral network.

I love that this happened for you on that side, because I had a conversation many months ago with someone who works with the Bonneville County Republican women, and she was being frank with me, asking, how would you help this organization grow if you were involved in this? How would you help this organization grow? And I said to her, we have got to get away from this fighting on on all these topics because there are topics we agree 100% on.

And one of them is save as many babies as possible. Another topic that we agree on keep children safe in classrooms, in sports, things like that. So we went over these topics that we all agree on that we can we can promote and we can work towards, building and growing without having this, you know, this dissension between groups.

And then when she came back to me and said, guess who we've partnered with for our, our yearly fundraiser, and she told me about you. I couldn't have been more ecstatic. This is exactly what I wanted to see happen with the Bonneville County Republican women. I think this is fantastic. There's a catch phrase on the left women supporting women.

This is actually women supporting women because there will be a like you said, 20% are going to still choose to end the pregnancy. We need to still care for those women who chose that, correct? Women supporting women. So again, this fundraiser is a dinner. It's going to be fantastic. I think I chose my option, the other day.

Tri tip steak, I think is what I'm having. So it's going to be great. It's on June 14th. That's Flag Day if you want more information about it, because doors open at 430 and there's different things that are going on. You don't have to come at 430. You can slide in later on. So if you want all of the information, I would just recommend going to the Facebook page for the Bonneville County Republican Women.

Just DM them, send them a message and say, hey, I want to be part of this event. They will help you with that again. June 14th and it's the fundraiser for life. Janelle Faulkner, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. And we're back on the Neil Larson Show. I'm Julie Mason, and if you just joined us, a quick reminder Neil is on vacation today.

He will be back tomorrow. And then on Friday he will be heading out for his long vacation to Alaska. But he'll be checking in on all of those days as well. Before we get into this story about, French President Emmanuel Macron, I want to do a quick reminder about town and country gardens. If you haven't gotten your four step lawn program yet, there is still time.

You haven't missed the window. You can pop down to town and country this weekend, grab the four step lawn program. You would put the Hugh Mates down, and then a couple of days later, do step two and then you would be right on track. I cannot tell you how beautiful my grass is after. I think this is the third year of doing the four step lawn program.

My grass was near death in some areas when I bought this home and started remodeling it in 2021, and now my grass is green and lush and beautiful, and my credit town and country gardens for that. They're located south of Idaho Falls, across from the malting plant right there on Yellowstone Highway. Make sure you tell them that Neil and Julie sent you there, friends of ours, and they should be friends of yours.

All right, let's get into this. The whole slab gate that happened a couple of days ago. Quick reminder, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte were, going to Vietnam. So they landed their plane. The press was already there. They were taking video. And as the door to the plane was opened and the stairs were there, you could see French President Macron standing there, and then all of a sudden a hand comes up and shoves him in the face.

You also see him have a look of disgust on his face, and then he realizes the cameras are on him, and he turns to the cameras. He waves as they, come together at the top of the stairs. He reaches for Bridget's hand and Bridget does not take his hand. She is clearly still not happy. They exit together and then is there, standing at the bottom of the the tarmac stairs.

There has been a photo of the French president with his. It's been like zoomed in on his fist, and his fist is clenched as tight as it can possibly be. Now, I don't know how long he kept that clenched fist. It could have just been a reaction of, oh, I've got a lot of emotion here. I gotta let it go because I'm in front of the cameras.

Who knows? But Slap Gate is what it's been. It's what it's been deemed. And we were told pretty quickly. And Neil and I played CNN audio of this. We were told pretty quickly that, oh, it was no big deal. No big deal. This is just it was a lover's quarrel. They're fine. You're like, then we were told it wasn't really lovers.

It was more like a lover's fun fest. Like it's. This is just the way they play with each other. Well, yesterday, the New York Post has reported that now other the original of like the original line, the officials try to stress when this very very first happened was the fact that, that the French president was it was all part of a Russian plot, that this was a deep fake and that the video was false and that this actually didn't happen, that there was no hand that came up, that they just that it was edited.

The Russians put it out. And when they exited the plane, all was fine. The New York Post is saying that lasted for the briefest of moments. That was the first explanation that the officials with the French president gave. Then they immediately pivoted to the concept of that. It was just this, almost like a tickle fight between two people, except, I guess, Bridget and Emmanuel slap each other in the face as part of their little love fest that they have, which none of us are believing.

But that's where they're at right now. And then there has been a lip reading expert who has tried to read what the French president said during that time frame. Now, of course, he's speaking in French. So to like, like to have the French words said to us probably wouldn't mean anything unless you, of course, speak French. But basically this lip reading expert is saying the conversation that happened between Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron was that he asked her to please stop, and she said no.

And he said something along the lines of we're in front of people. And then she just didn't even respond to that with and she just kind of was cool and cold. And we see that in the video because he does reach out for her and and won't he, she will not take his hand. And so who knows who knows what really happened with this whole slap?

Kate, I'm waiting for the massive text to roll in saying you kept calling her, she and her. And, because there is a whole charge led by Candace Owens, believing that, the French president's wife might not actually be who she claims to be. But I'll leave you guys to look that up all on your own. All right, let's take a quick another break.

We are an hour two of the Neil Larson show. Let me know what you think. You can text me at (208) 542-1079. All right, we're back on the Neil Larson show. I'm Julie Mason. I want to take a quick moment to remind you about the warehouse liquidation sale that's happening right now at Timberline Home. And if you've been waiting to buy furniture, now is the perfect time because your patience is going to pay off.

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