Pastor Chuck O'Neal and Dr. Silvestro discuss Politics and the Pope

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

Right. Well, we're live. I think we're live.

Good evening. What I want to know is how did Andrew all of a sudden jump in and take over the show tonight, Pastor Chuck?

I don't know. Seconds ago, he appeared.

He wasn't here the last half hour. Well, you know, as we're here, thank you for being on, Pastor Andrew Rappaport. And more importantly, thank you, Pastor Chuck, for being on as our guest tonight again.

Glad to be with you, brother. So, you know, the last couple of times we've done shows with you, it's been with a very serious topic on minds, which is Mike Reed. I don't want to give him a designation, just Mike Reed.

Wait, wait. Has he answered the 12 questions we've asked yet?

You know what? Not to me. So I was going to ask you guys if he's answered them to you at all, those 12 questions.

No, no, he hasn't. And thus, we're working on something.

No, we got a good answer.

We are going to try to get him to answer the questions we ask. But before before you guys get started, I know I'm going to bow out for a little while and jump back in at different times. But I just want to introduce folks.

If you did not get a chance to listen to the special Apologetics Live that was done the other night, that was done Thursday and Tuesday night from this week that we're recording here. Go check out the Halloween episode.

We've got a lot of good feedback on that. A lot of people who just hadn't thought through Halloween, which is coming up. We're going to be talking today. Anthony and Chuck are going to be talking about politics.

If you're still undecided in who to vote for in America. Yeah, then you're either really not paying attention and you got your head in the sand. I don't know. I'll put this out. I don't think that any Christian could vote for for Biden.

And I'm sure you guys are going to make that case later. I just don't see how. But one thing I do want to say is, folks, if you have found value in this ministry, in this podcast that we do, I want to encourage you guys to consider donating to support this.

We do this as part of striving for eternity. And one of the things that we want you to know is that if you find value, maybe you consider helping us out with covid. We've we have lost a bit of support.

And so if you want to go to striving for turning out or G slash donate, you could set up monthly donations there. That would help us tremendously as we are just with covid. People have been losing their jobs, things like that.

And it has affected us. And so I'm going to I'm going to pop back in later on and try to disrupt. And I will. I do. For the record, before these two get started, just if you listen to the Halloween episode now, I do want to lift up prayer, folks, for if you guys could be praying for Pastor Justin.

He had a death in the family and that's why he's not here tonight. But I will say, if you listen to the episode that Anthony and Justin did where they said they were going to go for one hour, one hour.

And Anthony even started off the show saying he said he's going to do an Andrew Rappaport hour, which meant an hour. And they went almost to. OK, so I'm just saying that I should come in in two hours to end this, because these two characters will go for about five hours and go, oh, is it time yet?

Just saying they may go a little bit long tonight. For the record, Anthony doesn't know how to keep time. And, well, Chuck's a pastor, so we know he doesn't know how to keep time.

The Andrew hour turned into an Anthony hour. It's about an hour and 50.

So hold on for Anthony's sake.

I just want everyone to recognize, do you remember when you grew up in school and you're going to school and your class just gets started and then that annoying announcer comes over and starts giving announcements for like two minutes?

You're going to you're going to talk about the election, right? I'm prepared for the election.

I'm ready. Wow. Impressive. You like that one?

So if you don't know that Andrew moved from New Jersey, that's a comment on that right there.

Yes. Yeah. This is my AR -15. I can have these in my new state. I've added some things since you saw it, Anthony. I got my scope on. I got a light. That looks good. I tricked it up a little bit. That's nice.

Modern sporting rifle. Well, thank you for for popping in, Andrew and sharing and sharing. Yeah, that's very nice. So. So on that. Yeah, the show, the show on Tuesday night was fantastic. If you haven't listened to it, go listen to it.

It really was good. Pastor Justin did a wonderful job with his research. And but before we talk too much about anything else, we do want to get into our topics for tonight because we got a lot to cover.

And we were going to talk about politics. We have the election coming up in not too many days from now. And then we're going to transition at some point to Roman Catholicism and and the dangers and evils of that.

And I know, you know, Pastor Chuck, when I met you for the first time, it was back, I would say, three or four years ago in Dallas, Texas. You had spoken at a Jeff Rose conference there and you were given the task to speak on Roman Catholicism.

And, you know, you don't have to convince me. I grew up Roman Catholic. It's it's something I understand all too well. And we've got a number of family and friends that we have to constantly evangelize to regarding Catholicism.

So I really enjoyed your sermon that day anyway. Having said that, the knowledge base that you have, the preparation you did, I mean, was just phenomenal. It's one of the best overall sermons that my wife and I, either one of us had heard regarding Roman Catholicism.

So I'm really excited for you to be on today. And I know it's going to spill over into at least one more show, at least one more show to speak about the evils of Catholicism. So let's let's get into this tonight a little bit.

We have a major election coming up. And I know we said this four years ago, but, well, a lot has changed in four years. I distinctly remember Obama. You know, for those of us who understood politics four years ago, because I think a lot of Christians have kind of left it by the wayside.

They haven't really paid a lot of attention. Four years ago in this election, we knew what was coming down the pike. Obama was the first president that we have ever seen who actually used the term progressive.

He did this during his second term. And that's a term that's been an evil term, right? That's a term that Democrats have wanted to stay away from. All along, they've had a Marxist agenda. They've had this for 100 years within their party.

It's been coming out, leaking out slowly over time. But there is an absolute outing of it in Obama's presidency, especially the second term. So we knew what Hillary was going to be bringing. You know, she had a lot of baggage from a lot of other stuff like her own progressivism, because she was using that term a lot as well.

Trump comes in, shocks the world, wins the presidency. And we have seen nothing but Marxism ramp up continuously, especially in the last two years. And so I know this is something that you really want to talk about.

I mean, how do you view the Democrat Party today versus what it was, say, 150 years ago?

Well, today, it appears to be a front for Marxism. And they're removing the façade of any historic Democratic our sense of what the party was historically. That façade is falling away quickly, and the Marxism that is beneath is coming out.

And that's really what I think we've seen in these years of the Trump presidency, is he didn't just go there and drain the swamp as far as career politicians, maybe even corrupt career politicians. But there's something else behind them, and that seems to be a flag with a hammer and a sickle on it.

Absolutely. So as the Democrat Party has changed I mean, this is a real challenge for people today. Because from a political standpoint, I grew up in a family of Italian immigrants. My dad was an immigrant in this country.

And while my dad woke up to who the Democrats were, a lot of my family still hasn't. And we see this with a number of families that the Democrats, at least on the surface, seem to be for hardworking families and for protections 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago.

I think looking back on history, it probably wasn't as true as they said it was. But that's the perception. And so how do people break out of this cycle? Because this is what I'm seeing. There's a number of Christians that have no problem voting for Biden.

There are evangelical leaders, the David Platts of the world, who are coming out and saying that it's okay if you choose between a Biden and a Trump. I don't understand this at all.

Right. I don't understand it either. I didn't understand it over 20 years ago when I first started pastoring, frankly. And it's only gotten clearer in these last 20 years. One of the first statements I ever had to deal with as a pastor was a dear woman who said, I'm for the little guy, pastor.

And that's how she described her position as a Democrat and a Christian. And I said, but sister, if you're for the little guy, then you're for the unborn child. And so even if it was true, even if the Democrats claims to being for the working man and the common man, if all that was true and it was going to work out financially better, it was going to work out better for health care.

If all that was true, it would still be an abominable atrocity as far as the little man being the unborn child in the womb and the war that the Democratic Party has long waged, even over 20 years ago.

But now it's become the party of genocide. They no longer make any allusions to it. They no longer allow even Democrats in their party who don't sign on to that platform of baby genocide.

Yeah. And so really what you're saying to the listeners is that this has really come down to a one issue party right now, right? I mean, these guys have no doubt taken upon the pro-killing in the womb position.

Hardcore.

Yes. You saw really around the world when President Trump was elected, women marched around the world and they weren't marching for feminism. They were marching for abortion. And that really is what feminism has become, is a hue and cry for abortion, not a cry for women's rights in the workplace or women's opportunity to vote or something.

But a woman's right to have illicit sex outside of marriage is a rule, and then to murder the child in the womb instead of raise the child.

And so how many babies have been aborted, have been killed in the womb since Roe v. Wade?

Right. We're well over 60 million at this point in our nation since Roe v. Wade. And globally since 1980, we're up to, I think, 1 .6 billion just since 1980. And so this is the world's greatest genocide, the world's greatest evil, not just in current history, but in history.

1 .6 billion. I mean, you're talking a world's population. This is a significant fraction of what today's world population is. Oh, yes. 1 .6 billion. That should alarm literally everybody that's listening right now.

So, Pastor Chuck, why is it that David Platt and others have no problems telling people to vote for Biden or that it's okay to vote for Biden? What's the problem?

Well, it seems the leftist agenda has come into Christ's church and hijacked our moral values. And suddenly it's like we've gotten hit in the head with a bat and we no longer know up from down, right from left, good from evil.

And so with this social justice teaching, this critical race theory, BLM type teaching, we're distracted by the greatest evil mankind has ever known. And we're focusing on evils that are wildly exaggerated, for instance, systemic racism.

Of course, there are instances of racism in America and in every nation. Whites hating blacks, blacks hating whites, Asians hating blacks, Asians hating whites, whites hating Asians, because we're sinners and we'll use any excuse to hate our fellow man.

And yet systemic racism is a lie. That's a fabrication, but it's a useful lie as far as for propagating Marxism and bringing in a new social order.

I've often asked people who are proponents of critical race theory and other components of Marxism, I asked them, just give me one law that's still in the books, one law in America that shows systemic racism.

Because people who don't know, who haven't listened to our shows on BLM in the past, systemic racism, critical race theory and systemic racism say that built within the fabric of society is racism. Racism is so indoctrinated into this country that nobody can escape it, that we are all victims within this.

We're either the ones causing it, the white man, or you're a victim in it, but that it's woven through the fabric of society. And again, I put the challenge out there, show me one law. I mean, as far as I know, the laws were all abolished back in the 1960s.

So that only leaves what you're saying here, it's not laws that are causing problems, it's a problem of the heart. Sinners.

Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. So we've gotten into some specifics with the David Platts and the whatnots, the woke evangelical world out there. And we could talk about that, that we could do a whole show on those who are compromising with the social justice movement.

And that would be an excellent show, or series of podcasts, by all means. My heart tonight is to talk to our brothers and sisters, and one, to encourage them in their responsibility that God has given them as Christian citizens in the United States of America, who've been gifted this incredible thing called the United States Constitution.

And be given the opportunity to be part of this great government that's of the people. I want them to be able to vote with a clear conscience. I want them to be able to vote confidently, and to do so without shame.

And so that's one of the goals tonight. The other goal is to bring together brothers and sisters who are finding some division, because there are those that, in my estimation, are confused as to whether or not they can vote.

And that's a new phenomenon, I think, and I think you recognize that as well. A new phenomenon in these last, oh, four, five, six years, is that there are Christians who feel like they can no longer vote for a man unless that man is Jesus Christ himself.

Unless he's fully God and fully man and unfallen without any sin or sin nature, they can't cast their vote for him. And that's an extremism that is not healthy and not helpful for the fulfillment of the two greatest commandments, which is where I'd like to start and read, if you don't mind.

Matthew 22, 37, the Lord Jesus speaking, he says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets. And so everything I'm going to say today, and generally speaking, everything I try to say about politics flows from those commands, because everything we do and everything we say is supposed to flow from those two commandments.

They are the summation of righteousness, the summation of the law. But in particular, when we're talking politics, I think there's a direct line to this law of God, that everything we do, everything we support, everything we vote for should be a reflection of our love of our Lord and our love of our neighbor as ourself.

And so that's my starting point. I know it's your starting point. I just wanted to state it tonight. And then beneath that, I want to state that God is sovereign. Christ is King. Preaching the gospel is our priority.

Voting matters. And then none of those statements nullifies the other. So I see a lot of bullet points thrown out in the internet world, and even just in conversation. God is sovereign, as if voting doesn't matter.

Christ is King, as if voting doesn't matter. Preaching the gospel is our priority, as if voting doesn't matter. As if if you vote, you took 30 minutes out of your life, and you should have been sharing the gospel.

What I find interesting is that a lot of the people, sadly, a lot of it comes from the abolitionists. They will say that they can't understand why we should vote because God is sovereign, right? God's going to put his leader in any way.

But then why are you outside of abortion mills? Exactly. Right? I mean, shouldn't it be the same excuse?

Yes. God is sovereign, and God has a means in his sovereignty that he works out his sovereign will with. God is sovereign, but if I don't feed my children, they'll starve. God is sovereign, but if we don't preach the gospel, how are they here without a preacher?

And so the Lord has a means that he condescends to use in his sovereignty to bring about events, including the abolition of abortion. And so God is sovereign. Amen. And in his sovereignty, he uses men to bring about his will.

Christ is king. Amen. And Christ will return, and he'll rule and reign. And right now, he rules and reigns through you and I, through every Christian. And ultimately, he rules over all events. He's working all things according to the counsel of his will, Ephesians 1 .11.

So he is king. Amen. And as our king, he would have us to love our neighbor as ourself. And so when it comes to politics, we want to look at the issues at hand and figure out what vote to cast based upon how is it going to affect our neighbors?

How is it going to bring about righteousness? And how is it going to bring about prosperity? And how is it going to bring about what is so commonly spoken of human flourishing in the truest biblical sense?

And then preaching the gospel is our priority by all means. But most political issues pretty clearly come back to moral issues that flow directly from the moral law of God. And so the law is a tutor to bring men to Christ to be justified by faith.

And when it comes to abortion, of course, you shall not murder, Exodus 20 .13, directly flowing from the law of God. And so when we're talking politics, we're not just talking politics. We're talking Bible.

We're talking morality. We're talking God's law. We're talking what will glorify God and free us to glorify God. Free us to minister the gospel so that God and his sovereignty might redeem all those for whom Christ has died.

Amen. So let's back up for a moment, Chuck. Should every Christian vote? Do they have a responsibility to vote?

I firmly believe, yes, every Christian should vote because, again, God has given us a unique system in which we live. We have not just the right but the privilege and responsibility to cast that vote for righteousness, to cast that vote for the love of God and the love of neighbors.

So just to sit it out is irresponsible. It's unloving to the Lord. It's unloving to our neighbor just to sit it out. It's apathy.

Because this is the means by which God uses in this country that we are placed in, right? Yes. This is his means. So we should get out and vote based on that.

Well, and I would say some of those argue Christ is king and that we're not under an earthly king, and so we're not commanded, we're not required to vote. And what I would say is we're under Christ the king who says to love the Lord and love our neighbor.

So we're required to exercise the freedom God has providentially given us and thus the responsibility God has given us to vote to actively love God and love neighbor. I put out a bullet point as kind of an advertisement for our discussion tonight.

The second one was that loving God doesn't exclude loving your wife as the greatest wife on the planet, or loving your nation as the greatest nation on the planet, or make one an idolater when they do.

And that's another common mistake I hear out there, common position that is erroneous to say that if you love your nation, if you're a patriot, Anthony, then you're an idolater. What is love of nation?

It's like the love of your wife. I love my wife because she's the greatest wife on the planet. I love my nation, and I could argue that point, but I won't. That'd be a true debate, and we don't want to get ugly.

But I love my nation, and I will argue that it's the greatest nation on the planet because in God's providence it's the freest nation on the planet where we're free to serve the Lord according to our conscience as enlightened by the word of God.

Where we're free to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, sea to shining sea, and even in an unprecedented way around the globe because of our American citizenship and the influence of America. We have the ability to travel the globe with protections that extend well beyond our borders so that we might carry that gospel forth.

There's no nation around the world that people are trying to break into like the United States of America to get these freedoms to live according to their own conscience. This is an unprecedented gift from God, and so I say without apology, it's the greatest nation on the planet.

I am a patriot, and that's not idolatry. It's recognizing God's gift. And to not recognize that is foolishness, and I would just counsel some of our brothers and sisters, they need to travel the world a little bit.

They need to go over to Somalia. They need to go over to the Middle East. They need to go over to Africa. They need to go to Asia, anywhere. I've traveled the world. I've been to Europe. I've been to Australia.

I've been to Asia. I've been to the Middle East. I've been to Africa. And there is no place on the planet like the United States of America where we have the freedom and the protections and the rights that enable us to serve the Lord freely, to raise our children up in the faith, to propagate the faith, to love God and love neighbor actively without hindrance.

And so to take that for granted, to belittle that, to say that that's idolatry, that's folly, verging on foolishness. And I would just urge my brothers and sisters to rejoice in the gift that God has given them.

And as a Marine, how did I travel the world? Well, I've traveled some as a Christian preaching the gospel. But before that, I traveled as a Marine, and I was preaching the gospel then as well. But traveling to these countries that are war-torn, traveling to these countries that don't enjoy the peace that we enjoy, peace through superior firepower is a very real thing.

And it's part of what we enjoy here. And I'm very thankful for those who served our nation before me, for those who suffered and died to provide these freedoms, to protect these freedoms, to maintain these freedoms.

And I'm very thankful that God has been pleased to largely use America as a force for good, to propagate freedom, to hold evil men in check around the globe. Now, we don't always use the power that we have effectively or responsibly, depending upon who's in the White House and who's leading the ship.

But overall, the Lord has used America and even the Marine Corps specifically as a force in readiness, as a police force around the planet. And we're seeing today with the democratic Marxist uprising, we're seeing lawlessness is flowing from that worldview, as they would burn the Constitution and unleash their BLM Antifa shock troops in our streets, even as we saw in Philadelphia, what, yesterday, the day before?

That's the alternative. That's the alternative. We're seeing the demise of America come through the Democratic Party. And again, the love of God and love of neighbor on so many levels. I stand against that as a patriot, loving God, loving neighbor, recognizing this incredible thing called America that flows from the Constitution that God's good providence gave us.

And so I value these things and I would teach others to value them as well.

You know, what amazes me when you talk about God's providence in us being in this country and us protecting what we have, a lot of guys that have been very critical within the reform circle has been critical about Facebook in blocking stories, in sometimes suspending their accounts, and they're crying and whining about a company closing them out for a period of time.

But yet they argue against Christians going and voting.

Yes. Yes. Again, it's folly verging on foolishness. Voting doesn't matter. And yet this hue and cry for these rights, voting doesn't matter or voting does matter, but you can't vote for these guys because they're both corrupt.

Neither of them are perfect choices. And so just sit it out and vote for someone who can't possibly win. And what's the result of that? Evil will prevail.

So let's talk about this a little bit, because right now, how many choices? I mean, let's be real. Let's be realistic in this. How many choices do we actually have for presidents? I mean, the way the system is right now, it's a two party system.

People vote. It's a party system. The only way somebody becomes elected president of the United States is they have to have the backing of a party today. I mean, even Trump, who ran kind of as a pseudo independence, had the R behind his name in order to be able to run and win that election four years ago.

Not to mention many billions of dollars and a lot of popularity and people know who the guy was. But I mean, in reality, how many people can be elected this election? There's four candidates that we know of.

We see Joe Biden. We see Donald Trump. We see Joe Jorgensen. And we see Tom Hofling. So these are the four we see out here. How many of them can actually win this election?

I only see two candidates because there are only two that can win. So it's Joe Biden or President Donald Trump. That's it. Those are your choices. And it's quite clear at this point. And I speak with compassion for those that have been confused, but only so much compassion because I love the Lord and I love neighbor more than the individual.

Who at this point is if they're confused, they're suppressing truth and unrighteousness. And by confused, I mean, if they're still thinking that as a Christian, they can vote for the Democrat, whether it's the presidential candidate or Congress or the House or whatever.

It is quite clear at this point that the Democratic Party is the party of Satan. And I say that without equivocation, without any kind of apology, the Democratic Party is the party of Satan. Christians don't vote for the party of Satan.

False converts vote for the party of Satan. Apostates vote for the party of Satan. Christ enemies vote for the party of Satan. And let's let's think about that. It may have been less clear a few decades ago, but now it's an obvious, irrefutable fact that a vote for the Democratic candidate is a vote for Satan's anti-Christ, anti-Bible, anti-gospel, anti-church, anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-unborn baby, anti-America, anti-constitution, anti-freedom party.

And sometimes we have seemingly big hearted brothers that will come along and say, you know, but there are Christians who ignorantly vote for Democrats. And I'm not that big hearted in the sense that I see that as detrimental to those individuals that are suppressing truth and unrighteousness.

It's not loving to play along with that. Rather, we need to blow the whistle on that and say, actually, everyone at this point knows the Democratic Party is the party of baby genocide. Everybody at this point knows the Democratic Party is the party of the radical homosexual agenda to pervert our children.

It's the party of child perversion, the party that would take away parental rights and has in the state of Oregon and other states where if your child identifies himself or herself as the opposite sex, the state will actually take your child if the child so wills.

This is an underage child. Take your child and give your child a sex change against your will. That is beyond evil. And that's the Democratic Party. That's as of what, a week and a half ago, Joe Biden said.

I'm quoting from Al Mohler's recent article. Let's see here.

Yeah, I mean, as you're looking, there's there's no doubt that it stands for is the opposite of what Christ taught.

But go ahead. Yeah. Al Mohler writes on the issues such as transgender revolution, which will shape the entire society. Biden went so far in a recent town hall appearance that he said he would support transgender demands all the way to supporting transgender transition among eight and ten year old children.

Quote, there should be zero discrimination. Eight and ten year old children. This is beyond evil. It is the party of Satan. And Joe Biden is running to be the head of the party of Satan in the most powerful seat on the planet, not just our nation, but on the planet.

The most influential position in the world is the United States as the president of the United States of America. And so Christians need to stand up with with not a not a hand wringing. Boy, I'm just not sure what I should do.

I'm going to vote, I suppose, for President Trump is a lesser of two evils. But to vote with strength and clarity to, as I've heard some say, and I've read some writing, they would crawl over glass a thousand miles to vote for President Trump at this point because the issues have become so clear.

The parties have become so distinct. If you don't mind.

I mean, and there's no doubt. I mean, if anybody sits back and watches Trump for four years, is he a perfect person? No. Does he have a foul mouth at times? Yes, he does. The list can go on in terms of his sins.

Of course, the list can go on for all of our sins today. But having said that, have we seen a president in our lifetime that has protected the Christian worldview as good as him or anywhere close?

No, no, it's actually been astounding to the shock of everyone. And I referenced Dr. Mueller's article. And let me say that Dr. Mueller and I have not always seen eye to eye on issues. He and I have conversed directly at times over his support of the Manhattan Declaration, a compromise of the gospel with the Church of Rome over his support of the LGBT agenda.

In his Southern Baptist Association there. But at this point, he has departed from Pastor MacArthur and the Shepherds Conference. There's a division there because Dr. Mueller stood with Dr. Russell Moore and his woke social justice agenda.

Tragedy there for Dr. Mueller. I prayed and prayed and urged him and held his hand at that last Shepherds Conference. As I shook his hand, I didn't let go and urged him to stand resolute. But a necessary split resulted.

All that to say, even though Dr. Mueller has sided, it would seem, with the woke crowd in the evangelical world. He wrote this article on October 26, just a few days ago. And it opens up a bit weak, but it finishes pretty strong.

He says this, by 2016, the Democratic Party had eliminated all meaningful opposition to unconditional abortion rights and demanded that taxpayers be coerced into paying for abortion. The Republican Party defined abortion as the killing of unborn human being and called for an affirmation of the sanctity of human life.

So he draws a clear distinction between the parties. One went far left toward rampant baby murder and genocide, and one recognized and celebrated the life of the unborn and sought to limit abortion. Now, not a full abolitionist position, but a recognition of the humanity of the unborn child and limitations, therefore, put on abortion.

Now, I would say that Al Mueller's writing is understated there, as far as the differences. But he goes on to say, I didn't vote for Donald Trump in 2016. And most of you will remember that Dr. Mueller was an outspoken never-Trumper, like so many were.

He continues, repulsed by his character and unable to see him as a conservative, I voted for neither party candidate. I made a symbolic vote. I had to hope that Hillary Clinton would not be elected president.

But it seemed almost determined. As we now know, it was not. Having argued loudly for the resignation of President Bill Clinton on national television many times in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky affair, I felt that I could not vote for Donald Trump without hypocrisy.

I even went so far as to say that if I voted for Donald Trump, I would have to apologize to Bill Clinton. Well, I am voting for Donald Trump in 2020, says Dr. Mueller. And I make no apology to Bill Clinton.

Now, hear this. This is good. He says, I do apologize, but my apology is for making a dumb statement that did not stand the test of time. And I say kudos to Dr. Mueller for owning a dumb statement. May we all follow that example.

We all are capable of making them. And the never Trump position was ultimately a bad, bad position. And many statements made out of that position, out of that conviction, were frankly just dumb. And I appreciate his humility in recognizing that.

He goes on to say, I'm not about to apologize to Bill Clinton, who stands guilty of having desecrated the presidency by his gross sexual immorality while still in office. I still believe in the necessity of character for public office.

But I've had to think more deeply about how character is evaluated in a historic context. Bear with me a little longer here. He goes on, when it came to Donald Trump in 2016, I made note of his pro-life promises, especially with reference to the federal courts culminated in the Supreme Court.

As a conservative Christian, I've lived through decades of frustration and heartbreak as the nation's highest court transformed itself into a super legislature inventing newly declared rights at the expense of human dignity and ordered liberty.

But I doubted that Donald Trump meant to fulfill his promises. I was wrong, he says. As I told The New Yorker in an article that was just published, quote, he actually did what he said he'd do. Adding, it's the oddest thing.